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Out
of Faith?
Call to Gather (very loosely adapted from Rev. Barbara Pescan) Gathered
here in the mystery of this hour We
honor and celebrate this life we share In which, every day, People
refuse to yield to dire predictions, Rather
they follow the uncommon sense Gathered here in the struggle and the power, May
we also hear the call. Readings Our first reading today is an except from a letter by German theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer written when he was serving time in prison for a foiled attempt to assassinate Adolph Hitler. Bonhoeffer was a central figure in the Protestant Church struggle against Nazism. Almost a year after this letter was written, Bonhoeffer was hanged in a concentration camp. This month mark’s the 100th anniversary of his birth. Bonhoeffer wrote:
I remember a conversation that I had in America thirteen years ago with a young French pastor. We were asking ourselves quite simply what we wanted to do with our lives. He said he would like to become a saint (and I think it's quite likely that he did become one). At the time I was very impressed, but I disagreed with him, and said, in effect, that I should like to learn to have faith. For a long time I didn't realize the depth of the contrast. I thought I could acquire faith by trying to live a holy life, or something like it. … I discovered later, and I'm still discovering right up to this moment, that is it only by living completely in this world that one learns to have faith. One must completely abandon any attempt to make something of oneself, whether it be a saint, or a converted sinner, or a churchman (a so-called priestly type!), a righteous man or an unrighteous one, a sick man or a healthy one. By this-worldliness I mean living unreservedly in life's duties, problems, successes and failures, experiences and perplexities. In so doing we throw ourselves completely into the arms of God, taking seriously, not our own sufferings, but those of God in the world…. That, I think, is faith.
Our second reading is a meditation by UU minister Ronald Mazur:
I do not believe. I believe
And even God was surprised
Sermon A few months ago I received an e-mail from Paul Turner, the lead organizer of AMOS, the broad-based organization of mostly religious institutions building relational power for the common good in central Iowa. Our church is a full-dues paying member of AMOS and several of our members are active leaders. Paul was writing to share the details of an interview he’d had with a reporter from the Des Moines Register.
When this reporter had asked Paul why only religious congregations are currently involved in AMOS, he responded, “Other institutions could also join, we just haven't had any join yet.” Then he went on to write the line that really got me going…the line that began my journey to this sermon…he wrote, “First Unitarian has lots of folks involved who don't necessarily do it out of religious faith.”
It didn’t take long for me to write my friend Paul a response.
“I must admit,” I wrote, “I winced at the comment that First Unitarian members don't necessarily do the work out of religious faith, because in my estimation as their gentle, respectful minister, we definitely do!...though some of us would want to make sure "faith" is defined, and we might each define it differently.”
Now I know that Paul was merely trying to be respectful of our hard-to-pin-down UU perspective when he told the reporter that our church members don’t necessarily do AMOS work out of faith, but his qualification of our participation still got under my craw. If we don’t do work in the community like this out of faith, I wondered, then, out of what are we doing it? Out of a lack of better things to do? Out of boredom? Or maybe out of a simple mistake: We intended to go bowling or watch “American Idol” or dig our heads in the sand, and we just made a wrong turn somewhere?!
Isn’t it faith, no matter how differently we might define it, that leads us to believe in the causes we give ourselves to? Isn’t it faith that sustains us as we are involved in efforts for those things worth doing that won’t be completed in our lifetimes? Certainly pledging a financial contribution to our church each year, which we will be asked to do throughout the month of March, is an act of faith. As is giving our time as leaders in this church. After all, we can’t know for sure how things will go or what we will be called upon to do. We just have to trust—to have faith if you will—that our money and time will be well spent, and that our investments will be returned through the impact of a healthy and thriving church community.
Now I know that words are important. A word like “faith” is most often used to denote a belief in God, and the fact is that many of us simply do not believe in God as the word is traditionally defined…God: the all-knowing, all-powerful creator of the universe. It stands to reason, then, that “faith” could be a word that lacks precision for many of us. I understand that. I really do. So why, you may be wondering, did I get so worked up that we might not be seen as doing our work in the community out of faith?
I knew you’d ask that question… because Paul did, too.
In his next e-mail—after conveying his respect for Unitarian Universalism and apologizing for anything offensive he might have said—he shared that he had been thinking a lot about our exchange. He had been talking it over with a friend, who he described as a disaffected Catholic, and they wondered if UUs would really want to be identified as "religious people,” because, in their experience, self-described “religious people” are not typically the ones to be around. This reminded me of something another friend once shared. He admitted that even as a Christian he is not sure he would want to be identified as a religious person. He explained that all the people he has ever met who define themselves as religious were usually very irritating, didn’t know when to shut up, and were people he found himself really wanting to push down. He went on, with tongue firmly in cheek: “I say we find all the religious people and push them down! Then we can form a new church predicated on the belief that religious people need to shut up or we'll push them down.”
I appreciate this friend’s perspective. Not because he is jokingly advocating violence, of course. But because he is being honest (and funny, I think) about the challenges of working with those too caught up in their own faith. We all know these people and they come from diverse backgrounds and faith perspectives. Their presence as spokespeople of “faith” is the primary reason why I think it is important for the more open and curious among us to reclaim “faith” as a descriptor for our beliefs. After all, why do they get to be the sole voice of faith?
Here’s a story from this week that might help you understand why I think we might want to reclaim “faith” to describe our perspective.
Many of you know that I am currently the board chair for The Interfaith Alliance of Iowa, a non-partisan organization that seeks to be “a progressive voice of faith and goodwill”. We had received word a few weeks back that the Iowa Family Policy Center, a decidedly conservative Christian organization, was sponsoring a press conference at the Iowa Statehouse on Valentine’s Day called “Marriage Matters” and that around 50 pastors would be on hand to sign a “marriage matters agreement” which would, they claimed, outline “community marital standards.”
The Iowa Family Policy Center has let it be known that their top legislative priority in 2006 is to see the Iowa Marriage Amendment passed…an amendment to the constitution that defines marriage as a union between one man and one woman. The Interfaith Alliance views withholding the option of marriage from same sex couples as a civil rights issue, so we knew that we needed to also have a Valentine’s Day presence at the statehouse, sharing a different perspective of faith on the issue of marriage, one that says faith communities are free to define marriage as they see fit, but that civil marriage is a right that should be extended to all. We scheduled a press conference for just after theirs…in a room right across the hall.
I arrived at the statehouse Tuesday in time to get a good spot up front for the “Marriage Matters” event. I wasn’t really sure why I wanted what amounted to a front row seat, but a few moments later, a friend and colleague standing beside me, the Rev. Michael Pater, pastor of the Urbandale United Church of Christ, and a fellow Interfaith Alliance board member, helped me understand why I was there.
Just before the press conference began, a woman turned to us to make conversation. I suppose we stood out in the crowd because we were obviously dressed for the event but didn’t have the bright yellow “Marriage Matters” sticker on our lapels. She kindly asked what had brought us to the statehouse. Michael answered, “We are here to bear witness.”
“For the Lord?” she asked.
We exchanged glances, and Michael said, “Yes, we think we are here for God.” I simply nodded. It didn’t seem the time or the place to offer this woman a definition of the kind of God I was there to support.
Then he continued in a matter-of-fact voice, “I am here because I think hatred is going to be spoken in a few minutes and I want to bear witness to it.” She quickly looked at me, maybe to confirm that Michael was serious. I nodded in agreement. Her smile faded a little and, though she retained her place at our side, she didn’t speak to us again. I think we had made her uncomfortable.
I put my arm around Michael, grateful that he had helped me frame for myself why I was standing there…why it was important that I be there despite the fact that my stomach was churning and my eyes were welling with tears. Despite my discomfort, I didn’t go into another room until the event was over, or even turn away. Rather, I stood there, amidst a smiling gaggle of people who would prefer that my friends in committed, same sex relationships never be granted the rights and privileges afforded heterosexual couples. I stood there because I needed to bear witness… I needed to be a presence representing another perspective. Even though no words were directly spoken about same-sex marriage, and the leaders of “Marriage Matters” told reporters that the event had nothing to do with “the gay issue,” I needed to see that a dozen young men and women were milling about asking people to sign a “marriage amendment” petition. I needed to have these well-meaning folks look me in the eyes as they continued to pursue what I think is “legislative bigotry.” I needed them to see my faith…my faith that things should be different… my faith that it matters who gets to share and who does not… my faith that we must stand with and on behalf of our sisters and brothers when we feel they are being treated unfairly.
As I took everything in, difficult though it was, I was reminded of the words of Dietrich Bonhoeffer, words I had already selected for this week’s service. His description of faith as “this-worldliness,” of choosing to live “unreservedly in life's duties, problems, successes and failures, experiences and perplexities” has a lot to do with bearing witness…and allowing what we experience to call us to further action…not because we are trying to be saintly, but because bearing witness to the life around us can lead us to open our hearts and minds enough to have no other choice but to respond. God language aside, this is the kind of faith I struggle to call my own. This is the kind of religion by which I try to live. This is the kind of humble, curious faith that can take me out of my own anger or fear or confusion or isolation and into something much greater…what I would call the greater narrative of our shared humanity, which teaches again and again that we are the ones who must create the world of peace and justice that we seek…we are the ones who are called to “throw ourselves…into” what Bonhoeffer describes as the “arms of God” …a God who does not simply watch our suffering, but who suffers with us. We are the ones.
I’m just as uncertain about God as anyone else. But I do believe, any God worthy of respect would have to be a God like the one described by Bonhoeffer, a God in touch with the real world…the here and now…a world where each of us struggles with uncertainty and doubt…a world where we make mistakes and where we can be led astray by our fear, or confusion, or ignorance. A God who needs us to share our faith with others, even when we may be dead wrong, because She believes in the redemption that can come when we hear each other’s stories, when we take the risk to get to know each other and let our own understandings be informed or affirmed, if not changed, by what we learn.
Within the hour, The Interfaith Alliance began our press conference. I stood at a podium with at least 50 activists and clergy behind me (including several members of this church) and several microphones and cameras in front of me, and shared my conviction that marriage matters for all families. Despite the different ways the word “faith” may be defined, I believe I was sharing my faith when I spoke. I was sharing my faith that it matters that we speak up, particularly on behalf of those whose rights are denied. My faith that one day we will look back at our restrictions on same-sex marriage and shake our heads, wondering why we allowed legislation against those seeking to commit monogamy, and why it took so long for us to come to our senses and get rid of it. My faith that while religious freedom is important, the government of our religiously pluralistic country should be in the business of civil rights, not theological discrimination.
But even as I was sharing my faith during that press conference, I could not help but see others who had gathered in the room carrying their own faith perspective…who were doing their own witnessing by standing there listening to me. One woman, in particular, caught my attention…a tall, blonde-haired woman, with a yellow “Marriage Matters” sticker on her lapel, who took in our press conference with what I thought were tears in her eyes and a look of disgust on her face.
It was in this moment that I felt how Bonhoeffer’s God must suffer watching we humans trip over ourselves trying to figure it all out, to do what is right, grappling with our disgust, our anger…even our hatred for those different from us…doing our best to be faithful…faithful to life as we understand it…faithful to life as we hope it can be.
It was in this moment that I could see how important it was that I not just bear witness as others share their faith perspectives, but that I articulate my own faith…that I take the risk to speak my version of the truth and my hope for the future, even when what I have to say may be difficult to say…and difficult for others to hear.
It was in this moment that I could clearly see my religion at work. A religion that advocates freedom of belief, justice, equity and compassion in human relations and a respect for the inherent worth and dignity of every person (and I would add, every loving mutually respectful family).
Could this be your religion, too? Could this be the source of your faith?
UU theologian James Luther Adams put it well when he wrote, “The question concerning faith is not, Shall I be a person of faith? The proper question is, rather, Which faith is mine? or, better, Which faith should be mine?”
Your answers matter…my answers matter…all our answers matter…especially now, when “faith” continues to be used as a means of discrimination and injustice.
I don’t expect that we will ever all agree on the confusing and divisive issues of our time. And our creedless Unitarian Universalist approach to religion doesn’t require that we even agree on the nature of God or the definition of faith. But I do believe that our religion asks us to model for others the kind of world we want to live in. I do believe our religion calls us to share the responsibility of helping to create that world. And I do believe that even those of us who have difficulty describing our beliefs as “faith” need to speak up…to share our religious perspectives… particularly our perspectives that are humble, open and interested in difference.
Our stated goal of “world community with peace, liberty and justice for all” demands that we do.
Closing Words (A. Powell Davies) “There
are no problems larger than our power to solve
them.
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