An admittedly tired joke, but bear with me: What do you get when you cross a Jehovah’s Witness with a Unitarian Universalist? Right! Someone standing at your door, wondering what in the heck he/she is doing there!
Thirty years ago, I may have been taking my life into my own hands should I offer a sermon title that included the words Unitarian Universalists and evangelism in the same sentence. Guilt-provoking proselytizers and flint-eyed television preachers would almost surely come the listeners’ minds - pulpit-pounders spinning biblical passages into vivid, certain damnation for all who dared deviate from their version of truth. At best, my liberal religious listeners would have considered today’s sermon title an oxymoron, and about as useful as the proverbial screen door on a submarine!
When
evangelism is spoken of in liberal religious circles today, we still
have a healthy disdain for anything that smacks of religious
arm-twisting; for us, the idea of a faith rooted in anything less
than a free and responsible quest for truth is as antithetical in
these times as it was when Nixon’s “plumbers” were
busy casing the Watergate complex. But fewer and fewer of us are
satisfied to state what we oppose and call it good. We’re
coming around to the notion that if evangelism is understood to be
the process of promoting the basic tenets
that hold us together, it’s a good thing. Thirty years ago, we were
barely a decade beyond the merger that gave rise to our admittedly
cumbersome name. Furthermore, our Association was still in the
business of building new congregations in relatively secluded
locales, as well as relocating urban churches and fellowships to the
suburbs. It’s not that UUs were
unconcerned with growth; I’m hard-pressed to find a time in our
history when we no longer cared about witnessing to our values. Truth
is, to find some UU congregations one would need a compass and a
search light! So, it’s true that
over the last thirty years our Association has taken on a more
extroverted face. Call it evolution or call it degeneration, times
have changed. We’re more comfortable putting our traditions,
values and visions on the religious stage, trusting that in doing so
our movement will grow. We’ve become, in our own way,
evangelical. When
I hear the term UU evangelism today, it often has to do with how
to grow rather than why we want to grow in the first place.
Personally, I find this disconcerting - not because I'm opposed to
efforts to attract and nurture new members (hardly!) but because when
the how is divorced from the why, we might as
well be selling vacuum cleaners or encyclopedias.
At
the risk of oversimplification, I can think of only two legitimate
reasons for liberal religious evangelism: 1. to minister to those
whose spiritual journey and values would be enhanced by participation
in a UU community; and 2. to build a stronger UU community in the
service of those same religious principles and values. Why should we
seek to promote our way of religion? Because there are those, who
like ourselves, seek a corporate
expression of the things they value most in life - a religious
community, which at its best, is shot through with tolerance, reason,
compassion, laughter and love.
Sticking with my usual
homespun approach, some of you might recognize the name, Jeff
Foxworthy. He’s a comedian, in the tradition of Minnie Pearl
and Grandpa Jones, who uses Southern and Appalachian culture as a
springboard for his humor. Foxworthy is most famous for his “You
Might Be a Redneck” series, in which he describes certain
comical (sometimes stereotypical) traits that might qualify one as a
redneck. (Be assured, he does not use the term in its historical,
racial context.) For example (and in jest
as we warm up): If, on this Sunday morning,
your
body is in a pew/chair but your mind is home reading The
New York Times...YOU MIGHT BE A UNITARIAN UNIVERSALIST; If you’ve
ever really, really, really wanted to buy that new Honda hybrid...YOU
MIGHT BE A UNITARIAN UNIVERSALIST; And, if at least four of the six
FM stations on your car radio are tuned to NPR...YOU MIGHT BE A
UNITARIAN UNIVERSALIST. >From former UUA
President, John Buehrens: >Unitarian Universalism
is a fierce belief in the way of freedom and reverence for the sacred
dignity of each individual. It is cooperation with a universe that
that created us; it celebration of life; it is being in love with
goodness and justice; it is about having a sense of humor about
absolutes...it is respectful of the past, but is not limited to it.
It is a trust in growing and a conspiracy with change. It is
spiritual responsibility for a moral tomorrow.” Okay,
here we go. If
you experience a connection to nature and
other human beings... If you think you’re
responsible for your own mind, body and spirit... If
you know that you don’t know every
answer to every question... If you’re just
irreverent enough to get at least a smirk from singer, Tom Waits’
observation that “...there ain’t no devil, that’s
just God when he’s drunk”... If you’re not afraid
of humanists, who aren’t afraid of pagans, who aren’t
afraid of theists, who aren’t afraid of atheists, who aren't
afraid of Hindus, Jews, Muslims, Christians or Buddhists... If you’re fairly
sure that face and body piercing do not, by themselves, signal the
end of Western civilization... If
you actually like having your cage
rattled and your world rocked... >From the Persian poet,
Saadi: To worship God is
nothing other than to serve the people. It does not need rosaries,
prayer carpets or robes. All peoples are members of the same body,
created from one essence. If fate brings suffering to one member, the
others cannot stay at rest. If you’d like to
scream when you hear the phrases “acceptable losses” and
“collateral damage” from those who are waging what the
White House calls the “war on terrorism”... If you’re ashamed at
the amount of press coverage given to the debate about the place of
God in the Pledge of Allegiance in a nation where one-sixth of the
children go to bed hungry and health care is considered
non-essential... If you’re yet to
understand why professional athletes garner multi-million dollar
contracts while social workers and teachers work two jobs to make
ends meet.. If you think the real
difference between straight folks and gay folks is that straight
folks can publicly express their affection and identity without
risking their jobs, homes or safety... If you believe the only
relevant religious community is that which is regularly and
measurably involved in efforts for justice and peace... >From Linda M.
Underwood: All this talk of saving
souls. Souls weren’t meant to save, like Sunday cloths that
give out at the seams. They’re made for wear; they don’t
come with lifetime guarantees. Don’t save your
soul. Pour it out like rain on cracked, parched earth. Give your soul
away, or pass it on like a candle flame. Sing it out, or laugh it up
the wind. Souls were meant for
hearing broken hearts, for puzzling dreams, remembering August
flowers, forgetting hurts. These men who talk of
saving souls! They have the look of bullies who blow out candles
before you sing happy birthday, and want the world to be in
alphabetical order. I will spend my soul,
playing it out like sticky string into the world, so I can catch
every last thing I touch. If you’re naturally
suspicious of those who insist on religion-by-the-numbers and
salvation-off-the-rack... If your scriptures were
written by poets, if your saints number hellions as well as heroes,
if your church is any place life and love are celebrated... If you find that words -
important as they may be - are, ultimately an insufficient vehicle
for expressing the things of the spirit... If you’ve ever
helped someone despite the consequences, trusted someone despite your
fears, loved someone in the face of the risks... >From Stephen Spender
(edited): I think continually of
those who were truly great, who from the womb remembered the soul’s
history through corridors of light...Whose lovely ambition was that
their lips, still touched with fire, should tell of the spirit
clothed from head to foot in song. The names of those who
in their lived fought for life, who wore at their hearts the fire’s
center. Born of the sun, they traveled a short while towards the sun
and left the vivid air signed with their honor. Borrowing from the African
Methodist Episcopal tradition, let’s “call the roll”: If you’ve ever been
inspired by the likes of Benjamin Rush, a physician and signer of the
Declaration of Independence, who kept on preaching Universalism even
after his home and laboratory were burned to the ground... If you’re drawn to
Michael Servitus, who was burned at the stake rather than renounce
his Unitarian beliefs... If you’re heartened
by the story of Margaret Fuller, who championed women’s rights
in the face of chronic harassment and threats... If the names Dickinson,
Emerson, Thoreau, Hawthorne, Whitman or Melville line your
bookshelves and your heart... If your heroes include
Susan B. Anthony, Theodore Parker, Clara Barton, William Ellery
Channing, Jane Addams, John Dewey, or Adlai Stevenson... Community.
Finally, a reading about community - more to the point, about the
lack thereof. From The New York Times
(August 20, 2002): Oroville, CA - The
Butte County jail cell where Coval Russell spent his last happy days
is no bigger than a wheel-chair-size toilet stall, and is cold and
dark besides. No doubt in the two weeks
since Russell was removed from the jail, forced back into a world he
could no longer abide, his cell has once again become a place no one
else would want to spend a single night, let alone the rest of their
days. Only he called this place home. For the year and two
months that he spend at the Butte County Jail for stabbing his
70-year-old landlord, he was “Pops”. He was given dibs on
the television, allowed to be first in the food line and reserved a
place in Monopoly game marathons. He never had visitors, but
he did not need any. Here, among the transient population of men
awaiting sentencing or trial, he had found community. When his body was found
Wednesday in the Feather River, where he had fallen from a bridge
just a hop from the Motel 6 where he was staying since his release,
no one who knew him doubted what happened. Russell had petitioned the
court to keep him in jail indefinitely and had become depressed when
a judge, last month, granted him probation and sentenced him to
freedom. He said he would kill himself if he was sent “back out
there” with no apparent friends and family. Apparently he did.
Witnesses say he took a taxi to the middle of the Table Mountain
Bridge...and sat on a rail for half and hour. Then he disappeared. We delude ourselves when
we say that Unitarian Universalism is just about lofty principals;
often as not, people seek us out because they simply want a place
where they belong. In a world where human beings are regularly
marginalized, discounted and ignored may folks are just looking to
live a life of integrity.
Our movement is not just
about lofty principals, it’s also a one-person-at-a-time
religion. A reading from our hymnbook, written by Vivian Pomeroy,
suggests that everyone we know is likely in the throes of what she
calls the “secret struggle”. For Coval Russell, late of
the Butte County Jail, the struggle had to do with holding on to some
semblance of community. Secret
struggle. Everybody I know - everybody you know - has a secret
struggle. Or two. Or a dozen. This is the why
that must precede the how of modern UU evangelism. I hope that we keep the
Coval Russells of this world in mind when we craft our mission
statements and plan our growth strategies and draft our budgets -
keep them in mind as we quarrel over the relative minutiae of parish
life. Keep them in mind in our indefatigable efforts to provide
genuine community in a sometimes genuinely hostile world. UU evangelism. It’s
not an oxymoron, but a clear-eyed, heartfelt proclamation of our
quest for truth and our vision of community.
Copyright ©2002 by Don Rollins