“Not Hell But Hope and Courage”©

The Rev. Tracy Sprowls Jenks

November 4, 2007

This past summer, at the Unitarian Universalist General Assembly in Portland, Oregon, attendees and delegates were asked to participate in a process called “Open Space Technology.” Open Space Technology focuses on a topic and has facilitators guide any number of small groups in discussing that topic. It is an interesting process because there is no pre-set agenda or plan. The only things needed are people interested in the topic, a time and place to discuss the topic and someone to facilitate it.

Through this Open Space process participants were to consider the question, “In today’s complex world, what is our mission as a faith community?” The goal was not to come up with a new mission for the Unitarian Universalist Association but to get people to think more deeply about the things that are important to us.

By Sunday, the fourth day of general assembly, delegates were able to vote on thirty final statements. The top three receiving the most votes were “Support, integrate, and retain youth and young adults to keep our congregations vibrant and growing” (12.4 percent); “Build and grow anti-oppressive/antiracist faith community that embraces and is accountable to marginalized people” (10 percent); and “To move from domination to a new paradigm of partnership and sustainable Earth community” (6.8 percent).

Looking at these statements, I am left thinking that none of these are broad enough to encompass the mission that is compelling for our faith community. This might be reflected in the percentage of votes that each phrase received, too. I mean 12.4 % is by no means an overwhelming majority. Each statement is too focused on one aspect of what our congregations should be doing as a matter of course. We need a broader statement that encompasses why we join a congregation and what possibilities can come out of that gathered community.

People come to a religious community such as ours for many reasons. People come because they are in a crisis and are looking for compassion or meaning. They come because they are hurt and in need of healing. People are tired, depressed or overwhelmed and need a place to find comfort. They need help to find a clearer path on life’s journey. Some people come for community and a connection to others. Some come to reflect and participate in deeper thinking around the issues that concern them. And some come for a deeper spiritual life or to make meaning of the world. We are seekers looking to add depth to our lives. People want, they need, meaning and purpose and a way to express this in the world. In a word, I think the faith community is about transformation.

The faith community is about inward transformation. It is about personal growth, both spiritually and intellectually. It is about support through difficult times and support in good times. It is about healing from personal crises or loss. It is about spiritual renewal. It is about meaning-making. People come to a place such as ours to be personally transformed. Whether one is scarred or broken, angry or fragile or one who is simply seeking more, the goal is one of spiritual wholeness. People come to be nurtured and to be strengthened and to be renewed. The faith community can do this—it can transform a life.

But, no congregation can be viable with only inward transformation as a mission. There has to be more. Congregations that only look towards inward transformation are leaving out the possibility of deeper growth and meaning. They do not experience the living and practicing of one’s faith in the world, in service to the greater good if the focus remains inward.

To truly be able to respond in a meaningful way to the issues of a complex world a faith community has to also be about outward transformation. Through sermons, programs and ministries the faith community educates, broadens, and challenges our worldview so that we are not satisfied with the “way things are.” It prepares the seeker to be the prophetic witness and the advocate. The faith community challenges us to have a vision beyond ourselves and our own needs. It prepares us to be engaged with the world so that we work to bring about a better, more loving and just place for all. The faith community challenges us to grow and to act and then sends us out into the world to create justice. It prepares us to be engaged in the world in a way that promotes justice and compassion and hope. The faith community can do this—it can transform lives.

The faith community is about transformation. This is not easy to acknowledge or to even fully embrace because one of the hardest things for human beings to accept is change, perhaps especially in a congregation. But, change is inevitable, in our lives, in our families, in our institutions, in our communities and in our places of worship. Change is inevitable and we cannot avoid it. And so it becomes an important role of the faith community to remove the fear and anxiety and distrust from change so that people can be made more whole and so that the world can be made more wholly just.

“In today’s complex world, what is our mission as a faith community?” The mission of our Unitarian Universalist congregations certainly is about transformation—transformation of the individual and transformation of society. What was the line in the UU ad in a recent Time Magazine? Nurture your spirit. Help heal our world. To me, that is a perfect statement of our mission. Nurture your spirit. Help heal our world. And because of this mission, if we choose to accept it, we have a vital role in the world today. Our faith community, at the Ridgewood level as well as the denominational level, has a mission of justice-making that is necessary and essential today. Put another way, our mission in the world, in the words of Rev. Bill Schulz, former President of the Unitarian Universalist Association, is no less than “to teach the fragile art of hospitality; to revere both the critical mind and the generous heart; to prove that diversity need not mean divisiveness; and to witness to all that we must hold the whole world in our hands.”

Our religion, Unitarian Universalism, calls us to be the best we can be in this world, for the sake of this world. It asks us to work against the wrongs we create against each other, such wrongs as poverty, injustice, racism, and war. Our religion asks us to be "a compassionate voice and an active presence in the world" (UUCF, p. 4).

I believe we are uniquely qualified to do this because of who we are as Unitarian Universalists. Our identity is most notably addressed in our seven principles. We believe, strongly, I might add, in the inherent worth and dignity of every individual. This guides our personal relationships and our interactions with others. We believe in democracy, equality, compassion. We believe there are many paths to spiritual wholeness and we support each other in this search. We believe that we are all connected, interdependent with all of life. And further, we believe that our actions in the world, our living out these principles are an important aspect of our lives. Our liberal faith is reflected in the coffee we drink, the cars we drive, and our politics.

Our identity as Unitarians and Universalists and Unitarian Universalists is special. Our theology also makes us special. Many of us might wonder what exactly the theology of Unitarian Universalism is. We have no set dogma or creed. We believe truth is derived from a free search for meaning. So, what it is it? I would say our theology is, in part, interpersonal. It is not about God per se, but about our relationships, our connections. What is special about our theology is that it releases the binds that might otherwise prevent us from action. Our theology asks us to act now to bring about a better world. We need not die to reach a better place. Our theology calls us to respond to pain and suffering and oppression through action. We do not accept the status quo as the will of God. Our theology asks us to respond with compassion and inclusiveness to humanity. We do not accept the artificial lines that separate and divide.

The theological heresy in which we find our roots has also been a social heresy writes Dick Gilbert in his book, The Prophetic Imperative. Not only have our ancestors, such as Michael Servetus who denied the trinity or John Murray who preached universal salvation challenged religious doctrine, but our ancestors have also taken a stand on issues of justice. Theodore Parker helped runaway slaves to freedom. Olympia Brown worked towards the right of women to vote. James Reeb went to Alabama in 1965 to march with Martin Luther King, Jr. and thousands of others in protest of Jimmie Lee Jackson’s death. We have had our hands in the Abolition movement and the civil rights movement. We have protested wars, we have supported women who wanted to keep choice an option, we have protected same sex marriage, to name but a very few. Sometimes we have taken a stand on an issue rather belatedly, sometimes we have not responded as well as we should, but very often we have been there.

Our history shows that Unitarian Universalism has had a public ministry and it is still very much who we are today. We must continue this, too, now more than ever—as a response to unbridled government, as a response to the entertainment media, as a response to excessive corporate power and endless war. We must be the liberal voice that stands opposed to reactionary, greedy, imperialist values that deny what we stand for—freedom, truth, justice, equality, compassion and hope.

So, we are called to act for justice, because of our theology, because of our history, and because of our identity. We are also called because of what Dick Gilbert calls the conscience constituency. He writes, “In a society of many power centers, most are self-interest groups, especially the large economic institutions. Few voluntary associations consider and seek the public interest as their central goal. The church, in this case the liberal church, should be able to act from an altruistic frame of reference, minimizing self-interest as a factor. Thus it is able to act on behalf of the powerless. Unless there is a strong conscience constituency, the inequities of power in American society will become even more pervasive” (Gilbert, pg. 129).

Theology, history, identity and conscience; these things uniquely combine to lead us, Unitarian Universalist, into the complex world we live in today with a clear mission of transformation: nurture the spirit; help heal the world. As if this were not enough, our prophetic ancestors also pointed us in this direction. John Murray, as a lay preacher in England expelled from his church for his Universalist ideas, was disenchanted with institutional religion and vowed never to preach again. Hoping to leave his troubled life behind he arrived in America in 1770. On the shores of New Jersey, a farmer named Thomas Potter convinced Murray to preach in his chapel. The story goes that Murray at first refused but eventually gave in to the persistent Potter. Murray preached on universal grace, which seemed to be exactly the kind of sermon Potter needed to hear. Murray discovered he could not give up preaching. He sailed to New York City where he preached again to a receptive audience and soon was traveling up and down the northeastern coast delivering his message of universal salvation (Howe, pg. 2).

John Murray was a powerful and charismatic speaker. He spoke extemporaneously and never seemed to be at a loss for words. Once, while preaching in Boston, one of his opponents threw a large rock through the window of the church, narrowly missing Murray’s head. Murray picked up the rock and said “This argument is solid and weighty, but it is neither rational nor convincing”

Murray’s message of universal salvation was compelling to those who were tired or afraid of the hellfire and eternal damnation promised to them by the popular preachers of the times. Under him, the first Universalist church in America was established in 1779.

More Universalist ministers followed Murray. Universalism spread throughout the Northeast. Murray encouraged these new ministers to:

“Go out into the highways and byways of America, your new country. Give the people, blanketed with a decaying and crumbling Calvinism, something of your new vision. You may possess only a small light but uncover it, let it shine, use it in order to bring more light and understanding to the hearts and minds of men. Give them, not hell, but hope and courage. Do not push them deeper into their theological despair, but preach the kindness and everlasting love of God.”

Over two hundred years ago, Murray preached to not only those new ministers spreading the Universalist religion. He spoke to us, the future generations as well. “Give them, not hell, but hope and courage.” Nurture the spirit. Help heal the world. Be bold, be courageous. There is hope. We have the message that can bring that light to the world.

Our Unitarian Universalist congregations are about transformation—transformation of the individual and transformation of society. We are uniquely called to be the vehicle of transformation because of our theology, history and identity. It is time for us to wholly accept this mission of transformation, to claim it and own it.

The Talmud says:

“Do not be daunted by the enormity of the world’s grief. Do justly, now. Love mercy, now. Walk humbly, now. You are not obligated to complete the work, but neither are you free to abandon it.”

Nurture the spirit. Help heal the world. This is our mission. This is our response to the complex world in which we find ourselves. Nurture the spirit. Help heal the world.