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By Dr. Bruce T. Marshall
November 1, 2009
Reading: Finding a Place Where We Belong
by Kenneth W. Phifer
What do people do who do not find a place and a people where they
belong?
They suffer, that much I know, because for so long I had found no
such place and no such people. Not that those whom I knew were not
kind and good folk. Not that I had not had a very decent and caring
upbringing by parents and other adults who were intelligent and
sensitive. Not that I had ever suffered deprivation in a material
sense or known great pain. None of these had been part of my
experience.
And yet for many years, there was a restless emptiness inside
me...until a book sale drew me to a Unitarian church on the West
Side of Chicago, and a sparkling Southern accent got my attention,
and a pamphlet about how this religious community understood
religious education all combined to draw me to try yet one more time
to see if this could be the place and these the people where I
belonged.
I was at that point in my life, thirty-three years of age, with a
Doctor of Ministry degree from the University of Chicago and no
place to use that degree. I had taken work as a foreign student
advisor in frustration at not being able to locate a church or
synagogue or temple where I could be honest, be myself, become the
person I was striving to be.
My Presbyterian home and rearing had left me theologically without
anything. I could not accept such doctrines as were part of the
requirement for being a minister in that denomination. I knew I
cared about religion, deeply, and I knew I had the skills that
ministers are supposed to have. But no group, no system, no
institution seemed to be for me.
In some fear our family went to Third Unitarian Church that October
Sunday to be put immediately at ease by the dress of the people,
from casual and even shabby to elegant. This was my kind of place, I
could tell that.
I ran into that Southern woman, a Texan, and she remembered me. I
later learned she was a believer in Jesus Christ as her Lord and
Savior. And I heard during the service from a man of impeccable
atheistic credentials, not to speak of the poet who rattled off a
few lines of verse at the close of the talk that day (and every
Sunday) in keeping with the spirit and content of what had been
presented.
The following week a woman from a local neighborhood organization
came to share her need for our help, and I was already launched into
a seminar on death and dying at the church. Indeed, each event at
the church over the next few weeks before I signed the Membership
Book in December brought home with greater force and clarity the
initial feeling I had on entering Third Unitarian Church in Chicago,
a feeling that I have heard many other people express about their
encounter with Unitarian Universalism, the feeling that, “I have
come home at last.”
Sermon: What Do I Trust?
There’s a sign in front of the First Baptist Church of Silver
Spring; I pass by it on my way home from the Metro station. That
sign features a message that changes every week or so—it’s like the
Wayside Pulpit we have near the entrance to our church. This week’s
message at the Baptist church reads, “Out of Control? Who Do You
Trust?”
Well, that fits nicely with my topic for the morning which is the
question of trust—and it underscores a point I’m trying to make
throughout this series: that all religions address the same
questions. The responses they give are different, but the questions
are the same. The liberal religious tradition which we, as Unitarian
Universalists, inherit and participate in, offers its own responses
to these existential questions. My aim in this series of one sermon
per month is to identify the questions and reflect upon how we
address them..
The topic this morning is: “What Do I Trust?” What do I rely upon to
guide me through the unknown? When I am faced with personal
challenges, when I am faced with philosophical or ethical concerns,
when I need to make a decision, when I am looking for support and
wisdom, when I am “out of control,” where do I turn to help point
the way?
I phrase this question a little differently than how it’s done at
First Baptist Church. Their version is, “Who Do You Trust?” Mine is,
“What Do I Trust?” These two ways of posing the question suggest
different answers. If the question is, “Who Do You Trust?” and it’s
presented in a Baptist church, then you already know the answer. The
answer is going to involve Jesus. Maybe with some intermediaries
here and there, but it will come down to Jesus.
“What Do I Trust?” is more open. It offers a wider range of
possibilities. Maybe my trust is centered in a person, maybe in a
text, maybe in a tradition, maybe in all of those, maybe in
something else.
The question, then: What do I trust? What can I rely upon to help
determine what is true? What can I look to that might assist me in
deciding what is right? Where do I turn for help in guiding my way
through the unknown?
● ● ●
To address this question, let’s take a trip back in time. The year:
1568. The place: the town hall of a city named Gyulafehevar in the
Eastern European kingdom of Transylvania, now part of Romania. I
just learned this past week that the name Transylvania means,
“through the woods.” I’ve never been there, but it is apparently a
beautiful part of the world.
On this day in Transylvania in 1568, there gathered representatives
of the four religions then active in that region: the Catholics, the
Lutherans, the Calvinists, and the Unitarians. The occasion was a
debate before the King of Transylvania, John Sigismund. This was a
time of religious ferment and intense controversy. The Protestant
Reformation was spreading and struggles between Lutherans and
Catholics frequently disrupted the peace. Religion and politics were
intertwined as the Vatican fielded armies to assert its claims,
while the Protestant kings and princes used their soldiers to force
Catholics into becoming Protestants. I am tempted to claim that it
was a time far different from our own, but then I think of the
bloodshed between those of different faiths in the Middle East, in
India, in Israel, in Asia—as well as the stridency of the religious
right in North America—and I realize that religious strife remains
with us today as it did when debaters arrived in Gyulafehevar in
1568.
At issue in this debate was the doctrine of the Trinity: the
Christian teaching that God is three—Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
Speakers were asked to address whether this doctrine was reasonable.
And was it grounded in teachings from the Bible?
The debate at Gyulafehevar lasted ten days, with speakers beginning
each morning at 5:00 a.m. Into the town hall crowded adherents of
all sides, shouting approval when their team seized an advantage,
grumbling abuse at an unfair remark. Such debates engaged the
people. They were as popular as tournaments and jousts had been in
the Middle Ages. People found the issues under discussion so serious
that those debaters who were judged in error often paid for their
faulty reasoning by imprisonment or even death.
Those on the Unitarian side stated their belief that God is one, not
three as is claimed in the Trinitarian formula. Jesus, they said,
should be regarded as a human being, a teacher, a prophet who has
shown us a way to live, but he should not be worshipped as God. The
Unitarians argued for tolerance of differences among religious
groups, for the freedom to co-exist with each other as well as the
opportunity to speak without fear of persecution. They asserted that
truth is best determined through reasoned discussion among those
with opposing views. And that there is no benefit to enforcing
belief through coercion.
When the debate ended, King John announced that he would refer the
discussions to review by his advisors. Later, he would issue a
verdict.
But if we are to believe the tradition, many in the audience were
won over by arguments advanced by the Unitarian side. The chief
spokesman for the Unitarians was a minister named Francis Dávid. It
is said that when he returned to his home town after the debate,
people lined the streets and greeted him with shouts of praise and
joy. According to the historian, Earl Morse Wilbur,
The tradition is that he thereupon mounted a larger boulder at the
street corner and proclaimed the simple unity of God to them with
such persuasive eloquence that they took him on their shoulders and
bore him to the great church in the square to continue the theme,
and that the whole city accepted the Unitarian faith then and there.
(Those were the good old days.)
King John Sigismund’s verdict on the debate came as a decree. The
decree did not proclaim one side or the other right or wrong. It did
declare the right of people to follow the belief of their
conscience. “Faith is the gift of God,” the King stated, “and
conscience cannot be forced.” Therefore, “We demand that in our
dominions there shall be freedom of conscience.”
The King’s decree forbade one sect from interrupting the worship of
another, destroying their books, or accosting each other’s clergy.
Ministers were allowed to preach from their own understandings and
interpretations, while church members were free to accept or reject
the views of the minister. Thus the right of religious freedom was
established throughout the kingdom. No one was to be compelled to a
belief that he or she could not in conscience affirm.
This was something new. Other groups had argued for the right to
believe and worship as they chose, but they were seeking religious
freedom for themselves. Once a minority became the majority, they
persecuted the new minorities with vigor, ignoring the cries for
religious freedom from those previously in command. But now the King
stated a general principle to be protected by law: each person shall
have the right to worship according to individual conscience.
King John Sigismund had been convinced by the arguments advanced by
the Unitarians (he thereby became our one and only Unitarian
king—sounds like an oxymoron: Unitarian King). He came to believe
that truth could not be imposed upon people but was most likely to
emerge through open consideration and discussion. Therefore, instead
of attempting to impose Unitarianism upon his subjects, he granted
them religious freedom.
The King was taking a chance. Generally when a sovereign converted
in that time, everybody else came along in the deal. The fear was
that if competing beliefs were allowed to coexist, chaos would
result. But King John Sigismund was stating a different trust, a
trust in people to work through issues of truth and right and to
make responsible judgments. He proclaimed that it was not the role
of government to enforce religious belief but that truth and right
were most likely to emerge in a free exchange of ideas, beliefs, and
affirmations.
● ● ●
I think that most Americans accept the concept of religious freedom
when it is applied to the nation as a whole: the idea that
government not dictate religious beliefs or practices. It is a basic
principle of our nation that individuals have the right to determine
their own religious commitments—or to have none at all. But when a
church—or an organization of congregations like the Unitarian
Universalist Association—claims the same freedom, well, that can be
puzzling.
We understand how a nation might have religious freedom, but how can
a church have religious freedom? What holds such a group together?
There is no sacred book that’s the ultimate authority; there’s no
sacred person or people to tell us what and how to believe; there’s
no creedal statement defining the beliefs of those who come together
to form this religious community. There is only: freedom.
Well, that’s not quite true. We do draw upon a variety of sources:
sacred and secular writings, the teachings and example of those we
admire and those we train to serve as religious leaders, the ongoing
efforts to define our faith—now represented in the purposes and
principles of the Unitarian Universalist Association. But these are
offered as resources, not final authorities: at the center is always
the freedom to make our own choices, to choose our own way.
So some people take a look at this and jump to conclusions. Such as,
“Unitarian Universalists can believe anything they want.” Or, as was
reported in one of our visioning sessions, “Oh, Unitarians. They
don’t believe anything.”
But “freedom of belief” and “not believing anything” are not the
same. They are quite different. Freedom of belief is based on trust
in an ongoing process of seeking, of learning, of comparing our
views with those of others—the free exchange of ideas as the process
most likely to reveal truth. Freedom of belief assumes a deep
humility. I do not claim to know for all time what is right and
true. So I will listen to your views as I evaluate my own. And even
though I might come to my own convictions, I will not deny you
yours. We can live together in affirmation and respect, even if we
don’t happen to agree.
● ● ●
Skeptics will say that if there isn’t a creed that all adhere to,
then there’s nothing holding a congregation or a community together.
I don’t agree. I think there’s something that goes deeper than
beliefs.
Let me tell you about my parents. My dad celebrated his 88th
birthday in July; my mother celebrated her 88th birthday in
September. My mother is a second generation Unitarian Universalist.
Outside of family, the church is her primary commitment. My father
is not a Unitarian Universalist. He grew up in a church of the
Evangelical and Reformed tradition, which later merged with the
Congregationalists to form the United Church of Christ. The United
Church of Christ has evolved into a liberal Christian denomination,
but the Evangelical and Reformed congregations were small-town,
Midwestern, conservative churches.
Every Sunday morning when I was a child, my father would get up and
go to his church. Then my mother and I and my sister went to ours.
We came back together after church for our mid-day Sunday dinner.
(Since my father’s church service let out earlier, he was the cook
on Sunday.)
When I tell people about this arrangement, they sometimes say, “That
must have been terribly difficult, growing up in a household with
different churches.” No. It wasn’t difficult at all.
But religion is easy. How about something really controversial like,
say, politics. Well, my mother is a life-long died-in-the wool
Democrat. My father? You guessed it: life-long died-in-the-wool
Republican. My mother has a music box that plays “Happy Days are
Here Again.” She brings it out at appropriate times, such as, when
the Democrats win an election. My father has a collection of
elephants that have been played with by the children, the
grandchildren, and all manner of nieces, nephews, and cousins. Maybe
he thinks that if we get comfortable with elephants, we’ll drift
over to his side.
You know those tests on the Internet and everywhere else that claim
to predict whether two people can have a successful marriage? Well,
just about all of them will judge this one a disaster in the making.
They will claim that a marriage where the husband and wife don’t
agree on religion or politics already has two strikes against it.
But my parents celebrated their 65th anniversary last July. You’d
think that if something were going to come up, it would have
happened by now.
Human relationships, human communities are not necessarily held
together by shared beliefs. There’s something deeper: a respect for
each other that makes differences possible. A sense of honoring
another person’s experience even when it’s not the same as my own.
An appreciation of the essential humanity we all share that
transcends differences of belief and commitment.
I think that’s what we strive for in Unitarian Universalist
congregations: to create communities in which there is respect for
each other and also for our neighbors who don’t happen to be
Unitarian Universalists. We try to be congregations in which there
is an openness to what each one of us brings—and openness to the
questions that come to all of us in the everyday challenges of
living.
● ● ●
Forrest Church, who until his recent death was minister at All Souls
Unitarian Universalist Church in New York City, put it nicely.
“Answers,” he said, “close doors; questions open them. Answers lock
us in place; questions lead us on adventures...The more questions we
have, the farther we can see.”
In the liberal religious tradition, we seek to create communities in
which it is possible to raise questions and pursue them.
Congregations in which we cherish the journey, in which we are
invigorated by the spirit that arises when we discover something
new: when we encounter a thought that excites us and helps us see an
old problem in a fresh way.
The criticism that Unitarian Universalists don’t believe anything
has never made sense to me because it takes astounding faith to
remain open to possibilities, to set off in a new direction, to take
chances, to start things that you don’t know where they are going to
end. That’s what faith is to me, the ability to start things that
you don’t know where they are going to end with the confidence that
you’ll find help along the way, that somehow the forces of the
universe will conspire to take you further along in your quest. The
hardest things I’ve ever done have involved taking risks to go in
directions that have been new to me, but that contained the promise
of life.
In the first sermon of this series, I addressed the question, “Who
am I?” The response that comes from our liberal religious tradition:
I am—we each are—people of worth and dignity. Our response to the
question, “What do I trust?” follows directly from that. If I am a
person of worth and dignity, then I can be trusted to make my own
choices, to find my own way. And so I am best served in a context
that affirms a free and responsible search for truth and meaning.
So back to that sign in front of the First Baptist Church of Silver
Spring. “Out of Control? Who Do You Trust?”
What I would say if I’m “out of control” or even not: we trust in a
process of engagement with each other, a process that takes into
account the wisdom recorded by others who have faced similar
challenges, but that encourages us to find our own way. Because
somehow by doing that, we are able to encounter the unknown. We
might discover a direction we hadn’t considered before, we might
find that we are not alone and that there is support along the way,
sometimes from the most unlikely places. We find that we can trust
the universe to draw us toward what is right and true.
That’s what I trust.
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