“UUism and the Leading Edge”
Rev. Greg Ward
Unitarian Universalist Metro Atlanta North
November 13th, 2005

Meditation
Minister and editor of Sojourner Magazine, Jim Wallis, tells the story of a young man who helped him understand what church was all about.  That’s probably not unusual.  Everyone – even ministers – especially ministers – have a person or a place that helped teach them about church.  The unusual part, I suppose, comes when we learn that the person who taught him was not a seminary professor.  Or a minister.  Or even a lay leader.  He was a very part time student in one of Wallis’ classes.  The subject was homelessness.  The unusual part, I suppose, was that Matthew was homeless. 

Matthew had asked if he could audit Wallis’ course on the subject at Harvard’s Kennedy School.  The mutual benefits seemed obvious and he was allowed to enroll.   Every week Wallis noticed him arriving on time and sitting quietly in the back and paying close attention.  He also noticed, each week, that Matthew had a habit of always carrying with him a large cardboard box.  Some were curious.  But all eventually concluded the box must hold what Matthew could not lose nor trust others to keep safe for him. 

Over the course of time it was revealed that Matthew had been part of a workplace conflict some years ago that left him without a job.  When he couldn’t find a job, he had to let go of some things he couldn’t afford.  His car.  Most of his possessions.  Eventually his home.  What he had in the box was the best of what he had left. 

On the last night of class, Matthew came to a gathering of folks at the Divinity school to celebrate the end of the semester.  And, as always, he brought his box. 

But this time, at the edge of the gathering, Matthew opened his box and placed the contents on the table.   Everyone gathered around to see what it was - a beautifully crafted model of a church made from white cardboard.  All along the outer walls of the steepled church were the sayings and teachings of the church that moved him.  And over the front door appeared the words, ‘Come to me, all you who are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.’   Right beneath the words were two doors, closed tight, with a little padlock fastening it shut.  The message was clear.

Matthew told Wallis how he made the church and kept it in his cardboard box to protect it from the elements.  “Sometimes,” he said in a matter of fact way, “people like the church so much they offer to keep it in their apartment for me, so it won’t get damaged.”  Then he added, with a rueful smile, “But they don’t make the same offer to me.  Only to my church.” 

What should we take from this story.  It certainly has something to say about churches.  Why we build them…  What they represent to us…  What they end up being…  It says that today’s church is a captive of its caretakers – those who decide what’s on the walls and what’s inside.  Those who determine what the church does and how it chooses to do it.  Those who decide who’s in and who’s out when the doors get shut. 

Sermon:
There is an old story about a man with raggedy clothes who has had a rough time of it in the world and was looking for a place that cared.  He didn’t belong to a church but had heard that a church was where God loved people and taught people to love each other.  So when he saw a bunch of people filing into a nearby church he decided to check it out.  The sign outside said, ‘All are welcome.’  So he went inside.  He found a seat.  Everyone was very dressed up.  But no one acknowledged him.  He sat through the service, which talked about salvation.  He sang.  But when the service ended, he noticed that everyone filed out of the pew away from him.  No one spoke to him in the reception line and when he got to the minister he received a considering look and some gentle advice: ‘friend, I can see that you are looking for a church – and I’m glad – but I want you to go home and ask God, in your prayers, if this is really the right church for you.”  The man left and returned the following week.  This time he did his best to dress a little nicer, but he could not dress nearly as nice as others.  The same thing happened.  The minister, seeing him, had one of his deacons greet him this time and suggest, again, that he should ask God if this was really the right church for him.  After several more trips, played out in the same predictable fashion, the minister finally walked up to the man after the service and asked him forthrightly, “Friend, I thought you were going to ask God if this was really the right church for you.”  And the man said, “I did, pastor.  But the funny thing is, God said he couldn’t tell me.  He said he’s never been inside your church before.” 

That’s an old joke.  It’s funnier when we’re not so aware of the painful truth behind it.  When it’s not told right after hearing that a homeless man’s understanding of a church is a place where he feels locked out.  Filled with people who happily offer to take care of his treasures but never offer to take care of him. 

It’s an old joke.  Over the years it’s a joke that has had many incarnations.  In some versions it refers to a person of color rather than someone who is poor.  Other versions describe a gay man.  I imagine there are even international – or interfaith – versions that tell of a woman trying to get into the mosque or synagogue or temple.  

But the punch line is always the same.  And so is the message it describes, which is this: churches almost always talk a good game, but too often fail to deliver.  Churches talk a lot about having open hearts and open doors and promise to help them establish a relationship with a loving God – which in broader UU terms - might mean offering a place where unconditional love is built into the community.  They talk about how care is extended to those in need and post signs on the front of the church like the ones on interstate billboards that have pithy sayings like: ‘God is in.’

But all too often, once inside the church, you discover another story.  If God IS in, He is a rather fickle God who exercises some judicious privilege to love some people and not others.  Who, in your time of need, may be as likely to dispense judgment as grace.  

Churches talk a good game but all too often what people discover is not the radically extensive love that appears in the ad.  But the legalese we are used to seeing in the fine print.  Legalese like:

God’s love is subject to terms and conditions as written or stated at point of purchase.  Warrantee applies only in cases where valid receipt of prayer or signed proof of contract with your immortal soul can be shown.  God’s love cannot be returned, replaced retrofitted or remanufactured without expressed written consent of the minister, the choir, four alter boys and the ladies auxiliary guild.  The church is not liable if love is lost, stolen, defective, damaged during shipping or when all functioning parts of your heart cannot be completely reassembled and resealed in original container.   All claims must be submitted in Yak blood.  Any arbitration hearings will be held in the court of hell.  All sales final.  Void where prohibited by law. 

The point that I’m trying to make here is that there are times where we all have come across a church – even entire groups of churches - that feel so compelled to exercise so many restrictions on how it distributes care – so many rules on who qualifies to be loved and saved and who it turns away and condemns - that it makes you think that God doesn’t have a church.  But a law firm.  And that’s sort of seems like what some churches see themselves as needing to turn into –God’s lawyers.  And not only God’s lawyers, but perhaps God’s entire judicial system.   Judging, trying, condemning and jailing people – and entire categories of people - for not abiding by the law as they interpret it to exclude people. 

And meanwhile, those who continue to go in search of the caring place they are told the church can be, are turned away.  The lost remain lost.  The hurting remain hurt.   Not only do people suffer, but the church’s reputation among the world’s dispossessed and disenfranchised suffers.  So much so that  – especially in the last forty years – the church has acquired more than a reputation as institutions of caring, but as institutions of hypocrisy. 

And the effect of that reputation – that legacy – is being felt not only by those churches of the holy disclaimer, but by every church.  It causes cynicism and resentment to reverberate not only among the un-churched who have begun to question the potential for the church to keep its promises of care and doing good work, but among those of us who are part of those promises and good work.  Indicators of this distrust can be measured in volunteerism within churches and civic participation from churches which are both down nearly 30%. 

It’s almost impossible not to notice this in society today.  Some of us have experienced it first hand.  Just in this past week I have had two conversations with people who felt deeply saddened by the focus of today’s churches on rules and its failure to care for those who turn to it in need.  These people who both felt very loyal to their churches, had to admit that they felt abandoned or forgotten by them.  And the feeling is not unlike that of Matthew - sent out carrying our own ideal of a church and showing it to others who don’t get it. 

What has happened – especially in the last forty years - that has caused the church to lose site of its purpose?  What has prompted it to turn its focus more on judgment than on generosity?  More toward conflict than caring?  More about disclaimers from promises and less about duty towards them? 

One answer, I believe, comes when we examine the tremendous amount of technological, social and cultural change that has been part of our world in the last four decades.  When you think about civil rights and the feminist movement… When you think about the sexual revolution and the increasing social acceptance of gays and lesbians in society… When you think about the advances in contraceptive technology and stem cell research… you begin to see the pattern that has emerged between some of the radical changes around the church and the radical change within the church.  You begin to see how the church has responded by clamping down in response.  How it has felt compelled to dig it’s heals in and take a stand against all this movement some refer to as progress. 

When you begin to see how the march of modernity has created the heal dragging contemptuous kicking and screaming among some churches, you begin to understand the nature of fundamentalism and the fundamentalist element within modern religion.

There are many different ways to define fundamentalism.  But one has to start with the classic definition offered by author H.L. Mencken when he said that fundamentalism is “a terrible, pervasive fear that someone, somewhere, is having fun.”

But, of course, it’s more than that.  Fundamentalism is a reactionary resistance to modernity.  A response to the loosening and broadening of rules and social morays within society.  So much so it signals fear in the hearts of people who worry they will no longer be able to function morally within that society.  It is a fear among some people that they are losing their own culture.  That it’s changing so fast right underneath them that unless they gain control – enact and enforce some moral laws – not only on themselves but on everyone around them – they will be overrun.  Displaced.  Eventually everything that they stand for would be eliminated. 

People wonder why fundamentalists seem so obsessed and high strung about the rules of their faith.  It’s because they are wrestling with a mortal fear.  Not only for their soul, but for their place in society. 

To understand what it means to be fundamentalist in the religious context, let me read the definition offered by online dictionary wikopedia:

"Fundamentalism" describes a movement to return to what is considered the defining or founding principles of the religion. It has especially come to refer to any religious enclave that intentionally resists identification with the larger religious group in which it originally arose, on the basis that fundamental principles upon which the larger religious group is supposedly founded have become corrupt or displaced by alternative principles hostile to its identity.

This formation of a separate identity is deemed necessary on account of a perception that the religious community has surrendered its ability to define itself in religious terms. The "fundamentals" of the religion have been jettisoned by neglect or lost through compromise and inattention, so that the general religious community's description of itself appears to the separatist to be in terms that are completely alien and fundamentally hostile to the religion as they see it.  

Understood in these terms it is easier to see why fundamentalism is so divorced from, and critical of, other religions – even other facets of its own religion.  It is a schism which forms when one subgroup sees the larger whole moving too quickly, living too far afield from the origins of the movement.  That is what leads to the emphasis on literalism and inerrancy of scriptures as law.  It is what leads to the desire to codify and legalize those original tenants.  It is a fear of ruin, or being overrun.  A fear of death.  It is a common, even understandable reaction to extreme change that has been going on among human beings for many millennium. 

People wonder why Jesus was crucified but, I believe, in this context it is not so hard to understand.  Jesus was progressive.  He was a reformer of his faith.  He wasn’t trying to start Christianity.  He had no interest in inventing a new religion.  He was a devout Jew.  But he was clearly introducing radically new interpretations of Judaism and radically new directions for the faith.  And when his thought got too far afield from orthodox views he was deemed threatening.  When they crucified him it was as if they were saying that it was either him or the faith that their existence hinged upon that would die.  They chose him. 

In any religious movement there tends to be a leading edge - who see it as vital that their faith explore the next dimension of their call – and the trailing edge – who are bound by loyalty and devotion to see to it their faith remain true to the tenants that got them there.  It is inevitable that if too much distance is formed between those on the leading edge and those who trail, a schism will emerge and all the conflict that entails. 

There are countless stories of how those on the front get too far ahead of those protecting the rear.  So much so that those in the rear can’t tell if those out in front are friend or foe.  And before they can get back, shots are fired and casualties incurred. 

Anyone who is familiar with UU history know that both Unitarians and Universalists have always been associated with the leading edge of the Christian movement.  We have the scars on our backside to prove it.  But those scars – and the sacrifices we have endured – have done more to strengthen our commitment to inclusivity and openness then to weaken it.  And this we should be proud of.

We also tend to take pride in knowing that we – in our commitment to progressive values and moving religion forward - are one of the reasons why fundamentalism has emerged.  Their reactionary stance to religion is partly a statement that what we have introduced to the field of religion is considered threatening to orthodox ideals.  Many UUs consider this a sign of success.  And don’t consider the lack of care between us and fundamentalists to be anything worth considering.  No love lost.

But I think it would be wise for us to consider the bigger principles at work.  Any conservative reaction to a progressive influence that leads to conflict without efforts on both sides to come together – or at least care more about the people in the crossfire then the principles of the skirmish - is something that can not only happen in the general context of religion, but in the specific context of Unitarian Universalism. 

Our denomination’s history is rife with schisms between leading and trailing edge perspectives that threatened to undermine the entire purpose for which we were created.  There were periods where vast enmity between opposing ideals muted the caring impulse on both sides.  And the casualties were those caught in the middle.  Those who came into the movement not because we offered grand scheme to protect or re-invent the social / cultural morays of society.  Not because we were so proud of our leading edge ideals.  But because they were told that the church – and specifically the UU church – has a promise to love and care for the people within and around it. 

That is, I believe, the fundamental reason why we exist.  Or, as Lars put it more simply in the call to worship – ‘to decide between love and fear.  To work toward increasing the former and reducing the latter.’  In not so many words, that is what would be written on the walls of this church.  That is the promise that people have understood as they walked through our doors.  The promise that these doors would thereafter remain unlocked to them.  That they would always be welcome here.  That they could turn to this place – to these people – in their times of need and they would be cared for, loved and tended to whenever the trials of their life loomed large.  It was a promise forged into covenant without conditions or disclaimers.  And it is the promise we must uphold - or stand answerable to the movement, to each other and to ourselves. 

I know we like to believe that the disillusion that exists between the world and religion is something that happens out there.  And, in fact, that it is something that drives people to us.  But I think it is important to know that it is something we sometimes experience in here too. 

One of the conversations I mentioned having earlier this week – about feeling disillusioned or forgotten by their church – was with a member of our congregation.  It was a hard conversation to have. But an important one. 

It helped me see something fundamental.  That beyond the hard year that this community experienced last year, there were individuals who experienced hard years of their own. 

Last year was one of those times that many UU communities face.  A time when progressive ideals were explored – our organizational structure and bylaws; and where significant changes – like changes in service times and the sabbatical - were carried out.  In this time of great change it is not surprising that two sides formed - one that saw it as vital that their faith explore the next dimension of their call; and another who felt bound by loyalty and devotion to see to it that their faith remain true to the tenants that got them there.  Good people on both sides.  

Having each of those sides at work in any institution is crucial.  They each are necessary to keep the other side accountable.  Even the conflict which emerges between them is healthy – for it is what prompts everyone to more responsible dialogue.  What becomes difficult is when too much distance forms between the necessary sides.  That is when the covenant that holds them together becomes harder to make out.  When the promise – to love and care for one another in the hard times, to live with open doors between us, to exist more for the people than the principle – becomes harder to see.

In the conversation I listened to feelings of forgotteness that I knew were part of my own forgotten promise.  I realized that I had spent too much time in meetings or consulting with those making plans on either end and not enough time in conversation with those feeling lost in the middle.  I failed in a role I take very seriously – which is the role I play in helping this community reach out to the lost and help them feel found.  Look out for the hurting and help them find comfort.  I failed and I am sorry.

While listening I felt a little bit like Jim Wallis listening to Matthew describe his church.  How people seemed interested in taking it from him.  But where he didn’t feel it’s doors were open to him.  It was hard to hear.  But it was reassuring to be with someone with the courage and honesty to continue carrying around the model of church they believed in.  That they exchanged promises with.  It felt like the honesty that is necessary in every age, in every movement, in every schism – that reminds two sides when it is time to come together and – like the true meaning of religion – to bind together again.  

In the words of Jim Wallis:

Some would not see a story of hope in Matthew’s church, but I do.  Matthew understood, better than most church people, what the teachings of the church were really supposed to be.  He believed in the power of their promise and the hope.  Why else would he carry that beautiful miniature church around with him wherever he went?  When he spoke of it, Matthew wasn’t bitter, but hopeful.  He believed that those who didn’t get it – who had lost sight of the words on their church – would eventually remember.  His small act of consistent witness was his faith that they soon would.

Help me in being responsible to the promise of this church.  To unlock our hearts, our minds, our lives and our church doors.

To the Glory of Life.

Copyright Wardswords, 2005