To be sure, I want you all to know that I'm not a Christian by any stretch of the word. I simply can not accept, in good conscience, the idea that someone, anyone, be they god or man, could die for the sins of the world, and I think that pretty well disqualifies me. With that said, I also want you to know that
I love the church and I believe in the power of the church to change lives for the better. This sermon is about what I mean when I say "I love the church".
Before I talk about church, let me be specific about what I mean by 'love'. You see, for me love is not a noun, as the dictionary has it. It doesn't describe a concept, quality, relation, or feeling. I think we often incorrectly replace nouns like affection and attraction with the word love. But for me, love is a verb. It describes an action, something I do. So by loving the church I'm saying that in my imperfect way, I do things that I deem are best for it and all of its members.
And that is what I think church is all about. It's all of us, gathered to give and receive. Gathered, in essence to practice the art of love. But I would add to that essential that church is, in reality, something even more. And here is where I part ways with reasonablility. I would agree that it is completely unscientific for me to suggest that the church has a life, a spirit of it's own. But that is exactly what I'm going to say. To date I've never heard of proof, but I still believe it. The church is a living breathing thing that manifests itself in gatherings like this, all over the world and all through history to the dawn of humanity.
In fact, I consider myself a Universalist because I believe that every person is a part of the church, whether or not any individual is willing to accept that. For me, the church is a loving mother, and I a suckling babe. Now I've just described my perception not only of the church, but of how I relate to it. Note, this is my perception, it's how I understand my place in the congregation. But the way I see it, perception is what it's all about. I mean, we obviously can't change a reality by simply believing whatever we want. So it's how we perceive a thing that mostly effects our responses to it.
So, let's see. Church, love, actions, perceptions, responses. What am I getting at here? It was all brought home to me in a flash, the blink of an eye.
One night, I had a dream where first I saw myself standing under an umbrella. In the next image, the umbrella flipped over and became a chalice, and I was floating over the chalice. That's really all I can remember of the dream. The strange thing was it caused me to come suddenly awake and I immediately new what it meant. The dream was about how I perceive our church, that is Unitarian Universalism in general and in particular our congregation.
Maybe 'perception' isn't the correct term. What I'm talking about are the kinds of things we accept without question, subconscious assumptions that underlie our attitudes and how we understand our lives, our culture, and our universe. My dream was echoing to me through metaphor how I relate to our church at a most intuitive level. For lack of a better term, I'll stick with perception for the time being.
So, this particular perception was brought out to me through contrast and comparison. First, standing under the umbrella represented one way to perceive the church. It is a protecting, comforting institution that I support, and to which I subscribe. The church provides me with safety as well as community. It offers both reassurance and challenges me to become a better person. In this perception, I see the church as a covering, as an umbrella.
To me, this also seems a typical way of understanding and relating to our church, very Unitarian Universalist, so to speak. Furthermore, I would suggest that there is nothing intrinsically wrong with such a perception. Thinking of our church as an institution is certainly logical, and fits nicely with how the world appears to work. But, I believe if we continue to see our church as an artifact, much like culture, it can never provide the power that we see in our fundamentalist cousin's version of Christianity.
Before I turn to the second image in my dream, let me say that the power to which I just referred is not simply power to grow! Oh how I wish it were. No (and this is the core reason I feel compelled to discuss this), it is a power we must obtain in order to survive. I suspect the Unitarian and Universalist churches had this kind of power at one time, but we stand in danger of loosing it, of trading it in for the venerable ideals of individuality and democracy. Now these ideals are worthy and have there place, but they are not the source of the kind of spiritual power our congregation needs.
In the second image, the umbrella was flipped over, and became a chalice. The church was no longer seen as an institution to which I subscribe, but as the source of life from which I come. It is interesting that I also saw myself suspended over the chalice. I was not supporting the church, it was the other way around-the church was supporting me, giving me life, energy, and the strength to continue doing good.
This latter perception is the view that I desire to inform me. It not only applies to Unitarian Universalism, but to the whole order and practice of human religion, institutional or otherwise. I see religion as an expression of the reality of human connectedness, connection to each other, connection to nature, and connection to all of creation. And, moreover, there is real magic to be harvested in the experience of that connection. That, friends, to me is true religion, undefiled, and faith filled.
Now the Christians do much better at this than we. They define the church as a thing that "God builds." That automatically imbues the sense that it is a fountain of never-ending life. We Unitarian Universalists, on the other hand don't appear to mesh comfortably with that approach. But somehow we must learn to see the church not as a destination but a starting point, a source, and a source of life at that. Is it possible? At this point, I'm not able to answer that question.
Many of you may recall that I was the one who said "The reason why people go to Christian churches is not to be saved, but to experience new life, to be born again." I was talking to the Growth Task Force when I made the observation. Now I think that may have been somewhat shallow. It may be a reason to go to church in the first place-but the reason we 'keep on' going to church is because we see it not as something that covers us so much as something that enables us. We understand our church not as a resource in life but as the very source of life, that is empowerment for good will and deeds. I dare say, this is what the Universalist in you says too; we are all connected to the church, we are all coming from the church, whether we realize it or not. The church is not simply an honorable institution; it is a living breathing thing that embodies the best in humanity. It has always been, and it will always be so.
You may have noted that there was another interesting detail in my dream. The umbrella and the chalice did not appear together. Rather the umbrella became the chalice. Does this suggest that these two ways of perceiving the church are incompatible? At first this aspect gave me pause, but the more I thought about it, the more sense it made. I've now come to recognize that these perceptions are not only incompatible; they are in fact mutually exclusive!
At the beginning of my talk, I mentioned that perception might not be the correct term. So let me take a moment to clarify what exactly it is that I'm trying to get to. Perception, as used here, is about how we tie bits and pieces of existing knowledge together to produce the effect of understanding. In this sense, perception is closely linked to attitude. It is the cognitive equivalent of emotional predisposition. But I think perception is the more fundamental. Changing attitudes do not imply changing perceptions, but a change in perception will almost certainly be accompanied by a change in attitude.
Maybe I could rewrite this sermon substituting the word attitude for perception. But that would not be an accurate portrayal of my dream. True, what I'm really about is encouraging a healthy attitude towards our congregation. My way of doing that is to help those who may not have thought about their relation to the congregation begin to do so. What I am suggesting is that it's all a matter of perception. If we can learn to see the church less as the receiver of our blessings, and more as the provider of our sustenance, I suspect we will be ninety-nine percent of the way to realizing the true meaning of religion.
Now I've come to the point where an example might help to really bring this out. Think of a mother and her child. Which came first, the mother or the child? The mother you say? But the woman wasn't a mother until the child was born. They became mother and child simultaneously. Now imagine a world where the child comes first. The child, sitting at the console of a fantastic 'Star Trek' molecular cooker, plugging in choices for it's parental preferences, then tapping the enter key, and swish, the door opens and out pops Mom. Ok, I admit this is pretty unbelievable. Furthermore, I think we would all agree Mom came first.
The church is a kind of mother to us all. But it's not as obvious that the church came along before its membership. Indeed, it may seem a rather incredible step of logic to suggest that such could be the case. And, maybe like the simultaneous creation of the mother-child relationship, it's not relevant. What is relevant is our perception of the relationship. The child that created its Mom is not connected to her in the same way as a child of birth and nurture would be.
Thus it is also, if I perceive the church as an institution, I will understand myself to be separate from it. I may still support and love it. The institution may be part of me, in the same way as the child's invention is an extension of its desires, but the only connection is an academic one.
If I perceive the church as an organism, and moreover as the very organism that gave birth to my spiritual self, then I will understand myself to be a member of it. I will perceive that I am a stem, but the life force resides mostly in a vast underground network of roots.
Our congregation is a manifestation of the church; it is the flowering part of the organism. It has all of the qualities of an institution being organized, operated, and supported by its subscribers. But let us not be deceived by appearances. If you and I were to unsubscribe, the church would go on living, incarnating itself in any of a million forms.
To begin to understand the mystical, magical qualities of church life is to accept and recognize that it is something which precedes all of us and all of human history. The Christians call church "the body of Christ" and for me that metaphor goes a long way to capturing the beauty and depth of the reality. Unitarian Universalists also must find a way to see the church in a similarly profound way. What exact form this 'way' may take is beyond me. But I offer that the beginning of this road lies in how we perceive the church and our relationship to it.
We must begin to see the church as our provider, metabolizing the spiritual food it offers, and directing the endless supply of energy to the good works we are all eager to do. Receive the power to take risks, to stumble and get right back up. Do not choke the infinite life force given through our church by thinking yourself an adherent to the faith. Rather understand that you are a babe, a suckling, and that faith as well as hope and love are the nourishment that empowers you to discover the life well lived.