The Unity that Makes Us One
“There
is a Unity that makes us One.” This is one very powerful way of describing a
belief that we hold deeply as Unitarian Universalists. In the midst of our
diversity, in the midst of the beloved community that we aim to build, in the
midst of ideological struggle with others, and across this great big planet
that is our home, there is a unity that makes us one. This is the core piece of
Unitarian Universalist belief that we are exploring today.
You
are probably familiar with the idea as it comes up in the Seventh Principle,
respect for the interdependent web of all existence, of which we are a part.
This
idea of the web or a unity has been interpreted several different ways. For
many it’s about environmental stewardship. For some it is about social justice.
For others it is a theological statement about the nature of the Universe. One
understanding of the web revolves around the way most people understand the
word Universalism.
Some
people interpret the word Universalism to be a reference to the
all-encompassing nature of our religious tradition. We universally accept
religious truths from other traditions, and that religious claims are
universally equal in a way.
That
sentiment was especially strong in our recent history. After the second World
War there arose in liberal religion a great need to reach out across differences.
The answer to a divided and conflicted world, for some was a universalized
Universalism.
A
group of new ministers, known as the Humiliati. (Their name, taken from that of
an ancient Italian order, means “the humble ones” made the expansion of
Universalism their mission. They committed to the renewal of their denomination
with a new message of Universalism for the current time.
They
adopted the symbol of the off-center cross, enclosed by a circle. I have a
picture of it here. This new symbol was an apt representation of their new
understanding of Universalism. The cross was off-center, and in the new
Universalism, Christianity would be off center. It would remain present in
Universalist thought, but it was time to make room for others, to make a
Universal religion that called on all faiths and philosophies available to
humanity. The circle represented the all-embracing nature of Universalism; the
off-center cross recognized Universalism’s Christian roots while at the same
time implying that Christianity was no longer necessarily central to the
faith.”[1]
While
the theology of Universalism changed, so did al the other trappings. The Charles
Street Meetinghouse became the physical symbol of universalized Universalism.
It was a historic church building in Boston. The Charlse Street Meeting house
was to be a new worship space of a new kind of religion. The interior of the
sanctuary was transformed to express the idea of a universal religion for one
world. The pews were arranged “in the round,” a large mural depicting the great
nebula in Andromada was mounted in the cancel, and religious symbols from all
faiths and cultures were placed on the walls.
It
sounds like a fascinating place, but the Charles Street Meeting House was not a
huge success. It “never attracted a large membership, partly because of its
urban location, partly because of financial limitations, partly because of its
experimental approach to worship, partly because of its minister.
The
dream was big, a Universal religion for everyone, one church that would embody
all faiths, one religious voice to speak to the world. They sincerely thought
that their vision might save a fractured world.
It’s
heart-warming. But, if you have been here for the last couple of weeks, you
have heard that I am growing to distrust that version of Unitarian Universalism.
Though for a time Universalism was understood as a universal religion, Unitarian
Universalism is more than a community that supports religious diversity. It is,
we are a tradition that inherits and upholds a tremendous theological
tradition. One of the pieces of that theology is a belief in a unity that makes
us one, a web of life that connects us all.
That
unity is not about a unity of ideas or a unity of aspirations. It is not a
statement of interfaith understanding. To the contrary, an appreciation for the
unity that makes us one is a particular
religious claim about the nature of the universe and about our lives. It means
that our well-being is tied up together. Injustice anywhere is a threat to
justice everywhere. What befalls our planet is our fate as well. The spark of
the divine and the capacity for evil that we see in our neighbors also rests in
our own heart. And ultimately, we realize that committing violence against
another is committing violence against oneself.
There
is a unity that makes us one. It is a religious truth that mystics pointed to
forever. We have our own mystics. Though they aren’t often called mystics,
that’s pretty much what they are. They are people whose lives were shaped by
the experience of awe and wonder they felt in the presence of the divine.
I’m
thinking now of Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry David Thoreau, and Thomas Starr
King. They spent their lives experiencing the miracle of nature,
connecting with the universe first hand.
I’ve
shared a lot with you about what Emerson thought or wrote. But this is a story
about something he experienced. It’s a story of him learning about the web of
life. As most intellectuals of his time did, Emerson traveled across the United
States and toured Europe twice. While in Paris, he visited the Jardin des
Plantes, the massive park dedicated to the study of thousands of species of
plants. It is important to remember the time he was living in though. Remember
Charles Darwin was a contemporary of Emerson. The very idea of evolution and
classification of species was cutting edge, and it enthralled Emerson. More
than the beauty of each individual plant, Emerson was fascinated by the
interrelatedness of all the species. Throughout the garden and the indoor
exhibits Emerson noted “how much finer things are in composition than alone.”
Emerson
gazed at the exhibits and saw relationships everywhere. Not only were the
specimens linked to each other, they were also linked to him. He felt his own
fascination with these plants as a fundamental relationship to them. He knew
that just looking at them, being aware of their biological interconnection
changed him as a person. It touched his soul and transformed him.
When
science comes up in discussions of theology the question that almost always
arises is evolution verses design. So too was the debate in his time. Emerson
didn’t reject the notion of a divine designer or creator of the universe. He
actually welcomed such a God-centered understanding of the world. But, with or
without such a God, Emerson was much more interested in the relationship
between the natural world and the human mind than he was in the natural world
as proof of a creator God. For him God was a bit of an extra to the equation, a
sideline issue. What he thought and what he felt was that the fundamental
relationship between all beings
was the most important thing, not the power that any God might have over
it.
Both
Emerson and Thoreau were inspired by nature and wrote about it. But Thomas Starr
King went a step further to actually say that nature was a source of theology. He
didn’t just appreciate nature or write about it. Thomas Starr King for the
first time American theology said that nature held truths about the nature of
life, about God. In his writings he used natural settings the way that other
theologians used the Bible, drawing out ideas and truths that were apparent
from the content. He saw in nature a world of interdependent relationships, and
a world a beauty. And most importantly he came to realize that we are part and
parcel of that same magnificent unity.
Some
of our most prominent theological forbearers were mystics. But I know they are
not alone. I know from talking with many of you and your own spiritual journeys
that the interconnection that is so apparent in nature has also touched your
lives in personal ways.
Weather
it is a sense of awe at the giant red woods, or openness and expanse at the
ocean or the simple enchanting beauty at a flower petal, I know that it is in
nature that many of you feel most connected.
Last
year I heard of someone remembering the moment as a child that he was under the
giant redwoods at sunset. The beauty of that moment made him feel in his heart
and soul a connection with all of creation.
I
have been awash in that sense of connectedness in the mountains of Colorado. When
I lived there, one of my favorite hikes was to go up to snow caps that melt and
feed the Colorado River. That beautiful pristine snow, above where any trees
would grow melts drop by drop, connection a desolate Mountain top with the
Oceans of the world. It’s a magnificent thing to be a part of.
Our
interdependence is most apparent to me, and I think many of us when we take in
the natural world. It’s also apparent in many other ways.
On
a more personal level, we are born through partnership and nourished by
relationships from our early to final days. Our lives are formed by our
relationships with other people. Though we may forget it, though Western
obsession with the individual creeps into our lives, the deeper reality is that
we come into being through relationship and we live our lives in it. It’s true,
some of us need more or less personal connection than others. We need varying
degrees of community and alone time. But there is a tremendous difference
between isolation and solitude. A little genuine solitude is helpful, necessary
even to develop our own thoughts. But isolation, loneliness, separation from
the stream of life that connects us one to another is never a good thing.
I’ve
spoken a lot about theologians of our distant history. There’s one other UU
minister that I want to quote from more recent history. Rev. David Bumbaugh was
a active in the merger of the Unitarian and Universalist traditions in 1961 and
actively serves a congregation today. He describes this the unity that makes us
one beautifully. He says, “We believe that in this interconnected existence the
well-being of one cannot be separated from the well-being of the whole, that
ultimately we all spring from the same source and all journey to the same
ultimate destiny.”
There
is a Unity that makes us one. It is a strong and clear statement about
ourselves and the world we inhabit. But like any belief, it is meaningless
unless it has a bearing on the way we live our lives.
For
many of us, the interconnected web comes with a tremendous sense of
responsibility. And rightfully so. In plain language, we humans have made a
huge mess of what we have been given. We have managed to nearly wreck this
world that we inhabit, because those relationship that sustain life are also
avenues for destruction. As we honor the relationships that connect us to the
earth and to each other, there is a good deal of room for repentance. That’s
not a word we use a lot as UUs. It sounds scary but it’s actually a great word.
The standard definition of Repentance is the activity of reviewing one's
actions and feeling contrition or regret for past wrongs. That’s a worthwhile
thing to do. But much of the nuance of the word is lost in translation.
In the New
Testament, the word
translated as 'repentance' is the Greek word (metanoia), which is a compound word of 'meta' (after,
with), and the verb 'noeo' (to perceive, to think). This compound word combines
the two meanings of time and change; so together it means: 'to think
differently after'. Repentance is a change of mind accompanied by change of
conduct. It is a change of consciousness.
An
awareness of the unity that makes us one is cause for repentance. Not in the
sense of guilt or simple regret. When we really grasp the fundamental fact of
our interdependence, it can lead to a tremendous change of heart, change of
consciousness, change of our lives.
As
we do change our lives, as we come to see our own fate intertwined with that of
our brothers and sisters, as we do what we can to give back to the web of life
that has made our very being, let us not be overwhelmed. Our job is simpler that it may appear. We don’t need to make the
universe one. We need only to acknowledge the fact that it is already, and live
accordingly.
We
don’t need to make the universe one. We need only to acknowledge the fact that
it is already, and live accordingly.
-Amen-
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