Question Box Service
by the Rev. Colin Bossen, July 25, 2010
This is the second year we have had a question box service. Like last year, this service comes as I return from the majority of my summer travel. It is good to be back in the pulpit today and see the shining faces of all of you who have braved the summer's weather. I hope that, so far, the season has been treating you kindly. In my house we have been enjoying a bountiful tomato harvest and frequent trips to the Cumberland pool.
I enjoy the annual question box service because it provides an easy way to ease back into our shared project of building beloved community. The service provides me a chance to respond to your questions and concerns and engage in a sort of dialogue with you. On some level, all preaching is a dialogue between a preacher, a gathered congregation and their shared religious tradition. The question box service is especially so. The twelve questions I received for this year's service ranged from pragmatic ones focusing on nuts and bolts issues in congregational life to political and theological ones. My answers to almost all of them are more of conversation starters than definitive answers. If after hearing what I have to say you want to engage me in further dialogue or suggest a sermon topic for the next twelve months of sermons please do not hesitant to do so.
For our first question let's start with something of a theological and spiritual nature. Like a lot of the questions this one has multiple parts. The question reads, "In what situations do you feel like you walk with God? How can we invite more of these situations into our lives, our community, and our sanctuary?"
Two of my experiences from last's week Summer Institute immediately leap to mind. Summer Institute is a week-long Unitarian Universalist family camp. It features worship, workshops, lots of late night activities and could be generally described as both fun and spiritually enriching. By way of introduction to my stories I should mention that Sara did not attend Summer Institute this year. It was just me, Emma, Asa and one of Emma's friends.
One night Asa had a difficult time going to sleep. I tried everything. I read him multiple stories. I gave him a snack. I sang several lullabies. I even lay down with him on the couch until he fell asleep. No matter what I did he would not settle down. He might sleep for a few minutes but the instant I put him in his crib he was awake and howling. Finally, I gave up and at about 2:00 a.m. I let him sleep in my bed. Summer Institute is held on a college campus and the beds are narrow twin beds. Asa squirms a lot in his sleep and, suffice to say, when it was time to get everyone up for breakfast five hours or so later I had not had a lot of sleep.
Neither had Asa. A grumpy toddler is a somewhat crazy toddler. There was all sorts of chaos getting out the door. When we finally made it to the cafeteria, about a ten minute walk from our dorm, I realized that I had forgotten one of Asa's shoes.
After breakfast, an ordeal in itself, I took the stroller and pushed Asa back to our room. Our path took us along a fire lane that skirted past a wooded hillside. The sun cast shadows and illuminated leaves through the foliage overhead. And then I noticed a brilliant hint of orange, and then another and another. I pulled the stroller off the side of the fire lane and went off, only about ten feet away, to investigate. Sure enough, it was a treasure trove of apricot colored chanterelle mushrooms.
Whenever I find a clutch of mushrooms I always notice a subtle shift in my perception. It is as if I can think like a mushroom and root through all the parts of the leaf litter and forest detritus that fungus love.
In the moment that I found the chanterelles I felt an intimacy, a deep connection, with the natural world and with forces in the universe greater than myself. I was focused on my task at hand and obvious to concerns that extended beyond the present. It was an experience of pure, primal, being, nothing but me and the object of my attention.
It is moments like that when I feel like I am walking with God. I am directly caught up in my relationship with all of the wonder and mystery of the world around me.
Such moments do not always involve my connection to the natural world. Sometimes they are about my connection to other people. At Summer Institute I was temporarily rendered the single parent of a toddler and two almost teenage girls. The girls spent a lot of their time on their own, exploring the college campus with the other kids their age, and often it was just me and Asa. This meant that I could go the better part of the day without talking to anyone other than a three year-old. I love my son but he is not always the most satisfying conversation partner.
One afternoon I was out pushing Asa in his stroller while he napped. As I walked I passed one of the other preschool parents. Somehow we fell to talking and before I knew it two hours of conversation had passed. It was a minor blessing. I had wanted someone to talk to and someone had appeared. I doubt I will ever talk to this person again but in our two hours of conversation we had a deep connection. Similarly to my experience with the mushrooms the world narrowed to the words and dialogue we shared.
The great Jewish theologian Martin Buber believed that the world of experience could be divided into what he termed the I-It and I-Thou. When we are experiencing the world as I-It we are using whatever else we are engaged with--be it a person or an object--as a means to an end. The person or object is not important, what the person or object allows us to do is.
In contrast, the I-Thou experience occurs whenever we intimately and completely engaged with the other. In this experience the world narrows to just the self and whatever the self is sharing the experience with. For Buber, and for me, the narrowing is where we most often experience what many term God.
Turning to the second part of the question, we can create the experience of walking with God in our lives most often by treating others as an end into themselves and not as a means to an end. Genuinely engage with the people and the world around and you will find God present in all things. But be warned, the presence of the divine often comes unbidden. Occasionally, you have to endure the strange synchronicity that a cranky toddler brings to life to encounter the divine--if Asa had not kept me up late I would not have forgotten his shoe, no forgotten shoe no mushrooms. Other times the world just opens up in unexpected way, a chance comment from a neighbor on the bus leads to deeper conversation or good worship service helps you to more deeply connect to someone sitting next you.
I could go on and easily turn my answer to this question into a whole sermon or a whole year's worth of sermons--I haven't even tackled the thorny issue of defining God--but instead of doing that let me continue onto the next question. It is very pragmatic. It reads: "Why can't we have Sunday services earlier to avoid the heat? 9:30 a.m. or 10:00 a.m. would be much cooler than 11:00 a.m. to 12:00 p.m. It's hard to listen to a message when you are overheated. Could we at least vote as a congregation? My husband would probably prefer cool evening services at 8:30 p.m. or 9:00 p.m.?"
There is no reason why we cannot hold Sunday services earlier in the summer. I know of several congregations that schedule their summer services at an earlier hour than they schedule their services during the school year. Summer services are somewhat of a new phenomena with our congregation. Up until 2007 there were no services in at all in August and, as I understand it, the July services had a more casual tone than services throughout the rest of the year. When the congregation decided to call a full-time minister it was also decided to move to year round services. We get a fair number of visitors over the summer, especially in August, it was thought that having services in the summer was an important way to make ourselves accessible to them. I do not think that when it was decided to hold summer services anyone took our lack of air conditioning into consideration. Nor was changing the time of the services to make them cooler likely considered. Earlier services are not a bad idea.
However, it is certainly too late now to change the start time of the rest of the year's summer services. Summer would already be over by the time we finished notifying everyone of the change of the service time and went through an appropriate process to decide on whether or not to change it. An earlier start time for next year's summer services is a possibility. It would not require a congregational vote. Instead it is something that the Board could change. If there's interest the Worship Associates and I could survey the congregation next spring to gauge the level of support for earlier summer services. Based on the results of the survey we could make a recommendation to the Board to change the service time.
That said, I do not think that moving the services to an evening time during the summer is particularly practical. It is difficult for me to imagine that a 9:00 p.m. service time would be very friendly to families. Families are a key demographic we are trying to attract and the religious education program is one of the fastest growing parts of the congregation. Holding services at a time that does not work for either families or the religious education program would probably have a negative impact upon our long term growth.
Our third question is: "Have you ever heard of the "Prayer of Quiet"? Evidently the Christian version of meditation, as part of a Christian mystic tradition. I just heard about this from a CD by Shinzen Young. Any familiarity with this CD series "The Science of Enlightenment"? Any comments on it, if you have?"
Prior to receiving this question I had heard of neither the Prayer of Quiet nor the Science of Enlightenment CD series. It is difficult, therefore, for me to have much to say about either. Poking around on the internet I discovered that the CD series is a set of talks by a Buddhist teacher on how to achieve enlightenment. In his talks, and to illuminate the path to enlightenment, he draws upon the wisdom and practices of many different religious traditions--Christianity, Judaism, Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism, etc. The CD series seems like a good resource for Unitarian Universalists interested in exploring spiritual practice, all the more so because it encourages people to look beyond a single tradition. Beyond that I am hesitant to comment.
Our next question reads: "I don't understand polity. Why is it important?"
Polity is the process by which a community governs itself. Religious communities use a variety of different types of polity. The Catholic, Episcopal, Eastern Orthodox and Anglican churches, use something called episcopal polity. This is governance by the bishops. In those traditions it is the bishops that ultimately have say over what happens within both the wider religious community and individuals congregations.
In contrast Unitarian Universalists in the United States and Canada practice congregational polity. Congregational polity is almost the exact opposite of episcopal polity. In congregational polity it is the members of the individual congregations that have ultimate say over congregational life. The members call or elect settled ministers, vote to approve the annual budget and generally decide the direction, spiritual tone and character of their religious community.
Polity ultimately deals with questions of authority. Who or what has authority in religious life? The individual? The community? The bishop? Our congregational polity allows us to bring our individual experiences to our collective religious life. On a fundamental level no one person's experience is considered to be more valuable than any other's.
Congregational polity is, therefore, important on a theological level because it is one way that we live out our value of honoring the inherent worth and dignity of every person. By practicing congregational polity we affirm that the voice of each member of the community is important.
Next someone asked: "I would like to hear about what you considered highlights of this 2010 GA. Any trends in the UUA? Any new ideas? Any effective approaches to stuff? What did you really enjoy?"
Let me begin answering this question by offering a little clarification. The initials UUA stand for the Unitarian Universalist Association of Congregations. The UUA is the religious association of which our congregation is a member. Our congregational polity dictates that the UUA is a federation of free congregations. The association's headquarters in Boston has no direct authority over the member congregations. Instead it provides us with services and helps us coordinate our activities. Every year the UUA holds a General Assembly, or GA, to decide upon pressing issues in denominational life, address questions of governance and wrestle with how best to respond as a religious community to events in the wider world.
GA is a lot of fun. It is a great time to connect, learn and share worship and fellowship with thousands of other Unitarian Universalists from across the country. I included a summary of many of the decisions made at GA in this month's issue of the Beacon. Rather than rehashing those I will just focus on two ideas I heard about at GA that I find exciting.
The first is a theological idea called organic universalism. I heard about this from an African American Unitarian Universalist scholar named Joanne Braxton who is interested in expressions of universalism that occur outside of our tradition. Dr. Braxton has found expressions of organic universalism among historically marginalized communities. She especially has found it present among communities of African American women. Since GA I have been in correspondence with Dr. Braxton and I am curious about learning more about organic universalism. I suspect that better understanding it might aid our congregation in our efforts to build a religious community whose membership more closely mirrors the diversity of the surrounding community.
The second idea that I found intriguing was something called theme-based ministry. In theme-based ministry the minister, the lead religious educator and the Worship Associates select a theme for each month. All of the services for the month somehow touch upon this theme and there are small group ministry discussions and adult religious education opportunities organized around it. A typical theme might be something like "love" and throughout the month members of the congregation are encouraged to wrestle with questions like: "How can I love better?" "What do I need to love?" "What kinds of love are present in my life?" "How can love be transformative?" I am intrigued with the possibilities this type of ministry presents our congregation for deepening our collective spiritual life.
Our next question reads, "What's the difference between Unitarianism and Universalism, and how and why did they get to be aligned?"
Historically Unitarianism and Universalism were two discrete Christian heresies. The Unitarians rejected the notion of the trinity and believed in the humanity, rather than the divinity, of Jesus. For them Jesus was a great moral exemplar who pointed the way to God rather than God himself. Early Unitarians believed that humanity was not inherently wicked. They rejected the idea of original sin. Instead they believed that everyone was born with the likeness to God inside them. By following the path of Jesus and nurturing this likeness they thought it possible to reach what we might call God consciousness and obtain the same level of enlightenment that Jesus had.
The Universalists believed in universal salvation. Whether in the distant future or immediately after a person's death they believed that ultimately all souls would be united with God. Put more simply, Universalists believed that no one--not the worst murderer, not Adolf Hitler--went to Hell. God loved everyone and God's love was powerful enough to transform even the most bloodstained and sinful human.
In the United States Unitarianism and Universalism developed as separate denominations. However, quite a few people who belonged to one denomination held theological views that were compatible with the other. There were Unitarians who believed in universal salvation and Universalists who believed in the humanity of Jesus. Over time members of both denominations realized that they had more similarities than differences. So in 1961 the Universalist Church of America and the American Unitarian Association merged. The merger was the end result of a long courtship. Some within the two denominations had discussed merger as early as the late 19th century. It is interesting to note that at various points in the early 20th century merger talks also included Ethical Culture and the Reformed branch of Judaism.
Our next question is quite similar to the proceeding one. It reads: "We call ourselves "Unitarian Universalists." I get why we are Universalists--we believe (certainly almost and probably entirely) in universal salvation. But why Unitarian? The whole Trinity/Unity thing seems very far from our congregational life at this point."
I mentioned a moment ago why, at least for historical reasons, we call ourselves Unitarians. I think that both our Unitarian and Universalist heritage has something to teach us. Essentially the early American Unitarians believed in the perfectibility of human nature--what Buddhists might call the possibility of obtaining enlightenment--and thought that the purpose of the religious community was to help individuals along their path towards perfection. Put a different way, the Unitarians believed that we each have the possibility of becoming our best selves. Realizing that possibility requires hard work and is aided greatly by participation in a religious community. Our Unitarian heritage provides, therefore, an important reminder to work towards self-improvement even while upholding that all people are part of the same beloved human family.
After a fashion the next question ties to the proceeding two. It reads, "Who was William Ellery Channing and why is he important to Unitarian Universalism?"
William Ellery Channing was a 19th century Unitarian minister. His sermon on "Unitarian Christianity," preached in 1819, was one of the earliest defining sermons of American Unitarianism. In it he basically laid out the argument for the possibility of perfecting human nature I just described.
Channing was also a great organizer and a great teacher. He helped found or inspired the founding of numerous congregations. Equally importantly he was a mentor to many of those who formed the nucleus of the Transcendentalist movement--Ralph Waldo Emerson, Margaret Fuller, Henry David Thoreau and the like. His imprint on our movement continues to be felt both through the ongoing relevance of his theological writings and in the writings of the many people he has inspired.
This ninth question, moves onto a different subject entirely. It reads, "I thought Unitarian Universalism was a secular humanist religion. What's all this about spirituality?"
Unitarian Universalism takes personal experience as the starting point for theological reflection. Some members of our religious community have an experience of God and others do not. Humanism is but one strain of the many theologies found in our communities. Our congregation, at the least, includes humanists, pagans, Christians, theists and Buddhists.
As a religious community we gather together to mark the important passages in each other's lives--the marriages, the births and funerals--and, in some way, make sense of the great mystery that is life. This differentiates us from a secular group. Our individual and collective spiritual practices help ground us as we wrestle with meaning and as we move through our daily lives. They are a necessary part, indeed a central part, of our shared project of building the beloved community.
Our next two questions are of a more pragmatic nature. The first reads, "Why do we have so many chairs in the sanctuary? Even during the school year our regular attendance is rarely more than 75 yet we set out more than a hundred chairs? This sometimes means that the sanctuary feels empty or only half-full. Wouldn't we create a more intimate worship experience, and make the sanctuary feel less empty, by removing some of the chairs?"
According to various sociologists of religion, it has been demonstrated that newcomers and visitors feel most comfortable at worship services where there are about five chairs for every three people. This allows for them to find a seat without having to sit by someone they do not know if they do not want to. The number of seats we have set out roughly reflects this ratio of five to three. In the past I have found that whenever we decrease the number of seats we find ourselves increasing them a few weeks later. So the number remains more-or-less static.
Along a similar line someone asks, "I have heard that other congregations ask visitors to stand up and introduce themselves the first time they attend a service. I think that this would be a good way to get to know visitors and newcomers. Why don't we do this?"
Not everyone who comes to our congregation for the first time wants to be identified as a visitor. Some of them are introverts and simply want to come and check us out before getting to know people. Asking people to stand up and introduce themselves might be fine, or even welcoming, to extroverts but I suspect that it would make introverts feel very uncomfortable.
Our final question reads, "Why is Unitarian Universalism called by some 'an arm of the Democratic party?' Is that good?"
Many Unitarian Universalists are deeply concerned with the project of building a better world. For some this means a commitment to the Democratic Party and political liberalism. For others this means a commitment to socialism, anarchism, vegetarianism, urban ecology or the Republican Party. In our congregation I know that the majority of people voted for Barack Obama in the last Presidential election. Some did not vote at all and some voted for John McCain. What all of us share, I suspect, is a desire to see a better world for our children and grandchildren. We just do not all quite agree on how to build that world.
With that answer our sermon draws to a close. I hope that you have found the vignettes and reflections I have offered to be useful and, perhaps, a little illuminating. And I invite you now to rise in body or in spirit and join with me in singing hymn #121 We'll Build A Land.