This morning is a gift from God, and the dawn’s new light is a summons to be greeted with gratitude and thanksgiving. We give thanks that we can:

See the forms of creation,

Hear the call of creation,

Smell the fragrances of creation,

Taste the sweetness of creation,

And touch the warmth of creation.

We give thanks for the lives we’ve been given; for the love that graces our days; and for the chance to assist in creation’s unfolding.

We light this Chalice to remember a truth,

Consecrated through the ages by the service and sacrifice

Of individuals and communities:

There abides a unity and freedom of the Spirit,

Expressed through a love for all souls.

With sweeping books like A History of God and The Battle for God, Karen Armstrong is known for her singular insight into religion in our world. But Armstrong herself first discovered an interest in world religions in midlife, and practically by accident.

She was a Roman Catholic nun at a young age, with a narrow view of Christianity and no knowledge at all of other traditions. She spent years after that as a non-religious person.

After my conversation with Karen Armstrong, I felt that her personal trajectory of faith strengthens her personal appeal for modern readers. She is a formidable intellectual, but as a theologian she calls herself an amateur, in the full sense of the Latin root of that word "amateur" — "a lover" of her subject.

America today is full of amateur theologians: people who are searching for a fullness of knowledge about their own faith and that of others, and who find this search to be intellectually thrilling and spiritually nourishing. Some conduct their searches outside the realm of religious practice altogether. Others supplement and complement their formal religious lives with further reading, learning, and thinking.

Karen Armstrong's books have helped many people think more deeply about religion in the world in recent years. I'll turn over the rest of this reflection to illuminating words she shares in our interview — and that I will continue to ponder.

"Early on I had a great gift. I was reading a very scholarly and wonderful book about Islam in three volumes, and I lit upon a footnote that explained in very dry academic language what a religious historian was supposed to do. He — I think they assumed it would be a he rather than a she — was supposed to practice what was called 'the science of compassion.' Now science is used here in the sense of scientia, 'knowledge.' So it was a knowledge acquired by compassion. And compassion, of course, doesn't mean feeling sorry for people, pitying people. Compassion, com-pas-sion, means 'to feel with.'

"And in this little footnote, the author said that you must not lead the discussion of a religious idea or a theology or a personality such as Muhammad without being able to find out what lay at the root of this, not to dismiss these ideas out of hand from a superior viewpoint of post-enlightenment, Western rationalism, but to divest yourself of that rationalistic outlook and enter the minds of these mystics and sages and poets and keep on asking, 'But why? But why?' And filling up with scholarly knowledge the background until you come to the point where you can imagine yourself feeling the same, or believing the same as them until basically the intellectual idea learns to reverberate with you personally."

Though our knowledge is incomplete, our truth partial, and our love imperfect, we believe that new light is ever waiting to break through individual hearts and minds to enlighten the ways of [all]; that there is mutual strength in willing co-operation; and, that the bonds of love keep open the gates of freedom.

O God of the morning of the world, by whose bidding the earth is stirred with new life and at the sound of whose voice creation wakes and sings, open our hearts to the gladness of this day and may the freshness of its beauty cleanse our souls. Forgive us, O God, that so dim-sightedly we go our way, in haste and fever and with fretful aims. Lift up our eyes! Let us see the wonder all about us! Thou hast given it creation’s glory; Thy miracle of life is wrought anew with every blade of grass.

We thank Thee, O Creation’s Lord, for this renewal of life’s unfolding, this revelation of Thyself that never grows old. May the joy of it restore our hope, its loveliness enrich our understanding. May the beauty of it breathe itself into our spirits, and its promise mingle with our prayers.

AMEN.

There are two time honored institutions in Unitarian Universalist churches that are, or should be, guarded by clergy and laity as if they were the Holy Grail. They are the free pulpit and the free pew. Succinctly stated, the free pulpit means that when a congregation lends its pulpit to a minister by calling that minister as its spiritual leader, the congregation pledges complete and unencumbered freedom of speech to say anything from that pulpit that he or she believes to be true. But that freedom is not something the preacher is born with, but originates in the bond of affection, the covenant established between the congregation and the minister. The free pew means that when a Unitarian Universalist congregation is gathered by a bond of affection, a covenant that makes it into a spiritual community, the most sacred agreement made is that no theological test will be given for membership in that congregation. That freedom is not the freedom an infant is born with, but originates in a bond of affection, which is the reason we Christen our newborns. Everything else in any of our churches might be unique to that particular congregation, yet all provide and protect the Free Pulpit and the Free Pew as Unitarian Universalists. The bonds of love keep open the gates of freedom. And this has been true for over 400 years, up to 2001 when this congregation was gathered, and unto this day. No other church in Grand Rapids bears this legacy or has this responsibility.

In our downtown Philadelphia Unitarian Church, gathered in 1796, there is a plaque commemorating the longtime ministry of Rev. William Henry Furness, father of famous American architect Frank Furness. The elder Furness was called right out of Harvard Divinity School as the church’s minister from 1825 to 1875 and then as Minister Emeritus unto his death. During his ministry in Philadelphia he was famous as an outspoken advocate for the abolition of slavery. This he preached from his pulpit with courage and conviction, and on many occasions church members sat in the pews armed with rifles in order to protect the minister whom they loved so dear and whose message struck an agreeing chord within some hearts. But such was not the case with all members of the church.

In fact, within the congregation there was a Southern plantation owner who was one of the wealthiest members of the congregation. Another, the Chairman of the Church’s Board, was himself pro-slavery and was decidedly against the preaching of his minister, the minister his church had called. But, today in that church’s building, where there is a plaque given by the church commemorating Rev. Furness’ ministry, there is another plaque given by Rev. Furness’ architect son commemorating that Board Chairman’s staunch support of the freedom of the pulpit; the freedom the congregation gave Rev. Furness to preach the truth as he saw it when they lent him their pulpit as their minister; a freedom that yielded a message the Board Chairman disbelieved. Two plaques reside in the same church representing two people on opposing sides of the single most important social and theological question of their time.

It is so hard today to imagine anyone supporting the practice of holding another as a slave and earning bread by the sweat of another’s brow. But that was the majority view in our culture. It’s a harder thing now to consider a plaque in a church honoring someone who held such a repulsive and unredeemable belief. Such are the vexing contradictions of the human heart and mind, and the way history judges the limited view of all human beings in all times and cultures.

The presence of those two plaques invites deeper questioning: Does it signal a faith tradition that doesn’t believe in anything or stand for anything? Does it suggest a church that isn’t religious, or, worse, is deeply confused about what it is about so it displays both plaques “to cover its bets”? Or, barely conceivable in our time, does displaying both plaques symbolize a realistic view of human limitation and, beyond that, a deeper, spiritual faith in the human prospect and Creation itself? Does it symbolize a faith tradition that represents freedom as a spiritual thing, as the way God moves in our lives?

One of my seminary professors, Langdon Gilkey, once said that “what [you] believe is largely determined by where [you deem] evil… to lie.” If you think evil lies in the capacity of human being to be fooled into believing false things you may believe human beings are not worthy of trust. So, God may become the source of a goodness human beings by contrast are not. If you think evil lies in people believing the wrong things you may believe there is a single, absolute truth, a right statement of true belief somewhere that the church needs guard for the sake of all humanity. So, the church may become the source of all things to be believed in.

But if you determine that freedom is a spiritual thing, and that in freedom, individuals can discern the good and the just and the true, the control spiritual communities wield requiring conformity to beliefs and creeds set down long ago, giving certain individuals religious and sometimes civic power over others to enforce under the threat of bodily or spiritual death, that this is evil, then you may believe in the power and sanctity of human individuality. You may hold to freedom as a spiritual thing, and the purpose of congregating together, to be to expand, deepen, and strengthen freedom in human existence.

“You have to leave home,” she told me sixteen years ago when we were talking about spirituality and living a life of faith as a Unitarian Universalist. We were sitting in the library at the church in Tulsa, Oklahoma, where I was minister, a library she had largely built and one which was the finest, most extensive religious library I had ever seen outside of seminary. She had been raised by Congregationalist missionary parents, had lived all over the world, had married and settled in Tulsa, raised a family, including one of our Unitarian Universalist ministers who is now retired in Williamston, Michigan. When I knew her she was in her 80’s and eventually I had the honor and responsibility of officiating at her Memorial Service.

Sally Campbell was telling me something significant about the spiritual journey that involves freedom; that it begins when you say, I don’t believe that. I don’t believe what the church says I should, just because the church says it. I don’t believe that human beings are always wrong and not to be trusted. She was telling me that the first step of the spiritual journey starts when you declare yourself a spiritual rebel.

This beloved mentor of mine taught me that spiritual freedom means more than just being the rebel, though it begins there. The rebel might only be serving his or her own self-interest. The spiritual freedom of the free pew, to which this faith tradition is devoted, means that the individual who occupies it is in a spiritual relationship with others, and is devoted to shaping relationships that deepen individuality through the courage of extending freedom. The aim is the full individuality of who each of you is. The free pew means individuality matters ultimately, and individuality matters for more than just you. Individuality matters more than your self-interests, or your preferences, or your needs, or your current beliefs. You find yourself free through the lives of others, not away from them. The spiritual rebel first declares, “I can say and believe anything,” which in one sense, is like being a spiritual teenager wanting to leave home. The teen must leave the father and mother to become himself, to seek after his own life. He must first be a rebel, and then a seeker. And the spiritual seeker who seeks the spirituality of the freedom she has felt, will find its spirituality in compassion; in sitting in a free pew looking around at the faces of those with whom she shares the deepest of all relationships. She starts a rebel and becomes a seeker serving the free spirit, the freedom that comes from and serves compassion because it serves the individuality of us all. She arrives in the free pew.

“The individual without a community is empty,” said Professor Gilkey, “and subject to all kinds of absolutisms.” And without a congregation devoted to spiritual freedom through the free pew, the Chairman of the Board of our Philadelphia Unitarian Church would have been absolutely secure in the absolute certainty of his absolute belief in slavery, as many sitting in other churches at that time were. A faith in spiritual freedom through the free pew may be the only faith that saves us from thinking what we believe is what God believes!

But today, to get community, to get connection, spiritual freedom can easily be betrayed.

When I first came to a Unitarian Universalist church, in Nashville, Tennessee in 1978, I came as a spiritual rebel, identifying myself by what I did not believe. And admittedly, I was as baffled by this faith perspective as later I would find other clergy in other faith traditions to be. At first it seemed to me that a person could believe anything and be a part of this church. In fact, that is often how others describe us; that you can believe anything in a Unitarian Universalist church because they don’t believe anything there. At first I though it was true because so much of religion in our culture, and so much of our perception of religious community and faith traditions in our culture, holds that the community itself represents what the individuals believe.

“What does your church believe?” It’s the common question asked after someone confesses where they go. But, churches don’t “believe” things, individuals do. The purpose of religious fellowship is to liberate and cultivate the spirit. It is not to believe the same things and toil towards a conforming purity. But, that is the tendency of all groups and communities, even ours; to lean towards a singularity of belief that smothers freedom.

I remember reading a minister’s blog entry that, though he was not a Unitarian Universalist, hinted at what all religious community of any kind leans towards. He gave the justification for writing his blog, saying that what he writes in his blog is “the kind of stuff that should go into sermons, but often doesn’t,” adding, “’There’s a sense of more freedom and safety (in a blog).’”

I cannot tell you the number of times in my 24 years in the ministry when a clergyperson has said to me something like this: “I wish I could say the things in my church that you do in yours.” I don’t think they mean they believe theologically what I believe. And it’s certainly not said because you can believe anything you want and be in this church, because every clergyperson who has said it to me holds deep convictions and not just “anything he wants to believe.” Why someone would not say from the pulpit what is believed, or would write in a blog things he did not feel free and safe to say from the pulpit, is about the nature of the free pulpit in a particular congregation. I have been in so called liberal churches where I was not free to say what I believed without punishment or punitive chastisement. It’s not a liberal or conservative thing. Churches, congregations, don’t believe things, but the way they do things does reveal what they symbolize as of Ultimate reality.

Because anybody in any pulpit CAN say whatever they want in their sermons. Will the congregation hear it without reprimand? Will individuals support the preacher when the preacher declares what they as individuals do not believe, even are against? Do the bonds of love keep open the gates of freedom? Or, do the bonds of purity, explicit or implicit, keep open the gates of conformity? To say it theologically, in this church and faith tradition, freedom is the means by which God works in this world. Or, to say it humanistically, spiritual freedom is the basis of all good and just things. And the free pulpit is its symbol.

If a spiritual community, a church congregation can receive the words from the pulpit, through a bond of affection that is aimed at the liberation and cultivation of the spirit, then the two plaques in our church in Philadelphia make sense. If a spiritual community, a church congregation opens its membership up to all kinds of differing theologies which themselves serve freedom as a spiritual thing and individuality, the full unfolding of each self, then the two plaques in our church in Philadelphia make sense.

To this day these two plaques remain, even when the individuals they name are gone and largely, if not completely, forgotten. The one that names the minister does not honor him, but the bonds of affection, the covenant that forms spiritual community and aims it toward freedom, and the Freedom of the Pulpit that symbolizes freedom as the form God takes in this world. And the second, which names the Board Chairman, is not in honor of his opposing view. It does not symbolize diversity of belief, nor that a single community could contain two differing viewpoints. It does not honor what time has proven unredeemable. It reminds us all of human limitation, that nothing in human existence and no one who lives or has lived, can know Truth completely and fully and absolutely. We see through a glass darkly and it is not through knowledge or believing the right things and saying the right creeds, that humanity is saved from our own errors. That plaque symbolizes that only a Love for all souls can save us from ourselves through freedom.

What you have in these two plaques in the same building, is the representation of our distinctive faith tradition as Unitarian Universalists: The bonds of love keep open the gates of freedom, wherein all creation can unfold unto its fulfillment and all souls can be redeemed.

AMEN.

Be not afraid. And seeing there is naught to fear, and bearing witness to what can never die, go forth into the world in peace.

Be of good courage.

Search all things

And hold fast to that which is good.

Render unto no one evil for evil.

Strengthen the faint-hearted.

Support the weak.

Help the afflicted.

Love all men, love all women, love all children,

Love all souls.

Serving the Most High.

And rejoicing in the power of the Spirit.

Amen.