Past Sermons by Rev. George Smith, Retired

The Good News of Unitarian Universalism

May 5, 2002

READINGS:

From THE UNITARIAN WAY by Phillip Hewett, UU minister

It is nonsense for critics to say that one can believe whatever one likes and still be a Unitarian. It is not possible to believe in the virtues of racism, totalitarianism, irrationalism and dogmatism and still be a Unitarian. It is not possible to repudiate all concern for the well-being of one’s fellows and still be a Unitarian. It is not possible to believe that life is totally worthless and meaningless and still be a Unitarian. There is a Unitarian consensus on Major principles, though not on the specifics that represent the individual character of each one of us, and these common principles are capable of being articulated in words.

Unitarians…have been called atheists, though such name-calling is cause for little concern. It is by one’s way of life that one must ultimately be judged, not by the words one uses or does not use. It may be sufficient to have a humility and reverence toward the mystery of being, an attempt to live by the highest values, and a feeling of essential oneness…

No one person, no one faith, no one book, no one institution has all the answers, nor even any patent on the way of finding answers. Inspiration, discovery, insight, wisdom: these are to be found among people belonging to all religious traditions, coming from all parts of the earth and from all periods of history. Religion as a universal feature of human life is broader than the specific forms taken by the various institutions and traditions that call themselves religions.

Jabez T. Sunderland, late 1800’s

Unitarianism, to be true to its great name, must be the religion of the Eternal Unities…All the religious faiths in their deeper meanings are one; all social interests are one; humanity is one; all life is strangely one; all worlds unite to make one orderly and harmonious universe. The mission of Unitarianism is nothing less than to be faithful to this truth, in all that is deepest and most religiously significant in it.

This past week Joanne and I went to Virginia Beach to see John Gilson in the hospital. As I muddled along trying to find the place—Joanne said something like, "why don’t you stop and ask for directions." When we came to the next stop light she then rolled down her window, shouted to the person next to us getting his attention and asked for directions to the Virginia Beach General Hospital. Sometime later as I thought about her original comment I said to her, "you know, if Christina Columbus had been the leader of the Nina, Pinta and Santa Maria, she would have asked for directions to the new world, finding none, she would have returned to Spain and have discovered nothing. It was because Christopher was willing to continue on without directions that he found the new world.

In defense of Joanne, I should have gotten the information as to how to get there ahead of time so we would not have spent so much time trying to find the place.

This story though illustrates what I want to talk about this morning—different groups are challenged by their own peculiar perspectives to see things differently from what the other groups see when confronted with life’s problems and the search for life’s meanings. We, UUs, see things differently from those who consider themselves fundamentalists. Each finds the other’s ways peculiar to put it in its best light.

I believe our perspective, as I am sure that they do, is Good News for all!! It is liberating Good News. I only wish I had the great ability of the old time gospel preachers to inspire you with this Good News, to offer you a changed life because of it. I would have a fantastic story to tell this Good News of Unitarian Universalism. The positive story of a life, of real life, lived fully and freely. Life growing out of own potentials with a conscience to do good in this world. It would not be Hell Fire and Brimstone. It would be of human progress and human ability. It would not be of human depravity, but of human possibilities. Not of salvation by a supernatural being, but of human capabilities to grow, develop and change and yes to love.

Unitarian Universalism is the Good News we all need in this day and age and in this very place where we live. Often the free interchange of ideas are stifled here. For instance other than the aides taskforce connected with All Saints Episcopal and its hotline connection, it is difficult if not impossible to talk publicly about Aides, and to develop an Aides educational program. So we suffer with the tragedy of people contracting Aides for lack of good education or good public policy of openly dealing with Aides. We live in a place afraid of Paganism as if it were some demonic force out to destroy us when in reality it is a religion of peace, concerned about the eternalness of the living earth and the sanctity of all life. We live in a place where two people of the same sex who deeply love and care for each other can’t openly express that love for fear of being shunned and ostracized by the community. We live in a place where fear of the different runs rampant. Where different religious expressions are not valued. Where life is to be lived by one pattern only. We live in a place where fundamentalists’ expression of the Good News is really Bad News. That bad news is the demeaning of womanhood relegating her to a servant to men. It is touting human depravity as the default pattern of our individual behavior. It doesn’t accept the advances of intellectual inquiry. It fosters human depression and low self esteem, destroys our own inquisitiveness and sense of exploration, and rends the fabric of human togetherness. It is Bad News. It is Bad News for a time that doesn’t need Bad News

We have the Good News that is needed. Humans can be good, can make good choices responsibly. We can create a world that is caring, just, and equitable. We believe this!! This Good News. We have believed it for over 450 years, beginning when Michael Servetus a Spaniard who challenged the religious leaders of his day to reconsider the doctrine of the trinity. He challenged the hierarchies of his time to see in fact that Jesus could indeed have been just as human as the rest of us and have changed the world without having to be considered as a deity. The Anabaptist of Servetus’ time in Northern Europe and the humanist of Italy each understood that human conscience could guide our own individual religious faiths to right action. The Univeralists several centuries later, believed that you do not need the punishment of hell to live a good life. Through the years reformers in the US were predominantly UUs, Dorothea Dix worked with the mentally ill, women’s rights activists, Susan B. Anthony, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, the development of public education, Horace Mann, and the anti-slavery movement and much later Civil Rights and Anti-war and now the issue of Globalization. All of these illustrate that we believe that live can be changed here and now.

Over these 450 years our religion has developed and changed. Firstly we have moved beyond our Christian roots, but not abandoning all of its precepts. We have grown to include all faiths in our understanding of the human condition.

Secondly, the liberating Good News that we offer has grown in its understanding of the freedom to explore for ourselves the important questions of life such as what meaning does life have, what is our purpose in life, and what hopes do we have about life? I’m sure many of you have seen Bill Boards and Bumper Stickers that read, Jesus is the answer. That is the fundamentalists approach—an answer to be learned not a question to be explored. It is our liberating Good News that encourages our individual involvement and responsibility in finding our religious path. The Good News we offer is an approach to life and not an answer to these questions. The Good News is that you are responsible to follow your own religious path be it Humanist, Pagan, Christian, Buddhist, B’hai, Moslem, Spiritualist, some combination of these or some very personal way not described.

Thirdly, instead of following a catechism or a Biblical text we immerse ourselves in a faith which is a process that encourages us to be active decision making on our own, balancing our intellect, the reasoning struggle to discover universal truths supported by our senses and memory, with feelings molding all into an act of will, a commitment to action, and yet being willing to honor doubt and its ability to help us see different points of view. Intuition adds to our discovery inspirations, imaginings, and the great power to synthesize. And our own conscience helps us to work out moral dilemmas.

Fourthly we develop a responsible path for ourselves that struggles with the paradox of personalism while existing in a community, the very fabric of diversity. We struggle with those principles with which our community has come to agreement that help us to find our own religious path. It is collaborative, one that includes our own thinking and feelings, while inviting us to share these with others so that dialogue can help us test our ideas modifying them in light of other’s experiences and our own.

A fifth aspect of the Good News of Unitarian Universalism is the affirmation of personal freedom in religious decision making. We throw off the arbitrary constraints of dogmatism. How much of life and energy of life is wasted on trying to make ourselves and others fit into dogmatic patterns. How much more creativity could there be if we all would be free to explore our real selves. And lest we make freedom libertarianism it is not an end in itself but a means to fulfill our unique potentialities. Liberty is always limited by the demands of truth. And it is knowledge that liberates because it helps us to see the constraints of truth. This freedom to search for the truth is the power of the Good News of Unitarian Universalism.

The individual search however is balanced by a social responsibility. It is love that stretches us beyond ourselves. Paul Tillich states that Love is drive toward the reunion of the separate. We yearn for union however we cannot maintain personal integrity without some strong sense of ourselves. Love is of self, neighbor, and beyond for some call it God others see it as the rhythms of nature, realization and joyous celebration of essential oneness of all things. It includes relationships and commitments. Love is power to bring lives together within freedom and responsibility. In 1812 an English Unitarian church had this motto, "take love as bond of union instead of faith." Our Church becomes an enterprise in loving an attempt to respond to others, to overcome isolation and alienation in a community seeking responsible fulfillment of freedom rather than a place to learn the dogma of faith. This love is expressed in the diversity that we have in joining together in spite of it so that we are a means of construction rather than destruction for the life of this world.

I want to finish with a story that I believe I used last Easter. But it seems so appropriate now.

Little Debra came home from school and ran upstairs as she usually did. Her mother shouted up to her to get ready because they were going to see Grandma. A few minutes later, she shouted up again to come down we were about to leave. She got no response. She shouted again. And still no response. She thought this strange because Debra loved to go see Grandma. So she went up stairs to see what was going on. Debra was sitting on her bed reading a book. Her mother asked, are ready to go? Debra replied, I’m not going. I hate to go to grandma’s. Why? I hate seeing her ugly hands and arms. They are disgusting. Her mother looked at her and thought for a while and then said to Debra. Debra I don’t agree with you. Those hands to me are the most beautiful hands in the world. Debra looked up at mother as if to say, you gotta be kidding. Then her mother said, Let me tell you a story. So she sat next to Debra, held her and told this story. A long time ago when I was a little baby. One night your grandmother was downstairs rocking in her chair and knitting. She all of a sudden smelled smoke. She looked all around downstairs but did not find any. She went up stairs and searched each of the rooms until she came to mine. When she opened the door it was filled with smoke and fire was on my crib almost to the spot where I lay. Your grandmother, quickly dashed to my rescue, beating out the flames and catching fire herself before she took me downstairs. Those ugly scares were life savors for me. Without them I would be dead. So you see those are the most beautiful hands in the world to me.

Little Debra, said to her mom, lets go see Grandma. When she got there she said to her grandmother, I want to see the most beautiful hands in the world.

You see folks what we have to offer is the freedom to explore. Not to be told. We have the freedom that can liberate. The freedom that can help love to grow. The freedom to include all in a great tapestry of diversity. The freedom to get beyond the superficial aspects of life and to see and explore the depths of meanings that are there. This is Good News. This what we are as Unitarian Universalists.