So there it is. Somewhere in the conversation you’ve innocently mentioned something that happened to you at church and you see that polite, questioning expression form on the other person’s face as they ask, “Oh, what church do you go to?”

There’s nothing left for it now but to say it, right? “I go to the Unitarian Universalist [Congregation/Fellowship/Church/Society].” It feels like it takes about nine minutes just to get the words out. Unitarian Universalist. That’s 10 syllables, for goodness sake. And now that you’ve gotten that out, you watch the other person’s expression take on a decidedly more suspicious look, as they try to remember the name of Sun Myung Moon’s church…(wasn’t that Unitarian?) Or possibly there is a look of fuzzy recognition, as they assure you that, sure, they know about Unitarians, they had a cousin who purportedly became a Unitarian…”course that was years ago now and nobody’s heard from him in ages…anyway, you’re the folks that just kinda believe whatever you want, aren’t you?”

Whichever way the conversation goes, there is now a responsibility on your part to fill in some blanks. But there’s a huge hesitation. Do you really want to go into all this? Or, you ask yourself, do they really want you to go into all this?

But I wonder sometimes about the hesitation we feel in such an encounter, and what we can do to change it. Because, after all, we are excited about our fellowships and our congregations, aren’t we? We do believe in the very marrow of our beings that this is important stuff that happens here, don’t we? I know that we do when I see the dedication of people, coming every Sunday, attending meetings, choir practice, coming during the week making sure that everything works and runs and the bills are paid and…the list goes on. All of you here today are here for important reasons, I would guess. After all, it’s a beautiful day. There are so many places we could be. So why the hesitation?

“No one,” said Jesus, “after lighting a lamp puts it under the bushel basket.” Well, one wouldn’t think so…

Now I know that part of the problem is that we don’t want to be accused of, perish the thought, evangelism. Some of us came here in flight from evangelism and from the whole notion of conversion to a single true path, and I have been accused by some of these people of being overly evangelical about Unitarian Universalism. But there is a difference between letting people know we are here and dragging them in by their collars under threat of eternal punishment. There is a difference between invitation and coercion.

I was lucky enough to marry someone who was raised Unitarian. Early on in our relationship, I would tease my wife, Hanje, with all of the stereotypes I could muster from my meager knowledge of Unitarian Universalism, saying, “You’re all so wishy-washy. You don’t have a creed because you don’t want to commit to anything.” She would patiently, but forcefully, debate and our discussions would carry on into the night. She spoke firmly from her own perspective and left it at that, while I carried on, struggling still against the confines of my Lutheran upbringing, wondering where to put all I had experienced and read and felt that clearly didn’t seem to fit into that view of the world.

Another friend, who was passionately humanist, began lending me books about the history of liberal religion to illustrate intriguing points he was making in conversation. As I am one of those hopeless bookworms for whom there is no more direct path to my head and heart than through words, this made a distinct impression. At about the same time, Hanje became involved in organizing a new UU Fellowship, and invited me to come along to a service.

I hesitate to use conversion language, but it did feel like my life had been flooded with light. I came to see that what Unitarian Universalism offers me is not “an easy way out,” but a profoundly challenging “way in”; that along with the heady freedom to incorporate all of my experience and a world full of ethical and philosophical and religious speculation comes a charge to find out (to borrow some thoughts from Orson Scott Card) not what I want to believe, not what I believe I should believe, but what I really do believe. Free and responsible search for truth and meaning. It made so much sense to me, not just intellectually, but at the core of my self.

I have since heard people express what I assume to be similar awakenings upon entering our congregations. At a UU 101 class for new and prospective members, the minister spoke of the searching that we as individuals undertake with the encouragement and support of the community, the responsibility to be in respectful dialogue with other members within the congregation, and the call to actualize our beliefs in action in the wider world. One woman, her face a curious mixture of shock and joy, exclaimed, “This is so hard!” This was not at all the casual “believe what you want” congregation she had expected, and she was pleasantly surprised, and maybe not least of all surprised that she welcomed this surprising challenge that was put before her.

Well, in my own case, as you can imagine, my wife, while happy for me, found my embrace of Unitarian Universalism rather amusing. It’s a good thing I’m so fond of words, because I had to eat so many. But it was worth it, because I am so grateful for the invitation she offered.
What might have happened, I sometimes wonder, if I hadn’t learned about Unitarian Universalism through Hanje? How might I have exploded those preconceptions of mine? Would I have had the chance to experience a congregation from the inside?

How many of you have heard an elderly person who has maybe just joined one of our congregations say something on the order of, “This is what I’ve been looking for all my life, really, and didn’t know it. This feels like home to me. I didn’t know it was here all the time.” And we pat ourselves on the back for being part of such a fine community that people would spend their lives looking for us, and we pat the new member on the back for finally having found us, and there is something deeply satisfying about being part of that moment…

But isn’t there something deeply troubling about that also? People spend nearly their whole lives looking for something like what we offer? Why does it take so long to find us? Why do we pride ourselves on being the prize at the end of a particularly arduous treasure hunt? Why do we operate sometimes more like a speakeasy, known only to the initiated, than a religious community with our doors wide open to the traffic of the street? How did we fashion such an effective bushel basket with which to hide our light?

Bill Sinkford, the President of the Unitarian Universalist Association, has raised a lot of controversy lately with some comments he made about our lack of religious language, our seeming inability to find (and accept) words that describe the holy, and what this means about our wider influence in the world. Whatever you may think of his conclusions as to the underlying reasons, President Sinkford is concerned, I think, that we as UU’s find ourselves on the fringes of religious life in America, that we are on the margins rather than in the mainstream.

And when I read that, I couldn’t help thinking of the three Unitarian Universalist congregations with which I have had the closest ties. All three of them are located on dead-end streets! All three congregations had these tiny little signs on the turnoff from the main road, much less noticeable than your common yard sale sign…I drove by the turn for my first internship site three times before I finally found it. Upon mentioning that to a member of the congregation, she said, straight-faced, mind you, without batting an eye, “Oh, yes. Well once you know it’s there, you can see it just fine.” Once you know it’s there, you can see it just fine!?!?!?!

“Isn’t the sign for people who don’t know it’s there?” I wanted to scream. “How do you expect people to find you?”

“No one,” said Jesus, “after lighting a lamp puts it under the bushel basket.” Or at the end of a poorly marked dead-end street.

I have to wonder if it isn’t indicative of where we place ourselves in the world. I may be reading a lot into geography here, placing too much symbolic importance on a peculiar coincidence, but there is an exclusivism that creeps into our circles sometimes that says, indeed, we are not part of the mainstream. As one member said proudly, “We’re not for everybody.” Another couple put forth the proposition that, being a “thinking religion” as we are, we are not a religion for kids. Do you believe that? (It does sort of fit in with the speakeasy idea, though. “No minors allowed.”) What would Sophia Fahs, Unitarian minister and educator who taught us to trust and learn from the natural religious wonderings of children, have said to that couple? What would you say?

These elitist ideas are troubling, and not only because of the people who will never hear about us who may well have joined us, but for us, here. This grand experiment in religious dialogue and respectful community and responsible action in the world depends on a wide participation of diverse people. The risk we take with growing in membership is that we will indeed change and it is a most necessary risk. We are not ushering people into a particular doctrine or path to salvation, but rather inviting them to deeply explore their own path and to offer their own insights and to grow with us and challenge us, as we will with them. The light we offer is light to see by, not light to worship. The light from the lamp placed under the bushel basket is not only hidden, it is also at risk of being suffocated altogether.

Early on in my second internship, a visitor approached me after a Sunday Service and asked if we could meet sometime over coffee. “I would like to hear more about Universalism and why they didn’t believe in Hell,” she said. “And that preacher you mentioned today… I want to know more about what he said.”

I was overjoyed. Here I am, fresh out of seminary, having just finished a biography of Hosea Ballou in preparation for an adult class I was leading at the church (worrying that no one would come), and here was a woman asking me to talk about him! (Ok, so we minister-types get excited about strange things.)

Anyway, I controlled my excitement until the next afternoon, when I met her at the corner coffee shop and proceeded, at her urging, to tell some stories about Hosea Ballou. I couldn’t help noticing when we started the conversation that she was huddled over her coffee cup, shoulders hunched, with a rather troubled look on her face. As I spoke, reciting some of the Bible verses that early Universalists used to support their arguments against Calvinist orthodoxy, she was slowly sitting back in her chair. Explaining how Hosea Ballou reasoned that a God of Love, who asked us to love even our enemies, could never expect us to be happy in Paradise knowing that anyone was suffering for eternity, I noticed that her shoulders were now thrown back and there was a smile on her face. “That is beautiful,” she said, “just beautiful.”

Luckily, I had to stop for a breath at this point, and that gave me time to remind myself that ministers were supposed to listen to people. After a couple short beats of silence, she spoke.

“You see, I am on a search myself, spiritually. It’s part of why I came to your church, and I’m not sure where this search will take me…But the problem right now is my mother, who is sure that my straying from the religion I grew up with is going to send me straight to hell. I needed to find a way to talk to her about it. She is very adamant that things have to be in the Bible…and that’s why this is so good. It gives me a way to talk to her.”

And a light shone. In that moment I saw clearly that Hosea Ballou is not just a footnote in the history of religion in America. His words are a piece of our living tradition, the tradition that we keep alive with our coffee-making and our choir practice and our food shelf donations and our joys and concerns and our board meetings and our Sunday services; those words reached out from the light that lives at the center of all those seemingly mundane things we do to keep our congregations and fellowships going and were able to free a woman in a coffee shop talking to an eager intern minister about her concern for her mother. Hosea Ballou, who was full of the joy of living, who used a curious 19th century word to describe what he saw as God’s main intention, which was to “happify” his creatures, who believed that the good life gave its rewards in our present existence, this man was able, because we helped to keep his words alive, to pass along a little of that joy to someone in need.

Though Hosea Ballou’s particular arguments against eternal damnation are no longer at the heart of our movement, the function they played in this case, to impart the freedom to steadfastly and forthrightly follow the truths and insights of one’s own experience, that, I would hazard to say, is at the heart of who we are.

Reynolds Price translated Jesus’ words from the Gospel of Matthew to say, “Does the lamp come so it can be put under the measuring bowl or under the couch…?” I like that because it speaks far more clearly to our own lives. And if we change the lamp to, say, a flashlight, well, who can ever find a flashlight when they need one? You see, often it’s not that we intentionally hide the light, it’s that we lose track of its importance. It’s daylight, do we really need to carry a flashlight? Or: Do we really need to talk here about the freedom to discover what you truly believe? Do we really need to stress the importance of the free expression of those beliefs in our fellowship again?

It’s easy to take the freedom that we value for granted. It’s easy to start thinking that that’s just the way things are. It’s not.

I have heard so many people expressing their deep appreciation of the small groups that are starting in many of our congregations and fellowships (covenant groups, finding heart groups, u and I groups, they go under many different names), and in their appreciation, a rather awesome theme is repeated: “It is the only place where I can feel safe expressing how I really feel.” The only place. Not another place; not one of the only places; not the most important place; the only place. That is a frightening statement about the world we live in. That is an inspiring statement about what we can do together. That is a testament to the light that shines from that chalice that we have all committed to keeping alive, that light that is fed and sustained by the work of each and every one of us. Whether it’s greeting people at the door or planning a social action project; whether it’s joining the choir or becoming a teacher for our kids; whether it’s proofreading the newsletter or making the coffee…all of these things carry the light we don’t see in the brightness and the busy-ness of the day. But these things all go to keep the flame of that chalice lit and the freedom and love it represents alive.

What is it that we wish to do with that light?

“No one,” said Jesus, “after lighting a lamp puts it under the bushel basket, but on the lampstand, and it gives light to all in the house.”

Amen to that.

Closing Words
Though we extinguish the flame of this chalice, we will not hide the light it represents.
Though we leave this place now for our homes and our daily lives, we will not fail to gather again.
Though the noise of the troubles of the world threatens to overwhelm us at times, we will not keep from singing.
Though we are diverse in our experiences and understanding, we are united in loving commitment to each other and to a better world.

If we agree in love, there is no disagreement that can do us any injury, but if we do not, no other agreement can do us any good.
Let us endeavor to keep the unity of the spirit in the bonds of peace.

--Hosea Ballou, 705, Singing the Living Tradition