"I Am Because We Are"

Rev. Bruce Russell-Jayne
October 19, 2008

Reading:
Our reading this morning is an excerpt fromthe introduction to the 1997 report by the Unitarian Universalist Association’s Commission on Appraisal entitled Interdependence: Renewing Congregational Polity.

“One of the deepest convictions that unites us as Unitarian Universalists is a belief in the possibility of a beloved community among people, whether members of a family or the most diverse representatives of humanity. We affirm that such communities are in part a natural outgrowth of human life, but that they must also be deliberately formed and reformed, nurtured and renewed.

This is a spiritual vision that eludes precise definition. It is no wonder, then, that we speak of this vision with differing accents. We speak of unity in diversity, of the community of love and justice, of the kingdom (realm) of God.  Our UUA Principles speak of the interdependent web of existence of which we are a part.  James Luther Adams spoke of the covenant of being.  These terms express a vision of the individual person and the community of persons in harmony with each other, the world around us, and the spirit of life itself.

Unitarian Universalism seeks to embody this spiritual vision and to advance its fuller realization.  We seek a way of being in the present that leads toward the future.  A primary way that we try to embody our spiritual vision is through the congregation, the face-to-face community of people who seek to walk together faithfully, courageously, and joyfully.  We want our religious community and the network of relationships that extends beyond itself to be a living model for the good of human relationships throughout life.
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There is inherent tension between the concepts of community and autonomy, similar to the often-expressed tension between responsibility and freedom.  However, community and autonomy do not exclude one another but enhance one another, for the essential function of the congregation is to link the individual to a religious community.”

Sermon:                                           
This is the third sermon in which I have addressed Unitarian Universalist concepts of Covenant.  My first two, which you can read on our church website, spoke of the biblical covenants between God and the people of Israel, and how our congregational form of governance, called congregational polity, has a historical connection to the Puritans.  Congregational Polity allows each congregation to define what it is about and how its members relate to one another.  In fact, a covenant between its members is what establishes a Free Church.  Without one, a Unitarian Universalist church or fellowship can’t exist.  Today I want to talk about “The most important but often overlooked element of congregational polity, which is the responsibility of congregations to be in right relationship within themselves.”   We at Northern Hills Fellowship need to pay attention to relationships and intentionally work at being a healthy community in which diverse individuals can grow in relationship with others. 

Growing in relationship to others is not an option; it is a necessity.  It is how all of us start our lives; it is how we become human beings.   Listen to this story called “In The Beginning” by Doctor Rachel Remen from her delightful book, My Grandfather’s Blessings.

She writes, “I did not speak at all until I was almost three years old.  My pe­diatrician told my parents they must not ex­pect too much as my birth had been difficult, and I had been so terribly premature.  I might be late in speaking or never speak at all.  My parents, frantic with worry, did every­thing possible to help me speak.  There was talk of mental retardation, but my grandfather would hear none of it. "Look into her eyes," he would say firmly. "She is there." He always spoke to me as if I understood everything he said. As it happens, I did.

To everyone's great relief, I said my first words at a Thanksgiv­ing dinner a few months before my third birthday.   I turned to my mother and said, "MAY I HAVE THE SALT?"

Every time I heard this story as a child it made me smile because these were not my first words at all.  My first words were in Hebrew, patiently taught to me by my grandfather when I was about two years old.  For countless generations, Orthodox Jews taught the Sh'ma, to tiny children as soon as they were able to speak.  Translated into English, it is, “Hear, O Israel, the Lord God, the Lord is One."  Traditionally the Sh'ma is said in times of great danger and at the moment of death.  It is a statement of the fundamental nature of the world.

When I was older, I asked him to explain what the Sh'ma  meant.  He answered, "to me these words mean that despite suffering, loss, and disappointment, life can be trusted.”

Puzzled, I asked him why he taught me this when I was so small.  He smiled and said perhaps the most difficult thing we are asked to do is to choose to live as a person.  Being a person is hard on the soul.  It takes great courage to live as a person, and sometimes souls delay their decision to be here.

"Your birth was very difficult,” he said.  "Your soul discovered how hard things could be from the very be­ginning."  Because I had been born so far ahead of time, perhaps my soul had been taken by surprise and was not ready tochoose life.  In my time in the incu­bator, it wavered between staying and leaving.  Afterward, it had been fearful and cautious, like a little bird. He felt its uncertainty, its indecision.  He taught me the Sh'ma because in those long months before I spoke, it seemed my soul was listening for something to hold on to.  He hoped that once I found this, I might be will­ing to begin.”

The soul has to become a person.  What a beautiful metaphor for the process of an infant learning to connect with the world.  Her family naturally wanted verbal feedback from Rachel and were distressed when she didn’t speak to them, but they didn’t abandon her.  They stayed with her, and taught her, and talked to her until she was ready to respond in kind.  Her grandfather, who saw in Rachel’s eyes that “she was there,” recognized the divinity in her, and he was determined to make a connection between his concept of divinity and her soul.

We don't start life as an independent individual.  Psychology tells us the development of human personality depends on a relationship with parents.  We all start out depending on others – not just for food and shelter, but also for our psychological - and Rachel’s grandfather would say - spiritual development.  Our intellects, our spirits were formed in relationships with the people who parented us.  We are who we are because they were there for us.
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We begin life totally dependent on others for sustenance, but we do not stay in this state for long.  Psychologists tell us people must differentiate themselves from those surrounding them as part of human development.  We each must establish that we are a separate individual with a unique personality and our own claim to inherent worth.  We learn to defend our personal dignity.   In the words of our Transcendentalist forebear, Ralph Waldo Emerson, we strive to become “self-reliant.”  Emerson described the self-reliant individual as one who was not at the mercy of others’ opinions or external conditions of any kind.  To Emerson, self-reliance came not from rational thinking but from the intuitive spiritual practice of cultivating an inner connection to “the divinity that flows thru all things.”  Self-reliance, of either the spiritual or rational kind, popularized by Emerson and the Transcendentalists, has become a core belief of American religion, indeed of American culture in general.

UUs certainly uphold the ideal of the self-differentiated individual.  No less than four of our UU Principles honor the individual and her or his search for meaning.  But, many think in our zealousness to promote self-reliant, autonomous individuals we have lost some of the importance of community and relationships.  This morning I won’t critique the idea of the rugged individual that has resulted in a culture in which we jokingly say, “It’s all about me, me, me.”  I’ll just say I believe humans are relational rather than autonomous selves, and we should never assume we don’t need other people.  I share the Buddhist concept that distinctions which pit humans against each other are dangerous illusions.  In the Buddhist tradition, it is our connections that are real.  You and I are connected, ultimately part of the unity of creation.  We are dependent on others in a myriad of ways.  Unfortunately, many of us do not feel human connection often enough.  Our modern lives make it difficult to be near our families, keep up with our old school chums, or just have someone to talk to when we need support.  That’s why it’s important for individuals to be in a community like this church where they can experience and practice inclusive, healing, regenerative relationship.

The question then arises, after couple of centuries of American culture extolling individualism, can the pendulum swing toward relationship again?  Is it more in our human nature to look out for ourselves, protect our self-interests, or are we really altruistic at heart?
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While studying ethical decision making among adolescents Carol Gilligan observed boys and girls gave distinctly different responses.  Boys described the ethical predicament Gilligan proposed as a conflict between the values of property and life.  Boys suggested action based on what they considered, “the right thing to do.”  Girls, on the other hand, saw the dilemma not as a “math problem with humans” but as “a narrative of relationships.”  They suggested actions which valued the quality of relationships, on “an awareness of connection between people,” and on the “need for response.”  So, it seems humans, at least some of us, do naturally value relationship.  I guess it’s no secret that most women think more about relationships than most men.  Gilligan’s identification of gender differences in moral development should encourage us to include women’s perspectives in ethical decision making.  We must consider not only rights and rules but also the value of relationships in our church’s decision making processes.

In order to give relationships value in our church life and work together, the value of relationships should be included in the covenants we make with each other.  In fact, one of the primary purposes of a covenant is to pay attention to the relationships of the parties to the covenant.  Forming a covenant provides us an opportunity to be intentional in the way we maintain good relationships.  In a covenant we can specify how we intend to act toward each other so that everyone will feel they are a respected and valued member of the community.

Covenants are sort of like Manners.  They are somewhere between the domain of law, wherein our actions are prescribed by laws which must be obeyed, and the domain of free choice wherein we enjoy complete freedom of action.  The middle area between law and free choice, the area of manners is where this congregation lives.  UU covenants, like manners, leave it to the individual to obey their prescriptions.  There is no one to make you do it.  The people of the congregation agree to do it after listening to each other and formulating covenants which reflect the purpose of church life together.

The Committee on Ministry and the Board of Trustees are planning for the congregation to engage in a process that will define what we want to see in the Beloved Community that is Northern Hills Fellowship.  Our planning led us to investigate a process called Appreciative Inquiry.  A couple of our members have used Appreciative Inquiry in their workplaces, and they report it helped them to define a positive future for their organizations that had strong resonances with those who envisioned it.  We have invited Rev. Linda Eppert of the Heartland District staff to conduct a workshop on Appreciative Inquiry here on December 6th.  Anyone who is interested can attend.  Our website and newsletter will provide the details.  In the coming year we will invite the entire congregation to shape our vision for relationships at Northern Hills and to create a Covenant of Beloved Community.
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So, How doe we include the value of relationship in our covenants?  One place we do is when major decisions are made by the church, the entire congregation gets involved.   We often do this, and we define processes for major decisions in the church bylaws.  Here, we are no longer in the realm of individual free choice.  We each must make our own choice out of our own concept of truth and goodness, but each of us has a limited perspective.  Since all perspectives are partial, the creation of a communal decision requires the counterbalance of other people.  Hence, including the ideas of the entire community is critical to the process of decision making.” There is a strong benefit for our fellowship for involving everyone especially when changes to the church culture are involved. 

Including everyone is a core principle of democracy, but even giving everyone a vote doesn’t go far enough.  Using Robert’s Rules of Order in a meeting might lead to fair decisions, but they don’t encourage connection and the group decision may not meet the real needs of anyone.  Our desire for a close-knit church where we can share intimately as we explore the ultimate issues of life demands something more.  It needs a commitment to connecting and relating which brings greater understanding and the possibility of discovering otherwise unimaginable solutions.

Simply accepting people into your midst doesn’t by itself create a beloved community.  When we covenant to participate in a relationship – in a marriage, on the Board of Trustees, or in a Covenant Group we open ourselves to be changed by the other people in the relationship.  If we commit to a process of relationship in which we express ourselves fully to one another and in which we seek to truly understand each other’s views, we expand our own and the others’ depth of experience well beyond what one person can do alone.  Intimate relationships can prod us to examine our assumptions and to improve our understanding of reality.  Such a relationship can help us discover our blind spots and learn things about ourselves that we have no other way of seeing.  Going to this depth in a relationship can be a transformational experience.  Seeing how we affect others can motivate us to change and grow.  Intimate relationships allow us to see the beauty in each other.  Some might call this a glimpse of the divinity inside each of us.  I have seen the beauty in many souls in this congregation; if you look you can too.

In addition to what it can give us as individuals, a relationship can create benefits all its own.  We can choose to enter into a relationship because it serves a shared purpose which we value.  By combining resources two or more people can multiply their power to accomplish a shared goal.  Partners in a relationship may use their particular resources to take on different tasks and responsibilities, but this shouldn’t change their commitment to the shared purpose of the relationship.  By recognizing the value of the relationship we increase its power to create something greater than we as individuals can do alone.

Practicing right relationship provides benefits for both individuals and our communities by encouraging us to exercise our highest values by acting on them in the here and now.  If we value mercy it asks us to forgive someone today.  If we value compassion, it asks us to support someone who is in need.  Staying in right relationship is not satisfied with “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell.”  In order to maintain right relations, we acknowledge conflict, disappointment and hurt, and we learn how to change, forgive, heal and grow.  An ethic of right relations calls us to be responsible for our past actions, but it is more interested in how we respond to what is happening now.  It asks, “Does this decision or behavior make it more or less possible to fulfill our commitments, and in effect to be more of who and what we aspire to be at our best together?”
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My sermon title, "I Am Because We Are," comes from Archbishop Desmond Tutu’s famous interpretation of the African spiritual concept of "Ubuntu".  Ubuntu means we are all connected, and dependent on each other.  It teaches we cannot exist as individuals without community.  Our well being is contingent upon the well being of others.  By the way, after I had chosen this title, Bruce Beisner discovered there is a new documentary by Madonna with the same name.  She uses Ubuntu to frame her story of efforts to help children with HIV/AIDs in the Republic of Malawi in southeast Africa.  I disclaim any connection with her movie, but now I will have to go see it.

Individual members do not, by themselves, make a fellowship.  This church’s mission goes well beyond inward-focused self-care – it is to connect people for worship, study and service, in a community of faith that values real, lived human experience.    When you join this congregation you enter into a covenantal relationship.  You promise to be in right relationship with each other as you come together to do church.  UUs honor individual beliefs and differences, but we have agreed to combine our efforts in order to make a better future together.  “We are remarkably creative people capable of producing inspiring results when we are in circumstances that allow us to function at our best.”   To be our best, though, each of us need to acknowledge the individual value of every member, to cherish each other and give worth to our relationships with each other.  May this be so and may we live and work together in peace.
Namaste