Soul Force

We Covenant…

Rev. Paul Sprecher

Second Parish in Hingham, www.secondparish.org

June 5, 2011

READING: “Blessed Are Those” -John Buehrens

Blessed are those who yearn for deepening more than escape;

who are not afraid to grow in spirit.

Blessed are those who take seriously the bonds of community;

who regularly join in celebration and learning;

who come as much to minister as to be ministered unto.

Blessed are those who bring their children;

who invite their friends to come along, to join in

fellowship, service, learning, and growth.

Blessed are those who support the church and its work by their regular, sustained, and generous giving; and who give of themselves no less than their money.

Blessed are those who know that the church is often imperfect, yet rather than harbor feelings of anger or disappointment, bring their concerns and needs to the attention of the church leaders.

Blessed are those who when asked to serve, do it gladly; who realize that change is brought about through human meeting, who do the work of committees, and stay till the end.

Blessed are those who speak their minds in meetings, who can take and give criticism; who keep alive their sense of humor.

Blessed are those who know that the work of the church is the transformation of society; who have a vision of Beloved Community transcending the present, and who do not shrink from controversy, sacrifice, or change.

Blessed are they indeed.

SERMON: We Covenant…. -Rev. Paul Sprecher

When the Pilgrims on the Mayflower arrived in Cape Cod, they had been buffeted in a difficult crossing and driven well north of the land grant that they had been given in New York. It was too late in the season for them to continue down the coast to the area they were legally entitled to settle (“legally,” of course, only according to the English crown, not the real inhabitants of the land whom they would displace.) They were not only arriving in a new world, they were also quite literally stepping outside the boundaries put in place by their government. They had no choice but to govern themselves. They therefore all subscribed to the Mayflower Compact, in which they agreed to make “such just and equal laws, ordinances, acts, constitutions and offices” as were best for the colony, and to submit to such laws as were mutually agreeable to them. Other newcomers to this land took up this practice of governing themselves as well. When the 30 or so families of Dedham decided to determine how best to walk together starting in 1637, just two years after our own town of Hingham was founded, they set up a series of weekly neighborhood meetings “lovingly to discourse and consult together … and prepare for spiritual communion in a church society … that we might be further acquainted with the … tempers and gifts of one another.” They agreed to meet together each week to discuss a question of concern to their constituting themselves together; to speak without arguing; and to finish each meeting by posing a question for consideration the following week. They met this way for over a year before they founded their church. Alice Blair Wesley, in her description of these extraordinary discussions, summarizes the outcome this way:

These New Englanders assumed that the strongest – maybe not the only, but the strongest, clearest, most authentic voice in their whole society – for justice, peace and reasonable laws – would come from the free church, once it was established…. The task of the free church could be summed – in their terms – as loving God and loving one another so well that in their own study and discussion, dispute and conference, prayer, consultation and more discussion in the free church, members might learn together the divine will of the loving God for the whole society insofar as that will relates to justice, peace and reasonable laws.[i]

We in our congregations have come to believe that the practice of democracy is not only a convenient way to make everyone feel included; it is in fact the only way that we as individuals may grow to become responsible people of faith. One of the risks in our faith is the idea that the freedom from external constraints and dogmas in our personal beliefs means that each of us can believe whatever we want. We have at times in our history emphasized individuality over commitment to the congregations in which we share our faith. Our seventh principle – respect for the interdependent web of all existence of which we are a part – reminds us that our affirmation of respect for the inherent worth and dignity of every person in our first principle does not occur in a vacuum; such respect can occur only within community and in the context of all that is or can be – ultimate human worth does not stand alone and in isolation.

“Walking Together” was a term used by our New England church ancestors for continuous consultation one with another. Alice Blair Wesley summarizes its meaning this way: “Members of the free church discipline one another by reasoning together in love, whenever any members see it as needed.”

I think that all of us would agree that what we do here is to strive to walk together in love toward one another. On this day of our annual meeting, the day of the year when it is clearest that it is the members of the congregation who are in complete charge of this our spiritual home, I believe it is timely to reflect on what that walking together in love entails, and how it informs our faith commitments here.

First of all, we govern ourselves; we use what is termed “congregational polity” as our form of governance, as did the founders of this congregation and of all the churches started by the Pilgrims and the Puritans who settled in this area, as well as the founders of the Universalist churches of our ancestors. We have no bishops, no overseers, no authorities above us to own our property, assign ministers, or decide what we must or may not believe or how we must or may not behave. That commitment to independence at the local level is absolutely fundamental to our self-definition as a people of faith. Conrad Wright recalls a colleague who contended that “the only things Unitarian Universalists can agree on are congregational polity and Roberts Rules of Order.”

All very interesting, you may say, but what difference does it make? We are, of course, famously individualistic. We want to make up our own minds about issues of importance to us. As the old joke has it, if there were a sign that pointed to “Heaven” to the right and to “Debate about Heaven” to the left, most Unitarian Universalists would proceed to the left. I want to assert that the way we govern ourselves has profound consequences for our theology. It says, for example, that no one—no bishop, no priest, no final authority—no one may tell us what to believe or how to practice our religion. Only our own conscience may do that. As Alice Blair Wesley puts it,

Ultimately, the only freedom adequate to human dignity is the freedom to do what love asks of us. And the greatest blessings of life come to us and through us to all the world when, with intimate and freely bonded companions, we are trying together to live with the integrity of faithful love.[ii]

Even though we govern our congregations, we certainly do so imperfectly. We make mistakes in governing our churches, as we do in governing our personal lives. Walking together in love means picking ourselves up and moving on, whether in our personal lives or in our life as a congregation. We believe that human beings should govern themselves in every context whenever possible; we believe in the democratic process in politics as well as in our congregations.

We Unitarian Universalists have our own history and traditions and we need to remain rooted in the places from which we come: in this particular place at Second Parish where we have covenanted to walk together, and in the history and traditions of the broader faith of which we are a part; but we also need to be open to insight and understanding from other spiritual traditions, from other images for understanding the world, the sacred, and our place here as we walk together.

This place, this spiritual home, is the primary nexus of our spiritual life and ministry together. Our Unitarian forebears in Transylvania each brought a lamp from their own home to illuminate their place of worship together. In the same manner, we come together here each week to gather strength, to worship, to greet each other, to learn, to carry our metaphorical lamps from our homes and our families and to use each of our single lamps to light up this place together. We gather freely, without coercion, without threat or promise, because it is here that we are refreshed for our journey. We govern ourselves because we are responsible for ourselves both individually and collectively here in this place. Recall again the words of Alice Blair Wesley,

We are a people who empower our members as they determine exactly how they will express their own understanding of righteousness and reverence for the sacred and in particular how they understand their obligations to each other, to their families, their neighbors, and this good earth all around us. We are a people who understand, as we say in our Second Parish Covenant, that we must “respect each person’s search for truth.” It is comforting to believe that truth can be found in some dogmatic formulation or creed, but it is a false comfort. We are a people who trust each other to examine ourselves and find what expression of truth speaks most surely to each of us.

From this we then conclude that only self-governance at the level of each of our congregations can provide the means to work out our own salvation, as the Apostle Paul puts it, “with fear and trembling.” [Phil. 2:12] We each have that work to do, and no one – not the minister, not a creed, not a center of authority – can do that work for us. In this way we walk together as companions on the journey that is our life. Walking together in peace does not mean refusing to talk about and share our specific understanding of the truth – indeed, that is a key part of walking together and learning from each other.

We are not free to believe whatever we want. There are destructive belief systems in the world: Nazism, sectarian religions of hatred and violence, cults which deny freedom to their members, materialism, personal religions which insist that the world revolves around me and my needs alone. There’s a joke about that: How many alcoholics does it take to change a light bulb? Just one; they hold the bulb and the world revolves around them.

We are not free to force everyone to believe as we do. It can’t be done, and the finer we chop the distinctions among our beliefs, the more fractious and biased we become. That way we cannot walk together.

We are not free to pretend that we have no religious beliefs, that we do not worship anything. As Ralph Waldo Emerson put it:

A person will worship something – have no doubt about that. We may think our tribute is paid in secret in the dark recesses of our hearts – but it will out. That which dominates our imaginations and our thoughts will determine our lives, and our character. Therefore, it behooves us to be careful what we worship, for what we are worshipping we are becoming.

Here at Second Parish we walk together in the tension between our respective needs and wants, respecting the dignity of every person and the interdependent web of all existence of which we are a part. Here we work out our own salvation with fear and trembling.

Our fifth Unitarian Universalist principle affirms that self-governance in our faith communities as well as in our society at large is not only nice to have – it is a critical part of what enables each of us to become a whole person. Our forebears in these congregations knew as much, and for that among many other things we rightly honor them.

Alice Blair Wesley offers this as a restatement of our liberal religious covenant:

Though our knowledge is incomplete,

our truth partial and our love uneven,

From our own experience and

from the witness of our faith tradition we believe

that new light is ever waiting

to break through individual hearts and minds

to illumine the ways of humankind,

that there is mutual strength in willing cooperation,

and that the bonds of love keep open the gates of freedom.

Therefore we pledge

to walk together in the ways

of truth and affection

as best we know them now

or may learn them in days to come

That we and our children may be fulfilled

And that we may speak to the world

with words and actions

of peace and goodwill.[iv]

So may it be, and Amen.