We're now coming into the second half of my series of talks on the “six sources” of our living Unitarian tradition, as described in an historic statement from 1985, amended ten years later. We've looked at the way we draw from our personal experience in forming our personal beliefs, at how the words and deeds of prophetic women and men have influenced us, and at the wisdom we variously draw from the world's religions. Now it's time to explore “Jewish and Christian teachings which call us to respond to God's love by loving our neighbours as ourselves.” This is perhaps the primary source for many of us, in the sense that our religious roots are here, however we may have moved away from them later.

It's interesting to relate this source to Unitarian Universalist history. For most of the time that Unitarians and Universalists have been in organized existence, they've clearly considered themselves Christian. It's been only in the past century that considerable numbers of UUs have wanted to dissociate themselves from Christianity, although there have always been plenty of Christians who were ready to dissociate themselves from Unitarians and Universalists, separately and together! Part of the mutual distancing can perhaps be seen in the wording of this sentence.

Like the previous one about “wisdom from the world's religions,” it carefully limits what it acknowledges as a source of our tradition. Just as we're not urged to acknowledge the validity of everything in the world's religions, but only the wisdom in them which inspires us in our ethical and spiritual life, so we're only encouraged to honour those Jewish and Christian teachings which call us to respond to God's love by loving our neighbours as ourselves. And in fact, as far as the Bible is concerned, that particular phrase only occurs explicitly in a very few places, including those I read earlier, though Jewish and Christian teachings have certainly built on them. Even so, including this source sometimes seems a little problematic to those who figure that the previous reference to wisdom in the world's religions should have been enough.

And then, of course, there's the reference in this source to God - almost a taking-for-granted of belief in God, whereas we know that many of our members and friends would not call themselves theists. So it's not without controversy, and I'm almost sure it wasn't without controversy when it was drafted and discussed and finally voted on. It might have been easier to leave it out, and tell UU Christians (yes, there are such critters!) that their favourite teachings and teacher were included in the world's religions. But the fourth source was voted in. Clearly, it was important to a goodly number of people - and 1985 is well within living memory, even for people much younger than me.

Chronologically, Jewish teaching precede Christian ones, so that our Christian roots, for those of us who have them, reach back to Judaism, as we saw in the readings in which the young man who came to Jesus quoted from Jewish scripture. You may know that any account of Judaism is inevitably more of a history than a teaching, yet throughout Jewish history there are both explicit and implicit teachings. The implicit teachings about loving one's neighbour are myriad. Let's consider just three. First, from Psalm 15 (smack dab in the middle of the Bible) - and as I so often have to say, please overlook the gender-exclusive language if you can:

“O Lord, who shall sojourn in thy tent? Who shall dwell on thy holy hill?
He who walks blamelessly, and does what is right, and speaks truth from his heart;
who does not slander with his tongue, and does no evil to his friend,
nor takes up a grudge against his neighbour;
in whose eyes a criminal is despised, but who honours those who fear the Lord,
who is steadfast even to his own cost and does not change;
who does not put out his money at interest,
and does not take a bribe against the innocent.
He who does these things shall never be moved.”

That reference to not charging interest on loans is an interesting one, isn't it? Not many Jews or Christians follow that now, but I suggest it's an excellent example of loving our neighbours as ourselves - we wouldn't charge ourselves interest, would we, so why charge someone else?

Next, a passage from Isaiah 1; 16-18:

“Wash yourselves; make yourselves clean;
remove the evil of your doings from before my eyes;
cease to do evil, learn to do good; seek justice, correct oppression;
defend the fatherless, plead for the widow.
Come now, let us reason together, says the Lord: though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be white as snow; though they are red like crimson, they shall become like wool.”

Even beyond the obvious value of seeking justice, correcting oppression, and defending orphans and widows, I find some intriguing implications here about forgiveness. According to this author, and according to my interpretation at least, the forgiveness of wrongdoing is contingent on doing these good things - not on believing particular things, but doing particular things, things which can be summarized as loving one's neighbour as oneself.

Based on this passage, I'd be inclined to rewrite our source as “teachings which call us to respond to God's requirements by loving our neighbours as ourselves.” It's not optional; it's mandatory!

The third Jewish passage I've chosen is very well known; it's from the prophet Micah, Chapter 6:

“O my people, what have I done to you? In what have I wearied you? Answer me!
For I brought you up from the land of Egypt, and redeemed you from the house of bondage He has showed you, O man, what is good;
and what does the Lord require of you
but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God?”

Yes, it is a requirement that we do justice and love kindness, but here itís a little clearer that it's based on the treatment that the Jewish people have already received from God, who has brought them out of slavery in Egypt, out of oppression into freedom. Here, indeed, is the Jewish teaching which calls us to respond to God's love by loving our neighbours as ourselves.

And what of Christian teachings which do this? What do they add to the Jewish teachings, if anything? My own feeling is that they add stories and illustrations which bring alive the requirements. The young man who came to Jesus to ask what he should do to gain eternal life is said in another version of the incident to be a lawyer who didn't just go away when Jesus said “Love your neighbour as yourself,” but pushed him to be more specific; he said, “And who is my neighbour?” This was Jesus' answer, from Luke, Chapter 10, in the form of a story:

“A man was on his way from Jerusalem down to Jericho when he fell in with robbers, who stripped him, beat him, and went off leaving him half dead. It so happened that a priest was going down by the same road; but when he saw him, he went past on the other side. So too a Levite came to the place, and when he saw him went past on the other side. But a Samaritan who was making the journey came upon him, and when he saw him was moved to pity. He went up and bandaged his wounds, bathing them with oil and wine. Then he lifted him on to his own beast, brought him to an inn, and looked after him there. Next day he produced two silver pieces and gave them to the innkeeper, and said, ‘Look after him; and if you spend any more, I will repay you on my way back.’ Which of these three do you think was neighbour to the man who fell into the hands of the robbers? He answered, ‘The one who showed him kindness.’ Jesus said, ‘Go and do as he did.’”

I love that story as much as any that's in the Bible, but I have to say that it's always struck me as having a strange sense of logic about it. The lawyer asked, ‘Who is my neighbour?’ and we might expect Jesus to say that the fellow lying in the ditch after being mugged was his neighbour. Even better if that victim had been the despised Samaritan in the story, and the hero had the chance to be kind and generous to one of life's all-round losers. But no, the victim was a perfectly good Jew, and it was the Samaritan who rose above prejudice, and the word ‘neighbour’ is used about him, the hero, rather than about the one in need. It doesn't spoil the story, far from it, but it somehow shakes up our categories, I find. It makes the point, for me, that ‘neighbour’ is one of those words that works best as a verb, not a noun. ‘Neighbouring’ is something you do, rather than something you are. Loving our neighbour as ourselves is all about action, about deeds, not creeds.

Now, rather than look any further at the Christian teachings found in the Bible itself, let's take advantage of what two 19th century Unitarians and one 20th century Unitarian, writing explicitly about the essence of Christian teachings, have said. First, one of the great figures of our movement, Unitarian William Ellery Channing, writing in 1819, on the topic “Unitarian Christianity,” said:

“We conceive, that the true love of God is a moral sentiment, founded on a clear perception, and consisting in a high esteem and veneration, of his moral perfections. Thus, it perfectly coincides, and is in fact the same thing, with the love of virtue, rectitude, and goodness. You will easily judge, then, what we esteem the surest and only decisive signs of piety. We lay no stress on strong excitements. We esteem him, and him only a pious man, who practically conforms to God's moral perfections and government; who shows his delight in God's benevolence, by loving and serving his neighbour; his delight in God's justice, by being resolutely upright; his sense of God's purity, by regulating his thoughts, imagination, and desires; and whose conversation, business, and domestic life are swayed by a regard to God's presence and authority. We regard the spirit of love, charity, meekness, forgiveness, liberality, and beneficence, as the badge and distinction of Christians, as the brightest image we can bear of God, as the best proof of piety.”

Deeds, not creeds! God was still the centre of Unitarian belief, but the only service to God that was of any importance was the acting out of love for one's neighbour. I think we can include in the fourth source of our living tradition these words of a great Unitarian which so clearly call us to respond to respond to God's love by loving our neighbours as ourselves. The true Christian, says William Ellery Channing, is the one “who shows his delight in God's benevolence, by loving and serving his neighbour.”

Then, another founding figure of our movement, Unitarian Theodore Parker, writing 22 years later, in 1841, on “The Transient and Permanent in Christianity,” one of the treasured documents of our history:

“To turn away from the disputes of the Catholics and the Protestants, of the Unitarian and the Trinitarian, of Old School and New School, and come to the plain words of Jesus of Nazareth, Christianity is a simple thing; very simple. It is absolute, pure Morality; absolute, pure Religion; the love of man; the love of God acting without let or hindrance. The only creed it lays down is the great truth which springs up spontaneous in the holy heart there is a God. Its watchword is, be perfect as your Father in Heaven. The only form it demands is a divine life; doing the best thing, in the best way, from the highest motives; perfect obedience to the great law of God . . .
Try the whole extent of Christianity so well summed up in the command, ‘Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind and thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself;’ and is there anything therein that can perish? No, the very opponents of Christianity have rarely found fault with the teachings of Jesus . . .
God send us a real religious life, which shall pluck blindness out of the heart, and make us better fathers, mothers, and children; a religious life, that shall go with us where we go, and make every home the house of God, every act acceptable as a prayer. We would work for this, and pray for it, though we wept tears of blood while we prayed.”

Again, deeds not creeds! Parker went so far as to say that it didn't matter much whether you were a Baptist or a Catholic or a Unitarian - except that the variety made for a more interesting society - what mattered was whether you responded to God's love by loving your neighbour as yourself. I think we can include in the fourth source of our living tradition these words, too. True Christianity, says Theodore Parker, is summed up in the command, “Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind [and] thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself.”

More than a century later, another major Unitarian Universalist thinker, James Luther Adams, was writing and studying and exploring religion. Adams had been raised a fundamentalist Christian, had reacted with vociferous atheism, but had gradually returned to a liberal form of Christianity, and served as minister of two Unitarian congregations in New England between 1927 and 1935. In response to a labor strike at some textile mills in his parish, Adams looked into the workers' grievances. His call from the pulpit for a public airing of their grievances led to press coverage and settlement. This experience strengthened Adams's already firm conviction that a liberal church can and should make itself the voice of the oppressed. He was sharply critical of the prevailing Unitarian individualism, which barely noticed and never issues of social justice, let alone addressing them. Adams believed, and consistently taught, that such neglect of social action is the same as blessing the status quo.

In the mid-1930s, Adams went to study for a year in Europe before assuming a teaching position at Meadville Lombard Theological School. In Germany, he watched as the Nazi government of Adolph Hitler ruthlessly crushed all dissent. He was interrogated by the Gestapo, as a result of his engagement with the Underground Church movement, and narrowly avoided imprisonment. Using a home movie camera, he filmed Karl Barth, Albert Schweitzer and others, including those who were involved in clandestine, church-related resistance groups, as well as pro-Nazi leaders of the so-called German Christian Church. (Along with a group of other students, I went to tea with James Luther Adams a few years before he died, and saw that movie; it was amazing and moving -- and I believe copies are available for purchase.) Adams returned to the United States more convinced than ever that the tendency of religious liberals to be content with platitudes about open-mindedness could only make them irrelevant and impotent in face of the world's evils. He stated his convictions loudly and frequently. What matters is what we do for our neighbours, for our fellow creatures!

Adams came to see the idea of voluntary associations, especially religious congregations, as the chief means by which worthwhile social change has always been brought about. His experience and his studies led him to believe that through voluntary participation in groups human beings can best respond to the power of God's love. Paraphrasing scripture, Adams said, “By their groups ye shall know them,” and taught that the primary purpose of the free church is worship, which is about renewing our loyalty to the spirit of love. In our congregations and societies and fellowships and churches, he said, we can find and multiply the love which the world needs and which we need, every one of us, if we are to be able to love. We are called us to respond to our own experience of that love, when we find it, by loving our neighbours as ourselves.

You've perhaps heard me say that I consider the central Principle of our UU tradition and movement to be a free and responsible search for truth and meaning. The young lawyer who came to Jesus to ask how he might find fulfillment, or truth, or the meaning of life, was not told that it was a foolish question, or given an easy answer. Jesus, a Jew, responded by referring to the teaching of the Torah, which said that we gain fulfillment and meaning by loving God and loving our neighbours as ourselves.

The fourth source of our faith says it slightly differently: it recognizes, I think, that loving our neighbour can be very, very difficult, but is the most important thing that Jewish and Christian teachings call us to do. It recognizes, I think, that only as we experience love - whether we call it God's love, or human love, or self-love - only as we receive it can we respond by giving love.

James Luther Adams said, “The meaning of life is found only by those who enter into the struggle for justice in history.” I suggest that we can hardly enter that struggle until we have experienced love. May this congregation be a setting for each one of us to receive love and thus be enabled to give it. May this be a place where we experience the Spirit of Love and learn to respond to it by loving our neighbours as ourselves, loving them by joining the struggle towards justice, equity and compassion for all the world. So may it be.