Sermon given by Rev. Frank Clarkson, May 28, 2023.
I’ve loved digging into Universalist theology this month, and I loved what Clare did with our young people last Sunday, teaching them about Universalism and asking them about their church. I loved how Clare treated them like young theologians. When she asked them about their church, one said something about acting with love, and another said, “People are hungry. Not everyone has enough money to buy food.” It’s like they’ve been paying attention to our unison affirmation! “Love is the doctrine of this church, the quest for truth is its sacrament, and service is its prayer.” Doing theology is simply questing after truth.
I was talking with a minister friend the other day, who serves a Universalist congregation up in Vermont, and he said, “Neither Jesus or the Bible centered themselves. They point to God.” Which reminds me of a Buddhist saying: “You need a finger to point at the moon, but don’t mistake the finger for the moon, or you will never know the real moon.”
The Bible, Jesus, ways to practice, these are vehicles, windows meant to help us open to a larger reality, a larger Love. They are pointing to something greater, they aren’t supposed to be the object, or at the center. This is the problem with fundamentalism—it turns the story, the teacher, the teaching, into the object. Then scripture is taken literally rather than symbolically, Jesus becomes God and the only way, a holy mystery becomes very black and white. You’re in or you’re out.
I understand how this can happen. It’s hard to talk about the fathomless mystery. It can feel impossible to describe our deepest experiences. It’s easier to say what you don’t believe, than what you give your heart to. It makes me sad that some folks equate faith with certainty. It’s much more than that—it’s a mystery, an exploration, a process of discovery. And it’s fun!
The UU religious education Sophia Fahs said “It matters what we believe.”
“Some beliefs are like walled gardens. They encourage exclusiveness, and the feeling of being especially privileged. Other beliefs are expansive and lead the way into wider and deeper sympathies.
“Some beliefs are like shadows, clouding children's days and fears of unknown calamities. Other beliefs are like sunshine, blessing children with the warmth of happiness.
“Some beliefs are divisive, separating saved from unsaved, friends from enemies. Other beliefs are bonds in a world community, where sincere differences beautify the pattern.”
Theology is not just for children! I want to invite you to see yourself as a theologian, one committed to making meaning from stuff of your life. Naming and claiming your deepest commitments, what you give your heart to, without reservation. Looking at your life and actions, and the impact you have on others, reflecting with others how we are or are not moving in alignment with Spirit and with our human companions. Listening to teachers who inspire and challenge us, reflecting on sacred stories, learning more about our theological roots.
What we believe will shape how we act; will affect how we envision the world and our place in it. How we imagine the holy: as loving, or angry, or indifferent, will shape who we are. As Rob Bell says in words at the top of the order of service, “We shape our God, and then our God shapes us.” I hope our celebration of 200 years of Universalism will inspire us to have more theological exploration and conversation here. Because it matters!
Our Universalist theology says we are all part of a great Love, and no one is beyond it. Rob Bell wrote this book called Love Wins, and it caused quite a stir among some church folks, who said he’s wrong, misinterpreting scripture, a heretic. Bell doesn’t call himself a universalist, and he doesn’t seem as interested in theological labels as he is in asking questions and telling compelling stories.
What he is interested in, is promoting a spirituality and religion that’s life-giving, rather than harmful. Like we try to do here. And this is necessary and needed. I’ve been to funerals, and maybe you have too, where the minister or priest said something like, “We know she’s in heaven, because she did these things…” These things are rituals the church requires. I was at a service where the minister, acknowledging that he didn’t know the deceased, said, “I hope he was right with God, that he had accepted Jesus as his savior. I hope that he’s in heaven.”
What does this theology say about God? That if you don’t say the magic words before you die, that if you don’t complete the particular rituals your faith requires, well, then God’s hands are tied! “Sorry,” the Almighty has to say, “There’s nothing I can do about it.” Who would want to worship a God like that? An ineffectual God, hemmed in by human made rules and regulations? To say nothing of the angry and disappointed God that’s the shadow side of this powerless one.
“We shape our God,” Rob Bell says, “and then our God shapes us. A distorted understanding of God, clung to with white knuckles and fierce determination, can leave a person outside the party… without the thriving life Jesus insists is right here.”
I can understand why some of you might think this is a bunch of foolishness and superstition. “Who needs this?” you might ask. But stay with me. Theology matters. And Love wins.
In our tradition, we believe that people are good at heart. That we don’t need fear of hell to keep us in line. We trust that Love is a better motivator than fear, and that Love is stronger even than death. I have the privilege of sometimes being with folks when they are nearing death. And I can tell you, it makes a difference what you believe. As Mary Oliver wrote, at then end, you don’t want to find yourself “sighing and frightened, or full of argument."
Rev. Tandi Rogers is a UU minister who used to work for our denomination helping grow churches and plant new ones. She has an infectious enthusiasm for our faith; years ago she brought her high school pom poms to a regional conference and led us in cheers for the work we were doing there. Tandi wrote a column that’s one if the best things I’ve ever read; I taped it up next to my desk. She tells the story of sitting on a plane next to two fundamentalist evangelical men, and what happened:
I strained my ears to hear what they were saying. The older man seemed to be in charge, and the younger one deferred to him. The elder quoted scripture and talked a lot about saving people. Their whole mission is converting people to Christianity so they may be saved and get into heaven.
I wanted to jump in, interrupt with all of the questions I had for them.
For a split second a voice in my head warned me: Stop… foreign land… don’t go there… possibilities for hostility… what are you going to do once they find out you’re Unitarian Universalist? But the words burst out of my mouth: “I couldn’t help but overhearing. Do you plant congregations? Did you just go to the church planting conference? I wanted to go so badly, but had other work to do. I plant congregations for my denomination. I’d love to hear more about what you learned.”
The younger man asked, “Which denomination are you?” I replied: “Unitarian Universalist.” The younger man looked blank. The older man grinned like he had something on me. My heart fluttered a bit.
“Jason, you’ve never heard of Unitarian Universalists? They’re the ones with all the ethics and none of the doctrine. They do good without believing in hell.”
My breathing stopped. Jason looked at me as if he’d just discovered I was a unicorn.
“You don’t believe in hell?!” The older man smiled to himself as he put his headphones over his ears and settled in. I shook my head, and before I could get a word out the young man asked if I believed in Jesus.
“Jesus the Christ or Jesus the radical, fierce, loving rabbi? I love Jesus the Rabbi and consider him one of my greatest teachers. But I don’t have any belief or use for the Christ part. No offense…
He still looked at me like I was a unicorn. “But how do you reconcile John 14:6?” he asked. “Jesus said to him, I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man comes to the Father but by me.”
I lit up. I know this chapter and love it. At the Jesuit seminary I attended I spent a lot of time meditating on it with my Christian cousins in faith. I said, “I can reconcile it by the four verses prior to that. In my Father’s house are many mansions: if it were not so, I would have told you. There are many mansions for so many expressions of the Spirit of Life and Yahweh and Allah and Ultimate Source and Most Awesome Goodness and Fierce Love and Holy Yes!”
We stared into each other’s eyes for a long time. I had a melting experience. I broke the silence by asking him about his conversion story. (Everyone has a story of some epiphany or conversion of some sort. These fascinate me.) Over the course of about an hour Jason told me his tale of parents who weren’t enough, his own drug abuse and domestic violence and giving up, and how someone invited him to church. The church’s very clear doctrine held his despair and gave him direction and hope. It was a moving and beautiful story. We each had tears in our eyes throughout his telling.
He asked if Unitarian Universalists believe in conversion. Some do, I replied. I’m one. I was converted. As a queer I felt early on that my sexuality was very tied to God, but that’s not what my church of origin was teaching. And the Unitarian Universalists took all of me, and saw me as whole (even in my brokenness), as holy (even at my base self) and precious (even when I felt unlovable). Jason nodded. Teary eyes again. Mutual understanding of the possibilities and blessing of religious communities…
He asked if I was a minister, and I nodded… Jason wanted to pray with me right there on the spot. Yes, at 30,000 feet above the earth I led a prayer… holding hands with someone I would usually think hates me and what I stand for. Except for that day.
As we were leaving the plane, I overheard the older man ask Jason if he saved me. “Nah,” Jason said. “She was already saved.”
Thank you, dear Tandi Rogers for your beautiful testimony.
My spiritual companions, our beautiful Universalist theology asserts boldly that we are, all of us, already saved. That the Spirit which animates the universe is a Spirit of Love so wide that no one is beyond it, so inviting and compelling that in the end no one will want to resist it. That when all is said and done, Love wins.
And this theology invites and compels us to take our Love out into the world and share it; to love our neighbors and the strangers we meet; to love the hell out of this world, to imagine and help build the world that we hope for and dream of.
Let us be grateful for our simple faith, and let us live it, gladly and gratefully, now and always,
Amen.