A sermon delivered by Rev. Rudi Gelsey, October 1, 1995, at the Unitarian Universalist Fellowship of the New River Valley.
There are many arguments against joining a Unitarian Universalist congregation. Perhaps, on the top of each page in the membership book we ought to inscribe a warning: "Signing this book may be hazardous to your reputation."
We are characterized as rebels on the fringes of Christianity and respectability. In college towns like Blacksburg, we might additionally be seen as rugged individualists, elitists or academics removed from everyday life.
Despite such misgivings, there are good reasons to come on board. It is our best chance to offer kids a religious education without indoctrination. Fun friends and kindred spirits congregate here. We are a community that has the courage to confront as a group, rather than in isolation, corporate challenges such as fundamentalism and the Christian right.
Perhaps what most of us dearly want is to belong to a life-affirming, life-giving community, a community of caring and sharing, where we are not forced into a dogmatic straight-jacket of the mind.
In any Unitarian Universalist congregation you will find members who differ theologically and otherwise. Unity is not achieved through uniformity, prescribed rituals and creeds, an apostolic hierarchy or an overbearing bureaucracy.
Here, whether you believe in God or not, you are accepted.
Whether your foremost source of inspiration is Jesus, Buddha, Martin Luther King or Mother Nature, you are welcome.
We make room for people who dare to be honest to God and honest with each other.
What brings us together is the respect we have for every person's dignity and freedom of conscience.
Our faith, as envisioned by some of our prophets like Emerson, Thoreau, Carl Sandburg, challenges us to be inwardly centered, true to our higher selves. A world filled with addiction, violence and make-believe cries out for non-conformists. Jesus already said "Be not conformed to the world." Perhaps it is not too farfetched to claim that at our best we are more attuned to the spirit of Jesus than some conventional Christians.
Consider. The early Unitarians and Universalists wanted the real Jesus, the itinerant preacher who proclaimed "Love your neighbor as thyself", not the distant Christ of dogma.
Jesus was a Jew, though not an orthodox one. Unitarian Universalism comes out of the womb of the Judeo-Christian heritage, but we distance ourselves from the rigidities of orthodoxy, its patriarchal milieu and the Christian right.
Jesus did not care about the letter of the law, nor do we.
Jesus was prophetic in terms of rejecting Temple rituals like animal sacrifice. Similarly, we are troubled by communion, partaking of the body and blood of Christ, rather than his spirit.
The heart was more important to Jesus than purity of kosher food. The heart is more vital to us than purity of doctrine.
As we are faced with a punitive Congress and a mean-spirited electorate, let us remind ourselves and our fellow-Christians of the example of Jesus.
He did not judge or reject the poor, the disabled, the sick, the disadvantaged, the women, the children. He loved them, encouraged and healed them.
Jesus was not wedded to orthodoxy or orthopraxis: "You have been told of old..., but I say unto you".
His vision of society was was topsy-turvy, like Alice's in Wonderland. "The first shall be the last in the Kingdom of Heaven." By first he meant the political, social and religious establishment. Jesus was grounded in a counter-cultural stance.
Saint Paul's glorification of Christ, St-Augustine's original sin, Tertullian's misogyny would have shocked him. The Church Fathers paved the way to remake our fine Unitarian and Universalist precursors like Arius, Pelagius, Origen and Michael Servetus into heretics to be exiled or burned.
Similarly today, the Rush Limbaughs and the Pat Robertsons of this world fault religious liberals for all that is wrong with society. Rush, with an audience of about 20 million Americans, advocates only enough mercy and I quote "to leave some liberals alive, so that we can show our children what they were". Variations on the theme of a "final solution" have not lost their appeal among some fanatical true believers.
My vision of Unitarian Universalist congregations is not as a pathetic remnant a la Rush Limbaugh, but as thriving, life-giving, caring and sharing communities, here in New River Valley and from coast to shining coast.
What do I mean by life-giving communities?
A community whose cornerstones is the harmony of compassion, love, beauty, justice and freedom.
A community where the inner and the outer person seek to be at one.
A community based on joy and celebration rather than on guilt, fear and anger.
A community that accepts, even cherishes diversity.
A community where we do not speak ill of our neighbor, where we own our shadow, instead of looking for scapegoats and projecting blame.
A community where atheists are mystics and mystics are involved in the world.
A community where meditation and music replace gossip.
In short, a community that cares and shares.
Our Unitarian faith has often been wrongly identified with rugged individualism. I would offer individuation as more appropriately descriptive .
The word comes to us from the realm of psychotherapy, literally the "healing of the soul", healing the split between our ego, the isolated, encapsulated self and the interconnected, universal Self.
Individualism in current usage often connotes selfishness, at the expense of community. Individuation links my unique person-hood to the larger picture, connecting me to all of nature, humanity and the cosmos.
The individualist tends to stand by himself, alienated or aloof from community.
The individuated person combines the inward center with being in relationship.
The covenant in the Hebrew Bible was about the chosen people, the promised land, and God's assurance that He would rain neither floods nor nuclear destruction upon the world.
The covenant of the New Testament is Christians as the people of God and the Church as the body of Christ.
A covenant for Unitarian Universalists is more attitudinal than theological: to be gentle with one another; a commitment to respect our diversities; a desire to nurture a caring community of loving-kindness, justice and peace.
Are we ready to enter into such a covenant with each other?
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