“On Being Human Religiously”
by Reverend Charles Blustein Ortman
October 8, 2006
READINGS
The first reading is from the Tao Te Ching, by Lao Tzu. It is translated by Stanley Rosenthal:
…it is said,
"There are times when even brightness seems dim;
when progress seems like regression;
when the easy seems most difficult,
and virtue seems empty, inadequate and frail;
times when purity seems sullied;
when even reality seems unreal,
and when a square seems to have corners;
when even great talent is of no avail,
and the highest note cannot be heard;
when the formed seems formless,
and when the way of nature is out of sight."
Even in such times as these,
the natural way still nourishes,
that all things may be fulfilled.
The second reading is from a meditation by A. Powell Davies entitled, Why I come to Church. Davies was a Unitarian minister who died in 1957. He gained national renown from his pulpit at All Souls Unitarian Church in Washington , D.C. He provided a powerful voice on behalf of liberal religion by combining a passion for civil rights with a deep concern for spiritual and worldly issues. He wrote:
Let me tell you why I come to church. I come to church—and would whether I was a preacher or not—because I fall below my own standards and need to be constantly brought back to them. I am afraid of becoming selfish and indulgent, and my church—my church of the free spirit—brings me back to what I want to be. I could easily despair; doubt and dismay could overwhelm me. My church renews my courage and my hope. It is not enough that I should think about the world and its problems at the level of a newspaper report or a magazine discussion. It could too soon become too low a level. I must have my conscience sharpened—sharpened until it goads me to the most thorough and responsible thinking of which I am capable. I must feel again the love I owe to others. I must not only hear about it but feel it. In church, I do. I am brought toward my best, in every way toward my best.
SERMON
I feel that I owe you a bit of a disclaimer regarding my rather gratuitous theft of James Luther Adams’ book title, “On Being Human Religiously,” published by Beacon Press. James Luther Adams, fondly identified by those who knew him as JLA, was one of the preeminent scholars of Unitarian theology for over 40 years. He was active in the middle of the last century. His book, “On Being Human Religiously,” contains a number of essays and lays out a well-organized basis for Unitarian Universalist thought, which he referred to as the “Five Smooth Stones of Liberal Religion.” I highly recommend it to you, but I felt I should let you know that I haven’t really drawn the inspiration for this morning’s sermon from that source.
Instead, I wanted to make my own case for being human religiously and to look at why that might be important to any of us, as well as at what it might mean. My primary inspirations for this inquiry include the collegial covenant that Judy Tomlinson, Wendy Pantoja and I shared with you a few minutes ago, where we began by saying that we recognize that life always contains pain and suffering, and that pain and suffering can indeed be transcended, especially within the context of religious community; the need for a memorial society, as David Lewis and I presented earlier this morning, where we recognized the inevitability of death and so the essential need of intentionality and action while we are still alive; and the sentiments of A. Powell Davies in, “Why I Come to Church,” because we all fall below our own standards and need to be constantly brought back to them. I’m also inspired by a couple of poetic pieces about clay: a reading by the late Unitarian Universalist minister, Ralph Halverson, and a poem by Marge Piercy. In order to identify a definition of the word religious, I’ll begin with:
Impassioned Clay by Ralph Halverson
“Deep in ourselves resides the religious impulse. Out of the passions of our clay it rises. We have religion when we stop deluding ourselves that we are self-sufficient, self-sustaining, or self-derived. We have religion when we hold some hope beyond the present, some self-respect, beyond our failures. We have religion when our hearts are capable of leaping up at beauty, when our nerves are edged by some dream in the heart. We have religion when we have an abiding gratitude for all that we have received. We have religion when we look upon people with all their failings and still find in them good; when we look beyond people to the grandeur in nature and to the purpose in our own heart. We have religion when we have done all that we can, and then in confidence entrust ourselves to the life that is larger than ourselves.”
I’ve always loved this reading. It describes an intentional, deep and committed way of living. Even though religious or religion are the terms that he uses to define these activities, I feel that what Ralph Halverson was describing is more the deeply spiritual life. And I see what is spiritual as related to but very different from what he is religious. We might view spirituality as that individual quest or relationship with the deeper meanings of life. Spirit, from the Latin word for breath, is about the most intimate and personal relationship with that which holds us in life: the All – That – Is, God or Nature. It places us in relationship with the larger scheme of things by calling us to be in awe, to dwell in gratitude and to respond with service.
The word religion comes from another Latin word, religio, meaning to bind or to hold together. So, if spirituality is our individual quest, religion is our communal quest, our congregational aspiration, our institutional gathering and holding together of our personal journeys within the context of a common one, a shared story. What spirituality is to the individual, religion is to a group of people who have joined in the purpose of forming sacred community.
In the second poetic piece about clay, poet Marge Piercy begins her longing to be of use in the context of such community –being with people.”
“To Be of Use”
I want to be with people who submerge in the task,
Who go into the fields to harvest and work in a row
and pass the bags along,
Who stand in the line and haul in their places,
Who are not parlor generals and field deserters
but move in a common rhythm when the
food must come in or the fire be put out.
The work of the world is common as mud.
Botched, it smears the hands, crumbles to dust.
But the thing worth doing well done
has a shape that satisfies, clean and evident.
Greek amphoras for wine or oil,
Hopi vases that held corn, are put in museums
but you know they were made to be used.
The pitcher cries for water to carry
and a person for work that is real.
It’s essential, in a life of integrity, to have work that is real, to have a sense of purpose that has the potential to transform us, and that gives us the opportunity to transcend our personal suffering and even to transcend our personal identifications – to connect deeply with and embrace the larger world around us and those who are in it. To be religious in this way is to bring our experiences of awe, gratitude and service to the common altar of humanity, the common altar of community, where they are transformed into an even greater sense of awe, a shared, more joyful sense of gratitude and a united, more effective response of service – better serving our own needs and the needs of an ailing world.
I’m often responded to in many different ways, when I’m out in the world and it’s somehow discovered that I’m a minister. One of the more common responses that I get from people is something like, “Oh, I don’t need to go to church. I can find God wherever I am.” Or maybe, “I don’t need any kind of religion to help me find my spirituality. I find it inside myself.” I’ll bet that I’ve had such conversations two or three times in just this past week.
I always assure people that I don’t imagine that everyone does need to go to church or be a part of a religious community. I only know that I need it. The questions that I sometimes wonder about though, when people make these statements are: What happens when you reach a crisis of faith in your life and you have no faith community to help you bind your wounds? What happens in a time of great loss when you have no community of kindred spirits who can stand by you and understand your loss in ways similar to your own understandings? What happens when you witness great injustice in the world and you have no society of conscience with which to share your misgivings and with whom you can then work to help envision and create new pathways to justice?
Over the years, I have known too many wounded spirits who thought that an angry God was set against them in response to their errant or questioning ways. I have dealt with far too many broken hearts of those who thought they had to find some way of healing in isolation. I have encountered too many numbed consciences of those who have given up on their own isolated efforts to stem the tides of oppression in an ocean of injustice. And I have seen far too many lost souls who have been washed aside by the currents of a culture flooded with material excess.
We can all be – we all are – human. Some of us can do that quite well on our own; I’m sure. But I’m just as sure, if not more so, that when we are human religiously, within the context of a gathered people who have agreed to share meaningful and guiding values, then we have a chance of being human better. Not of being better humans, I don’t think we need to go there with this. But we do have a chance of having it better, of having life better than if we were going it alone. Being human religiously is important because it offers us opportunities of shared awe, gratitude and service that we might otherwise have far too limited access to.
What might the meaning of being religious, of having religious community be in our lives? I have to guess that the meaning at this moment might be equal to something like the number of people in this room plus at least two, if not three or four, times as much. But there are three things that being religious means that I would like to hold up for us this morning. Being religious, first of all, means that you are not alone. It means that you are in the good company of others who struggle and celebrate, who stumble and strive just as you do. It means being with others who might sometimes have a better idea of the way to go when you might find yourself bewildered, or still others who may not hold the answer for you but perhaps the pertinent questions that can help to light your way.
Second, it means that you are not alone. You are in the good company of others who hold the thought of you highly, and not just in regard but in expectation, too. You are responsible for your own beliefs here, but we are responsible, accountable to each other for how those beliefs matter – in our own lives and in the world. I can assure you that nearly 12 years ago when I was called to be the minister of your church, I accepted that call because I knew that here my best self, my very best work, would be expected of me, by you, every day. You can’t imagine how well that expectation has served me, and I hope you, through these years. I hold you in similar expectation, and I trust you hold one another likewise as preciously.
Third and finally, being human religiously means that you are not alone. You are in the good company of others who stand in awe and gratitude amidst this incredible creation, others who, like you, need to respond to that experience with service to it. On our own there’s not much we can do about racism, homophobia, sexism, classism, able-ism and so many other oppressions and problems that plague our world. Alone we can hardly do more than to abhor those woes. Working together though, we have a real chance of making a difference in the world. For example, we have our Afterschool Program, our Undoing Racism Committee, our Rainbow UUnion, and a host of other programs that serve our community and our world. The world is in great need of healing for, like us, it too is quite broken. And if we are going to be meaningful agents of change in its healing process, we can do that best in association with one another, in the context of being human religiously.
Our religious way does not provide us with quick fix answers, but instead with an awareness that we are a part of All-That-Is, and so responsible for promoting the wellness of this Interdependent Web. Our liberal religious tradition, even in its name, Unitarian Universalist, points us in the direction of unity, to larger ideas of oneness. It bids us to act together at being, and at bringing about the changes we want to see in the world.
Mark Morrison-Reed wrote:
“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.”
Being human religiously means that we do not have to be all alone. It acknowledges that we are a part of the great stream of life out of which all things emerge and back into which all things return. It means that we are indeed in good company, so that our own needs might be met, even as the needs of others are met by us.
Being human religiously means that we do not have to be alone. It acknowledges our very human limitations through the admission, the confession, that indeed we need one another. Rabbi George E. Odell writes:
“We need one another when we mourn and would be comforted.
We need one another when we are in trouble and afraid.
We need one another when we are in despair, in temptation, and need to be recalled to our best selves again.
We need one another when we would accomplish some great purpose, and cannot do it alone.
We need one another in the hour of success, when we look for someone to share our triumphs.
We need one another in the hour of defeat, when with encouragement we might endure, and stand again.
We need one another when we come to die, and we would have gentle hands prepare us for the journey.
All our lives we are in need, and others are in need of us.”
So, may we stand together then, in awe of this unfathomable mystery of the universe. May we join together in gratitude for the opportunity that life has given us to be in it. May we unite in the causes of service to our world and to the Spirit of Life. And may our lives and the world be ever blest by this our spiritual home, where we come together in the co-creation of sacred community, in the hope and for the purposes of transformation in our hearts, our homes, our community and our world.
For… “Even in times such as these, the natural way [the religious way] still nourishes, that all things may be fulfilled.”
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