Where is the Future?
READINGS
And Moses went up from the plains of Moab to Mount Nebo, to the top of Pisgah, which is opposite Jericho. And the Lord showed him all the land, Gilead as far as the Dan, all Naphtali, the land of Ephraim and Manasseh, all the land of Judah as far as the Western Sea, the Negeb, and the Plain, that is, the valley of Jericho the city of palm trees, as far as Zoar. And the Lord said to him, “This is the land of which I swore to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob, ‘I will give it to your descendants.’ I have let you see it with your eyes, but you shall not go over there.” So Moses the servant of the Lord died there in the land of Moab, according to the word of the Lord, and he buried him in the valley in the land of Moab opposite Bethpeor; but no man knows the place of his burial to this day… And Joshua the son of Nun was full of the spirit of wisdom, for Moses had laid his hands upon him, so the people of Israel obeyed him, and did as the Lord had commanded Moses.
So I prophesied as I was commanded; and there was a noise, and behold, a rattling; and the bones came together, bone to its bone. And as I looked, there were sinews on them, and flesh had come upon them, and skin had covered them; but there was no breath in them. Then he said to me, "Prophesy to the breath, prophesy, son of man, and say to the breath, Thus says the Lord God: Come from the four winds, O breath, and breathe upon these slain, that they may live." So I prophesied as he commanded me, and the breath came into them, and they lived, and stood upon their feet, an exceedingly great host.
You cannot have a good character today and at the same time have a small mind and a little heart. You cannot have a good character today and be merely a petty reformer. A good character today is shaped by greatness, greatness in vision, greatness in courage, greatness in insight, greatness in purpose and devotion. Without this greatness, all the lesser things will soon be swept away. Let, therefore, the winds of God blow through our lives and sweep away all littleness, all triviality, all mean and narrow aims. And in lives swept open to the true, the limitless, the universal may there be room at last for the courage and compassion of the infinite, for the joy and tenderness of life's lovelier, holier spirit, for the power and the wonder of God.
HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO ALL SOULS!!!!
In honor of the first anniversary of the first official worship service of All Souls Community Church I would like to read from the document produced by the mothers and fathers of this gathered religious community in the tradition of Unitarianism and Universalism:
Community Church in the Park [as All Souls was then called] is a church dedicated to religion, but not to a creed. It is a liberal religious community of free individuals of all ages walking together in relationship to one another, to our larger community and to the transcending mystery of the universe. Our community is based on open communication, democratic process and a belief in the capacity for goodness in all people. Our spiritual health and our growth as a church community are intimately connected with the spiritual growth and development of our children. We pledge to develop our church community with this always in mind. This church aims at celebrating and cultivating community, a sense of inquiry, moral character and insight, religious freedom, and helpfulness to humanity -- that is, it aims at liberating and cultivating the human spirit.
Just as the media use the last days of the previous year and the first days of the new one to review the year just completed, so should the first sermon of the New Year. And, as this is also the occasion of the anniversary of the first official worship service at All Souls Community Church, the sermon should also review the previous year in terms of the revelation our Unitarian and Universalist heritage represents, which itself should be timeless. The first sermon should point ahead because that is where the future is! But because it’s ahead of us it’s unknown and the source of wonder and fear. Yet, this church now has a past to understand better what is ahead. For example, this is the end of the first year of this church’s existence. The honeymoon is over! The excitement and exhilaration of the first year of marriage has waned, and those who make up this marriage are beginning to see the “warts” in others. People do not always live up to what they say they will do. People take on more than they should. People try to exercise influence in more ways than they should. Miscommunication happens all the time. Not everybody has the time or money to give proportionally. The honeymoon is over. The members of this church realize an important characteristic of human nature. Men and women break covenants and disregard their agreements all the time. So, staying in relationship, doing this religious community thing is hard, because people insist on being human!
This is the first thing our past teaches us about religious community as Unitarian Universalists. It is hard because human beings are fallible and finite! Like the children we once were we still break things! So authentic liberal religious community must somehow be about extending forgiveness to one another rather than dogmatic judgment! So authentic liberal religious community must somehow be about extending forgiveness to the community itself as well!
One of my former professors wrote a piece last week surveying the religion stories of 2002, which made up quite a bit of the general news of the year. He identified six observations about the stories: “a) a realization of how big the religious story is these years; b) how multi-religious, multi-national, and necessarily global the coverage is; c) how out of place is griping that religion does not get noticed in media; d) how the trends of recent years counter Enlightenment assumptions about how religion would pale and wane; e) how unprotected religious institutions and leaders are now in public life and coverage; f) how ambiguous are the manifestations: is religion overall a force ‘for good’ or ‘for ill?’” (Sightings, 12/30/02, “Year’s End,” Martin Marty)
It’s the last one that caught my eye, that in religion there remains an “ambigu[ity in its]… manifestations: is religion overall a force "for good" or "for ill?" The same question should be asked about every community, not just religious ones, including All Souls now that we have a past, a record of who we are: Is All Souls Community Church overall a force ‘for good’ or ‘for ill’?
Maybe it’s unsettling to ask that question. But, churches die spiritually long before they die institutionally, and the spiritual death of a church begins the very first time that question is not asked! A church is not a force for good just because it exists, although the good that it can stand for cannot be sustained unless there is an institution to maintain it. A church, or any religious community, is not a force for good just because it exists or has endured. But it is a force for good when it proclaims its mission, can point to the human benefits of living out that mission, and then, as an institution, goes about setting up the conditions whereby each member of that community can live out that mission in deeply meaningful ways.
Without a doubt the number one story about religion in 2002 was the sexual abuse scandal in the Catholic Church. In a June article in The New Yorker magazine, “Cold Sanctuary: How the [Catholic] Church Lost Its Mission,” author Thomas Keneally pointed out how the constant reassignment of priests who were sexually abusing children and the subsequent cover-ups and secrecy, revealed what in actually had become the mission of the church: “The Church’s response to the scandal has exposed its propensity for self-protection.” (“Cold Sanctuary: How the Church Lost Its Mission,” Thomas Keneally, The New Yorker, June 17 & 24, 2002) Under the guise of its mission as forgiving sin, the church itself propagated sin. Under the guise of its mission as one of divine protection the church put its people in harm’s way. Under the guise of its mission as mediating salvation between God and humanity the church mediated a horror. All to fulfill the mission of protecting itself!
The second thing the past teaches about religious community is yielded from the mistakes human beings make in trying to form religious communities. Now that you have spent a year on By-Laws and creating and putting organization structures into place, which you are not even close to finishing, I would remind you what you identified when you first gathered yourselves into a religious community: The mission of the church is not the business of the church. The church does not exist to perpetuate itself. The second thing our newly created past teaches us is that religious community exists that one might live out the community’s mission! A good character today is shaped by greatness, greatness in vision, greatness in courage, greatness in insight, greatness in purpose and devotion. Without this greatness, all the lesser things will soon be swept away.
The true aim of human fellowship and community is to instill in individuals a sense of this greatness which only deep relationship with others can give. Resist the temptation to substitute institutional self-preservation for the mission. Always, always ask yourselves self-reflective questions about your life in relationship to the community’s mission. Early on you established the idea of covenant as central to the life of community in this church. So, regularly look over both the form of the covenant used in worship and the covenant as it was expanded upon by the fathers and mothers who gathered this congregation, and read at the start of the sermon. And, regularly ask yourselves self-reflective questions about your faithfulness to this mission, so that the form of religious community you create together might become overall a force for good.
The third thing our past teaches us about religious community is not to forget the story. When Pat and I were discussing the religious stories of this past year, especially the scandal in the Catholic Church, she talked about the naiveté men and women have about the difference between what they want the church to be and what it is. She said, “People want to believe there is something better than they are.” What the scandal in the Catholic Church revealed about religious communities is that when men and women are in community they can compound the capabilities of any of them individually. In the case of the Catholic Church this past year it has been to generate a remarkable capacity for self-deception. No religious community is immune to distortion. When men and women gather in religious community they can compound the capabilities of any of them individually, for woe; or, for weal.
This has been the genius of this church from its beginning. People invented it! Modern inventor David Levy described the perspective of an inventor: “People think I live in a fantasy world. I do live in a fantasy world, but a rational fantasy world.” (“Looking for Trouble: How an Inventor Gets His Best Ideas,” Larissa MacFarquhar, The New Yorker, 2002) People knew that there is no religious community better than they were. That is pure fantasy! But in a display of “rational fantasy,” the muse of creativity, people gathered this church to discern what binds humanity together in community; and then dedicated themselves to multiplying the goodness and blessings that can be harvested from human fellowship. The story of this church is of a remarkable process of intentional invention. People needed community because there was none. Not any community, mine you, but a community of liberal minded, religious folk. People needed something of the religious because there was none. Not any conception of the religious, mine you, but one that sought the liberalis of the holy, a religiosity that yields the free mind and the expansive heart, instead of narrow thought and lifeless creed. People want to believe there is something better than they are, and many times they think the church is that something better. But, the mothers and fathers of this church knew better! Together they probed what community meant, thus inventing it in the investigation of it. Together they probed what is religious in human existence, thus inventing it again in their re-imagining of it. The public yield of the beginning of that walk together had to do with worship, children, and intentional fellowship. The fathers and mothers who gathered this church gave to me the inspiration for the first sermon I delivered here:
The central question today is this: Can liberals become religious again and develop communities, Free Churches, which embody in communal, institutional forms, the ideas that have their origin historically as essentially religious ideas? The questions do not involve whether we are a community for the religiously oppressed, or a conglomeration of religious interest groups, or a place to question the existence of God… Our contribution to the 21st century needs be this: To develop free religious communities, as a religious enterprise, witnessing to relationships that ennoble because they witness to ideas that are [holy, are] of God. The very existence of political liberty and the continuation of the American experiment in ordered liberty, depends upon whether we do that.
The third thing the past teaches is not to forget your story of the creation of religious community.
I tell couples before they are united in bonds of true love that the second year is the end of the honeymoon and is a difficult time. The second year is time to pull out the vows that the two pledged to one another the year before! This religious community began its second year sometime this past fall, when the bloom fell off the rose and you decided to get serious about creating honest religious community. Until sometime next fall you will work out together some of these additional issues that always form the second year of any covenant:
1) Trust of one another and learning about institutional trust
2) Learning how to take care of volunteers
3) Beginning to aim the view of the institution towards future issues
4) Being emotionally honest with one another
5) Moving from a fear that this won’t survive, to the question of how to reap the blessings and benefits of living out in the world out there this religious community’s great mission
People want the church to be responsive to all of their individual needs, out of a real fear that the church will be responsive to no particular human need. But this only goes to show that religious community really is about faith; a faith in the possibility of humanity’s greatness. Religious community it really about greatness of mind and greatness of heart. That’s the revelation our Unitarian and Universalist religious heritage bequeaths to us: Human beings are made in a likeness to God, and can you form a religious community that recognizes that likeness, invigorates it, and unleashes it to remake the world? Religious community is really about the faith that what you are doing is worthwhile far beyond your ability to discern it at any particular moment in time. The faith that what you are creating is so great that it will outlast you and mean something far greater than any of our lives might mean individually. If this community at any time in its history exacts from you the last measure of your energy as a human being, that will be but evidence that it has forsaken its mission, which each of us and all of us are responsible for. This journey, this walk that you have embarked upon together really is about faith and about trust, and the success of that walk will be measured by the extent to which it has engendered in you trust in the human prospect and a faith in life. That is the measure of the greatness of human fellowship. Finding that kind of spirit in community is a religious thing, and it is the most difficult of all challenges in this life, and that is why it is called religious! And when a group of people finds it they cannot be silent about it, but are compelled to shout praises and exclamations of thanksgiving. For it is an ennobling spirit, and a worthy aim for succeeding generations, and a worthy aim for all souls.
In the ancient Hebrew tradition the elder Moses could carry his people only as far as a point overlooking the Promised Land. He could not go into that land with his people, any more than our religious forbears can lead us into the 21st century. You are the Joshua’s of the new age, and you are the bearers of an ancient revelation. That freedom and faith belong in the same sentence together. That religion, and reason and modern science and modern political ideas, are compatible things, and are all derived from a religious feeling of the unity of all things. This church community is looking out over a new and wonderful precipice of time, the beginning of the 21st century, with a past of its own. May we enter the portals of tomorrow seeking who we are, by seeking to fulfill what has been placed in our care.
And Moses went up from the plains of Moab to Mount Nebo, to the top of Pisgah, which is opposite Jericho. And the Lord showed him all the land, [and] said to him, “This is the land of which I swore to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob, ‘I will give it to your descendants.’ I have let you see it with your eyes, but you shall not go over there.” So Moses the servant of the Lord died there in the land of Moab, according to the word of the Lord, and he buried him in the valley in the land of Moab opposite Bethpeor; but no man knows the place of his burial to this day… And Joshua the son of Nun was full of the spirit of wisdom, for Moses had laid his hands upon him, so the people of Israel [followed Joshua]...
AMEN.