Auburn Unitarian Universalist Fellowship

WHY BE A UU? 
a sermon by 
Rev. Diana Jordan Allende 
Auburn Unitarian Universalist Fellowship 
24 January 1999

So to clarify our question we might add any one of the following: "Why be a Unitarian Universalist instead of simply practicing Buddhist meditation on your own?" Or "Why be a Unitarian Universalist instead of worshiping at a liberal Christian church or synagogue?" Or "Why be a Unitarian Universalist when you consider nature and a love of the natural world to be your religion?"

On the other hand, we could ask the question of the nihilist: "Why be anything, even a Unitarian Universalist? Why not sleep in on Sunday mornings or spend coffee hour with the New York Times?"

Or we could revert back to our original question and leave the door wide open: Why be a UU? Why are you a U.U.?
As we recognize our newest members, this seems like a question we might all do well to ponder.

I feel certain that if I asked each of you to say in one word one thing you were seeking which brought you to this Fellowship, we would soon have a list of four or five desires...yearnings...goals we hold in common. Experiences that we value.

For instance, let’s pretend for a moment that this is a television game show, and say we asked 100 hundred people in our studio audience to name one thing that they were seeking when they came to the AUUF. What do you think the number one answer would be? Anyone?

I would guess community would be the most frequent answer, not simply because it’s become a buzz word of our times, but because it’s something we all actually need. A "sense" and a "place" of belonging. If we append adjectives to our word "community," some of us would surely say we were seeking a spiritual community, or a caring community, or an engaged community, or an inclusive community, or a learning community, a community of seekers.

Community might be especially important for those whose spiritual practices are usually solitary: regular prayer or meditation, or a long walk in the woods. It would be especially important for those who feel a lack of community in other areas of their lives. Wordsworth wrote of "greetings where no kindness is" and of "the dreary intercourse of daily life," and Thoreau wondered if most people weren’t living lives of quiet desperation. If we’re feeling that kind of isolation or alienation, we certainly need the antidote of genuine community. A community where everyone knows our names. A community that recognizes and allows us to use our talents. A community that reaches outside itself to be responsibly engaged in the needs of the larger community.     I think another answer that would show up in our game-show survey would be freedom or openness. Some of us have known too much of the wrong kind of community--communities that were cloying or suffocating. Communities that set their sights too low, put on blinders, and then brook no questions or criticism. When that has been our experience, the freedom of Unitarian Universalism can be much like a breath of fresh air.

Several years ago, during a long hot summer, my niece Heather--before she converted to radical politics--begged her mother, my sister Joyce, to please take her to the mall for the afternoon. You’d have to know Heather today to appreciate the irony of her dramatic plea, as Joyce equivocated over the request. Exasperated, Heather finally said, "Mom, I breathe better in mall air."

Most of us I think--I hope--simply breathe better in UU air--in UU settings--than elsewhere. Here there is the expectation of acceptance and encouragement that is conducive to good respiration. Acceptance of one another and encouragement to spiritual growth is one of the tenets of our faith, one of our seven principles. And when we breathe better, perhaps we think more clearly. And open ourselves to new perspectives and insights. Free to be: You and me. Free to become what Rosemary Radford Ruether refers to as the individuated self in community. People with both roots and wings. Those who enjoy a grounded openness, who practice a principled pluralism.

From such community and freedom can come, as is often needed, healing. Most of us have been wounded one way or another, though we may be quite adept at hiding those wounds, sometimes even from ourselves. Writer Sam Keen poses a series of questions in his book The Passionate Life, among them the questions: "How was I wounded?" And, "How may I be healed?" Although healing might not show up in the answers from our studio audience, I believe it to be a legitimate answer to the question Why Be a UU? And growth would likely be another, closely related.

These are all excellent experiential kinds of reasons for being a UU--the experience of community...of freedom and openness...of growth and healing. What about theological reasons for being a Unitarian Universalist?--"theology" meaning that which deals with our ultimate concerns--our understanding of the Holy, human nature, reality itself. Do we have anything new or distinctive to say about such weighty matters? Do we have pronouncements to make to the world? Have we any good news?

Well, to these questions I want to say both yes and no. Or is it no and yes? Let me explain.

As you know, we Unitarian Universalists organize ourselves--gather together around--a set of seven ethical principles that we have covenanted with one another to affirm and promote--respect for the inherent dignity and worth of every person; the right to a free and responsible search for truth and meaning, justice, equity and compassion in human relations; use of the democratic process; and respect for the interdependent web of existence, to name a few.

And to guide us in upholding these principles and shaping our own faith stances and journeys, we list six sources from which we draw. These include direct experience of transcending mystery and wonder; words and deeds of prophetic women and men; wisdom from the world’s religions, including Jewish and Christian teachings; Humanist teachings, and--most recently adopted--the spiritual teachings of earth-centered traditions. (I have given you a much abbreviated list and would encourage all of you to look, from time to time, at the full text of our principles and purposes.)

But back to my equivocal answer--my yes-and-no, or no-and-yes answer to the questions: "Do we have anything new or distinctive to say on matters of ultimate importance? Do we have any pronouncements for the world?" "Do we have any good news to share?"

Well, if you look at the seven ethical principles and the six cited sources, you will see that we haven’t ‘invented’ any of them. Each of the principles can be traced back to other faith or philosophical traditions, and obviously any one of the six sources that we have bundled together could be followed singularly and have been followed singularly by millions. So, with regard to originality, plain and simple, no, we have not originated new data or even new speculation. We have no new prophets with new revelations at hand to command the world’s attention. We don’t have a Moses, or a Buddha, or a Jesus, or a Mohammed, or even a Joseph Smith.

But, on the other hand, our embrace is wide enough to include any and all of those voices, if we test them first and find in them truth. What is unique to Unitarian Universalism is not newly discovered truth, but a respect for seeking truth and understanding across disciplines...across traditions...across differences and divides.

In my opinion, we UU’s are unlikely to improve much upon the idea, say, of justice which is sounded by the Hebrew prophets...we are unlikely to go beyond Christianity’s understanding of a suffering love that overcomes powers and principalities and so offers hope...we are unlikely to learn or understand more than Buddhists do about life’s transience or about accepting life’s "suchness"....we are unlikely to gain more insight into devotion and surrender than that held by Muslims. Everything we know about reasonable religion, we learned from the humanists. And since earth-centered religions have spent centuries reverencing the earth with its cycles and seasons, we would do well first to internalize their wisdom.

The genius and the joy and the promise of the Unitarian Universalism, in my opinion, is that we have said, in a world that loves trendiness and loves exclusiveness: On the spiritual journey, there is already a gracious plenty for us to feast upon. And so, instead of pitting this against that, why don’t we search together for the good and the true and the meaningful among all the treasures that the human soul and mind and imagination have discovered and celebrated? Where is the need to build "strange and foolish walls" to separate us from one another, to separate us from life’s vitality?

And why don’t we pay special attention to our own experience of movements of the Spirit?...why don’t we listen carefully and even obey the small still voice within that guides us to that which "speaks to our condition" and so honors in each of us our own unique and wonderful complexity?

And why don’t we seek companions for this journey who will share the questions and challenge us through their answers?

Many religious traditions have--and I suppose still do--encouraged their members to seek a kind of spiritual perfection. "Be ye perfect, as God is perfect," the saying goes.

While Unitarian Universalism doesn’t promote perfection, perhaps, it does promote wholeness, an integration into our lives of all of life’s elements, all of life’s tempos, all of life’s moods. And an integration of one’s best insights, from whatever sources these are offered. Unitarian Universalism should foster in each of its followers what Ashley Montagu calls "...the ability to respond with deepening sensitivity to the world in which we live." It should foster, perhaps, the ability and the willingness to respond with deepening sensitivity to the world in which we live.

We become UU’s so that we can breathe better, breathe deeper, breathe freer. We become UU’s so that we can transcend dichotomies and bridge differences. We become UU’s to partake of community, explore spiritual paths, nurture ourselves, and give back to the world.      We become UU’s in order to model our deeply held values and convictions. We become UU’s in order to become whole.

So...do we have any distinctive good news to share? You bet we do!

Now: Go forth and convert the nations!