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Exploring What Faith Means to Unitarian Universalists The Reverend Roger Fritts February 20, 2005 Cedar Lane Unitarian Universalist Church Bethesda, Maryland Last March my offer to our annual auction was the right to name a subject for a sermon to be preached by me here at the church. The high bidder for that service was Kathy Cooper. On February 6, Kathy and several members of her dinner discussion group met with me for lunch to discuss the topic. They asked thoughtful, intelligent questions. Kathy said “We are interested in Unitarian Universalist Faith.” Her husband, Bill said “The Unitarian Universalist Association President ends his letters with the words ‘In Faith’ what does he mean by that?” And still another person said “When everything is going well reason is fine. But when you deal with the death of a spouse, it is a shattering experience. Do Unitarian Universalists recognize that in some ways life is a real mystery that we cannot understand? We are asking for an explanation of what faith means, if you are a Unitarian Universalist.” Over the last two weeks I have been thinking about experiences in the last several years that have challenged my faith. I remember my grandmother’s death at the age of 103 and her funeral service in which I participated back in September 1987. The service took place in her Mennonite Church. I have a great respect for the Mennonites because of their belief in non violence, although I do not share their theology of salvation. In my eulogy I tried to mention a memory of her from each of the forty children and grandchildren who had gathered for the service. Also I talked, as I often do at such services, of the common feelings of grief that we humans have when someone close to us dies. I spoke about the sadness we feel because we could no longer visit and talk with her now that she is gone. After I sat down my grandmother’s minister spoke. He told the congregation that we should not feel sad. We should feel happy. My grandmother had been a member of that congregation since 1908. She had accepted Jesus Christ as her personal savior. Therefore she was now in heaven. He told us what a blessed relief it is to know that all a person has to do is believe that Jesus died for our sins to be spared the everlasting torments of hell. He said we should dry our tears and celebrate. He suggested that some of us may wish to confess our sinfulness and accept the sacrifice of Jesus on our behalf so that some day we will see our Grandmother again. Our conversion would be another reason to feel joy and happiness on this day. We drove from the church a few miles to Homestead Cemetery, a small patch of green among the wheat and potato farms just north of the Snake River in central Idaho. It was a clear blue fall day, the air was cool but comfortable. About a hundred of us gathered at the grave side. After the casket was lowered into the ground, one woman said to me, “Think how incredible it will be when Judgement Day comes. The earth will open, and every Christian will come out of their caskets and be alive again.” I tried to imagine this. I did not want to get into a religious debate so I simply nodded my head, without speaking. This is what many people mean by “faith.” They have faith that, if they believe Jesus died for our sins, they will go to heaven. I have never believed that Jesus died for my sins. My mother left the Mennonite Church when she was in her twenties. About the same time my father left the Southern Baptist Church, because he did not believe the teachings. However, they still felt that a religious community should be an important part of their life. They visited a number of churches until they found the Unitarian Church, which they became active members in when I was still a young child. Unitarian Universalists tend to be skeptics when it comes to claims of faith. The scientific method is our primary tool for evaluating religious claims. As a result, most Unitarian Universalists believe that Jesus was a human being, a great teacher, but not God. When it comes to death, some Unitarian Universalists believe in life after death and some do not. Personally, I have a hunch that some part of our consciousness does survive after death. However, I have no proof. I struggled with faith a year and a half ago when my younger sister was diagnosed with a rare cancer. She moved to this area and for months I drove her to radiation treatments and chemotherapy treatments. She died last July at the age of 42. Her illness and death left a deep feeling of loss in me. As I reflected on these experiences, the funeral for my grandmother and the death of my sister, I realized once again that I do have faith. I have trust in things that help me cope, trust in things that I cannot completely explain with reason or logic. First, I have faith and trust in my relationships with friends and family. Most of us have mixed feelings about our parents, our brothers and sisters, our spouses, our children and our friends. I have faith that part of the purpose of my life, part of my task in the universe, is to work on these relationships. Working on relationships means being open with my family and friends and trying to listen to them when they tell me how they feel and what has meaning to them. As a husband and parent this means attending to these relationships. At other times it means writing a letter or making a phone call. At still other times it means taking a trip to visit other family members. It means sharing my home when family comes to visit. Continuing to nurture those intimate relationships gives my life meaning and helps me feel significant and not so helpless in this world. Second I have faith in the value of creative activity. Creative expression is important. Music, drama and poetry all help heal my soul. Art expresses the range of human emotions from laughter to tears. In the months and years after my father’s death three years ago, I found comfort in exploring an old box of negatives, photos that he had taken in the 1940s and 1950s. I scanned them into a computer file. In his photos I could see the world from his eyes, see how he sought scale, harmony and perspective, black and white moments frozen in time, small works of art. For others gardening or cooking or painting helps heal the soul. Whatever form it takes, I have faith that art is a justification for human existence. Third I have faith in nature. The spring flowers, the summer earth, the autumn leaves, and the winter snow, are manifestations of the divine. The splendor of nature gives meaning to my life. Even in the gray days of February I can smell the rain and the trees and sense the coming of spring. White clouds move over a blue sky, casting shadows across the landscape. I have a sense of being part of a vast ongoing life—one which includes me and all the generations of women and men who have watched the changing seasons. The beauty of the world heals my spirit. On my last visit to see my father before his death three years ago I drove him up to the Grand Canyon and we walked slowly along the rim watching the squirrels, overweight from being fed by tourists. On my last visit with my sister before she died we sat outside among the geese, the trees and the grass enjoying a beautiful summer day. I imagine that my grandmother’s minister, if he heard me say this, would reply that there is proof of his beliefs in the Bible, and that his faith offers much greater comfort than my faith. He promises eternal life after death, in paradise, with a reunion with our loved ones. To this I can only respond that friendships, creative activity and nature are enough for me. While some people feel very uncomfortable with the idea of not knowing for sure that they will go to heaven when they die, I feel uncomfortable believing in things of which I have no proof. I have come to accept the limits of my knowledge. I have come to feel comfortable not knowing everything about what happens when we die, or everything about the origins of the universe or the nature of life. My sense of purpose is expressed in my curiosity and urge to learn as much as I can about the possible answers to these questions. Just as we once thought that the world was flat and then discovered that it was round, researchers may someday discover other dimensions that our consciousness enters when our bodies die. There is much we do not know, much that remains for us to discover. Meanwhile I am comfortable with the mystery, I am at ease with the limits of my knowledge. What gets me through the difficult times is my faith in friendships, in creative activity and in nature. As a minister of this church I do all that I can to nurture such relationships, to encourage creative expression, and protect the beauty of the natural environment of this church. My hope is that we at Cedar Lane provide the sustenance necessary to nurture faith. Of course, I cannot make this happen for others. I can only testify to my own experience. At my best moments, I experience a unity, a purpose, an intentionality that underlies existence. Most often it is a fleeting intuition of unity. It occurs when I exchange a smile with one of you on Sunday morning. It is the sense of wholeness I feel when I laugh with others. It is the momentary feeling of harmony I experience when I hear the sounds of music. It is the sense of unity I feel when I notice the first blossoms of spring. I have faith in this unity, this intentionality, this purpose. I am comfortable calling it God. |
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