Across the country, today, or one of these winter Sundays, Canadian Unitarian Universalists are taking "Sharing the Faith" as the theme for their Sunday Service. Ever since I became a Unitarian, I've had a little trouble talking about "the faith". It's not so much the word "faith" that bothers me -- I understand that as indicating "what we believe", not involving "blind" faith. It's more that use of the singular -- "the" faith, as if our beliefs were a single entity, when in fact we are so diverse in our views. I tend to think that we have many faiths and are followers of many religions. Perhaps, though, it's possible to discern what one ancient document from our Unitarian heritage called "things commonly believed among us", and perhaps at the very core of those commonly-held beliefs is the welcoming of diversity. That may be the one faith we hold together, a faith that it's all right to believe differently from one another, that it's even a good thing, because it means we're each searching for truth and not accepting someone else's beliefs.
While my difficulty with today's title may be mostly with "the faith", I suspect that for some of you the difficulty may be with the concept of sharing it. It's all right if we just mean that we hold some beliefs in common here, that we share a common outlook, but "sharing" may also suggest evangelism to you, proselytizing, even a kind of pressure which is at odds with our principle of tolerance and respect for other people's faiths. Suggesting that we should share our faith may also provoke all kinds of anxiety in those of us who have a hard time expressing our feelings about anything more personal than last week's Super Bowl game or what's the best place for a winter holiday. While I respect the reservations we may have about sharing our faith with others too loudly or forcefully, I want to repeat what I said a few weeks ago about why I think we need to share it: there are many spiritually homeless people out there (and perhaps in here, too), and just like the physically homeless, most of them crave a warm place of their own, a shelter from the winter chill, walls that are strong to keep hate out and hold love in. The desire to share, the sense that we need to share, comes from a recognition of our own abundant good fortune in having a spiritual home and a hope that others might be similarly blessed. When you've got something good, don't hug it to yourself, pass it on!
A few years ago, I was asked to give a workshop at a St. Lawrence District meeting with the title "What's Our Good News?" Well, I think I actually had some input into the title, but it's not that I was setting up the question because I already had the answer, the way it is on Jeopardy, one of my favourite shows. The question's not an easy one, not one to which I have a ready-made answer, but it seems to me one that's essential to answer before we even think about "sharing the faith". What IS the faith? It had better be good, or nobody's going to be very responsive to having it shared with them. What's our good news, the core of what we believe together? What do we have that's worth sharing?
The minister at Grosse Pointe Unitarian Church, in Michigan, John Corrado, was asked not too long ago to write an article for "Quest", the publication of the Church of the Larger Fellowship, an organization for isolated Unitarian Universalists. The editor of "Quest" at that time, Scott Alexander, asked John to write a litany (or responsive prayer) celebrating our core Unitarian Universalist beliefs. I adapted it slightly, to make it my own, and I present it to you this morning as a starting point for your own reflections on the question, "What's the faith? What's our good news?" That's what I did in my workshop, in the hope that once we had all thought deeply on this question, and framed some tentative personal answers, we'd be in a better position to share the faith. Here's my adaptation of John Corrado's ten good news items.
1. There is room at life's table for each and every child of Earth.
2. Whatever the source of life is called, it is abundantly loving.
3. The afterlife is unknown, but we can put some heaven into this life.
4. Scriptures are helps for conducting our search into truth.
5. There are more wonderful scriptures yet to be written and heard.
6. There are still saints alive; we can meet them and learn from them.
7. We can help bring about a world of peace and justice by how we live.
8. All human beings are close kin to one another.
9. We're related to everything else, too, from spiders to stars.
10. Throughout our lives we can grow, in heart and mind and service.
Well, those are the things that John Corrado believes are our good news. Your list of beliefs might be different. When I did the workshop, I asked people to try to put their own idea of our faith's good news into a list like that -- and then to try to distill it into one sentence of 25 words or less! It would be great if you'd try that, and if any of you are really fast thinkers you may be able to share your sentence with us by the time you come to our discussion after the service. But for a few minutes now I want to encourage you to mull over what it would mean to share the good news John listed -- and sharing requires letting go of some fear. Let's consider each bit of good news.
I suggest we shouldn't accept this statement of faith too lightly. If it's true now, it may not be true for ever, as the world's population goes on increasing. If it is true, I think it requires us privileged Canadians to squeeze up a bit more tightly and let a great many more people in to our part of the welcoming table. If we really believe there's room for everyone, we need to show it by inviting them to share the joy with us. Sharing the faith would require that, wouldn't it?
Again, this may be good news, but it's not obvious, is it? If the source of life, or creative spirit, or whatever you call the power greater than you, is abundantly loving, what was it doing during that avalanche in Quebec? Or during the Holocaust? Or when your greatest grief was happening? If it's true that there's a loving spirit in the universe, it seems to need some help being transmitted into human life. Perhaps its up to us to put that loving life-force into effect, to share that love. We may be the only form that it can take. Sharing the faith would require that, wouldn't it?
I hope most of us have had glimpses of heaven, however fleeting -- enough to know what it's like -- but bringing heaven to earth seems a dauntingly hard task. It's much easier to take refuge in helplessness and the notion that you can't fight city hall or other institutions which don't seem heavenly -- or that there's no way to get through to people who make our lives hellish. Bringing heaven to earth takes energy and commitment and patience and, above all, love in action. Sharing the faith would require that, wouldn't it?
This is a piece of good news I share enthusiastically whenever I can, but I find it's hard for many people to hear and may even come across as bad news. I suppose it's because we've so often been taught strange things about religious writings, particularly the scriptures of the faiths that most of us were brought up in, Jewish and Christian. Once you've realized that it's nonsense to treat the Bible like a science or history textbook, it may take a while before you're ready to read it again, but if you love literature and religious thought it's an invaluable resource. We don't have so much trouble with the sacred books of other religions, usually, because we've never been taught that they were the infallible word of God. We tend to trivialize those scriptures, I think, taking the bits that appeal to us out of context and avoiding a real encounter with their significance. Respect for great writings, familiar and strange, would involve trying to understand them as much as possible and expecting to find wisdom there that we could pass on to others. Sharing the faith would require that, wouldn't it?
Walt Whitman said this beautifully. He wrote,
We consider bibles and religions divine -- I do not say they are not divine; I say they have all grown out of you, and may grow out of you still; it is not they who give the life -- it is you who give the life.
So, when I read a new book, or watch a movie, or encounter ideas which I haven't met before, always at the back of my mind is the hope that this may be for me a fresh revelation, an inspiration. And once or twice in my life, someone has given that kind of life to some words of mine by the way they've read or heard them. It's why I love preaching -- sharing my joy in words. We can all find fresh inspirations and share them, whether in words or music or art or relationship or some other way. Discover new scriptures! Make them known to other people. Sharing the faith would require that, wouldn't it?
For me, there's a double good news here: not only are there people who're exceptionally good through and through, old-fashioned saints (and there are some like that in this congregation), but almost everyone has something exceptional, something of the saint, the holy or whole person, in them. You remember the Universalist gospel that God is too good to damn people, and the Unitarian gospel that people are too good to be damned: well, I thoroughly believe both those gospels, those good news items, and I want to share them. Find the saints in this congregation, the people with wisdom and love and experience to spare -- and there are plenty of them! Get to know them and introduce them to other people. Sharing the faith would require that, wouldn't it?
Now I'm in the quotation mode again: Edward Everett Hale said,
I am only one, but still, I am one.
I cannot do everything, but still, I can do something.
And because I cannot do everything,
I will no refuse to do the something that I can do.
And Margaret Mead said,
Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world; indeed, it's the only thing that ever has.
That's wonderful good news for anyone who has high ideals but feels discouraged: you can change the world! Share the joy by doing it, both as the one person who can do something and as part of the small group of people who can do huge things! Sharing the faith would require that, wouldn't it?
This is specially good news for people without blood relatives nearby, or people who wish they had different relatives -- you do! And here in this congregation, we're close relatives by virtue of the fact that we've chosen to be part of this small centre of religious freedom. Sharing our joy about this is simple: look at everyone as kissing cousins, even if they're not atheists or humanists or theists -- or even if they are and you're not! And be at least as honest with them as you would with your sister or brother -- and perhaps even more gently. Then think about how everyone here is related to a whole network of people outside the congregation, making them all our relatives. Think about the fact that of every twelve people in the world, Ida Fisher knows eight of them and you probably have connections with the other four! Be aware of those connections, that relatedness, and "take as your neighbour both stranger and friend" as the hymn says. Sharing the faith would require that, wouldn't it?
This is only good news if we're prepared to take responsibility for as much of the world as we encounter, and that's a huge responsibility. I'm not sure I ever wanted as big a family as St. Francis of Assisi had in mind when he spoke about "Brother Sun and Sister Moon". But if we really are prepared to do our best for our non-human relatives as well as the human ones, I think we will indeed find joy in our connectedness and in the sense that even when we're just one person, we're not alone in this world. We share that joy by the way we live in our environment, the way we tread this earth with gentle steps, the way we recognize, everywhere, the interdependent web of existence. Sharing the faith would require that, wouldn't it?
I'd even go further than this and say "throughout our lives we must grow"! We need resting places, in which we can consolidate what we've learned and find how to live it out. But if the resting places become permanent, if we don't move on to the next stage of growing, we begin to stagnate. The biological purpose of our lives may be simply to reproduce our species, but the spiritual purpose of our lives is, I believe, to learn and grow, and it remains our purpose as long as we live. The fruits of our growth are as various as our personalities. Your growing in mind and heart and service might include working with a committee, practising active listening, taking a new leadership role, starting your own support group, enrolling in an Adult Education course, collaborating with others on a Social Action project, studying the lives of heroic people and following their example, and perhaps meditating on your connection to other people, near and far. Not all these will be your kind of thing; perhaps none of them will. But something similar will surely be the form that your growth in heart and mind and service will take. Sharing the faith would require that, wouldn't it?
Edwin Markham wrote,
He drew a circle that shut me out --
Heretic, rebel, a thing to flout.
But love and I had the wit to win:
We drew a circle that took him in.
May we be helped to draw circles which take each other in rather than keep each other out. May the circles reach wider and wider. May we share the faith. So may it be.