UU Myths and Sacred Cows

Some of my colleagues in ministry really, really frown on the practice of mentioning a dictionary or definition in a sermon. They can be adamant. So I try not to do it very often. But I sort of suspect that all you good, clear- thinking UUs are rather skeptical about our having any myths. So, it seems like a nice neutral definition might be a good start. “Myth: A story, the origin of which is forgotten, ostensibly historical but usually to explain some practice, belief, institution or natural phenomenon.” Please note that it did not say that the story had to be completely false, just that it had a purpose other than recording factual events. So far so good, but this morning I am also thinking about the accompanying psychology. I would add that these stories structure our understanding of ourselves and our world. In other words, an accepted myth shapes the way we perceive and understand what goes on within and around us and that affects our behavior. I’d also note that a myth has to have some elements that “feel right” in order to be accepted and handed on.

I think myths can serve us pretty well – at least at times. So many perceptions, so much information comes to us from our environment and from our own minds & bodies! We would never make it through the day if we had to deal with each piece of it separately! Luckily, we get help in several ways. Developing auto-pilot for routine activities is one example. Anyone who watches a new walker or a child learning to ride a bike knows that it takes all their concentration. There’s no room concerns like obstacles or traffic! Yet before too long, that’s completely changed. The new skill, with all its complexities, has become second nature.

Another aid to dealing with sensory overload is the development of frameworks that give an understandable shape to lots of separate bits of information. This is where pattern, myth and paradigm come in. They help us see the ways our perceptions group together and become understandable, even predictable. When we see that all the cashiers or gas pumps are busy, we expect that people will wait their turn. Some of us expect that whatever line we choose will be the slowest. When we watch a sporting event, we have an idea about where the ball or players are going to be moving and why. Maybe you’ve heard some of the descriptions written by visitors who know nothing about football or baseball. They see an entirely different event.

The mythical story of Demeter and Persephone that I told on Easter is a more complex example. It tells us to balance personal time and work and reminds us that the joy of being with those we love spills out to make the whole world different; more lively and life-giving. At the same time, it doesn’t square at all with the things we know about the earth’s orbit around the sun or the tilt of its axis. It’s just not a satisfactory explanation for the cycle of the seasons. A myth can be both helpful and misleading.

So what stories do we UUs tell ourselves that structure our understanding? And do they have more drawbacks than benefits? Let’s look at a few. The first myth I’d like to mention is the one that says UUs can believe anything we want. You’ve heard it, I’m sure. Maybe you’ve even passed it along. Well, I am here to break the news: No, you – we – can’t do that. It’s true that we’re gathered in a covenant to walk our religious journeys together. It’s also true that we don’t specify the content. But there are some things that just don’t qualify as UU beliefs.

UUs can’t believe there’s only one way to be a good person, to be moral. We can’t believe that only one path leads to ‘capital T’ Truth or to the holy – or if there is only one way, that we can be certain just what it is. You can question people’s beliefs and explore the meaning they find there. You can certainly conclude that some beliefs are not meaningful for you. We say that each person has to piece together their true religion by testing ideas and weighing experience. We say each of us has to find what helps us to be more kind, more compassionate, more concerned for justice. We know that each one of us is different, and none of us has a direct line to Ultimate Truth.

So we have to leave room for the possibility that an idea which seems perfectly reasonable and deeply meaningful to you or me could still be off the mark. As much as we may hate it, the other guy could be more on target. Or maybe it’s more that different paths work for different people. Which is not to say that all are equally valuable. As the morning’s reading points out, they aren’t. Some are quite willing to claim exclusive truth. Anyone who doesn’t go along is an outsider if not an enemy. This easily becomes destructive. It’s just not OK with us UUs.

You can’t be a UU and believe that certain groups of people just aren’t really worthwhile or deserving of respectful treatment. Our first principle stands squarely in the way. You know – that one about every person having inherent worth and dignity. We usually pat ourselves on the back for this one – we’re so accepting of diversity and all that. But we don’t make it our business to find out much about different groups and cultures, so it’s pretty likely that we’ll be insensitive and hurtful at times. Maybe without even knowing it. And we’re certainly not above assumptions and stereotypes – we just tend to aim them a bit differently. For example, more than a few UUs rail about the abuses of religion as if we aren’t involved in one. [Hello! Here we are in church!] We tend to latch on to the claims and accusations of very conservative Christian voices, and act as if every Christian holds those same ideas and beliefs. It’s not true and it’s not fair.

When pressed, a lot of us know that many denominations are struggling to keep both their conservatives and their liberals within their “tent” and talking to each other. Not all Methodists or Presbyterians or Episcopalians think alike, let alone all Christians. And the more liberal Christian churches – like College Ave Congregational – are constantly struggling to have their voices heard and their positions recognized when the conservative ‘media Christians’ are claiming the turf. We need to look and listen well enough to comprehend people’s own explanations of who they are and what they think and believe. Whether they are Christians, Jews, Muslims, Buddhists, Pagans or something else. Whether they are UU-Humanists or UU- Christians or UU-Buddhists or UU-Nature Mystics or something else.

You can’t be a UU and believe that the ends justify the means. Now we’re into those other principles, as well as the first. The ones that talk about equity and compassion, about justice and about the interdependent web. We have a principled, spiritual commitment to promoting the welfare of others – other people, even strangers; other living things and the physical environment as well. It’s all connected. We can’t just do whatever we like and tell ourselves nothing else matters. Well, actually we can and probably do, all too often. But not while we’re trying to live up to the ideals we claim to honor.

Are you convinced? UUs can’t really believe anything. Some beliefs just don’t fit with our ideals.

Here’s another myth: We are completely different from other religious organizations. We ask questions. We honor doubt. We don’t specify a creed. We laugh in church. And so on. Actually, we have a lot in common with other religious groups. Just for starters, all religions are made up of people. We have different sizes and shapes, different colors and cultures, differences in education and life experience and differences in creed and commitment. But we are all born and grow, live and die. We love and are loved. We’re sometimes angry, sometimes lonely, sometimes confused and sometimes sad. We work and play and rest. We know something of beauty and tenderness and justice. We’re all trying to figure out the best ways of doing all these things, of being human and living together, in this amazing and complex world. We can work with individuals and congregations that aren’t Unitarian Universalist and learn things from them, even as we offer our insights. We actually do this on a local level, but we don’t always remember that when we talk.

We can be pretty defensive about our unique-ness. But we’re actually not the only religious group that is open- minded or that includes doctrinal differences. We’re not the only ones who accept gays and lesbians or who would like to include people of a variety of races and ethnicities. We’re not the only congregations that depend on the energies, talents and resources of our members or always seem to have more ideas than we can put into action. We aren’t the only ones who want to see the world become a better place. And we aren’t the only ones who can’t always agree on how to do that. We aren’t the only ones who get nervous about change or are anxious about commitment and risk.

We claim to be more intellectual and rational than other religions, and we do have a higher educational level than average. [In fact, I’ve heard none other than Bill Sinkford describe us as “terminally over-educated.” I’m not sure just what that means, but it doesn’t sound too good!] But while we draw on a wealth of information, we get entrenched in our positions about as much as anyone else. We get our feelings hurt. We get angry – and sometimes refuse to let go of that anger, even when it keeps us from learning or growing. Even when it means we become estranged from long-time companions. We sometimes get caught up in conflict or competition and find ourselves more interested in winning than in finding a solution. It’s not exactly a news flash that these things are not rational.

Here’s another myth: ‘ We’re all UUs, so it doesn’t matter if I . . . ’ (you can fill in the blank in different ways. The phrase nearly always tries to excuse something that’s actually not appropriate.) We are all UUs here – or most of us are. And it still matters if you say something hurtful. It still matters if you take unfair advantage of a situation. It still matters if you perpetuate a stereotype or put down some person or group. In fact, I’d say that in a lot of cases if we’re all UUs here, it matters more. We know what principles we claim. We want to move toward realizing them, not to dismiss them with a laugh. At least I hope we do. If you’re about to trample on one of our values, don’t ask us to overlook it.

By now, you may be thinking of UU myths I haven’t mentioned. One I’d love to debunk quickly is the idea that UUs don’t sing well. I’m not a highly trained musician, but my ear is good enough to recognize that this congregation sings in harmony on Sunday mornings. We are familiar with enough hymns that I find it a challenge to get them all on the schedule. And just ask one of our past GA attenders about the singing when a lot of UUs come together. It’s pretty amazing.

Of course, we could talk about more of our myths. But the other part of the morning’s topic looks at UU sacred cows. I began to think about the idea several years ago, when I did a pulpit exchange. I gave a sermon about Michael Servetus – one of those early Reformation thinkers who began to challenge orthodox theology and lost his life for it. I suggested that, while UUs don’t “do” saints, Servetus would be a good candidate if we decide we need some. Afterwards, a friend and colleague came up to me. “When you started talking about how we don’t have saints, I thought, ‘Yeah, but we sure have sacred cows!’” Well! I hadn’t really thought of that before! How could it be? After all, we’re the ones who are rational about religion!

Since that morning, I’ve heard stories about how resistant UUs can be to almost any change in the way things have traditionally been done in a given congregation. Stories about furniture being moved back to “original” places in the middle of the night. Stories about controversies over whether to use a different hymnal or change some element of the order of service. I read an explanation for this. It suggested that since we don’t have a set and dependable creed, we find security in clinging to the patterns and habits of our life together. I’d be interested to hear what you think of that idea – and whether you think there are certain things here at our Fellowship that are “above criticism or attack” [there’s that dictionary again!] or at least should never, ever be tampered with.

The sacred cow that interests me more is, I think, both deeper and more general among UUs. It’s our devotion to, maybe even fixation on the individual. After all, our first principle calls out the worth of each individual. We make it a religious principle to honor democratic process, with its commitment to open decisions, protection of minorities and individual rights. We express our opinions and expect they’ll be considered. Our congregations make their own decisions and aren’t subject to centralized authority about who will be minister or how they spend their money. We own our own property. These are all good things.

But sometimes, we get so focused on protecting the individual that we lose sight of all else. We tend to think about protecting our worth and dignity and ignore the correlation that everyone else has it too. We stand on the territory of individual options and forget to keep looking down our list of principles. Our freedom to search for truth extends to others – we even say we will encourage spiritual growth. That implies giving attention and regard to others. We defend our right to speak without considering the accompanying obligation to listen when others step up. We get stuck thinking that we can’t do anything unless everyone agrees. We sometimes speak without remembering that we’re also called to compassion, with its implication that we shouldn’t use our words as weapons.

Some recent reports from the Commission on Appraisal – a group charged to review and evaluate some aspect of UU life – have talked about how our focus on the individual can mean that we lack concern and commitment to the religious communities we form. We tend to think of ourselves as a loose association of individuals. We have even been described as exhibiting “individualism on steroids.” It’s time we pay attention to a horizon wider than our own wants and needs.

It’s time to think more deeply about the larger purposes of our congregations. Together, we are more than simple addition explains. Our seventh principle talks about interdependence. We usually think of it as an environmental statement. It is, but it also speaks to our human connections and the possibilities in the web they form. As Mark Morrison-Reed puts it, “There is a connectedness, a relationship discovered amid the particulars of our own lives and the lives of others. Once felt, it inspires us . . . ” He continues, “ The religious community is essential, for alone our vision is too narrow . . . and our strength too limited . . . Together, our vision widens and our strength is renewed.”

I have an image that comes to mind when I think about all this. Let me share it with you. What if our Principles aren’t separate items on a list, but more like amazing, wonderfully faceted links in a chain? Imagine with me that the first and the last have clasps that fit together, so that the worth of the individual and the intricate connections of the web are fastened next to each other. Now there’s no first or last; no implication that first means most important. Now we have a loop of related ideals, with energy and brilliance flowing among and between them. What possibilities, for ourselves, our congregations and our movement, might come from this image? Does it alter the stories and myths we tell ourselves? Does it move us toward a balance among our ideals?

I want to see our congregations become more focused [not exclusively focused, but more focused] on the common good and the ways we might promote the beloved community. I look for the day when we are known as communities of compassion, and characterized by wide awareness, compassionate response and service. I think we are about transformation – of ourselves, each other and our world. I don’t know if you’ve come across the new slogan the UUA is using these days. It calls us to “Nurture Your Spirit and Help Heal Our World.” I like that. It captures a lot of what Unitarian Universalism is about. And I can remember it. Those words – Nurture Your Spirit and Help Heal Our World” – can be a guide, both in our own lives and for our congregation. We can start right here. Right now. In fact, and maybe also in myth, this is a perfect place to begin!