Spiritual practice can be done in community (like at a church), or alone, or, also, in public. Many Unitarian Universalists consider their volunteer work, activism, and political engagement to be a form of spiritual practice, grounded in their faith and focused on our religious goals.
“I, by my works, will show you my faith”
If you’re ever running for public office and an interviewer asks you to name your favorite Bible verse, you can probably use James, Chapter 2, Verse 18.
“I, by my works, will show you my faith”
A good Bible verse for Unitarian Universalists. We say “deeds, not creeds” as a thumbnail summary of our religion: a three-word elevator speech suitable for even the shortest elevator ride.
James also writes in his letter that is his book in the Bible (James 1:22-25):
“Do not merely listen to the word, and so deceive yourselves. Do what it says. Anyone who listens to the word but does not do what it says is like someone who looks at his face in a mirror and, after looking at himself, goes away and immediately forgets what he looks like. But whoever looks intently into the perfect law that gives freedom, and continues in it—not forgetting what they have heard, but doing it—they will be blessed in what they do.”
James assures us that you don’t have to worry about figuring out all the metaphysical details of your theology and crafting some statement that puts your ill-formed thoughts into precise language. “I, by my works, will show you my faith.” We are the Nike religion, “Just do it.” Doers not mere hearers. Doers not mere believers. Concrete acts of righteousness that live out our values, not just pleasant thoughts that make us feel good but do nothing to make any actual good in the world. Faith lived through the body not faith held in the mind alone. Deeds not creeds.
We are talking this fall about various forms of spiritual practice.
How do we live our faith, as Unitarian Universalists?
Spiritual practices are the doing part of religion.
What do we do?
Well lots of things, actually.
I’ve organized the various types of practices common among us into three categories.
First, we began by looking at the kinds of spiritual practices that we do together as a spiritual community. Practices such as worshipping together, singing together, studying together, and so on.
Next, we looked at several spiritual practices that individuals do alone, or sometimes with other people but each person having their own private experience. Practices such as meditation, prayer, dietary practices, yoga, exercise, gardening, journaling, hiking, and so on.
Now, to end this series, I want to turn to a third category of spiritual practices. These are practices that we do in public, with other people either as receivers of our action or as participants with us in our action, but with people who are not members of our spiritual community.
Today I want to look at activism as a spiritual practice. Exploring your faith and living out your faith in the public sphere. In two weeks, we will look at parenting as a spiritual practice. And finally, the Sunday before Christmas we will look at teaching as a spiritual practice using Jesus as a model teacher.
The Unitarian Universalist faith is grounded in a set of shared values, not beliefs. And we understand that values must be lived into the world in order to have meaning. Faith without works are dead. We are deeds not creeds, people. So we feel most connected to our faith when we are taking visible action in line with our values. Activism might be the activity that makes Unitarian Universalists feel most, “spiritual” of any, second maybe only to spiritual experiences that we might have in nature.
Our faith in action may manifest in a variety of ways that are not always “activism” of course. Deeds of compassion may be a quiet interaction between two people. Deeds that recognize the inherent worth and dignity of all persons, may be revealed in an act that recognizes the simple worth and dignity of the one person directly in front of you.
But compassion, and worth and dignity, have universal applications, too. The worth and dignity of this person and of all people. And some of our Unitarian Universalist values fairly demand action on a very large scale. The democratic process, from our fifth principle. World community with peace, liberty, and justice for all, from our sixth principle. The interdependent web of all existence, our seventh principle.
Thus, many Unitarian Universalists, to live their faith, feel called to a spiritual practice of public witness, advocacy, and activism. We are in this faith not just for ourselves but for all people. Not just to transform our lives, but to transform all life. Not for myself alone, but for the world.
And so there we are, on the side of love, at the protest, at the rally, at the march, at the organizing meeting at the church or labor hall. There we are at the city council meeting, or the county office. There we are at the neighborhood community meeting, or knocking on doors in our precinct with an informational flyer about an issue on the upcoming ballot.
We are living our faith beyond our own individual life, and beyond our spiritual community. We are living our faith in public.
The letter of James is considered by many Bible scholars to be the earliest piece of writing in the New Testament.
A date of about 50 in the Common Era is generally accepted. The letters of Paul come a few years later. The earliest gospel, the gospel of Mark, comes around the year 80. The other gospels even later; the Gospel of John being written around the year 120, long after Jesus had died. Thus, in the letter of James we get a glimpse of what the Jesus movement looked like in its very earliest days less that 20 years after Jesus’ death.
So James’ letter shows us, that at least for this writer, and for the community that he is writing to, Christianity is still very much aligned with Judaism. It is a Jewish movement. And salvation for James, as for later Judaism, comes from following a code of ethical conduct: a standard of behavior for the self and the community, not from holding a certain set of propositions about the nature of God and Jesus. As in nearly all religions except Christianity, religion is defined by what you do: meditation or prayer, ritual, ethical acts of service and charity, that is, spiritual practice, not, primarily, what spiritual beliefs.
James’ advice for his followers says nothing about holding correct beliefs. And his advice also says nothing about following the Levitical laws such as keeping kosher or how to conduct proper worship at the Temple.
James’ advice is for a code of conduct, like the one that developed in later Judaism under the prophets. He warns against slander. He criticizes the materialism of the rich. He chides his community for quarreling among themselves. He advises his followers to “tame their tongues” lest their words get them into trouble. He repeats the commandment that Jesus quotes from Leviticus, “Love your neighbor as yourself.” (Leviticus 19). And James gives this summary of true religion as an ethical commandment (James 1:27): “Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world.”
“Look after orphans and widows”. Religion pure and faultless. And maybe the earliest formulation of the religion of Jesus.
What isn’t in the Book of James is any Christology and very little Jesus. Jesus’ name appears only twice, and both times merely as part of a formal salutation — not actually talking about Jesus the person, his life, or teaching. And nowhere in James is there any testifying about Jesus as the son of God, or about Jesus dying for our sins, or resurrection. James expects that everyone will be able to follow the code of conduct (you might call it a covenant of right relations) that he lays out, not through our belief in Jesus, not because God predestined some of us to be good, but simply by our free will choice to order our lives for good, guided by our human understanding of morality, under our own human power.
That sounds pretty Unitarian.
Paul’s letters, on the other hand, which come after James’, argue with James on just this point. And their argument becomes a central theme of Christian doctrine. Are we justified by our works, or by our faith? Are we justified by our deeds, or by our creeds? James says works is what matters. Paul (and later Christianity) says nope, it’s faith.
In his letter to the Romans Paul says: (Romans 3:28) “For we maintain that a person is justified by faith apart from the works of the law.” Paul’s theology is that all of those old testament commandments are useless in earning our salvation. Salvation comes not from our work but comes only from God’s act of grace and Jesus’ sacrifice, not our actions, Paul says, but our faith, not our spiritual practice, Paul says, but our spiritual beliefs.
Again, in his letter to the Galatians, Paul says this: (Galatians 2:16)
“Know that a person is not justified by the works of the law, but by faith in Jesus Christ. So we, too, have put our faith in Christ Jesus that we may be justified by faith in Christ and not by the works of the law, because by the works of the law no one will be justified.”
It is Paul’s position that became orthodox Christianity. It was Martin Luther’s sense that the Christian church was backsliding into “works righteousness” that inspired the Protestant Reformation. Luther went so far as to argue that the Book of James shouldn’t be included in the Bible, because James so clearly contradicts Luther’s (and Paul’s) theology of salvation by faith alone: “sola fide.”
And it is in our Unitarian Universalist insistence on deeds not creeds that Unitarian Universalism most clearly separates from orthodox Christianity. Beliefs are important personally to Unitarian Universalists but inconsequential in our communities. As inconsequential in our religion, pure and faultless, as they are in James’ letter. As long as your beliefs lead you to value what we all value here, and as long as your values show themselves through your behavior, in your life, in our church, and in the world beyond, you are a welcome member of our faith.
So those who take activism and other forms of public expression of their faith as their form of spiritual practice are well in line with a core reading of who we are as Unitarian Universalists. They demonstrate that we are indeed, a religion of spiritual practice, of deeds not creeds.
Although there are many ways we can live our faith, in ways small and large, in private, in intimate relationships, as well as in public and in work toward social change, I applaud those who feel called by their faith to take action at the largest and widest dimension. It is not all of who we are, but it is an important part of who we are.
To those who consider their activism a spiritual practice let me close by offering a few observations and a little advice.
As I’ve emphasized several times in this series of sermons on spiritual practice, remember that spiritual practice must be a practice. I encourage you, in whatever direction your spirituality calls you, to find a spiritual practice which you can return to regularly, on some kind of fairly frequent schedule that you can arrange for yourself.
If you make a point to show up at every protest march whenever a march is called, but the marches happen irregularly and only once or twice a year, that’s probably not going to work as a spiritual practice. As Michael Sallwasser shared a couple of weeks ago about his backpacking trips, a spiritual activity you engage in only a few times a year might provide a spiritual experience, but probably can’t serve as your spiritual “practice”.
So, make your activism as consistent as possible. Make it a practice. Not just waiting for the call and responding when an issue is hot, but patiently, deliberately, doing the work of organizing, educating, relationship-building, and so on, the work that happens week after week, every week, every month. Find a way to make activism a practice, not just an experience.
Remember also that spiritual practice has two purposes. Inwardly, spiritual practice is the action you do to further explore and deepen your faith, and outwardly spiritual practice is the action you do to express your faith through your life.
Activism certainly counts for the later, an action that expresses your faith. But activism isn’t so obviously a means of further exploring and deepening your faith. And without that inward dimension of growing your faith, activism may not serve as a complete spiritual practice.
So when you are engaged in your activist work, remind yourself that it is faith work you are involved in. This is the “intentional” aspect of spiritual practice, along with holistic and ecstatic, which makes any mundane activity a spiritual practice. Activism has its own purpose of social change. And you will likely be working with other folks who don’t recognize any spiritual motivation for doing the work. But you could choose to engage with your spirituality deliberately as you do the work, and indeed, connecting your social change work to your faith adds a special kind of persuasive power to your public witness.
So, be deliberate in finding ways in your activist work that you can both express and explore your faith. Expressing is easy in activist work. We show up with our signs and slogans and demands. We’re all about speaking “truth to power.” But could there be room at the protest, at the rally, at the council testimony, to also learn a new truth? We could come to receive as well as to give, to grow our faith by walking away with what we heard, as well as coming prepared to say what we have to say.
Whether you explore your faith through some other spiritual practice: worship, prayer, journaling, gardening, and then express your faith through activism, or find a way for activism alone to be all of your spiritual practice, may the spiritual muscle and confidence that you’ve built up through your practice, power and sustain the work you do in your public witness.