Making Peace With the Darkness

“Making Peace With The Darkness”

by Rev. Fred L Hammond

 13 December 2009 ©

given at the Unitarian Universalist Congregation of Tuscaloosa

I don’t remember when I stopped being afraid of the dark.  Maybe it was when I realized that frightening things could happen in the light of day as well.  Perhaps it was when I moved to more urban areas where there is plenty of light pollution so the dark of night is no longer so dark.  But at some point I began to realize that the darkness was not something to be afraid of so much as to be embraced as apart of the cycle of things and perhaps even as a metaphor of life’s journey itself.  

Our ability to see ahead of us only goes as far as knowing what lies outside of the shadows. Any further into the shadows and it can be pretty scary.  For our ancestors, it was a matter of life and death regarding what lurked in the dark shadows; where nocturnal animals roaming the woods looking for prey was a real concern.  So when the days began to grow shorter, it meant an increase in the danger of the night.  

To counter-act that fear, our ancestors, especially those in the northern climes would light huge fires.  They believed that the sun-god had died and they were calling forth for the birth of a new sun-god.  So these huge bonfires would be built and cuttings from evergreen trees, hollies, mistletoe would be placed in their homes to protect them from a variety of ills and to remind them of life continuing.  

With the darkest day of the year behind them, they would dance and make merry for the thirteen days of Yule. They would drink hearty ales, ciders and brandies. It would lessen their fear of the dark as they began to see the sun rising a little bit higher in the sky each morning.   It is thought that the word Yule is from the Norse word meaning wheel.  The winter solstice is a time to honor the coming round of the wheel to its beginning again.   

So this is how our ancestors made peace with the darkness.  And we carry on this tradition with our winter holidays.  The celebration of being together yet another year is something we rejoice in.  And while most of us no longer apply the superstitions of keeping some of the ashes of the Yule log in the house to ward off ill health or to adorn the house in greens to ensure health and fertility, we do get together to make merry.  The fires in our hearths and greens on our window sills bring a bit of that warmth and decorations to the season which can be so dreary for many.  

The words of the hymn Dark of Winter[1] offer an important message.   Let’s take a closer look at these words and see what they might tell us about making peace with the darkness. 

“Dark of winter, soft and still, your quiet calm surrounds me.”  

As a child living in rural New York, I used to enjoy watching the snow fall.  There was this stillness, this silence in the snow gliding down to earth.  Everything was quiet.  There were no birds chirping.  There were no cars on the road except for the occasional plow truck.  Everything was calm.  And even though it was dark and grey outside there was a peace that transcended the cold.  As night would fall the only way to see the snow was from whatever light escaped the windows.  And so only the small area where the light shone would be illumined.  The white flakes would almost glow as they softly blanketed the earth.  

“Let my thoughts go where they will, ease my mind profoundly”

It may sound like a strange companion to embrace the darkness.  Yet there is restfulness in the darkness as well.  In the dark we tend to bundle up and get cozy.  There is something nurturing in sitting before a fireplace on a dark and cold winter’s night with some friends and some hot cocoa.  It is a time of reflection, perhaps even of holding no thought in the mind at all except the image of the roaring fire.  

Like the snow falling gently, thoughts can also fall gently where they will.  There is an easiness that can be found when we allow our minds to roam free while watching darkness and snow descending. It is in this listening, this quiet listening to thoughts flowing freely that we can be nurtured.  

“And then my soul will sing a song, a blessed song of love eternal.” 

What songs does your soul sing when all is quiet and dark?  As a child looking out at the snow falling, there would be this sense of awe, this sense of wonder.  If I was at my grandmother’s when the snow was falling, I might spy a deer in the back field bobbing at the last few apples still clinging on the tree.  Even in the cold dark winter, there was still the quietness of nature thriving around my home.  The song my soul sang at such moments was one of gratitude of life.  There is a sense of eternity as snow falls on a windless day.  As far as the eye can see upwards, there is snow falling. As far as the eye can see outward there is snow falling.  And love abounds in such experiences of infinity.  

“Gentle darkness, soft and still, bring your quiet to me.” 

With all the hubbub of the season, the rushing to and fro to get holiday preparations ready, to have a moment of gentle darkness is a gift.  Where there are no glaring lights and holiday musak blasting over the air waves at the stores, a moment of non stimulation. Even the multitude of holiday parties can be a bit of an overload. Just to be still in the darkness can feel so very good.  

“Darkness, soothe my weary eyes, that I may see more clearly.” 

Eyes that are tired from the glare, eyes that are up late searching out the window for loved ones to come home safe,  eyes that in mourning. These are eyes that are exhausted and blurry from trying to see other things, perhaps distracting things. These are eyes that have been filled with tears over aches of the heart.   Sometimes just to rest in the darkness with a warm washcloth over the eyes was the perfect thing to soothe them.  

“When my heart with sorrow cries, comfort and caress me.”

For some this season of making merry has become a painful memory of loved ones gone.  It is hard to celebrate when the pain of loss is still so close to our hearts.  To make peace with this form of darkness is hard.  It means allowing the heart to cry so that moments of comfort can appear.  I think many of us have experienced the crying to the point of exhaustion that we fall asleep.  Darkness is the comfort in those moments. It wraps around us and holds us.  

Within my own family, my father’s youngest brother took his life a year ago this month.  The questions left unanswered.  The unnoticed signs that something was brewing under that quick smile and jovial laugh.  Making peace with the darkness becomes about living with regret of unforgiven moments.   To allow darkness to be a comfort means forgiving ourselves for those now lost opportunities with our loved ones.  To still be able to speak ‘I am sorry’ even into the darkness is an important step towards our own welcoming of the rising sun of spring.   

I have discovered that our relationships do not end with the death of a loved one.  The relationship only transforms into a different kind of relationship, one not embodying the physical plane but instead embodies some emotional, mental, and spiritual plane. Making peace with the darkness; that void of no longer having this person located in time and space is still a relationship with that person.  Darkness can indeed “comfort and caress me” in such moments. 

“And then my soul may hear a voice, a still, small voice of love eternal.” 

While, I still have questions about the finality of death, I have found the memories of my uncle most comforting are those of love shared.  It is these memories that enable me to honor my uncle and enable me to forgive myself for those lost opportunities of forgiveness shared.  It is this still small voice that I hear when I think of my uncle.  The memories of time spent during childhood. Love eternal does not allow itself to be overthrown by the darkness.  It is still there, underlying everything, gathering strength like a seed pod in the dark soil, awaiting the day when it can blossom in full glory.  These moments of darkness does engender in me the desire to seize other opportunities to heal relational wounds. 

“Darkness, when my fears arise, let your peace flow through me.” 

As I began, I am no longer afraid of the dark.  It is a part of the life cycle.  Even though I do not like the shorter days; even though the darkness makes me tire easily, I am no longer afraid of it.  

My fears take on the form of what ifs… a wondering of the future that remains, as far as I know, unformed and unwritten. The future is unknown with myriad of converging factors that will unfold its course.  I can either be passive about the future or I can actively pursue it with the hope that my actions will have some impact on how that future unfolds. So here the darkness becomes a resting stop, a place to regroup, to regenerate my life’s goals.  I can use the darkness as a means to take stock of my life.   And in so doing, allow the peace of this time to flow through me towards a new beginning. 

I am aware that this too is a part of the wheel that our ancestors honored as Yule.   They did this as a community.  They took whatever actions they thought would inspire a good year to unfold.  And so can we, perhaps not with the superstitious actions like preparing and eating hoppin John on New Years for a good year of health and wealth.  But with over arching goals that will help enliven our community to achieve the things we believe will bring our mission to life. 

There is within us such a wealth of support for one another that any darkness that we travel through can be traveled with peace knowing that we do not do it alone.  We have a community that we can gather together to share the joys and the sorrows.  We can dance around the Yule log as in days of old, calling forth the sun god to be born anew.  Recognizing the light of love shines bright in each one of us and empowers us to be at peace.  Blessings,

---

[1] Dark of Winter words and music by Shelley Jackson Denham © 1988. Used with permission of composer.

An Advent for Unitarian Universalists

The congregation I serve in Mississippi  had a guest minister (whose theology is Universalist Christian) come and preach on November 29th.  He asked the church to have an Advent wreath with candles to light.  The congregation decided to keep the Advent wreath for the remainder of the season up to the Christmas Eve service.

Advent isn’t something that Unitarian Universalists note every year any more.   Some congregations will have a service about the season of Advent but I bet these congregations are in the minority.   Advent is from the Latin word meaning coming.  It refers both to the coming of the birth of Jesus at Christmas as well as the second coming of Jesus at the end of the age.  It is a time of preparation, of expectant hope, of waiting for the Messiah to come. 

It is most likely because of our ambivalence to Jesus as being Messiah or in his second return that we Unitarian Universalists have not made much about the season of Advent.  So what would we as Unitarian Universalist be waiting or preparing for? 

In searching for some ideas to develop some Advent wreath lighting words;  I first came across EveryDay Unitarian’s blog about her reflecting on Advent.  And she referred to an interesting new blog entitled Twenty Six Days of Advent written by a Christian who is reflecting on Advent in her life.  In one of her posts she talks about our not choosing to be born in this specific time; in this specific place.  She compares this to the Christian teaching that Jesus was chosen to be born in a specific time and specific place.    She then states, “A specific time, a specific place. We were not chosen to be those who walked with Jesus in Palestine. We were chosen to be here. And what am I blessed to see and hear? What will prophets and kings desire to have seen and heard from what I have experienced? Is there anything in my life wondrous, noteworthy, mysterious? Living in the blank page, our response time to the coming of Jesus, all I can think is “there had better be.” There had better be something worthy left behind when I am gone. And I had better get to it.”

And this is where Unitarian Universalists can celebrate Advent.  It is in preparing our lives to be an example of something wondrous, noteworthy, and yes,  even mysterious.  As  Mary Oliver states, “Tell me, what is it you plan to do With your one wild and precious life?” 

Advent for Unitarian Universalists can be a time of planning, of preparing the way, of welcoming the coming;  if not of the Christ then of the arrival of another life [ours] lived in compassion towards our neighbors seen in the activities to rid the world of oppression and injustice. Such a life demands spiritual fortitude and spiritual practice to re-weave us when the cloth of compassion wears thin. Advent can be that season where we re-fortify our selves for the work we have chosen for this specific time and this specific place.  And we had better get to it. We had better get to it.  Blessings,

Using Language

I linked my previous post “Peace on Earth, Good Will Toward Men” on my Facebook page where it seems the title caused a couple of my friends to chastise me for not using inclusive language.  There is a difference I believe when using traditional  language versus using inclusive language.

In writing this title, I thought I was quoting a famous quote.   It turns out that I blended two quotes together from traditional sources.   The first is the King James biblical text of Luke 2: 14 “Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will toward men.”  The second is from Henry Wadsworth Longfellow’s post civil war hymn I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day, which reads “Of peace on earth, good will to men.”  It turns out that my title was a blending of these two quotes.  These are traditional words and words written during a particular era when the language had different meanings and understandings.

It was a deliberate move on my part to allude to the traditional language.  Not because it is sexist but because the traditional language is part of our cultural milieu  and therefore is familiar to most people.  I am also writing in the South where traditional religious (specifically Christian)  language is commonly used.  To have changed the wording of the title to not allude  directly to the scripture would have been, in my view,  haughty and condescending.    But this begs the question, is it ever appropriate to change language written in an earlier age just so it appeals to modern readers? 

I do not believe it is appropriate to change words from an era long gone just because the language usage is harsh to our ears.  I find that disrespectful of the author and a lack of appreciation of the era in which he or she lived.  And frankly it is arrogant for us to assume that we are the enlightened ones in word usage.   In a hundred years time, our language will have changed again and the words we have written today will appear archaic and perhaps exclusive of someone.   There will probably be papers written about our attempts to be inclusive and that we did not go far enough in that direction.  How foolish and unenlightened we were compared with the sophisticated reader of the 23rd century!

There is a joke about UU’s that can also be considered a truism.  The joke goes like this:  Why are UU’s horrible at singing hymns?  Because they are too busy reading ahead to see if they agree with the words.    We have a propensity of changing words that we do not like to sing to fit our thinking of how it should be.  It really is arrogant on our part to do so.  It shows our ignorance in appreciating the literary era in which such words were written.  

And yet,  we think nothing of changing the word “wretch” for “soul” in John Newton’s Amazing Grace.   A song about his realization that being a slave trader was a dehumanizing and evil act.  The word “soul” may soothe our delicate ears but the word “wretch” is more accurate to how he felt.  It also emphasizes the grace he felt as being amazing, the word soul misses that mark.   We are being arrogant when we fail to appreciate the words originally used simply because we don’t believe anyone can be a wretch.  If we were honest with ourselves, there were probably times when we  have done some action that only a wretch would commit.  Let’s own up to our times of being a wretch so we can sing this hymn with the heart felt passion in which it was written.  

Natalie Sleeth a music composer from the late 20th century wrote a song that many UU’s absolutely love.  It is called Go Now in Peace.   The editors of the  Singing the Living Tradition sought to get permission to change one three-letter word in the song.   Ms. Sleeth said absolutely not.  Yet, hundreds of UU’s sing this song incorrectly every week, changing the three-letter word to a four-letter word.  What was the word that offended our sensibilities so very much?  “God.”  We felt that to sing the word “love” instead would be inclusive for our diverse theological  congregations.  Perhaps.  But that is not the word she used.  She wrote “May the spirit of God surround you”  and not “May the spirit of love surround you”.  For us to really appreciate her words, we need to sing the song as she wrote it. It does not mean we have to agree theologically but we can appreciate the sentiment she was seeking to convey. 

It is the same with inclusive language.   Longfellow was not being exclusive when he was writing his famous poem that we sing every Christmas.  Nor was King James or rather the translators who translated the biblical text into English under his reign in the 1600’s.  They were reflections of their day and culture.  We can quote them and appreciate their writings in the context they were written.  We can quote them for the poetry of their words.  It is known as respect. It is known as honoring their integrity even as we recognize that words have changed in their meaning. 

May we honor our forebears words even when the words they chose seem harsh or foreign to our ears.  May we read looking for the spirit of the words written and not the logos of the words used.  And May all our words lend themselves to a greater and more lasting peace on earth and good will toward all people.   Blessings,

Peace on Earth; Good Will Toward Men

Peace on Earth; Good Will Toward Men was originally published in the Our Home Universalist Unitarian monthly newsletter for December 2009.   

Another year is coming to a close and our thoughts begin to drift to the holidays of gift giving, parties, and celebrating each other’s company.  These are all good things to do; especially as our economy still struggles to rise from the ashes of mortgage and banking schemes of greed that backfired on millions of people. So what does this season of joy mean to us in the face of such struggle?  Is there true hope that shines over a manger in Bethlehem?    I believe there is. 

Conservative Christians see the birth of Jesus as a fulfillment of the promise of God to redeem the world from sin. To participate in this redemption a person has to confess with their mouth that they have asked for forgiveness of their sins and accept Jesus into their hearts. To quote Joel Osteen; to say this prayer transforms one into a Christian.  

Unitarian Universalists tend not to believe that a simple confession of the mouth will save or transform anyone.  It is not words alone that save us.  If there is a contention between liberal and conservative religion, perhaps it is whether repeating a prayer will save a person from anything let alone from judgment day.  This is not the hope that shines bright each December.  

No, the hope that shines bright is the belief that we can indeed fulfill the promise of “Peace on earth, Good will toward men.”  The purpose of Christmas is not eternal salvation as Rick Warren’s popular book of the same name claims but rather to instill the hope that humanity can evolve to the point where violence—physical, emotional, psychological, spiritual violence—towards one another no longer needs to be the norm.  This sort of transformation does not happen over night, it takes diligence.  It takes discipline, rigorous discipline of the every day kind for that sort of transformation.  

I spent over 20 years of my life as a Charismatic Christian. I have seen many things that I cannot explain.  But the one thing I can explain is why individuals who claimed to be instantaneously freed from addictions (defined as broadly as possible) did not remain in their sobriety of that addiction.  It did not last when the holy chills of the moment wore off unless they committed themselves to the work of one day at a time.   Jesus’ command to “go and sin no more” was not just an idle saying.  As anyone in alcoholics anonymous can tell you it takes a recommitment every day and sometimes every hour, every minute to fulfill Jesus’ word of “go and sin no more.” 

It is the same for all of us.  The spiritual journey is not a blanket that is wrapped around us on a cool evening but a diligent stoking of the fires of warmth and generosity.  It is not a check off list— complete laundry; buy groceries; accept Jesus into my heart—that’s now done, where’s the party? The teaching of Jesus’ to love our neighbor as our self takes the kind of discipline that a person in AA takes to remain sober. Unitarian Universalists believe this is the way towards the Christmas promise.   Whether you claim to be a Christian, a Unitarian Universalist, a Jew, a Muslim, a Buddhist, a Mormon; by whatever stripe you are healed, work out your salvation not just in words but in your commitment to actions that bring peace on earth, good will towards all.  Blessings,

A Crisis of Faith

A congregant came to me today stating they were experiencing a crisis of faith.  A good conversation followed.  Without going into to the details one of the comments in the conversation referred to the various doctrines that are out there.  Who is right?  Who is wrong?  Each claim to have the correct doctrine.  What is one to believe?  What if they are right and we are wrong? 

Unitarian Universalism is a creedless faith.  We do not claim that one doctrine is the correct one above all else.  Instead we covenant to support one another in the living of the question, to support each other in their quest for meaning and truth.   The question will always be asked.  It might be a different question that arises but a question will always be asked.  A crisis in faith will always occur at some point in our lives.

Jesus was once asked the question what was the greatest commandment.  He answered according to the Christian scriptures, 

“Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.  This is the first and greatest commandment.  And the second is like it: Love your neighbour as yourself.” (Matthew 22: 37-39 NIV)

The rest as another wise rabbi once stated is commentary.  Now Unitarian Universalists may have a hard time with the phrase “the Lord your God.”  But if we consider what is being stated with this phrase is not just a divine entity who rules over all of creation with a firm and heavy hand but rather that which is ultimate, that which is the greatest good, that which is worthy of our devotion, that which is honorable, that which is just; then the phrase “the Lord your God” takes on a different connotation.   To live our lives with that level of passion in what we do is a transformative act.  It will shape everything we do with our lives in the here and now.  

The rest indeed becomes commentary.  It no longer matters if I believe that Jesus was born of a virgin, died on the cross for my sins, or even if he rose again from the dead.  Nor does it matter if I believe that God is One or if God is three in one or if there are many Gods.  Nor does it matter if I believe in reincarnation or if this is the only life I live.  The doctrines becomes commentary. 

The essence of all religions using slightly different words perhaps boil down to these two commandments.  For the Buddhist, for example,  it is to be mindful in all things; to be awake to this present moment.  When we are awake in the Buddhist sense then we are engaging our whole heart, mind, and soul. 

How one goes about living their life in this manner is open for debate.  For some it may be by embracing Christianity.  For another it may be in embracing Buddhism or Islam, or Hinduism, or Wicca.  But to do so with passion, with ones whole being is to love the Lord your God with ones whole self.  To express this love to others is the second part of this mystery. 

I told this person a bit of my own travel through crises of faith.  When I was still a conservative Christian and still in the closet, I worked with people living with AIDS.  There was one man who I would visit and bring dinners to him almost every night.  He had been excommunicated from his church and from his family, except two of his 13 siblings, because he had HIV/AIDS .  The church believed that this meant he wasn’t sincere in his repentance because if he had been, then he would not experience this dreadful disease. 

Our doctrines sometimes narrows our lives rather than expand them.  Our doctrines should expand our understandings of love and not narrow them. 

Anyway, I would visit this man who had become bed bound.  This was in the days when hospices would not accept HIV/AIDS patients and he was not so sick that he needed hospitalization.  So he only had these two siblings who would visit and several volunteers.   This one night, I brought dinner over.  He was asleep.  So I decided to stay and sit with him and pray.   As I was praying, I looked over at him and in the dim light of the room, I saw in that bed not Jesse (name changed)  but rather Jesus lying there.  Or what I would have thought Jesus would look like lying there.  

I was entering a crisis of faith as I was beginning to wrestle with my identity as a gay man.  Here before me was another gay man who appeared to me as  Jesus to me at that particular moment.  How do I love someone who is gay and the antithesis of the doctrines I embraced?  How do I love myself enough to be able to love another?  How do I reconcile the doctrine with my experiences?   The answer in that moment seemed so simple. 

To see everyone as worthy of  devotion, worthy of love, worthy of service, worthy of life.  It was shortly there after and a few more eye-opening experiences that I came out of the closet.  And entered another crisis of faith with my Christian community regarding what I was finding true and what they taught as true.  

There will probably always be a crisis of faith that will release new questions and new wonderings about the nature of this world.  But I believe if I hold to the standard of  loving the utmost highest good with my whole heart, mind, and soul then the rest will be commentary.

Sermon: Five Smooth Stones: Mutual Consent

(This is the second of a series of sermons at the Unitarian Universalist Congregation of Tuscaloosa reflecting on James Luther Adams’ Five Smooth Stones of Liberal Relgion.  8 November 2009 (c) )

Reading: Good Fences Make Good Neighbors by James Luther Adams (From a sermon he presented at Appleton Chapel in Harvard University’s Memorial Church, Cambridge, MA in 1984.) 

In the old days at Harvard, earlier in this [20^th] century, the former Appleton Chapel was located on this spot where we are at this moment.  At the worship services that much larger chapel was filled with hundreds of students.  The reason for this is simple. Attendance was required.

In those days the doors were locked when the bells stopped ringing.  No late students could enter the chapel.  The monitors then stood in their several places to record the absentees. 

On the occasion when required attendance was formally abolished at the instigation of the university preacher, Professor Francis Greenwood Peabody, he said in his address that he had been studying compulsory attendance at chapel in various parts of the commonwealth, including the state penitentiary in Concord.  The only difference he could find, he said, between chapel services at Harvard and those at the Concord penitentiary was that in Concord the monitors carried guns, an appropriate symbol for coercion.  For some years the Yale Chapel retained the practice of required attendance.  I recall that Dean Willard Sperry of Harvard Divinity School reported that when he was guest preacher at Yale he could not from the pulpit see the faces of the students.  In protest against compulsory attendance they hid themselves behind their newspapers, and the preacher could see only an expansive patchwork quilt of unfolded newspapers.  Subsequently, Yale Chapel also abolished the practice.  We may say that the abolition of required attendance means that religion and compulsion are by nature incompatible.

Five Smooth Stones: Mutual Consent

We last left our hero, James Luther Adams, a prominent 20^th century liberal theologian with the first stone of liberal religion. To recap, Adams speaks of five components that are essential to liberal religion. 

“These five components were titled the Five Smooth Stones of Liberal Religion based on the biblical story of young David who single-handedly slew the opposing giant and enemy of the country with five smooth stones and a slingshot.    These stones are the following:  1) Continuous revelation, 2) Mutual consent and not coercion need to be the basis of all human relations 3) Moral obligation towards the establishment of a just and loving community 4) Denial of the immaculate conception of virtue and affirm the necessity of social incarnation and 5) the resources (divine and human) that are available for the achievement of meaningful change justify an attitude of ultimate optimism.”[1] 

The second stone of liberal religion is “Mutual consent and not coercion need to be the basis of all human relations.”  Now it may seem like common sense to us that this indeed needs to be the case.  It is part of our heritage as religious liberals.  But recent events reveal to us that mutual consent is not the experience of all human relations. 

It has even been argued that there are times when mutual consent is not even the best way to behave in some human relations.  We saw this argument being played out in the defense of using torture to interrogate known and alleged terrorists. 

Former President Bush in defending the use of torture (as defined by the 1984 Convention Against Torture which was signed by President Reagan and ratified by the US Senate in 1994) said in a radio address explaining his veto against a congressional bill against water-boarding and other abusive interrogation techniques: “This is no time for Congress to abandon practices that have a proven track record of keeping America safe. …We created alternative procedures to question the most dangerous al-Qaeda operatives, particularly those who might have knowledge of attacks planned on our homeland.” Bush said. “If we were to shut down this program and restrict the CIA to methods in the [Army] field manual, we could lose vital information from senior al-Qaeda terrorists, and that could cost American lives.” [2]

 My point here is not to debate whether a former president did or did not violate an international agreement on torture; nor whether he was correct in his statements that torture yielded accurate and vital information regarding terrorist activities to attack the US.  My point is that the use of torture in any format is an extreme use of coercion in human relations and therefore violates one of the principal cornerstones of liberal religion.

So where did this notion of mutual consent in human relations originate and become part of the liberal branch of religion?   Adams argues that just like chickens that establish a pecking order, “Liberalism, in its social articulation, might be defined as a protest against ‘pecking orders’” in favor of mutual consent.  Mutual consent has its roots in the Hebrew Scriptures and in the gospel records of Jesus’ teachings.  It resurfaced in the Reformation with the teachings of Martin Luther declaring the priesthood of all believers.   It found its way into the foundations of the early congregations in New England with the Cambridge Platform, a covenant honoring the mutual consent of autonomy between congregations.  This protest continues today and is most noted in the vote against the prescribed pecking order of this society with the overwhelming election of America’s first African American as president.   

Adams states, “This protest often found its sanction in the basic theological assertion that all are children of one God, by which is meant that all persons by nature potentially share in the deepest meanings of existence, all have the capacity for discovering or responding to ‘saving truth,’ and all are responsible for selecting and putting into action the right means and ends of cooperation for the fulfillment of human destiny.”[3]

It is from this theological basis that free inquiry is essential to liberal religions as well as liberal societies and governments.  If a person is seeking infallible guidance, Adams states, “they are not going to find it in liberal religion.”  The refusal to submit to divine authority –be it a pope, scriptures, or doctrine has been stated as our mortal sin from the true path of orthodoxy.  Adams answers this charge by stating it is pretentious pride for anyone thinking “capable of recognizing infallibility, for they must themselves claim to be infallible in order to identify the infallible.”[4]

Yet, the process against the pecking order towards mutual consent is found in the free inquiry and study of “the words of the prophets, in the deeds of saintly men and women, and in the growing knowledge” of human nature and the universe through the sciences “that evoke the free loyalty and conviction of people exposed to them in open discourse.”

To evoke the free loyalty and conviction of people through open discourse is perhaps the biggest challenge that we face today in this country.  There are those from conservative religious circles that want to coerce society to resemble their ideals, their theology, their hardened rules and protocols denying the words of the prophets, denying the saintly deeds of men and women, denying growing body of knowledge on human nature and sciences that contradict the doctrines that they claim as divine truth.

These conservative religious bodies seek to pre-empt open discourse by using platitudes and rhetoric that no longer have any authoritative weight except within their circles of faith.  To engage openly and honestly without resorting to doctrines and rhetoric would perhaps cause their own faith to begin to question their prized doctrines and see the bondage in which they have trapped themselves.  Yet if they were to enter into open dialogical debate without resorting to two thousand year old texts; they would find their faith come alive in amazing transforming ways converting them to honor the ever more inclusive spirit of love. 

I speak from my own spiritual journey of conservative Christianity to liberal Unitarian Universalism.  It was with openness to mutual consent, a covenant of being, that I entered into this dialogue and found the waters there liberating me to love justice in new and profound ways.

I mentioned torture as being an extreme form of coercion.  Tactics used to coerce information do only one thing; they rape the individual of their dignity of being human.  Tactics that deny the bodies of knowledge from the psychological and sociological sciences that detail the harm done to the person.   These tactics of coercion reduce the person to an object, a thing and in doing so reduce the abuser to an object as well. 

But there are other forms of coercion occurring today that requires noting.  One is the long standing battle to have prayer in the public schools. This resurfaces every couple of years since it was removed from schools in 1962 as being unconstitutional.   It is a form of coercion of the conservative religious to insist that a public prayer be said.  The question remains as to whose prayer would be said?  A Christian Prayer complete with “In the name of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, we pray?”  Or a Muslim prayer?  A Hindi prayer?  A Buddhist Metta?  A Wiccan chant?  And who decides? 

Several years ago now, the UU congregation in Danbury, CT sought to place an advertisement in the local paper.  It was an ad developed by the denomination.  It showed a photograph of two women with the headline: God does not have to be male, straight and white.  The newspaper refused to publish it as they felt it did not match the moral standards of the community.   It is argued by prayer in school proponents that the moral standards of the community would be the measure in which to choose the public prayers in school.   And when they state moral standards they mean their particular brand of moral standard. 

Our reading this morning by James Luther Adams highlights the incompatibility of compulsion and religion.  But the incompatibility is far more sinister than that.  Adams discusses Reagan’s argument for a constitutional amendment for public prayer in schools.  Reagan harkened back to the ancient civilizations of Rome and Greece falling because they had abandoned their gods.  He believed the alleged decline of morality in this country is the result of our doing the same.  Adams states Reagan’s defense calls “for the revival of a compulsory feature of the authoritarian government of the Roman Emperor Constantine in the fourth century.” It was the practice of the magistrate to enforce the faith of the church and to “wield the secular arm on behalf of God and country.” [5]  It is this practice that the conservative religious wish to impose on the rest of the country with the public prayer in school debate. 

President James Madison in summarizing the First Amendment said, “Congress should not establish a religion and enforce the legal observation of it by law, nor compel men to worship God in any manner contrary to their conscience, or that one sect might obtain a pre-eminence, or two combined together, and establish a religion to which they would compel others to conform.”[6]  It is this compelling others to conform that liberal religion opposes.  

We find this coercion to conform in the continuing battle to overturn Roe v Wade.  There is a doctrinal belief of those seeking to define the rights of a woman over her own body as being equivalent to murder and seeking equal rights protection for the unborn.  The problem is not that a religious doctrine exists for members of a specific religious group regarding prohibiting abortion.  The problem is compelling others who do not belong to their religious group to abide by their doctrines.     

There is also the coercion of conservative religious regarding the equal marriage amendment that failed by a mere five percent difference in Maine this past week.  Those wanting equal marriage rights argued for the right to define what is a loving marriage and family and for those definitions to be honored by the state.  Those not wanting same gender marriages to be recognized used coercive tactics of fear to compel the voters in Maine to vote down the amendment which would have ratified the legislative vote of the previous session.  Their doctrine that marriage is defined by one man one woman is based solely on a selective reading and interpretation of texts from a culture we can never fully understand.  They have declared their doctrine to be the only correct one and are attempting to compel other religious and non-religious groups to adhere to that doctrine.  It is a coercive act to place inalienable rights of whom one can enter into a covenanted relationship with, such as marriage, to the vote of the majority.   There is a powerful commercial where a young man goes door to door, from village to village, asking if he may have the hand of his love in marriage.  The covenant of marriage is a local covenant; to have to seek federal or state approval is a sign of the coercive powers of oppression. 

Many in Maine and in California believe that the denial of recognizing same gender marriage under the law means they are in the right.  However, time will prove that where people are free to govern their own bodies, to form with love and respect their own relationships and have these decisions be honored by the governments in which they live is a more dignified way to live. 

Liberal religions, Unitarian Universalists as one example, are often criticized for allowing diverse opinions to being shared within the realm of the congregation.  It is the erroneous thought that we stand for nothing or that we can believe whatever because we allow and even encourage the expression of diverse opinions. On the contrary it is with deeply held convictions that we seek to allow our individual voices to be heard. 

We have come to understand that revelation is continuous and therefore may arise out of any sector of our congregation and from any sector of our society.  Therefore we seek to ensure that all are free to live their lives to their fullest potential.  We seek to remove the impediments of oppression where ever they may be found.  

James Luther Adams wrote:  “I call that church free which in charity promotes freedom in fellowship, seeking unity in diversity. This unity is a potential gift, sought through devotion to the transforming power of creative interchange in generous dialogue.  But it will remain unity in diversity.”

The path towards mutual consent is a path fraught with rocks of incomplete understandings.  It is therefore a continuous evolution of new insights and understandings that can only be discovered in an open dialogue.   It means that not everyone will be on the same page at the same time.  It means that some will have the same information and interpret it with slightly different nuances but if those people are able to remain open to those who have come to slightly different interpretations; then a more complete understanding may prevail.  Liberal religion seeks to be the place where these discussions can take place. 

We liberal religious folks tend to shy away from being evangelical regarding our faith, yet it is important that our message is heard in the market place of ideas.  Not in a coercive manner compelling others to believe as we do but in a consensual manner where all voices are respected and heard. In doing so, liberal religion seeks to be the yeast that leavens the whole of society towards justice and equality for all. 

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[1] Fred L Hammond,  Sermon Five Smooth Stones: Continuous Revelation,  October 25, 2009  UUCT

[2] as found at  http://pubrecord.org/torture/160/bushs-torture-quote-undercuts-denial/

[3] Adams, Five Smooth Stones of Liberalism as found in The Guiding Principles for a Free Faith.

[4] IBID

[5] Adams, Good Fences Make Good Neighbors  The Prophethood of All Believers, ed. by George K. Beach

[6] Annals of Congress, Sat Aug 15th, 1789 pages 730 – 731  as found at http://candst.tripod.com/tnppage/qmadison.htm

Sermon: Love is the Doctrine

Sermon delivered at Our Home Universalist Unitarian Church on 1 November 2009. 

Love is the Doctrine by Rev. Fred L Hammond 

We say this covenant every week.  “Love is the doctrine of this church, the quest of truth is its sacrament and service is its prayer.”  What does this mean to us as we close out the first decade of the 21^st century?   What does this mean to us as we close out the first year of a new presidency?  What does this mean to us as we debate and argue over health care reform, equal rights for gays, the escalating war in Afghanistan, bailouts for the oligarchic financial system, and the dismantling of agencies that successfully advocate for the poor and the oppressed?  

What does this mean—indeed?   I read a lecture by one of the pillars of our faith, Alice Blair Wesley, and these two sentences popped out at me, “What ought the lay members of a liberal free church understand our kind of church to be about, now, in our time?” She answers, “Strong, effective lively liberal churches, sometimes capable of altering positively the direction of their whole society, will be those liberal churches whose lay members can say clearly, individually and collectively, what are their own most important loyalties, as church members.”[1] 

Their most important loyalties.  It is difficult to articulate this as church members.  We have so many different loyalties, even within a congregation of our number, our loyalties are varied.   And to then place it on a denominational level, what are our loyalties then?  It is hard to encompass the scope of it all.  And harder still to understand how we could be on opposite sides of an issue.  

Yet, we do not dictate or demand uniformity of belief in our congregations.  We do not say to a potential member, if you are not in 100% agreement with us on this or that issue, this or that doctrine, then you cannot be a member here.    We strive, sometimes successfully, to let those differences fade into the background as we seek to live our covenant. And that brings us back to the question, what are our loyalties as a church?  What do we serve when we come together on Sunday mornings?  To what ends are we serving when we go back to our weekly schedules?  

“Love is the Doctrine of this Church, the quest of truth is its sacrament and service is its prayer.   To dwell together in peace, to seek knowledge in freedom, to serve human need, to the end that all souls shall grow into harmony with the Divine—Thus do we covenant with each other and with God.” 

If this covenant is indeed where our loyalties lie individually and collectively as a church, then how does this play out in our daily lives?   According to Random House Dictionary a sacrament is “a visible sign of an inward grace; something regarded as possessing a sacred character or mysterious significance; an oath; a solemn pledge.”   So when we state that the quest of truth is its sacrament, it means that we visibly, solemnly seek truth as an act of love.  We recognize that this love has a mysterious significance to us, that truth might remain elusive to us or that we might only see glimpses of an unfolding reality.   But to seek truth as an act of love opens us up to the possibilities of transforming our ideas, our bigotries, and our biases for something more inclusive, something more embracing in the other.  

To love our neighbor as we love ourselves is not an easy task to do.  We do not always love ourselves in the fullness that love has to offer us.  We sometimes carry within our beings the scars of abuse; either familial or societal, or the scars of oppression; either internal or external phobias that hold us down from our potential.  And so it is hard to sometimes love someone else when we do not love ourselves very much.  And as we vow to seek truth as a sacrament of that love, it is sometimes difficult for us know how that love should manifest in our midst.  But that is what we seek to do as we honor and uphold Love as our doctrine. 

Service is its prayer; service is love’s prayer.  How are we in service to one another?  How is that a prayer?  Here prayer takes on a much larger meaning than just a desire for something to happen.  For example, it is more than just asking the powers of the universe to restore to health a friend who is ill.  It is asking and acting together.  It is thought and action combined.  Service is action.  Prayer is the desire for the difference to be made in love.  It is doing what is needed to help that friend recover their health, and what that may be is myriad of possibilities.  Service is relational.  It is transactional.  It is transformational.   

It is one thing to ask for equal rights for sexual minorities.  It is another to ask and to combine it with service.  Opening the doors of the church so that PFLAG can meet here to offer support to families of gay children is service as a prayer.  Opening the doors of the church so teens have a safe place to gather and express themselves in discussion, music, and poetry is service as a prayer.  The prayer is that gays would find acceptance in our community.  The prayer is that our teens will find avenues where they can develop into their full potential as loving compassionate adults. The answers to these prayers begin with the opening of our doors.  

The common goals of this questing for sacramental truth and service as prayer are to dwell in peace, to seek knowledge in freedom, to serve human need.  To dwell in peace does not mean silence.  Peace does not necessarily mean tranquility.  Peace is a state of being that is assured that all is well even when the earth is quaking beneath us. To dwell in peace is an assurance that regardless of what you or someone else is going through that you are not alone but in covenanted community.  

When the Unitarian Universalist congregations in New Orleans and the Mississippi coast were destroyed by the effects of Katrina, as devastating and heartbreaking as that was for them personally, there was peace that held them knowing that they were not abandoned by their denomination.  People from across the country came into their communities to help them rebuild and are continuing to help them rebuild is the proof of that assurance.  There is peace that they will survive. 

When the news of the Knoxville shooting at the Unitarian Universalist congregation occurred, as painful and heart wrenching as that event was, there was a peace that assured them they were not alone in their grief.  The community congregations regardless of doctrinal differences poured out their hearts to the members of this congregation.  And so did members of Unitarian Universalist congregations across the country, some by offering their skills in trauma counseling and others in their cards and notes and money for the surviving families.  

And here in Laurel when ICE agents raided Howard Industries and arrested 600 plus workers on suspect that they may have been undocumented. Some of them were some of them weren’t.  There was an assurance of peace to those families by members of this congregation by dropping off food supplies to the families that suddenly lost their income. And there was an offer of peace when I stood with them in prayerful vigil, the only local clergy person, when they sought for their personal affects and final paychecks.  I was moved at how grateful these families were that someone, who represented to them a loving presence of the church, was there to stand in witness of their plight. To dwell in peace does not always mean tranquility but it does mean assurance of a supporting presence.  

To seek knowledge in freedom.  It may seem to be an odd thing to have this as a goal of this covenant but it is essential, for without it we have coercion, manipulation and propaganda.   This is perhaps more important for us today.  We have in this country a movement that seeks to shape the knowledge that is available.  It will take congregations like ours to recommit to this ideal that knowledge needs to be sought in freedom to ensure that our nation remains free.  

There is a resurgence of McCarthyism in our nation. This is being defined as “the reckless, unsubstantiated accusations, as well as demagogic attacks on the character or patriotism of political adversaries”.  We are seeing it through the irresponsible journalism of the Fox network.  It is one thing for a newspaper or television to have a conservative slant but it is another when the newspaper or television begins to use their resources to create the news they wish to cover. When I was studying journalism in my undergraduate work, the number one rule in journalism was to report the news, not become the news.  Fox News has in its manipulation of information restricted the freedom needed to find knowledge and their efforts have made them the news. 

Fox news is a source and one of the primary sponsors for the tea party protests that have occurred this past year.  These protests are based in falsehoods and misinformation propagated by Fox News.  They have grossly overcovered these events to give the appearance that they were larger than they really were.  For example, they gave on site coverage for a protest that no one was still in attendance.  And when another protest march was taking place in Washington, the National Equality March, a group that Fox news does not support, Fox did not cover it themselves and downplayed the attendance to a mere 70K which was the number allegedly in attendance at their teaparty protest the week before. Every other news network reported that upwards  to over 200K people being in attendance.   

But in case I be accused of mud-slinging with bias, let me add that the other news networks are not innocent in their manipulation of the news or their hindering of conveying knowledge.  They have taken a back seat when misinformation is spouted on their networks.  They do not do the fact checking that is needed when someone with an agenda, be it liberal or conservative, spouts unsubstantiated figures as if they are factual.  All of the news networks have failed their mission in reporting accurate news and instead are reporting opinions about the news.  Opinons that have one purpose and one purpose only and that is to divert attention away from an open and honest debate to one that is simply divisive.  The health care reform debate is just one example where the news networks have failed in informing the American public the facts of what true reform will mean to the average American.  

These words in our covenant are not simply nice words to say.  They have meaning in today’s climate of retrograde politics.  And these words could potentially mean risking our freedoms to support them like they did in the McCarthy era. 

To serve the human need.  James Luther Adams once said the purpose of church was to practice being human.  Church should be a place where our humanity is held in the safety of the sheltering arms of the congregation.  It is also a place where we can begin to serve the human need.  In our congregations regardless of size there is someone who is in need of a hug, a listening ear, or a word of encouragement.   There is someone in our congregations that need to be seen for who they are and not who they are forced to be in the world outside these doors. 

Yes, the human need exists beyond these doors and we have already mentioned how we have made a difference and are going to be making difference in these lives.  But for this one moment, take a look around you and see who is here in this room right now.  This is where we begin to serve the human need.  Right here, right now.  

To the end that all souls shall grow into harmony with the Divine—

We affirm in our principles that we are all part of the interconnected web.  Many have come to believe that this means all of creation, not just humanity.  And so all souls has an expanded meaning of all creation growing into harmony with the Divine.  The Divine can be seen as not just a godforce but also as a lifeforce, a creative force that when we are in harmony with it  allows creation to fulfill its fullest potential.  

Thus do we covenant with each other and with God.  Thus do we promise, pledge, vow, to be our highest loyalty as individuals and collectively as members.  And when we fail, as surely we will, we will revisit these words and begin again to love, to seek truth as love’s sacrament, and service as love’s prayer.   Blessed Be.

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[1] Alice Blair Wesley,  Our Covenant: The 2000-01 Minns Lectures.  Lecture 1: Love is the Doctrine of this Church  2002  Meadville Lombard Press

Sermon: Five Smooth Stones: Continuous Revelation

(This is the first of a series of sermons at the Unitarian Universalist Congregation of Tuscaloosa reflecting on James Luther Adams’ Five Smooth Stones of Liberal Relgion. 25 October 2009 (c) )

Reading: The Five Smooth Stones of Liberalism by James Luther Adams 

Whatever the destiny of the planet or the individual life, a sustaining meaning is discernable and commanding in the here and now.  Anyone who denies this denies that there is anything worth taking seriously or even worth talking about. Every blade of grass, every work of art, every scientific endeavor, every striving for righteousness bears witness to this meaning.  Indeed, every frustration or perversion of truth, beauty, or goodness also bears this witness, as the shadow points round to the sun.

One way of characterizing this meaning is to say that through it God is active or is in the process of self-fulfillment in nature and history.  To be sure, the word “God” is so heavily laden with unacceptable connotations that it is for many people scarcely usable without confusion.  It is therefore well for us to indicate briefly what the word signifies here.  In considering this definition, however, the reader should remember that among liberals, no formulation is definitive and mandatory.  Indeed, the word “God” may in the present context be replaced by the phrase “that which ultimately concerns humanity” or “that in which we should place our confidence.” 

God (or that in which we may have faith) is the inescapable, commanding reality that sustains and transforms all meaningful existence.  It is inescapable, for no one can live without somehow coming to terms with it.  It is commanding, for it provides the structure or the process through which existence is maintained and by which any meaningful achievement is realized.  Indeed, every meaning in life is related to this commanding meaning, which no one can manipulate and which stands beyond every merely personal preference or whim. It is transforming, for it breaks through any given achievement, it invades any mind or heart open to it, luring it on to richer or more relevant achievement; it is a surpassing reality.  God is the reality that works upon us and through us and in accord with which we can discern truth, beauty or goodness.  It is that reality which works in nature, history, and thought and under certain conditions creates human good in human community.  Where these conditions are not met, human good, as sure as night follows the day, will be frustrated or perverted. True freedom and individual or social health will be impaired.

 Five Smooth Stones: Continuous Revelation

I had two dreams recently that I found to be quite interesting to me because they had to do with previous eras of my life.  Both are periods of my life that in contrast to where I am today are foreign to me.  

In the first dream, I am in a charismatic prayer meeting.  I didn’t recognize the place but I had a friend of mine from seminary at this meeting.  And I am much younger in this dream; I am the age I was when I would attend such meetings.  And if this dream were truly accurate in its time span, that would have meant my seminarian friend would have been a young teen since he is about fifteen years my junior but he is not, he is the age I first met him making us roughly the same age.   In the dream, John is seized in the spirit and begins to sing a song, two verses.  He finishes and then I am seized in the spirit and sing the final verse of the song.  The people in the meeting tell us that we must write the song down in order to preserve this song and we begin a search for pen and paper.  Which cannot be found.  So I am singing my verse over and over again so that I would not forget the words that had moved the congregation so very much…

(sings) “Praise god in the morning, praise god in the evening, praise god every day, that’s what I do.” 

Catchy tune right?  Time passes and I am still searching for pen and paper. I travel to distant lands and cultures looking for pen and paper and still I cannot find them.  Finally I stop at a fish market and there is yesterday’s NY Daily News.  The newspaper used to wrap the fish in.  And I tear off the front page and grab the wax crayon and write down the song.  End of dream. 

The second dream I am at some point in the not too distant future and sent back in time to the late 1980’s.  It is the height of the AIDS pandemic in terms of fear.  Remember the time period of the 1980’s in relation to AIDS. There is no true understanding of how this virus is working.  There are no effective medications.  AZT the first anti-retroviral drug to be used on people with AIDS is still in clinical trials.  People who are diagnosed with AIDS are told to get their affairs in order because they have less than a year to live.  The gaunt eyes, the skin draped skeletal figures of those with AIDS is a haunting image that appear in this dream and are in my memory of this period.   People with AIDS are still quarantined in hospitals and nurses and doctors alike will refuse to treat them for fear of contracting the disease.  

Here I am, from the future, knowing that this present condition regarding AIDS will not last.  In fact, it is at a close because in a few years there will be not just one medication to attack the virus that causes AIDS but several kinds of medications that combined will cause what the medical world called the Lazarus effect.  People will rise up from their death beds and regain health and live with the virus for perhaps their normal life span. 

 In my dream I am trying to tell these people with AIDS what I know to be true.  But I not only knew what was in their immediate future in terms of medical breakthroughs with medications, I knew that a vaccine was created that acted similar to the anti-retroviral cocktails that attacked the virus from different angles.  The vaccine released a variety of anti-bodies doing the same kind of multiple front attacks, thereby keeping the virus from being able to get a foothold in the body in the first place.  I knew this because I was coming to them from a future that was even further in the distance than the present day.   

Stating these future events to these people was like telling them some piece of fiction.  It could not be comprehended.  They did not know, could not know, if they would be among those who would live long enough to receive the multiple drug cocktail that would shrink the specter of AIDS to an aggressively managed chronic disease let alone live long enough to see a vaccine that would effectively place HIV on the shelf like smallpox.  The dream ends with these people looking at me with blank faces of total dismay at my words of what will be true. 

I have an interesting dreamscape.  Place these dream stories on hold for a moment. 

 James Luther Adams, the most prominent of Unitarian Universalist theologians in the 20^th century talked about five components that made liberal religion vital for this day and age.   These five components were crucial not only to liberal religion but crucial to the history of humanity because it is liberal religion that has influenced the course of history towards the reign of heaven.   If these five components are to fade away from liberal religion then what we are left with is a return to theocracy, a hierarchal authoritarian rule both in religion and in the state.  

These five components were titled the Five Smooth Stones of Liberal Religion based on the biblical story of young David who single-handedly slew the opposing giant and enemy of the country with five smooth stones and a slingshot.    These stones are the following:  1) Continuous revelation, 2) Mutual consent and not coercion need to be the basis of all human relations 3) Moral obligation towards the establishment of a just and loving community 4) Denial of the immaculate conception of virtue and affirm the necessity of social incarnation and 5) the resources (divine and human) that are available for the achievement of meaningful change justify an attitude of ultimate optimism. 

These smooth stones Adams suggests arose out of the reformation in the 1500’s and 1600’s.  James Luther Adams writes: 

“We of the Free Church tradition should never forget, or permit our contemporaries to forget, that the decisive resistance to authoritarianism in both church and state, and the beginning of the modern democracy, appeared first in the church and not in the political order.  The churches of the left wing of the Reformation held that the churches of the right wing had effected only half a reformation.  They gave to Pentecost a new and extended meaning.  They demanded a church in which every member, under the power of the Spirit, would have the privilege and the responsibility of interpreting the Gospel and also of assisting to determine the policy of the church. The new church was to make way for a radical laicism—that is, for the priesthood and the prophethood of all believers.  ‘The Spirit blows where it wills.’

 “Out of this rediscovery of the doctrine of the Spirit came the principles of Independency: local autonomy, free discussion, the rejection of coercion and of the ideal of uniformity, the protection of minorities, the separation of church and state.”[1] 

It was out of this movement of liberal religion that our democracy was born and has its being. It was liberal religion that influenced the core concepts of the Declaration of Independence, the preamble to our constitution and the Bill of Rights.  The revelation that began to occur in the reformation and dare I say had its roots in the primitive church of Christianity but was thwarted by the conservative branch of the church; continued to grow and blossomed into the life we now enjoy and take for granted.  

James Luther Adams first smooth stone is that revelation is continuous. There is always something new to be revealed. There is always something new to be uncovered. 

And therefore, as our morning quote for reflection  of Adams states, because revelation is continuous then “Nothing is complete and thus nothing is exempt from criticism.” 

Let’s take apart this notion of revelation.  What is it?  In a strictly mystical sense, revelation is something that is transcendental.  It transcends the current state of affairs with information that was previously unknown.  Our myth stories are filled with oracles and prophets who have an uncanny supernatural ability to see and hear what no one else can and therefore are able to grant wisdom to the listener or seeker of such wisdom.  That is one kind of revelation. 

But revelation has another meaning as well.  It is the by-product of reason.  It is the reviewing of current evidence in a manner that sheds new insights into problems or situations that benefit others.  We see this in the sciences where scientists looking at the evidence begin to conjecture theories and then seek to prove or disprove those theories.   Copernicus looking at the stars, the moon, and the sun had a revelation that perhaps it is the earth that revolves around the sun and not the sun around the earth.  That was a revelation.  It altered the way humanity looked at itself.  But that revelation hasn’t ended, we now know that we are part of a galaxy and that our solar system revolves around the center of our galaxy.  There are clusters of stars that also revolve around our galaxy.  And the galaxy is also moving in space and is revolving around something.  As our technology increases to reveal new things in the universe, our revelation about this universe will also unfold.  Revelation is continuous. 

It has been about 18 years since I last attended a charismatic prayer meeting.  I was excommunicated from the group because of my own personal revelation. It was a revelation they were not able to comprehend.  And since that time my understanding of who or what god is has changed.  

What made my dream regarding attending the charismatic prayer meeting and having this moment of ecstasy where I sang my song interesting is that it is yesterday’s moment.  In my dream I sought to hang on to the moment as I searched for means to write it down.  Writing it down became all important as if that would somehow preserve the moment of transcendence. I forgot what the words were that my friend John had sung.  And the words I wrote down were nothing profound.  Not profound as they were in the moment they were first uttered anyway.  

In the almost two decades since I could have sung such a song of praise to god, my definition and experience of god has changed.  Then it was a loving entity that cared for her children, today it is all that is and all that is not, the amorphous je ne sais quois that has no sentient quality unto itself but yet continually is creating expressions of life and expressions of beauty.  Today my praise and thanksgiving is to life itself, to love eternal, to the creative interchange as the theologian Wieman would describe it.  And that is today, tomorrow my understanding may expand again.  

Conservative faiths regardless of their doctrines attempt to capture the revelation in its initial revealing and hold it in its place.  How does one catch the wind that blows where it will?  Conservative faiths attempt to freeze the event and the meaning of that event.  But in the process of attempting to preserve it, they lose the spirit of what inspired the moment.  The spirit has already blown to somewhere else.   Conservative faiths insist that the entire world has to abide by that meaning and that understanding of the event.  I suppose it is comforting to know that something is the same today as it was yesterday but that something is nothing more than an aging portrait of Dorian Grey.  It will distort in time and become an evil that seeks to control and manipulate its followers instead of offering liberty and release as it once did. 

What is ironic is that the arc of history as Martin Luther King, Jr., stated is always bending towards justice.  Even conservative faiths will release their revelations that no longer serve them well.  Evidence of this is found here in American history, where it was once believed that slavery was ordained, that women have no role in the society, and that to use the belt in disciplining children was god’s way.  Many conservative faiths are abandoning these revelations as no longer being reflective of the love of god.  Those that have not are finding themselves at sometimes perverse and angry odds with society around them.  

The revelation once uttered is already being transformed into new revelation in its interactions with people.  To deny that process of continuing revelation is to deny the transforming power of ever inclusive love, yea, even life itself.   

There is another edge to this sword of revelation being continuous.  And that brings me to the second dream that I had recently. Revelation, be it transcendent or through thoughtful reason, can only be heard by people who are ready to hear them. Unless the people are ready to hear, then it will not be heard. 

In my second dream, the people living with AIDS could not receive any comfort in the promise of a vaccine that was 30 years plus in the future. In their present condition of multiple potentially deadly infections, the idea that they would live 30 years was not a viable reality.  It was also a bit of a stretch that they would survive a few more years when the new medications would be released into the public sphere.  They had this blank look like I was speaking incomprehensible gibber.   

The dream would have had a different outcome if I had as a person from the future with knowledge of the outcome of the HIV/AIDS pandemic began to apply the knowledge based on where those people were at that moment in time.  Perhaps there would have been some basic steps that could have been done so that they would have had a better chance of surviving til the new medications came out.  We now know so much that this pandemic has taught us about nutrition and disease progression that could have been applied in my dream.  

My grandfather’s farm had a hand water pump.  In order for water to come up out of that pump you had to prime the pump by pouring some water down into the pipes.  It is the same with receiving revelation.   The pump has to be primed.  People have to be brought up to speed in order to grasp what the new revelation is—otherwise it is too fantastic to comprehend.  

A few years ago, I was working with a congregation and I presented them with a vision of where they could be as a congregation.  It was a vision of a congregation serving the community by working closely with the minority community in their revitalization programs.  A vision that included affordable housing through increased involvement with Habitat for Humanity, advocacy on the city council to support locally run minority businesses, and increased food access for the poor.  The congregation looked at me like deer caught in the headlights of an oncoming car.   These vacant translucent eyes shining back at me as if my words were describing a complex mathematical equation on string theory.  It was too huge of a leap for the congregation to see themselves doing this kind of outreach.  They could not see where to begin such a grand vision.  

And so it is with revelation.  A few people may grasp the fuller picture but for many it is the smaller more immediate components that are necessary to begin developing.  The reformation that resulted in a new experiment of democracy in the Americas did not happen over night.  Religious tolerance was not a widespread event in Europe when the idea was first suggested.  It happened first in discussions.  Then tentatively in pockets like Transylvania in the kingdom of John Sigismund. Sometimes these were short lived pockets of tolerance.   People were burned at the stake for these ideas. Wars were fought over these ideas.  Such was the hold of the old revelation, the old way of seeing and being.  But gradually and over time the vision of a land where these ideals could be experienced first hand came to be.   America and other countries in the world are still unfolding that revelation of tolerance of the other.  It still is resisted even in the land of the free and the home of the brave. 

Revelation is continuous.  Revelation is an evolution of thought that spirals outward embracing more and more in its wake.  What are the revelations that are expanding here in this congregation about who we are as a people?  What new insights will we have that can influence the community to be more open; more accepting of others are to be revealed in the days and weeks ahead?  Revelation is continuous.  May we be open to receive it and act upon it in our journey as a people.  Blessed Be.

 

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[1] “James Luther Adams, “Our Responsibility in Society”  in The Prophethood of All Believers  page 157

The Good News of Unitarian Universalism

There is a commercial airing these past few weeks on local TV that starts off with all the scary things happening in the world—Halloween, war, teen age pregnancies, divorce are some of the examples given. Yes, Halloween is in the commercial with these others as being scary.  They proclaim the solution to this fear is in placing trust in Jesus Christ.  It is a concrete, one size fits all answer.  For some people this may indeed be the answer they desire. 

 How would Unitarian Universalists answer these frightful and painful events?   Unitarian Universalists tend not to think that a belief in a creed or a doctrine can heal our hearts.  We may believe in the power of prayer or meditation.  We may even believe in the teachings of a spiritual leader such as Jesus or Mohammed or Buddha or contemporary spiritual leaders like the Dalai Lama or Thich Nhat Hahn or Maryanne Williamson. But it is not the teachings or the prayers themselves that heal painful events but rather how we integrate those teachings and prayers in our active responses to the event that heals. 

We covenant to be together and to support one another in each of our spiritual journeys, which are as unique as our fingerprints.  We covenant to listen to one other.  We covenant to be present to one another; to be present with a full heart of compassion and empathy.  We choose not to see each other as broken and fallen but rather as having inherent worth and dignity. It is that inherent worth and dignity that we call forth with our actions when we see another in pain and in suffering.  We recognize the ambiguity, the murkiness, and the messiness of the situations that afflict us in our day-to-day. And we declare that ambiguity to be okay even as we seek to have clearer answers for our lives. 

We seek to live our lives with justice, equity, and compassion in all of our relations.  To live our lives in such a manner is a spiritual quest that demands our daily attention.  Sometimes that will mean that we march and protest against those forces that oppress and inflict injustice and sometimes it will mean that we will be silent witnesses holding the other close to our hearts.  Sometimes it may mean that we seek forgiveness from others when we fall short of our desired intention.  But we believe that to seek to live our lives in such a manner can and will have a profound impact on the world around us. 

In looking at our history either just back to our merger of Unitarians and Universalists in 1961 or further back to the American formation of these religious expressions; Unitarian Universalists have had a profound impact on society.  It was these principles being lived out that influenced the writing of the Declaration of Independence, the Bill of Rights and the formation of our democratic government.  It was these principles that encouraged abolitionists and suffragists to seek freedom and the right to vote.  It is these principles that are being lived out in the seeking of equality for sexual minorities today.  This is our good news.  Blessings,

From Cage to Cage

“This struggle [for congregational polity in the 16 /1700's] was a revolutionary institutional struggle, a struggle against the cage of centralized power in church and state and economic order. … But during the past century our society has been moving in the opposite direction, in the direction of a new centralization of power in mammoth bureaucratic government and industry, the fragmentation of responsibility, retreat into privatized religion–all of this in a world of massive poverty and hunger. …A major question today in a world of multinational corporations is how to achieve a separation of powers and consent of the governed, a self-governing society in the midst of corporate structures that are rapidly becoming a new cage. So we have moved from cage to cage.” —  James Luther Adams in “From Cage to Covenant” as found in the text The Prophethood of All Believers.

These words spoken by James Luther Adams in 1975, 34 years ago this month,  ring even truer today than they did then.  A lot has transpired in the past 34 years that make these words of Adams eerily prophetic in the tradition of the great prophets of the Hebrew writings. 

Adams argues that in order to survive this new cage that we need  to develop new covenants that consider “communal responsibility in the economic sphere.”  He details five components of a covenant that he believes is essential for this age.   He posits that (1) humans “become human by making commitment, by making promises. “   Realizing that this process includes the breaking of these promises with a renewal of making new promises.  He posits  (2) that “the covenant is a covenant of being.”   We covenant with that which is transforming in whatever way we might interpret the transforming.    (3) “The covenant is for the individual as well as for the collective.”  He states that “we are responsible not only for individual behavior but also for the character of the society…”   How we are known in the world is each of our responsibilities.   Perhaps the best way to describe this is to quote Vice President Hubert Humphrey’s famous quote, “It was once said that the moral test of government is how that government treats those who are in the dawn of life, the children; those who are in the twilight of life, the elderly; and those who are in the shadows of life, the sick, the needy and the handicapped.”  This displays the moral character of a nation. 

What is our character  if we are the country where a three month old child can be denied health insurance for being in the 95 percentile of weight for that age of a child?    Or where a person can lose health insurance coverage because the required treatment  is considered by the health company as too costly.  Or where the number one cause of bankruptcies  is due to medical costs.  This is an example of the  ”centralization of power in mammoth bureaucratic government and industry.”

Adams posits that (4) the “covenant responsiblity is especially directed toward the deprived.”  Who falls into the gap between the covenant and the system?  This is where our work lies to close the gap so that no one falls “from neglect or injustice.” And (5) the covenant follows a rule of law that is founded in faithfulness and love.  “What holds the world together, according to this dual covenant then, is trustworthiness, eros, love.  Ultimately the ground of faithfulness is the divine or human love that will not let us go.”   

We have our work cut out for ourselves since we did not act to stop the cage from being developed in 1975 to today.  We allowed government to deregulate the protections that have been linked to the financial collapse and resultant recession. The gaps between the working classes and the wealthy are wider than ever before in my lifetime.  The corporate giants of finance,  healthcare, oil, and industry have more of ahold on our lives than ever before stripping us of our endowed rights to have life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. 

This is where our congregations can be relevant to an age of individualism and capitalism gone awry.   We can be offering a different message than one that is found in the prosperity gospel driven congregations of our day.   Jesus may indeed want you rich but the richness is in how we relate to one another not in how much money we each have.   If there is a judgment day, it is the day when we are asked whether we have loved our neighbor as ourselves.  It is the day when we are asked if we truly were our brothers and sisters keeper.  How do you fare in this regard?  What are you willing to do differently to honor a new covenant of being?  Blessings,