Mutuality. This is a lens and a language that we have not focused on explicitly before…though for a liberal religious faith grounded in love, mutuality has to be part of our practice.

But let me start with the basics.

Vocabulary.com defines mutuality as a reciprocal relation between interdependent entities (objects or individuals or groups).

So to break that down: A reciprocal relation. It goes both ways. A push here…causes response over there. Empowerment here…calls out resistance there. And sometimes…liberation over here frees an entire system.

A reciprocal relation ‘between people or groups that are interdependent.’

People or groups that are bound together in an inescapable network of mutuality.

That is Dr. King’s language, of course:

“All this is simply to say,” Dr. King preached, “that all life is interrelated. We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality; tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly. As long as there is poverty in this world, no [person] can be totally rich, even if [they have] a billion dollars…Strangely enough, I can never be what I ought to be until you are what you ought to be. You can never be what you ought to be until I am what I ought to be.”

Bound together. The interdependent web of which we are [all] a part. That is the language from our UU Principles…this not only suggests but requires mutuality.

We are already in relationship. Already dependent and interdependent.

BUT… that relationship, that dependence and interdependence says nothing about the power, or the privilege that one or the other partner may have in that reciprocal relationship. And it most certainly does not require that the interdependent parties…those people and groups in mutual relationship…it does not require that they be equal or even recognize the inherent worth and dignity of the other.

Dorothy Cotton was one of the only women in Dr. King’s inner circle. She was interviewed before she died by UU minister, Charles Johnson:

“I asked her to describe [the experience of being in Dr. King’s inner circle]. The question was followed by silence. When she spoke, I knew that whatever I heard would be only a glimmer of a much larger light. ‘Oh, in the beginning they were a bunch of chauvinists…’ She went on to recount how she would always be the one asked to make the coffee or serve as secretary, though she had as many other duties as the men did.

There was no bitterness in her voice. [And] She immediately followed with an account of what it felt like to be in the eye of that storm.

‘I don’t think people know how much fun it was to work with Dr. King. Singing…eating…working…praying and dancing.’”

What I heard her saying, Charles concludes, was that love, clarity of intention, and the capacity for joy and celebration are welcome, and necessary companions in the struggle.”

Dorothy Cotton describes a deeply felt mutuality and reciprocity grounded in commitment to a vision of Beloved Community. And joy in the struggle toward that vision.

But she also acknowledges the imbalance of power and the operation of patriarchy in the inner circle in that movement for justice…that movement we still hold up as a shining example of successful social change.

This may be the first time that we are focusing on the theme of mutuality, but we have been living in interdependent times for a long, long time and it does not take long to get to the 201 level in this examination.

Because it is not enough, in these days, to proclaim that single garment of destiny, not enough on this day to speak of interdependence…

Because we are not living in a colorblind society. And events in Washington demonstrate conclusively that patriarchy has not been vanquished.

And I am not trying to claim some moral high ground for myself…here in this pulpit. Because I am a person of color some of you who identify as women may be willing to “cut me some slack” but I am also a tall male-identified person who has been swimming in the warm waters of patriarchy all my life. I resist…I’ve resisted that comfort for many years…I fight against it…just as those of you who are white resist the privilege that is yours by virtue of your skin…

But we are all in this mutual relationship, this reciprocal relationship of benefit and cost…

None of us are exempt. None of us exist outside this sytem.

A push here…causes response over there. Privilege here…requires penalty there. Empowerment here…calls out resistance there. And sometimes…sometimes…liberation over here frees an entire system.

I had thought, when I planned this sermon, that I would be in teaching mode. I thought that I would share with you some of the origin story, the creation story of covenant in our religious tradition.

And I do want to do that. But I also want to critique our theology of covenant.

Covenant is too important a religious resource for us not to inspect it and allow it to be transformed as our own understandings deepen.

The story that Cassandra told about the children creating a covenant to govern their behavior…that’s ‘heady’ language, of course…but it describes a process in which those kids, members of a community, agree to limits, to rules…in order to co-exist…and to enjoy…to find joy in their mutual life together.

Individuals voluntarily agree to “bind” themselves so that they can be free to enjoy life…

Freedom grows out of that place of limit.

It is a paradox…of course. How being freely bound can empower us to enjoy the fullness of life.

Bear with me for just a minute or two, because as Unitarian Universalists you should at least have heard about the source of our practice of covenant.

The Cambridge Platform, written, by committee, in 1648 New England laid out our first religious agreements about covenant in this country.

All of those folks, and there are quite a few in this community, who have been through seminary…I can see you cringing…”Oh, no…he’s not going to preach about the Cambridge Platform”…we all had to study it:

“Real agreement and consent they do express by their constant practice of coming together for the public worship of God (this is 17th century religious language and sensibility)…

“By their constant practice of coming together for the public worship of God and by their religious subjection (obedience) to the ordinances of God”…God’s laws…

(Chapter 4; Section 4: Voluntary Agreement)

Our Puritan religious ancestors spoke of a Covenant of Grace…They said God, by the working of grace, creates the community of regenerated souls…Saints by Choice…who freely choose to be bound.

Covenant, preached Puritan Richard Mather, “may be implied by constant and frequent acts of communion performed by a company of Saints joined together…the falling in of their spirits into communion in things spiritual.”

The falling in of our spirits into communion.

What a lovely phrase and what a simple and powerful and faithful statement of purpose.

And it worked for a while. While the Puritan society was uniform and closely knit, that simply theology and practice of covenant worked just fine.

But the image of the City on the Hill, the New Jerusalem, that image that the Cambridge Platform undergirded…it fell apart as immigrants who did not share in the Puritans’ community or system of belief began to populate New England. Native Americans were excluded from the covenant almost from the beginning, but that is a longer story for another day.

The Cambridge Platform fell apart around differences of identity and distance, and differences of power and privilege.

There is much more to the story of covenant in our tradition, but for today it is the difficulty of dealing with difference that I want to hold up.

Because, today, that one dimensional understanding of covenant does not serve us well..as we deepen our understanding of how power and privilege move around us, and among us and within us.

We will have to transform our theology of covenant.

No longer can covenants based on sameness serve us. We need covenants that can hold our differences. We need covenants that can support the transformation of our culture…rather than resist that transformation.

We need covenants that can allow us to hold hands across the divides of difference.

Change agent Fran Peavey writes:

“One day I was walking through the Stanford University campus with a friend when I saw a crowd of people with cameras and video equipment on a little hillside.

They were clustered around a pair of chimpanzees – a male running loose and a female on a chain about twenty-five feet long. It turned out the male was from Marine World and the female was being studied for something or other at Stanford.

The spectators were all scientists and publicity people trying to get them to mate.
The cameras were there to record the event.

[Bill: It is not hard to miss the violence and the inhumanity involved.]

The male was eager. He grunted and grabbed the female’s chain and tugged. She whimpered and backed away. He pulled again. She pulled back. Watching the chimps’ faces, I began to feel sympathy for the female.

Suddenly the female chimp yanked her chain out of the male’s grasp.

To my amazement, she walked through the crowd, straight over to me, [Gail writes] and took my hand. Then she led me across the circle to the only other two women in the crowd, and she joined hands with one of them. The four of us stood together in a circle. I remember the feeling of that rough palm against mine. The little chimp had recognized us and reached out across all the years of evolution to form her own women’s support group.”

Alone, in the face of the greed and the violence that confronts us, there is so little hope.

Richard Rodriquez, in his book, “Brown” speaks to our American valuing of the individual and to our need for community.

“Americans are so individualistic, they do not realize their individualism is a communally derived value. [In order to be individualistic, one must have a strong sense of oneself within a group. The ‘we’ is a precondition for saying ‘I’. “You Americans [a friend from abroad once told me] are not truly individualistic, you merely are lonely.”

Lonely individuals, proclaiming and clinging to our independence, when the truth is that we depend so entirely on the community in which we live.

We need a practice in which we find a commitment to “we” that is as compelling as our affirmation of “I.”

This weekend, we are confronting the fundamental failure of the concept of covenant and the practices of governing ourselves that were enshrined by our Founding “Fathers”…

I sometimes wonder…perhaps I fantasize…what our democracy might look like today if there had been even a few Founding Mothers…

But there were not. This democracy was born in and designed to serve both patriarchy and racism. That is the cultural water in which we still swim.

And we are witnesses not only to its failure in Washington but to its failure in us as well.

We need a more perfect union. A deeper covenant.

We are all in this mutual relationship, this reciprocal relationship of benefit and cost…

A push here…causes response over there. Privilege here…requires penalty there. Empowerment here…calls out resistance there. And sometimes…sometimes…liberation over here frees an entire system.

The original Puritan covenant assumed free and equal individuals “falling into communion.”

In these days, we need a deeper understanding of difference, so that our covenant can recognize and value all of who we are.

If we simply “fall into communion” without that depth of understanding, we bring with us all of the punishing lessons we have learned swimming in the waters of this culture.

These are difficult days…and more difficult days lie ahead.

And I do not pretend to know how this will all play out. I gave up my crystal ball some time ago.

But I know this. We have no choice but to find strength in one another.

We must resist. But more important, by far, we must find strength in one another…in the beauty and the power of our differences…

There simply is no other choice.

And if that female chimp can make common cause, can “fall into communion” with her sisters across the chasm of evolution, can we not find a way to make common cause today?

As a religious person, it is an article of faith for me…and I believe for you… that there simply is no other choice.

Rev. David Miller inspired me with these words in a post this weekend: “We must resist these people who have lost their souls, who find power too enticing to see the humanity in others, whose fear or greed breaks their bonds with kindness and compassion…” breaks their bonds with kindness and compassion… “we must resist their version and vision of this country and replace it. There simply is no other choice.”

And so let us promise, let us covenant to build Beloved Community in every way we can. In little random acts and grand gestures. However, wherever and whenever we can.

You are loved. And you are strong. You are seen.

And even when we fail to see one another completely. Even when we struggle to understand one another and even when we question whether we truly believe one another.

Even then, we know:

A push here…causes response over there. Privilege here…requires penalty there. Empowerment here…calls out resistance there.

And sometimes…sometimes…liberation over here helps to free us all.

So may it be and amen.

Prayer

Will you pray with me?

Spirit of Life that moves within us. Move too among us.

Help us remember that we live in the rich truth of connection, in that inescapable network of mutuality…that single garment of destiny.

Help us know more and more deeply that our hope is to be found in one another.

May we discover that the shallow rewards of self-interest and the illusion of separateness only hold us back, leaving us lonely.

May we discover new ways to reach across the borders of difference.

And may we discover that common cause has, like the presence of love itself, always been available, always ready to answer our open hearted yearning for justice and for equity and for compassion.

We have no choice. There is no choice that keeps us whole.

Be with us. Help us. And hold us through these days. Amen

Topics: Mutuality