HomeGood Morning.
Like many sermons, this is one where I am speaking to myself about me and you are listening in, so to speak.
Susan Greenberg of late has been speaking to the issue of “Radical Hospitality”, which also is the theme for the Annual Meeting of the New York Metro District of the Unitarian Universalist Association which will be held in late April. That concept, Radical Hospitality, fits with our Universalist heritage of believing that all people are redeemable; not just redeemable, but will be redeemed. It fits with the Universalist heritage that says we are all children of God—or of the Cosmos if you prefer.
While preparing for this service, several articles that touch upon the topics of membership and belonging caught my eye. The first was an article in an Associated Press report on Friday about the Southern Baptist Convention. It was an article about the fact that having purged their denomination of “Liberals”, the Southern Baptist conservatives are now turning on one another.
The second was an article on Beliefnet.com entitled “How to find a church that doesn’t bug you”. I want to read a small portion of it to you.
“And yet another thing about the churches I went to: they seemed to be parrots for the Republican Party. Do we have to two the party line on every single issue? Are the Republicans that perfect? I just felt like, in order to be a part of the family, I had to think George W. Bush was Jesus. And I didn’t. I didn’t think that Jesus really agreed with a lot of the policies of the Republican Party or for that matter the Democratic Party…I heard my pastor say once, when there were only a few of us standing around, that he hated Bill Clinton. I can understand not liking Clinton’s policies, but I want my spirituality to rid me of hate, not give me reason for it. I couldn’t deal with that. That is one of the main reasons I walked away. I felt like, by going to this particular church, I was a pawn for the Republicans…one more thing that bugged me…The churches I attended would embrace war metaphor. They would talk about how we are in a battle…They left us thinking that our war was against liberals and homosexuals. Their teaching would have me believe I was the good person in the world and the liberals were the bad people in the world. Jesus taught that we are all bad and He is good, and He wants to rescue us because there is a war going on and we are hostages in that war. The truth is that we are supposed to love the hippies, the liberals, and even the Democrats, and that God wants us to think of them as more important than ourselves. Anything short of that is not true to the teachings of Jesus.” (Donald Miller from “Blue Like Jazz”.
These two articles raised for me the issue of belonging, and of acceptance.
One of the reasons that many people find themselves drawn to our Unitarian Universalist congregations is that they find acceptance there.
Think of being a gay or lesbian who attends a congregation where every week—either from the pulpit or from the mouths of members—there are attacks upon the so-called “Gay lifestyle” as something completely immoral that is bound to lead one to hell; or there are attacks upon the fictitious “Gay agenda” as something bound to lead our nation to hell.
Or imagine that you are a woman who has had an abortion and each week you hear that abortion is murder and that it ought to be illegal.
Or imagine that you are someone who was divorced and is now remarried and each week you hear that this is the sin of adultery for which you will go to hell.
If people who knew that you were gay or divorced or had undergone an abortion procedure then accosted you each week to scold you for your immoral behavior, you would probably not long remain a member of that congregation.
If people knew that you did not hold the proper theology, that you were to liberal or too questioning about basic beliefs, and attempted each week to dissuade you from your path towards hell, you might not stay in that congregation,
But even if people were friendly and kind to you as an individual, even if they welcomed you into their midst and said things like, “Hate the sin, love the sinner”, you would be unlikely to stay in that congregation for terribly long. Why would you; you are under attack each and every week.
In contrast to that approach, many of us are proud of our denomination’s openness and inclusion. We are open to different theologies, different sexual orientations, different races and ethnicities.
But before we become too self-congratulatory, I want to challenge that very image we have of ourselves of openness to all. At least, I want to question the depth and width of it.
There is a story from a Unitarian Universalist congregation in recent years where the minister approached the animal rights activists within the congregation and said, “You are entitled to your beliefs, but when visitors come to our congregation wearing leather or furs you may no longer accost them and scold them for their ‘immoral behavior’”.
The animal rights activists were concerned about what they saw as the horrible abuse of living creatures.
The minister was concerned about the health of the congregation; he recognized that a large number of visitors would leave and never think of coming back.
One lesson to recognize from this is that when it comes to social and political issues, there is a conservative purity that can be sanctimonious and oppressive, and there is a liberal purity that can be just as odious.
Usually people who are being oppressively puritanical do not see themselves that way; rather, they see themselves as upholding certain basic moral standards or as simply expressing their own beliefs.
And that is where two ideas or issues come into conflict with a congregation, the approaches exemplified by the animal rights activists on the one hand and the minister who spoke to them on the other.
The activists have a right to state their beliefs. On the other hand, the congregation has a right and a duty to be welcoming.
Let me state clearly that I personally believe it is impossible to rigidly separate political, social and moral issues from the spiritual. As a child of the ‘sixties” I believe that everything is in a broad sense “political”; and as a humanist I believe that everything is in a broad sense “spiritual” and religious. Or, at least, everything has a political and a spiritual facet to it.
It would be wrong and, I believe, foolish, for a minister or a congregation to ignore the issues of the broader culture. That would make their religious movement irrelevant, in my humble opinion.
Moral issues should and must be raised in our congregations. As a minister I feel duty-bound to speak my mind on such issues and to do so with regularity. A few weeks ago I spoke against the use by our government of kidnappings, secret arrests, secret prisons, secret trials and torture and I did so with passion. I also have spoken against the death penalty with a sense of anger in my heart and soul. So I recognize that we human beings are called to speak our beliefs and are called to do so with fire in our bellies when appropriate. And I recognize that (this is a personal view) failure to speak about moral issues is itself an act of acceptance and approval. The failure to speak against torture is silent acquiescence to the act of torture.
However, that sense of requirement to speak out can lead to a kind of self-righteous pomposity if not carefully pursued. It can lead to liberal congregations being no more than mirror images of the conservative congregations described in the Beliefnet article.
In reading about the history of this congregation I have noted something of interest. During the nineteen twenties, thirties and forties, someone kept a Memorial Book of events about congregational members. There are birth and wedding announcements and newspaper clippings. One of the things that struck me while I was looking through this was how many of the members at that time were business owners or executives. I do not believe we have such people in the same numbers today. I remember reading that at the time of the Industrial Revolution in England, the people primarily involved in the cutting edge of it were religious non-conformists. A great number of them were Quakers and Unitarians, people willing to be open to the next advance—or at least, the next change--in civilization.
l then thought about our congregation today and tried to put myself in the place of someone who was religiously liberal but politically or socially conservative; or in the place of someone who had committed their lives to working in the corporate sphere, believing that doing so was man honorable life choice that benefits not only those so working but that benefits society in general. And then I thought about the kind of comments that are sometimes made in our time of personal sharing or in our conversations with one another. I have to say that I would have been uncomfortable sitting through some of our sharing times. There is a tendency amongst us to see the evils of some in corporate society and to apply those to all in corporate society. There is a tendency amongst us to think in stereotypical terms about corporations and about political and social conservatives. If I were they, would I be happy to sit here in this congregation and listen as my was attacked. How long would I remain a member of this congregation? Shall we say to them, “Well, we hate the sin but love you, the sinner”?
How open are we really and truly? How open are we willing to be?
I am a religious liberal. It is not a secret, but I am not here promoting it, that I also happen to be a social and political liberal; but those, political and social liberalism on the one hand and religious liberalism on the other, are not identical.
Am I suggesting that we refrain from speaking our minds, that we refrain from stating what is important to us? Certainly not. I have already stressed that I do not believe we can or ought to do so.
However, I would ask us to consider how we speak, the how of our means of expression. Can I speak to a moral issue without condemning people who feel or act differently than I?
Can I find ways to express myself that speak to the positive not to the negative?
I believe this is our spiritual task and religious burden: to find ways to express our moral standards without attacking the standards of others.
Can I stop myself from thinking in and speaking in stereotypical ways? Can I learn to be truly Universalist in my outlook towards people?
Can I be a living spirit of Universal acceptance and radical hospitality, truly offering a welcome to all?
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