Recently, as I returned from the supermarket with three bags of groceries in hand, I stopped at 35th and Park for a "Don't Walk" sign. I put the bags down to rest a moment…It was Labor Day and quiet on the streets with little traffic and few pedestrians. As I waited for the traffic light to change I was startled by the sound of a sudden whoosh of air and a sharp thud.

As I looked around I couldn't see anything unusual at first. But then across the street near the corner [I spotted a large] book, open with its pages down and with a now slightly ripped binding. It was a thick hardback with a brown-orange cover -- a dangerous projectile, to say the least.

I stared upward to see if anything else were on its way, or if anyone would appear at a window displaying either distress or delight…[Some people] in a car, who had also stopped at the light, looked over at the book and then also tried to look up. No one appeared. No more books came flying out. All was quiet again…as I scanned the building for some clue.

The car moved on. I, however, with cautious glances skyward, crossed over to get a better look at this curious volume. The title…was printed in large capital letters: ORTHODOXY. My imagination went to work: Orthodoxy had been thrown out the window! I too have done that on many occasions…Our Unitarian Universalist heritage and religious faith encourage us to exercise freedom of belief and celebrate many paths of spiritual growth. Humanity is too diverse and too wonderfully imaginative to be compressed into one mold or creed.

I looked up again, hoping to see someone and to say, "Come visit across the street! There's a diverse community for you with a rich tradition and a life-affirming faith. Keep the best of what has nurtured you, but come explore with us!" But no one appeared, and the mystery [about Orthodoxy flying out the window on that street corner] remains….

Filling In the Blanks: Unitarian Universalism
Sermon by Rev. Kathleen McTigue, March 16, 2003

This past spring I read the following words in an article in The Christian Century : "In some parts of the country, the Ten Commandments make front-page news. Where they are already posted in schools and courtrooms, local authorities refuse to take them down. Where they have not yet been posted, those same authorities vote unanimously to display them, publicly defying the American Civil Liberties Union to do anything about it. One north Georgia county recently announced that three plaques would be installed in the courthouse: one engraved with the Ten Commandments, one with the Lord's prayer, and one blank plaque 'to stand for all of the other religions.'"

Well, I just had to clip that little item out -- it was far too provocative to forget. The willful ignorance contained in the gesture is enough to keep our attention for a while. The idea that a blank plaque somehow "stands for" Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism, Taoism, Ba'hai, Sufism, Humanism and all the other faith stances can leave one breathless. But it also offers a useful handle for thinking about our own faith, Unitarian Universalism. Because one of the most important commitments of our faith is to fill in the blanks: to notice where we are ignorant or biased or uninformed and to open our minds to new truth or to further revelation. We are an unorthodox faith because orthodoxy -- the notion that there is one correct way to do things, one right way of belief -- makes it virtually impossible to fill in the blanks.

The story Bruce Southworth tells in our reading is such a wonderful one it's a little hard to believe -- except for the fact that we all know that anything at all can happen in New York City. But that story, as much as I like it, gives me a little twinge of uneasiness too. I'm uneasy for the same reason that I recognize my people in the story: we like the idea of Orthodoxy going out the window. But is it only through the rejection of orthodoxy that we are brought to Unitarian Universalism?

Bruce Southworth says, "I looked up, hoping to see someone -- perhaps a fellow traveller -- and to say, Come visit across the street." Is it only when we see someone has tossed out orthodoxy that we think to issue an invitation, even a mild, friendly invitation to consider our faith?

Here's a favorite limerick of mine, and though I can't swear it was written by a UU, it's hard to imagine who it would fit better than it fits us:

Come return to your place in the pews
And hear our heretical views:
You were not born in sin,
So lift up your chin!
You have only your dogma to lose!

It's funny, and it's got some truth to it. But again it makes me wonder: is our strongest message one that simply defines us as a refuge for the religiously battered?

I think about my own religious journey, the path that led me, slowly and in many fits and starts, to Unitarian Universalism. I used to think of myself, almost apologetically, as a "back door" UU because it took me so long to decide that I belonged in this faith. For years I was loosely affiliated to several congregations, committed to none, and I was most of the way through seminary before I started to say, even to myself, "I am a Unitarian Universalist".

Now I don't think of myself as being a back-door UU, nor do I feel apologetic about my slow journey. As time goes on I realize how many doors to our congregations there are; none of them, really, is a "back" door. I also realize the benefit of taking one's time before saying "I am". It is a serious business to say "I am a Unitarian Universalist", and those who say it quickly and easily may also too often be the ones who quickly and easily leave us to try something else.

But what's most important about my own journey into this faith is that I was not a religious refugee. Although I'd been raised in the Catholic faith, I didn't leave it angrily; nor did I move straight from Catholicism into our fold. I was not so much driven from the faith of my childhood as I was drawn out of it by changing needs as I grew older.

I went from that Catholicism through a brief time of unchurched Christianity, and then into the secular world, pure and simple. So when I again began looking for a religious home, I didn't do it as someone who had just flung Orthodoxy out the window. It would be more accurate to say I was trying to reach for something beyond a secular world that had come to seem insufficient, sterile and deadening. In that sense I am typical of many of those who now find their way into our fold, especially those in their twenties and thirties.

UU minister Arvid Straube writes, "Unlike the traditional potential convert of Unitarian Universalism of past decades, people [these days] tend not to be fresh refugees from more orthodox religion. They do not need to rebel. They did their rebelling [already]. They are not looking for a refuge from Methodism, but from secularism, hedonism and consumerism."

My own initial doorway into UUism was through social action. I was a political activist, and this denomination had a widespread reputation for facilitating social action. I did not come looking for a community of activists, because I had that already. I came in search of a religious grounding for my activism.

I wanted a way to consider seriously with other people of faith what lay in the deep well of our longing for justice. I wanted to be with people who conversed passionately with each other not just about questions of strategy and political theory, but questions of meaning, of faith, of spirituality. I wanted an activist community made humble by its willingness to consider a frame of meaning so large that we couldn't see all its edges: a frame of meaning that allowed us to work against injustice without dehumanizing those with whom we disagreed. That vision was what drew me back toward religion, and ultimately to this faith.

There were some other things as well, and I share them with you today because I've learned that they are remarkably typical of what draws most people to our churches and societies around the country.

First, we are drawn to the UU emphasis on individual freedom for religious exploration. This is part of our commitment to filling in the blanks. We teach classes, for both our children and for adults, in which we learn from all faith perspectives. We do this not only as an intellectual exercise in comparative religion but because we believe we can gain in our spiritual lives, in our search for spiritual truth, by considering the truths found even by those who are very different from us. We are encouraged to dig deeply, to look for the areas of synthesis and commonality

Second, we're drawn by our need for a listening community. As we fumble our way toward articulation of our spiritual longings, we need companions who will draw us into that speech through the quality of their listening. We need a place where we can speak about Mystery, wonder aloud about reclaiming the language of holiness, move at our own pace toward the silence and the questions that characterize our seeking. We need to know we will be heard, with patience and support.

Third, this faith offers encouragement to revisit our spiritual roots as part of our new direction. This is where the image of throwing Orthodoxy out the window really doesn't fit. Many of us don't need to sever the connections as drastically as that. For me at least, my own past orthodoxy stays in an honored place on my bookshelves -- literally, in the form of many Catholic writers I respect, and figuratively in the way I honor my Catholic roots even while choosing a different direction for my beliefs. I'm not alone in this. And at its best, Unitarian Universalism makes room for the synthesis.

Fourth, Unitarian Universalism offers us a history and tradition that we can claim wholeheartedly. It thereby lets us be part of something larger than ourselves -- not just in terms of numbers but in longevity and history and impact on the world. Like many who are ignorant of our history, I once believed Unitarian Universalism to be a fairly immediate phenomenon. It was first startling, then encouraging, and finally deeply affirming to begin to know something of our 400 year history.

The part of our history and tradition to which I've always felt most drawn is the Universalist side. It was the Universalist voice that most pulled me in: the same voice that swept through 18th century America and captivated hundreds of thousands of people. These were not middle-class, well-educated people, but ordinary, working-class and farming people. Of that phenomenal movement, UU minister Scott Alexander writes, "[the substance of the dominant Calvinistic theology of the day was that]God is a distant, angry, and stern judge; humanity is a fallen and sinful beast; and most men, women and children are doomed to a hell of eternal damnation and misery for all their weakness and wickedness....

"The early Universalists, in direct contradiction to Puritanism's gloomy gospel, proclaimed that the essential qualities of God were not wrath, disgust, and judgment but goodness, mercy and love. The good news of Universalism was that ...all of God's children -- every man, woman and child -- regardless of station or personality, weakness or wickedness -- would ultimately be saved... God's salvation was offered to all, to the end that (as one Universalist put it) 'the last sinner will be dragged kicking and cursing into heaven'. What it means to be a Universalist, a real Universalist...is to have a heart that seeks and sees at every turn the natural worth and preciousness of people -- all people -- especially those very different from oneself."

That was the saving message of Universalism two centuries ago. The saving message of our faith today is very similar, but it is not a message framed by opposition to an angry and judgmental God. When that God was no longer the dominant image taught by mainstream religion, Universalism had some of the wind taken out of its sails and began to shrink, from the sixth largest denomination in our country to an almost miniscule size. But the message we offer today, the gospel we draw from both our Universalist and our Unitarian heritage, is still a saving gospel and still one that needs to be heard.

It is a gospel that says that revelation is not sealed, but continues to unfold before the seeking mind and heart; a gospel that says there is a "revel" in revelation, a celebration at the heart of things that's big enough, mysterious enough, to shepherd us through the very real suffering and loss and death which are part of every life. It is a gospel that says we are related to one another more deeply than any tribalism, ideology or conflict that separates us; that we are bound into a web of connection that makes us part of the planet on which we breathe; that because of that deep connection, every choice we make echoes with meaning, and matters profoundly.

This is our gospel, and it's one that needs to be heard today with more urgency than we can imagine. It needs to be heard by those who are disappointed or cynical or discouraged, those who feel worn down around the edges and are looking for a little hope. It needs to be heard by those who are full of joy, those who want more than anything in the world to be of use, those who want a way to amplify their voices for justice and peace. It needs to be heard by those who are raising children, and who want those children to recognize themselves as citizens, not of one nation only but of a fragile, interdependent and infinitely precious earth.

Not all of these people know that we're here. UU Harvey Joyner writes, "[While we ridicule] fundamentalists for their seemingly boundless zeal and their overly simplistic answers, why are we smugly content with our self-description as 'the best-kept secret in town'? Our story is rich with the personalities of those who have suffered, bled, and died that we might inherit a legacy of freedom and promise. Our cause is for the enhancement of human dignity and for creating inclusive circles of love. That is our gospel. That is our good news. Isn't it about time that we go tell it on the mountain?"

Seven or eight years ago, one day in the fall when my oldest daughter, Hannah, was not yet three, I was driving the children home, lost in thought, when Hannah announced, "Mommy, in that house we passed there was a person and a dog." Thinking about the many Halloween decorations that were still around, I asked whether the person and dog were real or pretend? And she said, "They were real".

Then I went on about my ponderings until, a full two or three minutes later, Hannah asked, "Mommy, are we real or pretend?"
"Well, I think we're real. What do you think?"
"I think we're real, too." Another long pause.
"Mommy, what happens when you're real?"

"Well, we feel things when we're real; sometimes we laugh because we're happy, and sometimes we cry because we're sad. And we think things when we're real. We move around and do things when we're real..."
"And", she said with great conviction, "sometimes we make up songs."

Hannah's questions offer a little short-cut to the heart of the religious quest, as I understand it. Are we real, or are we pretend? Most of us are probably not as real as we could be, not as real as we want to be. But we have a gospel that tells us that a deeper authenticity, richer understandings of truth and a wider embrace of love are possible, and are beckoning all of us. It's our job to answer the summons. AMEN.