This may not be the best or the most important service that I ever do from this pulpit, but it will probably be the most personally significant one for me. Why this is so will hopefully become clear as we move along. And today, because these thoughts have been a long time coming, and because I have spent considerable time choosing the words of my text, I am going to read that text to you verbatim-in contrast to my usual, more extemporaneous style. So please bear with me!
In Part I of this service, which I presented on September 17th, I identified several characteristics that I thought were essential in order for a community to be a religious community. This is something about which I think we can have a variety of legitimately differing views, so my purpose is not to persuade you that my view is the correct one. I simply offer it for your consideration. Today I want to modify some of the items on the list of characteristics I presented in September, and then add some further items to that list. Near the end, I will move to a further topic, which is actually the title for today-the purpose or function that I believe religious community should serve.
Many of you will remember a best-selling book by Scott Peck that came out in 1978 called The Road Less Traveled. He wrote a series of books after that, and one of them (in 1987) was called The Different Drum: Community Making and Peace. For the prologue of that book, Peck retells a story called "The Rabbi's Gift," which provided the central image for the September service: In it, the five remaining monks of a dying monastery, by giving each other the love and respect that would be their due in case one of them might turn out to be the messiah, become the core of a once-again vital and growing community.
Mary Grace's story for that Sunday's service was called the "Tale of the Long Spoons," in which an identical scene is played out in both heaven and hell-with one difference. The scene is of a very long dining table with soup tureens placed along it. Many people are crowded along both sides of the table, and each person has a spoon that is longer than his or her own arm. In hell, everyone is sad-and starving- because they are unable to get food from the table to their mouths using these spoons. In heaven, everyone is happy and thriving because, instead of attempting to feed themselves with these spoons, they are using them to feed each other.
Another image that I used came from the concept in Catholic theology of the "communion of saints," which-in my unCatholic version of it-is characterized by radical equality, meaning that each member is the spiritual equal of every other member; there are no spiritual leaders, and no spiritual followers. To use the imagery of the Last Supper: Each member offers his own spiritual flesh and blood for the nourishment and sustenance of each of the other members. However, in my version of the communion of saints-unlike the Christian notion of the Last Supper-there is no single individual who is specially blessed over and above the others, or whose spiritual flesh and blood holds greater significance than that of the others.
I also used a musical metaphor drawn from the ensemble arias of Mozart's operas. These arias are unique in the operatic literature, in having up to five or six principles all singing simultaneously, but not in unison. Sometimes they sing completely different words to completely different melodies. Sometimes they sing the same words but to different tunes, or, different words to the same tune-and sometimes all of these combinations over the course of a single aria. The effect is like the vocal equivalent of a string quartet. But of course there are words to the arias, and the words are often words of disagreement, anger, pleading, scolding, cajoling, rage, or disappointment. And yet: the overall effect is always-as we would expect from Mozart-completely harmonious.
Of course, in a Mozart opera, the composer and the conductor ensure this harmonious result. But in a communion of saints, there is neither composer nor conductor, so the harmonious effect must be brought about solely by the efforts of the "players" themselves. So perhaps a better metaphor would be a jazz ensemble in the process of creating a new, improvisational piece of music for the first time without a written score. John Bradshaw has reminded me that there are certain musical conventions that jazz musicians use-"tricks of the trade," so to speak-to help them stay in harmony with each other. But they are otherwise free to improvise and create individually-although they must of course listen closely to each other in order for the music to remain coherent and all "of a piece."
There's a footnote to this metaphor: Just as one would not expect to be able to just pick up a musical instrument and begin jamming with other musicians without prior practice on one's own-in addition to a great deal of practice in ensemble playing as well-so we should likewise expect that "ensemble playing" by the members of a religious community might also take considerable discipline and practice. After all, a communion of "earth-bound" saints cannot assume that they will automatically be in tune or in sync with one another.
The final element in this list of characteristics of religious community emerged from an exercise we did together. The exercise asked us to share our answers to three questions. I won't do the exercise again now, but I'll state each of the questions and give you a moment to recall your own responses to them, or to think about them for a moment now, in case you were not present for the September service. The first was actually an instruction: "Think of a particularly satisfying event or period in your life that involved close collaboration with at least two other people." [pause] The second question asked, "What was the most significant aspect of that experience?" [pause] And the third was: "How did the experience affect your relationship with the other people who were involved?"
For the offertory, we'll listen to a recording of a jazz ensemble number. It's always difficult to tell, for any given recording, how much improvisation was going on as it was being made, but we can assume that, regardless of what we hear on the recording, there would have been quite a bit of improvisation going on the first time the musicians got together to work on the number that we're listening to.
I want now to qualify some of the attributes of religious community that I listed earlier, with three items:
First: The image of the five monks in the monastery treating each other as though each of them might be the messiah-I find powerful and suggestive. But there's a potential pitfall in using this metaphor as an inspiration for our own relationships with each other. In order to be a potential messiah, I think one would need to have both a pretty thick skin and a very strong sense of self. Both of these attributes would be needed-in combination with each other-in order to make a person more-or-less immune to criticism. After all, being able to handle criticism would be a key element in the job qualifications for messiah! But few of us possess the emotional security that would permit us to accept unvarnished criticism from others without feeling unappreciated, or attacked, or diminished in some way-even when the person delivering the criticism is a member of our own community. We might feel particularly hurt because the person delivering it was a member of our own community.
Well, maybe a community of disembodied saints would never have to worry about criticism-because they would have transcended the need for it. And in any case they wouldn't be saddled with the human biology that makes us susceptible to emotional turmoil-a susceptibility that many of us suffer from even when the turmoil is inappropriate, or counter-productive, or out of proportion to the events that provoked it. Our emotions are often a source of power for us, but they are also an Achilles heel. Any communion of saints-or any religious community- that you or I would belong to would be made up of embodied human beings who are both flawed and subject to sometimes-incapacitating or debilitating emotions. But even potential messiahs-perhaps particularly potential messiahs-must be open to criticism. No human enterprise can flourish and progress without open internal dynamics that encourage criticism and self-correction. A potential messiah should be able to absorb even savage and unsympathetic criticism, and not only endure it, but turn it to the benefit of the community. But most of us would tend to clam up and shut down in the face of open criticism or disagreement-the more so the harsher or less charitable the criticism seems to be. (And of course, to most of us, any criticism seems harsh and uncharitable!) Most of us would experience great difficulty remaining in a state of solidarity and harmony with the person or people from whom the criticism or disagreement would come. So, part of becoming a truly robust religious community might entail treating each other as though we were each potential messiahs, but it would also require us to toughen up our emotional hides-develop thicker skins-and cultivate an environment in which criticism is not only tolerated and survived, but welcomed and invited.
(Naturally, it would also be useful to simultaneously develop pro-active listening skills and proficiency with techniques like non-violent communication, appreciative inquiry, and the way of council, so that criticism, when necessary, can be delivered with love.)
Second: When I spoke in September, I forgot something that I think is an absolutely essential characteristic of religious community, and that is the quality of "transparency." In the course of our conventional social lives there are many things that we hide from each other about ourselves. And there are good psychological reasons for doing so. [pause] But if the reasons that make this a sensible practice out in the world at large continue to operate within the "four walls" of our religious community-or even if those reasons are not operative (because we know, after all, that we love and trust each other)-but we nevertheless carry on with each other out of habit the way we carry on in the outside world-then the achievement of true religious community is sabotaged from within.
But what does it mean to be "transparent" as a community? Fundamentally, I think that transparency is simply a fancy word for having as deep, full, and loving a knowledge and understanding of each other as is humanly possible. I think such knowledge is difficult, if not impossible, to achieve, without including many of the nitty-gritty facts about our everyday lives. For it is in those places, with those facts, that our fears manifest themselves-the same fears that cause us to cloak ourselves in the presence of strangers, fearing their judgment of us, their rejection of us, or their exploitation of our weaknesses. However, if spiritual growth has anything to do with overcoming our fears-and I would think it has everything to do with overcoming our fears-then we cannot grow as a religious community, or spiritually as individuals within the community, if we cloak from each other the same things that, out of fear, we cloak from strangers.
I've been speaking pretty abstractly. Let me mention just one example that I think might carry enough weight to make my point. The amount of your financial pledge to this church, and the amount of my financial pledge to the church, are considered confidential information. I have always wondered why this was, exactly. It seems to me like a somewhat bizarre practice within a religious organization. What is it we are afraid our fellow community members will think about us, if they know how much money we give to the church? Or even if they don't think something ill about us, in what way do we fear that they will misconstrue such information if it were available to everyone? [pause] Does the mere suggestion that others would know the exact amount of your financial pledge to the church start to make you feel nervous? [pause] If not-excellent! But if it does make you feel the least bit nervous, then I would say that that very nervousness-and its underlying causes-are an impediment to true religious community. Whatever any of us might think, were we know the amount of each others' pledges, concealing the information only prevents us from confronting the fears and emotions that, left unexposed, undermine true spiritual growth.
Third: Here's a third attribute I did not mention in September: consensus decision-making. (I started a discussion about this on our cuuc-discuss email list a couple of months ago, but it soon died away.) Consensus decision-making basically means (for a church, anyway, I think) that all decisions affecting the specifically religious aspects of community life are made unanimously. No decisions of this kind would be enacted until they were unanimous. The implications of shifting from majority-vote decision-making to consensus decision-making are potentially transformative-or disastrous. Under majority-vote decision making, if you know that you are in the majority on a particular issue of importance to the church, there isn't much incentive to expand your own view to include the views of those in the minority. Being good "democrats," those in the minority are expected either to bow to the will of the majority, or leave the organization if they are sufficiently dissatisfied with the decision.
A couple of years ago, we introduced something called a covenant, which each member of the church makes-or renews-at the same time that we make our financial pledges each year. As we have instituted it, this covenant is reciprocal: The individual covenants to the church, and the church covenants to each individual. I had reservations about this idea from the very beginning, and had lengthy email conversations with Henry about it. From my side of these conversations, they were inconclusive. But I think I now finally understand the difficulty I was wrestling with: It comes in the form of a question: How can the church possibly covenant itself to fulfill the needs of each individual member-if it does not utilize consensus decision-making for the religiously important decisions? Where is the radical equality of the communion of saints-if its minority members are left to "suck it up" when views they consider vital to their spiritual well-being are overruled?
Consensus decision-making requires time and practice-just like preparation for playing in the metaphorical jazz ensemble. Discord will result if one individual or small group stays stuck on its own musical "note" and refuses to budge. Everyone involved in the process must be committed to looking for the win-win solution. Otherwise, community breaks down and disaster or dissolution are likely to ensue.
Now the last part-what are the functions of a religious community? What purposes does it serve?
I'm sure there are a number of ways that this could be characterized, but two of them in particular come to mind. The first will sound really religious (imagine that!). But I would suggest that it is equally applicable even to the atheists and agnostics among us (which includes myself). It's very simple: the first purpose of religious community is to seek communion, communication or contact with the Divine. I deliberately use the term "divine" rather than "sacred" because the term "sacred" could refer to almost anything that we value more highly than anything else. If there is anything in the universe that meets our description or notion of the "divine," it would certainly be sacred, of course. But it would also be much more than that; after all, the divine, whatever else it is, has so far been unknowable and indiscernible by human beings-at least with any degree of certainty. Whereas, any number of things and ideas have acquired the right to be called "sacred." I'm not making any claims here-or even suggestions- about the existence of the Judeo-Christian-Islamic God-Yahweh-Allah. Indeed, to say that the purpose of our religious community is to make contact with the Divine is problematic, since our denomination has no specific theology of the divine. What I'm suggesting is that, if there is a divine element to existence-an animating force behind nature and our lives-a transcendent plane of being-then at least one of the functions of religious community-and perhaps the primary function-would be to strive to identify-and to bring us into contact with-that dimension of reality. (Don't ask me how that's done. I'm not up to that part yet. In any case, figuring that out is the challenge for religious liberals. I have some glimmerings about it, but the straight answer is: I don't know!)
There are of course many reasons for seeking and building community: emotional comfort and support; social solidarity; economic efficiency (as in CoHousing); cultural enrichment; collective action for social justice; etc. But if the quest for the divine is not present as an animating focus, then, in my view, it is not really a religious community. It is probably a kind of community that is also necessary and desirable for human actualization, but it would not be a specifically religious community.
A second purpose for religious community would be to nurture the growth and development of whatever divine element exists within our own nature-within our own being-as individuals. In fact, I don't think it is possible to do this kind of spiritual work outside of a social context, which is why religious community is so necessary to us. But, there are no guarantees. Even if participation in a religious community is a necessary condition for spiritual growth, it is probably not a sufficient condition for spiritual growth.
I need to add a further qualification here. I don't think that all personal growth is spiritual in nature. Just because I come out of church-or out of any experience-a better person, or even spiritually "uplifted"-this does not mean I have experienced spiritual growth. I do not want to use the term "spiritual" to refer simply to anything that advances us up Maslow's hierarchy of needs. Even self-actualization-the apex of Maslow's hierarchy-will not always be spiritual in nature (although of course often it will be). Emotional maturity, the acquisition of knowledge, the development of intellectual acumen, greater dexterity in personal relationships, enhanced interpersonal skills-these are all forms of personal growth, but they are not necessarily or particularly spiritual. For now I'll leave it at that-a list of things that spiritual growth is not-and pursue what it is perhaps another time.
I think that the various characteristics of religious community that I have spoken about are necessary in order for it to fulfill either of these two functions. I would summarize the highlights of those necessary characteristics this way:
The quest for the divine, and the growth of the personal divine within us, are such difficult endeavors that I don't see how they would be possible without at least these three conditions being present (these three characteristics of religious community). There is of course much more to be said about all five of these elements. And I hope we'll explore them together in all the ways that we have open to us as a community.
Naturally, as worship chair and member of the board, I have been thinking about these things a great deal lately. Of course I've been thinking about them for most of the thirty-nine years that I've been a Unitarian. And, over the last year or so, I have been thinking about them perhaps harder than I have been thinking about anything else. And, I have been thinking about our own community with respect to these five elements of religious community. Personally: I don't think we do them very well, and some of them I don't think we do at all. That would be my own diagnosis for why our membership has not grown in recent years in the way that we would like to see it grow. In my view, if all five of these elements were vigorously present in the community, membership growth would not be an issue. On the contrary, we'd have to beat people away from the door with a stick!
But please do not interpret these remarks-or anything I have said this morning-as a criticism directed at you, or at any of the individual members of this church, every one of whom I love and deeply appreciate. What I have said is of course very much a criticism of the church as an organization and as an institution. But it's a criticism based on my own model for religious community-which, by the way, is something I have been able to articulate clearly for myself for the first time only as I prepared these two sermons. There are other equally valid models for religious community that would emphasize perhaps very different characteristics and goals. You may share some of those, and not mine. But enumerating what they are or what they might be is a task for another time, and perhaps for someone else altogether. I'll end my own thoughts there for the time being.