"Alice laughed: 'There's no use trying,' she said; 'one can't believe impossible things.' 'I daresay you haven't had much practice,' said the Queen. 'When I was younger, I always did it for half an hour a day. Why, sometimes I've believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast.'" - Lewis Carroll , Alice in Wonderland

"Everyone shall have the right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion. This right shall include freedom to have a religion or whatever belief of his [her] choice." Universal Declaration of Human Rights, Article 18

This morning we receive several new members. As I greet them and extend the Hand of Fellowship, I say something like this [1]:

"Welcome. I give you the Hand of Fellowship on behalf of our congregation. More than a handshake, it represents over 400 years of Unitarian Universalist commitment to religious freedom. It is the symbol of our promise to walk together always in the ways of truth, love, and justice. I am so glad you have chosen to walk among us."

This is the covenant of Unitarian Universalism, a simple promise to join the journey into the meanings and truths of our lives. This is the spiritual "glue" that holds us together. For it to work, we need frequently to remind ourselves - which is why we often recite an Affirmation of Faith when we are together, such as this now familiar one:

I think preaching [3] is just an extended conversation between you and me. Each week, I try honestly to tell you what I'm thinking and what's in my heart. You respond in kind, sometimes agreeing, sometimes not - all in an extended inquiry into the truths of our lives [4]. There's seldom any hurry to it. In the long run, we shape a series of ideas that guide us in our work. Today, friends, I need you to put on your thinking caps here at the church where religion and reason meet [5]. I have more questions than answers. Think out loud with me with regard to what we can and cannot say here.

I often say: We welcome all who come here with an open mind and an affectionate heart [6]. For me, this is essential. Bigotry is not welcome here. Hateful epithets are not to be uttered here. A stubborn unwillingness to hear new ideas is not a part of faith. Disdainfully dismissing points of view contrary to is both rude and coercive and not to be put up with. Even so, as a non-creedal congregation of free believers, are there limits or restrictions to what we can say here? Are ideas or beliefs not to be professed among us? Are some words not allowed?

I struggled with this sermon until I realized there are two basic questions I want your help addressing:

1. Immediately, I have in mind the words that provoke a rash among some of you. You know them: worship, salvation, prayer, sanctuary, amen, sacred, holy, god, goddess, even the word church. I've been told time and again not to use these words. What's that all about [7]?

2. Secondarily, I worry that is it not safe here to declare yourself: a lower case 'c' Christian [8], a believer in God, an owner of an SUV - or a Republican. I'm told in spite of our work toward becoming a Welcoming Congregation (for our guests, this phrase has the special meaning of reaching out to bi-sexual, gay, lesbian, questioning, and trans-gendered persons), some gay men don't feel its safe to be out among us. Likewise, others feel they cannot challenge what they see as 'political correctness' on 'liberal issues.' Sometimes minds close.

Before going further, I am aware that there are great issues of the day worthy of our attention. The nation is excited with the inauguration of President Bush and the swearing in of a new Congress. Social security, immigration policy, improving our schools, global warming, the battle against terrorism, the sad state of our presence in Iraq, and - on this 32nd anniversary of Roe v Wade - anticipated Supreme Court appointments, all these and more on our minds.

All these external issues are worthy of our conversation. No doubt, we'll engage them at some point. Today, I want us to focus inwardly on the quality of our life together. Do a little naval-gazing, if you will. For as Unitarian Universalist theologian James Luther Adams once put it, "an unexamined faith is not worth having."

Many join the Unitarian Universalist church because they find like-minded people here. Then, they painfully discover that we're not of one mind. The newcomer runs into the fact that some things cannot be said here, at least not without receiving some unpleasant attitude, occasionally even rudeness from a fellow member. Some times the affectionate heart freezes.

Genuine community is difficult, even scary. The Indian poet, Rabindranath Tagore, expresses the ambivalence of real community. He says:

"I long to speak the deepest words I have to say to you; but I dare not, for fear you should laugh. . . . I long to tell you the truest words I have to say to you; but I dare not, being afraid that you would not believe them. . . . I long to use the most precious words I have for you; but I dare not, fearing I should not be paid with like value. I long to sit silent by you; but I dare not lest my heart come out at my lips. That is why I prattle and chatter lightly and hide my heart behind words. I rudely handle my pain, for fear you should do so." The Gardener [9]

I am quite convinced the biggest stumbling block to spiritual growth and to being a healthy congregation is fear. And fear leads to suspicion. You find this throughout the Unitarian Universalist world. Unitarian Universalist 'c'hristians, theists, humanists, and pagans all claim the others are taking over, diverting us away from our true faith and/or trying to push them out. It is startling to here each group complain of being marginalized. Sometimes, I tell you, being a Unitarian Universalist minister is like being a referee in a sandbox of uncooperative children.

Florida Unitarian Universalist congregations have a well-earned reputation for being reactively brittle, far more so than in other areas of the Unitarian Universalist world - which I assure you can be quite fractious. We fuss at one another, sometimes in unkind ways. The squabbling focuses on classic Unitarian Universalist lines: what words will define who we are. We have a superstitious, often irrational notion about words [10]. As with our Puritan ancestors, many truly believe that if we can only get the words right all our problems will be solved. It's an ironic aspiration for a tradition that rejects creeds and dogma.

Nothing new in this, however. Nothing new here. The early 19th century liberal Christians quarreled with the orthodox of the meaning of the trinity and we became Unitarians [11]. A generation later, Emerson and the Transcendentalists said, let's get out of the Christian box; God is in nature not dry texts [12]. With the emergence of Darwin's insights and the discovery of deep geology, the scientific way became our primary authority. Before long we dismissed most religious symbol as irrelevant at best, a sign of intellectual laziness.

Since the 1930's [13], the so-called humanist-theist controversy has roiled our churches and - judging by the humanist reaction to UUA President Sinkford's call for Unitarian Universalists to take up the language of reverence [14] - the debate seems to be going through another paroxysm of crankiness. A member said to me, "I don't recognize what's happening to Unitarian Universalism. This isn't the church I joined. What's with all this god and goddess stuff. I thought we'd gotten rid of such nonsense long ago. I'm not sure I can stay here much longer." Your minister just sighs . . . with fatigue.

There is an unhappy joke: why can't Unitarian Universalists sing? Answer, because they're reading ahead to see if they agree with the words. When I hear these unhappy expressions, I remind myself that we are still Puritans, ever on guard against false doctrine. I further remind myself that the crankiness comes out of a sincere desire to be a person of spiritual integrity - to not utter beliefs you do not genuinely subscribe to. I do admire that, but I wish we'd all just lighten up a bit.

If we are to remain both a non-creedal congregation and to have some sense of shared belonging, we need, we really need to find a way out of this dilemma.

I've challenged us to be theologically multi-lingual, but many issues truly are about truth and reality, not just vocabulary. How do we find anything to unify us amidst our diversity, is one question. More, is there any way we can simply be more at ease with our differing ways of expressing the realities of our faith? I assure you, banning words is not the way to do it.

Nathaniel Hawthorne was a Unitarian and among those who worked to create the utopian community, Brook Farm. Writing of it in his novel, The Blithedale Romance (1852), he noted:

"On the whole, it was a society such as seldom met together; nor perhaps, could it reasonably be expected to hold together long. Persons of marked individuality - crooked sticks, as some of us might be called - are not exactly the easiest to bind into a faggot.... [15] We were of all creeds and opinions, and generally tolerant of all, on every imaginable subject. Our bond, it seems to me, was not affirmative, but negative. We had individually found one thing or another to quarrel with in our past life, and were pretty well agreed as to the in-expediency of lumbering along with the old system any further. As to what should be substituted there was much less unanimity." [16]

More than 150 years later, it remains apt. We know what we don't want; we're unclear what we do. And we hyper-vigilant, lest someone else try to tell us what to believe. And, in my humble opinion, too often we abandon the reasoned search for truth in the name of a nice-guy, nice-gal going-alongness that neither deepens spiritual knowing nor our love for one another. Too often, the least common denominator is an indifferent putting up with in which we mutter, "Well you can believe that stuff if you like." Too often, we do not engage each other at depth? Why? Tagore has it right: we're afraid of one another.

Three times in this last week alone, I have had conversations with members that went something like this one: "I was at a dinner party of church members. They were quite negative toward one component of our church. I was the only one present that disagreed. I was afraid to say anything. I didn't want them to take my head off."

It is equally important to help one another to have the courage of our conviction, to make it safe to speak our minds in a genuine dialogue. Too often, we run away, hiding our pain under the prattle.

So the question is: How can we help one another to honor each person's religious reality and have a common bond that is positive, that, in the words of our principles, promotes "acceptance of one another and encouragement to spiritual growth?"

You know, folks, if you're going to always feel our point of view has to be celebrated in order for you to feel this is your church, well then you're on a very slippery slope. As I said to you last week, if our promise is always to agree, we're doomed. We're doomed. I am going to disagree with you; you are going to disagree with me. That's our nature as distinct beings. Again the question: How do disagree without becoming disagreeable?

The answer lies, in part, in our heritage. When our Puritan ancestors defined the church they said it is simply a people who freely promise to walk together in the ways of truth as it may be made know to us.[17]This is why we are...

• a church of reason, not creeds,
• a church of truth not consensus,
• a church of freedom and not coercion,
• a church of love not willfulness.

Our commitment has to be premised on something far greater than having everyone think like me or use words that always please me. Somehow, balancing integrity with compassion, we've got to find ways to be just less quick to take offense, less inclined to feel we're being picked on, more willing to make the case for our point of view - and always committed to naming the truth, while we walk together or sit around the table.

Last May, I warned us that the culture wars and the political campaign were likely to increase the anxiety all around us and would spill into our own hallways. Our culture is having a very hard time agreeing to disagree. By fall, some members refused to come to church because they did not feel their political allegiance was ok - particularly those who called themselves Republicans. And some could not honor the promise to walk together and have left us for good. That makes me very sad, as it should you.

In my very first sermon after arriving here a year and a half ago, I described my hope for how we would be together as a people, remarking at the time, would it not be wonderful were people in the community to say of us, "oh, those Unitarian Universalists on Shire Lane, some of the most passionate and compassionate, decent people you'd ever want to meet." I argued then that for us to grow as persons and as a congregation, we had to create a way of being together that made it safe to be who we are and to express our sincere convictions without fear or reservation. I said something about listening first to understand before speaking to be understood.

Soon thereafter, dear Ed Porteus, whose memorial we celebrated yesterday, passed on to me these words of wisdom from an Al Anon friend: "God gave us two ears and one mouth and we should use them in that proportion." Sound advice; I do try to heed it. I urge you to do so as well.

I have to say to you, friends, at times we do not do a good job of this. We are often so ardent in expressing ourselves we forget that we want others to hear us. I don't think any of us come here intending to put one another down, but often - particularly when we're discussing political issues or our anxieties about fundamentalist orthodoxies - often we say things that are disdainful and filled with sarcasm and ridicule. At times, we - I include me in this - can feel so strongly about issues and speak so loudly that we cannot hear our friends who just might offer an additional insight. We declaim! We proclaim! We exclaim! All the while, indifferent to whether we've left any room for others to think differently. Then, either out of lack of courage of their own conviction or a feeling that it's useless even to try, too many simply do not speak up or withdraw entirely from the table of conversation. The covenant breaks.

Whether it is new or not, peculiar to Florida or not, I am concerned that we Unitarian Universalists of Shire Lane need to do a better job of speaking to a shared vision with a commonly affirmed vocabulary. We can do a better job of saying what we are for. And we need to just not get so uptight. There's no hurry to this conversation. We're likely to be walking and talking for a long time - unless we become so brittle as to break apart over words and doctrine.

Help me, please, lead us out of this debilitating pattern. Help us put to rest incipient dogmatism on the one hand and callous indifference to one another on the other. Let's do a better job of being the church where religion and reason meet and where love is both teaching and practice.

I'm going leave it there. We'll have a beginning conversation in a moment [18]. As the music plays, I'd like you to make a mental note, identifying any theological phrase that you find irksome. So much so that you would glad never to hear the term again. Then, ask yourself: Can I find a way to be ok with those words if they help open the doors of faith for one of my fellow members?

Or ask, as one member suggested, can I come up with new terms to describe what we do here? For instance, one who objects to the word 'worship' suggested 'celebration.' You'll note that I took that idea, embellished it some so that our service now is described as a 'celebration of all that is our life' (text excerpted from one of our favorite hymns). I still call it worship, but I am flexible.

Next, think of a time you witnessed or heard about, or even created, an encounter that left one of our members feeling it was not ok for them to be here. Ask yourself: What could you, could we do to prevent such things from occurring, and how should we handle it if it occurs again? What I'm after here is some re-casting of the norms of our community so that we truly prize one another as unique persons, persons who are not like us in every way and from whom we can learn when we let go of our fear of difference and of our need to convince everyone to think as we do.

I have no prescription to suggest. This is a community issue, not just a worry for your minister. So, I am asking you, come to the table. Let's talk and talk deeply how to affirm and welcome and love one another. Let us speak the deepest words we have to say. It is written, what more do we have than to give one another love and understanding. Yes, indeed, what more have we to give? Amen.

Endnotes:

• 1. "The Right Hand of Fellowship" is an honored tradition in many religious communities. Humans beings manifest a prevailing right-handedness. That has led to the sad notion that lefties are somehow suspect. It also has been used to explain the handshake with the right hand. If your hands are clasped, you are not longer able to strike with a weapon. Thus, the handshake is both a greeting and a declaration of trust (or lack of intended malevolence). For the faith community, extending the hand of fellowship means "we accept you as one with us."

In Unitarian Universalist circles, membership is less a matter of conversion and more a matter of finding a home with warm companions. We have no ex-communication rite. As Wm. Ellery Channing, the American founder of Unitarian tradition, once observed, the only thing that can remove you from our fellowship is the death of goodness in your own breast.

It is in this deep sense of commitment that the ritual is more than a mere greeting. It is a giving of one's heart and welcome to be of one communion.

• 2. This text is a merger and adaptation of two similar covenants penned by Unitarian James Vila Blake and Universalist L. Griswold Williams. You will find the originals in the Unitarian Universalist hymnal, Singing the Living Tradition, #471 & #473.I have added text from the prophet Micah, "...and what does the Lord require of you but to do justice, and to love mercy, ...." (Micah 6:8).
• 3. Words are a major part of this sermon. According to the American Heritage Dictionary, In its most neutral form, preaching is defined as: "an address of a religious nature (usually delivered during a church service)." Less complimentary is: "To give religious or moral instruction, especially in a tedious manner."

Sermon by the ways means simply, "A religious discourse delivered as part of a church service."

• 4. It is good to remember here that in Unitarian Universalist churches, ministers are given an absolutely "free and untrammeled" pulpit to preach the truth as they best understand it "without fear of persons or censor." Likewise, members are given an equally free pew to accept or reject a minister's teaching based on reason, life experience, and truth.
• 5. The church's motto or "tag-line."
• 6. Unitarian Universalist churches are free in the sense that there is no creedal test to membership. Thus, the bonds of affection and our relentless commitment to the free search for truth are sine qua non of what it means to be together.
• 7. There is insufficient space here to offer a full glossary of these terms. Some members object to these words are emotional grounds: they remind them of faith traditions they have abandoned, often with great travail. Likewise, some among us reject them on faith grounds: that their implicit or explicit meanings are contrary to a member's believing.

While sympathetic, as often as not I worry that we do not reflect more deeply on these terms and thereby cede to the orthodox very narrow understandings and deny our place at the table of religious conversation with both churched and unchurched.

Some of these words are simply the lingua franca ["a common language used by speakers of different languages" Am. Heritage Dict.] of American culture. We need to balance our demand for integrity with a translator that allows us to speak to those who know no other terms.

• 8. Part of our heritage is embracing the religious and moral insights of Jesus. Lower case 'c' Christians refers to those Unitarian Universalists whose primary inspiration is found in the life and teachings of Jesus who is understood to be a wise prophet, not as equivalent to God.
• 9. Tagore's long poem is translated from the original Bengali. The full 41st segment is:
"I long to speak the deepest words I have to say to you; but I dare not, for fear you should laugh. That is why I laugh at myself and shatter my secret in jest. I make light of my pain, afraid you should do so.
I long to tell you the truest words I have to say to you; but I dare not, being afraid that you would not believe them. That is why I disguise them in untruth, saying the contrary of what I mean. I make my pain appear absurd, afraid that you should do so.
I long to use the most precious words I have for you; but I dare not, fearing I should not be paid with like value. That is why I gave you hard names and boast of my callous strength. I hurt you, for fear you should never know any pain.
I long to sit silent by you; but I dare not lest my heart come out at my lips. That is why I prattle and chatter lightly and hide my heart behind words. I rudely handle my pain, for fear you should do so.
I long to go away from your side; but I dare not, for fear my cowardice should become known to you. That is why I hold my head high and carelessly come into your presence. Constant thrusts from your eyes keep my pain fresh for ever."

• 10. "It matters what we believe," warned Unitarian educator Sophia Lyon Fahs. Yes, the words do matter. Unlike the Queen in Alice in Wonderland, we are called to speak the truth and not use words to mean whatever we want them to. At the same time, many Unitarian Universalists get trapped in literalisms around words that deny nuance and complexity of life's meanings.
• 11. See William Ellery Channing's famous sermon, Unitarian Christianity, delivered in Baltimore, 1819. It is one of the major texts defining our faith, particularly the 'c'hristian element.
• 12. See R. Waldo Emerson's Divinity School Address of 1838 and Theodore Parker's 1841 sermon The Transient and Permanent in Christianity. Emerson argues for an immediate rather than revealed encounter with the divine, which he termed 'Oversoul." Parker argued it mattered not whether Jesus Christ ever lived; his teachings were the permanent feature of religion.
• 13. In 1933, Roy Wood Sellars of the University of Chicago was the primary author of a Humanist Manifesto. Most of its signers were Unitarian ministers. The Manifesto argued essentially that you can be a good person, a moral person, even a religious person without invoking God or relying on the revealed truths of the ancients.

Humanists argue that all meaning and all value are human creations; that there is no absolute or divinely sanctioned set of rules for human living. Further, they argue that this life is what matters and our moral life is to advance humanity in the present not in some future after-life. In 1973 a update was publish; in 2000 Humanist Manifesto III was promulgated by the American Humanist Association. All three can be found at: http://www.americanhumanist.org/.

• 14. The Reverend William G. Sinkford is the President of the Unitarian Universalist Association, of which UUCFM is a member. In December, 2003, in Dallas, Texas, Rev. Sinkford gave a sermon in which he challenged Unitarian Universalists to take another look at religious language, particularly the notion of God.

For many who felt we had worked out that issue and had rejected the gods of old which had been used to oppress millions to ensure the privilege the few, this seemed a backward and threatening step. Some feared Reverend Sinkford was initiating a drive to require belief in God as a condition of membership. That was not his intent; yet, a misquotation in the Fort worth Texas newspaper did leave that impression.

• 15. "Faggot: A bundle of twigs, sticks, or branches bound together." American Heritage Dictionary.
• 16. On line in its entirety at: http://www.classicreader.com/booktoc.php/sid.1/bookid.904/
• 17. The definitive document for non-creedal congregations is the Cambridge Platform of 1648. It spells out both the governance and the manner in which church members are to conduct themselves. See: http://www.pragmatism.org/american/cambridge_platform.htm
• 18. After Reverend Hurto's sermon, the congregation entered into a conversation in which members encountered each other.