If you've been reading our newsletter, The Window, or involved in congregational life anytime recently, you'll know that the interface between religion and politics is a topic of lively and heartfelt discussion these days, especially since we took a congregational vote in April about the war in Iraq which was then being fought. You'll also have seen in the newsletter that we're having a 4-session Adult Religious Education programme on a closely related theme, starting tomorrow, called "Solidarity Without Sameness". This mornings reflections are a kind of prelude to those sessions, addressing a slightly different topic - how private spirituality and public action may be related - whereas tomorrow night and the other sessions will explore how taking action and making statements can happen without causing people to feel excluded and alienated and misrepresented. I hope that many of you at this morning's service will be able to bring your thoughts and questions and responses to the session tomorrow night and the other three nights.

Please don't think that if you're here today you'll just be getting a rerun tomorrow evening, or - worse - that I'm taking advantage of the pulpit to give you the same message twice, while the other participants in later weeks only get to put their point of view once! That would not only be unfair, it would undercut a good part of my message. So here's the gist (for me) of that distinction and difference between today's reflection and tomorrow evening's programme: today I'm suggesting that politics and religion belong together; tomorrow I'll be exploring how we can prevent the integration of politics and religion from becoming divisive.

I'm going to begin today's reflections with a brief exploration of the private sphere, sometimes called "spirituality" to distinguish it from "the social gospel" as our convictions about the public sphere are sometimes called. If you're allergic to either or both of the words "spirituality" and "gospel" or to any of the others I may use this morning, it's fine to think instead of the inner and outer aspects of our lives, or as contemplation and action, or ...... well, private and public do it pretty well, I think! But the very fact that we have these sensitivities to words and concepts and ways of being a congregation points out the complexity of this topic.

Here's a meditation by Rev. Carol Karlson, who was at one time the Minister in Hamilton - words which express, I think, what so many of us come to Unitarian House for on a Sunday morning. See if it speaks to you:

We come to free ourselves of that which clutters and distracts: the busy world of commerce, the unfinished family obligations, the impatient pace of a too-full day.

Let us empty ourselves, for a time, of the shrill voices, the constant demands.

Let us empty ourselves of the burden of yesterday, of nagging prejudices and wrongs of times past.

Let us empty ourselves of the disguises and excuses in which we hide ourselves from others and our responsibility to them.

Let us seek to overlook the foibles and imperfections within ourselves and others.

Let us make space in ourselves for peace and wholeness, a forgiving spirit and a wellspring of laughter.

Let us make space for contentment and compassion, for openness and humility, as we shake off for a while the burden of individual need and seek the common good.

It's that final line about seeking the common good which will link up, in a few moments, with the public sphere. After all, one definition of spirituality (and it's one that has always appealed to me) is: the lifelong task of bringing into congruence one's beliefs with one's way of being in the world. But let's not leave too quickly the sphere that we usually think of as being private, the inner life of thought and feeling. Rev. Tom Owen-Towle, a recently retired UU Minister in the U.S., tells us that

After death, Egyptians believed they would be confronted by the god Osiris with a quiz that had to be answered honestly. After forty-two routine questions concerning how the deceased had lived, Osiris asked a crucial two-part question: First, did you find joy? And second, did you bring joy?

Only if they answered these questions affirmatively were they given the gift of continuing life. And note that the first question was about the private sphere, "Did you find joy?" This was seen as the starting point of eternal life - to experience joy!

Some of you may recognize these words from a longer poem about what's most important about a person, and it's very "interior":

It doesn't interest me where or what or with whom you've studied:
I want to know what sustains you from the inside when all else falls away;
I want to know if you can be alone with yourself,
And if you truly like the company you keep in the empty moments.

In similar vein are these words by Linda Weltner:

Empty spaces come in all sizes. Even in those moments we seek to rush past -- those interminable Sunday afternoons alone, evenings when plans suddenly fall through, the end of a time-consuming project -- even in those moments we feel the shadow of a larger emptiness and sense its power to alter the way we customarily define ourselves. In this space between what we have done and what we will do lies a great fear. In silence, what of our being can we express? In stillness, what of our being can we enact?

And Journalist Azar Nafisi wrote in the New York Times soon after the 9/11 events:

These days I am often asked what I did in Tehran as bombs fell during the Iran-Iraq war. ..... I tell them that I read James, Eliot, Plath and great Persian poets like Rumi and Hafez. ..... it is precisely during such times, when our lives are transformed by violence, that we need works of imagination to confirm our faith in humanity, to find hope amid the rubble of a hopeless world.

Spirituality, imagination - these are perhaps not very different things. The theme that runs through all the words I've presented to you is, I suggest, that the growth and development of individual personal spirit is not opposed in any way to life in the public sphere, but is a necessary grounding, a foundation for public action and being. As Carol Karlson said, "We come to free ourselves of that which clutters and distracts," so that we can better "seek the common good." The question certainly remains, about whether action or contemplation is or should be the primary focus of a religious community, but the nurturing of the inner self surely must have an important place. If you enjoyed, as I did, Mag's playing of "Wouldn't it be loverly?" you may have reflected that all Eliza Doolittle wanted was a comfortable chair in which to sit and be warmly quiet. In Edwardian England she was not likely to be able to nurture her spirit except by the charity of someone well-to-do - which suggests the need for more than contemplation in bringing about justice - but growing one's soul, as some call it, is a primary task and a primary goal, however we do it, and whether we believe it comes before action, or from action.

Let's remain seated while we sing about that freeing and calming of the spirit, which is a vital part of the need each of us expressed, consciously or not, as we came in the doors of Unitarian House this morning.

There are strong traditions within Christianity and other religions which claim that religion is entirely an internal matter. While many (though not all) of these schools of thought acknowledge that people of faith should be involved in caring for the world, they would say that this kind of activity comes about as a result of an individual's internal spiritual growth, and that religion belongs only in that private sphere of life. Examples of such thinking are to be found among Catholic and Protestant Christians and notably among such people as the Amish, the old order Mennonites, Jehovah's Witnesses, and others who consider themselves and their religious communities very separate from ordinary wordly life.

Judaism as a whole has never accepted this view, although there are certainly mystical and devotional schools within Judaism which emphasize inner spirituality rather than worldly involvement. And orthodox Jews are certainly extremely concerned with personal adherence to complicated rules of life. But the thrust of Judaism is and has always been summed up by these words from the prophet Amos:

I hate, I despise your festivals, and I take no delight in your solemn assemblies ... But let justice roll down like waters, and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream.

Mainstream Christianity is certainly closer to that view, with many churches getting fully involved in public life, and the Unitarian Universalist tradition which sprang out of Judaism and Christianity has always been firmly on the side of public action as an essential part of who we are. You may have heard it said, with truth I think, that Unitarians care less about life after death than about life before death; we care more about this world, about the public sphere, than about the next world. Our congregations covenant to affirm and promote the goal of world community, with peace, liberty and justice for all. The commitment may come from inner spirituality, but it essentially takes outer form. As the influential Icelandic Unitarian Emil Gudmunson wrote, Unitarians generally strive to be "bold in bringing to fruition the golden dreams of human kinship and justice, ..... that the fields of promise [may] become fields of reality."

It has, in fact, been true historically that Unitarians have tended to emphasize the public sphere at the expense of the private. We may indeed be very individualist in our orientation compared to most other traditions, with less "theology of community" than most, but we've usually been in the forefront of social action, right up there with the Quakers and Mennonites and a few steps ahead of the United Church and others, at least until recently. Sometimes we've neglected the inner dimension dramatically, and have even been suspicious of any references to it: words such as spirituality and worship have raised the hackles of those who grew up in homes and schools stressing personal piety while overlooking the sins of society. It hasn't been unusual in some congregations, until a few years ago and in a few even now, for a Sunday Service to be almost indistinguishable from a University lecture, entirely concerned with matters of public interest and finding any reference to an interior religious life almost embarrassing. It's very unlikely that someone with that kind of outlook would look to their congregation or its leaders for advice about their psyche (or soul; they're basically the same word and meaning) - they'd go to a psychiatrist instead. And they might be almost as eager as an old order Mennonite to insist on the separation of church and state, despite the fact that in Canada, as distinct from the U.S., no such separation is enshrined in our charters or Constitution. For the kind of Unitarian sometimes referred to as the "rugged humanist" type, the main reason to belong to a congregation is to be able to act with others on matter of social concern. It may not matter very much whether we know why we're working in a particular cause, as long as we do it, together.

I'll come back to the challenge of bringing together the private and the public spheres, but before I do, let's sing a hymn expressing the Unitarian conviction that the role of religious people, people who are tied together by their convictions, is to bring justice to the world. You may recognize in this hymn words which I've already quoted, from the Hebrew scriptures on which the hymn is based. As we sing it, let's ponder who are the "we" referred to all the way through - are "we" people of a certain political party who can act together because we all know what our platform is? Or are "we" separate individuals, working independently of one another but inspired by our religious community to do our personal bits for justice, equity and compassion in the world in our own varying ways? Or could it be something in between, or even both? Just notice that it's never, "I'll build a land;" always "we."

So far, I've suggested that we have in our congregations - certainly in this one, which while unique is also fairly typical - two major needs among the members and friends: the need for a haven or respite from everyday concerns and the clamor of the world situation, a place in which spirituality and the inner life can be nurtured; and the need for a community in which we can join with others to address those very concerns and work for a better world. How can this congregation, and our Unitarian Universalist movement meet either or both those needs? Should we even be trying to meet both, or better restrict ourselves to one? What should be the role of religion, that which holds us together, in the private and public spheres? Both seem to be somewhat problematic for various people - those who resist the concept of the "spiritual" realm, fearing that it's a return to the style of an old-time religion that they've rejected, and those who fear that involvement in social action and political issues makes it impossible for us to be that safe haven which is so important to them.

The question of how to be involved in the public sphere without causing anyone to feel excluded or disvalued is what we'll be looking at in those sessions starting tomorrow night on Solidarity without Sameness. For this morning, I just want to suggest - no, that sounds too tentative, and this is something I feel really strongly about! - I want to affirm my conviction that each of us, and this congregation as a whole, and religious thinking and religious institutions generally, should be involved as fully as possible in both the private and public spheres.

I believe that the role of religion generally, and of our religion specifically, is to nurture the spirit both of the individuals and the groupings within it and to encourage both the varying individuals and the varying groups to put their beliefs and values into practice, into their living in this world which we all belong to. We UUs are about engagement and action, not about withdrawal and passivity. What we believe about ultimate reality surely can not be divorced from what we believe about the present reality of life here and now, for us and for the rest of humanity. And as our great religious educator, Sophia Lyon Fahs says, "It matters what we believe." It translates into how we live, individually, personally, culturally, socially, politically.

Here is the role of religion in the public sphere in the words of Mark Morrison-Reed, co-Minister of First Unitarian Congregation of Toronto:

"It is the church that assures us that we are not struggling for justice on our own, but as members of a larger religious community. The religious community is essential, for alone our vision is too narrow to see all that must be seen, and our strength too limited to do all that must be done."

Not struggling for justice on our own - that, to my mind, is the key role of religion, to give us that assurance that we are not struggling alone and that caring for the world is a religious concern. Naturally, more than the words are needed. The assurance comes, I think from seeing members of our community working for the causes they hold dear - hearing their testimony, if they're working individually, joining with them if there's something that's done better together. And so many things are done better together! You probably know that saying of Margaret Mead that's a favourite among us:

Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world; indeed it's the only thing that ever has.

There have certainly been individuals who have influenced the course of events and exerted change - Gandhi, Jesus, Joan of Arc, Martin Luther and Martin Luther King -- but they've always needed supporters and co-workers. Even a few, even two or three, are more than two or three times as powerful as one working alone. Together we can change the world! And that, surely, is one of the great purposes of religion - to help us change the world by bringing us together for action.

There's a sense, I think, in which we should constantly be trying to erase whatever separation there is between church and state - that is to say, between what we believe and practise religiously and what we believe and practise socially and politically. Like most of you, I imagine, I don't want any one form of religion to become official or be taught in our schools - we are way too diverse in our convictions for that - but I do want the religious convictions of every one of us to be acted out in our education system and our health care system and all the ways in which we try to care for one another better than any of us could do it on our own. An Islamic scholar has said that Christianity went off the rails when it interpreted what Jesus may have said about rendering unto Caesar that which is Caesar's and unto God that which is God's, as if they were separate, as if the public and private spheres don't and shouldn't touch.

That brings us right back to the very difficult and challenging question of how we can integrate our private spirituality, our personal beliefs and convictions, with the public life in which we engage. When we are so diverse in those beliefs and convictions, how can we possibly act together in order to change the world so that it better serves the worth and dignity of every person, without imposing some people's views on everyone? That's the topic for tomorrow night's exploration and discussion, and I hope to see many of you there. For now I only want to say once more that it seems to me there are not really two separate spheres, private and public, but two interlocking ones, and that the role of religion, our religion and the religions of others, is to find ways of integrating them and of being whole persons. I end with the Quaker saying: "Your calling is where your greatest passion meets the world's greatest need." May we each find our calling, and may we know we are not alone.