How To Be A Unitarian Universalist

A sermon Offered by Rev. Tim Kutzmark
Sunday, December 3, 2006 • Unitarian Universalist Church of Reading

---

Let us begin with our imagination, a very good place to start.  Important thinking, after all, begins with imagination—that mysterious place where heart and head meet.

Imagine, if you will, the ocean. 
Picture the ocean in your mind’s eye. 

Imagine the expanse, stretching--in every direction--to the horizon, an open and evolving vastness of water, on every side around you. 

See its color, the size and strength of the waves. 

And now imagine that in this vast sea, you are sitting in a boat. 

See the boat itself as it floats in that wide, open sea.  See the boat’s color and shape and size.

And see yourself, clearly and fully, as you sit in that boat.

And now, let us leave our imagining and come back to our chairs, together, in this room.

Let me ask, when we first imagined the ocean, how many of us first imagined ourselves at the sea’s edge rather than being in the middle of the ocean?  When the directions got specific as to being in the middle of the ocean, how many of us imagined ourselves on a calm sea; and how many on a choppy or stormy sea? 

And now: the boat.  How many of us imagined ourselves on a big boat, a ship even, with many people surrounding us?  And how many imagined ourselves in a small boat all by ourselves, alone in the vast sea?

[NOTE TO READER: All but three people in the sanctuary raised their hands to indicate that they imagined themselves alone in a small boat.]

It is quite telling how many of us—when asked to imagine such things—picture ourselves alone in the midst of a vast sea, rather than choosing to see ourselves in a large boat along with many other people. 

Imagining ourselves alone and adrift in an empty sea.

Is this also how we imagine our life?
Is this also how we imagine our spiritual journey?
Is this also how we imagine our religion?

Our Unitarian Universalist faith prides itself on its rugged individualism.  Shaped in Europe in the 1500’s, and then hewed into grand form out this country’s pioneering spirit in the 1700 and 1800s, ours is a faith that has always challenged the religious norm.  Our Unitarian Universalist faith has always questioned the accepted way of understanding ourselves.  Our Unitarian Univeralist faith has always questioned the accepted way of understanding our relationship to our fellow human beings, and to that which we call Holy.

Others said that God was made up only of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, and could only be found in the Christian tradition and in the New Testament.  Our faith tradition suggested that—although this is a fine choice for some people—the great Mystery of Life could not be so easily or narrowly reduced to one time, one book, or one understanding. When others said that each human being was inescapably stained by original sin—that all humanity was inherently depraved at their core—our faith tradition said “no!”  Our faith tradition suggested that each human being had worth and dignity, no matter who we were or what our many imperfections.  Our Unitarian Universalist faith cautions us to call “no one a sinner, [but to] know how deep is the struggle and how great is the hunger for what is good.”  When other faiths said that only one ordained person could speak on behalf of God—when others said that only hierarchies or certain institutions could claim direct knowledge of the Divine—our faith tradition said the holy lives in each of us, and that with our own heart and mind we can experience and discern truth.
We deny creeds in favor of creativity, believing that meaning making is an individual act of conscience. This radical affirmation of the individual is our living tradition. This questioning and seeking is the taproot of our religion.

And so, we sit here today as individuals who are searching in our own hearts and minds—in our own lives—and working out our own beliefs.  And we are proud of this fact!

But what have we lost in this emphasis on the individual?  What have we lost in our virtual worship of the individual conscience?  What have we lost as we’ve made a sacrament out of our individual search for truth?

I believe we’ve lost our connection to community. I believe we’ve lost our commitment to a community. I believe we’ve lost a sense of being accountable to something bigger than our own self or our own needs.   I believe that we’ve lost the belief that a community is an essential part of the spiritual life. In doing so, we’ve lost a part of our religious integrity.

There are two questions that should shape our Unitarian Universalist faith.

1. How can we connect more deeply to my understanding of truth?
2. How can we connect more deeply in a religious community?

Joseph Campbell, the celebrated scholar of mythology and comparative religion, talks of two life paths that are available to us.  He calls the first path the ‘village path.’  Here we live as we are expected, amidst the norms of society.  We don’t question, and we don’t leave the safe and known confines of the village.  The second path is the ‘hero path’—the way of your own bliss, the path that questions the norms, the life path that willingly steps into the danger of the wilderness and the unknown.  This hero path leads into the realm of no clear rules, where we live the life of questions and creativity.  (I would call this the spiritual path.) And in some way or another, Unitarian Universalists are walking on this hero/spiritual path.

Choosing this path, the journey of the hero begins with disengagement from society, from the common way of thinking and living and seeing the world.  Then, the journey of the hero continues in a time away, out in the wilderness, a time of searching alone.  But it does not end there, far, far away.  The hero journey only ends with the return, with the time of re-engagement, re-connection, re-commitment to the community.  The hero brings what she has learned, and begins to listen to what others have learned.  The hero again becomes accountable to something greater than his own individual truths and needs.

Spirituality is the individual search for meaning.  (Or, as Joseph Campbell would say, spirituality is the individual search for the experience of life.)  But religion is the return. Religion is the return to a shared experience of life.  Religion comes from a Latin root that means “to bind back.”  What I believe religion does is bind us back into the fabric of life, the interconnected web of all existence. Religion binds us back into love. Love is only found and shared with others.  Love is only found in relationship, in community.  “Love is the willingness to participate with others in the healing of a broken world and broken lives.  Love is the willingness to participate with others, even with our broken dreams, our broken hearts.  Love is the choice to experience life as a member of the human family, a partner in the dance of life.”  (source unknown)

If we truly want “to seek the truth in love,” then we cannot do it alone.  We cannot do it with spirituality alone.  We need religion. Without religion—without this binding back into community—we drift, alone, in the empty sea of life.

Unitarian Universalists tend to do spirituality very well.  But we tend to do religion with reluctance.  In 1984, when we affirmed our new statement of Principles and Purposes, it wasn’t by accident that our General Assembly decided our first principle was “We affirm and promote the inherent worth and dignity of every individual.”  In a sense, we began by affirming our separation from one another.  Only after six other statements did we finally affirm our connection, our “respect for the interdependent web of all existence of which we are a part.”  As sociologist Robert N. Bellah asked in his June 27, 1998 address at General Assembly: “If we truly believe that we must “seek the truth in love” and not in aloneness, would we not place our last principle and purpose—respect for our connection—at the beginning?”

In our own lives, what gets priority—the value of autonomy, or the value of connection?

Now, I will be the first to admit that I resist being bound back to any greater fabric, even if it is one that is as liberal and as wise as Unitarian Universalism.  I am a skeptic of anything organized, let alone organized religion.  I am, in many ways, a loner, who savors the search in the wilderness.  I return to the village with great reluctance.

But I need the village.  We need the village.   We need to ask ourselves what we gain by being part of the village. 

We need to ask ourselves why we resist becoming more connected to this religious community.

I invite us to imagine together: How can we connect more deeply in this religious community?

• Perhaps, if you are a new visitor, it is through simply coming back again next Sunday.
• Perhaps, if we’ve been here longer, it is through staying at social hour and saying hello to someone we’ve never talked to before.  (We might meet the friend we are seeking, or become the friend some else needs.)
• Perhaps it is through joining us for next Sunday’s Holiday Open Houses, or for next Wednesday’s evening of candle-light and reflection at Loring House, or an Adult Enrichment class in the New Year.
• Perhaps it is through making religious education classes for our kids more of a priority, rather than coming when it is just convenient.
• Perhaps it is through joining a Chalice Circle and connecting to others who want to share the journey.
• Perhaps it is through volunteering to become a greeter or usher, and welcoming people as warmly as you were once welcomed.
  Perhaps it is through becoming part of the heart-beat of this church by joining a committee or a special task force.
• Perhaps it is through reconsidering how much money we share with this church community, remembering that Unitarian Universalists on average have the highest income level of any denomination in the country, and the lowest giving rate of any denomination in the country.
• If we’ve done all these things already, and I know there are some who have, first, I say, thank you, thank you, thank you.  And now, I invite you to consider something subtler, yet undeniably connective. 

There are so many ways to imagine how we can connect more deeply in this religious community.  Each one of us can connect more deeply in this living experience of love.

As Poet Krandall Kraus writes:

We . . . [are] . . . lucky we have each other to hold onto in this rocking
boat.  Lucky we believe in things deeper than flesh,
thinner than air.  Like good intention.  Like hope.
Like this rudderless [boat] . . . that keeps us (mostly) dry.

Together, in our tiny skiff we sail,
we navigate by the Evening Star.

Faithful, we wait
for some sign we have arrived at journey’s end—

. . . . and—when there are no stars to guide us—
We have . . . each other’s eyes.

May it be so.  Blessed Be.  Amen.

© Copyright 2006 Rev. Tim Kutzmark