Free and Responsible

Unitarian Coastal Fellowship

December 6, 2015

Free and Responsible. There is no creed in Unitarian Universalism – no prescribed statement of belief that all members must believe in or agree to. Rather, congregations covenant together to affirm and promote Principles and Purposes that describe our highest aspirations about how we will live in the world, and how we will live together. The fourth principle lifts up “a free and responsible search for truth and meaning.” Today’s is the fourth in a series of sermons that will consider how we are called to reflect – and reflect upon – these principles, in living our lives, and in living together.

Reading:

A man named Chris Stevens posted this on Facebook recently, saying, “Heard something like this on the radio today and thought it was worth posting.” I think it is worth thinking about. “‘Freedom isn’t free’ doesn’t just refer to those who have taken up arms to defend the United States in time of war. It also refers to the responsibility you take on when you assume freedom. You want freedom of speech? It comes at the cost of listening to the opinions of others. You want the freedom to own a gun? It comes at the cost of dealing with others who may not be responsible gun owners. You want the freedom to protest? It comes at the cost of allowing other groups to protest as well. You want freedom of religion? It comes at the cost of allowing others to practice (or refrain from practicing) the religion of their choice. No, “Freedom isn’t free.” It is purchased by respecting the liberties of others – especially those with whom you disagree.”

Sermon:

From time to time over this church year, we are exploring the seven principles that draw and hold Unitarian Universalist congregations together in community. We are clear that these principles are not a creed – not a statement of what we all believe, or what we must believe. Rather, the seven Principles constitute a poetic and powerful statement about what Unitarian Universalists, collectively, institutionally, are working for. What, specifically, we (that is, our congregations), working together, affirm and promote in our common life and in the world.

But it’s always tricky talking about religion, because most people (at least in America) think that religion is about belief. And if Unitarian Universalists do not have a creed then that must mean, I sometimes hear, that Unitarian Universalists can believe anything they want.

I don’t believe that!

I don’t believe it because religion, for me, is the place where freedom and responsibility meet truth and meaning.

I do believe that each one of us –because we are human – each of us asks the age-old religious questions that have always tickled and also troubled human beings: “Where do we come from?” “What are we?” “Where are we going?” Each of us peers into the mystery that is life; that is living. Each of us wonders, and ponders, and hopes and fears. And I do believe that each one of us, in our wondering and in our living, finds our own answers to these questions. Your answers will not be the same as my answers, because your life is not the same as my life, and your language is not the same as my language. Some will speak of evolution, and some will speak of autumn, and some will speak of longing, and some will speak of God.

And I do believe that our answers will always be incomplete because the mystery is so vast that each of us can only sample a small part, and we can only begin to understand that small part that we have sampled. And our answers will always be changing, because if the windows of our eyes and our minds are open, then every new experience gives us new insight, and so our lives unfold as an ongoing search for truth and meaning –like the journeys of the Ones Who Could See Out Windows.

And I do believe that we, ourselves, are like the Ones Who Could See Out Windows. The thing that distinguished them from the other people of the town was that they had windows in their houses, and they were not afraid to look through them. They understood that there was a world beyond the house, beyond the town – a world that was, in fact, accessible to every person – and they were willing to leave the known and the familiar to search for truth and meaning – the people called it God.

And when they had each traveled as long and as far as they could journey alone, they sat together and they talked long into the evening. They told each other their stories – the truths they had found. And in the sharing, they found and they made meaning from the stories, and they understood that God – that truth and meaning – were with them. Were between them. Were in the stories, and in the sharing, and in the working and living together. Truth and meaning were in the community that was the connection and the trust between them.

Unitarian Universalist theologian James Luther Adams’s most concise definition of God was “the community-forming power.” [George Kimmich Beach, “introduction” to The Essential James Luther Adams, p. 4]. That power that draws individuals out of our isolation and aloneness and into groups knitted together by trust, by common work, by caring for one another – this is the God that the Ones Who Could See Out Windows found on their search, and made visible to the town by the very way that they pooled their efforts in living as neighbors. James Luther Adams recognized that there is also in the world a power that destroys community – he called this the perverting power. [James Luther Adams, “Our Responsibility in Society” in The Essential James Luther Adams, p. 156].

These two “powers” – the community-forming power and the community-destroying power – represent two different ways of viewing freedom.

One view of freedom focuses on freedom from: freedom from having to do or to hear things you don’t like, freedom from having to associate with people you disagree with, freedom from rules or laws or expectations that are seen primarily as restrictions on autonomy. This is the community-destroying power, which draws people out of relationship and into isolation, into aloneness, into separation. Sometimes communities of protest form, thrown together by resistance to or disagreement with a common enemy – but these are communities held together by a negative force – the common enemy – and what is to hold them together if the common enemy is overcome? This is the view of freedom that assumes that aloneness and isolation are the natural state of human beings, that those pesky rules and laws and expectations are the only thing that ever hold people together – and that if you don’t have a creed to define your religion, then you must not have a religion – guess you can believe anything! And this is the community-destroying power that sees people who live differently, love differently, worship differently, hold different values – sees them as threats to one’s own safety and security; that leads people to take up a gun or a bomb in a desperate attempt desperate attempt to be free from threat. In a desperate attempt to create the false security of isolation and separation. I keep thinking of the shooters in San Bernardino – perverting power to destroy community. The attackers in Paris – perverting power to destroy community. The 9-11 attackers – perverting power to destroy community. So far, it hasn’t worked.

The other view of freedom focuses on freedom to: freedom to be the person you know yourself to be; freedom to speak your truth, freedom to disagree, and to protest against what you disagree with. Freedom to practice your own religion – to search for your own answers to those religious questions. This is the community-forming power, which draws people into relationship, for speaking and disagreeing and protesting all are practiced in the company of others, all occur between people and not in isolation. This is the view of freedom that sees human beings as inherently relational beings – who become more and more ourselves not in isolation but in relationship, in telling our stories and in learning from each other. . This is the community-forming power that sees riddle and mystery where others might see threats, and that sees community as essential – not just in the search for truth and in the finding and the making of meaning from that truth. This is the community-forming power that works to make space to say all the things we could say; that works to remove all the bars that keep us apart; that asks us to enter into relationship and to stay in relationship because when each of us has traveled as long and as far as we can journey alone, then we come together and we sit together and we talk as long as we must. We tell each other our stories – the truths we have found. And in the sharing, we find and we make meaning from the stories, and we understand that truth and meaning –are with us. Are between us. Are in the stories, and in the sharing, and in the working and living together. Truth and meaning are in the community that is the connection and the trust between us. . Some will call it evolution, and some will call it autumn, and some will call it longing, and some will call it God.

In this Unitarian Universalist community, our search for truth and meaning is free…and responsible. We, ourselves, are free…and responsible. What does that mean?

In this context, to be responsible is to be accountable – willing and able to tell – to give an account of – the stories of our own search for truth, and the meaning we have found. Willing and able to listen to the stories others tell. Willing, in the words of our morning music hymn, “to know what it means to be me” – that is, what it means to be you, yourself; and what it means to someone else to be who they are. Willing to enter into relationship even when it feels hard. Willing to stay in relationship even when that perverting power is acting to pull us out of community, into the false security of isolation and separation. To be responsible is to hold one another in the face of challenge – whether it be the challenge of finding ways to tell our stories, or the challenge of finding ways to hear stories that break our hearts, or turn our world on its head, or stretch our minds, or leave us feeling as if we have a whole school of fish in our belly. To be responsible is a discipline of staying – with truth, with meaning, with community, and with the power that creates and sustains all of these. The power between us.

In 1953, James Luther Adams suggested that the free church – our Unitarian Universalist church – had a peculiar responsibility in society; in his words, “the responsibility to offer a church in which there is an explicit faith in the community-forming power of God, a practice of the disciplines of liberty, an eliciting of the participation of our own membership in creative fellowship.” [James Luther Adams, “Our Responsibility in Society” in The Essential James Luther Adams, p. 174].

In such a church – not unique in society, but rare – freedom is the freedom to search for the truth that your particular journey reveals, and the freedom to bring that truth into relationship – into community. In such a church, we know that the journey will be muddy and rough, and we offer each other support and sustenance along the way. But we know that we will get there, for we know that the journey itself is the destination. In such a church, we augment the freedom with responsibility that is a discipline of staying – so that when you have journeyed as long and as far as you can journey alone, you can count on us being there to receive you. To wrap you in a blanket. To place a cool hand on your sunburned arm. To listen, so that we may know what it means to be you. And then to make visible the truth that you have found, the meaning that we have made together.

This is the religion I believe in: the place where the place where freedom and responsibility meet truth and meaning. This is the place where I will stay.

Take a moment now, to rest from your journey, in community.

The bell will lead us into silence, and music will lead us out.

Bell

Silence

Music

Amen.