Sermon

A group of ministers were having lunch together and, as clergy sometimes do, were grumbling about their superiors. The Catholic Priest complained, "I just get a little tired sometimes of having to do what the bishop tells me to do especially with our contributions." "I know how you feel," said the Methodist minister, "I'd love to be able to decide which church I'm going to serve rather than have one picked out for me." The complaining went around the table until it came to the Unitarian Universalist minister who said, "Well, I don't have a Bishop but I'm no better off because I have to answer to the entire congregation." The other ministers laughed and the Priest said, "Oh, surely there must be someone who tells you what to do." The Unitarian Universalist minister replied, "No, actually we have something called 'congregational polity' which means that the congregation as a whole is the only one who can call or dismiss me."

Hardened and cynical from their years of orthodox ministry, they argued with him that he served the congregation first. The other ministers couldn't believe there wasn't one person or a group that ordered him around. Finally they appointed the priest to go to visit the local Unitarian Universalist Church and find out who is REALLY in charge.

The very next Sunday, the greeter at the front door welcomed the priest and asked him if he might have lost his way. The priest thanked the greeter for her concern but he was there on an important mission. Then the priest firmly requested, "I want to talk to the person in charge." The greeter was a little taken aback and thought for a moment who that might be. Then she took him to the President of the congregation. After shaking hands with the President, the priest exclaimed, "Ah ha! So you are the person who is in charge here!" The president shook his head. "Sorry, much as sometimes I'd like to run the show, I can only do what my Board of Trustees tells me I can do." "Then take me to your Trustees!" said the Priest. The President introduced him to each Trustee. None of them felt like they were in charge and CERTAINLY they were not in charge of the minister. The priest scratched his head and suddenly had another idea. "Take me to your Treasurer!" commanded the priest. He asked the Treasurer who gave the most money and found that person in the congregation and asked, "Are you in charge?" "Oh no!" said the generous donor, "I'd never dream of trying to buy influence with my contributions!" Well the priest didn't give up and kept talking to person after person until he finally came to an old woman in the social hall sitting in a chair in the corner. "Are you in control of this congregation?" asked the priest? "Could be..." said the old woman. The priest was flabbergasted. "Could be? How could it be? You're not the minister. You're not the President. You're not an officer of the church. You don't give much money. How could YOU be in control of this church?"

The old woman smirked and replied, "Well, nothing happens around here before I serve the coffee!"

Trying to figure out who is in charge of a Unitarian Universalist congregation can be an interesting exercise because the power in our congregations REALLY IS held by all the members of the congregation. Only the congregation can call or dismiss a minister. Only the congregation can elect the officers and Board of Trustees members who serve at their pleasure. Most important decisions are made by calling a meeting of the entire congregation. The democratic design of our congregational polity distributes power rather than concentrates it.

Each of our congregations is independent of all the others and free from any hint of control by the Unitarian Universalist Association. The bylaws of the UUA spell it out as follows:

Nothing in these Bylaws shall be construed as infringing upon the congregational polity or internal self-government of member societies (Section 3-1.2)

The closest we have to a creedal stance might just be our strong devotion to congregational freedom from any imposed institutional authority or external governing body. Basically, no one tells this congregation what to do except the members of this congregation.

Confirming this same spirit of independence, the UUA Bylaws have in them a provision for an elected group called the Commission on Appraisal. The members of this commission are elected at our yearly General Assembly and serve six year terms. The purpose of the commission is to independently study different aspects of our congregational life and institution structure and give a report of their findings. Because they are not beholden to any institutional authority, they may speak plainly and directly about our policies and practices making recommendations for change. This past summer, they gave a report of their most recent work titled: Interdependence: Renewing Congregational Polity.

Their report and their presentation to the General Assembly in June identified areas for reform at all levels of our governing process and in the relations between congregations. Their impressive 173 page report examined both the theory of our Congregational Polity and the way we practice it. In the first section of their study, they compared the way we use Congregational Polity with the way other Denominations use the same ideas. They examined the history of both Unitarian and Universalist Polity. In the second section of their study, they looked at what they termed "the pressure points" in congregational governance, cooperative relationships between congregations and the UUA, communications revolutions and their effects on polity, religious leadership, social justice, marginalized groups and internationalism. (While I don't have the time to go into all the rich detail and subtleties this morning, I'd be happy to lend you my copy so you can read through it yourself.)

Our system of Congregational Polity evolved from the ideas of a few Pilgrims who landed in Plymouth in November of 1620. They were so disabused of the authoritarian approach to religion they suffered under before leaving England to travel to Holland, they feared giving anyone power over them. These Pilgrims, reading the Bible for themselves for the first time, were intent on recreating the early Christian communities they read about in the letters of Paul. They found no scriptural support for any Pope, Bishop, or other hierarchy of power. They felt they were chosen of God and thus had no need of some holier than thou person to tell them what to do. They had complete trust that the Lord would work through them as a group and show them the right way to go.

Before they even left the Mayflower, they decided that the way they would unite themselves would not be around one leader or a creedal statement but rather a covenant, a oath solemnly taken to each other promising to:

combine ourselves together into a civil Body Politick, for our better ordering and Preservation, and Furtherance of the Ends aforesaid; And by virtue hereof do enact, constitute, and frame such just and equal Laws, ordinances, Acts, Constitutions, and offices, from time to time, as shall be thought most meet and convenient for the general Good of the Colony; unto which we promise all due Submission and obedience. (From Mayflower Compact)

Not all those who signed this compact were recognized as chosen of God or saints. The Body Politick and the Church would be separated. The gathered church while serving the parish only admitted into membership those upright people of character showing the signs of election. While no particular theological view was required for membership besides showing signs of election, devout Christian faith was of course assumed. It is very important to note here that the covenantal relationship with the church was primary not holding orthodox religious views. Character was more important than theology!

Well the road was not smooth for these saints as they attempted to create the New Jerusalem in the New World. They had many problems in their first twenty five years. These solitary churches gradually realized they needed to work out a bond with each other for the purpose of care, consultation, admonition, participation, recommendation and relief. The details of how congregations will govern themselves and work with each other was spelled out in 1648 in the Cambridge Platform, now 350 years old. While many of the ideas in this document have gone by the board, the core of congregational independence has been vigorously protected.

The fierce independence outlined in the Cambridge Platform has not made it easy to unite congregations around care, consultation, admonition, participation, recommendation and relief. I don't have the time nor would I wish to test your attention span by telling our institutional histories of the American Unitarian Association or the Universalist Church of America. Suffice it to say that they have always been weak organizations actively resisted by its member congregations and its ministry. Fear of Presbyterian rule by clergy has created tensions between our clergy organizations and our congregations. Laid with the foundation of what, in the early 1800's, would later become Unitarianism is a fear of authority which echoes in our ears each year at General Assembly as someone steps to the CON microphone to protest some perceived power grab by the UUA or the UU Minister's Association with the objection that such an action violates congregational polity.

So let's now get to the heart of the matter. Just how much power do we want to give to the Unitarian Universalist Association? Just how much of our autonomy are we willing to sacrifice for coming together and formalizing Unitarian Universalism as a religion rather than a voluntary association? Just what commitments are we willing to make to all other Unitarian Universalists in our belief and practice?

Why all this matters will be clear to any management theorist. The more an organization gets very clear and specific about its identity and gets its members all reading from the page, the greater the organization can grow and gain power to accomplish its mission. If everyone is "doing their own thing," it is really hard get any agreement to do anything together. If the growth of Unitarian Universalism matters to you, if advancing our values in the local community and the world matter to you, if gathering the resources to achieve our goals matters to you, then you will quickly see how much congregational independence gets in our way.

In our system, the squeaky wheel stops the train.

The Commission on Appraisal report, like any good investigation, raises more questions than I think it answers. They feel we are moving and should be moving from independence to a greater sense of interdependence. Congregations need to build community with each other and thus shape our Unitarian Universalism by taking responsibility for engaging in the democratic process and being responsive to the needs of the majority of our congregations as well as to our own individual needs. Too often our independence has been an excuse for a lack of accountability.

I probably have a unique perspective on all of this because of my heavy involvement in denominational affairs. I've been working at the continental level serving as chair of the Electronic Communications Committee. I am currently serving as secretary for the Florida District. I am President of the Florida chapter of the Unitarian Universalist Ministers Association. I am acting President for our Southwest Florida Cluster. I regularly correspond with people across Florida and around the Continent helping to support and encourage Unitarian Universalism. I have been a Unitarian Universalist my whole life and been an active participant in the UUA probably for the last 10 years.

I feel what undermines our ability to join together to support our Association, more than our love of our independence is our lack of clarity and commitment to a shared set of beliefs. 350 years ago when Congregationalism was codified in the Cambridge Platform, they didn't need to spell these things out. Everyone embraced the same Calvinist view of Trinitarian Christian theology. As Franklin Littell put it in these words:

For many of our forefathers, at least, the planting of America represented a major break from past history and a radical advance into a new age. God had hidden America until such a time as the Reformation could guarantee that the religion planted on these shores would be pure and evangelical. Certain writers linked three great events by which God's Providence prepared the coming of the New Age: (1) the invention of printing, whereby the Bible was made available to all; (2) the Reformation, whereby cult and confession were purified; (3) the discovery of America. Even such relatively sober men as Cotton Mather and Jonathan Edwards linked the discovery of America with the coming triumph of the eternal gospel[1].

This assumed messianic Christian faith which supported their polity no longer guides Unitarian Universalism. We left this theology behind long ago. Rather than continually redefine our beliefs with clarity, we have decided to gradually move away from defining ourselves and make inclusivity our religion. This movement became clear to the Mission Statement committee last Sunday morning as we tried to figure out who this congregation is and where it would like to go in the future.

Through much struggle and aggravation, I am gradually coming around to the view that building a cohesive theologically purified religion to save the world is not what Unitarian Universalism is all about. Today, Unitarian Universalism is all about helping individuals discover who they are and begin to discover religion from the inside rather from the outside. While this process is quite messy and prone to error, it is not helped by a strong sense of denominational identity. We have refined a fundamental difference in the way the Pilgrims practiced their faith. They trusted God guided them from the inside rather than from the outside.

From this Pilgrim heresy, we have become a fundamentally different kind of way to do religion rooted in Protestant Christianity which now may have more in common with the East than the West. Comparisons with other Jewish or Protestant denominations and how they do things doesn't help us much because we are about a very different religious task. We have a unique religious mission of liberation which resists even interdependence.

All that said, the most important message for me in the Commission's report is for congregations to be in relationship with each other, to struggle with each other, to care for each other, to admonish each other, to support each other.

Let's face facts. Most of us can barely deal with what is going on here in this congregation let alone worrying about what is being cooked up by the Bylaws enthusiasts and social activists on the other side of the Continent let alone on the other side of the world. As your liaison to the UUA, I pledge to bring you the reports and resolutions as I have done this morning and last Sunday. My request is that you too engage with these issues and concerns for the well being of those in other congregations who are like you. My request is that you too engage with these issues and concerns as both challenge and encouragement in your own religious life. They matter not just to the UUA but to us as well.

I believe that as we struggle with each other, as we care for each other, as we support each other, through the process of being in relationship itself, we will move toward the answers we are looking for both individually and as a community of congregations in our religious lives.

And at the end of the day, we may discover the great truth of our congregational polity. The person who is in charge really might be the coffee server--the one who offers hospitality, the one who offers relationship.

Copyright (c) 1998 by Rev. Samuel A. Trumbore. All rights reserved.

[1] Littell, Franklin H., "The Churches and the Body Politic", in Religion in America, ed. William G. McLoughlin and Robert N. Bellah (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1968)