Call to Worship
Our call to worship this morning comes from Frederick Buechner, writer and theologian who died this past week at the age of 96:
“Listen to your life. See it for the fathomless mystery it is. In the boredom and pain of it, no less than in the excitement and gladness: touch, taste, smell your way to the holy and hidden heart of it, because in the last analysis all moments are key moments, and life itself is grace.”
Good people we come together on this day to journey together to bear witness to all the moments of our lives, that we might find our way in the midst of all the beauty and the brokenness of life and through it all known moments of grace.
Come, now, and let us worship together.
Sermon
This summer our worship services have explored our Unitarian Universalist seven principles. One principle for each of the last several Sundays. This has felt like a good and appropriate theme, especially at this particular moment in history. In May of 2021 this congregation became one of over 160 Unitarian Universalist congregations and institutions to adopt what we call the 8th principle. Which would make explicit our commitment to be a diverse, multicultural and anti-racist faith. And indeed this 8th principle proposal is part of a larger process to review and rearticulate the core principles of our faith tradition. So even as we look forward it is also good to look at how we got where we are.
So today I’d like to conclude this summer’s exploration with some reflections on the principles as we’ve known them and how they came to be and also to ask what they might mean for us as a faith looking forward—as individuals and as a community.
But before we get too far along in this I have a confession to make about those seven principles. I have been really good at remembering the first one—about the inherent worth and dignity of all people and the seventh one—about the interdependent web of existence of which we are a part. But it is all those in the middle that I have to admit I have not always been so good at remembering, at least not very articulately.
If you have also had trouble remembering some or all of them I hope this might serve as an invitation to explore the principles, no matter how many you are able to call to mind. So as we begin today, I’d like to invite us to say together those principles.
We, the member congregations of the Unitarian Universalist Association, covenant to affirm and promote
- The inherent worth and dignity of every person;
- Justice, equity and compassion in human relations;
- Acceptance of one another and encouragement to spiritual growth in our congregations;
- A free and responsible search for truth and meaning;
- The right of conscience and the use of the democratic process within our congregations and in society at large;
- The goal of world community with peace, liberty, and justice for all;
- Respect for the interdependent web of all existence of which we are a part.
And please join in what would be the 8th principle.
“Journeying toward spiritual wholeness by working to build a diverse multicultural Beloved Community by our actions that accountably dismantle racism and other oppressions in ourselves and our institutions.”
So let’s begin this morning with some history.
Those principles we just shared, except for the 8th, date back to 1985 and for the last several decades have been an important part of how it is we talk about our faith tradition. But before those principles there was another set of principles that date all the way back to the early 1960s. We’ll get to those in a moment.
It was in the late 1950s and early 60s when our present denomination was coming into being with the merger of the Unitarians and the Universalists. At the time they were considered the two most liberal denominations around and they were both declining both in terms of membership and influence. Through the 1940s and 50s they started doing more things together. But even as they had many things in common, each came at what they believed differently.
The Universalists centered their theology on a God of love. That everyone, eventually, would find themselves reconciled with God in heaven. That that loving god would not damn anyone for eternity. And in its day that was a pretty radical theology. And in practice, it should be said, that meant that the task at hand was to create heaven here on earth. That in fact if we did that we were living our God’s charge to us. That heaven, if you will, wasn’t as important as the here and the now.
Our Unitarian ancestors focused a lot on Jesus. In fact, the name Unitarian was first used by opponents on our ancestors as being in opposition to Trinitarians—a belief in the trinity of the father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. They saw Jesus not as divine but as an extraordinary person—a kind of super hero if you will—that we could all strive to emulate. For them it was about living lives that strived to live out the teachings of Jesus. That we all in the process of perfecting ourselves. Through the decades those beliefs would evolve. One important evolution came through the Transcendentalists who believed we could experience God directly. And in those decades that led up to the merger the dominant philosophy for Unitarians was humanism. That through reason and science humans were able to articulate what was most important. They didn’t need a divine being to help them get there.
So as the Unitarians and the Universalists explored coming together there was a need to articulate what this new denomination was about and what the core beliefs were. And that was no easy task. After much process and debate a core set of principles were agreed upon. Here’s what they were.
In accordance with these corporate purposes, the members of the Unitarian Universalist Association, dedicated to the principles of a free faith, unite in seeking:
1. To strengthen one another in a free and disciplined search for truth as the foundation of our religious fellowship;
2. To cherish and spread the universal truths taught by the great prophets and teachers of humanity in every age and tradition, immemorially summarized in the Judeo-Christian heritage as love to God and love to man;
3. To affirm, defend and promote the supreme worth of every human personality, the dignity of man, and the use of the democratic method in human relationships;
4. To implement our vision of one world by striving for a world community founded on ideals of brotherhood, justice and peace;
5. To serve the needs of member churches and fellowships, to organize new churches and fellowships, and to extend and strengthen liberal religion;
6. To encourage cooperation with men of good will in every land.
Now it took a lot of negotiating to come up with those. Word is that the whole process came pretty close to collapsing. But they managed to negotiate those principles that would guide this faith for the next 25 years. And, looking back over 60 years later, it is both easy to see the roots of our more current principles and also what—and more specifically who—was left out. The gendered language, in particular, is hard to read today.
It will not come as a surprise that in the late 1970s more and more voices began asking for changes in those principles. Women in particular asked for language that included them. That began another long process that resulted in the principles that have been around since 1985.
It was after several years—and a lot of versions—that they came into being. And I think that process of versions and of editing that it can be easy to forget over time. It can seem as if something just emerged as a whole piece. But in fact editing something by committee is hardly ever an easy process. It takes time and intention.
Now all of this, I think, points to what we call the living tradition of our faith. That means that revelation is not sealed and that faith—and belief—are not static things. Just as we are living and growing beings, so it is with our spiritual lives. How we see the world today—how it is we articulate what is most important—may well be different. Or perhaps at least the language we’d use—is different.
We come together, not with a creed, a statement of shared belief, but in covenant, making a set of promises to journey together. That covenant allows us space to change and to grow.
So where were you in 1985? If that is you had even been born in 1985? I was a senior in college then. And, I have to say that feels like a long time ago. And no matter our age, how is it that we name what is important and how it is we want to live our lives?
I think all of this brings us to a core part of what it means to be a Unitarian Universalist. Now it is easy to joke that as UUs we can believe anything we want. Well, sort of. But in fact there’s a certain amount of responsibility that comes with being a Unitarian Universalist. That it is up to us to decide what it is we believe. It means that we are asked to be present to the times we are in and to what is being asked of us—as individuals and as a community. To discern what is important. It means asking who is in our circle of concern and also to ask who has been left out.
Which brings us to this present time. Last year our congregation passed what is known as the 8th principle. And now a year later over 160 congregations and UU institutions have adopted that proposal. Like those changes that were initiated by women in our faith several decades ago this 8th principle begin with people of color in our movement, asking for a clearer commitment and articulation for us as a faith tradition to be anti-racist and multicultural. For some that statement has been long in coming. For others, especially for those of us who have been in positions of privilege it has taken longer to recognize. And it asks for something more as well—that accountability be part of the commitment we make with this new principle. Some of those earlier principles, it has been said, have been lax in that regard. The accountability piece is important and I know in this congregation as well as in our larger movement we are figuring out just what that accountability piece really looks like.
As congregations have passed the 8th principle a process is already underway in our association for changes in our principles. It is work on what is called Article 2 the section of the UUA bylaws that spells out our principles. If you followed the work of the General Assembly here in Portland earlier this summer you know that this was a major focus. The commission exploring this work is tasked with proposing a new set of principles for this faith. And they are asking us to look with vision and imagination as to just what those principles should be.
Articulating principles and talking about what we believe can seem like boring, bureaucratic stuff sometimes. But that work and all that process points to something deeper, something that is life-saving, something that helps us, hopefully, understand how it is we are part of something larger, how it is we are part of some whole. Even when what we see around us is division and separation. Even when we see around us so much that would lead us to despair. That we can imagine principles that would offer us an imagination for how we might live.
I don’t know about you but living through a global pandemic these last years, with the call for black lives breaking through like it hasn’t before, with the ever increasing awareness with global warming of just how interconnected our lives are…. Well the awareness of how we are all interdependent keeps being brought home. And for those of us who know positions of privilege because of our race or class or economic status, those of us who, because of that privilege, really haven’t had to pay attention, we are getting a loud and clear invitation to pay attention. That the recognition of the individual really can’t be separated from the recognition of the life we all share together.
With power and privilege comes responsibility. With awareness too comes responsibility. And what we know more than anything else right now is just how interdependent our lives really are.
There are many questions about what and how our principles will be going forward. There will be more than a few drafts before some new iteration comes into being. But the through line is that living tradition, that connects us we what has been but is also our connection to the future. That asks us what is important and how it is we want to live.
Words from our responsive reading, by Francisco Alarcon:
May our ears hear what nobody wants to hear.
May our eyes see what everyone wants to hide.
May our mouths speak our true faces and hearts.
May our arms be branches that give shade and joy.
Let us be a drizzle, a sudden storm
let us get wet in the rain
Let us be the key
the hand the door
the kick the ball
the road
Let us arrive as children to this huge playground–
the universe
Amen.
Prayer
Spirit of life and of love. God of many names and of no name at all, hear our prayers. Be with us as we find our way in this complicated world. Open our hearts to what it is we need to learn. Grant us courage to live the lives we are called to live. And help us to always move with humility spirit. To recognize what we know, yes, but also what is yet to be revealed. Through it all spirit, remind us that we never journey alone. Amen.
Benediction
Live with integrity. Live with intention. Live in joy. Live in love.
Topics: Our UU Principles