Live Freely

This is the first of a trio of sermons examining Unitarian Universalism: Live Freely, Love Boldly, Tread Softly. Appropriate to begin with Live Freely, freedom perhaps the most often used word when we speak of our shared values. We're in favor of Freedom! We talk about it a lot. . . .We believe in freedom of religious expression. A Free and responsible search for truth and meaning. Hymns in the hymnal related to the theme number nearly as many as are found under the God, Goddess and Spirit heading!

As I began my sermon preparation I renewed my acquaintance with three staples on my bookshelves: Conrad Wright's A Stream of Light: A Short History of American Unitarianism, Charles Howe's A Larger Faith: A Short History of Universalism as well as Howe's For Faith and Freedom: A Short History of Unitarianism in Europe. In the latter Howe examines our theological roots in the Radical Reformation. Deep roots in the dissenting movements of brave people who cared deeply about being able to worship as they desired.

I always learn something new when I visit these old friends but when I started thinking about living freely I was drawn, not to them, but to some of the essays of James Luther Adams. I am grateful for a theologian who can express his thinking so clearly. I find evidence of Adams' timelessness that his words, written in 1946, are so fresh, so relevant to the way I see Unitarian Universalism today. I've been a UU long enough to remember when living freely was, in some of our congregations and the minds of some of our ministers, equivalent to license. Living Freely seemed to be more about lifestyle that making faith choices. We were so busy exercising our freedom from that we neglected to complete the equation: Freedom from = freedom to or freedom for.

Freedom from is a heady feeling. But, as Adams points out, being people with a free faith isn't about license. There are responsibilities. We cannot escape from either freedom or its responsibilities. "Every attempt to do so is an act of freedom that must be implicitly repeated at every moment. Freedom is our fate as well as our birthright, and we cannot, even if we wish to, slide back into vegetability. Even the abuse of freedom is a use of freedom. Hence, in our kind of world every faith is, in a certain sense, a faith of the free, whether is a faith that takes us with the prodigal son to eat with swine or a faith that shackles us to a political or an ecclesiastical Furher, or a faith that generates freedom. We have no choice but to be free in the choice of our faith."

What does that mean for you, what does it mean for us as we gather in worship this morning? Adams says the first tenet of the free person's faith is that our ultimate dependence for being and freedom is upon a creative power and upon processes not of our own making. It reassuring to hear that because at first it can feel that we are on our own, that we can believe anything we want to. For many of us the freedom from creed and dogma was first thing we noticed when we began our Unitarian Universalist life. Freedom to believe that God is other than we've been taught and told. Freedom to discover who Jesus is, and could be, in our lives. Freedom to follow the Buddhist Eight Fold Path and remain in a diverse faith community. Exhilarating. Intoxicating freedom. Adams tells us we have no choice but to be free in the choice of our faith.

A faith that acknowledges human fallibility also requires a faith in humanity. Once we step outside the box we are compelled to make a decision and a choice. We are compelled to have faith in ourselves. The free person 's faith is not merely a faith in oneself: it is a faith in the capacity of sincere persons to find, freely, together that which is worthy of confidence.

We are one faith with many paths. Today the major paths reflect our sources and include liberal Christianity, theism, religious humanism, nature mysticism, feminism, Judaism, and Buddhism. While each of these exist as a unique strand within our tradition, each shapes Unitarian Universalism in ways that keep it dynamic and responsive. Many of us locate our religious identity at a point where several of these paths intersect. I believe that the intersection of various paths is what brings us to a place that invites a profound internal conversation about the nature and meaning of religion in our own experience. And encourages us to continue to explore and examine.

The free person does not live by an unexamined faith and this takes courage. It can feel like swinging out on the trapeze when we don't trust the strength of the net! Years ago Ron Clark, then minister in Salt Lake City, commented that "people think its easy to be a UU, 'You can believe anything you want' they have no idea what a responsibility it is to sort out one's beliefs." Or, I'll add, to live by them day by day. I find the drum beat of the different drummer I intend to follow is readily muffled by the conventions of the world I inhabit. Even to the extent of wishing at times that my free spirited son would settle down. He has been marching to his own drummer since he was three, yet 32 years later I still wistfully wonder, "When will he follow a more conventional path?" He reminds me that living freely takes courage, that it may not be easy to live according to our deeply held beliefs. The necessary courage can be gained from the support we offer each other.

This morning's call to worship reminded us that: We come to be assured that our brothers and sisters surround us, to restore their images in our eyes. We enlarge our voices in common speaking and singing. We try again that solitude found in the midst of those who with us seek their hidden reckoning. This is the reason of cities of homes, of assemblies in the houses of worship. These words of Kenneth Patton capture Adam's second tenet of the free person's faith: that the commanding, sustaining, transforming reality finds its richest focus in meaningful human history, in free cooperative effort for the common good.

In other words, this reality fulfills our life only when people stand in right relation to each other, a reality reflected in the covenant of right relations maintained here and the spirit which is manifest in this congregation. We enter worship space separate individuals and the experience of shared worship transforms us. We recite the same words, not because we all believe the same thing, how could we, but because in the process of reading together, singing together, chanting, praying, breathing together something remarkable happens. We are lifted out of our individual isolation and transformed into a single organism. We learn to support each other. We become a safe place for people to make their religious home. Learning to love alike when we do not think alike is the best training for converting our highly partisan civic world into a communitarian society. By sharing in a community which gives each person the opportunity to share in the process whereby human potential can be realized, you are modeling behavior that can change the world.

And world changing is what religion is ultimately about. Some of us squirm a bit when we hear words like the kingdom of God but that is one way of expressing the freedom that is found in living freely in a UU context. This is a faith movement that actively liberates the human spirit. A faith movement that provides liberation from the powers that bind us, the powers of creed and dogma, class and bias which can distort our lives. Adam's third tenet is that the achievement of freedom in community requires the power of organization and the organization of power. . . The commanding, transforming reality is a shaping power; it shapes one's beliefs about reality and when it works through persons it shapes the community of justice and love.

I like the place we've landed as the UUA enters its fifth decade, a place where personal responsibility is in the context of a caring community in which we treat each other with love and respect. A caring which encourages us to continue to examine and live our free faith. I am relieved that we see ourselves as religious people, as people of faith.

Early in my ministry, I attended a workshop with a group of Protestant parish ministers. When I commented that I was a UU missionary, the Methodist minister sitting next to me commented that I was the first evangelical UU he'd met, across the table the Disciples minister reminded him, "Bill, she didn't say her Good News was the same as your good news!" I am so happy that there is more recognition that we have good news for the world and are spreading our liberating theology more freely.

I think Unitarian Universalism may be on the brink of the growth it deserves. There is a need in the land that we can fill. This open, welcoming religion which encourages people to freely choose their faith, that provides a place for people to be together in covenantal relationship offers the promise of transforming society. May you accept its invitation to live freely. May you choose to continue your search for the transforming power at your center with an ear attune to the drumbeat which moves you supported by this religious tradition in this place.

Fran Dew
August 5, 2001