A sermon delivered byRev. Rudi Gelsey, October 1, 1995,at the Unitarian Universalist Fellowship of the New RiverValley.
There are many arguments against joining a UnitarianUniversalist congregation. Perhaps, on the top of each pagein 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 ofChristianity and respectability. In college towns likeBlacksburg, we might additionally be seen as ruggedindividualists, elitists or academics removed from everydaylife.
Despite such misgivings, there are good reasons to come onboard. It is our best chance to offer kids a religiouseducation without indoctrination. Fun friends and kindredspirits congregate here. We are a community that has thecourage to confront as a group, rather than in isolation,corporate challenges such as fundamentalism and theChristian right.
Perhaps what most of us dearly want is to belong to alife-affirming, life-giving community, a community of caringand sharing, where we are not forced into a dogmaticstraight-jacket of the mind.
In any Unitarian Universalist congregation you will findmembers who differ theologically and otherwise. Unity is notachieved 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 arewelcome.
We make room for people who dare to be honest to God andhonest with each other.
What brings us together is the respect we have for everyperson's dignity and freedom of conscience.
Our faith, as envisioned by some of our prophets likeEmerson, Thoreau, Carl Sandburg, challenges us to beinwardly centered, true to our higher selves. A world filledwith addiction, violence and make-believe cries out fornon-conformists. Jesus already said "Be not conformed to theworld." Perhaps it is not too farfetched to claim that atour best we are more attuned to the spirit of Jesus thansome conventional Christians.
Consider. The early Unitarians and Universalists wanted thereal Jesus, the itinerant preacher who proclaimed "Love yourneighbor as thyself", not the distant Christ of dogma.
Jesus was a Jew, though not an orthodox one. UnitarianUniversalism comes out of the womb of the Judeo-Christianheritage, but we distance ourselves from the rigidities oforthodoxy, 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 ritualslike animal sacrifice. Similarly, we are troubled bycommunion, partaking of the body and blood of Christ, ratherthan his spirit.
The heart was more important to Jesus than purity of kosherfood. The heart is more vital to us than purity of doctrine.
As we are faced with a punitive Congress and a mean-spiritedelectorate, let us remind ourselves and ourfellow-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 havebeen told of old..., but I say unto you".
His vision of society was was topsy-turvy, like Alice's inWonderland. "The first shall be the last in the Kingdom ofHeaven." By first he meant the political, social andreligious establishment. Jesus was grounded in acounter-cultural stance.
Saint Paul's glorification of Christ, St-Augustine'soriginal sin, Tertullian's misogyny would have shockedhim. The Church Fathers paved the way to remake our fineUnitarian and Universalist precursors like Arius, Pelagius,Origen and Michael Servetus into heretics to be exiled orburned.
Similarly today, the Rush Limbaughs and the Pat Robertsonsof this world fault religious liberals for all that is wrongwith society. Rush, with an audience of about 20 millionAmericans, advocates only enough mercy and I quote "to leavesome liberals alive, so that we can show our children whatthey were". Variations on the theme of a "final solution"have not lost their appeal among some fanatical truebelievers.
My vision of Unitarian Universalist congregations is not asa pathetic remnant a la Rush Limbaugh, but as thriving,life-giving, caring and sharing communities, here in NewRiver 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 onguilt, fear and anger.
A community that accepts, even cherishes diversity.
A community where we do not speak ill of our neighbor, wherewe own our shadow, instead of looking for scapegoats andprojecting blame.
A community where atheists are mystics and mystics areinvolved 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 withrugged individualism. I would offer individuation as moreappropriately descriptive .
The word comes to us from the realm of psychotherapy,literally the "healing of the soul", healing the splitbetween our ego, the isolated, encapsulated self and theinterconnected, universal Self.
Individualism in current usage often connotes selfishness,at the expense of community. Individuation links my uniqueperson-hood to the larger picture, connecting me to all ofnature, humanity and the cosmos.
The individualist tends to stand by himself, alienated oraloof from community.
The individuated person combines the inward center withbeing in relationship.
The covenant in the Hebrew Bible was about the chosenpeople, the promised land, and God's assurance that He wouldrain neither floods nor nuclear destruction upon the world.
The covenant of the New Testament is Christians as thepeople 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 ourdiversities; a desire to nurture a caring community ofloving-kindness, justice and peace.
Are we ready to enter into such a covenant with each other?
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