{"id":1815,"date":"2021-11-07T11:01:00","date_gmt":"2021-11-07T19:01:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/rhmcd.com\/?p=1815"},"modified":"2024-09-17T16:49:50","modified_gmt":"2024-09-17T23:49:50","slug":"the-personal-and-the-plural","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/rhmcd.com\/?p=1815","title":{"rendered":"The Personal and the Plural"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

The American character wrestles (very visibly, lately) between the poles of individualism and community. These poles are present, too, in our UU faith: a Unitarian side that lifts up the human power of each person; a Universalist side that reminds us we\u2019re all in this together.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Click here to watch a video of this sermon<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cCome, Come, Whoever you are.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That phrase, from the poet Rumi, is an invitation to come together.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So it works well as a gathering hymn for our worship.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

An invitation for you, an individual, whoever you are, to join with others.\u00a0\u00a0To join a community.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The poem says come, whoever you are, whether you\u2019re a wanderer, or a worshipper, or a lover of leaving.\u00a0\u00a0The poem says, it\u2019s OK.\u00a0\u00a0Even if you\u2019re not perfect.\u00a0\u00a0You can be here.\u00a0\u00a0Come.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And then the poem says, reassuringly, don\u2019t worry that this community will be a burden to your spirit.\u00a0\u00a0This community,\u00a0this<\/em>\u00a0caravan of travelers, is no caravan of despair.\u00a0\u00a0This community is life-giving.\u00a0\u00a0It\u2019s worthwhile.\u00a0\u00a0We know it takes courage to join a community.\u00a0\u00a0But a healthy community is worth the sacrifices that we know you will have to make, any individual has to make, in order to join with others.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Rumi\u2019s words say, on one hand, yes, you, you<\/em> are worthy and welcome.  You\u2019re invited, come.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And the poem says, on the other hand, we, this community, are good, and helpful.\u00a0\u00a0Don\u2019t hold yourself back.\u00a0\u00a0Come.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So, the poem recognizes that individuals resist community for two reasons.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

One:\u00a0\u00a0we think that we\u2019re not worthy of community.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Two:\u00a0\u00a0we think that the community isn\u2019t worthy of us.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In our Call to Worship, George E. Odell writes about the many times in our lives when we need one another.\u00a0\u00a0When we\u2019re in mourning and need comforting, when we\u2019re in trouble and afraid.\u00a0\u00a0And in good times, too, we need one another.\u00a0\u00a0When we want to do some big project and cannot do it alone.\u00a0\u00a0Or when we accomplish some great success and want someone to notice.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Then, after listing several of these kinds of moments when we need one another, Odell concludes by simply saying, \u201cAll of our lives we are in need, and others are in need of us.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We certainly can\u2019t get ourselves born on our own.\u00a0\u00a0And on the other end of life, Odell reminds us, \u201cWe need one another when we come to die, and would have gentle hands prepare us for the journey.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cAll of our lives we are in need, and others are in need of us.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

These last two years, as our community, our nation, and our world, has suffered through the COVID-19 pandemic, we have endured a stark example of our need for others.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We need, doctors.  Nurses.  Scientists.  Researchers.  Epidemiologists, certainly.  But this is a communal crisis.  We need everyone.  Front-line workers and everyone else, too.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the first days of the pandemic, we might have re-written George Odell\u2019s call to worship to say:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We need one another, to wash your hands frequently<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We need one another, to stay home if you\u2019re feeling sick.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We need one another, to wear a mask when you\u2019re in public<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We need one another to buy only the amount of toilet paper you really need.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We need one another to voluntarily skip the big family gathering this year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We need one another to do everything you can do to avoid getting sick so that we don\u2019t overwhelm our hospitals so those who need a hospital bed, whether for COVID or some other reason, will have a bed available.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And then this year, once the vaccines became available, we might have added<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We need one another to get vaccinated.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We need all of us, or at least nearly all of us, to choose to get a simple, safe, and effective vaccine so that we can put this pandemic behind us, take off our masks, get back to work, open up the stores and the restaurants and our churches, and go back to having the kind of full, satisfying lives we had before without fear of a deadly virus.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We need one another.\u00a0\u00a0This isn\u2019t a job a person can do alone.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Those of us who chose to get the shot as soon as we could can\u2019t get us out of this pandemic alone.  Herd immunity doesn\u2019t happen if half the herd is looking the other way.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Instead of seeing what \u201cwe\u201d need to do, on behalf of all of us.\u00a0\u00a0Too many of us saw the decision as only what I want to do for me.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The irony being, of course, that in this case, what an individual ought to do to benefit themselves is the same action an individual ought to do to benefit everyone.\u00a0\u00a0Even if you don\u2019t care about others, the vaccine protects you, too.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But the argument is simply, \u201cyou can\u2019t make me\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cYou,\u201d the community, can\u2019t make \u201cme,\u201d the individual.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cYou\u201d the government officials responsible for the public health of the community at large, can\u2019t make me.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I\u2019m free.\u00a0\u00a0Free to make good decisions, or bad decisions.\u00a0\u00a0I don\u2019t owe the community anything.\u00a0\u00a0I\u2019m an individual.\u00a0\u00a0I alone.\u00a0\u00a0Me.\u00a0\u00a0For me.\u00a0\u00a0And only for me.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Now the people who most loudly proclaim their individual freedom are also the ones most likely to justify their position by saying, \u201cI\u2019m an American.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0Or \u201cI\u2019m a citizen.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0Or \u201cI have rights.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But, of course, an \u201cAmerican\u201d is not an individual but part of a community.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And a \u201ccitizen\u201d is a member of a community.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And \u201cI have rights\u201d is true for individuals only because there\u2019s a community of people, and laws, and a constitution, and judges, who are willing to recognize and protect your individual rights.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So the conflict between individual and community, even in those who are most loudly proclaiming their God-given autonomy, is not nearly so stark as they would make it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We\u2019re all members of communities.\u00a0\u00a0We all are members of churches of one sort or another, hearing one kind of sermon or another.\u00a0\u00a0We all are members of facebook groups, and email chains, and the guys who get together at the diner.\u00a0\u00a0We follow Nascar, or the Giants, or our favorite \u201cinfluencers\u201d on Tik Tok.\u00a0\u00a0We vote a straight party ticket.\u00a0\u00a0We get our information from a cable news channel we trust and we can\u2019t understand how anybody can watch the fake news on that other cable news channel.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We need one another.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And we find one another, in one community or another.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So it isn\u2019t that some are community-minded and others are individuals looking out only for themselves.\u00a0\u00a0There are, of course, a few extreme narcissists out there who truly care about no one but themselves.\u00a0\u00a0I can think of one notable example.\u00a0\u00a0And there may be a few noble saints willing to sacrifice themselves for the slightest benefit to the herd.\u00a0\u00a0But most of us, non-pathological and not\u00a0that<\/em>\u00a0committed, are somewhere in the middle.\u00a0\u00a0A little of both.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I care about others.\u00a0\u00a0But I look out for myself.\u00a0\u00a0I\u2019ll bear a personal inconvenience if it helps someone else.\u00a0\u00a0That\u2019s OK.\u00a0\u00a0I don\u2019t mind paying my taxes.\u00a0\u00a0But I expect something in return.\u00a0\u00a0I like to sing in a choir, and sit in a crowd, and feel that I\u2019m not alone.\u00a0\u00a0But I like being alone,too, sometimes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When we\u2019re born, we\u2019re alone.\u00a0\u00a0Or at least we think we are.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Not being aware, yet, of mothers and fathers, and everyone else necessary to get us born and keep us alive, babies think they are the center of the universe, while actually being totally dependent on others.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We are born as individuals.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And then we spend the rest of our lives recognizing our interdependence with others and coming into community.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I like to characterize the spiritual journey as one of ever-expanding community.\u00a0\u00a0The spiritual journey is to ever keep moving outward from that initial individual ego we are born with, to keep naming more and more of what we call \u201cothers\u201d as \u201cus\u201d.\u00a0\u00a0Until, perhaps, when we are enlightened, we see that there is no such thing as an \u201cother\u201d.\u00a0\u00a0Everything is us.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

At that point, we arrive, ironically, back to what sounds like the extreme ego of a baby, but transformed, now.\u00a0\u00a0A baby thinks, \u201cI am all that is.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0A spiritually mature person knows, \u201cAll that is, is me, too.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But until we get there, we wrestle in life between these two poles:  individual and community.  We\u2019re alone and lonely and longing for others.  But we find communities too full of conflict and disagreeable people and demands on our time and resources.  We want someone to share our life.  But the ways that other people are different continually annoy us.  We move back and forth between joining and leaving:  \u201cwanderer, worshipper, lover of leaving\u201d.  We enjoy our \u201cme time.\u201d  But we enjoy even more being wanted, being of use, being of service.  We want to nurture our individual gifts.  We want to bring our gifts to others to be recognized and cherished by the community.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The trick is finding the healthy balance between the poles, while recognizing that the direction of the journey is always toward as much community connection as we can healthfully manage.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In managing this trick, I\u2019m grateful for the wisdom of Unitarian Universalism.\u00a0\u00a0Because in our one faith, in our very name, we have both poles, and the wisdom of each.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

You know, that for this season, I\u2019m talking about the beliefs portion of a complete faith:\u00a0\u00a0beliefs, values, and actions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Beliefs are our description of reality.\u00a0\u00a0Beliefs are everything that we see and know or think we know, when we look at the world \u2013 material and immaterial things.\u00a0\u00a0Beliefs are our worldview.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Values are principles we hold to be important.\u00a0\u00a0I\u2019ll get to those in the winter months.\u00a0\u00a0And actions are what we\u00a0do<\/em>with our faith.\u00a0\u00a0I\u2019ll get to that in the spring.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Unitarian, and Universalist, are words that describe beliefs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Unitarian is the belief that God is a unity, as opposed to those Christians who believe that God is a trinity.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Christian tradition that we broke away from believed that God was three separate persons:\u00a0\u00a0Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, who were also, somehow, one unified being.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Unitarians considered that doctrine to be logically ridiculous and also entirely unnecessary for the Christian faith.\u00a0\u00a0The Christian bishops at Nicea, in 325 CE, felt that Jesus had to be God in order to save sinful humanity.\u00a0\u00a0The Unitarians saw that humanity could save itself, following Jesus\u2019 human example.\u00a0\u00a0Jesus lived a perfected human life, and we could, too, say the Unitarians, by following Jesus\u2019 teachings and living as he did.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So the Unitarian belief, at its core, is not so much a belief about God, as it is a belief about the wisdom, the goodness, and the power, of the human person.\u00a0\u00a0You are good enough, smart enough, and strong enough, to make a healthy, joyful life for yourself.\u00a0\u00a0Jesus is proof of that.\u00a0\u00a0And so are other human heroes and heroines we follow.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Universalism is the belief (again, we\u2019re talking about beliefs this season) that God so loves all the world that every particle of creation is destined for salvation.\u00a0\u00a0Universally, we will be saved.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Christian tradition that we broke away from believed that many folks, or even most, or in some formulations, nearly all, human souls are destined for damnation.\u00a0\u00a0In this theology, human beings are infected with original sin from our parents Adam and Eve.\u00a0\u00a0God is offended by us and turns away.\u00a0\u00a0We deserve to be punished because God is just.\u00a0\u00a0And only the extraordinary gift of Jesus on the cross allows any of us, by God\u2019s grace, to be saved.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Universalists said that this theology puts God\u2019s justice above God\u2019s love.\u00a0\u00a0A loving God wouldn\u2019t abandon a person to suffer eternally.\u00a0\u00a0A loving God would stay with us, work with us, coax us along until eventually we, and everyone, finds the right path.\u00a0\u00a0We are saved together, because love doesn\u2019t leave anyone behind.\u00a0\u00a0The future for Universalists is that eventually we will all, universally, be together in bliss.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So the Universalist belief, at its core, is that humanity is a single community with a single destiny.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Universalism is about the communal aspect of human life, just as Unitarianism is about the individual aspect of life.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As I look at the problems of the world today, I see that our failure to think and act and live communally is the more serious threat.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We need the truth of Unitarianism.\u00a0\u00a0You are strong enough, smart enough, good enough, to make a joyful and healthy life for yourself.\u00a0\u00a0Many people suffer because they don\u2019t believe that.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But maybe we need the truth of Universalism even a little more.\u00a0\u00a0We\u2019re all in this together.\u00a0\u00a0We truly are, one humanity, with one destiny.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I grumble every day at the flouting of this basic truth of our communal life.\u00a0\u00a0The bicyclist ignoring the red light.\u00a0\u00a0The motorcyclist disturbing the peace with their roaring engine.\u00a0\u00a0The cigarette thrown casually into the gutter.\u00a0\u00a0The graffiti on the buildings.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The social consequences of \u201cevery man for himself\u201d individualism are far more grave.  The excessive greed of some and poverty of others.  The lack of support for our public institutions.  Ignoring the threat of climate change because fossil fuels are so convenient now and the suffering won\u2019t come until later.  And on and on.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But even more than that, I\u2019m most troubled by the crumbling of our clubs, and service organizations, and churches.\u00a0\u00a0We seem to be missing the value of community, and forgetting how to do community.\u00a0\u00a0And people are suffering.\u00a0\u00a0We\u2019re isolated and alone and feeling it.\u00a0\u00a0But instead of making robust connections, we\u2019re reaching out through screens and connecting thinly, only with people who are already like us and share our interests and opinions.\u00a0\u00a0We\u2019re creating false communities that are really just extensions of our own selves, rather than true communities that include others, embrace difference, and that challenge us to expand ourselves.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We\u2019ve decided that those kinds of communities don\u2019t exist, are too hard to maintain, and not worth the effort.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Of those two barriers to community I mentioned at the beginning of this sermon, it is the second that is more deadly to us now.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Some of us, \u201cwanderers,\u201d think we\u2019re not worthy of a community.\u00a0\u00a0The truth of Unitarianism tells us that everyone is strong enough, smart enough, good enough.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

More of us, though, imagine that communities are caravans of despair, not worthy of us.\u00a0\u00a0We\u2019re too good for them, too smart for other people, too strong individually to need community.\u00a0\u00a0The truth of Universalism tells us that we are in this together.\u00a0\u00a0Resist as you might, you lover of leaving.\u00a0\u00a0Turn away as you might, the great Lover won\u2019t turn away from you.\u00a0\u00a0Our destiny is one.\u00a0\u00a0Salvation comes for all, when all come to community.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So come.\u00a0\u00a0Yet again.\u00a0\u00a0Come.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The American character wrestles (very visibly, lately) between the poles of individualism and community. These poles are present, too, in… Read more The Personal and the Plural<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1815","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-sermons"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/rhmcd.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1815","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/rhmcd.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/rhmcd.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rhmcd.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rhmcd.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1815"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/rhmcd.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1815\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2056,"href":"https:\/\/rhmcd.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1815\/revisions\/2056"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/rhmcd.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1815"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rhmcd.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1815"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rhmcd.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1815"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}