Sermon by Rev.
Diane Rollert, 11 January 2009
From Barack Obama’s memoir, Dreams from My Father:
In [my grandfather's] only skirmish into organized religion, he would enroll
the family in the local Unitarian Universalist congregation; he liked the idea
that Unitarians drew on the scriptures of all the great religions ("It's
like you get five religions in one," he would say). Toot [his wife,
Obama's grandmother] would eventually dissuade him of his views on the church
("For Christ's sake, Stanley, religion's not supposed to be like buying
breakfast cereal!")…
This
past December 23rd, Barack Obama and his family observed a memorial service for
Obama’s maternal grandmother, Madelyn Dunham, aka Toot, at the First Unitarian
Church of Honolulu. I guess she
must have had a change of heart about the Unitarians. She was right,
though. Religion is not supposed
to be like buying breakfast cereal.
Of
the many things that inspire and challenge me as a Unitarian Universalist, the
fact that “the living tradition we share draws from many sources” is at the top
of my personal list. If you
consider yourself a card-carrying Unitarian Universalist, then you may have one
of those little cards in your wallet or pocket that conveniently lists the
Principles and Sources of our religious faith.
Grateful for the
religious pluralism which enriches and enables our faith, we are inspired to
deepen our understanding and expand our vision.
It’s
right there on the card.
Although
Unitarian Universalism grew out of a liberal Protestant tradition, ours is a
faith that is forever transforming itself. Our tradition is built upon the rejection of creed-based
religion. Dedicated to the free
and responsible search for truth and meaning, we gather as a religious
community that recognizes each individual’s right to his or her own unique
spiritual journey. We believe that
no individual can claim to have found the ultimate truth to which all others
must ascribe. Instead, we see
ourselves as belonging to a living tradition that does indeed draw from many
sources.
Our
minister emeritus, Charles Eddis, can tell you great stories about the lengthy
democratic process we went through in the 1980s, as part of the Unitarian
Universalist Association of congregations, to craft these words to complement
our Purposes and Principles:
The living
tradition we share draws from many sources:
The direct
experience of transcending mystery and wonder, affirmed in all cultures, which
moves us to a renewal of the spirit and an openness to the forces which create
and uphold life;
Words and deeds of
prophetic women and men which challenge us to confront powers and structures of
evil with justice, compassion, and the transforming power of love;
Wisdom from the
world’s religions which inspires us in our ethical and spiritual life;
Jewish and
Christian teachings which call us to respond to God’s love by loving our
neighbours as ourselves;
Humanist
teachings which counsel us to heed the guidance of reason and the results of
science, and warn us against idolatries of the mind and spirit;
The spiritual teachings
of Earth-centered traditions which celebrate the sacred circle of life and
instruct us to live in harmony with the rhythms of nature.
Each
of these sources is, in affect, a nod to the major constituents of our
association, from theists to humanists, to pagans, Buddhists, Jews, and
Christians. Like all things
Unitarian and Universalist, it is a work in progress. There are those who argue that certain items on the list
should be modified. There are
others who argue that we should throw the whole list away. For each person who
would like to remove or rewrite a specific source, there is another who says
they will be heartbroken if a single word is changed.
Years
ago, I asked a group of Unitarian Universalist parents to write their dreams
and aspirations for their children on little pieces of sticky paper. We then tried to match those dreams to a
large poster of our UU Principles.
The idea was for each person to stick their dream next to one of the
Principles. But the group quickly
got frustrated. Inherent worth and
dignity, democratic process, and the interdependent web weren’t wide enough to
embrace all they had to say. There
was something missing. So we turned
to our Sources, and the group sizzled with individual epiphanies. Everything they were yearning to
express was there among those six sources: transcending mystery and wonder,
words and deeds of prophetic women and men, wisdom from the world’s religions,
Jewish, Christian, Humanist and Earth-centred teachings and traditions.
Our
sources provide us with a deep well from which to nourish and replenish our
faith. How radical it was for our forefathers and mothers in the 19th
century to venture away from the Bible, discovering wisdom in the Hindu
Upanishads or the teachings of the Buddha. These are the roots that led us to widen our emphasis on
world religions and multiculturalism, in worship, in what we teach our
children, even in how we adorn our buildings.
Think
of the intriguing windows that grace our Phoenix Hall. The symbols of Christianity, Hinduism,
Islam, Buddhism, Judaism and our Unitarian chalice are beautifully etched in
windows that stretch across the eastern wall. I love the way visitors respond to those windows. They serve as a powerful testimony to
our openness here. That inspires me.
Yet, what
inspires me also challenges me deeply.
There’s a discomfort I feel when we assume that no scripture, no
tradition is off limits to us. There’s a discomfort I feel when we pick and
choose what we want, taking what we consider to be the best parts of other
traditions and leaving the rest. Can
we rightfully lift anything out of its own context and claim it as our own? Are
we voyeurs, thieves, respectful guests or loving co-creators?
For a
long time Unitarian Universalists have been criticized for their willingness to
blend and bend other traditions to fit their needs. “Unitarianism is the salad bowl of faith,” one of my
professors in seminary used to say with disdain. In recent years, we’ve become more self-conscious about the
pitfalls of mindlessly mixing and tossing our religious inspirations.
In the 1990s, First Nations and Native American brothers and sisters brought to light just how destructive our mixing and matching could be. Too often we treated the myriad of First Nations traditions as if they were one tradition. Too often, First Nations people have seen cultural symbols that were formed by individual communities over millennia become trivialized or be used by non-native peoples for their own financial gain. When we take things out of context we rob other people of their voice, especially when we come from the dominant culture. Rev. Danielle Di Bona, UU minister and member of the Wampanog nation puts it this way, “If it’s not in context, if the user is not walking with us, if the user is not part of our struggle, then it is presumptuous.”
I
still remember the well-loved curriculum “Holidays and Holy Days,” that I
taught as a new Unitarian when my children were young. What did I know? I was handed a binder of lesson plans
and I taught what I was told to teach.
On any given Sunday the children would be introduced to Islam,
Confucianism, or Hinduism or another world religion along with a related
holiday. Each session was packed
with hands-on experiences, from learning the positions of a Muslim call to
prayer, to making clay lamps for Diwali or dipping parsley into saltwater
during a Passover Seder. It was a
lot of fun, especially since my co-teacher was responsible for the cornucopia of
international food we served each week. (The kids tentatively tasted while we
feasted with gusto.)
But
in ensuing years, the curriculum came under heavy criticism. Its whirlwind tour through the
religions of the world came to be considered too superficial, leaving children
with a limited and stereotyped understanding of each culture. Often it meant teaching anything except
Christianity, because we didn’t have to engage with our discomfort (even though
“Holidays and Holy Days” did have a Christianity lesson plan. But most of us
didn’t teach it). We could touch
upon those things that were nicely exotic and ignore the rest – visit for a
while, but never have to stay. It
was exactly where we could go so wrong, playing tourists with faith, rather
than deeply engaging in it.
This
is our challenge. How do we find
the balance that informs and inspires but does not trivialize or steal from our
sources? How do we honour our
sources of spiritual inspiration without co-opting them? If we have never been
slaves, can we sing songs about being freed from slavery? If we are not of the First Nations, can
we sing, “The Earth is our Mother, hey-yunga ho-yunga”? Do we drop all
references to scripture or rituals that are not directly our own for fear of
doing “the wrong thing”?
Our
critics would say that we have strayed too far from “the faith of our
fathers.” Yet that’s exactly what
we want to do. We want to grow
beyond our Judeo-Christian Western European roots. If we draw only from those
things that are familiar, we also make a statement. Ignorance or absence of
something is not neutral. To
paraphrase a friend of mine, if we only play music by Haydn and Handel we’re
sending the message that only the culture of “dead white guys” is worth
considering. (Though to paraphrase
another friend: but we’re really good at doing dead white guys’ music – we’d be
fools to give that up.)
Blending
is a natural part of religion.
People and religions are not static nor do they exist in a vacuum. All religious traditions adapt and
change over time. Just as there is
no monolithic First Nations spirituality, there is no monolithic Islam, no
monolithic Buddhism, and so on.
Dig deeper and you will find vast differences. Dig deeper into any religious tradition and you will find things
that resonate and things that make you uncomfortable. This is our responsibility: to engage with the things that inspire us and challenge us –
not to simply claim for ourselves what makes us feel good, as if we were
somehow entitled to take anything we choose out of context for our own
purpose. At the same time, we
can’t let ourselves off the hook by never taking any risks, by never venturing
into unknown territory. We have a
responsibility to listen and to learn.
We have responsibility to put things in their appropriate context –
something that isn’t always easy to do well.
As we
went through the process of defining our mission, there was much talk of reaching
out to other faiths, of learning more about traditions beyond our Jewish and
Christian roots, of widening our worship experiences. This was something that our Social and Environmental
Concerns Committee took into consideration as they planned their focus for this
year. “We want to understand more
about Islam,” they said. With all
that is happening in the world right now, I appreciate their choice.
Starting
next week, we will have guests once a month who will speak with us about their
faith as Muslims. I’m asking our
guests to speak from their hearts about why their faith matters to them. I’m asking each of us to open our
hearts and our minds, to be more than tourists, critics or consumers. I am asking each of us to be mindful of
what it truly means to be part of a living tradition that draws from many
sources, that seeks wisdom from the worlds religions in order to inspire us in our
ethical and spiritual lives. Our
commitment to pluralism comes with a responsibility to fully understand our own
roots, to accept where we have come from, and to allow ourselves be shaped and
changed by the new ideas and experiences we encounter. This is more than shopping for
cereal. This is serious work.
Abraham,
Ibrahim, is sitting by the oaks of Mamre, by the door of his tent, in the heat
of the day, when three strangers arrive.
Who are these strangers? We
don’t know. The language in the
Torah and the Qur’an is hard to understand. Are they each some aspect of Yahweh or Allah? Are they the
Lord’s messengers, or simply nomads?
Perhaps it doesn’t really matter to Ibrahim. “Peace,” they say.
“Peace,” he responds and he offers them the best that he has, because
that is what you do when strangers approach your door. Hospitality to the stranger,
hospitality to the new member in the community, hospitality to the unknown
wisdom waiting for us, hospitality to all we encounter on this journey: this it
what it means to fully embody a living tradition.
Hospitality
is the home of peace. If we don’t
remember, who will?
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