A few Sundays ago my son and other high schools seniors in the congregation delivered their “Senior Sermons,” a custom and practice in some of our congregations that I hope All Souls will maintain. Several of you commented to me afterwards on how much he looks like me. But, to be frank about familial similarity, my wife and I would confess that we do not know where he came from! He is so much different than we are. After his sermon he was energized the whole day because being around people invigorates him, while it so exhausts me that after this morning I will sleep away most of the rest of the day. In this way he is like his grandfather, my father, who would be strengthened, too, by the presence of others. And he was so stoic in his demeanor before he preached, which is unlike his mother who is anxious before she makes public presentations. In this he is like his grandfather, Pat’s father, who is “calm in the midst of tumults” as our Unitarian “grandfather” William Ellery Channing would counsel. Sometimes characteristics skip a generation, and a grandparent and grandchild are much more alike than the generation in-between.

Last Sunday and this, and for the next two Sundays, we will be looking at the differences and similarities between All Souls and Unitarian Universalism, and various faith communities and traditions in West Michigan. Last week we looked at the Free Thinkers and the history of the Free Thinkers in this country, and made the analogy that they are to us like distant relatives who look strikingly like us. To extend the analogy, this morning we will be looking at our grandparents “from the old country,” who are our direct kin, are like us in fundamental ways, yet practice customs that are different from ours.

It seems so appropriate that we should compare the faith traditions of Judaism and Unitarian Universalism on Father’s Day because the concept and idea of “Father” plays so prominently in the theology of Judaism, and it is theology wherein Judaism and Unitarian Universalism have their basic commonality. Historically, Judaism is our grandparent, as we were born out of Christianity, which itself was born from Judaism. But, theologically we and our grandparent Judaism are more like each other than either of us is to Christianity, Judaism’s child and our parent. The likeness skipped a generation! So, let’s begin with a story which bears theological meanings both of our traditions understand well.

Man had been pestering God for millennia to allow him to be God, a kind of “Bruce Almighty” type of understanding of the history and nature of human existence. But even in the persistence of generations God would stand firm, saying, “God is God and Man is Man and that is the covenant wherein creation comes about,” in denying human being’s wish. Now there are two characteristics of human being and one comes into play here. Human being is persistent, sometimes obnoxiously so, and human being pesters God through the ages to make human being God, begging and cajoling and demanding and complaining, and finally God has had enough, relents, and says to human being, “I will alter the covenant wherein creation comes about. You can be God for a half an hour.” But, here is where the other characteristic of human being comes into play, because in addition to being persistent by nature, human being is also greedy. What human being wants, human being wants in greatest abundance. So, when God gave human being the time to be God, and the half an hour was up, human being refused to turn back into a human being and let God be God, and Man be Man. Since then, neither human being nor God knows who he is. Man becoming God is idolatry. God becoming man is Christianity. In neither does human being or God know who he is.

The theological meanings in this are understood by both Judaism and Unitarian Universalism, though we have different forms of spiritual community, distinctive perspectives on the meanings, and one is an ethnic faith, Judaism (you are born a Jew), and the other the most quintessential volunteeristic faith, Unitarian Universalism (even those who are “born Unitarian Universalist” must choose to join one of our churches; no one becomes a Unitarian Universalist by sacrament). First, that the question of identity is central to the spiritual life. Both traditions share this. It distinguishes both from the Christianity that dominates this culture. For Christianity the central concern forming the spiritual life involves belief, as in, “What is correct belief?” Correct belief establishes what it means to be a Christian, and identity and the spiritual life flow from the determination of correct belief. I would argue that to the Jew and Unitarian Universalist, the central question of identity circumscribes the spiritual life, and living out the question itself is the form of the spiritual life: “What does it mean to be a Jew?” “What does it mean to be a Unitarian Universalist?” For the individual Jew and Unitarian Universalist, belief and practice do not precede this central question of identity, but flow from it. This links us together, grandparent and grandchild, much more so than either of us is linked to the generation in-between, even as the various ways we differ in belief and practice distinguish us. The central distortion at the heart of humane existence is that human beings do not know who they are. If each of us knows who each of us is, the truth of identity and the practice and belief that embodies identity, would set all humanity free.

And I would argue this is so because to both traditions one gains identity not initially by determining what one believes, but by the spiritual journey of self-discovery through a relationship, a covenant. Throughout the millennia of human existence, what human being has believed has changed. What you believe changes because the experiences of life change and you change, growing older, growing wiser or more ignorant, finding your soulmate and losing your soulmate, living here and there and back again. But, human nature – who a human being is - this does not change. Thus, the challenge of the spiritual life is to come to “know thyself” through relationship with others. The challenge to the spiritual life concerns identity. “What is man, O God, that thou art mindful of him?” asks the Psalmist, a question the Jew and Unitarian Universalist understand though each answers it differently out of different faith traditions.

Some human beings think they are God. Some think they know God’s will as God knows it, think like God thinks, believe what God believes, act as though they have infinite power over the lives of others. Man becoming God is idolatry. Some believe God becomes man, and usually a particular man and less usual a particular woman, and they worship what that finite human being says as if it flowed from the very lips of the Divine. Some do this to Jesus, some to Buddha, some to Mohammed, some to Moses, some to the preacher that stands before them each week, the President they have elected, or to their own father; God becoming man. In neither, though, does God or human being know who he is.

And, this story captures the second basic theological understanding shared by Judaism and Unitarian Universalism and that is, that at its root, existence is best understood as an agreement, a covenant, a relational thing. To say it theologically, God and human being, all of creation, have been formed as a covenant. To exist is to be in relation. To live is to be connected. To say it theologically, God and human being are comrades and partners to an agreement, but each has a distinctive role to play in the unfolding agreement that is creation. God is God, and Man is Man. God has given us the gift of life. How are we going to use it? What will we do with this great gift?

The theological ideas that orbit the distinctive faith traditions of both Judaism and Unitarian Universalism then, involve the limits and boundaries of roles within this agreement because both traditions form spiritual community, form themselves into a people, relationally through a covenant. God forms an agreement with Abraham, and with the people at Sinai, and the unfolding history of these distinctive “covenants” between God and this particular group “becomes” the Jewish people. Our forbears, like those in Salem, Massachusetts in 1629, form an agreement with one another and God, and the unfolding history of these distinctive “covenants” eventually “becomes” the Unitarian Universalists. Both are relational traditions. Both find human identity in ethical concerns, justice, how we treat one another. Both find individual spiritual identity through history, how we have come to be who we are, a knowledge it is imperative to have so we can continue to grow into that identity. The Father’s Day question, “What does it mean to be a good father?” was answered differently yesterday, will be answered differently today and tomorrow. It is a growing, changing, lived idea, though as a question of identity, it abides throughout the generations and is formed by relationship.

As a spiritual community in the Jewish faith Ahavas holds that the human role in this agreement involves keeping kosher. All Souls does not. At Ahavas the human role in this agreement involves reading and reflecting upon Torah. It does not at All Souls. At Ahavas the human role in this agreement involves remembering the history of the people of particular covenants and seeking to understand what that history means in terms of spiritual identity and how human beings are to treat one another. It does not at All Souls. Our identities are various from one another though the question of identity abides.

At All Souls the human role in the agreement that forms creation requires us to hold that truth is not ever delivered totally or completely to humanity at any given time or specific place. The “boundaries” of human finitude keep us from knowing completely and absolutely, what is infinite. Yet, it is our role as human beings to prepare ourselves continually to receive new truth tomorrow; to change, to grow, and not to hold onto either the beliefs or the confusions that claimed us yesterday. Our identity is formed within the knowledge that revelation is not sealed.

At All Souls the human role in the agreement that forms creation requires human beings to hold human choice as sacred. To us all human community is spiritual community where relationships are mutual, free, and persuasive, not coercive. Consent is the “image of God” in which human being was and is created. Our identity is formed within the knowledge that individual consent is sacred.

At All Souls the human role in this agreement requires us to create spiritual community that symbolizes to the world what a just and loving community is, and reject that God is revealed primarily through correctly performing rituals, or giving allegiance to particular viewpoints of tribe or church or nation, or devoting the self to its own interests. Our identity is formed within the knowledge that no human being is God, nothing finite is infinite. The very thing our presence protests against is our active rejection of our humanity. We choose just and loving relationships over correctly executed ritual and completely pious individual devotion.

At All Souls the human role in this agreement requires us to establish the just and loving community by being a good man, a good woman, a good partner, a good mother, a good churchman, a good churchwoman, a good father. Our identity is formed within the knowledge that personal character is the pillar of the spiritual life.

And finally, at All Souls the human role in the agreement that forms creation requires us to hold an optimism towards the human prospect. Hope to us is not about another world or life after this one, nor does it hold that existence will be extinguished, ushering in a “better time.” Our optimism, the hope that forms our faith, is about creation as it has been given us, and what we and God can do together to assist in its unfolding. We will one day be free of the hatred and the intolerance and the superstitious irrationality that contains and smothers and stifles and represses the Spirit. Our identity is formed within the knowledge that the bonds of love keep open the gates of freedom. This is our faith tradition.

There is a saying amongst our students preparing for the Unitarian Universalist ministry in our three seminaries, Harvard in the East, Starr King in the West, and Meadville Lombard and the University of Chicago in the Midwest, my alma mater: If you are called to the Unitarian Universalist Church of “East Jesus, Iowa” - that is, out in the middle of nowhere, where the nearest Unitarian Universalist colleague is hours away by plane - look up the local Rabbi. The reason for this is simple and theological. Regardless of your individual belief or non-belief in God - for of course our clergy span the theological and non-theological range as does our pews - the local Rabbi and you will be able to engage in theological and philosophical discussions in which you cannot engage with Christian clergy. It is because we share this covenantal view of the spiritual life and spiritual community. It is a view that has largely “skipped the generation” that is Christianity, in the Christian focus on correct belief since the Church Councils of the 4^{th century and on. Doctrinal concerns do not underlie a discussion between a Unitarian Universalist and a Jew. The reason for this is embedded in the history of theology and religious community in the West. And this illuminates both our commonalities with our Jewish brethren, and the ways we differ. We have come to this relational, covenantal understanding of spiritual community and religious identity through differing paths, theirs through from Ur to the Red Sea and Sinai, and ours from Eastern Europe through England, and then over the Atlantic to the Pilgrim and Puritan settlements in New England. Like grandparents and grandchildren we are directly related though we are different.}

Last Monday I took our daughter, Liz, and her husband, Mike, to Chicago where they flew back to Senegal, West Africa, to complete their service in the Peace Corps. We were talking religion, and Mike, raised by a Congregationalist father and a Jewish mother, has by consent identified himself as a “Jew-nitarian,” a term commonly used amongst us by those with a Jewish heritage who have freely chosen to be a member of a Unitarian Universalist congregation. It is fitting, as we mentioned earlier the ethnic quality of the Jewish faith and that Unitarian Universalism is the quintessential volunteeristic faith. I dropped them off at the International terminal at O’Hare, and had to say a quick goodbye so that they could check their bags, go through security, and make their plane. “Take the Good News of the word of God to the Senegelese people,” I said. My Unitarian Universalist daughter smiled, “Freedom,” and my Unitarian Universalist son-in-law, the “Jew-nitarian” chimed in, “Freedom from ignorance, freedom from hate, freedom to love.” It is part of the covenant we have and embody, when we live out our spiritual identity. We said our goodbyes knowing we would not be in the presence of one another, yet confident there is a Spirit alive in the world that connects us through time and two continents, a freedom and unity of the Spirit expressed through a love for all souls.

AMEN.