Sermon by Rev. Dacia Reid, September 22, 2002
Unitarian Universalism earns its status as a funny faith in the complexly simple reality that unlike other faiths which have a creed or profession of faith that is necessary to espouse in order to be a legitimate participant or even welcome - We Unitarian Universalists welcome seekers and respect all faith traditions.
That being the case, our presence/presentation seems confused to onlookers who often conclude that we are, at best, wishy-washy.
Those who come to this conclusion are often surprised when they discover, usually by accident, that Unitarian Universalism has depth.
My most recent experience of this sort of surprise came this Spring with interfaith interim colleagues. There were five UU ministers among the 43 clergy completing the interfaith training for Interim Ministers. During the course of week together as various challenges of Interim Ministry were discussed, again and again we UUs were able to say that the UUA supported interim ministry with policy that colleagues in other denominations could only wish for. Some began to wonder why it was that the UUs - those creedless, wishy-washy, faithless people had such good policy.
We five UU ministers found ourselves explaining various aspects of Unitarian Universalism including our commitment to Right Relations to colleagues who had to pause and consider, some for the very first time, the possibility of depth and commitment where they had supposed none existed. In truth, it was very satisfying to have this opportunity to spread insight about Unitarian Universalism across multiple denominations.
We were also, often the ones who could find a Biblical interpretation of the various scriptures we studied that cut across doctrinal differences in ways that made the message broadly satisfying and kept the depth.
One person thought that we had come out of the creedless closet . . . we responded with the suggestion that it was our interfaith colleagues who had looked beyond their own doors.
These interfaith colleagues, like so many others who conclude that UUs are wishy-washy were surprised by their encounter with the depth of Unitarian Universalism.
People are also often surprised by the challenges of being a Unitarian Universalist. Universalism is generally singled out for greatest censure because of the Universalist refusal to pass judgment or even to agree that God judges and damns people.
The Universalist insistence that no one is damned because God loves each and every one of us, has raised eyebrows and hackles since its inception. For people for whom the primary motivator to goodness is to avoid damnation, or perhaps to be able to feel confident in damning others - the stance of Universalism is annoyingly nonsensical.
And it comes as a real surprise to discover that rather than being easy - Universalism is actually quite challenging.
Universalism requires us to sincerely seek, respect and honor the inherent worth and dignity - the goodness within every person - regardless of behavior.
Historically the Universalists felt that we should emulate God's non-judgmental love of every person. Contrary to many rapid conclusions - this does not mean that Universalists can do anything they want. Universalists did and do judge behavior, we do set limits and boundaries. The difference is that even as we do what may be necessary to protect society from aberrant behavior, Universalists are simultaneously striving to remember that every person regardless of behavior is loved by God.
It is a funny faith that guides us to love a person even if we condemn their behavior. Challenging as that aspect of Universalism may be, it can be even harder to keep love in our hearts toward someone whose behavior we resent or find irritating. And in this expression of Universalism I think that the sit-com character, Edith Bunker is the quintessential Universalist.
Perhaps you remember her; the wife of the Archie Bunker character on Norman Lear's, All in the Family program from the 1970s. Archie called his son-in-law, Michael - Meathead. He called his daughter, Gloria, Little Girl and he called his wife Edith, Dingbat! The Archie Bunker character simplified his life by clinging tenaciously to all his prejudices and making rapid black & white judgments at the top of his lungs.
Edith on the other hand always assumed the best. She saw, and did her best to defend what was good in each and every person. Occasionally a plot line would leave her totally distressed by Archie's insistence on his prejudices.
Watching the show you had to wonder why Edith would put up with such an unsupportive husband. . . . But then, once or twice in the entire multi-year run of All in the Family, the loving heart of Archie would shine through and the viewer, who by now has become as judgmental of Archie as he is of everyone else; is caught short with this demonstration of a loving essence hidden beneath a whole heap of prejudice.
And this is precisely the point of the Universalists - we may not be able to see through the heap of stuff surrounding any particular person - but God can - and in order emulate God's love, we must strive to discern that glimmer of true humanity beneath all the stuff. We will be imperfect in our attempts. Yet it is an imperative of our Unitarian Universalist faith that we try. And perhaps we can succeed in being at least as loving as Edith Bunker.
Unitarian Universalism - It is a funny faith.
Blessed Be, Amen.
It's a Funny Faith (Part 2)
Sermon by Rev. Kathleen McTigue, September 22, 2002
In her novel, Fly Away Home, Marge Piercy has a mother say of her daughters, "The girls had been raised Unitarian Universalist, which seemed a nice, sensible compromise between having no religion at all and having to lie about what we believe. Enough religion to be respectable but not enough to get in the way."
Ouch! It's that perception that Unitarian Universalism is somehow 'religion lite' -- that we offer a little something, but 'not enough to get in the way' -- that makes us so delicious a target for slightly barbed humor. Garrison Keillor loves to tell jokes at our expense. One of my favorites is when he declared, "Unitarian Universalists don't believe in sin, only in failures to communicate." He also invented a UU monastery in New Hampshire: "The rule there is complete silence, but if you think of something really good you can go ahead and say it."
Many years ago I clipped a cartoon in which members of a church softball league were complaining about having to play the Unitarians, saying, "They never like our rules! They always complain about 'three strikes and you're out' -- they want to change it to 'three strikes and you're special!' And a more recent UU joke lampooning our expansively open minds is framed as the old light bulb joke, going through how many it takes from various denominations to change one.
How many UUs does it take to change a light bulb? "We choose not to make a statement either in favor of or against the need for a lightbulb. However, if in your own journey you have found that light bulbs work for you, that is fine….We explore a number of light bulb traditions, including incandescent, fluorescent, three-way, long-life and tinted, all of which are equally valid paths to luminiescence."
And, if you can bear one more, another internet joke lists the changes UUs have supposedly made in traditional hymns. The list includes, "Amazing Grace, How Interesting the Sound", "Joyful, Joyful, We Kinda Like Thee", "Be Thou My Hobby" and "O God, Our Enabler in Ages Past".
It's not hard to compile a long list of UU jokes, and most of them are pretty funny. They circulate and continue their long lives mostly because Unitarian Universalists relish them and tell them on ourselves. It's good for us, as it is for everyone, to be able to see the humor in our own foibles or excesses.
But it's also important for us to remember that the jokes are funny precisely because they contain a grain of truth. We can let our much-vaunted freedom slide toward 'religion lite'. If we don't struggle with what it truly means to be religious together without the constraints of a creed, then we help fuel the perception that gives rise to all the jokes: that being creedless means that we're pointless, and that Unitarian Universalism is just enough to be respectable, but not enough to get in the way.
Needless to say, I don't share that assessment of our faith, and I don't think that most people arrive at our doors hoping for something mushy and bland. In fact, I think most of us come here in search of the exact opposite: I think we come week after week because we need a religion that does get in the way.
We need a religion that gets in the way when we're drowning in busyness or triviality and when the profound disconnections of our society leave us isolated and alone and lost. We need a religion that gets in the way of the relentless drumbeat of consumerism, that seduces both us and our children with the message that the more we buy, the happier we'll be.
We need a religion that gets in the way of our blasé assumptions or our boredom, and wakes us up to the dazzling presence of holiness and mystery in each ordinary day. We need a religion that gets in the way of the forces that that would shatter our world into warring camps. We need a religion that gets in the way of 'us versus them' and shines a bright light on the infinite nuances of the real world. We need a religion that shows us our radical dependence on all the peoples of the earth and on the earth itself. We need a religion that gets in the way because it urges us to get in the way, to get up and out and in the way of oppression, intolerance and injustice.
That's the religion I think we find in Unitarian Universalism. When we take it seriously, in a full-strength dose, it gives us more than enough religion to get in the way. But whether it exists in the world in that full-strength dose depends on us, and on all of those who embrace this spiritual journey with us, whether born to it or arriving late in life. We are the bearers of the good news, the gospel message if you will, of this faith, and we are the ones who will determine whether or not it is taken seriously in this generation.
That doesn't mean we have to lose our sense of humor, or rise up in offense at Garrison Keillor or the ghosts of the Internet when UU jokes start circulating. I hope we can still laugh at the jokes, still tell them on ourselves, while holding to the crystal-clear knowledge that they are just jokes. Our faith itself is not a joke, but a living message of hope embodied in people who want desperately to make a difference in a wounded world.
My colleague Jack Young once wrote, "It is the purpose of the Unitarian Universalist congregation to create and nurture the conditions for transformation…Our churches [and societies] are communities in which the search for wholeness is a shared question."
There will always be those who find it odd and funny that we share questions, over and over again, and are very sparing with our answers. But in a fragile and ever-changing world, the skill to ask the right questions is essential. How can I awaken more fully to the wonder of my life? What is asked of me? How shall we live together? How are my brother and sister faring, half a world away? How might I be of use? By asking, we stay open to the answer that arises in each moment, and we aid each other in acting on those answers, even when they are difficult ones. That's how we shape our faith together. That's how our religion gets in the way.
It is a funny faith. But it's no joke.
AMEN.