Sermon by Rev. Alan Taylor
Preached at Unity Temple Unitarian Universalist Congregation
September 7, 2003
IIn July, Angie and I packed up for our move here. Since we were driving from Seattle to Chicago, it made perfect sense to us to go via the Grand Canyon! We drove down the Oregon and California coasts, visited Yosemite and my home town of Bakersfield to see my parents. It was a wonderful trip. But what made it so exciting was knowing that we were coming to a new home and life that holds so much promise.
My journeying hasn't always held this excitement. Thirteen years ago, I was ending an extraordinary journey that left me with a profound fear that I didn't belong anywhere. I was returning to the United States after traveling solo for nearly eight months in India. The primary reason I embarked on this journey was to figure out to what to devote my life. Upon graduating from college, I hadn't a clue. I had majored in comparative religion and thought maybe I would become a religion professor. But in my heart of hearts, that wasn't it, so I got this idea that maybe in India, I would gain that longed for realization. After seven months, I had learned a great deal about Hinduism, about the power of stories, and religious devotion. I had a new lens through which to view my own culture and a much more independent sense of self. But I hadn't found my calling in life, and because of that, the trip seemed like a waste. Worse, I had no desire to return to the United States, having watched the Gulf War through Indian media, I was far from being proud about my country. I was without direction. I suffered not a low self-esteem but what I would call a low world-esteem. I was lost, spiritually, and had not yet found a path of my own or a place to call home.
I imagine many of you know this place. It is a natural state of the human soul to not know one's path and to long for home. The sense of drifting aimlessly or without an inner compass doesn't simply go away by willing it so.
I remember vividly those first few months following the trip. I had moved to Berkeley, California, thinking this would be as good a re-entry place as any. Lonely, longing for meaning, and hungry for authentic relationship, I visited the local Unitarian Universalist churches. I remember the relationships that emerged with dear people such as Geneva, a wise, old blind woman and Abbot her loyal husband and caretaker. I remember the sharing among several of us younger people each Wednesday night, the long conversations during which we listened each other into our fullness. I remember sitting in the pews with tears in my eyes, knowing that I had found a spiritual home to call my own.
This is a piece of my own path. Each of you have your own stories. Perhaps some of you have yet to discern your inner compass and find yourself at home in a faith community. One aspect of the Unitarian Universalist tradition is that although we have one home, we affirm the many paths people find to move closer to the source of their love.
The theme I chose for our Homecoming Sunday is Many Paths, One Home. There are three different perspectives I want you to consider. First, our faith community. Second, our country. And third, our world. Let me start with our faith community. Every person who calls either this congregation or Unitarian Universalism their spiritual home knows that there is not only one path to truth but that there are many spiritual paths, many ways of seeking truth.
Periodically I am asked how one can know whether a particular church is right for them. Good question. The knowing sometimes is immediate for some and for others it unfolds over years. But every person that decides to join this congregation has been somehow called to do so. There is no one path, but there is a common home to which we are called.
The call can be recognized, and is by no means uniform. The signs and characteristics of a call include a stirring of the heart, surprising tears sometimes provoked by music, a restlessness, a hunger that isn't satisfied by bread alone.
I imagine at times you come here and wonder, "How did this happen? How did I get here this morning? Am I to serve the cause of liberal religion?" And then there is a reminder, the lovely voices of the choir or guest musicians, a phrase or story that reminds you of what is important, a caring smile that opens your heart, or an ah-ah experience of recognition that comes during a sermon.
For each of us, the calling is different. It could be a deep joy that comes with knowing that you belong, or an inner itch goading you to finding deeper meaning in your life, or a sense of awe and wonder that overcomes you during worship.
Theologian Frederick Buechner describes the experience of being called:
A young man has arrived at a monastery and is speaking to the head priest. The priest explains that he has been expecting this young recruit to come to this holy place. The young man protests. "I heard no call father. I came here as a stranger, and I came here by chance." The priest asks, "Is it as a stranger and by chance that I have seen tears in your eyes? When a person leaves home, he leaves a scrap of his heart. Is that not so? It is the same with the place you are going to, except you send a scrap of your heart ahead."
I believe all those here that have committed to supporting and serving this vibrant and historic congregation did so because a scrap of your heart was here before you even stepped in this fabulous building among fabulous people.
We are here because people like us of generations past have responded to their call to follow their most cherished ideals and allow them shape their faith and nation.
The seeds for our faith tradition were planted on this continent when the Pilgrims first settled in Plymouth, Massachusetts. Those of you unfamiliar with Unitarian history may be surprised to learn that the oldest church in America is today a Unitarian Universalist congregation. That first church created by the Pilgrims over time adopted a Unitarian theology that would become a part of the Unitarian Universalist Association. How did this happen? It is a long story, but the seeds were planted in the first covenant the Pilgrims made with each other. What that covenant essentially said, minus the Calvinist theology of the time, was the following (taken from Forrest Church's American Creed):
We pledge to walk together
In the ways of truth and affection,
As best we know them now
Or may learn them in the days to come,
That we and our children may be fulfilled
And that we may speak to the world
In words and actions
Of peace and goodwill.
Although the Pilgrims came to America for religious liberty, they weren't interested in providing religious liberty to others. There was no separation of church and state in pre-revolutionary America. The relationship between religion and government in the New England colonies resembled what can be seen now in much of the Islamic world. Meetinghouses that served as churches were state controlled much as public schools and transportation departments are today. Ministers were hired by popular vote and paid with public funds.
All this changed when our nation's founders drafted the Constitution. Forrest Church in his recent book, The American Creed, wrote:
When the founders gathered one wiltingly hot July in Philadelphia to hammer out their dreams into a single, ringing declaration, they were fashioning precepts as sacred as they were secular. As a group, they were not notably religious men. But they were united, almost miraculously, in forging a union that transcended, even as it encompassed, the historical particularity of the present crisis. Fired with ardor and apprehension-- the citizens performed an almost perfect act of alchemy. In their crucible were transfigured the elements that would reflect America's promise and set the measure for its fulfillment. This new nation was, as the founders knew, an experiment. Like all experiments, it started with a precept, a "given"-- in this case a set of truths so rock-ribbed and essential that they were deemed "self-evident."
What is so great about our country is that from its inception, faith and freedom have been wed to form a union greater than either one alone is capable of sustaining.
In recent months, rhetoric from several of many national leaders have blurred the relationship between faith and freedom. Too often it is said that we are a Christian nation. We are not a Christian nation; we are a pluralistic nation. And our strength comes from our pluralism, the diversity that comes out of our unity. The heart of our being an American is to have the freedom to worship as one is called, but that no one can oblige others to be religious.
In Montgomery, Alabama, Chief Justice Moore fruitlessly sought to display a statue of the Ten Commandments in a public courthouse. When thousands of fundamentalist Christians rallied to his cause, some of them praying before his monument, he could not win his cause. Because it was clearly imbued with religious meaning-- all the more so with people practicing their own devotionals before it, no level-headed judge could excuse allowing it to stay. This fascinating situation is illustrative of how the Christian Right seeks to proclaim our nation as theirs. Our nation's founders understood that church and state must be separate if it is to be the land of the free.
At its best, Unitarian Universalism provides the spiritual foundations for a democratic society. Our faith is not on the fringe as some may think, but is actually at the center of a community that affirms freedom, liberty, and justice for all. Our national motto is "e pluribus unum." This latin phrase is on every coin and dollar bill of currency. E pluribus unum means "out of many, one." Or many paths, one home.
Because of the theological underpinnings of our nation's founding, this country was the first in world history to separate religion and government. There's a side-note to mention. Massachusetts was the last state in the union to disestablish religion. In 1831, the religious tradition that was disestablished was the Unitarian church. Now is this very ironic. For today we religious liberals are steadfast in our devotion to the separation of church and state. We believe so strongly that no religion should have state support, and yet our faith tradition was actually the last one to be state-sponsored. Why would this be? Because our faith tradition is so closely aligned with the ideals of our nation's founders.
After September 11th two years ago, my congregation wrestled with how to express their grief, horror, and most cherished ideals. It was a time that it was clear. Despite our diversity, there is a cherished unity. Many of my parishioners sported an American flag for the first time in their lives. Other parishioners displayed a world flag, one with a picture of planet earth on it. When someone asked me if it would appropriate to put up an American flag in worship, I responded that I wouldn't do so unless a world flag also graced the room, and that the world flag would need to be the dominant one. For our faith is in a oneness that transcends national boundaries. It also transcends all religious categories.
Our ultimate allegiance ought not be to Unitarian Universalism. Nor should it be to the United States of America. I believe, our primary allegiance must be to that which encompasses the ideals upon which our religion and nation were founded, that which encompasses all nations, all faiths, whether you call that God, Spirit, or Truth.
It is cause for awe and celebration that there are many different ways to pray, that there are numerous strings in our lute.
From the time Angie and I left Seattle, it took two weeks to get to the Grand Canyon. When we did, it was raining. There were people there from all over the country and all over the world. We heard different accents and different languages. We couldn't see much at all that first evening, except for a huge double rainbow, a wonderful symbol for who we are as a congregation, as a nation, as a world. Many paths, one home.
Whether you stayed close to home or traveled abroad, I encourage you today to introduce yourself to at least two people you don't know and share with them what your summer held or how you came to this congregation. Learning about our many paths will make brighter our one home.
It is so good to be here with you, to be home here with you.
Blessed be. Amen.
