What’s on Your Mind?
a sermon from your questions
Rev. Mark Stringer
First Unitarian Church of Des Moines
6/8/03

 

 

This morning’s sermon has been built from questions submitted by members of this church over the past few weeks.  When I mentioned to one of my colleagues that I was planning to do a “question” sermon today, he told me I was taking the easy way out by getting the questions in advance.  But after working through some of the questions I have been sent, I can’t say that this has been easy at all.

 

One of my ulterior motives for asking for questions was to hear a few of the things that are on your minds…the questions you grapple with as Unitarian Universalists, and although I only received about a dozen responses, I feel I got a good mix of questions.

 

There were three basic sub-groups for the questions I received: questions about me, questions about UUism, and questions about First Unitarian and I will share them with you in that order.

 

I was asked, What part of the Bible has been the most meaningful to your life?

 

During my childhood, my mother had a passage from 1 Corinthians on a plaque near the kitchen sink.  I probably read that passage more than any other from the Bible and I am still drawn to its simple words:

“Love is patient; love is kind; love is not envious or boastful or arrogant or rude.  It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice in wrongdoing, but rejoices in the truth.  It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.  Love never ends.” (1 Corinthians 13:4-8)

 

In college, when I sometimes liked to wallow in dark thoughts and existential ponderings, particularly after my mother died, I appreciated Ecclesiastes, a book in the Hebrew Bible that leaves room for doubt and expresses some of the same dark thoughts I felt at this time in my life.  The poet of Ecclesiastes wrote words that really resonated with how I was feeling:

 

“Sorrow is better than laughter” and “The heart of the wise is in the house of mourning.” (Ecclesiastes 7:3-4)

 

You must understand that at the time, I used to listen to those dark English bands of the 80s like the Cure and Depeche Mode, and one of my favorite songs had the lyrics “I don’t want to start any blasphemous rumors, but I think that God’s got a sick sense of humor and when I die, I expect to find him laughing.”

 

Man…that was deep stuff.

 

Eventually I came to see, as does the poet of Ecclesiastes, that just as there is a time to mourn, there is a time to dance.  As there is a time to weep, there is a time to laugh.

 

I learned to not take everything so seriously and to recognize that each of us will face pain, disappointment and loss…and each of us will, one way or another, deal with what we are dealt.

 

As the poet wrote:

“This is what I have seen to be good; it is fitting to eat and drink and find enjoyment in all the toil with which one toils under the sun the few days of the life God gives us; for this is our lot.” (Ecclesiastes 5:18)

 

I was asked, What novel has been the most inspiring to you?

I am a big fan of Iowa native Wallace Stegner, particularly his books All the Little Live Things and Angle of Repose.  I savor Stegner’s way with words—he writes sentences that are so beautiful you have to read them more than once.  But even more, I appreciate the honest way he portrays life’s inevitable challenges.  His stories reveal life as it is…messy, exhilarating, and painfully exquisite.   If I could only have one novel to read for the rest of my life, I would choose Angle of Repose.  I think it’s that good.

 

Question:  When I tell people that I go to the UU church, some people respond with something like, "Oh, that's the church with the atheists/agnostics."  When I explain that we are a very diverse, liberal church with many different viewpoints, etc., etc., they typically wonder how that works.  Although I am able to formulate some sort of answer, I was wondering how you might respond.  

 

I sense that at the heart of this question, there is the desire for a UU elevator speech, a quick and concise 30-45 second description of what Unitarian Universalism is…enough of an explanation that can clearly convey what UUs believe without boring someone with unnecessary details.  Haven’t we all wanted this elevator speech handy at one time or another?  Wouldn’t it be great to be able to describe this complicated, sometimes unwieldy religion quickly and simply?  But you know, I just don’t think we can do it. And why should we try? After all, other faiths are not expected to condense their beliefs into a 30-second sound byte.  How many Presbyterians, Catholics, Hindus or Jews would be able to adequately describe their faiths in under a minute?  Why should we expect to be able to do it?  Sure we can pass out those little wallet cards that say “What UUs Believe” or we can recite some of the principles and purposes.  But I believe people don’t really want to read little cards, and they don’t necessarily want to hear us defend our church.  I think they want to know what we get from participating in it.  They want to know why we bother to go to church on Sunday.

 

That’s why if someone would say to me “Oh, you serve the church with the atheists and agnostics,” I would probably smile and say, “Yes we are the church with the atheists and agnostics.  But we are also the church with the theists and the Christians and the Wiccans and the humanists too.”  If the response was “How does that work?” I wouldn’t try to explain it right away and I wouldn’t bother going to great lengths to describe all the things some of us don’t believe.  I would simply say what the church means to me personally.  I would say something like, “I think its great.  I love being a part of a religious community that leaves room for different perspectives and understandings of this life we share.  I feel at home there.  It is a place where I can openly explore my own beliefs and hear what others think.  It is a church where I can grow into what I believe, where I can change my mind, where revelation is not sealed or relegated to one source, but is accepted as continuous and ever-expanding. We welcome guests, so you should visit sometime and see what you think.”

 

A corollary question I received from someone else was “How can we be more affirmative in our religion?”  Again, I think this question speaks to our tendency to describe UUism by talking about what some of us don’t believe, instead of what we do believe.  That’s why when people ask us about our church, I think our first response should be to say the things that we love about it.  For example, I love how my church encourages me to celebrate this life that we share and to be challenged by the diversity of opinion found in any human community.  I love how my church is governed by democratic process, how every member has an equal vote and is free to express her opinion.  I love how my church supports each person’s spiritual journey, even if it leads him to another church or to no church at all.  And I love how my church participates in events like today’s “Pride Parade” and Tuesday’s AMOS rally, how we work for justice, stand up with and for those whose rights are denied, and offer opportunities for discussion of topics that others may find too dangerous or unpopular.

 

Question:  We have people at our church who have a profound belief in God and others who couldn't be further from the notion of a God, and then many ideas/beliefs in between. So my question is:  How is it that our church has become a place that nurtures spiritual/individual growth for all, in spite of our varied beliefs?
 

Perhaps the best way to answer this question is to briefly trace our UU heritage.  Since the colonial days, Unitarians gathered around the belief in one God; Universalists gathered around the belief that everyone would be saved…that God was too loving to send anyone to hell.  As these separate faiths developed over the years, various sub-groups emerged which pushed the boundaries of what had come before. For example, the transcendentalists believed that God was accessible through our intuition, and paved the way for the religious humanists who believed that God was a concept that may have become obsolete altogether.  Later, those with earth-centered theologies expressed the belief that the holy is to be found within nature itself. So throughout the history of our liberal faiths, which merged together in the 1960s, there has been room for different interpretations of how to view that one God, or life force, or whatever one wants to call it, and the foundation has been laid that no one should be left behind. Therefore, In our UU churches, like this one, there continues to be a great diversity of belief, though some voices are always louder than others. 

 

Question:  We call UUism a religion, but are we really a religion?

While I want to answer “Yes, we are absolutely a religion” I acknowledge that there are many, including my own grandmother, a devout evangelical Christian, who would say that we are not.  So a better answer would be,  “It all depends on how one defines the term.”  If we use the definition that says religion is “belief in and reverence for a supernatural power recognized as the creator and governor of the universe,” I would have to say that religion might not be the appropriate term for what we do…or at least what some of us do.  But if we trace religion back to its Latin root religare, which means “to tie back,” I believe that what we do here at First Unitarian is definitely religion. Our weekly services, Sunday school classes, small group ministry meetings, forums, affinity groups, work in the community, and social events, are all means by which we are reconnected to each other, to ourselves, and to this life we share.  I know I don’t think I fully experienced religion as an adult until I found a UU church because at other churches I visited, I always felt like I had to leave a piece of myself behind.  I either had to compromise or deny what I felt in my heart or my intellect or I had to ignore some of what I heard.  Either way, I definitely did not feel all that connected to myself or to the others present.  Once I discovered Unitarian Universalism, however, I felt at home, more capable of accepting the views of others because I knew there was a place for me.  Now when I visit other churches, the same rituals or dogma that once set me off now seem so much less threatening.  I can more readily see the importance that these rituals hold for others.  UUism has helped me recognize that what I needed was not freedom from religion, but freedom of religion.

 

Question:  At our church, we often refer to "The Truth" as a unified entity, or that thing for which we are all searching.  My question is:  Won't The Truth, when we find it, be different for all of us? Is the path to it, the same, do you think, or different?

Ahh, the truth.  It’s interesting that someone would raise this question because I’ve been meaning to do a sermon on it for some time.  I’ll just touch upon it lightly right now with the expectation that sometime soon I’ll devote more time to it.  “The Truth” sounds like a good idea, until we have to define what we mean. Some would say truth is reality…the cold hard facts of our existence; others would say it is a synonym for integrity; and still others might say that Truth is just another word for God. Friday night, my father-in-law gave me a rather intriguing way to discern the truth.  He said, “Close your eyes and imagine anything that President Bush has said over the past six months.  The truth is the opposite of whatever Bush said.”

 

Of course, to be fair, I know people who would say the same thing about President Clinton.  To answer the question though, I have to agree with theologian Henry Nelson Wieman who wrote, “truth is a possibility waiting to be discovered, but the discovery depends upon the initiative and action of the existing minds.”[1] In other words, we don’t necessarily create truth together, but we may need each other to discern it.  Truth cannot be discovered in a vacuum. Wieman said that we come to know truth through “creative interchange,” the kind of interaction that takes place when participants seek to grow their appreciative understanding of another and allow this understanding to be integrated into their own perspective, leading to an increase in meaning and the further development of each individual.  Or as I like to put it, creative interchange occurs when people communicate with each other expecting to have their perspectives changed and so, as a result of the interaction, they do.  The participants do not have to agree in order to have creative interchange.  As Wieman said, “The understanding of the errors and evils in human life [brought about by creative interchange] is as great a good as to understand the virtues and the truths.  Indeed to understand evil and error is itself virtue and truth.”[2] 

 

So, back to the questions: Is the path to truth different for each individual?  My experience says yes, if only because as individuals we will have unique experiences and interactions.  Is the truth a unified entity?  I would say no, if only because truth is always emerging and advancing.  Is truth different for different people?  Again my experience would say yes.   So, when we sing during the Hymn of Valor, “soul of truth, eternal goodness, sojourn with us as we part” I think of truth as that which calls us to our better selves, that which can be most readily discovered, in my humble opinion, through creative interchange.

 

Question:  I found this quote in a book from St. Augustine to be rather amusing:  "Man wishes to be happy even when he so lives as to make happiness impossible."  How do you think our lives keep so many of us from that general feeling of happiness and well-being?

I think this question is rich enough to be another sermon, but again, I’ll give a quick answer.  I think the greatest obstacle to happiness and well-being facing most Americans today is the breakdown of community connections, of ways that we can interact with each other outside of our nuclear families.  We have lost the sense of the village, of the need to protect and preserve the common good.  We are victims of a culture that wants us to be consumers first and citizens never.  That’s why the few avenues for voluntary association, like this church we share and AMOS, are so important.  We have to fight for our connections, for the things that remind us that we are not just isolated individuals with no recourse against the overwhelming power of multinational corporations and big money.  We need to join together with others and work for our common interest…and happiness.  

 

Question:  We have new members joining, why aren’t we able to keep them?

I can only speak for the almost two years that I have been serving as your minister.  During this time, we have done a pretty good job of retaining new members, mostly because our growing religious education program, small group ministry, circle suppers, and new affinity groups like the windbreakers, Interweave and the young adult group have provided more ways for new members to get connected to this community.  These connections are essential because, as studies have shown, if a new member does not get to know six people within the first few months of membership, she won’t return. Those of you who have been around for a while understand that the real treasure of this community is the people, and it is the connections that you share with these folks that keep you coming back.  The membership committee, under the leadership of Ellen Taylor, has spent the past two years streamlining their work, and some of my time has been spent trying to connect with guests and new members.  But ultimately, the responsibility for new member integration and existing member retention rests on all of our shoulders.  Certainly each of you who have found a home here can remember the people who welcomed you, who made you feel a part of this community.  Have you passed on this gift to others? You may be surprised to discover how little it takes to help someone feel at home.

 

I had two people ask How might we attract a greater cultural and ethnic diversity in our membership?

 

I understand this question, though the answer is not simple.  Considering we are a religion that prides itself on diversity of thought and belief, we should be disappointed that we don’t have more cultural, racial, and ethnic diversity represented in our membership.  To seek out diversity just for the sake of diversity, though, is tricky business and pretty much doomed to failure.  The way we will become more welcoming to those of different cultures and backgrounds is to invite them to create something with us.  Just opening the doors and doing things as we always have will not be enough.  We have to decide that we want to learn from others, that we want to include other voices in our planning and be more intentional about offering programs that appeal to those outside our walls.  All of the UU churches that have a real diversity in their membership had leaders who intentionally sought to create that diversity, who saw that the church would benefit from stretching to include others.  When this church is ready, we will do the same.

Question:  You've already addressed some of the things you feel good about re: our congregation and what has been accomplished since you came to us, but I'd like to hear you talk about concerns you have for this church as you look forward into the next year and beyond.  

A concern is something that causes worry.  I can’t say that I am truly worried about anything.  However, I do have some hopes though and things I’d like to see. 

--I hope that we will have a year-round canvass committee next year and in the years to come, a committee that will help the church move beyond seeing the annual pledge drive as a necessary headache and toward seeing it as an opportunity for celebration and strengthening our connections to each other. 

--I’d like to see less of an emphasis placed on who is in the pulpit on any given Sunday, and more attention paid to the gift we give to one another when we choose to be present.  There is a palpable energy here when we are all together and we cheat ourselves to not experience it more often.

--I hope that the church continues to support our religious education program. We have seen extraordinary growth in Children’s RE and we may need to think outside the box in the next few years to keep this momentum going.  We will need to be flexible with our space and understand that the 138 children now enrolled in the program are an important part of this community and worthy of our attention and time.

--I am also looking forward to observing the efforts of the Vision Quest committee, the group of dedicated church members led by Nicky Keller who will continue the work begun with Martha Easter-Wells and who will lead us into the next phase of our church’s future.  We are fortunate to have such a fine committee representing us.

 

As I complete my second year of ministry with you, I see a bright future ahead for the church.  I’m delighted that the budget you will vote on today includes money for a new part-time staff position, and a contribution to AMOS, a broad-based organization of congregations and other institutions.  I love the fact that over 30 new people joined our church this year, with more to come. It is an exciting time to be a part of First Unitarian and I am proud to be your minister.