First Unitarian Universalist Society of Albany
"Responding and Sustaining"
Rev. Samuel A. Trumbore January 28, 2001

Readings

The place of Christianity and the worship of God has been a protracted struggle within Unitarian Universalism for the last 150 years and continues today. In 1865, there was a schism on this issue between the Western Conference and Eastern Unitarians centered in Boston. In 1894, a resolution was presented in Saratoga Springs, New York to bridge the divide. After discussion, it passed by an unanimous vote that was followed by enthusiastic applause, loud cheers, the swinging of hats and the waving of handkerchiefs. Our thirty year conflict seemed to be over. The Rev. William Brundage was at that meeting and decided to leave Methodism and became the minister of our congregation in 1895. The spirit he preached to revive our congregation can be found in that resolution I'll read for you now (adapted for inclusivity):

Statement written by our former minister, Nick Cardell:

Offered the gift of a mythical garden of blissful ignorance, secure in a preordained destiny and certain of God-guaranteed laws, we would rather choose:

The fruit and burden of knowing and yearning, of choice and consequence, of good and evil, though we must forever lose the garden.

We would be free to choose though we must be the slaves and victims of our choices.

We would know love and not just affection, the intensity of joy and not mere pleasure alone.

We would know the depths of confusion and sorrow as the price for the heights of insight and joy, rather than have an immunity which would make us insensitive to either.

We would know the thrill of discovery and achievement, though we must hazard the pain of loss and failure. Therefore, when we might accept the mediocre and risk only pathos, we would rather seek the divine and risk tragedy.

We worship truth, love, beauty, justice, not for the promise of an eternal reward, nor with the expectation of an earthly success, but because we have faith in their worth, and in their power to give meaning and dignity to human life.

Whether we are an accident of nature or the design of God, it is we who must give dignity to our lives if we are to be worthy of the design or build upon the accident.

Finally a U.U. prayer by our poet laureate Helen Sharpe

Dear God ¼ Gods ¼ first cause
pay us some heed
for without a creed
we're in constant need
of definition.

Please send us a sign
nothing too divine
that will clearly define
the U.U. design ¼
A comet would be fine.

Tho we sometimes pray
in a metaphoric way ¼
give us this day
our truth-beauty cliché ¼
we need a new line.

We have such clarity
such verity
such rarity
such very singularity
and ¼ of course ¼ disparity.

What we really need
since we've never agreed
is a non-aligning
non-confining
non-defining
definition.

 

SERMON

Last Sunday I talked about the importance of a mission statement to help a minister and a congregation work together successfully. As a way of exploring the deeper meanings of our mission statement, I analyzed my recasting of it as the chalice lighting we use each week.

I examined more closely the first three lines:

Welcoming all free seekers of truth and meaning
We gather to excite the human spirit
To inspire its growth and development

focusing on

Let us now turn our attention to the last two lines of our chalice lighting beginning with:

To respond morally and ethically to a troubled world

This is a condensation of the phrase from our mission statement, "to respond to moral and ethical issues in our local, national and world communities." An important dimension of our mission statement is the triune community focus. We want to respond to local, national and world issues. The Social Responsibilities Council uses this statement to decide how to allocate funds we disburse in the name of our congregation, directing a third to each one.

The key word in this phrase is respond. The process of exciting and inspiring the human spirit in its growth and development moves us to respond with action. We reach out in two ways: first through direct service to those in need. The Focus Food Pantry, Refugee Resettlement, and the Partner Church program are examples of our current efforts. The second way we reach out is through advocating in the area of public policy through organizations like ARISE, Interfaith Impact, and our UUA advocate in Washington. We connect our activism to resolutions and statements of conscience passed by our General Assemblies. The participation of our members in progressive organizations in the Capital District, the contributions made in our congregation's name, the resolutions passed in congregational meetings, through all these avenues, we put our faith into action. I think we can take pride in our broad congregational commitment to respond morally and ethically to a troubled world.

I changed the words 'congregational life' from the mission statement into 'religious community.' This might be a little controversial because some people have a negative feeling about the word 'religious.' Often I hear people say, 'I'm spiritual but I'm not religious.'

I'd like to defend the word religious this morning because I think of it as a community building word. For many today, the word has come to mean a belief in and reverence for a supernatural power institutionalized as an organization grounded in such belief and worship. For Unitarian Universalism however, we understand the meaning, straight out of the dictionary, as a cause, a principle, or an activity pursued with zeal or conscientious devotion. The word spiritual and the term congregational life, do not have the same devotional quality. Devotion, defined as ardent, often selfless affection and dedication is what I see happening in this community again and again. That sense of devotion is an important element of our congregational life and needs to be named and celebrated.

Our congregation is vital and nurturing. The community we sustain is life giving and supportive. To feed and to educate those of all ages, these purposes are expressed in the word, nurture.

The word 'sustain' reminds us of the continuity of this congregation. None of us started or created FUUSA. Every one of us was accepted into the membership at one time or another.

As I've reviewed some of history this week I see echoes of our current practices and traditions. Our history goes back almost 160 years now. I'd enjoy being here to see us through the 175th year and hope I live long enough to be a guest of honor at our bicentennial celebration. I know I am part of the process, like every other member, in sustaining a tradition greater than myself.

I get inspired looking deeper into our mission statement as I've recast it as our chalice lighting and I hope you are seeing dimensions that you haven't seen before. I encourage you each week, as we read our chalice lighting together, to connect with these different meanings I've been discussing as they happen in our congregational life. There is satisfaction in making a statement of identity real. The praxis of reflecting and acting upon it builds our sense of connection and identity.

But is everything we want to say in this statement?

I've been furiously reading the mission statements of UU congregations all over the continent. Unlike when we composed our mission statement in 1993, today I can read hundreds of them on congregational web sites. Just about every web site has the mission statement front and center, sometimes very creatively cast as the one on the cover of the order of service from the Olympia Brown congregation named for our first woman minister.

The analysis of all these statements is very interesting. There are areas of strong consensus and areas of division. Each congregation has composed their mission statement on their own yet many read almost as if they are slightly edited copies of each other. And the edits, I'd expect, reveal character differences in each group.

Just about every mission statement has messages of welcome and inclusion using words like "openness," and "encouraging," and "affirming and accepting diversity." We want to be loved for who we are as individuals rather than as run away sinners to be retrieved for the glorification of the Lord.

We want to search for truth and meaning using our own minds. This is a free, open minded and tolerant search being true to what we already believe. Honoring all human knowledge, and reason we seek guidance through forums discussing contemporary issues, through inquiry and exploration, even through summoning ideas and beliefs. We seek to find and validate our own meaning, understanding, spirituality, inspiration, empowerment and fulfillment.

Mostly, we describe what happens to us as we do this as growth. We seek growth in the personal and spiritual aspects of our lives. The method we use to grow is to learn. We want education for ourselves and our children, seeking wisdom everywhere we look. The most generic statement is found in our UUA purposes and principles, "a free and responsible search for truth and meaning."

Where there is the most diversity is in how we relate to the world outside our congregation. In a few missions there is no statement of social responsibility. Mostly they do have some kind of statement. There is a range though in engagement and responsibility that can be found in the verbs. The action words range from: a tepid, "be a good neighbor," "deeply concerned," "provide a base," and "a catalyst" to the more engaged, "bear witness," "voice for justice," and "encourage and promote," to the activist, "strive for social justice, "force for compassionate social justice," (eat your heart out George W.) and "pledge to work toward a world with true equality for all." Our "respond morally and ethically" is probably someplace in the middle.

Many of the statements have sustaining language. One line I found interesting was seeing the congregation as a "reservoir of hope." Could be a good sermon title. Words like "sanctuary of our ideals," "sustain a sacred space," "place of renewal," "a visible example of our ideals," and "a guide to the next generation in its search for meaning." One statement I liked was "renew each other through communal worship, meditation, music, learning and the celebration of life passages."

You see, much as we flout our individuality, collectively we are pretty much all trying to do the same thing as Unitarian Universalists. We're clearly of two minds about how God, a supernatural force, or the holy or divine, fit into this, yet we are clearly able to unite in the process of how we do our religion. The statement of 1894 is still the way we bridge the divide and the themes are alive in our mission statements.

We are the inheritors of a age old way to pursue growth and development in all its manifestations from within, following the guidance of our mind and heart as a community of fellow seekers. It is not the only valuable way to do religion. I can talk about the advantages and disadvantages of traditional religion too. And in the East, we find yet other ways to approach the religious journey.

Whatever the merits of other religious traditions, we know this way has worked for our forbears, it works for us today and it shall work for future generations.

Copyright © 2001 by the Rev. Samuel A. Trumbore. All rights reserved.