UU Spiritual Diversity

As Unitarian Universalists, we draw on many spiritual traditions in forming our own faiths.
We will think (and I will speak) about some of them together today and in weeks to come.


A gathering of 22 religious leaders
   representing a wide variety of faiths
     was recently reported in the Huffington Post.

The leaders offered a word of advice to the world:
   Make friends with people of other faiths.

One of the privileges
  of our own Unitarian Universalist congregations
     is that we can make friends with people of other faiths
        simply by looking across the rooms
               in which we meet for worship!

One could go so far as to say
  that a gathering of four UU's around a table
     will bring out five opinions on theology and religion!

The truth is that we are all different,
   regardless of our religious commitments,
      and we UU's are at least honest about it!

After all, the fourth of our Seven Principles proclaims,
  "A free and responsible search for truth and meaning."

So it's no surprise that our UU faith is informed
     by just about every form of spiritual  tradition to be found
           among human beings.

Starting today, I want to do something unusual for me.

I want to do a sermon series.

Maybe I should start by explaining (possibly again!) the distinction
   between a sermon and a talk.

In a talk, I would try to shed light on a subject of mutual interest.

In a sermon, I would do the same,
    and adding an attempt to bring good news.

That is what the word evangelical actually means, good news!

It's ironic in our time to think of the way the word is used,
 because those who claim to be evangelicals
   are more like bad news,
      but that is probably a subject to talk about another time.

The series of sermons I want to start will have to do
   with the various spiritual traditions that inform our UU faith.

I want to look at each of about a dozen of them
                 in a single sermon for each one.

I hope to find good news in each and every one of them.

Today, I can do little more than list the ones I want to talk about.

I hope to whet our appetite for more.

You are welcome to suggest other traditions
     that you want to hear more about.

You are also welcome, of course,
  to suggest that this series of sermons
    is a terrible idea!

I'm not sure that I will talk about each tradition
   in the order in which
     I will list them today,
        but here we will have a starting place.

Before I start to talk about the faith traditions
  that inform our UU spirituality,
    I want to remind us all (me too!) about
       what I mean by sprituality.

For me, first and foremost, it means breathing.

We breathe life in and we breathe it out.

The inhalation and exhalation, along with the beats of our hearts,
       provide the rhythm of our lives.

Walking in rhythm and in harmony
   with the life and consciousness of all that surrounds us
       is the center of our spirituality.

Religion sometimes gets in the way of spirituality,
    but that is not its primary function!

Religion is supposed to be a guide to spritual life.

I plan to try to see each religion primarily in its strengths
   (remember that I'm trying to share good news!).

Although I am an incurable optimist,
   I try also to be a realist,
     so we will look at some of the weaknesses
        of the religions I will talk about.

Among the religions we will be thinking about
  most obvious for us in the U.S.
        is Christianity.

It really is still a spiritual tradition
     despite its use as a political tool in our time.

I still consider myself a Christian,
    even though sometimes I very much regret that.

At least my Unitarian Universalist commitments
     mitigate some of the narrower aspects of Christianity.

I believe that the narrow minded side of Christian faith
    comes from the belief that leads people to say,
       "We alone have the truth."

That is the foundation of fundamentalism in any religion,
    and it is a very dangerous idea.

It has led to wars regarding religion, over and over again.

Some scholars of history will tell us that religion is
    in some sense the source of almost every war.

Of course, there are other factors,
    but dangerous ideas like sole possession of the truth
           are one way otherwise good people are convinced
                 to do dreadful things
                    in the name of
                 their faith and nation.

Christianity has more noble aspects, too,
   and when it is time for us to talk about it
      as one of the contributing sources
            of UU spirituality,
      we will think much more about the good side!

Judaism is the mother faith of western spirituality,
   and it is a profound contributor to UU spirituality.

As a parent faith,
  Judaism has provided both a helpful
     and a dysfunctional
        view of relationships

especially as we think of relating to God,
    whose name is never spoken by many pious Jews

and also as we think about our ancestors in faith.

Father Abraham believed that God wanted him to sacrifice
   his beloved son, Isaac, as a burnt offering to the LORD
        upon God's sacred mountain.

At the last possible moment, God sent a substitute offering
    and told Abraham, "Do not lay your hand upon the boy!"

To say the least, as Liam Neeson said in the movie,
    Before and After,
      the most important lesson we can get from this story is,
        "Who would want HIM for a father?"

One might want to say that about the God
      who would ask such a thing!

There is thus a dysfunctional root in all our western faiths.

There is much more to the picture,
   and I hope to look at that, too.

There is an ongoing love relationship between that same God
     and those who seek to understand Him and themselves.

Maybe there is hope for us all
     in some of our dysfunctional relationships, too!

Islam claims its roots in the same story of Abraham and his son,
   but the noble Qur'an sees the favored son as Ishmael,
     since tribal legend has Ishmael
       as the ancestor of all the Arabs.

Islam is a radical form of monotheism,
   seeking to purge itself - and all of us -
      from any thought of more than one God.

There is no God but God,
   and Muhammad is God's Messenger.

That is the Shahadah, upon which all of Islam is based.

It is a very simple religion at its heart,
    and some of my Muslim friends feel
     that the Unity in Unitarianism
       means that we are all really Muslim!

Maybe so and maybe no,
   but we have oneness as a starting place
    as we breathe in and out through our lives
      side by side with our Muslim sisters and brothers.

Hinduism is the Mother faith of all the Eastern religions.

It may appear to be very polytheistic
    because it refers to many gods.

There is a Holy Trinity in Hinduism, too,
   corresponding to the Christian Trinity.

Yet many people conceive of
 Brahma, Siva and Vishnu
   as three very separate and individual gods.

In truth, Hinduism may be the most unity oriented of all faiths.

At the heart of their philosophy is Monism,
  the belief that there is only one reality,
   one mind
     one person
      at the heart of all things.

Only God truly exists.

We are all God's thoughts,
    expressions of God's being.

When we breathe in and out, we breathe in and out
   the life and reality of God.

Buddhism grew out of Hinduism in much the same way as
   Christianity and Islam grew out of Judaism.

A great spiritual leader, Siddhartha Gautama, the Buddha,
    taught the Middle Way
       between the exremes of asceticism and worldliness
          to allow anyone to achieve enlightenment
            simply by learning to let go.

I take refuge in the Buddha - in the enlightened teacher.

I take refuge in the Dharma - in the right teaching and thinking.

I take refuge in the Sangha - in the community
                 of followers of Buddha.

In that threefold refuge is the Way of Buddhism,
      open to everyone.

In the list of religions,
  one of the most recent developments is Baha'i.

It grew out of Islam in Persia in the 19th Century
  through the work of Baha'u'llah, the prophet.

There may be a deep affinity
 between us UU's and the Baha'i faith,
   since one of its most basic teachings
      is the truth and validity of every faith.

Of course, for many UU's our point of view
     looks more toward the falsehood and invalidity of all religions,
          but in the final analysis, we are saying much the same thing!

More importantly,
  peace will come to our world
     as we all recognize our sisters and brothers
       of every nation and religion
          as children of one God, just as much as are we ourselves,

   or at least as we begin to realize
      that we do not need any dysfunctional parent
         to help us realize that we are at one already
             with all the people who breathe in and out
                in the air of our small planet.

A renewal of the ancient pagan faith is to be seen in our time.

It is an important part of our UU spirituality.

We see in the natural world
  an important witness to our place in the multiverse.

As we breathe in the air of our Mother, Nature,
    we recognize that we belong together within her realm.

As we celebrate the nature festivals: Samhain (Halloween),
   the Equinoxes and the Solstices,
      we find that we stand together, not apart,
            whoever we may be.

It was at a Sostice celebration of the UUCP
     that Beth and I really got acquainted
        and began to build the relationship
             that has brought us together
                 to this time and place with the NIUU's!

Alongside the pagans are the nature based spiritualities
   that are most ancient,
      finding that we are not the only creatures
         who breathe in and out!

Even the rocks breathe,
   although it is much more slowly than we breathe.

There is a growing view of universal spirituality
 called panpsychism
  that finds spiritual life in everything.

This is both the newest and oldest expression
       of human spirituality,
          and I'm looking forward
              to learning more about it with all of you!

There is also a philosophy of religion called Process
   that can fit with any faith, especially mine,
      because it sees the reality of divine being
          growing and evolving along with us all.

Our UU spirituality is informed by all of these and more,
   and we can learn to breathe together
     and make our lives richer
       with the appreciation of each other and the wide diversity
          of ways of being.

That sounds like good news to me!

Amen

Ameen

Omeyn

So Mote It Be

Blessed be!


The list of various faiths follows:

Christianity

Judaism

Hinduism

Buddhism

Islam

Baha'i

Creation based (pagan)

Pan-en-theism (Animism) (panpsychism)

Process