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Dr. Oelberg is minister for the Unitarian churches in Hanska and Mankato, Minnesota. Her family has been connected with First Unitarian Church in Sioux City for generations and were members here before she went to theological school. back to calendar

Church and Family

Sermon delivered on May 7, 2000 by Sarah Oelberg

OPENING WORDS

  We gather this morning in celebration and appreciation.

  We rejoice in those true treasures and gifts of life that are beyond any price.

  We rejoice in the children of our church, for their music and their words, for their laughter and their honesty, and for the bright joy of their very creation.

  We rejoice in the mothers, who guide and teach the children in the ways of knowledge, justice and compassion.

  We rejoice in this community of faith, which we signify this morning in our gathering of flowers, Keep us steadfast in our covenant that by the testimony of our lives we may declare the saving power of our faith.

 

CHURCH AND FAMILY

  I have just come from a three-day training session for Prairie Star District Resource Liaisons. These are people who will be available to small churches for assistance in many areas. It is an interesting and exciting idea -- another way to "clone" Nancy Heege, the district executive, and to provide more services to our many small and isolated congregations.

  My task at the training session was to talk about the culture of small congregations, and to bring the good news about being small. It is too bad that so many of our small congregations have been made to feel inferior, or somehow less than, the larger ones the UUA seems to focus on and consider the desirable "norm", for the truth is that over 50% of our UU congregations have fewer than 75 people; 25% have less than 50! So, statistically at least, small is the norm!.

  I could give an entire sermon on the joys of small churches, but that is not my intent today. My topic is somewhat related, however, for one of the most constant, visible and positive characteristics of small churches is their feeling of being a family. They are, to a large extent, church as family. Small churches tend to be more intergenerational and more relational. Everybody knows everybody else, and people's presence is missed when they are absent. The small church cares more for people, its members, than for program or performance. And it cares for its children. It may not, as Hillary has written, take a whole village to parent a child, but as any mother will tell you, it surely is nice to have some help in raising in children, and the small, family-oriented church is a wonderful support system!

  In our free churches, religious education is very important. The Unitarian Universalist church may be the only place where children are exposed to ideas from other religions of the world, where they are challenged to think for themselves, and where they can question openly and be given frank, honest answers and differing opinions. We do have a core of beliefs, but we also have diversity of theology and opinion. It is not true, as some would claim, that UUs can believe whatever they want to -- rather, they believe what their good sense and conscience tells them they should believe. It does matter what we believe. Sophia Fahs said it well, in the Responsive Reading we read this morning. She also wrote:

  It follows, of course, that it also matters what we teach our children--and how we teach them. Occasionally a concerned UU parent will ask me if they should be concerned that their children want to go with a friend to another church, especially a very fundamentalist one, or to vacation Bible school, or some other religious event. They even confide that their children say they don't especially like the UU church or religious education program. And I can believe that--we do not offer the easy answers, or the glitz and drama that other churches do. Lots of kids today want answers--there is too much chaos in their lives in other ways. And kids today expect everything to be given to them in short, easily assimilated segments, and to be entertaining and multi-dimensional. By and large, except in some of our big churches, we UUs don't offer that. Besides, kids want to go where their friends do, and to be like everyone else and be accepted. Let's face it--being UU is different, and "nobody else goes to the UU church, mom!" These are hard things for parents to face.

  And as for the easy answers...well, that has always been a problem. Sometimes the very thing that we adults treasure most about our religion is the most problematical for children. They want answers, and we give them more questions. They want to know what to tell their friends when the friends ask: "What do Unitarian Universalists believe, anyway?" But instead of giving our children quick answers to that question, we encourage them to figure it out for themselves, to give it more thought and consideration, not to jump to answers too quickly. In fact, it is quest and questioning that we are trying to foster in our youth. We believe that curiosity is a divine gift; a tool that helps us discover and live in the mystery of the world. We cherish the freedom to form our own beliefs; and we want to give our children that freedom also, whether they want it or not!

  We are into life's questions. I am reminded of Lenny Bruce's quip that he was in trouble with everyone. "Even the Unitarians have come and burned a question mark on my lawn," he exclaimed. Yes, we are good at questions. But sometimes we need to take the time to recognize that questions deserve answers.

  One problem with focusing on life's questions is that it can lead us into a theology of "not's". You know--when someone asks us what Unitarian Universalists believe, we answer with a series of negatives--we don't believe this, we aren't that, we don't do the other. This is so much easier than answering with positive statements of who we are, and what we do find meaningful.

  No less a shining light in our movement than Ralph Waldo Emerson saw the folly of this approach, which was as alive in the 1840s as it is today. Emerson criticized the Unitarianism of his day for being stagnant. He called it "a theology of pale negations." A theology of pale negations--sounds like a rather thin soup to serve our kids.

  I fear that we do not serve our children well when we encourage and expect them to develop a hunger for knowledge and to ask questions about the important things in life, and then try to feed them with this weak broth of "pale negations." We tell our kids it is their religious duty to ask questions and then we back away from trying to answer them forthrightly for fear that our truth may not speak for everyone, or speak to them. It's an odd world where we encourage questions but then fear proposing answers. We do not wish to impose our answers on our youth, we want them to discover their own truths. But some kids are not ready for that--I mean, how many people do you know who did not even want to wrestle with the great questions of life until they were adults, or maybe in college? Perhaps there is a developmental level at which kids are ready and able to grapple with ambiguity, uncertainty, and mystery, but at earlier levels they may need some kind of answers, even if they are only temporary. I fear this is one of the appeals of their friends churches, or vacation Bible school. There they get answers -- later they can question or reject them.

  I am not suggesting that we adopt a doctrinaire, dogmatic approach to religious education. We always want to encourage children's curiosity. But neither can we just offer a list of discarded answers to life's questions, as though a long enough list of things we do not believe (which, by the way, their friends are telling them they should believe) will provide them with a vibrant, sustaining faith.

  Of course, this means that we must be clear ourselves about what we personally believe before we take on the role of mentor, parent, religious education teacher, or even friend. When we sit down to talk with children we owe it to them to have some clear answers about what motivates and sustains us, what provides the joy in our lives and gives it meaning, what is important to us and guides how we live our lives. At the same time, we must be honest to admit that we do not have all the answers, that there is always more to learn about life; more to discover about our religion. We must admit to our children that we ourselves are still searching and questioning, but we must be able to tell then what our exploration has led us to believe at this point. And we need to tell then and show them that what we believe does matter--and how our personal beliefs have made a difference in our lives.

  Some UU once lamented that we end up raising Tumbleweed children. The tumbleweed is a broad and rangy plant, vigorous and fast-growing. It has deep roots but a weak connection to those roots. Our children are broadly curious, vigorous in their exploration, committed (we hope) to a quest and questioning. We have deep roots in this church. Our tradition is deep. Each of us in this room has a wealth of experience and a depth of being that can nurture the growing minds of our youth. But if we settle for a "theology of pale negations", we risk strengthening the all-important point where the rapidly growing tumbleweed above the ground connects with its stabilizing and nurturing root system. When the wind blows long enough and hard enough, as it is wont to do, the tumbleweed breaks free of its roots and is gone casting its seeds in the wind. Similarly, when our children are exposed to the forces of beliefs which offer definite answers and promise a sustaining vision of truth, they, too, are prone to snap off at the root and roll beyond our sight.

  We have all seen it happen. Sometimes it is because they marry and their spouse tugs at their roots. And because we have taught our tumbleweed children that they can quest and question from anywhere, they leave us for the faith of their partner. Sometimes our tumbleweeds tire of the demands of a free religion which expects them to find their own answers, and they decide they can find their vision of truth in the Sunday newspaper, or on the golf course, or through the television talk shows. Sometimes our lack of honest, direct and open sharing of our core beliefs turns our children to find someone else who can give them answers, and they follow friends to churches where definite answers are available.

  Unitarian Universalists are not good at keeping their children in the faith. In most of our churches, only about 3% of the members were born UUs--one reason we do not grow is because we are not adding on members with our youth, but replacing members with adults who have newly discovered us. It is rare for born-and-raised UUs to remain in our churches all their lives; rarer still for there to be multiple generations of Unitarians within a family. This church, having been here over 100 years, does still have some members who come from 3 and 4-generation Unitarian families. My own family is one example. My great grandparents were founding members of the Unitarian church in Cherokee, and were pastored by Mary Safford and Elinor Gordon, among others. When the church in Cherokee folded in the 20s, they transferred their allegiance to this church; I am told money a great-uncle of mine left in his will to this church supported it during the depression. When my parents retired back to Cherokee, they came here, and my children spent several of their mostly teenage years in this church when we lived in Storm Lake. I felt proud to have three generations in the pews of this historic church! My daughter, Joy, learned about her sexuality here; now my granddaughter is in the Our Whole Lives class in the Mankato UU Fellowship.

  Yet, there are also many examples of children who have dropped away, or moved to other faith communities--tumbleweed children whose roots were not strong enough to hold them here. For some reason, they did not get the comfort, care, and challenge they needed to develop deep roots. Perhaps they did not encounter adults who would share personal quests and experiences and beliefs with them, to help them in formulating their own path; to make up their own minds about life's big questions.

  Today's parents face some unprecedented challenges, among them teaching children to lead full lives in a diverse, multicultural society. It is hard for parents to do this alone; they need the ongoing support and encouragement of people who share their values. Like all parents, Unitarian Universalist parents want their children to develop a reliable sense of integrity, be compassionate members of their society and family. They want them to learn to trust themselves, the environment they were brought into, and ultimately to take responsibility for making their world better. We want them to grow up knowing that it matters that they are alive; that they make a difference.

  Children need structure and feedback to develop these values. And the structure needs to be consistent with the way their role models live their lives. Therefore, we need to choose role models that will model respect for self and others, tolerance for other's views, and the importance of using their minds and hearts to determine what is right. And, yes, it matters what your children's role models believe, and how they act upon their beliefs in their daily lives.

  So what do we tell our children when they ask, and need to know the answer, to questions like: "What is God?" Most of us are struck dumb by such questions and filled with awe about the unanswerables in life. We know that how we respond to this young human being will have a lasting impact on how she perceives her world and her place in it. It is in moments like this that concerned parents wonder if there is a circle of wise spiritual teachers out there somewhere that could provide support.

  And there is. They you are--you, and you, and you. Each of you can share your own journey and beliefs with the children and youth in our community. You can tell them that nobody has all the answers, but that Unitarian Universalism puts its faith in people's ability to explore the unknown together. We hold liberal values of freedom of belief and conscience, unrestricted use of reason in religious inquiry, and tolerance for theological diversity. But there are some important values that we strongly adhere to: because we respect and accept differences, we promote a hate-free society; because we respect the inherent worth and dignity of every person, we seek to love and respect all other humans; because we believe that we are all a part of an interconnected web of life that includes all of the earth, we try to live responsibly and to preserve nature and life of all kinds. And so on. There are many positive beliefs we can pass on to our children.

  The children are our future. And today I tell you that above all else we believe in the future. The future is our sustaining vision, glowing and growing, which we must ultimately hold out for each other. This is the legacy that we want to pass on to future generations, It is the future we give to the children in our religious education program. The gift we present to our heirs is the deeply felt belief that the future is shaped by the work of our hands. The work of our hands, we tell them, depends on the way they answer the deep questions of life. "It matters what we believe," wrote Sophia Fahs. That's why we stay with the questions, discovering what ultimate truths they may reveal.

  William Ellery Channing correctly observed that when it comes to the religious education of our children, whether in a formal program in the church or in the way significant adults in their lives mentor them, "the great end...is not to stamp our minds upon the mind of the young, but to stir up their own...not to impose religion upon them in the form of arbitrary rules, but to awaken the conscience, the moral discernment. In a word, the great end is to awaken the soul, to excite and cherish the spiritual life."

  It was so in 1825, and it is still so today. I tell you that our future is our children. We must tell them what we believe, We must awaken their souls and excite their spirits with the beliefs we feel make a difference if we want them to live into the heritage that our future demands. That is the responsibility we have to our children, whether they are able to be actively a part of our community, or are nurtured by parents and other adults wherever they may be. We must show them we believe in them. It matters what we believe.

Copyright © 2000 Sarah Oelberg. All rights reserved.

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