"What Is The UUA?"

Rev. Bruce Russell-Jayne
October 4, 2009

Readings
As the insert in your order of service on Association Sunday says, this year we will make a special effort to create programs for Growing our Diversity.  Our first reading on this topic is from a sermon by Rev. Tracey Robinson-Harris, Truth, Wholeness and the Time to Seek Them, delivered at the Community Church of NYC on May 9, 1993:
“In conversations about the initiative for greater diversity, our Unitarian Universalist Association-wide commitment to become more inclusive, one of the questions that inevitably arose was, ‘What do we want diversity for? What is our motivation?’…
Perhaps it is guilt. Guilt over the injustices of racism, heterosexism, classism. A commitment to diversity would make me feel better,‘ that is, less guilty. Perhaps it is a sense of responsibility.  A sense of responsibility to deal with my prejudices and somehow participate in bringing greater justice.  A commitment to diversity would hold us responsible, make us do the right thing.  Perhaps it is that nagging call to seek wholeness.  Given the partiality of all points of view; given the diversity of truth; given our calling to live our lives religiously…given these a commitment to diversity is nothing more or less than honoring the call to seek wholeness—in my life and in our collective life.
African-American feminist author/teacher bell hooks asks the question this way—“what is all this clamoring after difference?”
… all the clamoring is about seeking wholeness. Guilt leads to angry denial and inaction. Responsibility leads to grudging good works. The call to seek wholeness has room for acknowledging feelings of guilt (and anger, frustration,) room for accepting appropriate responsibility and plenty of room for moving toward personal and communal transformation.
…all the clamoring is for each person, each perspective, each truth to be granted sufficient respect so that we truly listen to those ideas and allow ourselves to be truly challenged by them.
…all the clamoring is for us to recognize that our lives are intertwined, so intertwined, that each is accountable to the other. Each particular story/truth calls us to accountability, calls me to accountability for my life, my limits, my individual and our collective transformation…
…all the clamoring is for truth—I need you—I need you, who you are, the experiences and perspective you bring, so that I may know truth beyond my partial truth.
…all the clamoring is for justice—We need each other, and what we can all do together for justice.”

Our second reading is by Rev.Mark Belletini of our Columbus church:
“For religion to be significant, it has to provide more than the comforts of community.  It also has to provide opportunities for deepening, for what I call spiritual growth, and for the casting down of false images of stereotypes, which hurts us all.  A good religion has to open us to the real diversity of our modern world.  For our work as liberal religious people is not to be competitive with others, and to find ways to supersede others, but rather to find ways to supersede ourselves, to grow beyond our limitations and our constrictive boundaries, each and every one of us.  Diversity, you see, must not end up being some sort of feel good slogan, a word we keep in our back pocket to make us feel like we‘re broad minded.  Diversity is a gift.  But it cannot be a gift…unless it is received.  It is only received when there are hands and hearts open enough to receive it.  And the opening of fists into welcoming hands and welcoming hearts is our spiritual work…”

Sermon           What Is the UUA?        Rev. Bruce Russell-Jayne
UUs can be a jargony group of people.  All organizations create their own shorthand, words and phrases they use that members of the group understand, that allows for more efficient communication.  When UUs, many of whom have a phobia for traditional religious language, talk about church, we can be particularly confusing to visitors and non-UUs.  When I was in theological school, my worship professor frequently reminded us aspiring preachers that using UU shorthand in a sermon would feel exclusive to a visitor.  So, I always try to avoid UU jargon and to use a full term before I use its acronym.  Like I should have told you UU is short for Unitarian Universalist, and that I often use UU to mean people who are members of a Unitarian Universalist congregation.  I have used UUA many times in sermons, and I always explain that UUA is short for Unitarian Universalist Association of Congregations (I don’t know why we aren’t the UUAC), but that short description doesn’t really tell you much.  Our Worship Committee sensed that many of our members don’t know very much about the UUA, so they requested I tell you some things about it.

A sermon on the UUA is timely because today is Association Sunday; Association is another shorthand term for the UUA or all of Unitarian Universalism in the United States.  Association Sunday is an annual event when the UUA asks us to support programs and initiatives that sustain all of our churches.  We will take a special collection after the sermon for donations to the UUA.  “Now as soon as I say that there will be some people who‘ll no doubt think, “Who are they to tell us what to do?  Just who does the UUA think they are telling us to celebrate Association Sunday?”

Aside from the knee-jerk independence of that reaction, that’s a pretty good question for today.  A better question, however, is “Who do we think we are?”  Ask any UU about her church, and she will without a doubt tell you that each individual can come to her own theological convictions, and that the congregation democratically governs itself.  UUs have an aversion to church hierarchy which traces back to the original Pilgrims, whose covenantal style of church governance we still use.  Our churches are formed by a covenant which their members voluntarily agree to, which says how they choose to be together for worship, fellowship and service.  Many UUs aren’t aware that in our covenantal form of church governance we also covenant to worship, have fellowship and perform service work together with other UU congregations, as indeed did the original Pilgrims.  So the UU Association of Congregations is all of us.  It is not over us, we are over it.

The main business of the Association is conducted once a year at an annual meeting of delegates from each congregation called the General Assembly.  In between General Assemblies, the UUA Board of Trustees, elected by us through our districts, takes care of business.  General Assembly delegates elect the President of the UUA, who is the Chief Executive and primary spokesperson for the UUA.  This year, absentee balloting was instituted so every church could vote.  Our new president, elected for a four year term, is Peter Morales.  He is paid staff, sort of our senior minister, and he oversees the staff of the UUA at our headquarters at 25 Beacon Street in Boston and elsewhere around the country.  General Assembly (GA for short) delegates also elect a moderator, who chairs business sessions of the GA and meetings of the Board of Trustees.  Re-elected for another four-year term as moderator is Ginny Courtier.  She is a volunteer, and you might see her as the congregations’ advocate-in-chief.  Delegates to the GA also vote on social justice statements and other initiatives.  When a position on an issue is taken, for example, we are currently working to increase the diversity of our Association; the UUA staff is required to help congregations participate in them with resources, consulting study guides, lobbying in Washington and more.  The staff does not set the agenda; the congregations do.  The UUA is us.
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So today is Association Sunday because our Northern Hills Fellowship Board of Trustees said it is, and agreed we should focus on the work we do jointly with all the other member congregations.  Each of us, need the UUA because by coming together we are capable of things that would be unimaginable if we were on our own; we would be a great deal less without the programs made possible by our Association.

There is a long list of ways Northern Hills has benefited by being a part of the UUA.  We have resources like our two hymnals, and other materials we use to enrich our worship experiences.  Finding a new minister when you need one – the process that brought me into your pulpit, is coordinated by staff in Boston and in our Heartland District.  The UUA process is online and works a lot like other job search websites.  We were able to hire Brenda Bene, our Director of Religious Education, about a year and a half ago with the aid of what’s called a Chalice Lighter’s Grant of several thousand dollars from our District.   Chalice Lighter’s grants are given to assist churches with a defined program for growth that they can’t afford on their own to make them happen.  Brenda is beginning to explore the new curricula, called “Tapestry of Faith,” developed by the UUA Department of Lifespan Faith Development.  The is a new series of programs and resources for all ages that nurture Unitarian Universalist identity, spiritual growth, a transforming faith, and vital communities of justice and love.  Buying curricula used to be a large expense for the Fellowship, but Tapestry of Faith is online and free to us!  Just from these few programs from which we have recently benefited, it should begin to be obvious that together our Association is greater than any congregation alone.

On a more personal level, the UUA has been a huge help in my ministerial formation process and in my continuing education.  For example, I am grateful to Rev. Erik Wikstrom, director of Worship and Music Resources on the UUA staff in Boston for providing ideas for this sermon.  Part of the first Association Sunday collection went to our two UU schools, Starr King and Meadville Lombard, my alma mater.  I still carry school debt, but my loans would have been much larger without tuition reduction support from the UUA.  The UUA directs a lot of our money toward lay and professional leadership development and it administers the professional credentialing program for ministers, Religious Educators and Musicians.  Each UU church can call anyone it wants to be its minister, but almost all of them want a minister who’s been accepted into fellowship with the UUA.  Promoting the professionalization of ministry is invaluable in that it provides competent leadership to congregations, and it screens out those who are not ready to be in our churches.

And, of course our President and other UUA representatives often speak out in public witness on issues of national importance.  This is where some controversy is bound to enter the picture.  Not all UUs agree on the issues and some complain they don’t want support the UUA because if our stance on a particular problem.  All I can say is that it’s important that our President stand up for UU values in public so the world hears our witness.  His words must be consistent with the resolutions passed by the congregations at General Assemblies over the years.  If we aren’t comfortable with some of those resolutions, it is incumbent upon us to participate in the democratic process of creating them so that our views are more accurately represented.  By and large, I think the vast majority of UUs go along with the vast majority of the resolutions – I wish we could say the same about congress.
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My purpose this morning is not to convince you of the UUA’s perfection, but to help us understand its importance to us and to encourage us to deepen our relationships with our Association.  The UUA is not something to be leery of; just the opposite – we need it to help us reach more people and grow.  Is there any doubt that religious communities such as this one are needed in Cincinnati? That the world today needs what we have?

Seeing the need for Unitarian Universalism in the world and knowing we are still a small Association, by the way, we like to use Association instead of Denomination, with only a little over a thousand congregations, mostly small like this one, it is up to us to support the UUA.  Each year, we pledge our fair share for the general budget of the UUA based the number of our active members.  The special collection taken on Association Sunday provides funds for initiatives the UUA’s meager budget can’t cover.  We vote on these projects via the web.  About half of the money raised during the 2007 Association Sunday went to the national media campaign (those ads in Time magazine that created quite a buzz); a quarter went to the Districts to support local efforts to grow churches; and a quarter went to increase the racial and ethnic diversity in our ordained ministry.  Last year Association Sunday focused on growth in spirit, and the funds raised were split between supporting lay theological education and efforts to support excellence in our professional ministries.

Less than one person out of every one thousand in the Cincinnati area is a UU.  So, it must be true there are other folk like us out there who need what we have.  But it‘s also true that there are others – folks who are not just like us – and they need it too. And what‘s more, they have things we need. We need them because they are different, to help us keep up with the changing mix of people in our community; to keep us from falling behind the times;  in a word to keep us from becoming boring.  And so this year‘s Association Sunday is not just about growth in diversity but also about growth through diversity.  This year Association Sunday is focusing on growth in diversity, on developing spiritual communities that are more welcoming to ALL people: by supporting congregations to be racially, culturally, and economically diverse; by enabling congregations to minister effectively to youth, young adults and families who identify as people of color or multiracial.

“As an Association we recognize that this is important work to do. It’s important for the world, too, because we are too small a planet for us not to find ways to turn our divisions and distinctions from barriers and barricades into beautifying parts of the landscape, from reasons for us to be suspicious of one another into reasons for us to want to get to know one another, and from causes of hostility into causes of celebration.”
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Our congregation is a voluntary association of individuals who have come together to create Northern Hills Fellowship.  Similarly, over one thousand congregations have voluntarily joined together to create the Unitarian Universalist Association of Congregations.  We are the they called the UUA.  And the world needs Unitarian Universalist values, just as our community needs more Unitarian Universalists.  Today we have the opportunity to help strengthen our Association for generations to come by deepening our efforts to grow in and through diversity.
So Might this be.