The First Liberal

There I was on a hot, rainy summer afternoon having finished the book I was reading and reluctant to do the waiting laundry. Procrastinating, I decided to watch a little TV. Flipping channels, I came across the Inspiration Network and as sometimes happens, my curiosity got the better of me and I found myself listening to a sermon preached by a young-looking man who seemed mighty passionate about what he was saying. Most of it I don’t remember, but one statement stood out.

He was talking about Adam and Eve and the text in the book of Genesis…something about what the Bible really says and declaring his -- the preacher’s -- authority to know the Bible’s truth and his responsibility to pass along that truth to others. This is fairly typical for the tradition of Evangelical congregations, but that is not what struck me. He was going along in what appeared to be a standard preaching format for Inspiration Network worship when he stopped his pacing back and forth across the stage to look the congregation in the face and he proclaimed, “The serpent in the garden of Eden was the first liberal!” A number of those in the congregation gave voice to their agreement and it was clear that the word ‘liberal’ was meant derogatorily, meant as an insult, meant as a link to the devil.
 
Rather than being angry at the slight equating liberals with the devil as so often happens by fundamentalist Christians, I found myself agreeing with him completely. But not because I, too, saw it as a bad thing, but because I thought, “Aha! proof that we, religious liberals that is, were right there from the beginning!”

The Evangelical preacher quoted the text of Genesis 2:16-17. That's where God speaks to Adam saying, “You may freely eat of every tree of the garden; but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall die.”

The preacher then turns to a little later in the text where the serpent speaks to Eve and Adam; Genesis 3: 1-6 reads, “Now, the serpent was more crafty than any other wild animal that the Lord God had made. He said to the woman, ‘Did God say, ‘You shall not eat from any tree in the garden?’ The woman said to the serpent, ‘We may eat of the fruit of the trees in the garden; but God said, ‘You shall not eat of the fruit of the tree that is in the middle of the garden, nor shall you touch it, or you shall die.’” But the serpent said to the woman, ‘You will not die; for God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.”

So when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that the tree was to be desired to make one wise, she took of its fruit and ate; and she also gave some to her husband, who was with her, and he ate. Then the eyes of both were opened, and they knew that they were naked; and they sewed fig leaves together and made loincloths for themselves.” The preacher then points out that the serpent “twists to his own ends” the words and meaning of what God said. For the serpent does not lie, but tailors the truth to incite envy and desire from Eve and Adam for what would make them like God.

That is not precisely what the serpent does. He does not twist God’s words, but he questions Adam and Eve’s blind obedience to God’s commandment; he questions whether the understanding Eve and Adam have of those words is correct; he offers a different perspective, a different interpretation.

Is that not exactly what religious liberals do with all sacred text?

The serpent in the Garden of Eden was the first liberal and I, for one, am proud to claim his questioning ways for myself. This piece of biblical text causes me to contemplate not only what was lost when Adam and Eve were exiled from the garden, but what did they gain as well? Is there another way of interpreting the fall of humanity that offers us something rather than only takes away? 

Our liberal religious tradition says yes, we gained knowledge, which is never an evil or sinful thing, though it can be used to those ends; we came into the world, leaving the protective isolation of the garden for the experience of the whole existence; we were given the beauty of toiling for rewards, which often makes them sweeter. In an unkind view one could say that in Eden Eve and Adam were living like naïve children, where everything was provided and nothing was needed.

Of course, many of us long for a time in our lives like that, where all is given easily and little is asked in return; where we need only think of a thing to have our desire fulfilled. It does sound beautiful doesn’t it? But is it real? What would one strive for if living in paradise? What kind of person would you be if you did not have the experience of living in the world to form you? What would be the point of living, if you lived in heavenly paradise?

Maybe it’s my Unitarian Universalist and New England upbringing that says, work is good and accomplishments feel more significant if you’ve actually endeavored for them, but I also think the cost of paradise is too great, for the cost is our knowledge, our knowing and our learning. I don’t think many of us religious liberals would give up our ability to think and reason and question to forego death and gain immortality; to sacrifice the fruits of our search for truth, the lessons and wisdom we’ve gained or our freedom to apply reason to our convictions for a paradise of limited view.

“The common denominator of all liberalism,” writes A. Powell Davies, “is devotion to liberty…Liberalism is that which liberates. Its object is to loosen bondage, whether of the mind or of the person, whether of individuals or societies, and its motivation is the faith that human life can only reach its fullest stature through continuous liberation – through the struggle to be free.

“In religion,” he continues, “the liberal [has] stood for the unhindered use of the free mind in arriving at conviction. Truth declared to be more holy than any creed, more sacred than even the most sanctified of dogmas. [The liberal] refused to accept authoritarian ‘revelations’ which contradicted the revelation found in one’s own experience.”

This is the religious liberalism that founded Unitarian Universalism. We believe in the freedom of all people to determine for themselves the essence, nature and existence of the holy. We are a tradition whose search for meaning and truth has sent us to the sacred texts of the religions of the world. Because we believe that revelation is not sealed and delivered all at once; and is neither owned, nor determined by one body of people, clergy or laity alike, we seek wisdom from all sources of human experience and knowledge.

This is the difficulty religious conservatives have with religious liberals. Religious conservatives “seek to preserve the teachings of particular and established ideologies.” Within religiously conservative congregations, regardless of theological identity, it is about discovering, naming and holding to the truth, not to the possibility of multiple truths. When the Inspiration Network’s preacher announced to the crowd that the serpent was the first liberal, he was in fact, likening alternative perspectives with an act of the devil, with an act of evil. That is not to say he was necessarily calling religious liberals evil, but it was clear in his tone that understanding and believing differently from what he or his tradition determined the meaning of God’s words to be was not permitted and simply wrong. I have heard it said that the problem with liberals is that they only see in grey, they can’t see a clear way through the fog; meaning that religious liberals see nothing clearly, nothing in black and white, nothing to be right or wrong, that we find it difficult to claim with any certainty an idea or belief, that we are paralyzingly subjective and malleable.

A common and even understandable criticism is that religious liberals believe anything and everything. While that is far from true, we do struggle with how to maintain a unified identity while creating as few barriers to belonging among us as possible.

Though we live in a theological world of ambiguity and multiple ideas, it is the access to that variety that enriches, nourishes, and delights us on our religious journeys. For we find within the many traditions truths about ourselves.

As David Rankin writes,

• Like the Roman Catholics, we have a long tradition –- extending back to the sun-baked desert of ancient Israel, the small rural villages of Transylvania, and the rocky shores of early New England.
• Like the Jews, we have our heroes and heroines -- Servetus, David, and Fuller; Murray, Channing, and Emerson; Barton, Anthony, and Steinmetz -- to name only a few.
• Like the Baptists, we have a system of democratic polity -- with the congregation as the ultimate authority, an elected Board, and a pulpit characterized by freedom of expression.
• Like the Confucianists, we have emphasized the capacity for reason -- possessing a thirst for the fruits of wisdom and knowledge, and a reverent feeling toward the achievements of the mind.
• Like the Hindu, we have an eclectic system of theology -- encouraging each individual to develop a personal faith which is not dependent on external demand.
• Like the Humanists, we have our roots in the experience of the world -- as it is known through the medium of touch, and sight, and sound, and taste, and smell.
• Like the Buddhists, we have an accent on the individual -- on the beauty, the mystery, and the holiness of each man, woman, and child – as each is a sacred vessel.

One of the greatest mistakes we can make, writes James Luther Adams, is to suppose that all religion is good, or that religion is something sacrosanct, something that should be exempt from criticism, something that can escape the wrath of God.

That is why I wholeheartedly agree that the serpent in the Garden of Eden holds the honor of the title the first liberal. For as a creation of God he understood that even what is believed to be the word of God is to be examined, questioned, turned over and around, as with all scripture, to determine the “actual range of application, intrinsic authority and dependability” of the text as A. Powell Davies puts it. It is this ability and responsibility to bring criticism to religious ideas and ideology that makes us liberal. It is the freedom to decide what the implications of a given sacred text or ritual are and what they mean to us that we are granted in being labeled liberal.

As one such liberal, continues Davies, I glory in the accusation. I am a liberal without apology, a liberal without misgivings, a liberal without regret. I am an unrepentant liberal.

And so too, was the serpent in the Garden, the one now known as the first liberal.  May it be so. Amen.

The First Liberal, a sermon delivered by the Rev Sara Ascher at 1stUUPB on March 15, 2015.

What is the Essence of Liberalism?

The question will ever be posed: What is the essence of liberalism? And so it is today. In order to answer this question we must, of course, have the courage not to over-simplify. A vital liberalism has within it tensions, struggle, a dialectic if you will. With a self-denying ordinance which disclaims finality or authoritativeness, we venture the following characterization of the essential elements of liberalism.

First, liberalism holds that nothing is complete, and thus nothing is exempt from criticism…In religious terms, we may say that liberalism presupposes that revelation is continuous in word, in deed, and in nature, that it is not sealed, and that it points always beyond itself.

Second, liberalism holds that all relations between persons ought ideally to rest on mutual free consent and not on coercion. It presupposes moral obligations; moreover, it is in fact operative in institutions which maintain continuity in one way or another with those of a previous epoch and order…[and] liberals recognize the necessity for restrictions on individual freedom. Moreover, they recognize that ‘persuasion’ can be perverted…All men and women are children of God. The implication intended here is that the liberal method of free inquiry is the condition sine qua non (a condition without which there is nothing) of both the fullest apprehension of the divine and the preservation of human dignity which comes from our being children of one God.

Third, being an ethical procedure, that is, purporting to be significant for human behavior, liberalism involves the moral obligation to direct one’s efforts towards the establishment of democratic community. It involves, of course, a common life which gives rise to the expression of the manifold, creative impulses of the human spirit, an expression which presupposes a cooperative life impelled by the motives of love and justice.

Fourth, liberalism holds that the resources (human divine) which are available for the achievement of meaningful change justify an attitude of ultimate optimism. The divine element in reality both demands and supports mutuality. Thus the ground of hope is the…actual grace of God.

Why liberal? Because confidence in the principles of liberalism is the only effective resistant to ultimate skepticism and despair on the one side and to blasphemous claims to authority and suppressions of criticism on the other. These are the enemies of the human spirit whose dangers are threatening today.

By James Luther Adams, from The Essential James Luther Adams, as read by the Rev. Sara Ascher at 1stUUPB on March 15, 2015.

Seekers, Search, Sacred

In 17th century England there existed what was called a "lower-class heretical culture.”  The cornerstones of that culture were anti-clericalism -- not a movement against secretaries but priests --  and a strong emphasis on Biblical study, but specific doctrines that had "an uncanny persistence"; the rejection of Predestination and anti-Trinitarianism. The Seekers, or Legatine-Arians -- I’ll get to the Arians in a second -- as they were sometimes known, were a British Protestant dissenting group that emerged around the 1620s, probably inspired by the preaching of three brothers – Walter, Thomas, and Bartholomew Legate. Seekers considered all organized churches of their day corrupt and preferred to wait for God's revelation. Many of them subsequently joined the Religious Society of Friends (Quakers).

Arianism is defined as those teachings attributed to Arius, which are in opposition to orthodox teachings on the nature of the Trinity and the nature of Christ. Arianism is the nontrinitarian, heterodoxical teaching, first attributed to Arius (c. AD 250–336), a Christian administrative official in Alexandria, Egypt. The Seekers were not an organized religious group in any way that would be recognized today, not a religious cult or denomination but informal and localized. Membership in a local Seekers assembly did not preclude membership in another sect. Indeed, Seekers shunned creeds and each assembly tended to embrace a broad spectrum of ideas. Their collective witness demanded the church to be an entirely voluntary, non-coercive community able to evangelize in a pluralistic society. That sounds very familiar to us.

I’m sharing this bit of history with you so we can draw a line from early anti-trinitarianism to Unitarianism, to being a seeker. These are our roots. The Seekers were aptly named and so we too are seekers within this faith.  We spend a lot of time explaining what we believe and what we don’t  believe. The encouragement to seek the truth that individually speaks to us is likely how we found Unitarian Universalism.

How do we as seekers search for truth and discover that divine spark that is within each of us?  You see, being a seeker on a search does not only describe our journey of faith. Perhaps more important is our individual journey to the greatness within ourselves. We are granted a glimpse of that destination in these lines from poet Walt Whitman in the poem Leaves of Grass.
 

Would you sound below the restless ocean of the entire world?

Would you know the dissatisfaction? the urge and spur of every life;

The something never still'd — never entirely gone? the invisible need of every seed?

It is the central urge in every atom....

To return to its divine source and origin, however distant...

As seekers we have all felt that central urge to merge with the highest part of ourselves.  We are called to return to our divine source and origin.

I know what some are thinking right now. Last week we did the hokey pokey and now he just used the words divine and evangelize. If he says God I’m outta here!

When I use the word divine in the context of our journey to the greatness within, I’m not directing us toward a deity.  Rather, I’m directing us to the supremely good that lies within each of us.  Surely, this is palatable for all of us.  It is this search for the supreme good that sparks the search and inspires and encourages the seeker.  The need for whatever it may be that we’re drawn to is the yet-to-be- realized presence within us of that very thing to which we are drawn.

In the Gospel of Thomas -- yes doubting Thomas, surely one of our antecedents -- it is written

the kingdom of Heaven is within you, and whosoever knoweth himself shall find it.

The hidden nature of almost all that we do is the direct, but unseen, effect of this one great unconscious desire to search out what we believe will complete us.  We do experience contentment as seekers, but isn’t it often temporary?

Readster tells us,

Our reward may be a momentary sense of fulfillment that, in most cases, passes from sight as soon as do the temporary conditions that provided it for us.

We then return to our search. The mind that wants to know the truth of something and that’s willing to do the work required of a seeker, will inevitably find that for which it is searching; our highest aspirations are reflections of unrealized possibilities. Within each of us already dwells everything that will ever be known. Some of might need to dig deeper than others but it is there. I understand the idea of everything that is ever to be known dwells within us is a challenging idea or concept, especially for the sturdy Unitarian -- and particularly for seekers. We mustn’t forget or ignore the possibility.

I recently read a blog that listed 101 questions for self- discovery.  Self-discovery being a loaded phrase and because normally I would groan and keep moving, I was surprised when I took the bait and started reading. By question eight I was feeling a very crunchy-granola, tree-hugging, rose-colored-glasses, kumbaya-singing, daisy-wearing feeling. Those are all fine, but my personality detests perkiness, Mary Poppins, and new age balderdash.  I wasn’t able to spiritually or intellectually stomach the other 93. Yet, I remain a seeker.

It may seem a cliché now, but there's a reason mystics live alone, that spiritual people have gone on retreat for centuries. Poet Robert Weston writes about the slow days of summer, when we "might turn to examine our own lives." He calls us "unfinished clay, half-molded, that still waits on us to think what we have been and as we are still yet to become." There's a sense of promise there, an expansiveness in the idea that we may become many things yet. We may shape ourselves, and be shaped, and we may find that the new shape suits us so well that we realize we must have always been that way, in some sense. We have the space to shape ourselves, to examine ourselves, to wonder who we have been and who we might become. To wonder who we are, what we are, that we haven't yet discovered.
 
If you are here this morning you are a seeker. What are you seeking? What is it you're searching for?  Ask yourself these questions. If you truly accept that you are a seeker then this sermon becomes more than airy fairy good stuff.  It honors and encourages the foundation of your Unitarian Universalist self: to continue the journey, revelation is not sealed, to pay homage to individual freedom of thought and worship, to intellectually, spiritually, and otherwise search for the supremely good in yourself and in others.

Because as pop icon and drag queen RuPaul says, “If you can’t love yourself, how the hell you gonna love somebody else?  Can I get an amen up in here?” Seriously though, you will call on what we are holding up this morning. You inevitably will. The search of the seeker for the sacred is a hallmark of our faith tradition and can be a wild ride. Seek, search. Let go of the notion that nothing more can be revealed. That is in opposition of our claim to holding the search for truth and meaning sacred.

Spiritual teacher Guy Finley writes:

There is a storehouse of Sanity,
A vault of Love,
A treasure of Kindness,
All bursting at their seams.

Can't you feel the pressure
To just be Light?

Don't the walls of your heart
Ache to break loose and open
The floodgates of Freedom?

You have riches untold,
But have lost the map to the upper regions of yourself
Where you are always overflowing.

So, forget this world with its intermittent streams
Whose waters begin and end.
Search out the Ocean, and stand in Her surge
Until the waves wash away the shores of your soul.

Let's seek, search, and embrace the sacred through revelation.

May it be so.

Seekers, Search, Sacred, a sermon delivered by the Rev.
CJ McGregor at 1stUUPB, March 8, 2015.

Religious or Spiritual?

A few weeks ago I was at Home Depot shopping for various items for my home improvement project. I had a shopping cart full of items all lengths and sizes.

I said to the cashier "I hope all that stuff fits into my sedan!” She said, "have faith".  I almost responded by saying I am Unitarian Universalists, we are free in faith.

Have you ever wondered what does it exactly mean to be free in faith? Does it mean we are a group of religious folks who have no doctrine, liturgy, rituals or spiritual practices?

Many UUs will say we’re not religious, we are spiritual. So what’s the difference between being religious and spiritual? In many respects religion is often about who’s in and who’s out, creating a worldview steeped in “us against them.”

Spirituality rejects the dualism that speaks of them and us.
Religion is often about loyalty to institutions, clergy, and dogma.
Spirituality is about loyalty to justice and compassion.
Religion also talks about God.
Spirituality helps to make us whole.

But the two need to complement each other. Religion at its best is spirituality in community.
 
Historically, religious institutions that do harm are those that insist you surrender your will to them, and to God. Clergy who do harm are those who insist you worship them, rather than all that is HOLY.

When a religion insists you’re not good enough and asserts that you need to practice your spirituality according to prescribed rituals -- I don’t know about you, but I am part of this free faith because our spiritual practices are uniquely defined and communally (religiously) we believe in love, justice, freedom and the inherent worth and dignity of each person.

We have learned from many, like Sophia Lyon Fahs, who believes:
If religion is to survive in a day of advancing scientific discoveries, it must find a way to be on the one hand intellectually sound, and on the other hand emotionally satisfying.

Fahs calls for a reformation of traditional religious beliefs about human nature, the universe, and the natural world by discarding archaic doctrines, ideas, and dogma.

In other words, condemning people with a notion of sin and threatening them with eternal damnation is not going to be spiritually beneficial to anyone. But unfortunately religion is often about getting people to conform to its beliefs and dogma.

We would be better served if religion could uncover, cultivate, and support our capacity for justice and kindness, rather than dwell on our failures and imperfections.

I urge you to let go of the religious hokey pokey of the past and focus on enhancing your spirituality by discovering who you are -- who you are today or ought to be in the future. Why are you here? Know that you were created for a unique purpose.

You have an authentic spirit that needs to be cultivated by going deep within your soul to find your divine Self. There is no need to surrender or abandon the self of the past.  Instead, align your spirit with the essential core of your being.

It’s much like the hokey pokey where you put your whole self in! Some of you may be familiar with Benedictine spirituality. If you aren’t, please don’t feel bad, because neither was I until it was offered it as part of a class at Andover Newton Theological School. 

Similar to the hokey pokey this spiritual practice requires you to “put your whole self in” by truly being attentive, and obedient to the needs of your mind, body and spirit. For the most part, Benedictine spirituality has a prescribed set of rules -- 76 rules in total -- as well as a few general principles. The fundamental core belief is that such rules will lead to a life of freedom and wholeness.
In other words, Benedict spirituality is about listening to four realities:
the Gospel,
the rule,
each other,
and the world around us. 

I am not sure that this spiritual practice will lead to a life of freedom and wholeness because it seems somewhat conservative. Besides, I’m a recovering Catholic who can't stand rules. However do believe that in order to align the mind with the spirit (soul) you must engage in a figurative game of “Hokey Pokey” Like trying to do the Hokey Pokey you must listen intently and carefully to the world around you.

We often forget to take time to smell the roses and greet the strangers among us! There really is a world full of human potential but we get wrapped up in ourselves and think that we alone can do all things, we must realize how essential it is to be interconnected with all things in order to be spiritually whole.
 
It is encouraging to know that we have each other to rely on as well as the capacity to be spiritually whole. It is astonishing to know that we are never alone. We are all vulnerable at times so we try to stay busy in order to avoid being alone with our spirit. What I am saying is that we are constantly looking for ways to occupy our time. The busy mind and body will never be able to cultivate the spirit. 

Becoming whole involves mind, body, and spirit. We each have special gifts but most of the time we are too busy to be still long enough to listen to that inner voice. The first step towards spiritual wholeness requires listening, because by doing so you are allowing your self and spirit to join in harmony.  Second, in order to reach spiritual wholeness we must let people into our most inner circle, because those who are different from us will stretch our ability to listen, hear, and learn.

Certainly none of these tasks are comfortable, but change is never easy. Saint Benedict believed that with humility comes change. Humility comes from understanding one's place in the universe.

Finally we need an individual spiritual practice such as yoga, prayer, meditation, and nature journeys. You decide what puts your mind and body at ease to allow you to connect your whole self with your spirit.

Leave here knowing that spirituality is born in a person and develops in the person. It may be kick-started by a religion, or it may be kick-started by a revelation. Your spirituality extends to all facets of your life.

Our forebears taught us that Spirituality is chosen while religion is often times forced upon us. To me being spiritual is more important and better than being religious, because true spirituality is something that is found deep within oneself.

Amen. May it be so. Go in peace.

Religious or Spiritual?, a sermon by John Smith at 1stUUPB on March 1, 2015.

Celebrating our Heritage

This month of February is our month of stewardship. From this pulpit, I've talked about caring for that which is not ours, UUism as a way of life, and our responsibility of stewardship to preserve that way of life. Today I'd like to hold up our inheritance. What have we inherited from those who founded this Congregation, and all the others who came before us?  The Ross Room, in this building, has been newly dedicated as a record of our history. It is filled with memorabilia from our archives, most of which have -- until recently -- been hidden away gathering dust. It is a room of our inheritance.

Our story for all ages this morning was called "The Keeping Quilt." The dresses and aprons and shirts and shawls from loved ones in "backhome" Russia, were wearing out, or outgrown, so their fabrics were transformed into a beautiful quilt, preserving the stories of the people who made or wore them, and the love that went into them.

When someone is planning a quilt, they have to think about the whole project. How big a quilt? Who is it for? Are you going to reuse old clothing, or use only new fabric? Will you buy it or ask your friends for their leftovers? What patterns will you use? Are you going to make your own or use something already created? What colors do you want? How thick a stuffing do you want? Will the fabric on the back be the same as on the front? Will you hand-quilt it, or use a machine? Some of these questions need to be decided in advance, and some of them can be figured out along the way.

This month of stewardship, the final days of our campaign, is the time to examine our heritage, our inheritance, all the dresses and aprons, that make up our beloved community and think about how to keep it a beautiful, warm, comforting, and inspirational quilt.

To acknowledge our ancestors means we are aware that we did not make ourselves, that the line stretches all the way back. We remember them because it is an easy thing to forget; that we are not the first to suffer, rebel, fight, love and die.

Author Alice Walker writes: The grace with which we embrace life, in spite of the pain, the sorrow, is always a measure of what has gone before.

We honor the people who gave so much of themselves, to create and sustain the foundation of what we cherish today; we will also take the time for a little spiritual reflection on what we hope that we ourselves are bringing to birth as we live our lives here in this community.

In the Book of Deuteronomy we read:
We are ever bound in community:
We build on foundations, we did not lay.
We warm ourselves at fires, we did not light.
We sit in the shade of trees, we did not plant.
We drink from wells, we did not dig.

These words are an ever-present reminder to us of the blessedness of the time and place we find ourselves in, and at the same time a profound reminder of the responsibility we hold to those who will follow. We sit here in worship this morning in this beautiful sanctuary, and we become part of this beloved community because someone else, many someone elses, laid the foundation, dug the wells and planted the trees. We have this place and this community so that we may have a time and place where we may "rest in the grace of the world and be free". We have this community where the beauty we love can be what we do and where we may find ways to kneel and kiss this ground. 
We have, this place, this Congregation, this very life, on loan from those who came before us, and we hold it in trust for those who will come after us. That is the meaning of stewardship -- to hold in trust.

The big question then is what are you going to do with what you have been given? How are you going to hold on to it? The poet Mary Oliver in her poem "This Summer Day" asks this question of us in the way only a poet can do. She writes:

Who made the world?
Who made the swan, and the black bear?
Who made the grasshopper?
This grasshopper,
I mean the one who has flung herself out of the grass,
the one who is eating sugar out of my hand,
who is moving her jaws back and forth
instead of up and down
who is gazing around with her
enormous and complicated eyes.
Now she lifts her pale forearms
and thoroughly washes her face.
Now she snaps her wings open, and floats away.
I don't know exactly what a prayer is.
I do know how to pay attention,
how to fall down into the grass,
how to kneel down in the grass,
how to be idle and blessed,
how to stroll through the fields,
which is what I have been doing all day.
Tell me what else should I have done?
Doesn't everything die at last and too soon?
Tell me what is it you plan to do
with your one wild and precious life?

I know that what I wish to do with my one precious life and that is to leave the world a bit better for those who follow after me, to know I have made a difference, to keep digging wells, laying foundations and planting trees so that they will be there after I am gone. I want to care for the present while honoring the past, in order to embrace a future that is bright, has meaning and hope.

The kind of ministry I have chosen is focused on helping congregations honor the past and clarify the present so that you may embrace the future with health, strength and passion.

There is a legendary image from Africa called the Sankofa Bird. Visually and symbolically Sankofa is expressed as a mythic bird that flies forward while looking backward with an egg (symbolizing the future) in its mouth. Sankofa teaches us that we must go back to our roots in order to move forward. That is, we should reach back and gather the best of what our past has to teach us, so that we can achieve our full potential as we move forward.

You have entered into the spirit of Sankofa. You have chosen to set forth in a bold new direction. You embodied the aspect of Sankofa that moves forward. I've been here nearly 20 months, watching you stretch, resist, stretch more, and embrace me in my sometimes impulsive guidance. So now what?

You still hold the egg of possibility in your mouth. Where will you take it?

Like the Sankofa bird, holding the egg in it's mouth and looking back at its past as it flies forward, you too are flying forward with a fuller and deeper understanding of where you have been and have the opportunity to better understand the people and events that are our inheritance, an opportunity to examine your heritage. It begins just beyond that door.

So imagine with me for a little bit about what the future of this Congregation might look like. In my minds eye I see a thriving liberal faith community, with exciting and varied programs, stable ministry and dedication to service and justice that is a vital an integral part of Palm Beach County.

I see -- in many different possible forms and images -- a church building that is striking in beauty and versatile in use, with lots of space for programs, worship, education and especially people. 

I hear music -- lots of music. I see a beloved community of people who live with each other in diversity with kindness, gentleness and encouragement.

I see dynamic ministry taking place both through the work of your minister and through the ministry that each one of you are doing. I see people of all ages being spiritually fed and intellectually challenged in their faith and beliefs, children, youth, young adults and students, parents, mid-lifers and elders.

In other words I see you thriving. Embrace that Future.

We build on foundations, we did not lay. We warm ourselves at fires, we did not light.  We sit in the shade of trees we did not plant. We drink from wells we did not dig.

Whatever future you envision whatever future you embrace for this Congregation will depend on the foundations you prepare today.

Stewardship means to hold something in trust, something that we have been entrusted with, and to care for it. It means holding that precious egg of possibilities as you fly forward into your future. It means honoring the past and those who have gone before us; standing firmly in the present; and, most of all, embracing the future.

May it be so.

Traditions, Achievements, Beliefs: Celebrating our Heritage. a sermon by the Rev. CJ McGregor delivered at 1stUUPB on Feb 22, 2015.

A Way of Life for Seekers

Sweet dreams are made of this.  Who am I to disagree?  Travel the world and the seven seas.  Everybody’s looking for something.  Those words are from a song written by Annie Lennox, the lead in a British pop duo. If you attend our Vesper’s service tomorrow evening you will hear more of Annie Lennox.  The lyrics lead us to a truth that every living thing is searching for something to fulfill itself. The spiritual teacher Shaw Readster asks us, “Can we see how, in one form or another, everything in creation longs to touch and be touched?  Flowers and trees stretch their leaves and limbs up to the sun, just as it reaches down to touch them.  Fields of grain summon small birds to carry away their seeds; every breeze searches for something to move.  Raindrops rush down to slake the thirst of a parched earth.”  As Unitarian Universalists we affirm our Seven Principles. Our fourth  principle grants us the right to be a seeker, “A free and responsible search for Truth and Meaning.” We are indeed seekers who join every other living thing in our search for fulfillment.

I’ve been a pilgrim, a seeker, on long journeys. The most significant was my call to the Unitarian Universalist ministry.  I had been a leader in non-profit organizations for over 25 years and was quite successful.  I had worked for major players in the non-profit world in New York and Massachusetts.  I had easily moved up the ladder in any organization I worked for.  There was one problem.  My ladder was leaning against the wrong wall.  Even though I was experiencing the success, the benefits, the accolades of my work I was dissatisfied.

Richard has spent many hours trying to understand why I was never happy with what I was doing.  I spent many hours asking what was wrong with me and wondering if I would ever find what I was meant to be doing, searching for that fulfillment. During that time I was also the Director of Religious Education for a congregation in Massachusetts.  Again, it was a successful program, we experienced major growth and organization, yet I still wasn’t fulfilled.  In New England religious education for UU children and youth happens in the basement of the church.  When I first arrived here you may have heard me talk about the Religious Education program as “downstairs.”  Late one Saturday evening I was preparing for the lessons the next day.  I was surrounded by glue sticks, curriculum, likely had glitter head to toe, and something changed.  In that moment I experienced revelation. The nagging I had felt for years which I was labeling chronic discontent was actually seeking.  In the basement of a church, sitting alone, I was called to ministry.  I found what I was seeking and the nagging discontent took leave.  I once asked Richard what he thought of all this and he told me that my ministry was the only time he had seen me truly happy, satisfied.  As a pilgrim, a seeker, I was relieved, anxiety and discontent removed.  I am fulfilled by this call, this work.
 
The hidden nature of almost all that we do is the direct, but unseen, effect of that one great unconscious desire to search out what we believe will complete us.  We do experience contentment as seekers, but isn’t it often temporary?  Readster tells us, “Our reward may be a momentary sense of fulfillment that, in most cases, passes from sight as soon as do the temporary conditions that provided it for us.”  We then return to our search.  What are we to do?  Where are we to find a solution to that seemingly inescapable dilemma?

Rumi, the 13th century Persian poet, tells us that if we wish to bring an end to the cycle of our discontent, then we must “find the antidote in the venom!”  Honestly, I spend a lot of time trying to understand what the heck Rumi was talking about.  I adore his poetry but sometimes in bounces off me.  Find the antidote in the venom.  Whenever we dare to stand in the light of some unwanted truth we might feel powerless to change ourselves and the world.  We understand that our present situation and choices cannot lead us to freedom and understand our present choices are secretly what is holding us captive. Venom.  In the same moment we see what doesn’t work and gain the understanding that if we are to succeed in our search for wholeness we require a new and higher order of self-knowledge.  Antidote.  To whom and to what do Unitarian Universalists turn to in our search for wholeness and understanding that our way of life, our way of living of being in the world will transform other lives?

When you need a place that feeds the hungry, clothes the poor, stands beside the immigrant, embraces and holds the other, stands and marches for equality for people of color, the gay, women, supports many grassroots community organizations with their money, that reaches beyond themselves know there is more love, more peace, more joy out there?  When you are battered by the world we live in, are mourning, are celebrating, are in need of a friend or are able to be a friend, where do you go?  Is there a center in our lives where we can all arrive and find our place, our values, where we are accepted for our true selves, where we can raise our children to be in love with the world, its environment and its people.  Is there a home for us where we can live the life of a seeker and be celebrated and encouraged for this way of life?  You are here. You’ve found the place, the potential center of our lives that holds us and those we love in an embrace of acceptance, learning, love, justice, revelation, and transformation.
 
Exodus Chapter 3 verse 5: “Do not come any closer,” God said. “Take off your sandals, for the place where you are standing is holy ground.” We are on holy ground.  These walls hold love in and evil out.  We are safe here.  This place prepares us for how we will live our lives as seekers.  Teaching us, challenging us, holding us, we can return again and again and sit a while, exhale, and know that we will leave transformed in some small way.  How do we preserve the way of life for seekers?  We must consider this holy ground, this place, our Congregation, a site of heritage.

Sites of heritage are especially important because they help people learn about the ideas and lifestyles of a civilization.  This site of heritage helps people learn about freedom, reason, and tolerance, our ideas and lifestyles as Unitarian Universalists.  We are the liberal voice in the south.  This must remain the site of our heritage.  We are descendants of Servetus, David, Emerson, Alcott, Fuller, Channing, Parker -- all who concerned themselves with creating a place for the free thinker, the seeker.  We must preserve and strengthen our voice, our Unitarian Universalist way of life in this community and our world.  We are faced with the opportunity to create our legacy.

We are stewards of this Congregation.  “Legally we are the owners, but morally and ethically we do not own it, we hold it in trust for the generations of the past who created and nurtured it over the years, and for future generations, for those people who will be here in the years to come.  We also hold it in trust for other Unitarian Universalists throughout the world.  We hold the name and should honor it so that we maintain its good name for them.  Because they will be judged in part by who we are and what we do.  We hold this Congregation and the name Unitarian Universalist in trust for Unitarian Universalism in general and it is our responsibility to tend it and care for it as we would want others to care for it in our name.”  Unitarian Universalist Elizabeth Leisersin writes, “If we are Aristotle's rational animals, we are the animal that is capable of deep thought, of comprehension of abstract concepts. We are also the animal that is capable of both creation and destruction on a grand scale. Any being, any animal, can create happiness for themselves, but seeing that happiness for the blessing it is and preserving it for others is an ability unique (as far as I know) to humans.”

Let us create a legacy of happiness, seeking, freedom and justice.  What is the essence of a good and faithful life? Not rules. Not beliefs. But Love. Not the kind of love felt in fleeting emotions, the falling in love kind of love but the love we practice all our lives, the love which is an attitude of the heart, a disposition with which we choose to engage life, Our way of life as seekers.  Choose once again.
May it be so.

A Way of Life for Seekers, a sermon delivered by the Rev. CJ McGregor at 1stUUPB, Feb 8, 2015.

Black Pioneers

This morning, as we once again devote this third Sunday in January to honor and remember the great legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., we must do so in the terrible and divisive shadow of what is happening in many other angry communities all across the country. King’s leadership in the march from Selma to Montgomery, Alabama is a well-known event of 1965. Imagine the South in 1964 and earlier, strategies and tactics to promote voter suppression, innocent youth murdered and justice never arriving, and systematic racism permeating the culture.

Oh!  Did I say 1964?  I meant 2015.

I’ve spent a lot of time in reflection on the legacy of King this month.  I recently re-read the book Black Pioneers written by the Unitarian Universalist minister Mark Morrison-Reed. I had the pleasure of spending three days with Reed last fall and our time together has changed my ministry.  Reed tells stories of his black family arriving at a white Unitarian church in the 1960’s.  The book chronicles the lives of black pioneers in a white denomination.

He writes, “The Unitarian Universalist church and others like it will remain largely segregated until there is a twofold transformation: one in society, the other within the church. First, on a societal level, it is essential that Unitarian Universalists and other liberal religionists never forget that political and economic freedoms are the mainstay of intellectual freedom, and that inequities and injustice subsequently undermine all freedom. This realization presses us to take seriously the cliché that until all of us are free, none of us is truly free. It is a 'moral imperative,' then, that we commit ourselves to the establishment of a just society. The result of this endeavor will be the evolution of a society potentially more responsive to Unitarian Universalist values. Second, within the liberal church, the transformation would begin with the strengthening of our spirituality through an enriched story –- a story that exposes our commitment to freedom, shakes up our class bias, sensitizes us to the needs of others, strengthens our sense of human connectedness, and, finally, inspires us to struggle with others for freedom.“ 
 
Unitarians and Universalists haven’t always been on the cutting edge of racial equity.  There is a dark moment in our past that is labelled “The Walk Out.” First, some history.  Two events shook the Unitarian Universalist Association soon after its formation in 1961.  Both were related to the struggle for racial justice, but while one unified the denomination, sustaining its self-image of being on the right side of the struggle, the other shattered this easy assumption and inflicted wounds that still have not healed.

First, in 1965, came the murder of the Rev. James Reeb, a Unitarian Universalist minister, while he was in Selma, Alabama, demonstrating for black civil rights. Second, only four years later, many black delegates and their white supporters walked out of the General Assembly in Boston to protest what they considered a racist vote. What had seemed so obvious after Selma -- that in the fight for racial justice it was “us” (the good guys) vs. “them” (the racists) -- suddenly wasn’t so obvious after all. The line between “us” and “them” no longer seemed so clear.

Why? What had happened?  We’re still struggling with these and related questions. Perhaps the search for answers can help us build on the things we have done right and improve on the things we have done badly since the UUA was formed. The national revulsion at the Selma murders –- Viola Gregg Liuzzo, a UU from Detroit, was murdered in a separate incident in Selma -- led Congress finally to pass long-delayed civil rights legislation. Thus the Reeb martyrdom became enshrined as proof of our racial sanctity, along with the famous story of how the Rev. Theodore Parker kept a pistol in his desk drawer to fight off anyone trying to recapture the fugitive slaves he was harboring. Parker, renowned as the most charismatic Unitarian preacher of the mid-19th century, said of the Rev. Ezra Stiles Gannett, a supporter of the fugitive slave law -- which required the capture of runaway slaves who had fled to free states -- “He is calling on his church members to kidnap mine.” What we recall less often is that Gannett, too, was a Unitarian.

Clearly our hyped unity on the issue of race is not the whole story. Even Reeb’s death did not evoke the same emotions from all UUs. In 1968 Heyward Henry, chair of the newly formed Black Unitarian Universalist Caucus said, “We Unitarian Universalists like to keep saying, ‘But we went to Selma with you ... why are you [blacks] rejecting us?’ he continues, “In Selma, a black man named Jimmy Jackson was killed and at that time you could count the number of Unitarians in Selma on your fingers. A few weeks, later a white man was killed, and all Unitarians ran to Selma. Racism, that’s what it was.”
 
The legend of the 1969 UU General Assembly Walkout goes something like this.  Black UU’s issued demands to organize a Black Affairs Conference and to be funded to do the work of the Council.  The demands were accepted but the General Assembly voted down the funding.  Chaos ensued.  Black delegates left the assembly and their were protests, aggression, and hatred on the floor of a UU General Assembly.  What happened in the following years is chronicled in Reed’s book.  Black Unitarian Universalist leaders seeking equity in our denomination. The history is more complex than I can now summarize but it was a painfully polarized era of the so-called Black Empowerment Controversy. It was also the high-water mark of African-American participation in our churches. Nonetheless, many well-meaning white Unitarian Universalists, some of whom had devoted their lives to racial integration, were deeply offended by black UU’s who caucused separately and, with many white allies, demanded that the UUA do more to address racism within both church and society.

When it appeared the Assembly would not address their concerns and many people of color, hurt and angry, began to leave the floor, Jack Mendelsohn – then minister at Arlington Street Church -- took the podium, announced that he too would leave to commiserate with his sisters and brothers. To consider future options, Jack also invited others to join him at the church.  Therewith, a few hundred distraught delegates -- with tears streaking down faces, walked out. One minister spit in Jack’s face and said, had he a gun, he would have shot him. The events of that assembly were a trauma, the anguish of which is still felt. Many African-Americans, including Bill Sinkford who would later return and became UUA President, left our faith -- many never to return.

I spent a lot of time in airports a few days ago.  I was making my way from the new York/Canadian border to Florida, or from the tundra to paradise.  I sat with the New York times in my lap and on my cell phone and poured over the article and photographs of the  ‘Freedom Journey 1965’ Photographs by Stephen Somerstein of the march from Selma to Montgomery, Ala., from the new exhibition at the New-York Historical Society.  Holland Cotter of the New York Times writes, “Scads of photographers were on the job that day and, inevitably, certain subjects -- political leaders, visiting celebrities -- were the focus of many cameras, including Mr. Somerstein’s. Yet most of the people in his pictures are not stars; they’re rank-and-file participants. It’s from their perspective that we see the march. In one shot, we’re in the middle of it, surrounded by fellow walkers. In others, we’re looking out at bystanders who line the way: white office workers; hecklers; multiracial shoppers; African-American children on porches; women, dressed in Sunday best, on the steps of black churches.  Cotter tells us that “this viewpoint subtly alters a standard account of the event, one perpetuated in “Selma,” which suggests that a small, elite band of high-level organizers were the heroes of the day. They were indeed heroes, but they were borne on the shoulders of the countless grass-roots organizers who paved the way for the march and the anonymous marchers, many of them women, who risked everything to walk the walk.”

When I speak of pioneers I am not necessarily only speaking of those leading, first in line, or those who have their names memorialized.  The pioneers I am speaking of are the people caught in the Freedom March photographs, the people, black and white, walking out of the 1969 General Assembly, the people I marched with yesterday in Riveria Beach celebrating the legacy of King.  These are the pioneers that  operationalized the dreams and the hopes of leaders.  These are the people who were, who are, struck down, these are the people that dare to pursue equality.  Typical, everyday people.  Us.  We are the pioneers in the movement for racial equity today.  I refuse to believe that preaching equality each January, attending a single program on a Thursday night, or a check is enough.  It isn’t.
 
Young, old, and in between we as Unitarian Universalist have our own legacy to attend to.  We cannot offer ourselves passively.  1965 has returned.  We have replaced the martyrs Reeb and Luizo with Michael Brown, Tamir Rice, and Eric Garner.  How will we pioneer?  How will we learn from our mistakes and bring equity to our communities and sanctuary?    We are the pioneers.  We are the liberal voice in South Florida.  Our hope lies not only in the inner strength that our religion teaches us to nurture, but also in the example of those who went before to show us the way. They built a church for us, and it is ours to hand on to our children and to their children.

“Will we forsake this legacy?”, writes Rev. Scott Alexander.  “On this -- Martin Luther King holiday 2015 -- the 29th year it has been officially celebrated in America -- race relations are at least as strained and endangered as they have been at any other time in our recent national history.  Let us therefore promise ourselves -- this day -- that we will each lend ourselves to being (as the old saying goes) “part of the solution,” rather than “part of the problem.”   Let us focus on cultural transformation” rather than cultural “blame.”  And most important of all, let us keep our hearts open to every last of our fellow Americans -- be they black, white, yellow, or brown, or (as I say every Sunday when we gather) “Some other wonderful shade of what it means to be human.”   Martin Luther King Sunday reminds us -- this year perhaps more than others -- that this work is as important as it is difficult.

So let’s once again get about it … now … together … that America can (one day soon) become true to its promise to all its citizens. May the light of reason, the comfort of kindness, the depth of a growing spiritual life, the outreach of action, and the acceptance of our own goodness and potential always be our inspiration and the source of our continuing gratitude to our founders and to those who have carried the torch that we hold high.   May it be so.

Black Pioneers, a sermon delivered by the Rev. CJ McGregor at 1stUUPB on Jan 18, 2015.