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Why Do We Congregate? (continued)

Rev. Abhi Janamanchi

April 29, 2007

 

    4. We focus more on independence than on interdependence. We emphasize individualism to a degree that at times borders on the obsessive. We do not emphasize enough that as individuals with inherent worth and dignity who are on a search for truth and meaning, we are also called to be in community to be of service to one another and to serve the common good. We ministers are particularly to blame in this regard as we have seen our primary role to keep parishioners satisfied. As the Rev. William Murry, former president of Meadville Lombard Theological School in Chicago, said in a sermon at a colleague’s installation - “Too often we (ministers) have understood our task as relegated to the private sphere, the personal lives of our members. We have encouraged and facilitated their turn from a religion of love and justice to a religion of personal spirituality. Too often we have been content simply to help people feel better about themselves, without challenging their self-centeredness. Too often we have preached sermons on trivial and inconsequential subjects rather than address the significant issues of our time.”[2]

    OUCH!

    The result has been that many UU churches are places of self-enlightenment and entertainment for middle class people who are already here; and, we have become steadily more privatized in our understanding of the religious venture, steadily more ameliorative rather than radical in our responses to issues of justice, and rather muddled in our response to poverty, hunger, inequity, evil, and violence. We have tended to use our General Assemblies to pass resolutions on some of these issues and feel that we have done our part in “justice making.” We ministers need to be working to create congregations that make the world a more just, peaceful, safe, and equitable place. We need to remember that we are not in the “satisfaction business.”

    5. We have, at best, a fuzzy sense of mission and vision. And, we are embarrassed and diffident to share it with others. If nothing else, we ought to take to heart the advice that Kurt Vonnegut, a self proclaimed atheist and a UU sympathizer, gave us at one of our GAs. He said, "Like the early Christians, you are part of a society dominated by superstitions, by pure baloney. During Roman Imperial times, pure baloney was all that was available about the size of the planet, about its place in the cosmos, about the natures of its inhabitants and the origins of life, about the causes and cures of diseases, about chemistry, about physics, and on and on. Everybody, including the early Christians, had no choice but to be full of baloney. That is not the case today.”[3] Vonnegut went on to say that if Unitarian Universalism is to be a successful religion:

    “You would need a logo -- something you could put on T-shirts to start with and then maybe on the sides of tanks and airplanes and peacekeeping missiles later on. If you really want a logo, I recommend a circle with a baloney sausage in the middle, and with a bar across the sausage -- meaning, in international sign language, 'No baloney!'”[4] I think there’s a great slogan there somewhere - Unitarian Universalism: A faith that serves no baloney, only what’s real!

    6. We don’t like to evangelize. We need to overcome our internal confusions and articulate clearly and strongly who we are and what we stand for. We must share our faith openly and joyously with the world, building and sustaining healthy congregations, and meeting the most basic of human needs - the need to be religious, to seek meaning, to make connections, and to be of service.

    7. We continue to cling to a twentieth-century version of liberalism that died a long time ago. Paraphrasing the words of my colleague, Rob Hardies, we must decide what about liberalism is dead, and what is redemptive. We must jettison the former and cling tenaciously to the latter. He says, “The liberalism that must die is the liberalism that spends so much time sorting out the issues that it never takes a stand for what's right and what's wrong. The liberalism that must die is the liberalism that, even after the most inhumane and violent century of recorded history, still refuses to take seriously the human capacity for sin and evil. The liberalism that must die is the liberalism that has such a negative attitude toward power and authority that it permanently relegates itself to powerlessness. The liberalism that must die is the tepid faith of those who can't make up their minds. The liberalism that must die is the liberalism that demands nothing of us. The liberalism that must die is the liberalism that has abandoned its historic commitment to justice, and that, instead, has become a theological cover for middle-class respectability. Those liberalisms have got to go.” He then clarifies the liberalism that must be reclaimed: “The liberalism that must live on is the liberalism with a grown-up's understanding of freedom. Freedom is not "I can do whatever I want." Real freedom is "I can do what I must. What I'm called to do." The liberalism that must live on is the liberalism that takes all the available knowledge - knowledge of faith and of reason - and, based on that knowledge, makes judgments about what's right and what's wrong. The liberalism that must live on is the liberalism that values the rational mind, yes, but that also values equally the convicted heart and the strong will. The liberalism that must live on is the liberalism that is committed to the prophetic call for justice: the call that has motivated generations of liberals to work on its front lines. Religious liberalism will only be a viable option when it can muster the courage of its convictions (to which I add, and its confusions), and recommit itself.”[5]

 

So I invite each one of us to reflect on what this faith means to us; what is the burning coal that sustains us in our daily lives, that inspires us to live lives of integrity, honesty, compassion, and service, that motivates us to come week after week, year after year to communities such as this; and what it asks of us.

 

Let’s think, clearly and deliberately, about what kind of a role we want our religion and our religious community to play in our lives and in the larger community. Let’s think about what kind of a legacy we want our children and our children’s children to have. Let’s think about what difference we could make by sharing our faith with others, by being a vibrant, passionate, prophetic presence not just here in the Tampa Bay but all across Florida, across the United States, across North America, and across the world.

 

Let all of us preach the good news of Unitarian Universalism. Let us share what Scott Alexander calls this “tough and foolish doctrine of inclusion and care that constantly challenges us beyond the narrow confines of our natural selfishness and fear to ever wider circles of caring and compassion.”

 

If we can do that, even if we do it imperfectly, we will have gone a long way toward creating the beloved community of memory and hope for ourselves and others who may not know us yet.

 

So may it be. Amen.

 

[2] Quoted in Mike Durall’s Almost Church from a sermon by Rev. Dr. William Murry delivered at the UU Congregation of Shelter Rock, New York, on October 27, 2002. page 9.

[3] Ware Lecture, 1986 UUA General Assembly, Milwaukee, WI

[4] Ibid.

[5] Excerpt from A Religious Liberal Examines His Heart by Rev. Robert Hardies, All Souls Church, Washington DC, CLF Quest – October 2006