I’m a history buff, not because I like to live in the past like some Sherlockian who dreams about smoking a pipe and hanging out with Dr. Watson, but because I like feeling that we actually have a past – that we’ve come from somewhere and are here because being here matters.
So it goes with JUC. This fall we celebrated our 50th Anniversary, not so old if we compare ourselves to Unitarian and Universalist churches in New England or Europe. but a pretty old for being here in Colorado. We were founded by members of the First Unitarian Church of Denver who thought it was time to raise a liberal banner out here to the west. We began by meeting in a rented Presbyterian church then moved into this facility to share it with the shrinking UCC congregation which had built it, then stayed on when that congregation folded and have been here ever since, doing what we could to add to and remodel these facilities as our congregation grew. At this point we’ve reached the limit of what our facilities can hold and hope to be able to do something about this as we move toward a future with the new minister who will be taking Peter Morales’ place. In the meantime, we’re not standing still, packed in as we may be. This congregation has too much energy for that. At least, that’s what this interloper from California believes.
And, it’s not an uninformed belief. I’ve been around our Unitarian Universalist movement for long time, ever since I first began reading about it in a college library the year this congregation was born. After I returned home from college, now married with a child soon to be born, I summoned up the courage to accept the invitation of a friend at work to attend his UU church one Sunday. I was so impressed with what I found that like I decided I wanted to work in a place like that and went off to seminary to began a ministry that’s now lasted for 45 years.
Toward the end of that time I was invited to come back to the seminary from which I had graduated to teach what I’d learned. But in teaching about how to be a minister I discovered I’d rather be one than teach about it. So, when I was asked if I would be willing to come here to be your Consulting Senior Minister if Peter was elected I decided to ask my wife if she’d mind pulling to pack up some things and come here to Colorado, which she was delighted to do.
I’ve served some remarkable congregations over the years, congregations which made enormous differences in the lives of their members and made significant contributions to the communities in which they were located – just as was true of that first Unitarian Universalist church I joined. I’m telling you this to create some perspective for what I want to say about this church.
We’ve come to that time of year when we ask each other to make a pledge of financial support to not only pay for what it costs to operate a church like this, but to help us be even more the kind of church we want to be. But it’s not my role this morning to ask you for money. We’ve been given information about how to do this, if you haven’t done it already and invite you to take part in a service next Sunday in which we’ll make an offering of our pledges – and then celebrate our generosity. It should be a wonderful celebration because I know how generous the members of this congregation can be. For instance, when asked to contribute to the work of our Service Committee in Haiti on the Sunday after the earthquake there, we gave over $12,000, twice the amount of money given by any other Unitarian Universalist congregation in this country.
So, rather than talk about money, what I’d to do this morning is reflect on both the meaning of this church and the meaning of our Unitarian Universalist faith. We’re a part of a religious movement that is unique. There’s nothing quite like it, though it’s not something we’ve just made up. Our faith tradition is as old as the Protestant Christianity out of which it’s evolved. There have been a lot of famous people associated with our faithj and we’ve consistently been at the forefront of the evolution of the progressive stream in religion. These are things of which we can boast – and, as a historian, I do.
But we also have faults, like a reluctance to talk about ourselves, even though our mission statement here at JUC says we’re committed to growing our faith, something we can’t do if, unlike my work friend in Chicago, we just sit on it, which we’re all to prone to it.
I was applauded a few weeks ago when I gave a sermon in which I said that, as human beings, we’ve been blessed with the most precious gift there is, our lives, so it’s up to us to do something with that gift – something that adds to the creation of which we’re a part. I know of no other faith that is as direct and honest about this responsibility as is ours, nor as hopeful about our ability to make use of the lives with which we’ve been blessed – and to do so on our initiative, not God’s or because someone tells us it’s what we should do. We have the ability – and the responsibility – to respond the voice of conscience that lies within each of us. That’s our gospel – and it’s a gospel that now needs more than ever to be heard.
It needs to be heard because we live in a time when the gospel that seems to be appealing to most Americans is one that implies that all that matters is what we can get for ourselves – and damn anyone who tries to take anything from us, say, with taxes. Opposing this gospel are a handful of progressive people of faith, including we Unitarian Universalists. And oppose it we do, even though there are times when it’s tempting to give in. To our credit we haven’t done that. Unlike the members of some faiths, we haven’t been torn apart over issues like women in the ministry, Gay Rights or opposition to militarism. For us, these are issues that have been settled for a long time, so if we’re not willing to stand up for a humane, compassionate and justice-seeking approach to religion, who will? That’s why we need to do what we can to grow our religious movement. We need to do this not just for our sakes. We need to do it for the sake of the badly hurting world in which we live.
If we don’t stand up and proclaim the gospel in which we believe what we’re saying is that our approach to life doesn’t matter. Are we saying that just because we’re not offering people a card to “Get Out of Hell Free,” our coming together as a church community and our reaching out with our values to the larger world is of no consequence either to us or anyone else. Are we saying that if JUC didn’t exist and there was no Unitarian Universalism it wouldn’t matter. But that’s not true. I’d know the difference if Unitarian Universalism had never been a part of my life and the life of my family. If it didn’t exist we would never have had a religious home. Each of the cities across this country where I’ve been a minister would also have known the difference if the UU churches I served didn’t exist. We matter, not only to ourselves, but to those outside the walls of our church.
Our openness as Unitarian Universalists, our willingness to challenge structures of oppression, our insistence on trying to unveil the truth, our respect for the worth and dignity of human beings whoever they are, and are willingness to change serve as models not only for us, but for other faiths. They want us at the table. They want us as allies, just as we should want them. They appreciate our questioning minds, our commitment to living out our faith, and our willingness to work with them in spite of whatever differences we might have.
As for us, we have an obligation to reach out, not only to those who might find among us a religious home, but to others to whom we can be of help. That’s why our radical hospitality doesn’t just extend to our own members – though it does – it extends to the people in need. Our social justice task forces give us a chance to reach out beyond our walls in hundreds of other ways. Our attentiveness to music and the arts also serves the broader community, as does the work of our ministers and staff – and as does the work of a lot of you. The members of this church care about the world in ways that are real and concrete – ways that matter a lot more than passing out cards promising those to whom we give them they can “Get Out of Hell Free.”
Those of us who come to a church like ours aren’t looking for such promises – or for a validation of selfishness. We are looking for ways to find meaning in our lives and for inspiration to be the kind of people we know we should be. We are looking for companionship as we face up to the fact that no matter how much money, power or prestige a person may have, we’re all equally human and all have to face up to whatever pain and frustration come with life. JUC is here is to help us do this. Of churches like ours, Henry Nelson Wieman, one of the most respected of our Unitarian Universalist theologians, says that even though some may regard churches like ours as “old-fashioned and outmoded,” if they were to pass from the scene, they “would have to be recreated.” Wieman says: “human beings could not stay human” without the “prodding, explaining, correcting, comforting presence” of churches ours. He says that communities without churches like ours “would be like a human being without a soul.”
Fortunately, churches like ours are not about to disappear just because people with a different theological perspective currently have more influence than do we on the political and religious life of this country. In fact, in a climate such as this there is a greater need than ever for churches like ours – churches able to provide a home for those who have a progressive and non-traditional religious perspective.
Years ago, Jack Mendelsohn wrote a book called, Why I Am a Unitarian, which has now gone through several reincarnations and has been knowingly retitled Being Liberal in an Illiberal Age. In the book there’s a passage that, although it’s talking about ministers, is really talking about the ministers who are all of us, not just those of us who are ordained. We are people, says Jack, who are: “never completely satisfied or satisfiable, never completely adjusted or adjustable, who walk in two worlds, one of things as they are the other of things as they ought to be.” We are people who have “dreams we can never wholly share,” who continually run “out of time, out of wisdom, out of ability, out of courage and out of money … whose tasks involve great responsibility and little power.” But as people of our faith we have learned “to accept people where they are and go on from there.” And, while we know better than to try to exercise: “influence we don’t possess,” if we are “worth our salt,” we know all this and are yet “thankful every day of our lives” for the privilege of being who we are: Unitarian Universalists.
As Unitarian Universalists my wife and I feel blessed to be able to be a part of the Jefferson Unitarian Church. That’s why after we came here we decided to become members and to make a pledge of financial support. Most of the people to whom I’ve talked who serve in interim positions don’t do this. They think of themselves as having been hired to provide a service as they help a church make the transition from one settled minister to another. I’m doing this, but not because I’m being paid to do it. Although we needed adequate compensation to come here and live in Colorado I’m here because I love the ministry, I love our religious movement, and because I love what churches can do for their members and for the larger community. The only way I know how to express that love is to be as fully a part of the life of this church as I can be and to care about what becomes of it.
I hope you feel the same way, for as Bill Schulz, former President of the Unitarian Universalist Association puts it, it matters that there are churches like ours – churches committed:
To teach the fragile art of hospitality;
To revere both the critical mind and the generous heart;
To prove that diversity need not mean divisiveness;
And to witness to all that [as Pete Seeger put it]
“we must hold the whole world in our hands.”
Let us say amen to this as we think about this church and our Unitarian Universalist faith and how much they matter, not only to us but to this world in which we live.
Let our faith be to us life and joy.
Let it be a voice of renewing challenge to be the best we may be
and a call to generous action….
Let our faith be to us security and challenge,
because of its truth and beauty
and because of the loyalties it engenders….
Let our faith be to us a source of hope and purpose
and a way to discover the opportunities
that yet lay before us….
And may Jefferson Unitarian Church be a place
where we nurture and support
that faith.
Freely adapted from Vincent Silliman