Lay Leadership, Elders and the Holy Spirit

Rev. Phil Schulman

March 14, 2010

When a young minister was still single, he preached a sermon he entitled, "Rules for Raising Children." After he got married and had children of his own, he changed the title of the sermon to "Suggestions for Raising Children." When his children got to be teenagers, he stopped preaching on that subject altogether.

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When the Earth had passed away, everybody was waiting to enter Paradise. God appeared and said, "I want the men to make two lines -- one line for the men who were true heads of their household, and the other line for the men who were dominated by their women. I want all the women to report to St. Peter."

Soon, the women were gone and there were two lines of men. The line of men who were dominated by their wives, was 100 miles long and in the line of men who truly were "heads of their household", there was only one man.

God spoke, "You men should be ashamed of yourselves. I created you to be the head of your household! You have been disobedient and have not fulfilled your purpose! Of all of you, only one obeyed. Learn from him."

God turned to the one man, "How did you manage to be the only one in this line?"

The man replied, "I don't know. My wife told me to stand here."

I've used these two jokes as my introduction, because I intend to speak about religious authority and expectations of being in charge. In my time here I have learned to have less faith in the use of force, and more willingness to allow things to be what they will be. I speak with a degree of humility. Five years ago the congregation asked me to help it increase the size of its membership. Today the congregation is no larger and probably a bit smaller than when I began. However, you know that I am not here today to promote shame or pity. Size is one measure used to judge the health and success of a congregation, but it is certainly not the only one. In a sport such as basketball, the numbers or score determines who wins and who loses. That's what sports are all about.

But that is not what religion is all about. We encourage each other to consider if our living is bring love to life. Have we served people, been instruments of peace and love? Of course we haven't always done perfectly or at all. So we become willing to reflect with love upon situations that didn't go exactly the way we wanted.

In the past 5 years I have been learning the wisdom of giving only as much as makes sense to do. I've become less willing to use force or coercion to achieve a goal. I've learned that achievements gained through force come at a cost that will be paid later. I am less willing to do for others what they would be better to do themselves. When instead of chasing, or pressuring someone to do more, I accept then wherever they are, I am likely to experience a revelation that enables or involves a growth in faith.

Four years ago, I heard a message come through me for one person, and immediately recognized it as what I and the congregation needed to hear. "Simply accept yourselves where you are. Celebrate yourselves as a small church. Focus on the essentials. Do them well and prioritize enjoyment. Don't strain! What you can do is enough. Realize this, and you will grow." Well, this message that came through me slowly has sunk in to me.

Letting "what is" be enough for now," is a valuable lesson, a really valuable lesson. If I or any of us really really learned it we would spend the rest of our days in peace and gratitude and with increased capacity to contribute to the quality of life of others. The logic of it is irrefutable, and yet have any of us have gone even one day without moments of "if only I had," or "why didn't you...," "you should have...." To some extent the degree of our happiness or unhappiness is reflected in our ability to accept things as they are.

Wait, how can this be my message? How is this Uuism? Aren't we the ones who want to change the world? Or anyways heal it? Are we now to simply "let it be, let it be?"

The short answer is that acceptance helps us to become effective in bringing about changes aligned with our values. When we can show up with full attention to the present moment, when we can say yes and be present to what is, only then can we can see things as they really are, and choose a new and effective response to the next moment. Houston Smith defined Zen the following way: "Simple simple, so simple. Infinite gratitude toward all things past; infinite service to all things present; infinite responsibility to all things future.

The wisdom of all religious traditions teach acceptance. The wise and holy person seeks to bring about change, not with hate, arrogance, or even moralistic judgment. He, or she seeks to change things with love.

That's why, and that's how, I try to come before you each Sunday. It doesn't matter what happened last week at the board meeting, or how well I think I've been appreciated. Oh, sure, you know these things have affected me. Some days, I found it easier than others to show up to lead worship and lead the congregation spiritually by example with love. However, I have done my best to keep church politics, conflicts, and my own worries, frustrations and resentments out of the sanctuary. I put my faith in love. This faith both comes from and grows from knowing God's love. I am happy to share this love with others. I don't get caught up in theology or words. The word God is too easily misunderstood. I am speaking about oneness. I am speaking about the source of life, the place where there is no separation. Where there is only love.

I mention God and worship intentionally. For a generation or two, especially in SA, we UUs have been God -phobic. In my first couple of years here, I met a stream of people who had been to the First Church, and characterized it with words and phrases like intolerant, anti-religious, condescending, and anti-God. There has been a big change at FUUCSA, since that time.

During my tenure, there has been a big change here at CUUC too. I beat the drum steadily with my message. The way for CUUC to succeed is to be a Unitarian Universalist Church. I feel so grateful for the support from Stephanie Sepaugh that have enabled us to have services that were true experiences of worship, invitations to participate in a spiritual practice. The music, the stories, the sense of artistry have been delicious. But I'm not just talking about art. I am talking about developing an attitude of worship. Liberal Religion requires more than a good lecture or even a good sermon. It requires an understanding of the effort it takes to bring about lasting change of consciousness, and a positive attitude about the way religion can enable us to accomplish such change.

For a generation or two, UU congregations, especially fellowships offered mostly lectures and discussions. We became known for being pure intellect. Intellect is great but religion requires more than living in your head. What's worse is that many fellowships and small congregations became characterized as un-religion, where people were held together by an attitude of intellectual superiority to the "non-thinking people who belong to other religions." Many UUs failed to distinguish between superstition and religious practice, between dogmatism and faith. Congregations boasted that everyone was accepted regardless of theology, but actually mostly only welcomed religious cynics, people who were comfortable in an atmosphere where faith, emotion, spiritual and religious practice were absent. People came looking for religious liberalism, and left they experienced that faith was looked down upon.

Although we have emphasized thinking, we Uus are no different than most other people who participate in religion. We come because we want to feel better. It's just that some of us feel better and gain a sense of belonging when we are with others who like to discuss, discuss, discuss. Some people can argue all day long. Some enjoy it because it helps them avoid looking at themselves. Some people come to UU to feel better by building themselves up and by assuming superiority to those whose logic or thinking they could hold as inferior. Oddly they become the exact kind of religion that they rail against.
Oddly I don't know how to describe this phenomena without doing it myself!!!

Some of our congregations have spent the bulk of their time focusing on the dirty bathwater. They forgot that there ever was a baby. Oh and BTW, those so called intellectually inferior religious folks, they know the baby. They may call him Jesus, or God, or Allah or they may refer to it as the Tao, or Nirvana, but they haven't forgotten that discovering the baby is what religion is all about ... the baby, the baby, the newness that comes with the transformative power of love. The baby, the newness that comes from transcending attachment to impermanence. The baby, the baby! What conscious person could be satisfied belonging to a club that spent its time talking about the dirty bath water? Do you think that is what most people want? It's not.

In 1948, the AUA initiated a plan to spread Unitarian religion and enable the birth of more congregations. It was called the Fellowship movement. Free from the financial burden of raising money to support a minister, lay-led fellowships sprung up across the country, especially in University towns. Many things changed as a result. I don't want to characterize the movement with one brush stroke. I am however, alluding to the fellowship movement because it contributed to the spread of congregations that lacked religious flavor and awareness of UU traditions.

Now some of the anti-religious tendencies that have plagued our UUA oC can not be blamed upon the fellowship movement. Some were the natural conclusion of the historical movement called the enlightenment; with its reliance on reason, science and shaped by world view that was mechanistic. I am talking about a world view that assumed that life could be understood in the same way a mechanism can be understood, by breaking it down into its smallest indivisible parts. Combined with capitalism and competing empires, mechanistic worldview led to an imperialistic culture that has denied spirit, denied the interconnectedness, and led us to see nature and people as resources and commodities to be exploited.

We are just beginning to climb out of this nightmare world view. And BTW, we won't get out of it without liberal religion. Some anti-religionists think that we will do it with science alone, but they are making a religion of science and in so doing they actually abandon science and the scientific method.
The mechanistic world view with its denial of spirituality led to our forgetting how to be religious liberals. The fellowship movement simply added to this trend. The movement began with an assumption that these congregations would have elders, Elders who were grounded in the ministry and the traditions of Unitarianism and religious liberalism. Instead what happened was that the fellowships developed a new culture. The intellectualism wasn't new. What was new was the culture of anti-religious sentiment and anti-authoritarianism.

To be fare, rebelling against religious authority has been part of Protestant tradition, especially ours. However, our own resistance and rebelliousness to religious authority reached anarchistic and anti-institutional heights that have been. It bears remembering too that it has been less than 50 years since the merger of the Unitarians and Universalists. In its modern incarnation, our religion is very very young. The net result is an adolescent-like culture.

Like teens we have rejected the authority of our parents, institutions that enabled us to reach this age. Like teens we have tried to act like we got here on our own,that we don't need any help, we can do it on our own, and most of all "don't tell us how to do anything." The extent of our anti-authoritarianism led to congregations that have little knowledge of UU history, and have lost core values and religious aspects of our religious mission. In effect we lost big pieces of our heart.

Now I'm not suggesting we swing back to the other end of the pendulum. I am suggesting that we get honest about what's happened to us. While claiming to be all inclusive, we included only those who would accept an academic environment shaped by a society that wanted to have ruling elites and dominated masses. Everyone is welcome here who is willing to accept a religion where religion has been banned. Everyone is welcome here who can live with chaos and where very little is agreed upon. In rejecting structure, definition and authority, we actually enabled the formation of cliques where the coolest, or most aggressive or best established can have their way.

21st Uuism is learning and growing beyond these limits. CUUC too has grown. There have been efforts made to ensure that this be a place of worship, religious education and faith development. There has been increased intentionality to keep this a church, a place that discovers and presents the clean baby of religious liberalism.

Will the congregation continue to grow beyond anti-authoritarianism? Will you grow in your ability to reach agreements on what is most important, how you will be together, and in what ways you will serve life? Will you take care to practice welcoming of the holy spirit, welcoming an awareness of the sacred, an embracing of inspiration that enables you to incarnate your most deeply held values? Will you accept things as they are, and do your part to enable the next step? Will you look for and proclaim the sacred in the journey? Will you bring life to the beloved community and bring the beloved community to life?

May you be blessed with the ability to say and live a yes.
Amen.