Sermon by Rev. Victor Carpenter, November 11, 2007
First Religious Society,
The First Religious Society in
Next Sunday ( November 18 ), following our worship service, we will hold an informal meeting to clarify this congregation’s responsibilities as a “welcoming congregation”
Whether this meeting will accomplish that goal remains to be seen.
And, frankly, reconciliation of our differences about being a “welcoming congregation” is a SECONDARY goal.
What is of PRIMARY IMPORTANCE about this meeting is that it should serve to demonstrate the kind of church we are, the kind of religion we espouse, and how we go about the business of being a Unitarian Universalists.
Regardless of the outcome of next Sunday’s meeting, we will have acted on our promise to walk together, each of us speaking the truth to each other, in love ,while together seeking to create a better world.
Why do we do this ?
BecauseWe are Unitarian Universalists and this “walking and talking together” is what Unitarian Universalists do. It is the activity that is at the heart and core of Unitarian Universalism.
What bonds us together in community has less to do with what we individually believe and much to do with what we promise each other - in hope and in love. Our promise to support each other in the journey of religious discovery. That is what the phrase “walking together”means.
Anyone can hold a belief about this or about that; about God, Jesus, the after-life, ; you can be a believer or you can be dis-believer; you can live a totally secular life without any reference to a religious community or any religious practice.
You know people like this , and so do I. Their personal beliefs are probably not that different from yours or mine In fact you might even say that they are “ Unitarian Universalists without knowing it” – which means that their ethics and values are akin to yours --- BUT…
BUT you cannot be a Unitarian Universalist “without knowing it” BECAUSE being a UU means that you have chosen to associate with a “covenanted group of people”. Chosen to align your self with a group of people who promise to support each other - and you - in the hope that, together, we can do more than we could do singly. Those people are called “Unitarian Universalists”
Yes, you say; that’s all very well, you say; but you UUs believe so many different things. I know. AND I know that some people really really struggle with our emphasis upon freedom and diversity of belief.
They ask, “Who makes it in this religion?” Who stays in such a religion ?
“What holds you together ?”
When I’m asked such questions I answer first by telling the questioner about a congregation I served as Interim Minister just before coming here; the Second Church in Hingham. What is special about that congregation is that the single largest group within that community is made up of persons have been members of it for over 40 years.
When I
first read that statistic I was
astonished. Because we live in such a mobile society, people
change churches often - but not the 2nd Parish in
What held them together ?
They didn’t think alike,, They didn’t believe alike ; They held a variety of beliefs and they were not shy about sharing their differences ; But when push came to shove, it was their covenantal relationship to each other that held them together .
They probably wouldn’t use those words; more likely they would say,” I’m at home here; or, because this is my community, for better, for worse, for richer or poorer, in sickness and in health. I’m here among my fellow pilgrims because here I can make my best efforts to discover truth and wholeness.
That is what a covenantal relationship is all about? That is what holds us together.
Living in covenant means promising to walk in trust with those whom you have freely chosen as your fellow pilgrims.
Several years ago I had one of those rare personal experiences, which became a compelling metaphor for other things in my life.
I was at a Unitarian Universalist conference center in the Highlands of North Carolina called “The Mountain”. Scheduled for late one evening was an event simply called “ trust walk”? Now I have to confess to you that I like a lot of control in my life. I’m not always comfortable with “ touchy feely” exercises. Just the name “ trust walk” made me apprehensive and I started looking for ways to avoid it.
No way. About ten that night we were drive down the mountain in vans and, along a highway, to our trail. There we were blindfolded and asked to hold hands as we made our way along a path that first descended and the ascended. As we walked we could hear the roar of water.
The sound grew louder. We could feel the mountain air on our faces; smell the mingling of damp earth and spring flower. Part of the task became using ALL our senses, but the primary challenge lay in deciding to trust the person next to you, and the person next to her or him ; deciding to trust that, together, we would make our way to wherever we were headed.
At first we took tentative steps, fighting an almost overwhelming desire to remove our blindfolds. But slowly we learned to guide each other, through the pressure of a hand, the lift of an arm. By the time we felt mist on our faces, we were doing better. By the time we arrived at the end of the trail, we had grown much easier with a way of walking that at first seemed awkward and threatening.
When we removed our blindfolds, we faced a wondrous discovery. Our destination had been a beautiful, roaring waterfall. And without seeing, trusting only fingers holding fingers, we had walked along a ledge to go behind this waterfall . Now, as we stood inside a cave like recess, great sheets of water fell in front of us to the stream below. In spite of all our vulnerability, our fear, our wondering, we had made it safely…..
Trust walking seems to me to a wonderful metaphor for living together in liberal religion. Living in a covenantal relationship.
Oh, I know that the analogy isn’t perfect. We should never, any of us, let one leader or group of people lead us blindly anywhere. But the covenant call on us to trust one another, not just as a feeling, but as a discipline =-the discipline of holding hands, sharing information, learning to use all our senses, realizing that the person next to us may, in certain moments, perceive as well as or better than we do.
Trust walking is not only what people need; it is what allows communities to thrive even in challenging times and situation. It is what that congregation in Hingham needed as it faced one of the most critical decisions that any UU congregation faces; the choice of a new settled minister.
What binds us together as Unitarian Unvieralistsis not agreeing to believe the same thing or holding to a creed? It never has been and it never will be.
What binds us together is what we promise each other in hope.
What binds us together is our promise to support each other in our discovery of truth. To make a home where we can be awakened to the deepest truths through insights gained from knowledge; through prayer and music; through laughter and irony, through all the explorations that lead to discover life’s deeper meaning
This is no small task, this being Unitarian Universalists, but it is our task --
AND
There will be times when we are faced with people who have no patience with us and with our difficulty in putting our individual beliefs into a few, well chosen words.
There will be times when we wish we could just rattle off a creedal formula that would “settle everything” - like the man who picks up his Bible and declares;” God wrote it; I believe it ; that settles it !!!!!
But such formulas settle nothing. And those who demand them know nothing of the depths of faith .
What binds us together is our promise to live our values in the world. Our religion, our spirituality is here and now . And it’s not just a “head trip”; it’s a thinking, acting, involving, discerning “life trip”.
This is our covenant ;;; together we walk in trust.
Today is our day of remebrance; this morning we will read the names of loved ones, some of whom were members of this congregation - who are bound with us in the covenant that they honored in their times;
People of tolerance, generosity and compassion;
People who, in their trusting relationships, made this adventure of liberal religion work.