THE NEW IN LIGHT OF THE OLD A Sermon by Kenneth W. Phifer Delivered at First UU Church Ann Arbor, MI May 15, 2005 The First Unitarian Universalist Congregation of Ann Arbor is 140 years and one day old today. The Articles of Confederation were signed on May 14, 1865 by 37 men and women, thereby creating the First Congregational Unitarian Society of Ann Arbor. From 37 charter members, we have grown and declined and grown again in membership several times. Our membership is now just under 800 with the 44 new members who have been recognized today. One of the reasons for our numerical strength is that we are constantly welcoming new people into our congregational life. Another reason is that many new members of past years have stayed on to help create a dynamic, caring religious community, some 157 of them for 20 years or more. Given the mobility of this university community with its several institutions of higher learning and given that the average length of membership in any religious community in America is well under ten years, these numbers are quite remarkable. The life of this congregation is played out in the meeting of the old ways and the veteran members who know those ways and the new ideas and new talents of the new members. Both operate within a community that is distinguished by certain attitudes, ideas, and practices. At this time of transition in congregational life, it is useful to remember some of the essential elements of institutional life that have made and will continue to make the meeting of old and new a productive and happy one. Let me suggest to you several of these key elements. One, perhaps the most basic, is our source of authority. Because ours is a religion without a specific theology or creed, without a single sacred text or only one story that defines us, we tend to rely on principles not doctrines, on process more than conclusions, on the means being just as important as the ends. Our authority is spoken in many forms, but one of the clearest is found in the Words of Affirmation we speak almost every Sunday: Love is the spirit of this congregation, and service is its law. This is our covenant with each other: to dwell together in peace, to search for truth in love, and to help one another. Our authority is grounded in love, which we sometimes call justice, mercy, kindness, sharing, cooperation, compassion, peacefulness, or tolerance. UU’s do not ask for a theological identity card when working with the homeless through IHN or walking for the hungry at CROP Walk time or building a home through Habitat For Humanity. Seeing the need, we draw our authority for addressing that need out of love. Think what a world it would be if love really were the guiding authority of every one! We also look to human experience for help in understanding what is the best way to act. Looking at history, we see that killing people and stealing from them, oppressing people and denying them basic freedoms are not good ways to live, not for those on the receiving end of these depredations nor for those on the giving end. There are good ways to live that we see in the story of humanity. They are grounded in giving every one an opportunity at a happy life, a productive life, a life that has sufficient resources to meet emergencies, a life that has its privacy and also its familial and communal obligations. These are the lessons we teach our children in religious education. These are the lessons that I try to remind us all of on Sunday morning. These are the lessons embedded in the words on the boulder at the front entrance of our building: The First UU Congregation of Ann Arbor…Committed to love not hate, respect not contempt, openness not exclusion…This congregation is a safe haven for all the peoples of the earth. Not a person, not a doctrine, not a text, not a tradition, not a revelation, but a truth that human life teaches us: it is always better to love than to hate. That is the spiritual authority for our common life. On a practical basis, the authority for what we do is found in the By-Laws. The role of the ministers is described. The functions of the board are made clear. The manner of our elections is laid out. The way our democratic organization operates is outlined in this document. Acting under that authority, the board establishes policy for the specific ways we shall conduct our business. This congregation is completely autonomous, joining freely with some 1200 other congregations in the Unitarian Universalist Association of Congregations. The word Association is meant literally. We agree to associate with each other without being bound to a denominational hierarchy or a theological correctness. Heresy trials are unheard of in our ranks. We look to love, we look to human experience, we look to our By-Laws, we look to established congregational policies for the authority under which we act. Secondly, there is our understanding of what it means to be a congregation. Being a UU congregation means that we recognize that, as much as we honor individual freedom, individuals cannot walk alone in life. We need each other. It is important that we bind ourselves to each other in some agreed upon way. A UU congregation is the manifestation of our knowledge that only if we create institutions that outlive us can the wisdom of our lives be preserved and the folly of our lives serve as a negative example. Our ideas and practices can continue only if people are somehow gathered together in a meaningful community that has a sense of the past and a vision for the future. That is a congregation. According to the distinguished Unitarian historian Conrad Wright, a UU congregation has several important elements. One of these is that our bond with each other is not doctrinally or ritually based. We do not have to open and read from a book or recite a creed or pray in a particular manner. We see these as important but not essential ways of expressing truths. Our Sunday services are ordered in different ways. We have different ritual practices—lighting or not lighting a chalice, wearing or not wearing robes, praying or meditating. We use different Affirmations or none. We take offerings or we do not. We agree that these and many other practices and statements are not the heart of the matter. We celebrate our diversity of practices and agree on the wisdom of such openness to different ways. Wright points to a second distinctive quality of our congregations in that we do not force answers to questions but let the answers evolve naturally in the course of time, or not. We do not have a stated policy about the theological views of ministers or members. Both groups are truly diverse, from pretty conservative Christian to pretty radical humanistic. We admit the importance of the question of the existence and nature of God. We just don’t think anyone can ever answer that question finally. We bind ourselves to one another agreeing not to make answers to the Big Questions a test of membership. What this leads to is a form of religious community whose boundaries are porous, determined by the individuals who make up a given congregation more than by any pre-established norms. There are UU congregations so many of whose members are Christian or Humanist that the life of that congregation is essentially Christian or Humanist and not something other. That could change over time depending on who joins the congregation. This congregation had a mostly theistic membership in the late 19th century; a mostly humanistic membership in the middle years of the 20th century, and today has as wide a range of views as any congregation in the UUA. A third element of a UU congregation is democratic practice. We are not alone in our democracy, but it is a central feature of our way of being. Democracy for us begins with the congregation writing and approving the By-Laws. It extends from there to include the election of the board of trustees and the program council. It also and importantly involves what you will be soon be doing, namely calling a minister, and it is the congregation’s responsibility to accept a resignation or retirement of a minister or dismiss one who has broken the covenant between minister and congregation. While it is true that ministers and staff do much of the work of a UU congregation, it is also true that the great dynamic of our kind of religious community lies in what the congregants do: decide congregationally to take a Salvadoran family into sanctuary and then support that family for 17 years to date; utilize the abundance of musical gifts of our membership for three choirs—adult, junior, and bell—as well as once a month providing a delightful coffee house with performers; teach the numerous classes we offer to our children and to our adults; assist Maureen in getting out the newsletter; prepare our weekly coffee hours; nurture our developing Memorial Garden; discover the creative artistic talents of our congregation and exhibit the products of those talents; and much, much more. This congregation is more than anything else the people who make it up, the wonderful members who have endured through the years and the exciting class of new members who will change us by their presence and their deeds. Democracy, along with diversity of practice and thought, is an important feature of what a UU congregation is. A congregation needs a purpose. I have always liked the answer that Sue Seaver gave to my question to the search committee that eventually called me to the Canton, Massachusetts’s church some 32 years ago. I had asked the committee to tell me what the central purpose of their congregation was. Without hesitation Sue said, “To make the world a better place.” This simple answer is not easy to achieve. It begins with strengthening our own personal spiritual life, lest we be overwhelmed by despair at all the darkness and madness of the world. If our spirit is strong, we can be responsible. If we are responsible, we can imagine what justice would look like, and pursue that path. If we are pursuing justice, we will make the world better, at least so long as we remember that the ends we seek and the means by which we seek them must be commensurate. Another way of speaking our purpose is found in the words of one of our favorite poets, Mary Oliver. “The poppies send up their orange flares; swaying in the wind, their congregations are a levitation of bright dust, of thin and lacy leaves. There isn’t a place in this world that doesn’t sooner or later drown in the indigos of darkness, but now, for a while, the roughage shines like a miracle as it floats above everything with its yellow hair. Of course nothing stops the cold black, curved blade from hooking forward— of course loss is the great lesson. But I also say this: that light is an invitation to happiness, and that happiness, when it’s done right, is a kind of holiness, palpable and redemptive. Inside the bright fields, touched by their rough and spongy gold, I am washed and washed in the river of earthly delight— and what are you going to do— what can you do about it— deep, blue night? What a powerful, beautiful testament to faith in life! Look for the light. Embrace the light. Let the light shine. It is “a kind of holiness, palpable and redemptive.” Hope not despair is our purpose. Our authority is found in love. Our congregation is defined by and functions through diversity, openness to questions, and democratic practice. Our purpose is to find and share hope. In my quarter century as your minister, I have seen over and over and yet over again the people of this congregation living by these ideas and practices. I have seen long-time members and new members as well repeatedly practicing love, and being open to diversity and sharing in the excitement of hard questions and even when it is painful living by the rules of democracy, and always, always generating hope into the world in word and deed. What I have seen is long-time members continuing through the years despite the many challenges we have faced as a congregation and new members becoming so involved that it is not long before they have become long-time members themselves. I am grateful to those of you who have been with me through my 25 years here. You cannot imagine how much you have enriched my life, helped me to grow, and over and over again taught me about love and diversity and hope. I am grateful to those of you who have signed the membership book in the last five months. It is a symbol of your commitment to a future full of love and diversity and hope. The qualities that have made this congregation what it is will sustain it in the transition period and give it strength for the new ministry to come. It really is an exciting time to be a UU in AA.! Copyright 2005, Kenneth W. Phifer, All Rights Reserved BIBLIOGRAPHY 1. Marjorie Reade, THE FIRST UNITARIAN UNIVERSALIST CHURCH OF ANN ARBOR: THE STORY OF OUR FIRST ONE HUNDRED YEARS, 1990 Committee of the First Unitarian Universalist Church of Ann Arbor, 1990. 2. Conrad Wright, WALKING TOGETHER: POLITY AND PARTICIPATION IN UNITARIAN UNIVERSALIST CHURCHES, Skinner House Books, 1989.