|
Like most of you, I was not raised a Unitarian Universalist. I’d like to start today by talking a bit about my family’s religious history, because, of course, their history is my history.
After the Minnesota Uprising of 1862, there was more or less a mass conversion to Christianity by those Dakota fortunate enough not to be executed by the federal government. The Congregational Church was the denomination of choice and the people from whom I am descended were very active in the church, finding a way to blend their traditional beliefs with Christianity. My grandmother Rachel actually helped build the church located on our reservation and she was later the church organist. My father frequently spoke of the positive and affirming nature of the religious upbringing in his parents’ home.
On the German side of my family, my grandfather’s people were Roman Catholic, so much so that one of his sisters actually became a nun. My grandmother Helen was raised a Universalist but, when she married at age thirty, she agreed that her children would be raised Roman Catholic, which is how my mother came to be Catholic until she was married at age nineteen. Based on the family stores, there existed some tension about my mother and her older sister being raised Roman Catholic. For example, there was the time when my grandmother attempted to visit my Aunt Marianna’s second grade classroom. Grandma, who had been a public school elementary teacher prior to her marriage, could not understand why her terribly bright child was suddenly having trouble in school. Grandma was unceremoniously booted out of the classroom, which put an end to any Catholic school education for her children.
As a result of her upbringing, my mother had what I have always thought was a healthy intellectual streak when it came to religion. I always thought that she would have made a fine Unitarian. Mom believed that religion was a panacea for the masses. Her views of Christian fundamentalism were even less charitable.
My parents joined the Episcopal Church to have a place where they were could raise their children. That decision was influenced by the fact that the Episcopal Church was and still is very active on our reservation and most of my father’s family had become Episcopalian.
I attended Calvary Episcopal Church in Morningside until age 19. It is a church much like this one and was a great place to call home. As a teenager, however, I began to have issues with the church. First, there was the whole original sin-virgin birth thing. Those beliefs just did not seem rational and being my mother’s daughter, I am very rational. Then, there was the issue of going to Hell because I’m gay. Now, the Episcopal Church didn’t actually say that I would go to Hell, they were “struggling” with the issue. If you’ve been reading the newspapers at all, you know that they continue to struggle. I decided that it was not healthy to continue to be a part of a church that, at best, tolerated me and so I left.
My reconnection with Christianity has happened slowly over several years. I don’t believe the supernatural stories about the birth, life, and execution of Jesus and I cringe when I see someone wearing a crucifix. I believe in the religion of Jesus not the religion about Jesus. I believe in working towards the creation of the Beloved Community in the here and now.
This summer I attended the GA in Portland. One of the things that the General Assembly affirmed for me was that I am a Christian UU. I’m a Christian Unitarian Universalist because I don’t know how NOT to be. I was raised Episcopalian and that is forever a part of who I am. I could not change that fact even if I wanted to. And I came to realize that I don’t want to. By embracing my Christian heritage, I am faithful to our heretical Unitarian Universalist faith as well as to the divergent beliefs of those from whom I am descended.
This places me in a unique position in this church. Unitarian Universalists are open and affirming of all people. Well, .....almost. We eagerly make room at our table for GLBT people, for people of color, for atheists, for Wiccans, for Buddhists and Hindus. I hear we may even have a Republican or two as members. There is one identity, however, that we balk at: Christian. So, while I can expect acceptance here as a Native American, as a woman, as a feminist, and as a lesbian, that acceptance is less certain as someone who identifies as a Christian UU. Notice I said Christian UU, not just Christian. To the extent that anyone can generalize about Unitarian Universalists, Christian UU’s are a very different breed than Christians.
Today only about ten percent of Unitarian Universalists identify as Christian. This is remarkable for a movement that was born in the merger of two liberal Christian denominations a mere 46 years ago. It is also remarkable because most UU’s were raised as Christians. For various reasons, we left those churches and eventually found our way here. While many of us believe that we have matured beyond those early illogical beliefs, Christianity is our taproot, our deepest history, both for us individually and for our denomination. We loose sight of that at our peril.
Our liberal faith, regardless of our personal identification with the Christian story, demands that we take on the work of bringing about on earth the kingdom which Jesus heralds, that we simultaneously participate in and bring about a community of freedom, reason and tolerance—a community of our shared UU values. We must have courage in our heretical Unitarian Universalist message, and declare the gospel of our own radically inclusive faith, despite the forces of intolerance and hate we have so often heard.
In his book, The Almost Church, Michael Durall states that “Too often we view Unitarian Universalist churches as safe havens, places of comfort that are perceived as a final destination rather than a port of embarkation.” This place should call us to lead lives of dedication, commitment, service, and even sacrifice; to commit to making the world a more just, safe, and equitable place; to bringing about the Beloved Community.
Unitarian Universalists have always had a vision of a radically inclusive, radically free religious community. Instead of building our faith on an assumption about what will happen in the after-life, we base our faith on the assumption that IT is happening right here and now.
I want to tell you a brief story. Dave Dawson, a Unitarian Universalist minister from Charlottesville, VA, told of arriving at his first parish. He had just gone into his office for the first time. The phone rang and a woman asked him, “Are you the one who has come here to marry them queers?” Having a sense of humor, Dawson replied. “Are you asking for yourself or for a friend?” She shot back with “Do you call yourself a man of God?”
In response to her diatribe, Dawson told her “You can’t take Jesus from me. Jesus wasn’t a bigot.” The woman promptly hung up on him, and Dawson looked up to see the church’s parish committee (humanists all) standing there, watching him in silence. After explaining the phone call, they too responded: “We can’t let them take Jesus from us!”
No, we can’t. Jesus’ message informs our vision of a Beloved Community, his message impels us to witness to the injustices of our time. As Unitarian Universalist minister Anita Farber-Robertson says “Jesus [gives us] the strength to fight, the courage to love, and hearts that do not give up on anyone.”
Nothing has even been simple about Jesus. He confounded and confused people in his own time, and so it is no wonder that we still wrestle with him, his message, and the tradition that claims him as a God. Jesus preached love, equality, and social justice in a time of great inequality and in the face of an oppressive government. I believe that we are only beginning to understand the truly radical nature of his message.
Our roots are in the dissenting tradition of Christianity but they are Christian. Our decade’s long abdication of this role has created a vacuum, filled by the religious right. While we may have excellent reasons for distancing ourselves from traditional Christian thought, including the oppression of women, people of color and GLBT people, in the name of Christianity, our absence has meant that we cannot participate meaningfully in the public religious dialogue either in this country or in this community. If you disagree with me, answer me this: just how are we a part of the religious dialogue in this community about racism, anti-GLBT rhetoric or the anti-immigrant fervor? I contend that we are not. As people of a liberal faith, it is our duty to be a part of that dialogue. Our liberal religious faith has never been more important that it is right here, right now.
The world around us is deeply influenced, for good or ill, by the spirit of Jesus. We need to be familiar with this insistent and determined character to do the work we must do in this world. We will benefit by wrestling with him, not ignoring or bypassing him. We can make the best religious argument for justice and inclusion not by asking this largely Christian community ”What would (fill in the non-Christian spiritual leader of your choice) do?” but by speaking to the question “What would Jesus do?” If we want to do peace and justice work in our communities, we have to be able to communicate, in terms they can relate to, to the people in those communities. To the majority of you sitting there who do not consider themselves to be Christian, I am not saying that you have to change who you have become, but you will be better able to affect change if you can speak to the truly radical message of Jesus.
We must not allow the perversions of the religious right to define the word Christian (or “religious” for that matter). We need to start by clearly understanding our personal and denominational religious histories. We need to be able to clearly articulate who we are (and how we got there) in order to be able to do the work we are called to do.
So honor our past with gratitude and respect. Live in your present with as much attention and intention as you can muster. Recast the sacred circle of faithful voluntarily gathered around that vision. Speak it, celebrate it, let it challenge you to be the best that you can be. Let that vision call you to a life of faith, of commitment, of dedication, of service, of sacrifice.
Amen. Blessed be.
|
