Anything We Love Can Be Saved

By Rev. Meg Riley of the Faith in Action Dept. of the UUA
October 15, 2000

The reading is from Alice Walker’s ANYTHING WE LOVE CAN BE SAVED: A Writer’s Activism.

It has become a common feeling, as we have watched our heroes falling over the years, that our own small stone of activism, which might not seem to measure up to the rugged boulders of heroism that we have so admired, is a paltry offering toward building the edifice of hope. Many who believe this choose to withhold their offerings out of shame.

This is the tragedy of our world.

For we can do nothing substantial toward changing our course on the planet, a destructive one, without rousing ourselves, individual by individual, and bringing our small, imperfect stones to the pile.

Sometimes our stones seem mis-shapen, odd. Their color seems off. Presenting them, we perceive our own imperfect nakedness. But also, paradoxically, the wholeness, the rightness, of it. In the collective vulnerability of presence, we learn not to be afraid about the bright moments one can experience at the pile of stones. Of how even the smallest stone glistens with tears, yes, but also from the light of being seen, and loved for simply being there.

SERMON

My colleague Vicki Weinstein, minister up the road in Columbia at Channing Memorial Church, told me this. An Episcopal priest friend of hers, with whom she works closely in the struggle for reproductive choice for women, said to Vicki once, “God bless the Unitarians! They always show up at the clinics whenever people are needed for clinic defense. But not one of them can tell you why they do!”

Vicki’s priest friend did not mean that the UUs could not explain their political beliefs. I think what he meant was that the UUs were unable to articulate the religious grounds for their actions. This morning I want to take some time to speak about why we do the actions we do on behalf of justice, on behalf of a better world. I want to articulate my understanding about why Unitarian Universalists are already so active in pursuit of a better world. And I want to share my own hope about how being able to articulare the connection between our faith and our action can lead to a difference in our activism.

Now, some of you may be thinking, “ARE we active?” Is it fair to start with the assumption that we are activists? Since, as Alice Walker describes so movingly, we are each told so often that what we do is insignificant, that unless we can create a boulder of hope, our small stones don’t matter at all, I want to take a moment to acknowledge what I observe about Unitarian Universalists as activists.

Throughout the history of Unitarian and Universalism there have been women and men who have evidenced great courage, taken huge personal risk, on behalf of their visions of the world. Susan B. Anthony, Whitney Young, Adlai Stevenson, Clara Barton, Margaret Sanger, John Adams. We may feel that, next to their boulders, our small stones are nothing.

And yet, the accomplishments of these remarkable individuals are vastly exceeded by the less-noticed actions of hundreds and thousands of Unitarians and Universalists, whose names we might never know, who have spent their lives laboring in modest ways for justice.

I notice that we create our small stones of activism in several prominent ways. One is the disproportionate numbers of our members whose professional life involves public service in one form another. Large numbers of Unitarian Universalists are teachers, government workers, scientists, social workers, counselors, and other professionals who seek to create a better world for all people through their life’s work. Many of the folks in our congregations are 9 to 5 activists. Even those UUs whose jobs are not traditional public service jobs seem to gravitate towards serving the betterment of their work environment—serving as union stewards, or organizing diversity training, for instance, striving to make the work environment a more just and equitable place.

Besides manifesting activism through our professional lives, Unitarian Universalists also strive to make our families just and equitable. The family might be described as the most powerful institution in the world, because it shapes our most intimate and profound understanding of life. When we use that institution to shape a respect for all work, paid or unpaid, or for all people, male or female, young or old, we are being activists. When we struggle to maintain simple living styles, to be environmentally aware in our homes, to recycle, to teach our children to honor the earth, we are creating small stones of hope.

So, we strive to make our home and work environments reflect our values. Another form of activism which we take for granted is that we are, disproportionately, joiners. Because I am in many coalitions with organizations working on many causes, I am regularly accosted by staff members from such organizations as Common Cause, People for the American Way, the Sierra Club, and many other groups, who say, “We did a membership survey and, despite the fact that you’re a small denomination, there are more UUs in our group than any other religion!” I always smile and look modest, as if I can take any amount of credit for what UUs join or don’t join! But, I figure I get blamed for enough things that aren’t my fault that it all balances out…So, we’re joiners. We join organizations that we believe in. In patterns clearly apparent to their membership offices.

Finally, to notice the ways in which we are already activists, we’re community leaders. We tend to have many members who are doing unpaid work to serve the community at large—leaders in groups to help young people, to clean up the environment, to fight racial injustice or sexism or homophobia, to better our public schools, to get a living wage for all workers, to promote the right to death with dignity for all people, and on, and on, and on.

A large proportion of our members, then, offer our small stones of hope in at least these four arenas—our nine to five jobs, our family lives, by joining organizations which work for justice, and by serving as community leaders. All of this is vitally important, and it’s why I have been proud to serve our religious movement for these past twenty years. And it’s why so many people are ecstatic to finally stumble in the door of a UU congregation—because at long last, you meet a community of people who live the same kinds of lives, who have the same kinds of values, as you do!

But perhaps it’s also occurred to you that none of the kinds of activism I have just mentioned would naturally strengthen anyone’s ability to articulate why UU faith leads to commitment to social justice, or why, in some cases, social justice activism leads to UU faith!

I’d like to take some time this morning to suggest three reasons why social justice is an integral part of our faith. You may have your own, and that’s great. But, next time you’re in front of an abortion clinic or anywhere else publicly acting out your faith commitment, and someone asks you why you’re there, you can answer not only politically, but also religiously. The people acting to shut down abortion clinics have no problem saying why their religion compels them to do so. We need to evidence the same courage in articulating our own religious values.

The first reason why social justice is integral to our faith is that we are a religious association centered on ‘deeds, not creeds.’ We maintain that all of our actions, including what we do at work, within our families, with our checkbooks, with our time, as we act for justice, are expressions of our faith. “Religion” is not something we do on Sunday morning from 10:30 to 11:30. It’s a 24/7 thing.

A. Powell Davies, who certainly needs no introduction in this congregation, said in an address at Harvard University in 1954, “It is significant, I think, that although thousands have been done to death for heresy—that is to say, for not believing the official doctrines—no one, through all the Christian centuries, has ever been tried by an ecclesiastical court for not loving his neighbors as himself…This means that it has been more important that people should accept speculations on matters concerning which almost nothing is known, than that they should follow the teaching and example of Jesus.”

Davies articulated, with his usual clarity and humor, the Christian call for justice. And yet, despite his own Christian beliefs, he became Unitarian because he found too many self-described Christians to be more bogged down in “matters concerning which nothing is known,” than in emulating Jesus as a model for behavior.

Other Unitarian Universalists, who are more nurtured by Buddhist metaphor, or Jewish metaphor, or earth-centered metaphor, might use different language to articulate this same emphasis on caring for our neighbors.

Whatever language we use for it, Unitarian Universalists believe that heaven and hell are of our own making, and exist here on earth.

So, the first reason why action for justice is integral to our faith is that we believe in deeds, not creeds as the true measure of religious life.

The second reason is that we are an optimistic faith. Some of you may know that I have learned, over the years, a ridiculous amount about the political groups which are often described under the rubric of “The religious right.” I have learned, as I have read their materials, combing for clues about their actions, something that might surprise you. It is this: OUR faith in the creator of the universe, as well as in our fellow beings, is vastly larger than these groups,’ who so often claim to hold the moral high ground. Universalism started as a faith response to exactly the same kind of thinking: in response to Calvinism, a belief system which held that God created some people to be damned and others to be saved, Universalism responded that no God would ever be so unloving as to do such a thing! God loves all people, and all people are created in God’s image as loving beings. Even the most seemingly evil people in the world hold within them the potential for redemption, for goodness. As Anne Frank observed, over fifty years ago, “Despite everything, I still believe that people are good…”

Is Calvinism vs. Universalism an old 16th century irrelevant theological argument? Turn on the televangelists sometime and decide for yourself! James Dobson, the founder of Focus on the Family, the largest and probably most influential religious right organization—their policy arm is the Family Research Council, and they have also spun off such groups as The PromiseKeepers and The PromiseReapers—anyway, Dr. Dobson initially made his mark on the world with a hugely popular book entitled DARE TO DISCIPLINE about child-raising. It was in this book where I finally came to understand his theology.

In Dare to Discipline, Dobson says that “respect is not an inherent by-product of human nature.” He says that children must be taught to fear their parents through physical violence, when they are disobedient. If parents do not teach them to fear such punishment, they will “never come to know God.” Now, do you hear this!!! This man, this influential leader, is saying that the way to know God is to be afraid of physical violence, of punishment! Is this faith, is this trust that we are made in God’s image? It is a description of a God who can ONLY love us if we accept that we are bad, unworthy, deserve to be hurt. It is, in short, a sadistic God. I can only think that such a God is envisioned by people who have very low self-esteem, who have internalized a parental figure who has taught them that they are, in essence, bad.

In understanding Dr. Dobson’s and other right-wing fundamentalists’ theology, we see how truly radical and optimistic Universalist theology really is. “Give them not hell, but hope,” the Universalists said hundreds of years ago, and it is still necessary. It is Calvinism, and a belief that people are fundamentally bad and deserving of punishment, that is leading to public policy where ridiculously large numbers of people are in human-made hells: prisons, sweatshops, violence, poverty. Our religious voice, our faith in one another and in the Mystery which created us all, is healing balm in an aching world.

So, we place our emphasis on deeds, not creeds, we have a belief that the universe is ultimately a loving place, that human beings carry that love in our DNA structure if you will. Yet a third reason why Unitarian Universalists are naturally activists for justice is that we have the faith that human beings together can do more than individuals alone. We know the power of beloved community, the strength to be found in shared worship and fellowship and action.

It was with mixed feelings that I noticed an ad in a recent issue of the UU world. Apparently in reaction to the “WWJD” bracelets—What would Jesus Do?--some enterprising UU started to sell bracelets which read “WWUUD”—What would UUs do? Part of me found that funny. But part of me felt sad about it, too. I actually love the WWJD bracelets, though they’re certainly misused by a number of youth advisors and others. Jesus, for instance, sure never said a word about pre-marital sex or homosexuality—two of the major issues about which fundamentalist Christians are taught to stare at their bracelets and contemplate deeply. He did, however, have a great deal to say about economic injustice, and I for one would LOVE it if hundreds of youth began to ask themselves “What would Jesus do?” and gave away their allowances to kids in the street instead of buying new clothes at the shopping mall—

I also think there’s real power in turning to an image of a respected, beloved being, and envisioning what they would do in a given situation. I bought my partner a “WWBD” bracelet—What would Buddha do?--because for many years she has asked herself that question when she has been stuck deciding on a course of action.

But, all of those feelings aside, I also love the “WWUUD?” idea. Because it lifts up the image of our co-journeyors in religion as mentors and helpers in discerning our own path, because it pointed to the beloved community of Unitarian Universalists as the ultimate source of knowing what is right and good. And this helps us to take our own actions seriously, and to value each other as the enlightened beings that we are. While my most cynical self replies, WWUUD? Pass a good-intentioned resolution and go on about our business without ever DOING anything as a faith group about any particular issue!!! I also look around the country and see that there’s a great deal more to it than that. In a number of our congregations, collective action is now to be expected, in the name of Unitarian Universalism. When an anti-gay ballot initiative was on the ballot in California last fall, Bay Area congregations co-created a full page ad which said, basically, that as a faith, UU’s objected to the initiative. When the World Trade Organization met in Seattle last year, Pacific Northwest UU’s again inserted a full page ad in the Seattle Times, stating our concerns about workers’ rights and economic justice. We were the only religious organization to speak in a clear, religiously-based voice, about our concerns. Right now, in ballot initiatives in Maine, and in Oregon, and in Missouri, Unitarian Universalist congregations are taking the lead, AS Unitarian Universalists, in lifting up our religious values.

In the same book from which I quoted earlier, Alice Walker writes,

Love and justice and truth are the only monuments that generate ever-widening circles of energy and life. Love and justice and truth the only monuments that endure, though trashed and trampled, generation after generation. We can say with conviction to our children that anything they love can be sheltered by their love; anything they truly love can be saved. First, in their own hearts, and then in the hearts of others. They have only to make their love inseparable from their belief. And both inseparable from hard work.

Anything which you, the members of Davies Memorial Church, love, can be saved. You have only to make that love inseparable from your belief, and both inseparable from hard work. What do you love so much? For what, for whom, are you willing to risk facing your own imperfections, the misshapenness of the tiny stones of your own actions, the inevitable imperfection of anything you try to do? WWDMCD? What would Davies Memorial Church Do? to build a monument of love and truth and justice that will endure, generation after generation? What would our emphasis on the importance of our actions as markers of our religious lives call us to do? What would our belief in the loving nature of the mystery from which we are born and to which we return cause us to do? What would our belief in ourselves and each other cause us to do?

If we take our UU faith seriously, I believe we will want to take action not only as concerned individuals but as concerned institutions, understanding that if we each take our own small stone and put it together with the many stones of the other people who share our faith, we might build a fairly substantial edifice to hope that could generate ever-expanding circles of energy and life for times we shall never live to see.

This morning there’s an opportunity to hear about one opportunity for such collective, focussed action for a better world, one opportunity to put UU faith into action. Let us be about this sacred work, so that when our days on this earth are done, we may answer our own heart’s query, “Have you loved well? Have you lived your faith? Have you been true to your values? Have you done what you could to create an edifice of hope, adding a stone that glistens from your own tears, but also from the light of being seen, and loved for simply being there?

A group of devotees invited a master of meditation to give them instruction. He told them that the object of meditation was to realize the divinity in all things. “In the end you must come to this realization not only in the meditation period, but in all of life. The whole process is like filling a sieve with water.” Then he bowed and left.

The little group fumed after he was gone. “That’s as good as telling us we’ll never be able to do it. Filling a sieve with water!? He’s telling us that we shall never be able to do this!”

They pondered on the image of the sieve without any solution. Some thought he was telling them that people could only experience temporary fulfillment, others thought he was speaking of a mystical transformation which they could not envision, others thought he was laughing at them.

In the end, they all forgot about the image, except for one woman, who went to see the teacher. He gave her a sieve and a cup and they went to the nearby seashore, where they stood on a rock with the waves breaking around them. “Show me how you fill the sieve with water,” he said. She bent down, held the sieve, and ladled a cup of water into it. The water barely appeared at the bottom of the sieve, and then it was gone. “It’s just like that with meditation practice,” said the teacher. “While one stands on the rock, separate, and tries to ladle divine inspiration into the self. That’s not the way to fill a sieve with water, or to fill the sieve with divine life.”

“How do you do it, then?” she asked. He took the sieve from her hand and threw it far out into the sea, then sank. “Now it’s full of water and will always remain so,” he said. “That’s the way to fill it with water, as it is with spiritual practice. It’s not ladling little cupfuls of divine life into individuality, but throwing individuality far out into the sea of divine life.”