MEDITATION:

Let us reflect together in silence on some brief statements from our tradition - five voices expressing in different ways the spirit of our faith:

words of David Ferencz, founder of Unitarianism in Transylvania: In this world there have always been many opinions about faith and salvation. You need not think alike to love alike. ... If they offer something better, I will gladly learn. The most important spiritual function is conscience, the source of all joy and happiness.

by American poet Edwin Markham, a poem titled "Outwitted": He drew a circle that shut me out - / Heretic, rebel, a thing to flout. / But love and I had the wit to win: / We drew a circle that took him in.

from historian Earl Morse Wilbur's A History of Unitarianism: In the few and brief periods when this movement has been suffered to exist free from persecution or from the necessity of defending itself against attack, doctrine has almost invariably retired into the background, and the emphasis has by preference been laid on conduct and character. Its primary psychological character is thus best described in terms not of the intellect or of the emotions, but of the will.

by theologian William DeWitt Hyde: Since what we choose is what we are, / And what we love we yet shall be, / The goal may ever shine afar - / The will to win it makes us free.

from the Unitarian Universalist statement of Principles: Grateful for the religious pluralism which enriches and ennobles our faith, we are inspired to deepen our understanding and expand our vision. As free congregations we enter into this covenant, promising to one another our mutual trust and support.

May these words inspire and affirm our connection to our Unitarian Universalist tradition, and may they help us to express our faith in our own ways. Amen.

SERMON: "We Are Inspired , And We Enter"

Rev. Paul Beedle

September 18, 2005

Two days after Christmas, the Christmas before last, an article appeared in the Los Angeles Times, titled: "Spiritual Blend Appeals to People of Many Faiths." Beside the headline was a large color picture of a young woman sitting cross-legged on her living room floor, meditating, her dog at her side. One of her hands is held palm upward, in a classic Buddhist position; her other hand rests on her dog's neck - perhaps she's scratching his ear. Behind her is an oversize print of that image of two baby angels - or cherubs - that you've all seen in the picture frame store in every shopping mall. Below it is a sideboard topped with candles and family photographs. Below the headline and above the byline, in bold, is this sentence: " 'I literally feel like I am at a buffet,' says one woman who finds solace in the practice of three religions with conflicting precepts." She is quoted in the article, describing herself as "a nice Jewish, Southern Baptist, Buddhist girl." Her father is Jewish, her mother is Southern Baptist, and she discovered Buddhist meditation on her own. She says "being inside a synagogue during the High Holy Days connects her to 'something that is way larger than [her]self.' Attending a Southern Baptist church service and hearing the Gospel music makes her feel as if she is soaring to a 'higher place within [herself].' And, practicing meditation and concentrating on the Buddhist emphasis on the now, calms and centers her."

Reading a story like this, many of us are tempted to say: "this is a Unitarian Universalist who just doesn't know us yet." But the thrust of the article is that a spiritual blend appeals to people of many faiths. And the findings of the Barna Research Group, whose research inspired the story, are that increasingly Christians are adopting spiritual views from Islam, secular humanism, the Eastern religions, and other sources. In fact, a nationwide poll around the time of the article showed that one in ten "born-again" Christians said they believed in reincarnation. They're not supposed to, you know.

The researchers interpret such findings as a manifestation of American individualism: "Each individual is ultimately the arbiter of personal fulfillment and personal meaning." But it's not necessary to identify the existential truth that individuals have a conscience as an effect of American culture. European religious history, right back into the Middle Ages, is repleat with examples of individuals and faith communities who have recognized and accommodated that truth - one of the more notable ones, the 15th-century Polish Brethren, influenced English and American Unitarianism. They influenced us because of convictions they shared with our Puritan forebears: that reason and conscience are essential to religious thought and practice, and that leadership in the church is best shared by lay and ordained leaders. We belong to what historians call "the Free Church tradition," a heritage to which the Baptist churches also belong, at least historically. The idea of the Free Church tradition is not that everybody can do their own thing, but that the tradition - in its doctrine and practices - must give freedom to the Holy Spirit to move through and among the faith community: or to put it in other words, new truth and inspiration must be as welcome in the church as are established beliefs and values.

One observer, commenting on that research about Christians' openness to other sources of truth, said that people "who come up with their own kind of spiritual mix don't have to contend with the 'constraints' and 'demands' of major religions." In other words, they don't have to have any discipline that challenges them. But the Free Church tradition is not without challenging disciplines, constraints and demands. Before I'm done, I'll get to that.

But first: I think all this research about diversity of belief in other faiths offers a challenge to Unitarian Universalists. We're accustomed to speaking of our theological diversity as what distinguishes us from other faiths. But people in other faiths - even born-again Christians - have as much theological diversity as we do, up to and including reincarnation! Just because you have a creed, that doesn't mean everybody believes it. What it means is, it's harder to talk openly and seriously about religious beliefs other than the ones established in the creed and tradition. Folks feel they have to keep quiet. But silence, or acquiescence, doesn't mean agreement.

We like to say that what distinguishes us is that we embrace and honor teachings from all religions. But the research I've just been talking about demonstrates we're not unique in that.

We also like to say that what distinguishes us is that we're non-creedal. But there are other non-creedal faiths. The Christian Church-Disciples of Christ unites not around a creed, but around the ritual of communion: that ritual is their unity amid a diversity of belief. If there's something distinctive about us in this regard, it's not simply that we're non-creedal, it's the way that we're non-creedal. The Disciples of Christ substitute communion for the creed. We substitute the practice of making covenants.

We inherit and continue what historians call "the New England Way," the way the Puritans in Massachusetts conceived and organized their churches: not around a creed, but according to a formal promise, called a covenant. The Unitarian Universalist statement of Principles is such a covenant. Let's look at it together for a moment. If you open your hymnal to hymn #1 and turn back one page, you'll find the text of the Principles printed on the left-hand side.

First, let me just quickly orient you to the structure of this text. It's not obvious at first sight, but it is composed of four sentences. The first and second sentences are long; the first one lists seven principles our congregations agreed to affirm and promote, while the second one lists six broad sources of inspiration that we acknowledge are drawn upon by members of our congregations. These first two sentences are not the main event. Our religious enterprise is summarized concisely in the third sentence. "Grateful for the religious pluralism which enriches and ennobles our faith, we are inspired to deepen our understanding and expand our vision." And the fourth sentence is the action we take. The reason for this document, the Principles, is to record this action. "As free congregations we enter into this covenant, promising to one another our mutual trust and support." We make a formal promise - a covenant - to give one another our mutual trust and support as we endeavor to deepen our understanding and expand our vision.

Notice that the word "covenant" marks off the beginning and end of this text, like bookends - both delimiting and emphasizing the formal promise we made, as congregations one to another. A covenant is more than a formal promise, it is a formal relationship. To us, that's a key aspect of religion. The word religion itself, like the word ligament, derives from a Latin word that means "to bind together." Our New England forebears' covenants said things like "we do bind ourselves together." That is the essence of religion. That's what worship is supposed to accomplish: in worship we unite in a regular practice to affirm the values we share and the virtues toward which we strive. Through this group spiritual practice, we give shape to those things of highest worth - that's what the word worship means: it derives from older English words that mean "to shape worth." We give them a shape that we can hold in our hearts and memories, and be guided by. We bind ourselves together, and seek to bind ourselves to what is holy, what makes us whole (the words "holy" and "whole" are related).

Now, let me point out another aspect of our covenantal way of religion. If you look at the list of sources in the lower half of the page, and you don't see anything about "spiritual teachings of Earth-centered traditions," that means you have a first edition of the hymnal. (Collectors take note!) The hymnal was out of date shortly after its publication, when that language was added. That's a fact about the Principles that it seems not all of us know: this text is the outcome of an intentional, continent-wide dialogue within congregations and at three General Assemblies of our congregations. This text is not fixed. It can change, through a democratic and discerning dialogue open to all of us.

You may have heard the Principles called the "Principles and Purposes" or the "Purposes and Principles." That phrase is a remnant of the General Assembly process in which the Principles were crafted. The Purposes - that is, the organizational purpose of our national Association of congregations - are printed on the right-hand page in the hymnal. There wasn't much debate about those. The Principles and the Purposes are parts of the bylaws of the Unitarian Universalist Association. Just like Thoreau's church bylaws, they can be changed. And just like a church's bylaws, they include an article early on that states the mission and purpose of the organization. That's what the Principles are: the mission statement of our national Association of congregations. And because democratic process is important to us, we took the trouble to review and update our mission statement in a dialogue open to all our congregations.

One of the members of the committee that made the final draft of the Principles quipped that he wondered if many of us "would, on our death bed, ask to hear the Purposes and Principles read to us for solace and support." Well, of course not! Who would want organizational bylaws read to them on their death bed? The text is not meant for that purpose or context. That was his point.

The key to understanding the Principles is to realize that the most important sentence is the third one: "Grateful for the religious pluralism which enriches and ennobles our faith, we are inspired to deepen our understanding and expand our vision." The principles and sources listed in the first two sentences serve to illustrate and describe the independent clause of the third sentence: "we are inspired to deepen our understanding and expand our vision." As part of the Free Church tradition, we not only recognize the diversity of religious belief and practice among us, we are grateful for it. It enriches and ennobles us. It challenges us. It makes it more challenging to be a religious community when it's not a creed but our actual relationships that hold us together. That's what we mean when we say "love is the doctrine of this church." The words "doctrine" and "creed" don't mean the same thing. A "creed" is a statement of belief; a "doctrine" is what guides us in living our faith. With us, what guides us is not a creed, but the actual practice of a discipline universally and most highly affirmed by all the world's faiths, and indeed by all sane people: love.

And that, I believe, is our distinctive identity. We do not unite around creed or belief, but around a promise to be faithful to values we share and the virtues of conduct and character toward which we strive. And we do unite - we do not take an individualistic, cafeteria-style approach to religion. We know we need one another, that religion means binding ourselves together and to what is holy; that we find what is most holy and sacred to us in community and through relationship, through compassionate engagement with one another, choosing the demands and constraints of love so that we may become more loving, drawing a circle to include those who challenge us most, gladly learning when they offer something better to our minds and hearts. That is our tradition and our heritage.

May we uphold our tradition meaningfully and with all the conviction of heart and conscience, and may we make our tradition and its great promise known in the world. So may it be. Amen.