"But I Like the Principles and Purposes"
by Rev. Kimi Riegel
September 14, 2003

Reading excerpts from “The Language of Faith” Rev. William Sinkford First Jefferson Unitarian Universalist Church, Jan. 12, 2003

I believe that Unitarian Universalism is growing up. Growing out of a cranky and contentious adolescence into a more confident maturity. A maturity in which we can not only claim our Good News, the value we have found in this free faith, but also begin to offer that Good News to the world outside these beautiful sanctuary walls. There is a new willingness on our part to come in from the margins.

I spent some time in early November in Dallas with the President's Council, a group of staunch UUA supporters who serve as advisors to the Association. The evening keynote presentation was given by Marlin Lavenhar, the dynamic young senior minister serving at All Souls, Tulsa . In his talk, Marlin wrestled with finding a way to describe and talk about Unitarian Universalism. He told us about a painting he had commissioned to describe our faith, a painting that now hangs in the vestibule of All Souls. The painting depicts a colonial table, representing the roots of Unitarian Universalism in this country. And there are some books on the table: the Bible, recognizing the Judeo-Christian origins of this faith; a volume of Emerson, who taught that individual experience was a key source of religious faith and life; and one unnamed volume indicating that, for us, revelation is not sealed. There's a spray of flowers representing the diversity of persons who call themselves Unitarian Universalist and the diversity of spiritual paths we follow. Marlin is clearly trying to find another way to talk about our faith, and this works for him.

The next morning, Jim Sherbloom led the worship. He's a successful businessperson who is now, in midlife, a divinity student. He tackled the same subject, but from a liberal Christian perspective. The interesting thing was that neither speaker drew heavily on our Purposes and Principles, which is where most of us turn when we are asked to describe Unitarian Universalism. So I went and reread the Principles and Purposes. I know, I know…I'm supposed to know these by heart. But as I re-read them, I realized that we have in our Principles an affirmation of our faith, which uses not one single piece of religious language. Not one. Not even one word that would be considered traditionally religious. And that is a wonderment to me; I wonder whether this kind of language can adequately capture who we are and what we're about.

Our Purposes and Principles date to the merger of the Unitarian and Universalist movements in 1961, when the effort to find wording acceptable to all Unitarians and Universalists -- Humanist and Theist -- nearly derailed the whole process.

They serve us well as a covenant, holding out a vision of a more just world to which we all aspire despite our differences, and articulating our promise to walk together toward making that vision a reality, whatever our theology. They frame a broad ethic, but not a theology. They contain no hint of the holy.

I think we need to cultivate what UU minister David Bumbaugh calls a "vocabulary of reverence."

Now David is a Humanist. And he believes that Humanists, who "once offered a serious challenge to liberal religion, now find [themselves] increasingly engaged in a monologue," largely because of a vocabulary inadequate to engage other people of faith. "We have manned the ramparts of reason and are prepared to defend the citadel of the mind," Bumbaugh writes. "But in the process of defending, we have lost…the ability to speak of that which is sacred, holy, of ultimate importance to us, the language which would allow us to enter into critical dialogue with the religious community."

Our resistance to religious language gets reflected, I think, in the struggle that so many of us have in trying to find ways to say who we are, to define Unitarian Universalism. I always encourage people to work on their "elevator speech"-for when you're on the 6th floor and you're going to the lobby and somebody asks you, "What's a Unitarian Universalist?" What do you say? You've got about 45 seconds. Here's my current answer: "The Unitarian side of our family tree tells us that there is only one God, one Spirit of Life, one Power of Love. The Universalist side tells us that God is a loving God, condemning none of us, and valuing the spark of divinity that is in every human being. So, Unitarian Universalism stands for: one God, no one left behind."

Rev. Sinkford goes on to say that he came to a theistic stance after a traumatic experience of the near death of his son.  He found prayer to be useful and comforting at that time and found a love beyond human love that held him. This he came to call God and it has stayed with him to this day. He continues:

I want to leave you with a bit of a poem that came to me in an e-mail, by Tom Barrett:

If I say the word God, people run away.
They've been frightened-sat on till the spirit cried "uncle."
Now they play hide and seek with somebody they can't name.
They know he's out there looking for him, and they want to be found,
But there is all this stuff in the way.

I can't talk about God and make any sense,
And I can't not talk about God and make any sense.
So we talk about the weather, and we are talking about God.

My growing belief is that, as a religious community and as individuals, we may be secure enough; mature enough to find a language of reverence, a language that can acknowledge the presence of the holy in our lives.

Perhaps we are ready.

Sermon: But I Like the Principles and Purposes

Angels, Atonement, Beloved Community, church, Devils, Divine, Enlightenment, Failure, Grace, God, Goddess, Ground of Being, Holy, Infidel, Jihad, Kingdom of God, Meditation, Mosque, Nature, Our Lord and Savior, Pagan, Prayer, Redemption, Spiritual, Salvation, Sin, Temple, Theological, Transformation, Witch, Worship. Religious words come in all shapes and sizes. No doubt some of these words you are comfortable with and others bring up negative feelings like anger, fear and memories of exclusion.  Each of these words is muddied by years of scholarly debate and personal experience.  Not a one of them is without baggage.  Lets just start there. Not a one single religious word is without baggage.  It is hard for us to engage in a conversation about religion when every word we use has baggage either for the listener or for us. 

So we can either give up, throw our hands in the air, and not talk about religion or we can begin the hard work of learning how to communicate with one another. Guess which one I choose? 

Of course, like Rev. Sinkford, I think we need to begin the hard work of talking to each other and our children about what we believe, and why we believe and then listening to what others believe and why they believe.  Unlike Rev. Sinkford I don’t think we need to return to or reclaim the language of other faiths unless it fits for us.

The most important message I want all of us to take away this morning is that this whole hot debate about religious language in Unitarian Universalist circles is a healthy thing.  It’s healthy to struggle with what we believe and how to express it.  It’s healthy for a community to learn to listen to each other, encouraging clarity and expression.  It’s the only reason I stay a Unitarian Universalist.  We aren’t about sealed revelation or creeds from above or the past, we aren’t about each of us quietly going our own way on this lonely path, and we aren’t about hiding in our own little UU corner. Unitarian Universalism is about being open to new ideas and ways of viewing the world. Unitarian Universalism is about being in this together and encouraging each other. And, maybe new to us, we are also about making the whole world a better place, which means we need to learn to talk and listen to folks of other faiths.

You can tell I have no strong feelings about this! But then I am sure none of you have strong feelings about this. HA!  I can’t wait until the after-worship discussion!

There is much that can be said regarding that last point, Unitarian Universalists in conversation with other faiths.  We have a long way to go as we learn how to express ourselves so others understand without being offended.  We have a long way to go learning to listen to people of other faiths without becoming condescending, becoming offended or on the other hand accepting the other just because they are different. We have important values to promote and a lot to learn.

However, I would like to leave the topic of other faiths for another day.  No promises though – you know me, I like to say I will write a sermon on it some day but we might just have to learn to let that go.  For this morning I would like to concentrate on the work we have to do in our own house.  The work we have to do learning to be together and encourage each other.

For the remainder of this sermon then let me take on the Reverend Bill Sinkford. 

As a starting place let me tell you where I come from.  I am a born and raised Unitarian Universalist.  As a result of this upbringing I don’t carry too many religious scars.  I wasn’t told what to believe and I wasn’t beat up for not believing.  I don’t carry any deep religious guilt or pain.  Oh, there was the occasional “friend” who thought I needed to be saved and at least one time that was a pretty frightening experience, but all in all I have very little religious baggage of the traditional sort.  Consequently I have no serious or deep-seated responses to the traditional religious terms.  I certainly can see where it has caused others a lifetime of pain, but that is an understanding born of listening to others not a personal experience.  Just so you know that’s where I am coming from, because I think it makes a difference.  I think those who don’t have the negative encounters can’t begin to understand the pain and isolation of those who do.  We need to treat each other with care, listening with care always, but especially in this case.

Back to Bill, first and foremost I resent the notion that if I am grown up I can use traditional religious language. What does he say, “growing out of a cranky adolescence … to maturity.”  While I agree that we need to quit being ashamed of who we are and what we believe, while I will whole-heartedly agree that we need to share our Good News with the world, (see my evangelical UU sermon from last year),  I don’t buy the notion that it was immaturity that caused this faith tradition to shy away from more traditional Christian terms. Those terms simply weren’t working any more. Traditional language, especially the Christian variety, didn’t capture the experiences and thinking of our people at that time.  Some have even arrogantly suggested that we grew up and matured out of traditional religion.  Just so you know, I don’t buy that one either.  The language Unitarian Universalists chose at the time the principles were written was a product of trying very hard to be a diverse group that could walk together. 

Our gift is that diversity. But more important is our struggle to stand together in diversity. Different language will work for different people, our Unitarian Universalist religious language will be as diverse as we are.  For some the language of Christianity or Buddhism will capture their personal experience. For some the language will be that of science, for others it will be the metaphors of the indigenous or earth-based traditions.  Our religious language will sound like the halls at the International School.  The kids there come from all over the world and the language of the school hallways is mostly German, some French and some Spanish sprinkled in with the English.  Our religious language will sound international, interfaith.

As one of my colleagues in New Mexico says, for Unitarian Universalists this language diversity means we will have to ask for explanations and details and listen carefully.” He goes on to say, “we will have to supportively question [each other] into greater clarity of expression about what is deepest and most important in our lives. And, he says, we must not impose our own definitions and associations upon [another’s] words. It is important everywhere, but especially true when listening to religious language, that we follow the advise of the great philosopher of language, Ludwig Wittgenstein: the meaning of the words, phrases, sentences, is best discovered by studying their USE, not by jumping to definition. We must listen very carefully and deeply to understand how our UU acquaintances are using what may be familiar and argued-about words.”

When I listen very carefully to Rev. Sinkford’s elevator speech where he talks about God and says he leaves no one behind, I ask questions like,  “What does God mean for you?” And I say things like, “sometimes when I hear the word God it feels like it leaves me behind.” And I ask about that phrase, “leaving behind,” Where are you going that someone might get left?  Do you expect that we are going to the same place?  What if I want to be left behind?  Bill’s answers will undoubtedly lead to more questions and most importantly lots of hard, carefully listening.   I know Bill well enough to know that he is a great listener.  And you can bet since he preached this sermon he as done oodles of listening.  I think we can all learn from his willingness to step out, start the conversation and then listen intently.

Language is flawed. Listening is flawed.  Yet we need both because we have decided that we don’t want to do this alone.  We are in religious community, which means emphasis on the together part. For some of us, religious language will mean liberating our past language from the orthodoxy of our childhood. For some, religious language will mean finding new words or borrowing those of other faiths or poetry. 

One of my colleagues used this quote from Madame Bovary to describe our predicament and condition: “Human speech is like a cracked kettle on which we tap crude rhythms for bears to dance to while we long to make music that will melt the stars.” We want to melt the stars. But what we have is a language that doesn’t quite work because it’s a cracked kettle that won’t produce the sounds we desire.

And now we come to the place I really disagree with Bill and lots of others. For me the principles and purposes are the best cracked kettle we’ve got and they make my stars dance. Lets take just a minute to open our hymnals to the front and read.  It’s too bad they don’t touch Bill like they do me. And maybe because they don’t, we need to look at them again. But for my money they are some of the most mature religious language there is. I side with the Director of Religious Education from the UU Church in Syracuse NY .  She suggests that we don’t need more or different words (she calls that a typical Unitarian Universalist trap) but instead we ought to try to live the words we have.  She writes in her sermon titled Living Words:

“Have you tried to live these principles? Have you draw from these sources for your living? Sinkford says that the man who headed the committee largely responsible for the current wording had wondered out loud how likely it would be that many would ask to have these read on their death bed for solace and support. I think he was trying to make the point that few would. I’d be in the minority on that one! I would say yes. Read them to me. Tell me I was faithful. Tell me I did my best to try to help children live them. Tell me I lived them to the best of my ability… that I was just, compassionate, that I had honored your dignity. Tell me that I have tried to work for global peace, that my relationships were equitable, that I listened to my conscience and worked with you every day to make decisions that would better this world. Tell me about the sources that I grew from--Read me the sacred stories. Share memories of when we sat on a beach or hiked a mountain, when I listened well to you when you were confronted with a death of someone close, or the joy of the birth of a child. Tell me that I am passing with the voices of the prophets etched in my ears, and their deeds remembered in the work of my hands. Tell me I have confronted the evil that I seen, that I have loved you as my neighbor, even that I have loved my life. That I took the knowledge of science in to account and walked softly on the fields, not leaving much harm in the wake of my living. Tell me I have fulfilled my promises to try to live these things well.” All I can say is Amen sister!!

This conversation has just begun, but my time is up for this morning.  It took many years and lots of listening to create the principles and purposes we have today.   We have more listening ahead of us. In every church of our association there are people who aren’t sure they belong or they aren’t sure they still belong.  Have we become too spiritual for some people?  Are we not spiritual enough for others? And what in the world does that word spiritual mean anyway? Have we drifted too far back into traditional language or is that a move forward?  Is there really such a thing as forward or back and how do I know which is which?  The words we use are important.  We need a language we can use to share our experiences.  We need to listen carefully and be aware of our own prejudices and buttons.  It isn’t going to be easy.  I trust we will continue today, right here at about 11:30 .  We will talk. We will listen. And we will learn to walk together getting closer to living our principles.

Let me leave you with these words of Rumi the Sufi poet.  His language, his poetic and metaphorical language captures religious community for me.

You and I have spoken all these words.
But for the way we have to go, words are no preparation.
There’s no getting ready, other than grace.
My faults stay hidden: one might call that a preparation.

I have one small drop of knowing in my soul.
Let it dissolve in your ocean.

There are so many threats to it.
Inside us, there’s a continual autumn.
Our leaves fall and are blown out over the water.
A crow sits in the blackened limbs
And talks about what’s gone.

Then your generosity returns:
Spring, moisture, intelligence,
The smell of hyacinth and cypress.

Joseph is back!
And if you don’t feel in yourself the freshness of Joseph,
Be Jacob!

Weep, then smile.
Don’t pretend to know something you haven’t experienced.
There’s a necessary dying,
And then Jesus is breathing again.

Very little grows on jagged ground.
Be ground. Be crumbled,
So wildflowers will come up where you are.

Try something different.

Surrender.