In our social justice work, UUs say we “Side with Love.” Isn’t it interesting that “love” never appears in our Seven Principles?
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Our Fellowship in Bakersfield has been exploring, for the last several weeks, the center of our Unitarian Universalist faith and the core of our communities: our shared values.
Some faiths are defined by what they believe together. Like a Christian church which recites a creed statement every Sunday. Other organizations, like non-profit organizations and for-profit corporations, gather around a statement of what they do together: a mission statement.
Unitarian Universalists recognize that a complete faith includes what we believe, and what we do, but those are personal issues that we reserve for each individual.
What unites us, what we share, and what defines us as Unitarian Universalists is not Beliefs, nor Actions, but our Values, the principles that we say are important to us, as individuals and as UU communities.
The UUA bylaw language that we know as the Seven Principles, is a statement of our values. It names us by saying what’s important to us.
And as such, the Seven Principles have become an important and beloved piece of our UU liturgy. It defines who we are. Not like a creedal church that believes together. And not like a non-profit charity or political action group that’s organized to do some specific work together. But a group of people who hold the same values. A group of people who follow the same principles in how we live our lives and act in our communities. From whatever belief system or world view that you derive those values, and to whatever particular action your unique skills and interests calls you, we hold these principles in common.
Given this analysis, I could critique the Seven Principles in several ways. There are a few places for instance, where beliefs creep in to the statement.
For instance, if I say, “we affirm and promote the inherent worth and dignity of every person” well, human worth and dignity is a value, but are those qualities “inherent”? That’s actually a belief statement.
For instance, in our sixth principle, when we talk about the goal of world community, well a “goal” implies specifically directed action. A goal is a mission statement. That’s something to do. And actions don’t belong in a statement of principles.
But I’m going to point out those criticisms and then say that those are quibbles. I can see that it’s actually difficult to write seven statements in artful language that include only values. And I’d rather have the Seven Principles as they are, beautiful and memorable and imperfect, than to have a perfectly clean statement of values which would probably have to be just a list.
Although it is a pretty good list:
Individual worth
Justice
Equity
Compassion
Acceptance
Growth
Freedom
Responsibility
Democracy
Community
Peace
Liberty
Justice
And respect for the system that includes each and all.
In the Seven Principles one value is named twice, the value of justice. Justice in personal relationships, and justice in communities of people.
But it’s always been curious to me that one value that I know is important to Unitarian Universalists doesn’t appear anywhere in the Seven Principles.
We get justice twice. But we never get love.
Isn’t it interesting that when the committee, back in the 1980s, wrote our Seven Principles that they left out that most significant word?
Love feels like it’s at the center of all we do. We sang this morning that “love will guide us.” But, in fact, love is not one of our guiding principles.
The word “love” had appeared in earlier versions of our statement of principles. In the original bylaws of the newly merged UUA, written in 1961, the second of the original six principles is this:
“To cherish and spread the universal truths taught by the great prophets and teachers of humanity in every age and tradition, immemorially summarized in their essence as love to God and love to man.”
For the bylaw revision that became the Seven Principles, that language has been moved out of the Seven Principles and into the Six Sources. So we have, as a Source of our faith:
“Words and deeds of prophetic people which challenge us to confront powers and structures of evil with justice, compassion, and the transforming power of love;”
And we have, again from our Sources:
“Jewish and Christian teachings which call us to respond to God’s love by loving our neighbors as ourselves;”
And, of course, we have the name of the UUA’s umbrella organization for social justice action, “Side with Love.”
Back at the 2012 UUA General Assembly in Phoenix when we were all advocating for immigrant rights and wearing our bright yellow Standing on the Side of Love tee shirts, we earned the nickname, “The Love People.”
What a great name for a people of faith! How proudly I would adopt that name for my spiritual community. But in fact, looking at our Seven Principles we could ask, “Where is the love?”
I don’t think the absence of “love” in our Seven Principles means that anybody thinks that Love isn’t an important value for Unitarian Universalism. There are other important values that you also won’t find mentioned by name in the Seven Principles. Kindness, for instance. Courage. Joy. Creativity. Patience.
But I do think that the absence of Love, especially, is curious. And especially appropriate for a sermon preached a week before Valentine’s Day.
I wonder why the value of love didn’t make the cut? And I wonder if it isn’t a clue that Love, unmentioned in our Principles, appears three times, in our Sources?
St. Paul, at the end of his first letter to the Christian community in Corinth, gives them this admonition:
“Keep alert, stand firm in your faith; be courageous, be strong. Let all that you do be done in love.”
That’s the translation from the New Revised Standard Version. The New International Version translates the line like this:
“Be on your guard; stand firm in the faith; be courageous; be strong. Do everything in love.”
The first verse gives us another list of faith principles to follow: be aware and ready, be steadfast, be courageous, be strong. It sounds actually like the qualities of the tiger for this year of the tiger that we’re just beginning.
The second verse tells us, “Let all that you do be done in love.”
Isn’t it interesting that Paul doesn’t say, “Let all that you do be done with love.” He says, “In love.” The word is the same in the other translation. Do everything in love.” Not with love. In love.
Did your mom ever make you a sandwich for your lunchbox and you felt it was especially good because it was made, “with love”?
That’s the more usual language we use. We do something with love. It’s as though we do the thing, and then we add love to it, as something extra. It’s like the question, “Do you want fries with that?” Love is something that comes on the side. It’s appreciated. It’s nice. But it’s not the main meal. It’s not essential.
We usually reserve the phrase, “in love” to describe romantic feelings, like the ones we celebrate on Valentine’s Day. We are “in love” when we feel love for another person.
If you’ve ever been in love, you know that feeling. To be “in love” consumes you. It’s everything. It’s all you can think about. It’s your whole being. That kind of love, isn’t on the side; it’s right in the middle. To be “in love” isn’t a “go with”, it’s the thing itself. It’s totalizing.
Now Paul isn’t talking about romantic love. The Greek word he uses isn’t eros, but agape. Agape is the kind of love that we know as spiritual love, expressed through words like fellowship, or kindness, or charity.
But I think what Paul is trying to convey to the community in Corinth, is that all that they do should be done in that sense of love as though they were in love. Not love as something extra on the side of their doing. But love as that totalizing feeling we know when we’re feeling romantic love. But now this kind of love applied to everything. “Do everything in love.” “Let all that you do be done in love.”
Can you imagine? Wash the dishes, in love. Mail a letter, in love. Walk your dog, in love. Including picking up after your dog, in love. Perhaps this is something akin to what the Buddhist’s call mindfulness. Complete awareness. But not an intellectual awareness, but a bodily, emotional, awareness. Not mindfulness, but heartfulness.
What if we lived all of our lives, doing everything, with that feeling of being in love? In love with the groceries. In love with the newspaper. In love, not with a special person, but in love with life. In love with the world. In love with everyone. Attend the Board meeting, in love. Respond to that email, in love.
Now Paul writes this love admonition at the end of his letter to the community in Corinth. Love is something of a theme for this particular letter. At the beginning of the letter, Paul gives a definition of love that you have probably heard before.
Paul writes:
“If I speak in the tongues of men or of angels, but do not have love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. If I give all I possess to the poor and give over my body to hardship that I may boast, but do not have love, I gain nothing.”
Paul is saying that even the good things that we do, if we don’t do them in love, count for nothing. Eloquent speaking, great wisdom, powerful faith, acts of charity even to the point of giving away everything you have, are admirable, but only if done in love.
Paul writes:
“Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.”
Paul gives us a list of values: patience, kindness, humility, forebearance. And then he says, love is all these things. It’s as though love is the value of all values. Love is the essential ingredient that makes worthy acts worthy. Without love beauty becomes ugliness. Without love what we do is nothing, and without love we are nothing.
Paul writes:
“Love never fails. But where there are prophecies, they will cease; where there are tongues, they will be stilled; where there is knowledge, it will pass away. For we know in part and we prophesy in part, but when completeness comes, what is in part disappears.”
So love is completeness. All worthy values are merely other names for love. Love contains everything.
And then Paul closes this little speech with:
“And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.”
Last week, for this Fellowship, I said that the greatest value for a spiritual community is the value of community itself. I said that all other things that we do and are, rise from that core value of community. Community is our primary function, and everything else that we do is an expression of our community. And I warned that spiritual communities get into trouble when they start to move something else into the center of who they are and fail to give proper attention to the health of the community itself.
Paul is saying that love is like that. It is the value that contains all the other values. It is the core value and every other value is merely a particular kind of love. Faith, hope, kindness, patience, strength, courage? The greatest of these is love.
Or you could say love is the source of all values, the way that community is the source of all we do as people of faith.
And maybe that’s why Love belongs in our Sources, but doesn’t need specific mention in our Principles. Because love is everywhere in our Principles. Love is in every phrase, and every word. As though we could replace every other value named in our Seven Principles with the single value of love:
The inherent lovability of every person
Love in human relations
Love of one another and encouragement of love in our congregations
A free and responsible search for true love and more love
The necessity to let love be our guide, in our lives, in our congregations, in society at large
The goal of all people, worldwide, united by love
Love for the web of all existing things, including us, bound by love.
Love is the source of all our values.
And love is the hidden principle behind all the others.