Unitarian Universalism – Page 4 – Dan Harper

Chant as a Spiritual Practice

Readings

The first reading is titled “Meditative Singing,” instructions on singing, from the website of the Taizé community in France:

“Singing is one of the most essential elements of worship. Short songs, repeated again and again, give it a meditative character. Using just a few words they express a basic reality of faith, quickly grasped by the mind. As the words are sung over many times, this reality gradually penetrates the whole being. Meditative singing thus becomes a way of listening to God. It allows everyone to take part in a time of prayer together and to remain together in attentive waiting on God, without having to fix the length of time too exactly….Nothing can replace the beauty of human voices united in song. This beauty can give us a glimpse of ‘heaven’s joy on earth,’ as Eastern Christians put it. And an inner life begins to blossom within us.

“These songs also sustain personal prayer…. They can continue in the silence of our hearts when we are at work, speaking with others or resting. In this way prayer and daily life are united. They allow us to keep on praying even when we are unaware of it, in the silence of our hearts….”

The second reading is from The Spiral Dance: A Rebirth of the Ancient Religion of the Great Goddess, a 1979 book by Starhawk:

“Witchcraft has always been a religion of poetry, not theology. The myths, legends, and teachings are recognized as metaphors for “That-Which-Cannot-Be-Told,” the absolute reality our limited minds can never completely know. The mysteries of the absolute can never be explained-only felt or intuited. Symbols and ritual acts are used to trigger altered states of awareness, in which insights that go beyond words are revealed.

“When we speak of ‘the secrets that cannot be told,’ we do not mean merely that rules prevent us from speaking freely. We mean that the inner knowledge literally cannot be expressed in words. It can only be conveyed by experience, and no one can legislate what insight another person may draw from any given experience. For example, after the ritual described at the opening of this chapter, one woman said, ‘As we were chanting, I felt that we blended together and became one voice; I sensed the oneness of everybody.’ Another woman said, ‘I became aware of how different the chant sounded for each of us, of how unique each person is.’ A man said simply, ‘I felt loved.’ To a Witch, all of these statements are equally true and valid….”

Sermon: “Chant as a Spiritual Practice”

One of the most interesting aspects of being a Unitarian Universalist is that we are not told what kind of spiritual practice we are supposed to do. No one tells us that we should read the Bible regularly, as happens for many Protestants. No one suggests that we light the shabbat candles on Friday evening, as is true for many Jews. No one reminds us to pray salat five times a day, which is the case for many Muslims. No one calls on us to do chant the sutras, something which is true for many Buddhists.

We Unitarian Universalists don’t have a prescribed spiritual practice. I believe this is mostly for very pragmatic reasons. We have learned that individuals can be quite different from one another. While we generally feel that having some kind of spiritual practice is a good idea (most of the time), we recognize that what works for one person may not work for another. So we might suggest to one another that we find some kind of spiritual practice, if that’s something we feel the need for. But there are no requirements, no guilt if you don’t need a spiritual practice. (Guilt if you don’t help make the world a better place, maybe, but no guilt around spiritual practices.)

There is one downside to this pragmatic flexibility. If you decide that you’d like to engage in some kind of spiritual practice, sometimes it’s hard to know which one to try. How do we find spiritual practices that work for us?

This is more or less the situation I found myself in back in the 1990s. As a young adult Unitarian Universalist, I had tried and given up on prayer and meditation. I still attended Sunday services when I could, but I had a vague feeling that it would be nice to have something I could do not just on Sundays, but all week long.

It was about this time that I started going to some Unitarian Universalist young adult conferences, and I went to a Unitarian Universalist summer conference for the first time. Back in the 1990s, there were a lot of Unitarian Universalists who were also involved in Neo-paganism and other earth-centered traditions. I met some of these Neo-pagans both at the young adult conferences and at the summer conference, and discovered that they all seemed to repertoire of earth-centered chants and songs. I had never run into chanting before. I liked the simple repetitive feeling of the chants, because they stuck in my memory better. I also liked the meaning of the lyrics — a deep feeling of connection with the non-human world, and with the human world as well. As Starhawk said in the second reading, when I sang these chants with these Neo-pagans, we blended together and became one voice.

Chant lies somewhere between the spoken word and singing, and it has both the power of music and the power of the spoken word. It is deceptively simple, and it can be inspiring and moving. I soon found out that chanting of this type is found in almost every culture around the world. Here, for example, is a chant from Hawai’i…. [At this point, Mike Nakashima sang “Oli Mahalo,” or “Gratitude Chant,” an oli (chant) composed by Kehau Camara]

After listening to, and participating in, various kinds of earth-centered chant, I began to become aware of the existence of other types of chant.

In particular, I kept hearing about something people were calling Taizé. My first direct experience with Taizé song and chant involved one person teaching a simple song, and then leading a group of us as we sang it over and over again. The melodies were a bit more complex than the earth-centered chants I already knew, but it didn’t seem all that interesting. It turns out that Taizé chant is more than just simple melodies that are sung over and over. Most Taizé chants are meant to be sung as rounds, or with four-part harmony. If people can’t sing all the harmony parts, there might be someone like Mary Beth to play those other parts on a piano or other instrument.

I found that, for me, Taizé chants were not as elemental and ecstatic as the earth-centered chants I had heard and sung. But they were deeply meditative. Because they were repeated over and over, it was easier for me to learn one of the harmony parts. And even though it was far more structured than the earth-centered chant, Taizé chant also gave me that same feeling of connection to the people I was singing with.

There are other aspects of Taizé chant that I especially valued. First, while Taizé chants are distinctly Christian, there is a real effort to make them non-sectarian. The Taizé community in France, home of the chants, is a monastic community that welcomes anyone from any Christian denomination. Second, in an era when most Western religious groups seem to ignore young adults, the Taizé community makes a point to especially welcome young adults. Finally, the Taizé community has a distinctly internationalist perspective: an individual Taizé chant might be translated into twenty or more languages. “Nada Te Turbe,” a Taizé chant that we’ve been learning here at First Parish, and that we’ll sing in just a moment, has been translated into twenty-one languages. Thus, Taizé chant is meant to bind together a world that has become divided by religion, by age, and by language. Let’s sing together a Taizé chant that we’ve been singing a lot recently, “Nada Te Turbe.”

The third type of chant that I’d like to introduce to you comes from the Threshold Choir. The Threshold Choir was started by a woman named Kate Munger, who felt a need for a kind of healing music that could be sung to people who were dying. She began teaching others her singing techniques and her repertoire of songs, until now there are many Threshold Choirs. This past July, Kate Munger and the original Threshold Choir honored for their work by being invited to sing in the Smithsonian Folklife Festival in Washington, D.C.

About fifteen years ago, I took a workshop with Kate Munger, and learned some of her techniques for singing to people who are dying. She has singers sit around the person who is dying. The singers sing gently and quietly, but with power. Thus the person in the middle of the circle of singers is surrounding with gentle song. When her Threshold Choir groups are practicing, they take turns sitting in the center of the circle so they can experience what it feels like to be sung to. This helps all the singers listen better to one another, and it helps the singers to have great empathy with the people for whom they sing.

Some people have expanded the Threshold Choir concept to include singing to people who are ill or unwell, but not actually dying. My home congregation has such a choir, which they call the By Your Side Singers. My family had direct experience of the By Your Side Signers: in the last year and a half of my father’s life, they would go to his residential facility and sing to him. He was no longer able to talk so I don’t really know what he thought about it, but I liked the fact that someone would come and pay that kind of attention to my dad.

Even though I took a workshop with Kate Munger, I’ve never actually participated in a Threshold Choir myself, nor in one of the healing choirs like the one that sang to my father. But some of the Threshold Choir songs have stuck with me all these years, and I find myself singing them to myself. In the past couple of weeks, with all the turmoil in the world, I find myself singing one of these songs called “In These Times,” a short song I learned from my exposure to the Threshold Choir.

Chant begins as a communal activity: it’s something we do together; it’s something that is done in cultures around the world; it’s something that can bind us to people who are quite unlike ourselves. At the same time, chant can also be an individual practice as well, a kind of meditative singing that — to use the words of the Taizé community — “can continue in the silence of our hearts when we are at work, speaking with others, or resting.”

This means that chant is one of those spiritual practices that helps build community. Even when you practice it on your own, it is at heart a communal activity. Actually, this is true of any kind of singing — as you probably know, singing in community leads to all kinds of benefits, including relieving stress, boosting your immune response, develops a sense of wellbeing and meaningful connection to others, enhances memory including enhancing memory in dementia patients, helps with grief, calms your heart rate, improves sleep, and on and on.

This, by the way, is the pragmatic reason behind singing hymns in our Sunday services — singing is good for us. But honestly, some of our hymns are difficult to sing. By contrast, because many chants are relatively simple songs they can be learned more easily, even someone with little or no musical ability. At the same time, chant can provide interesting possibilities for skilled musicians: a more skilled singer might be able to sing a harmony part, or add accompaniment with a musical instrument that doesn’t overwhelm the simplicity of the chant.

Whether you’re a skilled musician or someone with no musical ability, the key to participating in chant is learning how to listen. Whether it’s chanting or singing, listen to the people with whom you’re singing or chanting. It is by listening while chanting in a group that the chants stick in your heart and mind; and in that way they can become a part of your everyday spiritual practice. This reveals to us a great religious truth. We can’t just follow a song leader or some other authority figure. We have to actually participate. Participating requires us to listen to those around us. So it is we give voice to what’s in our hearts and minds, and at the same time listening to what others are voicing is in their hearts and minds. This is how community is built: by listening, and by putting yourself out there, both at the same time.

Water Ritual, 2023

The Water Ritual

[introduced by Dan Harper and Kate Sullivan]

The water ritual helps us recognize how our common humanity connects us together. We symbolize that connection when we each pour a bit of water into a common bowl. The water ritual also reminds us that when we come together here in this meetinghouse we can become one in our common humanity.

As you pour your water into the common bowl, think about where your water came from. Then think how your water connects you with everyone else here. Perhaps you brought water from your kitchen sink, precious water in this time of drought, water that connects you with everyone else who lives in this watershed. Perhaps you brought water from the ocean, and it reminds you of how you’re connected to all the creatures that live in the ocean. Think about where your water comes from, and how it connects you to other humans and non-human beings.

Here’s how we will collect the water. Mary Beth will play music for us. When she begins playing, please use the center aisle to come up to the front of the Meetinghouse. When your turn comes, pour your water in the common bowl, thinking about where it comes from and how it connects you to the universe. Then please use the side aisles to return to your seat.

We come from different walks of life, from different ethnicities and races, from different political persuasions. Yet in spite of our differences, we are all connected, we are all one people.

Moment for All Ages

[This is a slightly revised version of my “Connected by Water” — if you want the PDFs for the large numbers, click here then scroll down till you reach it.]

We already heard how when we each pour water into the common bowl, it symbolizes that while we are separate individuals, we are also all connected. Now let me tell you how it is literally true that we are all connected through the changes of the water cycle.

You probably know about the water cycle. When it rains, water falls from clouds onto the ground, and eventually it flows into a river, and all rivers flow down to the ocean. Water evaporates from the ocean and forms clouds, the clouds drift over the land, it rains, and the cycle begins again. You’re in the middle of this cycle because you drink about 2 liters of water every day, and then you sweat or urinate which puts water back into the water cycle. Water is constantly on the move through the water cycle.

You probably know that water is made up of molecules, and that each water molecule is made up of two atoms of hydrogen and one atom of oxygen. Water molecules are incredibly tiny, so tiny you cannot see them. If you had 18 grams of water, or a little more than half an ounce, that would be about 6 times ten to the twenty-third (6×10^23) molecules. The molecular weight of water is approximately 18, and therefore 18 grams of water should have a number of molecules equal to Avogadro’s number, or 6.02 x 10^23.

This is a fairly large number. I can show you what this number would look like. This would be 602 — [start unfolding the large printed version of this number]. This would be 602 million. OK, if I go any higher, I’m going to need some adults to help me hold this very large number up (I need adults because they are tall enough to hold it up where everyone can see it). [Get three or four helpers to hold up the number.] Thank you! Now you can see this very large number: 6.02 x 10^23, or 602 sextillion.

If you’re a child who weighs about 77 pounds, or 35 kilograms, then you have about 20 liters of water in your body (adults, you can multiply up to figure it out for yourselves). That’s approximately 20,000 grams of water, or 6.02 x 10^26, or 602 septillion, molecules of water in your body if you’re a child. And if you drink 2 liters of water a day, you’re replacing about ten percent of that, or 6 x 10^25 molecules, each day. So if you are 3,650 days old (that’s ten years old), about 2.2 x 10^28 water molecules have already passed through your body. This is an even larger number, and here’s what that number looks like — [start unfolding the large printed version of this number]. Oh, I guess I’m going to need helpers to hold up this number as well. [Get four or five people to hold up this number.]

Because water is constantly cycling around, and because every human being has such large numbers of molecules of water cycling through them, there’s a very good chance that each one of us has at least a few molecules of water that were formerly in the body of Socrates, the great philosopher. We each probably have some molecules of water that were once in the body of Jesus of Nazareth, and of the Buddha, and any number of great and wise people who lived in the past.

Thus when we say that we are all interconnected, that statement is quite literally true. We are all interconnected through the water cycle, not only with each other, but with all living beings past and present. Jesus of Nazareth, Confucius, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Ellen Sewall Osgood: you might be literally connected with each of these good and wise people.

Readings

The first reading was by Linda Pinti. This is part of what she read during the original 1980 Water Ritual when she poured her water from East Lansing, Michigan, into the common bowl: “…I took my bucket and went out to the Grand River. As I gathered water I watched the river: moving, flowing, changing. I was reminded of an image in depth-psychology which tells us that each of us, each of our beings, is like a well: if you dig down deep enough into the well of our beings, you will hit the ground water that we all share. The ground water which flows between and among us connects us to each other and to the ‘All That Is’….”

The second reading was a poem by Pat Simon from the original 1980 Water Ritual. Pat’s poem can be found on the Unitarian Universalist Women and Religion website — scroll down, or search for “Simon” to find her poem.

Homily

Here we are, back together again at our annual ingathering service. And I wanted to tell you just a little bit about the Water Ritual that’s the centerpiece of this annual service.

The first Water Ritual grew out of the feminist movement in the 1970s. At that time, quite a few Unitarian Universalists started asking some hard questions about religion. For example, even though we started ordaining women as ministers way back in 1863, by 1970 almost all our Unitarian Universalist ministers were male: why was that? Another example: in those days, our hymns referred to all of humanity as “mankind” instead of “human kind”: again, why was that?

One of the people who was asking these hard questions was Lucile Shuck Longview, a member of First Parish of Lexington, Massachusetts. In 1975, Lucile Longview decided to challenge the sexist language and attitudes that then existed in Unitarian Universalism. She wrote up a resolution to be voted on by General Assembly, the annual gathering of Unitarian Universalists. She later recalled:

“I conceived of and wrote the [Women and Religion] resolution and sent it to 15 associates around the continent, soliciting feedback. They encouraged me to proceed, and offered suggestions. At First Parish in Lexington, Massachusetts, six other laywomen, one layman, and I sent personal letters to members of churches, with copies of the petition to place the resolution on the agenda of the 1977 General Assembly [and] we received more than twice the requisite 250 signatures.”

I met Lucile Longview twenty years after this, when I worked at First Parish of Lexington. She was quite a person. I can imagine her sitting around the big wooden butcher block table in the large pleasant kitchen of the Lexington congregation, talking over the proposed Women and Religion resolution. All eight of those people were parents, and Lucile herself had been the director of religious education for the congregation. All of them wanted to be sure that the children and teens in their lives were treated equally, no matter what their gender was.

I’m going to shorten this story by leaving out some major plot twists. Suffice it to say that Unitarian Universalsits at General Assembly voted unanimously for the Women and Religion resolution. As a result, we started work on a new non-sexist hymnal — that’s the gray hymnal that we still use. And we started supporting all genders to become ministers, so that now less than half of Unitarian Universalist ministers are male, and the rest are women and other genders.

Another result of the Women and Religion resolution came in 1980, when a large group of women gathered in East Lansing, Michigan, for what they called a “Convocation on Feminist Theology.” For the Convocation, Lucile Longview and her friend, Carolyn McDade, developed the Water Ritual to welcome the people who came to the meeting. They asked several people to bring water from wherever they lived. During the Water Ritual, everyone sat in a circle around a big bowl. The women who had been asked to bring water poured the water they had brought from home into the big bowl. Even though everyone shared just a little bit of water, soon the bowl was full, a symbol of how big changes can happen if each person does just a little.

The Water Ritual soon was adopted by almost all Unitarian Universalist congregations. (Somewhere along the way, people started calling it “water communion,” but to honor Lucile Longview and Carolyn McDade I’m going to call it the Water Ritual.) Each year, we have a Water Ritual here in Cohasset to remind us for two reasons: as a way of gathering together again for another year; and to remind ourselves that all genders are equally important.

I feel as though rituals and ceremonies like these are especially important in today’s world. I am deeply troubled by the rise of extremist groups like the Proud Boys, who tell us in their loud voices that women aren’t as good as men. I’m also troubled by the state governments that are passing laws that discriminate against transgender and non-binary gender people. These people do not believe that all genders are equally important, and equally good.

The Water Ritual also seems important when I remember that men still get paid more than other genders for doing the same work. And this is true everywhere, including in workplaces where you would expect equal pay to be the norm. One example is Vassar College, which has long proclaimed itself as being dedicated to equality between the sexes. You’d think that if any employer understands that women and men deserve equal pay, Vassar College should understand it. Yet the tenured professors of Vassar College are currently bringing a lawsuit against Vassar alleging that there has been a pattern of wage discrimination against women professors. Reuters news agency reports the allegations: “The percentage pay disparity between female and male professors on its faculty has grown since the school year starting in 2003 from 7.6% to 10% in 2021….”

And gender-based discrimination covers more than just the wage gap between men and women. Women and other genders are far more likely to be the victims of gender-based violence than are men. Women are far more likely to be victims of domestic violence than are men. Men, on average, have better access to better health care than do other genders. Men are far more likely to fill the highest wage jobs, like being the CEO of a company, than are women and other genders. All this is, quite simply, unfair.

So we Unitarian Universalists need to stand up for the dignity and the equal worth of all genders. Jesus of Nazareth and Rabbi Hillel both taught that we should love our neighbors as we love ourselves. The old-time Universalists taught that all persons are equally worthy of God’s love. Some of us might talk about the inherent worth and dignity of all persons. Or we might affirm the importance of what Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., called “Beloved Community,” in which all persons are valued for who they are.

Each year when we have the Water Ritual, we are reminded how we are all connected. And the Water Ritual goes beyond reminding us how we are all connected — it also reminds us of the essential equality of all human beings — all genders, all races, all ethnicities have inherent worth and dignity, are all equally worthy of universal love. May we live out this dream in our lives in the year to come.

Notes

See: “The Water Ritual” on the Unitarian Universalist Women and Religion website for the original 1980 Water Ritual.

See: “Water Rituals and Ingatherings, Revitalized” on the Harvard Square Library website for a historian’s account of the Water Ritual.

Who Are We, Anyway?

Readings

The first reading comes from the 2011 book “American Religion: Contemporary Trends,” by sociologist Mark Chaves.

Why the dramatic increase in religious “nones” [since 1990]? … The best explanation for the acceleration of that trend is that it represents a backlash to the religious right’s rising visibility in the 1980s. As Claude Fischer and Michael Hout put it, “the increasing identification of churches with conservative politics led political moderates and liberals who were already weakly committed to religion to make the political statement of rejecting a religious identification.” The basic idea is this: if I was raised, say Catholic or Baptist, and I am a social and political liberal who is not particularly religious, before 1990 I still would be comfortable enough with my religious background to tell a pollster that I am Catholic or Baptist. But after Jerry Falwell’s and Pat Robertson’s rise to prominence, heavy Catholic church involvement in anti-abortion activism, and extensive media coverage of the religious right’s campaigns against feminism, evolution, and homosexuality, I am less comfortable affiliating with the religion in which I was raised. Now I am more likely to respond to a religious preference question by saying “none” because that is a way to say, “I’m not like them.” After 1990 more people thought that saying you were religious was tantamount to saying that you were a conservative Republican. So people who are not particularly religious and who are not conservative Republicans now are more likely to say that they have no religion. [pp. 20-21]

The second reading is from “Why I am a UU: An Asian Immigrant Perspective,” by Kok Heong McNaughton.

“I am an ethnic Chinese born and raised in Malaysia…. I first heard the word ‘Unitarian’ in 1976 from a Taiji student of mine who was a member of the Unitarian Church of Los Alamos…. I followed the activities of this church through their newsletter for several months before attending my first service.

“This was a service about Amnesty International. It blew my mind. Back home in Malaysia, I grew up without political freedom. As students, we were told to avoid any involvement in politics. Our job was to study. Leave politics to the politicians. Accept the status quo. Don’t rock the boat. You’ll be OK. Try to make trouble? You’ll mysteriously disappear and rot in a jail somewhere. Here I was flabbergasted because here’s a group of people whose passion was to free political prisoners in third world countries! I never knew about Amnesty International. I suddenly felt this connection of humankind for one another, that there are people here in the free world who care enough to fight against injustices in the world. I never knew of a church that would take a stand on human rights issues. I had thought that all one does in a church was to sing hymns, praise the Lord, pray for one another’s salvation, and put money in the collection basket.

“After that first service, I returned again and again. The more I found out about Unitarian Universalism, the more it fitted. I particularly appreciated the use of science and reason to explore and to determine for oneself what is the truth, what are myths, what to accept and what to reject in building one’s own unique theology. I didn’t have to take everything on blind, unquestioning faith. Another aspect of Unitarian Universalism that makes me feel special as an Asian American is the emphasis on cultural, ethnic and religious diversity. I didn’t have to check a part of me at the door and to pretend to be who I wasn’t. My ethnic differences were not only accepted, but they were affirmed and upheld. People were interested in what I had to share: I teach Taiji and Qigong, I taught Chinese cooking classes, I bring ethnic foods to our potlucks, I even share my language with those who were interested. I am often consulted about Taoist and Buddhist practices and readings, and asked if I thought the translations were accurate. My opinion mattered. This not only gives me pride in my culture, but it also encourages me to dig deeper into my own heritage, to find out more in areas where my knowledge and expertise are lacking. It helps me to look at my heritage with fresh eyes.”

Sermon: “Who Are We, Anyway?”

Fifteen or so years ago, back when I was working at First Unitarian in New Bedford, an old college friend who became a rabbi paid me a visit. He brought his children along to see the church building, a big old stone pile built when New Bedford had the highest per capita income of any city in the United States. I pointed out the huge Tiffany glass mosaic behind the pulpit, and a few other historical objects that I figured visitors would be interested in. Then my friend the rabbi wanted to point out a few things to his children. “In a Christian church,” he began. “Well,” I said, not wanting to contradict him in front of his kids, “We got kicked out of the Christian club more than a century ago. So I’m not sure you could call us Christians.”

My friend the rabbi looked surprised. From his point of view, of course we were Christians: we met on Sunday, we had a church building, our services are almost identical to typical mainline Protestant church services. “Then what would you call yourselves?” he said. “Um,” I said, “Maybe Post-Christians? That probably describes us best.” While I said it, I realized that the term “post-Christian” would have little or no meaning to his children, then aged about 5 and 7 years old. Nor would the term post-Christian mean anything to the vast majority of adults in the United States.

This trivial anecdote gets at a big question: Who are we, anyway?

On the one hand, there’s a pretty good argument to be made that we are, in fact, Christians. So what if the other Christians didn’t let us into the Christian club when they formed the National Council of Churches, and later the World Council of Churches? Christians are fairly notorious for saying that other Christian groups aren’t “real Christians.” At various times, other Christians have said this about the Mormons, the Christian Scientists, the Seventh Day Adventists… and right now the United Methodists are splitting apart because the conservatives among them say that “real Christians” would never allow same sex marriage. Christians are pretty notorious for saying that other Christians are not Christians. So just because Unitarian Universalists got kicked out of the Christian club doesn’t mean that we’re not Christians.

On the other hand, while there are many Christians among us, I’ve met Unitarian Universalists who think of themselves as atheist, Pagan, Jewish, Buddhist, Hindu, Muslim, or nothing in particular. I’ve been to a number of Unitarian Universalist Pagan services that had absolutely nothing to do with Christianity. I’ve hung out with Unitarian Universalist Jewish groups, who are quite firm about absolutely not being Christian. Then there are the many sub-groups among us who don’t do any kind of deity — the atheists, the non-theists, the humanists, the apatheists (people who are apathetic about the concept of God), the religious naturalists, and so on. Among the atheists there are Christian atheists, atheists who want to retain the cultural aspects of Christianity. And then there are people like me, the wild-eyed mystics who don’t fit neatly into any of these categories. We have way too much religious diversity to be considered Christians.

Part of the problem is that Christians are generally allowed to have just one religious identity. You are either one thing, or another. You can be a Christian or a Jew, but you can’t be both. It gets even narrower than that: You can be a Roman Catholic or a Protestant, but you can’t be both. Christianity presents a distinct contrast to some East Asian cultures, where it can be completely acceptable to feel affiliated (to for example) Taoism, Buddhism, Confucianism, and folk religious practices all at the same time.

Another part of the problem is that Christians generally think of religion as being all about correct belief. You believe in God, you believe in the Trinity, then you’re a Christian — and then the Christians try to impose that criterion onto other religious traditions. However, any comparative religion scholar can tell you that there are plenty of other religious traditions that are not focused on belief.

A third part of the problem is that our Christian-dominated culture assumes that religion has only a few big categories. There’s Christianity, which is assumed to be the paradigm against which all other religions are measured. There’s Judaism, which is sort of like Christianity without Jesus. There’s Islam, which is sort of a branch of Christianity with another prophet. There’s Buddhism, which is sort of like Christianity because Buddha is a reformer like Jesus. There are some other major religions which kind of resemble Christianity. Then there are lots of “primitive religions” which are primitive because they don’t resemble Christianity. When you put it like this, it all sounds like nonsense, and yet a great many people in our society really do think that other religions are honest-to-goodness religions only insofar as they resemble Christianity.

In light of our societal prejudices, no wonder it’s hard to explain Unitarian Universalism. We don’t have a problem with multiple religious identities, like Unitarian Universalist Buddhist or Unitarian Universalist Christian. We don’t have one correct belief, but expect that we will all be open and searching. We don’t feel that Christianity is the paradigm against which all other religions are measured. By our society’s standards, we are not, in fact, a “real religion.”

And honestly, many of us are just as happy that we’re not considered a “real religion.” The religious right has created a climate where to be religious means being sexist and homophobic. The religious right has created a climate where to be religious means rejecting evolutionary science, rejecting climate science, and maybe even rejecting all science that comes up with inconvenient conclusions. The religious right has even begun to create a climate where to be religious means being a Christian nationalist. No wonder that a growing percentage of Americans, when asked to identify their religious affiliation, choose “none.” So if the Christian right claims that we Unitarian Universalists are not a “real religion,” that may be the best thing that could happen to us.

I’ve now spent much of this sermon in explaining, not who we are, but who we are not. This is the reality of being a Unitarian Universalist in our society: we don’t fit into the neat little box of American religion. I’m afraid we just have to get used to the fact that we’re going to have to explain over and over again that we don’t require people to believe in God, that we are not Christian nationalists, and that by American standards we are not a “real religion.”

For a positive statement of who we are, we can turn to the second reading, the excerpt from Kok-Heong McNaughton’s essay “Why I Am a UU.” A few things stand out for me in Kok-Heong’s essay.

First and foremost, as Unitarian Universalists we care enough to fight against the injustices we see in the world around us. Our religion does not exists only to support our personal spiritualities. We also come together to make the world a better place. While this might seem to be a characteristic of many religions, our approach is slightly different. Rather than having a pre-determined notion of what we should do to make the world a better place, we look at the many problems around us and use reason to determine where we might make the most difference.

The use of reason is an important part of who we are. Rather than relying on blind, unquestioning faith, we ask questions and and use our reasoning powers to try to answer those questions. Since we know how easy it is for us human beings to deceive ourselves, we also come together as communities to try to get closer to the truth. In other words, we use the principles of scientific method. Scientific method requires a community of peers to examine each other’s hypotheses and conclusions. You have to be willing to rethink your conclusions if other people show you evidence that you might be wrong.

We also attempt to value the cultural, ethnic, and religious diversity among us. This actually goes along with our search for truth: we know from science that all human beings have biases that we’re not really aware of, and in order to get through our biases to the truth, we need to constantly check with other people who may lack our biases. I will also say that this for me is the most exciting part of being a Unitarian Universalist. As a straight white provincial male from west of Boston, it’s way too easy for me to think that Boston is the Hub of the Universe and that there is no life west of the Connecticut River; which means it’s way too easy for me to take for granted things that I should really be questioning. Our religious, cultural, and ethnic diversity is one of our greatest strengths.

One of the ways we celebrate our diversity is by allowing the various individuals in our community to share their individual talents and expertise. You can see that here at First Parish. Our members teach our religious education classes to our children. One of our members with expertise in Buddhist practice leads a meditation class. Our circle ministries are planned and coordinated by our members. Our social justice programs are planned and led by our members. And while a minister leads a little more than three quarters of our Sunday morning services, close to a quarter of all our services are led by lay people. Each one of us represents a source of knowledge and wisdom, and we encourage each other to find out more where our own knowledge and expertise is lacking.

Our religion does not provide certainty. Instead of saying, “We have the one true answer so you better come join us,” we say, “We’re trying to figure all this out, why don’t you come join us?” Can we sum all this up in a single simple positive statement? There used to be a push for Unitarian Universalists to come up with an “elevator speech,” a ten-second spiel on Unitarian Universalism that we could spit out if someone asked us to explain our religion while sharing an elevator with someone. The format of an elevator speech tends to push people to try for certainty: we are this, or we are that. But if we’re a faith without certainty, then an elevator speech will most likely misrepresent who we actually are.

So it is that if someone asks me — Who are you Unitarian Universalists, anyway? — I don’t have a set response. I may say that we don’t care much about what you believe, but we do care what you do with your life. I may say that we believe the search for truth is ongoing, and that searching for truth works best in a community where a diverse group of people can help you challenge your unquestioned assumptions.

Sometimes, someone is insistent to know exactly what it is the Unitarian Universalists “believe.” So here’s what I might say to give a positive statement of what Unitarian Universalism is all about. We care enough to fight against injustice; we use science and reason to help us find the truth; we need community to help us find truth; we value cultural, ethnic, and religious diversity; we all take responsibility for teaching and learning together.

And if I meet someone who seems genuinely interested in our congregation, who seems like they’re maybe thinking about becoming a part of our congregation, then I won’t spend a lot of time explaining who we are, or what we “believe.” When Kok-Heong McNaughton started asking about her local Unitarian Universalist congregation, the person she talked to didn’t waste time in explanations: “When I indicated an interest,” said Kok-Heong, “instead of giving me an earful, she simply called up the church office and put me on their newsletter mailing list.” If we’re more about deeds than creeds, the newsletter is a pretty good way to introduce someone to our actual deeds.

And maybe that’s the best short answer to the question, “Who are you Unitarian Universalists, anyway?” Read our newsletter. Look at our website. Know us by what we do.