Expanding the circle of relationships beyond our congregation, we are also members of a larger faith embracing Unitarian Universalists of other congregations, and Unitarians and Universalists from previous generations. What they believed and the lives they lived in the name of our faith, defines who we are today.
Watch the video of this worship service.
This fall we’re trying out many different answers to the spiritual questions “Who am I?” and “Who are we?”
The question of identity is one of the essential spiritual questions. Every religion tackles it. Every religion offers an answer, or at least encourages us to explore the mystery.
Are we stardust? Are we spiritual beings having a bodily experience? When we look deep inside is there only muscle and organs, or can we find a soul? Or is the spark of consciousness that gives rise to thoughts and feelings, what we mean by a human soul? Are we kin to other animals, or a special creation? Is there an immortal part of us that will survive the end of our physical selves, maybe to be incarnated for another round of existence? Or is this life all there is? Or will we live forever pretty much as we are now? Or at death will we be released entirely from this personal form of existence, to disappear into pure consciousness, or merge into a universal divinity like a wave pushed up for a brief moment and then sinking back into the sea from where we came?
The questions, “Who am I?” and “Who are we?” are basic questions for anyone on a spiritual path. The question, “Who are we?” is also a fundamental question for a congregation in transition, as this one is, as we embark on an interim period between the end of one settled ministry and the beginning of the next.
Who are we as a congregation?
Who are we, the Unitarian Universalist Church of Studio City?
You may have felt the answer to that question was certain a few years ago. And then perhaps more recently the answer became a little confused, not so certain. It turned out we didn’t all agree on who we are. That disagreement led to conflict. And in that conflicted environment it became impossible for the congregation to walk confidently together. Leadership didn’t know where we wanted to go, or thought they did but really didn’t. So leaders pushed and prodded, maybe a little too hard. Some of you felt confirmed, others offended. That got leaders into trouble, or they made trouble for themselves. Anixety rose. The congregation pulled against itself. And then the cloth began to tear. And finally to rip.
So now that the question of congregational identity has been broken open. The question is clear. But the answer is not. So we have an opportunity to do some self-reflection, to see if we can answer the question confidently and clearly again.
We are, in the words of Rev. Ana Lyons-Levy from the anthem that the choir just sang, feeling, “afield and alone”. “Voyaging far from our home”
We are out in the wilderness, to use another spiritual metaphor. Or wandering in the desert.
The church home where we had lived comfortably, began to feel uncomfortable and constraining, no longer a good fit for the paths our restless spirits longed to travel.
But now we find ourselves, afield and alone, voyaging far from our home. It feels a little frightening. We’re not sure whether it’s best just to turn and go back to the familiar, if that’s even possible, or whether now is the chance to courageously push forward into some new way of being, to give birth to some new identity.
We are, again in the words of Rev. Ana Lyons-Levy, minister of the Unitarian church in Brooklyn, “lost in our soul, nothing to ease or console.”
You might know the phrase, “dark night of the soul”, from the 16th century Christian mystic St. John of the Cross. It’s a place of fearful transition. The old way falls away. The previous sources of comfort and certainty no longer satisfy. Doubt fills our minds. You might call it an existential crisis. Or a descent into the underworld. Or rock-bottom.
But what you may not know is that in the poem of St. John of the Cross where we get the phrase “the dark night of the soul”, the journey is not presented as a disaster, but as a glorious gift.
In the poem, the mystic leaves his house in the middle of the night. The house is at rest. The night is quiet. The mystic goes off by himself unobserved into the darkness. He says there is no light except the light of his own heart burning and leading him toward the divine.
But that sole light, the light of his own burning passion for a new way of being is enough. It’s a light brighter than noonday, he says. His light leads the mystic through the dark night of the soul to his divine lover. There, the divine lover frees the mystic of all worldly connections. His mind is made clear of all mundane thoughts. His heart is filled with all-consuming love. The mystic enters oblivion, but not unhappily. He says, in the poem, “O happy lot!”
The dark night of the soul is the fearsome place of disintegration of the old way of being, but leading, if we make our way through it, to a new liberation.
The mystic shows the way, but while we’re in the dark night it’s a troubling, disturbing place. We’re adrift. We’re searching. And we’re aching.
So then, here is where Rev. Lyons-Levy tells us we can find the comfort and strength we need. Again in the words from our anthem, she says, as Unitarian Universalists we are grounded and guided in three places:
“We are grounded and guided by the spark of the spirit we carry inside
Grounded and guided by our beautiful bodies of power and pride
By the blazing chorus of those who came before us
These are our ground and our guide.”
When we’re feeling “afield and alone”, there are three places we can turn to, to know that we are still connected in the ways we need to be, and following a sure path to a healthy future.
First “We are grounded and guided by the spark of the spirit we carry inside.”
A bit of theology there, also related to the question of identity. We, each of us, in our human natures, also carry a reflection of the divine essence. Howard Thurman called it, “my high resolve”. Emerson called it, “the Oversoul.” You might call it your higher power, or your conscience, or the inner light. This spark of the spirit is within us, even when all around us turns dark.
This is exactly as St. John of the Cross describes it: a light from our own hope and determination that turns midnight to noon.
And next, we are “grounded and guided by our beautiful bodies of power and pride.” Again, says, Rev. Lyons-Levy, we can turn toward ourselves: this time our physical selves. We are people who can get it done. We can change the world and our own lives. It’s a very Unitarian answer to say that we ourselves can be the source of comfort and strength. Where others might turn outward to God, or scripture, or a guru, the Unitarian Universalist faith, begins from the understanding that each of us is a person of inherent worth and dignity, with unique gifts that belong to us alone. We are made good. We are precious. Not perfect, but capable of self-improvement, capable of learning, capable of bringing our flawed persons into a community like this one and getting better.
The first source of our faith is our own, “direct experience of that transcending mystery and wonder, affirmed in all cultures, which moves us to a renewal of the spirit and an openness to the forces which create and uphold life.” When we are in a dark night of the soul, when we need a “renewal of the spirit” we can turn to ourselves, our own connection, which we experience through our bodies, with that transcendent world all around us. We can, in the vision of St. John of the Cross, venture forth and meet the divine, as a lover meets his love, and be transformed.
And third, Rev. Lyons-Levy, gives us one more place to look when we’re feeling afield and alone. She says to look to our faith tradition, our honored ancestors. The choir sang, “By the blazing chorus of those who came before us. These are our ground and our guide.”
Last week, I suggested that one way to answer the question, “Who are we?” is to look around the room. We are this congregation. We are the members of the Unitarian Universalist Church of Studio City.
And then I complicated that answer by pointing out that who exactly is a member of this congregation is a little ambiguous. And in any case the membership of a church is constantly changing, and well it must if a congregation plans on lasting for longer than a single generation. This church has already been around nearly 80 years. We are not who we were.
Moment by moment, week by week, who we are as a congregation is always changing.
And yet there is something that connects us across the longer-than-a human-lifetime, lifetime of a church. Though the founders are not here today, we are the church they were in some real way. The church eighty years from now will be our church, too, in a way that gives meaning to our work today. And we can hope that the church eighty years from now will look back on us with the same gratitude and respect with which we look back at the founders of our church.
So the answer to the question of who we are as a congregation must stretch a little. We stretch from who we are today to include who has been here, and who will be here.
But the definition can stretch further than that, too, and perhaps should.
We aren’t the only Unitarian Universalist congregation meeting this morning. That’s the horizontal dimension of our faith. We are everyone, everywhere, who calls themselves Unitarian Universalist.
And in the vertical dimension of our faith. Everyone who ever has or ever will call themselves Unitarian Universalist. That’s us, too. That’s who we are.
So here’s an answer to the question, “Who are we?”
We are Unitarian Universalists, two liberal Christian denominations that merged in 1961. The Universalist Church of America and the American Unitarian Association had institutional roots in the United States going back to the 18thcentury. And before that there were Unitarian churches since the fifteen hundreds in parts of eastern Europe. Prior to that, Unitarian and Universalist ideas had always floated around the edges of orthodox Christian theology going all the way back to the Council of Nicea and among the original followers of Jesus.
Who are we?
We are the people who are the current holders of those age-old ideas. We are the folks cradling those ancient sparks. We are the resistance forces who against all odds continue to raise the ancient heresies.
The Unitarian heresy that says God alone is God, and Jesus was an inspiring teacher and radical social activist intent on reforming the political and religious powers of his time in order to create a world where power and wealth are put at the service of the poor and society’s outcasts.
The Universalist heresy that says God’s ultimate character is love, love and love above all, and that eventually all creation will be brought into the single divine embrace, everyone included, God’s infinite patience outlasting even the most recalcitrant sinner.
The Unitarian heresy that says human individuals are smart enough, strong enough, and good enough, to save ourselves, under our own power, without supernatural assistance.
The Universalist heresy that affirms our human interdependence with all existence.
The Unitarian heresy that says we are born free from any stain of original sin. Instead we can follow human teachers and human examples to create lives of health and joy for ourselves and each other and the world we share.
The Unitarian and Universalist heresy that eventually brought us together into a single association of congregations that says, it is in this world that we are called to do the work of salvation, not the next. That the power of people, and the love of God for all, calls us here and now to human work that removes the systems and structures of a society that prevents people from expressing freely and fully the glorious creature they were made to be, and tragically prevents them from feeling the full blessing of being made by love, with love, and for love.
The word heresy is derived from a Greek word: hairesis (hah-ee-res-is) which means a people who choose beliefs for themselves.
That’s a pretty good definition of Unitarian Universalists.
We are a people who choose for ourselves.
The challenge then, for such a people, is how, being true to the principle that each of us is a glorious individual, following their own path, lighted by the spark of their own divine light, how can we come together as we need to with other blessed individuals, to create community, to work together, to build strong institutions, to choose common leaders and give them clear direction and faithful community support?
How do we stay grounded and guided both in: “the spark of the spirit we carry inside, and the blazing chorus of those who came before us?”
How did our ancestors ever get to be a blazing chorus, with each of them singing their own tune?
That, I think, is a perennial challenge for Unitarian Universalists that affords no easy answer at the end of a sermon.
But let me just say this.
How do we turn our inspiring individuality, into the strength of community?
By accepting a little help from our friends, in the words of Lennon and McCartney. Of course the Beatles broke up only a few years after recording that song. So maybe they’re not the best example.
Maybe by remembering that we are Universalists as well as Unitarians. That maybe that divine spark you know in your chest is actually a piece of a single divine spark that burns the same in every person’s chest.
By imagining that when we leave our safe houses in the middle of the night to go searching for something good, and true, and beautiful, that the same light is guiding us all, and that the divine lover we eventually encounter is the same eternal lover of us all.
How do we answer the question, “who am I?” is a way that allows us to make a clear and confidant answer to the equally important question for a congregation, “who are we?”
How about this idea, from Phillip Hewett, Unitarian minister who served churches in Canada, and leant us this morning’s text for our Call to Worship:
By many cares and preoccupations, by diverse and selfish aims are we separated from one another and divided within ourselves.
Yet we know that no branch is utterly severed from the Tree of Life that sustains us all.
We cherish our oneness with those around us and the countless generations that have gone before us.
Let us nurture the growth in our own lives of the love that has shone in the lives of the greatest of men and women, the rays of whose lamps still illumine our way.
May it be so.