The explicit goal of Unitarian Universalism is “world community,” the sixth of our seven principles. Are we making progress? How will we get there? Is this really our goal?
Three weeks ago
The last time that I was here to preach to you.
I introduced a phrase to you that comes from our hymnal.
“an earth made fair with all her people one.”
From reading, #436, by David C. Pohl
That phrase has always seemed to me a wonderful
And poetic
And easily memorable
Vision statement for Unitarian Universalism
“an earth made fair with all her people one.”
We started this year
Talking about spiritual practice
The “what” of religion
What do we do as religious people?
You might call that a Mission statement
The doing of our faith:
Spiritual practice
And spiritual community
And then after the winter solstice
We switched to talking about the why of religion
What is spirituality for?
You might call that the Vision Statement
First, we looked at personal spiritual goals
“I attend to my spiritual practice
And I generously support and engage with my spiritual community
Because I have a vision for myself
Where I am wise, joyful, peaceful, courageous..
And as a people of faith we also have a vision for all people
A social spiritual goal
Which you might summarize as
“The vision of an earth made fair, and all her people one.”
Or, to use the phrase as it appears in the original poem
By Clifford Bax
Where it appears as the lyric to hymn number 120 in our hymnal
“Earth shall be fair, and all its people one;
nor till that hour shall God’s whole will be done.”
Last time I was with you
For Earth Day
I spoke about the first half of that vision
“an earth made fair”
Today,
I want to talk about the second half of that vision
“with all her people one”
Or, as it says in the sixth of our seven principles
“The goal of world community, with peace, liberty, and justice for all”
So if that’s the goal
How are we doing?
Not so good
I would say
What would you say?
It doesn’t feel to me like we’re very close to world community
Or “all her people one.”
People feel riven
To me.
Our politics are more partisan than ever
The economic divide between rich and poor
Is wider than at any time in a hundred years
We’re divided by religion
We’re divided by race and nationality
There’s a generation gap between boomers and young folks
that I haven’t felt since, well..
Since the boomers were the young folks.
I seem to hardly know some of my fellow Americans
or understand them
And worse,
I find myself not wanting to understand them
But just to divorce them
Worldwide the divisions are also growing
Brexit finally passed divorcing Britain from Europe
The hot spots in the middle east are only getting hotter
Meanwhile, the US government is actively sabotaging world organizations
That work toward our vision of world community
NATO
The United Nations
The World Health Organization
We seem further from the goal of world community
Than we have ever been
At least in the 75 years since VE Day
That we marked on Friday.
So what do we do
If we have a Mission statement
“I’m going to practice my spiritual practice
and stay committed to my UU faith
and to the spiritual community of this church.”
And yet the Vision we are working toward
Seems distant
And maybe even receding?
What should we do if our big dream is distant
And each day feels more fanciful?
You know I had a little dream like that
A big dream for me
But a little dream compared to “the earth made fair and all her people one.”
While you all were having candidating week to make your decision about settled ministry
I had planned to fly to Chicago
To see a performance of “Der Ring des Nibelungen”
Wagner’s Cycle of 4 epic-length operas
Performed by the Chicago Lyric Opera
They are rarely done
Because to produce all four at once is a huge, expensive undertaking
I’ve never seen these operas
I’ve listened to them on recordings
I’ve loved them
I’ve studied them
I’m excited about them
But, I’ve never seen them
And finally I had a chance
And it turned out the week Chicago Lyric Opera were doing all four,
Was the week of candidating week,
When I could take a week off from work.
So Jim and I made plans
We bought opera tickets
We bought airline tickets
We reserved hotel rooms
And then the Pandemic struck
And the opera was canceled
And our trip was canceled
And I still haven’t seen, “Der Ring des Nibelungen”
So what do you do with a dream defered?
Here is Langston Hughes’ poem titled “Harlem”
What happens to a dream deferred?
Does it dry up
like a raisin in the sun?
Or fester like a sore–
And then run?
Does it stink like rotten meat? Or crust and sugar over–
like a syrupy sweet?
Maybe it just sags like a heavy load.
Or does it explode?
Well we could give up
Forget “all her people one”
We could revise our vision statement so it’s a little easier to achieve
Like not all people
but just the people who think like me
Or look like me
Or worship like me.
Chicago Lyric Opera didn’t completely cancel, Der Ring des Nibelungen, by the way
They’ve rescheduled it
For the year 2030
So perhaps I’ll see it eventually
But will we ever see, “world community”
“all her people one”?
If we have a vision statement that seems like the right one.
A vision worth holding on to
A vision that seems true, and beautiful, and good
A vision like
“Earth shall be fair, and all its people one;”
where we can say by faith
That, “nor till that hour shall God’s whole will be done.”
Then we don’t give up
Or dilute our dream
We go back to our mission
Our doing of our spirituality
We go back to doing our practice, with vigor and diligence
And we go back to our church
Spiritual practice teaches us
to work hard
to stay true to principle
to be courageous
And to be patient.
The goal of “all her people one”
Doesn’t require some new and different work
But only more of the work
we already know to do.
More justice
More equity
More compassion
More acceptance
More encouragement
More freedom wedded to responsibility
More democracy
More recognition of the worth and dignity of all people
More respect for the interdependent web
as as an environmental principle
and as a social principle
CLOSING WORDS, #459, William F. Schulz, read by Rick Hoyt-McDaniels
This is the mission of our faith:
To teach the fragile art of hospitality;
To revere both the critical mind and the generous heart;
To prove that diversity need not mean divisiveness;
And to witness to all that we must hold the whole world in our hands.