WHAT A FEW CAN DO


The United States Marines have a slogan, "The Few, The Proud, The 
Marines." Change the last word to the name of our religious movement and 
the words fit as well if not better: "The Few, The Proud, The UU's." 

We are and always have been few and we have a heritage of which we can 
be proud. 

In that heritage there is only one brief moment when UU's were a majority. 
That was in the kingdom of Transylvania in the 16th century when King John 
Sigismund was converted to Unitarianism.

For a handful of years, Sigismund breathed the spirit of liberal religion into 
the life of the society he ruled. Rather than forbid other religions, as 
monarchs did in the 16th century and later, Sigismund issued in 1568 The 
Act of Religious Tolerance and Freedom of Conscience. Each of the four 
religions of Transylvania was given complete freedom of religion. 

Sigismund's death in 1571 ended Unitarian rule and soon the freedom and 
toleration he had insisted upon was lost.

We have a right to be proud of the fact that the one time our religion had 
political power, we extended tolerance to all religions and championed 
freedom of conscience.

UU's have not always been accorded that same respect. As individuals, as 
congregations, as larger associations, Unitarians and Universalists have 
suffered for their faith. Trying to live by the principles of freedom, tolerance, 
and reason, UU's have been killed and exiled, cast into prison and deprived 
of property, isolated and scorned.

In 1539, Katharine Weigel, 80 years of age, was burned at the stake for her 
refusal to affirm that Jesus was the Son of God.

Fourteen years later, Michael Servetus was tortured to death in a similar 
manner in Geneva, Switzerland for the same principled refusal.

Almost a century after that, the Socinians were driven from their native 
Poland by the Jesuits under threat of death, the destruction of their property , 
and forced conversion.

Transylvanian Unitarians have time and again had their homes and churches 
put to the torch and been denied the right to change doctrines, rituals, or 
practices.

In 17th century England, John Biddle was jailed a half dozen times because 
he insisted upon speaking the Unitarian truth of his life.

Mari Cook was vilified as a vagrant and jailed for the indecency of 
preaching universalism in early 19th century America. That she was a 
woman in a pulpit was further offense.

Theodore Parker was indicted for violating the Fugitive Slave Act by hiding 
a runaway slave and refusing to cooperate with the law in returning that 
slave to its owner.

Jim Reeb was murdered in Selma, Alabama in 1965. He had gone there to 
march for the right of African Americans to vote and to participate in all 
aspects of American life on an equal basis with all other citizens of the 
country.

Beacon Press and its parent organization, the Unitarian Universalist 
Association, experienced severe financial trauma in the 1970's when Beacon 
published The Pentagon Papers. These documents exposed the lies our 
government had told the public about Vietnam. The government retaliated 
viciously.

We have endured a lot across four and one half centuries. Minorities often 
do. 

We have also accomplished a lot. Minorities suffer, but they also have 
power. The few can make a difference.

The martyrdom of Katharine Weigel and Michael Servetus inspired an 
important statement of religious tolerance. Sebastian Castellio, shocked at 
what had been done to them, asserted, in writings that were to cost him first 
his freedom and then his life, that "to kill a person is not to kill a doctrine, it 
is to kill a person." He denounced the use of state power to further religious 
teachings, the first to argue for a separation of church and state, and one of 
several to claim priority for freedom of conscience in all matters.

His writings influenced Faustus Socinus, whose name was given to the 
Minor Reformed Church of Poland that he led for a quarter of a century. The 
Socinians lived those ideals till driven out of the country in the 1640's. They 
went to Transylvania and Holland and England. Their liberal ideals of open 
discussion, continued growth in theological understanding, and a rational 
search for truth helped to shape the coming world of democratic ideas and 
practices in Europe and the Americas. 

Transylvanians inspired by King John and his teacher, Francis David, held 
firm in their faith for more than four centuries. They resisted monarchical, 
fascist, and then communist tyranny. Our partner church relationship with 
them over these last six years has helped us to appreciate their courage and 
their contribution to liberal religion.


Mari Cook suffered indignities and oppression-she was not allowed back 
into the pulpit-but the message of universalism that she preached was by 
the end of the 19th century the dominant view of most Protestant churches. 
By mid-century women had begun to come into both the Unitarian and the 
Universalist ministries, and today constitute more than half of our ordained 
clergy.

Theodore Parker was a major force in the events leading to the abolition of 
slavery. A friend of Abraham Lincoln's law partner, Parker was the source 
of some of Mr. Lincoln's most felicitous phrases as president, like "of the 
people, by the people, for the people" and others.

James Reeb's death was one of several critical events-including the death 
of another UU, Detroiter Viola Liuzzo-that prompted the passage of the 
Voting Rights Act of 1965.

Beacon Press has continued through the years to publish outstanding books 
that point to a better society, like Cornell West's RACE MATTERS and 
Marian Wright Edelman's THE MEASURE OF OUR SUCCESS. The run-
in with the government was scary and perilous, but it renewed in the Press 
and the UUA the determination to do the work we should do of publishing 
important texts about how to create a just society and how to be a better 
person.

We are a religious minority of about 250,000 adults and children in this 
country and perhaps that number in the other 27 countries where our faith 
flourishes. We are a minority that has made a difference and that continues 
to have influence out of all proportion to our numbers.

That is not true of all minorities. The ancient Sadducees, for example, have 
vanished, a casualty in ancient Judea of the destruction of the Second 
Temple, to whose existence and rituals they had given themselves 
completely.

So have the Albigensians, a small Christian group in southern France in the 
12th and 13th centuries. 

There are hosts of small groups that have vanished, taking their ideas, their 
practices, their accomplishments into oblivion.

But some small groups endure. The Jewish people are one. The Quakers are 
another. And the Unitarian Universalists are a third. 

We began as two distinct religious movements based upon what were then 
quite radical theological notions. The Unitarians believed in the Unity not 
the Trinity of God. The Universalists believed in the salvation of all life, and 
thus all human beings, not in salvation for an exclusive few.

Those theological formulations, once of literally life-or-death importance, no 
longer carry the weight they once did. Unitarianism and Universalism would 
not have survived  by theology alone. More was needed. More was found.

Certain attitudes, certain ways of acting became part of who we are and what 
we stand for. These are not doctrinal formulations, but commitments that are 
deeply embedded in our history and in our common practices. 

The first of these is a commitment to righteousness.

The deepest source of this commitment is the ancient Jewish legend of 
Abraham bargaining with God over the fate of the city of Sodom where Lot, 
his nephew, is living.

"...Then the Lord said, 'Because the outcry against Sodom and Gomorrah is 
great and their sin is very grave, I will go down to see whether they have 
done altogether according to the outcry which has come to me; and if not, I 
will know.'
"So...Abraham still stood before the Lord. Then Abraham drew near, and 
said, 'Wilt thou indeed destroy the righteous with the wicked? Suppose there 
are fifty righteous within the city; wilt thou then destroy the place and not 
spare it for the fifty righteous who are in it? Far be it from thee to do such a 
thing, to slay the righteous with the wicked, so that the righteous fare as the 
wicked! Far be that from thee! Shall not the Judge of the earth do right?' 
And the Lord said, 'If I find at Sodom fifty righteous in the city, I will spare 
the whole place for their sake.' Abraham answered, 'Behold, I have taken 
upon myself to speak to the Lord, I who am but dust and ashes. Suppose five 
of the fifty righteous are lacking? Wilt thou destroy the whole city for lack 
of five?' And he said. 'I will not destroy it if I find forty-five there.' Again 
he spoke to him, and said, 'Suppose forty are found there.' He answered, 
'For the sake of forty I will not do it.' Then he said, 'Oh let not the Lord be 
angry, and I will speak. Suppose thirty are found there.' He answered, 'I will 
not do it, if I find thirty there.' He said, 'Behold, I have taken upon myself to 
speak to the Lord. Suppose twenty are found there.' He answered, 'For the 
sake of twenty I will not destroy it.' Then he said, 'Oh let not the Lord be 
angry, and I will speak again but this once. Suppose ten are found there.' He 
answered, 'For the sake of ten I will not destroy it.' And the Lord went his 
way, when he had finished speaking to Abraham; and Abraham returned to 
his place."
                                                                             (Genesis 18: 20-33)

What an astonishing story! Ten people can save a wicked city, and one 
person, Abraham, made the proposal that persuaded God away from his 
destructive purpose if ten good people could be found.  This is what the few 
can do: save an entire city!

Sadly those ten people were not found and the city was destroyed, but the 
idea of ten being enough was brought into Jewish understanding with the 
ritual requirement of a minyan, ten people, being needed for public prayers. 

Unitarians and Universalists have consistently acted in this spirit of a few 
being able to accomplish a lot if they will but pursue justice.

That spirit inspired the Universalist John Murray and his later colleague 
Hosea Ballou to challenge and eventually have declared unconstitutional the 
payment of a religious tax in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. The 
majority favored it. The rich and the powerful that belonged to the 
congregations that benefited the most from this tax supported it. 

The few opposed it. They were successful first in changing the law so that a 
property owner paid the religious tax to whatever congregation he belonged 
to and not to the established Congregationalist church. Forty five years later 
they eliminated the religious tax altogether.

That is what a few can do when they pursue righteousness.

Consider also the work of Susan B. Anthony, a Unitarian. She believed in 
equality for women at all levels of society and family life because, she 
wrote, this country was formed not by "we the white male citizens, nor yet 
by the male citizens, but by we the whole people...women as well as men." 

Few women and fewer men agreed with her when she began her work in the 
1840's. She was not intimidated by being one of a small number. She was 
pursuing justice and would not be daunted by mere numbers.

When Horace Greeley complained that to give women the suffrage would 
mean that they would soon go off to war, Anthony replied, "Yes, Mr. 
Greeley, I will fight the same way you fought the last war-at the point of a 
goose quill!"

Anthony knew the power of a few good women and men who would work 
for a righteous cause.

The few can do wondrous deeds if the few are set upon the path of 
righteousness. That is part of the power of the UU minority, that doing the 
right thing is very important to us.

We have a commitment to righteousness.

Secondly, we have a commitment to universalism.

Originally universalism was a revolutionary theological notion. Instead of 
eternal life being given only to those who were Roman Catholics or only to 
those predestined to salvation by a Calvinist God who condemned the mass 
of humanity to endless suffering or only to those determined by some other 
exclusionary formula, the Universalists proclaimed that every single person 
would know eternal bliss with God.

Their argument was simple and profound. First, if Christians preached that 
God is Love, how could they speak of that God condemning any of its 
creatures to endless suffering? Like human parents, God would want to save 
every one. Being God, God could make sure that happens. 

Secondly, what kind of heaven would it be if any one of those whom we 
love was not there with us? Love is about sharing and caring and enjoying 
one another's presence.

Only a few believed this way when the Universalists began to preach their 
message in the 1770's. Within a century it was the dominant theological idea 
in Protestant Christianity in America. 

That is what a few can do!

Universalism has a broader application than just to theology. It also applies 
to how we live and how we learn.

UU's have an open, embracing, inviting, comprehensive approach to life that 
seeks to take in the world and all its peoples and ideas. Being a UU means to 
appreciate the varied ways that human beings have struggled with the great 
questions of existence. We study and we learn from all the great religious 
traditions. In our congregations, you will hear readings from Taoism, 
Hinduism, Islam, Buddhism, Native American sources, as well as Judaism 
and Christianity and humanism.

We reject religious elitism. We are always reaching out for ways to widen 
the ground upon which we stand so that all humanity can be included. We 
try to understand and to work for the interests of all people, all society, all 
life. That too is what universalism means.

Eliza Sunderland, whose husband Jabez was the minister of this 
congregation from 1878-1898 and who was unofficially a co-minister with 
him, was a Universalist. When she addressed the World Parliament of 
Religions in Chicago in 1893 on "The Serious Study of All Religion," she 
said that religions should not be in competition. Rather should they be 
seeking larger expressions of our common humanity. Every religion has a 
contribution to make to our understanding of the meaning of religion. We 
need to listen to one another!

Not very many people paid attention at that time to Eliza Sunderland and the 
numerous UU's who shared in the Parliament with her and the handful of 
representatives from other faiths that were speaking the same message. In 
time, though, that message was heard by more and more people. By the end 
of the 20th century two more parliaments had been held and another is 
planned for the summer of 2004. There are numerous interfaith groups 
working world-wide and within America, including the Interfaith Round 
Table in our area to which Eva has contributed so much. Diana Eck has 
written a book about the enormous diversity of religious communities in this 
country, and how much interaction there is between these faiths.

Universalism, which began with a few, has spread to the many.

Beyond recognition of the many religious understandings in the world, UU's 
have also reached out to other groups closed off from society's full benefits. 
The past 40 years has been a time of increasing participation of women in 
roles formerly occupied almost exclusively by men, a movement in which 
this congregation and UU's in general have played significant roles.

This congregation in the 1950's welcomed communists to speak when the 
university was dismissing professors for refusing to take loyalty oaths.

This congregation in the 1970's devoted large sums of money to help fund 
the Black Economic Development League, when other congregations were 
timidly evading such responsibility or offering financial help over which 
they maintained tight control.

The effort by UU's has always been to enlarge the circle, to bring more 
people in, to look for the common threads of our humanity. We have done 
this even when we were few in number because of our commitment to 
universalism.

Our third commitment is to truth.

Unlike most religions, the religion of the Unitarian Universalists has no 
creeds, no doctrines, no requirements of belief for a person to become a 
member. Ours is the view of the remarkable 17th century Baptist Roger 
Williams. He did not believe that human beings could really know truth in 
its fullness. At best we know a little piece of the truth. That is why he did not 
call himself a believer but a Seeker. He did not possess truth but spent his 
life searching for larger and deeper approximations of truth.

That is very much the UU way.  Truth is not a hand-out by a door-to-door 
religious salesperson or by glazed-eyed youngsters standing on street 
corners. Endlessly repeated pious phrases do not and cannot capture truth. 
Truth bursts the bonds of any attempt to shackle or confine or even define it.

Truth is something we seek more than it is something we have found. What 
we learn teaches us a new humility because it opens up new vistas of our 
ignorance. If we would seek truth, we must listen to others and learn from 
them, ready always to revise our present understanding by taking in new 
knowledge.

People tied to ancient creedal formulations can get bogged down in time-
consuming and often futile efforts at reinterpretation. Worse, some followers 
of creeds become unbending in their literal defense of words and ideas that 
are now meaningless.

The UU way is to recognize that change is a law of life, that the language of 
religion like all human languages must change with new knowledge and new 
circumstances. 

One of my predecessors, Ed Redman, certainly illustrated that in the 
sermonic material he delivered over 17 years of ministry here. Beginning in 
1943 with a focus on Christianity and how Unitarians related to it, Ed grew 
in the course of the years to examine humanistic psychology and 
intuitionism. Then he began to explore the esoteric teachings of Swami Ji, 
and moved beyond that to a study of several of the most influential religions 
of the world. His last contribution to this congregation was a little book he 
wrote as he was leaving, RELIGION'S NEW FRONTIERS, in which he 
looked towards the role of religion in the closing years of the 20th century.

We do not hold truth. We seek it.

We must also live it.

"Living in truth" is a phrase first used by Vaclav Havel in 1978 when he was 
a dissident in Czechoslovakia. It means to seek the truth and then live in 
what that truth shows us is a moral way to live. For him, that meant 
opposing the lies of the communist system that ruled his country. By living 
in the truth, Havel and his small band of courageous dissenters-often  
denounced, often imprisoned, sometimes murdered-participated in the 
Velvet Revolution that non-violently tore down the Iron Curtain and ushered 
in a new era in all the Eastern European countries.

In the UU context, living in truth means that when we have applied our 
minds and hearts as diligently and honestly as we are able, we must then act 
out the truth we have come to. 

Michael Servetus did that, refusing the chance to live if living meant he had 
to renounce what his studies of the Bible had made clear to him, that the 
Bible has nothing to say about a Trinity.

Dorothea Dix did that, spending her years working to alleviate the wretched 
conditions in which people with mental and emotional disturbances were 
forced to live. Once she knew how bad those conditions were, she tried to 
change them. Even though most of society did not agree with her, she lived 
the truth that simple things like cleanliness, good food, kindness, education, 
and medical care can help relieve the distress these people feel.

A few decades ago the American Psychological Association determined that 
homosexuals were not normal. It was fairly standard practice to try and 
convert homosexuals to heterosexuals. Religious communities, relying on 
ancient and ambiguous texts, joined in condemning those whose love is for 
their own gender. Most of those communities still condemn homosexuals or 
are having furious fights led by a minority to gain for homosexuals an equal 
place within that religious body.

As early as the 1960's, the UU's discovered a simple truth: homosexuals are 
human beings. Two men or two women loving each other is as normal as 
blueberry pie. In several resolutions passed by the General Assembly, in 
various actions taken by the UUA to assure fair treatment of gay ministers 
by congregations in search of a new minister, and in the marriage 
ceremonies performed by UU ministers for lesbian and gay couples, UU's-
and we are certainly the few in this area of social concern, though blessedly 
our numbers are growing-have been living the truth we discovered.

What we have learned, despite a plethora of "don't ask, don't tell" policies 
and attitudes, is that gay men and lesbian women-and bisexuals and 
transgendered persons and others-are just that, men and women. Their 
relationships are as permanent and satisfying as heterosexual relationships, 
and as stormy and difficult too. If anything, children raised in homes of same 
sex couples are better adjusted, emotionally healthier, do better in school, 
and seem happier than children raised in so-called normal homes. We have 
several loving instances of the normalness of homosexual families in this 
congregation, with achievements and struggles just like other families.

It is not gender or sexual orientation but character, behaviour, integrity, and 
ultimately love that matter. That is the truth!

UU's have been actively engaged in living that truth for the past several 
decades. Few as we are, we are making a difference.

Truth is not set in stone tablets but is mysteriously ever beyond us. We 
perceive truth. We cannot grasp it. The commitment of the UU few is to 
seek the truth, not to stake out a claim on it.

Truth must be lived if it is to do good, and living in truth is one of the most 
important ways that the few can accomplish great things.

We have a commitment to truth.

We live in a time when it is hard for people to believe that the few can do 
much of anything, especially the UU few. We are outnumbered and 
overpowered by larger institutions and forces whose numbers and influence 
we will never be able to match. When personal circumstances are also hard, 
as they are for so many, it is not surprising that some feel a sense of despair.

These remarks today have tried to address that sense of hopelessness by 
pointing out that our tiny religious movement-among many other tiny 
groups in the world in the past and present-has had significant influence on 
western religion and social and political life in America. We have done this 
despite being few in numbers by a commitment to righteousness, a 
commitment to universalism, and a commitment to truth. You can remember 
these three things by the oxymoronic acronym R U T, pronounced  "rut," in 
which we definitely are not.

Margaret Mead once said, "Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful 
committed citizens can change the world; indeed, it's the only thing that ever 
has."

May we as Unitarian Universalists continue to be in that group, using the 
power of righteousness, universalism, and truth to bring hope to our lives
and hope to the world.

The Few. The Proud. The Unitarian Universalists.

















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