Bring a Friend Sunday
Introduction
How many friends are here today? Who did you come with? I want to thank our members for inviting their friends and I want to thank all the friends for taking up the invitation. I hope that your being here and sharing this experience tells you more about each other and enhances your friendship. We also hope that you learn something about us -- Unitarian Universalists. Today's purpose is not conversion; is not to convince or pressure anyone that this way is preferable. No. Our purpose today, our invitation, is for sharing ourselves with each other so that we may increase understanding and build bridges. When we understand and respect one another, we make our communities stronger. We make our communities more peaceful.
We know that religion can divide people and that is surely not our purpose today. Let me offer a definition of religion which I learned from Huston Smith.? There are many roads to the same mountain. There are many roads to many mountains. Which is correct? Only this--if you try to take all the roads you'll get lost.
If it sounds kind of Zen-like, it is. What this is telling us is that all religions may or may not lead to the same place. There may be one mountain; there may be many mountains. There is, though, the earth that we share , upon which all the mountains rest. We are both different and we are the same. Our diversity dances with our unity. Our world is large and complex and no one of us has all the answers and a glance at all the peoples of the earth tells us there is not only one path. Many ways are open to us. Some of us remain on the path we learned as children, some of us find new roads for ourselves. Some of us jump from road to road and become lost. Take a path and stick with it long enough at least to know it and to discern if you belong on it. Many of us here define ourselves as walking the Unitarian Universalist path, while others say what is Unitarian Universalism?
We welcome you here today, new friends and old friends. We welcome the chance to have you know us and we look forward to the opportunity to get to know you. Thank you for coming.
Responsive Reading
Why Unitarian Universalism? In preparing for today, I planned to ask a friend what she would like to learn in such a service. I never got around to it though, instead engaging in dialogue with myself. The questions and answers that emerged are ones that I hope will be helpful to you.
What do Unitarian Universalists believe? Hmmm. Not as easy as it sounds. Historically, we know that Unitarians have self-identified continuously since the 1500's and Universalists since the 1700's. Both began by asserting the right of the individual to apply reason to religion and to question commonly held beliefs and teachings. Unitarians questioned the nature of god; was god a trinity (Father, Son, Holy Spirit) or a unity? Obviously, the Unitarians believed in the unity, the oneness of god. That led us to assert the complete humanity of Jesus. Universalists questioned the character of god. Would god punish some, many, of us with damnation for long ages, if not eternity? Or was god a loving god, who would forgive us and grant us universal salvation?? I think you can guess where the Universalists stood on that issue. We have come far from those original questions, but the approach, the insistence on reason and free questioning has remained a cornerstone of our communities. Our roots are Christian but I think it's fair to say that we are now an independent denomination. Some of us look to Jesus for inspiration, guidance and meaning, some to humanity, some to nature, some to science, some to the Jewish tradition, some to Buddhism, etc.
I cannot definitively tell you what Unitarian Universalists believe because Unitarian Universalism is a non-creedal, ethically based religious way of life, meaning that we claim the right and the responsibility to structure our own personal faith systems. This, of course, results in a community of people who define their beliefs in very different terms.
What holds us together through such differences is an ethical approach to life, as delineated in our Statement of Principles and Purposes. Unitarian Unive rsalists seek authenticity and congruence between what we believe and how we live. Faith and reason both must play a role; experience and conscience, in dialogue with community values, must each play a role in our actions. Service to one another, dedication to making the world a more just and compassionate place, is one of our spiritual practices. Susan B. Anthony, a Unitarian and a leader of the 19th century movement for woman suffrage said, "I pray every single second of my life; not on my knees but with my work. My prayer is to lift women to equality with man. Work and worship are one with me."
So what are the ethical principles? Will you read responsively # 594, Principles and Purposes for All of Us.
We affirm and promote the inherent worth and dignity of every person.
We believe that each and every person is important.
We affirm and promote justice, equity and compassion in human relations.
We believe that all people should be treated fairly.
We affirm and promote acceptance of one another and encouragement to spiritual growth.
We believe that our churches are places where all people are accepted, and where we keep on learning together.
We affirm and promote a free and responsible search for truth and meaning.
We believe that each person must be free to search for what is true and right in life.
We affirm and promote the right of conscience and the use of the democratic process.
We believe that all people should have a voice and a vote about the things which concern them.
We affirm and promote the goal of world community with peace, liberty and justice for all.
We believe that we should work for a peaceful, fair and free world.
We affirm and promote respect for the interdependent web of all existence of which we are a part.
We believe that we should care for our planet earth.
These are our touchstones, our guideposts for living. We are accountable to one another according to these. We trust in the potential of human nature, which, although it contains seeds of good and bad, can be called upon to bring forth peace and love. It's a radical optimism that strengthens us to keep going; to live a meaningful life.
Can you really believe anything you want? Yes. As long as we respect the right of others to the same freedom of belief. As long as we have enough humility to remember that no one, including ourselves, has the whole and only truth and that no one, including ourselves, can rest upon his/her moral superiority with absolute certainty. This is a freedom that celebrates and struggles with diversity of belief. In a world in which the majority of wars being fought have something to do with religious belief, you can understand how important it is to struggle peacefully with such faith differences.
Yes, we can believe anything we want as long as we understand that we must also give respect to beliefs wid ely different from our own. One of the most important gifts that Unitarian Universalism has to offer the world is pluralism: finding a way in which to live together in peace when we do not all believe alike. Basic respect for other beliefs and an approach that seeks understanding rather than condemnation, dialogue rather than suppression. We are committed to pluralism because we are committed to freedom.
But what do Unitarian Universalists believe? How do you practice your religion? Unitarian Universalists begin with personal experience as the heart of religious experience. We believe that our faith is experientially based. "The living tradition we share draws from many sources" and the first of these is "Direct experience of that transcending mystery and wonder, affirmed in all cultures, which moves us to a renewal of the spirit and an openness to the forces that create and uphold life." Personal, particular experience of that which is outside us, which is bigger than us, which transcends us and at the same time lives within as closely as anything. Such experience touches our spirits and opens us, in a deep and multi-leveled way, to the very core of life, by whatever names we call that core. Some of us call it God, some call it Spirit, Love, Energy, the Universe, Nature, the Goddess, the laws of science, Life, and so forth. Direct experience which moves us and opens us to feelings of connection with something greater than us. Many Unitarian Universalis ts recognize that the feelings of connection are the heart of our religious experience.
Here's a personal example. Our UU ministers' group meets monthly and we have become quite trusting of one another and our hearts are open. Last June, before we took a break for the summer, we said goodbye to one of our colleagues who was moving back to the mid-west. Each one of us wrote our wishes for her on an index card but we did not sign it. Then we shuffled the cards and picked one that was not our own. We went around the circle and read the wishes on the cards, not written by us, but because we had shared the cards, we all took ownership of all the wishes. We became one body of goodwill and love for our colleague and we knew the connection, we experienced the sacred, (or call it what you will), that lived among us. And it changed us.
Many of us know that we must tend to our spiritual lives, to try to live from that heart; to speak from that heart; to listen from that heart. We need each other in order to do this. This is because we recognize that when our communities are places in which the whole human being is welcomed: mind, actions and emotions, in which the whole human being gets expression: mind, actions and emotions, then we experience a sense of wholeness and connection that heals and energizes and enlivens us. Our communities help us to re-integrate, to re-join ourselves: body, mind and spirit, and to connect to that wh ich we believe is true. This is why Unitarian Universalist communities commit to being places of respect, nurturance, and responsible mutuality. Communities of positive creative interchange touch the wholeness of people and offer many opportunities for inter-connection. The living of such communities is another of our Unitarian Universalist spiritual practices.
Our vitality comes from our recognition that the deepest of human experiences, religious experiences, are those accompanied by feelings of connection to something within ourselves and beyond ourselves, however we describe that something. Those feelings of connection promote wholeness. Our spiritual practice, as manifested in our worship services, our communities, our social action, our religious education, and the tending of our own spirits, is to stay present with ourselves and with one another and to encounter one another as whole persons -- emotions, thoughts, ideas and actions. When we know and experience congruence between what we feel, what we think and how we act; when we experience messages from each other that acknowledge our feelings with acceptance, then connection arises. Unitarian Universalism, by affirming and promoting connection, is a way of life whose ultimate goal is transformation: for healing, for justice, and for peace.
One of the reasons we come together on Sunday mornings, then, is "to quench a thirst, find meaningfulness, to have an authentic experience, or in a more traditional religious language, to connect with mystery, . . . to deepen (our) souls." (Christine Robinson 2008 Berry Street Essay, www.uuma.org)
Will you try a guided meditation with me that will, hopefully, lead us to an experience of what I have been talking about?
(Guided meditation: prepare body
listen to each other breathing
imagine yourself as a flower and open
what are you feeling --
anyone here you could bring that to and receive acceptance
how does that feel
anyone elsewhere in your world
if no, will you trust that the answer is yes?
listen to each other breathing
the very air we breathe connects us
breath - - - spirit
Song #128 For All That Is Our Life
Closing words by Theodore Parker
Be ours a religion, which like sunshine, goes everywhere; its temple all space; its shrine, the good heart; its creed, all truth; its ritual, works of love; its profession of faith, divine living.
May it be so.