Centering Thought
“We need not think alike to love alike.”
Francis Dávid (A former Lutheran bishop and founder of the Unitarian Church of Transylvania, he was convicted of ‘innovative thinking’ and died in a castle dungeon in 1579.)
Readings
Our first two readings are excerpts from letters Jan Hus wrote while in prison. On July 6, 1415, Hus was burned at the stake, not long after these letters were written. The first excerpt was written to his friends on or about June 8, 1415.
“I still urge you for God’s sake not to let any one get a look at my letters, nor let them be made public, because I am afraid of the risk to individuals. Be careful both in word and in action. ...
“One of the doctors said to me that, whatever I did, I should submit to the Council, though my whole case was good and in order, and added, If the Council told you, you have only one eye although you have two, you ought to agree with the Council that it is so.
“To which I replied, ‘If the whole world told me so, as long as I have the use of my reason, I could not say so without resisting my conscience.’”
The second excerpt was written to the preacher appointed to Hus’ church after Hus’ arrest.
“June 21, 1415, To GALLUS HAWLIK, Preacher in the Bethlehem Church [in Prague],
“My beloved brother, Master Gallus, preacher of Christ’s word, do not oppose the sacrament of the Lord’s cup, which was instituted of Christ both of Himself and through His apostles. For there is no Scripture against it; but only a custom which hath grown up, as I think, through negligence.
“Only we ought not to follow custom, but the example and truth of Christ. Now the Council, on the plea of custom, hath condemned as an error the communion of the cup so far as the laity are concerned, and he who practices it must be punished as a heretic, unless he come to his senses.
“What a piece of wickedness, to condemn after all these years Christ’s institution as an error!
“Written in chains on the eve of the ten thousand soldier-martyrs, Jan Hus, in hope, servant of God.”
Our final reading is a contemporary rewriting of Psalm 126, by Daniel Berrigan, a poet, Roman Catholic priest, peace activist and once described as a ‘Holy Outlaw’ for how his beliefs informed his actions. [You may locate the reading in Singing the Living Tradition, # 590]
Sermon
Good morning and welcome to this church for heretics! Did you know most of you are heretics? It’s a good thing we’re not living several hundred years earlier or regrettably, we might all be burned at the stake like Jan Hus. I don’t know about you, but I’m proud to be a heretic and the descendent of heretics and martyrs. However, I hope not to die a martyr, like Hus, Francis David, and too many others.
Why do I call us heretics? The Greek root of the word means to choose. In our usage, it typically means deviation from orthodoxy. Someone who commits a heresy chooses for him or herself beliefs that are not approved by the group with power or authority. People like Jan Hus were heretics because they chose to resist church leaders rather than their own hearts and minds. Truth for Hus included sharing the cup or chalice during communion and preaching to the congregation in their own language.
Hus was not a Unitarian or a Universalist, he believed in the divinity of Jesus and the truth of the Bible. But he believed firmly in his right to interpret the Bible and be a Christian in a manner that made sense to him. He would not accept the authority of corrupt church leaders who sold God’s forgiveness and who focused too much on earthly wealth, power and glory. That’s why Hus is one of our UU spiritual ancestors. A hundred years after Hus’ death, Martin Luther agreed with much that Hus wrote, and he protested the same corrupt Roman Catholic Church practices and powers.
But Luther is not a spiritual ancestor in the same way as Hus, because Luther substituted his own orthodoxy for Rome’s. Our direct ancestry began when a Lutheran bishop, Francis David, rejected Luther’s more limited reforms and officially named a church in Transylvania ‘Unitarian’ in 1568. David and his congregants believed Biblical scripture did not support the idea of the Trinity, that God was Father, Son and Holy Ghost. Instead, they professed the unity of God, a heresy even to reformists like Luther. Fortunately, David felt safe to preach the humanity of Jesus because he received support from the king of Transylvania, our first and only Unitarian monarch. King Sigismund, in the Edict of Torda, proclaimed his country religiously tolerant and prohibited persecution based on religious belief. Unfortunately, after his death the next king returned the country to the Roman Catholic faith. David was quickly imprisoned, and died there, thus adding his name to our list of martyrs. His was not the last.
Even on American shores in the mid 1800s after Unitarianism and Universalism were firmly established here, we dealt with our own internal heresies and controversies. Two people we now proudly claim as our own were nearly tossed out of the fold for speaking their truths. Theodore Parker and Ralph Waldo Emerson were heretics within Unitarianism who severely challenged that era’s liberal Christian boundaries. The details of their history are for another day, but suffice it to say that our collective heretical history, of speaking truth to power, has resulted in the denomination we know today—firmly without creedal tests or doctrine which must be followed.
To some, this history may seem full of cobwebs and irrelevant. But for me that’s not the case. Our history, our story, lives every time I light a chalice, every time I walk into one of our churches, every time I freely discuss beliefs, and even every time we exchange flowers in a spring ritual inherited from Norbert Capek, one of many who died in German concentration camps for holding Unitarian beliefs. These heroes, and heroines, too, sacrificed their lives and gave birth to our free faith. Their lights shine brightly for me.
Free faith means you and I are not required to swear to a set of beliefs in order to belong here. It means you, the individual, are the final authority in deciding what you believe. No one can tell you what to believe; you are the heretic, you choose. No Pope or Bishop has power over you or me, and to insure that, we have what’s called congregational polity. That means each congregation, each church, governs itself. We choose who leads us from the pulpit and in the board room. Our churches freely choose to become members of the Unitarian Universalist Association. That word, association, is no accident. We choose to associate with other UU churches; we are not bound together except by choice. We truly are heretics in all ways.
Our history also tells the story of how we came to embrace the expanded theological scope we have today. We include atheists and theists, humanists and mystics, pagans and panentheists, plus all of us who may need more than one term to describe our beliefs, as Paul Peak indicated in his I Believe he shared with us earlier. Our history tells why Biblical scripture is no longer our sole resource for religious meaning, and what other sources we seek wisdom from. We are living our history.
Given all this breadth and no creedal tests for membership, it means nearly everyone gets in the door. Some of you may be surprised that I say nearly everyone. Can we have freedom of belief if not every belief is acceptable? Isn’t our religion the one that let’s you believe anything you want? Our boundaries are enormously wide, but they aren’t that infinite.
I believe our Seven Principles place limits on our behavior, if not also our beliefs. If you’re new to our church, you can find the Seven Principles, along with our Six Sources, listed near the beginning of the gray, hardback hymnal, on pamphlets in your welcome packet, and around the church. If you participate in this congregation, we expect you to act in accordance with these Seven Principles, even if you choose not to believe them. If you don’t treat others with respect, if you objectify and speak hatefully of individuals or groups, you don’t belong here. If you don’t allow others to have a voice, if you preach injustice, if your actions go against the Seven Principles, you don’t belong.
Because of this, some call the Principles a creed or doctrine, but they are not theological beliefs per se, so I think they miss being a true doctrine. Perhaps I parse words, but I believe the Principles are just that, principles or guides indicating how we are to behave with one another and with the world. The Principles are our unity, the values we hold in common. They are what keep our diversity from turning into total chaos. You can still hold your own beliefs and opinions about God, Heaven, the meaning of life, and other traditional religious beliefs. But we ask you to behave with respect, with justice, and with the knowledge that what we do affects others. It is why the Unitarian Universalist Association prefaces the Seven Principles with “We covenant to affirm…” As members of the Association and of this church, you and I must covenant, or promise, to abide by these principles, whether you believe in them, in the traditional sense, or not. But I hope you do.
So, how are we keeping this free faith tradition we’ve inherited? Is the light of freedom burning brightly? Have we honored our ancestors’ sacrifices and commitment to conscience by our knowing what we believe, aside from the Principles? Or has our freedom of belief come to mean freedom from belief? And could it be that with all this freedom, we just don’t know where or how to begin? I know what it’s like to have too many choice.
In my family, my husband is the one who usually goes grocery shopping these days. So on the occasions when I go, I’m challenged. Take the cereal aisle, for example. In these newer, fancier grocery stores, they might have more than one complete aisle full of various cereal brands and types. How am I to decide what I want? I survey the aisle from end to end and I lose track of what was at the beginning! I try to narrow my choices by mentally eliminating all the too sweet ‘children’s’ cereals, but sometimes I like them. I try to eliminate the high fat or low fiber varieties. Then I start to compare the labels between two similar brands. After what seems like hours, I often simply close my eyes and grab.
Sometimes I worry that Unitarian Universalism is like living in the cereal aisle. Imagine our six sources and theological breadth turned into boxes in the grocery aisle. What to choose? It may seem easier to stick with the Principles and not even go down that aisle. That’s one way to avoid the problem of misappropriation or misunderstanding the beliefs and culture of others.
Beliefs usually answer the traditional questions of religion. We wrestled with these in “Exploring Eternal Kwestions,” the adult education class I facilitated here during the last three months. Our group focused on such questions as ideas about God and divinity, our relationship to creation, the meaning of our lives, and how death impacts our lives. Our conversations were lively and we shared diverse views. We stretched our own thinking and some considered questions they’d never considered before—including me.
At the end of a session, one person boldly asked me why these questions mattered. I understood her to be suggesting that these abstract questions about the nature of divinity, for example, had no relevance for our lives today. I was momentarily stunned, and then I blurted out, “Because if we don’t answer them, Unitarian Universalism remains a religion of what we don’t believe, and not what we do. And I think we’re more than that.”
At the time, I thought that was a pretty good answer. I don’t like the fact that it’s often easier for us to say what we don’t believe than what we do. But I didn’t feel like my answer was complete. I kept thinking about the question. I wondered: because belief matters to me, am I assuming it matters to others? No surprise that it matters to me—I’m a religion geek. Not a bad thing for a minister. But my assumptions needed examining and I knew there was a better answer.
So why should it matter to you? My answer is: what may seem like abstract beliefs should have very concrete affects in our lives. I’m convinced our beliefs should impact how we behave, how we deal with the good and bad in our lives, as well as in the world. Do our beliefs comfort us? Do they give us strength? Do they help us live better, fuller lives? If our beliefs are meaningful, they should allow us to answer “Yes” to these questions. Beliefs shouldn’t be just held in the abstract.
For example, beliefs about the sanctity of life might lead one to adopt a particular stance on abortion, war, or capital punishment. Beliefs about life and death might lead one to decide whether to request particular medical support or not during end-of-life circumstances. Beliefs about the sanctity of creation might lead one to environmental activism. To hold a belief that requires nothing of you, to me seems meaningless. Like the old adage, I believe our talk should require a walk.
Personally, I believe life is a miracle, not because it was an intentional creation, but because it was not. Because it was an extraordinary convergence of physics and chemistry and biology. And because life, and our awareness of life, seems to be a one-in-a-zillion occurrence, it is sacred and holy and should be protected. And every creature and every other living thing deserves to be given a chance to thrive, to reach its fullest potential, whatever that may be. And that belief leads me to act for greater justice; to help others whose circumstances restrict or where systems prevent their full chance to enjoy this life we happen to be gifted with.
I believe this is the only life I will know and that demands that I not waste it. As a cancer survivor, I know how precious life is. When I die, I’ll return to the stardust I came from and my atoms will reshuffle or recycle into some other form, but it won’t be what I know now, nor will I have a memory of what I am now. I believe I will live on only in the memories of others and in whatever impact I have upon this world.
These are my answers to the standard religious questions. These beliefs affirm our 1st and 7th Principles. My beliefs matter because they lead me to act in the world in certain ways. If I believed something else, I might act differently.
Regularly, on Sunday mornings here, members of this congregation speak about what is important to them and why; we heard from Paul Peak today. Your beliefs may focus on answering the traditional theological questions or they may be more focused on areas of ultimate concern and value. I encourage those of you who haven’t, to write your own ‘I Believe’ statement, and then share it or not as you’re comfortable.
Being a Unitarian Universalist isn’t easy. Instead of a doctrine handed to you upon entry, we give you the Principles as guide, as aspiration, and as starting point. But don’t forget to follow the 4th Principle: the free and responsible search for truth and meaning. Whatever your beliefs, know them, claim them. Let us not be the religion of what we don’t believe. Build your own theology. Be a heretic—choose!
Alison Wilbur Eskildsen
Intern Minister
