THE FIRST UNITARIAN CHURCH OF HONOLULU
A Unitarian Universalist Congregation
"What Do We Have to Say For Ourselves ?"
A Guide to gently sharing your faith
by Rev. Mike Young
From the sermon preached February 1, 1998
at the First Unitarian Church of Honolulu
"Spirituality is becoming aware of your connectedness and learning to live out of that awareness.""It is not true that all paths lead to the same place. It may be true that we all get lost in the same territory."
"A rational faith ? Well, . . . Yes !
"Thou shalt not other !"
"I don't want better self-esteem. I want a better self."
"In the beginning was he big bang !"
"God could have told Moses about stuff like galaxies and mitochondria, but "Behold, it was good" was good enough."
"Nakedness is next to godliness. Emptiness is "
"To question is the answer."
"Your message here"
"You may be a Unitarian without knowing it."
"Has your karma run over your dogma ?"
Have you outgrown the religious tradition you were raised in ?
Are your children being told they're going to hell by the neighbors' because they don't have the right beliefs or attend the correct church?
Have you about decided that you must not be religious since you can accept neither the narrow dogma of the right nor the exotic beliefs of the fringies ?
And what DO you tell your children when the science they are learning collides with the simplistic answers of conventional religion ? Or, when the science they are learning IS the simplistic answers of conventional religion ?You may be interested in a church
> that respects human dignity, freedom and diversity;
> that thinks the human adventure is too important for canned answers and pre-packaged lives;
> that thinks questioning and caring and the joy of life are very much connected.
We are part of a tradition over 400 years old. We have included Five US presidents; Scientists Joseph Priestly, Alexander Graham Bell and Linus Pauling; Writers like Ralph Waldo Emerson, John Haines Holmes and e.e.cummings; Social reformers like Susan B. Anthony and Florence Nightingale; Even--believe it or not--P.T.Barnum.
We are a group of individuals and families who have chosen to create a religious community committed to continuing spiritual, intellectual and personal growth.
We respect, indeed cherish, the full diversity that implies. We seek stimulation from each other, not sameness. Here your experiences, beliefs and values will at the same time be accepted and challenged.
We understand ourselves to be intimately connected to and part of the larger world in which we live together. We seek ways in which to move that world in directions of justice and equity, compassion and wisdom.
We understand the universe to be One, and the differing religious perspectives of humanity to arise from differing experiences of that One. Each may have something to teach us, but none is final or complete for there is yet more to be experienced.
We practice religious freedom. We do not expect agreement to any creed or ideology. It is the experience of finding, creating and transforming beliefs and values that we would share together.
We have some answers. But they are the kind that encourage us to live the questions more deeply, rather than silence the questioning.
We would nurture in our children, and in the child in each of us, openness to the awe and wonder of the mysteries of life.
We would nurture in our lovers, and in the lover in each of us, trust in the intimacy that enlarges each in shared joy and heals each in shared grief.
We would nurture in ourselves and in our community the courage to risk newness, growth and change.
Our Flaming Chalice logo goes back over 450 years to a pre-reformation heretic named Jan Hus. His heresy was the insistence that the location of religious authority was not the clergy or the hierarchy, but the people. In those days, the people were served only the bread in the Mass. The wine was reserved for the priests. Jan Hus served the wine to the people. For this--the idea, not the symbolic act--he was hunted down and burnt at the stake.
Our Flaming Chalice is the cup Jan Hus served the people, with his funeral pyre above it. A symbol of the meaning and price of religious freedom.
Our Unitarian Universalist religious communities are founded neither on beliefs or ideologies, nor on the ideas of one teacher or another. Our religious communities are founded on the mutual covenant of religious freedom. Our task is not the propagation of a particular set of religious concepts, but the building of communities committed to keeping one another alive and growing: spiritually, emotionally, and intellectually.
We understand that there is no such thing as Christian religious experience, Jewish religious experience, Buddhist religious experience, even Secular Humanist religious experience, etc.; one of which is true and the rest of which are false. There is only Human Experience, talked about in, symbolized in, experienced in a rich diversity of languages, symbols and images. We are not interested in debating the truth of the languages, but in listening for the human experiences to which they give voice.
Unitarian Universalism is a heritage of religious freedom that has been around for over 400 years. At the time of the Protestant Reformation, Catholics said, "You must agree with us or we will burn you at the stake." The Protestants also said, "You must agree with us or we will burn you at the stake." And John Calvin did burn one of our guys--Michael Servetus--in Geneva.
Those who came to be called Unitarians said, "God knows what you believe. It is not our job to try to get people to agree with us. Even if by some miracle we happen to be right, we would still be asking them to lie. Our job is to provide a religious community that is both nurturing and challenging, and trust that people's faith will grow naturally and authentically out of their own experience." We have no creed but the commitment to share in a community that keeps us alive and growing.
Those who came to be called Universalists said, "A loving God does not send people to hell for honest differences of opinion." They weren't sure how, but they were confident that God would find a way to save everyone. They sent out missionaries who came back saying that the heathen and pagan religions had some insights and teachings that we might learn from. Out of that came the recognition that behind all of our differences of religious belief and theological language lie the same human experiences.
Historically, we came out of the Protestant Reformation. In the 17th Century, the ideas that came to be called Unitarian and Universalist spread to New England, eventually forming the American Unitarian Association and the Universalist Church of America. The two bodies merged in 1961 to form the Unitarian Universalist Association, a voluntary association of independent congregations now 1200 strong.
The root of our heritage lies in the insight that authentic religion must come out of our own experience and cannot be coerced. This church is characterized by freedom of belief rather than a creed. Our differing ways of talking about religion arise from the same human experiences. Each may have something to teach us, but none is final for there is yet more to be experienced.
We therefore represent a tradition of religious freedom that has grown out of Christianity into the full, rich human heritage of religious insights. We feel that no Faith has final answers because we are still alive and there is more to experience and to learn. We affirm and cherish that diversity as the best place to grow, to raise our children and to work toward a better world for all.
Our church tries to be a religious community that is both nurturing and challenging. We affirm and celebrate our connectedness and seek ways to live consistent with that awareness.
Participation in the life of this religious community is open to all without regard to any of the boundaries, real or imagined, that have divided us one from another. If the give and take of the adventure of trying to create a community committed to spiritual, intellectual and and personal growth appeals to you, you are invited to come, share and perhaps join with us.
We may have been looking for each other for a long time.