"We're All In It Together"
A Sermon for Association Sunday by Rev. Charles Blustein Ortman
October 3, 2010
READINGS: ANCIENT AND MODERN
Our ancient reading is, The Space Within, by Lao Tsu:
Thirty spokes share the wheel's hub;
It is the center hole that makes it useful.
Shape clay into a vessel;
It is the space within that makes it useful.
Cut doors and windows for a room;
It is the holes that make it useful.
Therefore profit comes from what is there;
Usefulness from what is not there.
Our modern reading is, The Task of the Religious Community,
by retired Unitarian Universalist minister, Mark Morrison-Reed:
The central task of the religious community is to unveil the bonds
that bind each to all. There is a connectedness, a relationship
discovered amid the particulars of our own lives and the lives of
others. Once felt, it inspires us to act for justice.
It is the church that assures us that we are not struggling for
justice on our own, but as members of a larger community. The religious
community is essential, for alone our vision is too narrow to see
all that must be seen, and our strength too limited to do all that
must be done. Together, our vision widens and our strength is renewed.
SERMON:
This morning we join hundreds upon hundreds of other Unitarian
Universalist congregations across the continent in celebration of
our fourth annual Association Sunday. This year the theme is the
50th anniversary of the merger between the Unitarians and the Universalists,
as they came together back in May of 1961, to form our Unitarian
Universalist Association. It was not an easy process of merger that
those two organizations made their way through. And it is one that
in many ways continues towards fuller completion as we grow into
a stronger religious movement. Still, it is 50 years later and that
warrants our notice and I hope our support.
For those of you who might remember the histories of our two predecessor
denominations, you'll recall that while there were traditionally
strong theological similarities between them, there could have hardly
been a greater socio-economic gulf. Universalists were blue-collar
and agricultural working families who believed that a loving creator
held all of creation dear. Unitarians were of the highly educated
classes and believed that a division of the godhead into three persons
flew in the face of any understandings they had of a loving creator.
In fact Hosea Ballou, one of the two major founders of the Universalism,
and William Ellery Channing, an early leader of the Unitarianism,
had conversations about a potential merger near the beginning of
the 19th Century. The truth is that the socio-economic divide was
so great that it was impossible to bridge at that time. It's reported
that Thomas Starr King, an energetic Universalist evangelist who
went on to become governor of California, once mused on the differences
between the two groups sayings, "Universalists believe that
God is too good to damn anyone, while Unitarians believe that they
are too damn good for God!"
All of that withstanding, times change. By the mid-20th Century
both denominations found themselves seriously dissipating and they
began looking fondly at one another as a means of establishing a
critical mass for survival. They also found that the shared elements
of their theological perspectives provided a stronger base upon
which to build a sustainable religious movement: one god at most
and an awareness that we are all in this together - for any of us
to be saved we must all be saved. There is no god who has chosen
favorites and, if we are not to destroy this planet, we will need
to be sure that all of our brothers and sisters have the same means
of sustainability as ourselves. Our spiritual quest in this lifetime
is not so much an individual or independent journey as it is a shared
process within the context of shared resources. At least that's
my take on what has evolved theologically since the merger of the
movements.
After several years of negotiations and a three year voting process
in each association, the unification became formal in May 1961.
Both institutions held their annual meetings Boston that year. At
the designated hour they left their separate meeting spaces and
processed into an emerging flow of newly formed Unitarian Universalsits.
They entered a common hall singing a hymn that had been written
for the occasion. We will sing that same hymn in a few minutes,
"As Tranquil Streams."
As tranquil streams that meet and merge
and flow as one to seek the sea,
Our kindred fellowships unite
to build a church that shall be free.
Free from the bonds that bind the mind
to narrow thought and lifeless creed;
Free from a social code that fails
to serve the cause of human need;
A freedom that reveres the past,
but trusts the dawning future more;
And bids the soul, in search of truth,
adventure boldly and explore.
The first challenging opportunity the newly consolidated Unitarian
Universalist Association had to bid the soul in search of truth
to venture boldly and explore came just a few years later as it
found its place at the center of the Civil Rights Movement, and
then again as a haven for those who opposed the Vietnam War. Our
numbers swelled enormously as we discovered our religious impulse
to build a faith free from the bonds that bind the mind, heart and
soul from thoughts and codes that fail to serve the cause of human
need. We claimed our place in the struggle for justice, as we raised
our voices and took to our feet on behalf of women's rights, and
then gay and lesbian rights and gender identity.
Over the past many years, many of you have approached me to share
stories of how Unitarian Universalism has saved your life. I know
that it has saved mine. The question is though, how many lives out
in the world have the potential to be saved by a religious tradition,
bound not in creed, but in a covenant to make this a more loving,
respectful and sustainable world? And then the question is, how
do we support such an institution?
The theme of this year's Association Sunday and its goals are laid
out on the back cover of your order of service. We want congregations
that are spiritually deep places where strong and enduring relationships
can flourish, and that are engaged in their communities as a source
of moral vision and effective action. We want our religious homes
to be truly multi-generational and reflect the racial and cultural
diversity of the wider world. We also want professional religious
leaders who are visionary, spiritual, innovative, and diverse.
Our current president of the UUA, Peter Morales, ran on a platform
which said, "We can be the religion of our time. We can only
do this together…as an Association." Indeed, Peter's presidency
is dedicated to the objective of making our religion accessible
to the changing demographics of our culture.
How do we support such an institution? We will be taking a special
offering in a few minutes and we are each asked to give $20 or more.
I would invite you to consider matching my gift of $100. Why? Because
it matters. There are so many stories of how Unitarian Universalism
matters in the world. I am constantly amazed at how the children
of our movement, the children of this congregation, go out into
the world finding ways to serve the larger good and to promote the
Spirit of Life, even in this complex time and world in which we
live. And even though we may be small in number, I don't know what
the world would be like, what it would be missing, if there were
no Unitarian Universalist Association supporting our congregation
and others like it.
I was approached by a woman at the Y the other morning. She's someone
I've been friendly with for a while, and she's an active member
of another congregation here in town. She asked if I'd been following
the very sad story of Tyler Clementi. I had. Tyler Clementi, as
most of you now know, was the gay freshman at Rutgers University
whose sexual encounter in his dorm room was webcast by two of his
classmates. He committed suicide the next day.
"I can't help but thinking," my friend at the Y said,
"that the two kids who are facing charges in that case are
guilty of anything but making a poor choice at one given moment
in their lives."
"Heroes are also made in such singular moments," I suggested.
"Yeah, but those kids didn't think about the consequences
of what they were doing. They had no idea he'd commit suicide,"
she said.
I tried to explain to her the incredibly horrifying statistics
related to the fragility of gay and lesbian youth, which they suffer
as a result of our incredibly homophobic culture. Her eyes began
to glaze over. I know that in her church, homophobia is enshrouded
in a cloak of righteousness, self-righteousness I would suggest.
Still, I know that my friend knows better. And yet because of the
religious perspective of her faith community, I have to think that
there is no impetus for her or members of her tradition, or for
so many other traditions, to look beneath the surface of cultural
mores and behaviors to determine the unseen fabric of oppression
and injustice at play. "It was just an unfortunate outcome,"
she concluded.
I don't think it was simply an unfortunate outcome. I think it
was a likely one. I think Tyler Clementi's classmates had been taught,
throughout their lives, that bullying gays and lesbians, was just
part of the privilege of being straight. While I believe there is
certainly hope for redemption for those classmates, I think that
what they did was incredibly hateful. And more, their actions shine
a light on the culpability of a culture that, as illustrated by
my friend's comments, is willing to easily forgive such heinous
torture of innocent victims. There are many religious traditions
that are theologically quite comfortable in matters of the oppression
of gay, lesbian, bi and transgender persons. Our own tradition though,
the one we celebrate today, recognizes homophobia as the sin; not
the other way around.
I am sorry to realize that the children in my friend's church don't
have the opportunity to learn about sexuality in a nonjudgmental
environment like our kids do in the Our Whole Lives curriculum.
I'm sorry that the kids in her congregation don't go through a Coming
of Age Program like our high school kids who are not required to
believe in any patriarchal cosmology, but instead are encouraged
to explore their own beliefs. They are encouraged to be accountable
for their actions in the world, and to stand up for those who are
marginalized. We cannot afford unfortunate outcomes when the lives
of our children are at stake. We cannot afford predictable outcomes
when the well-being of any of our brothers or sisters is compromised
by oppression; when the sustainability of our planet is placed in
peril by the impulses of consumerism and greed.
We are called by our Unitarian and Universalist traditions, by
our faith and by our consciences to be aware of our world and of
the effects that we have in our world. I would hardly contend that
we are the only religion with a monopoly on such values. But that
is what our faith tradition affirms and promotes in each of us -
that we pay attention to our world and that we be accountable for
our relationships in it, and with everyone and everything in it.
That is what our tradition supports as a religious voice in a world
that is too often divided by orthodoxies of comfortable self-righteousness.
This is what it has done for 50 years now. It is what we must continue
to do in the unfolding of time.
Today we join with hundreds of other Unitarian Universalist congregations
that have gathered to celebrate the Association that is home to
this religious enterprise that holds out hope, not only for each
of us who is here, but for a world that needs to learn that loving
one another is of far greater consequence than the prospect of being
right.
We can be the religion of our time, of this very time and of the
time yet to come.
"Be ours a religion [then]…" wrote Theodore Parker,
19th Century Unitarian minister, abolitionist, supporter of women's
suffrage and confidant of Abraham Lincoln.
"Be ours a religion which, like sunshine, goes everywhere;
its temple, all space;
its shrine, the good heart;
its creed, all truth;
its ritual, works of love;
its profession of faith, divine living." Amen
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