READING

Our reading this morning comes from Unitarian Universalist Minister and theologian Paul Rasor’s book, Faith Without Certainty, Liberal Theology in the 21st Century: He begins by quoting fellow theologian Harvey Cox:

Theology is unapologetically pre-scriptive. It does not claim to be value-free or neutral. Theologians draw upon the beliefs of a particular tradition to suggest a course of action, an appropriate response, a way of life commensurate with what faith teaches. Theology can be wrong; it cannot be non-committal.

And Rasor continues:

Theology is not something we do just with our heads. We must also use our hearts and guts, as well as our hands and feet. A more formal way of saying this is that theology involves the interplay of three dimensions: the rational/intellectual dimension, the emotional/spiritual dimension, and the practical/lived dimension. As Sally McFague puts it, “thinking, doing, and praying belong together.”

PRAYER

Creative and Loving Spirit,

Open our hearts this morning to sense our deepest commitments.

In the beating quiet of this moment, may we find our deepest selves,

nurture our loving hearts, cherish what is good,

and offer gratitude for the gift of life.

As we search for answers to our difficult and often unanswerable questions,

may we always be aware of our spirits, always glowing quietly and calm within,

guiding us on the journeys of our lives.

We pray for guidance and strength from the ultimate reality,

the mystery that surrounds us.

may we contemplate together now in a few minutes of quiet meditation….

SERMON

When I was a student at the Iliff School of Theology here in Denver in the mid-1990s, the school was torn by an internal struggle over racism and institutional power. Some students, especially after a woman professor was released with seemingly no cause, began a relentless questioning of the school, culminating in a fast in the school’s chapel, which lasted several days.

I was a work-study student at the time, and so was asked to take notes, be the secretary at numerous meetings where professors, the president, board members, the students and administrators discussed their grievances.Eventually a mediation team was brought in, deeper diversity training was offered, and compromises were reached.

The school’s process was good enough and, interestingly, the school’s ethnic and racial diversity of students and faculty is strong enough, that Paul Rasor, whom I quoted from in this morning’s reading, actually cites Iliff, along with Union Theological Seminary in New York City, in his book as a sign of hope for the struggle for racial and ethnic diversity, especially within religious institutions.

As an Anglo woman student at the school, and also someone who had a paid task to perform, I was caught in a dilemma. I had entered into the ministry for many reasons, but a primary one was to act for justice. Here was a chance to take a stand and act for justice, but I couldn’t see a clear path.

It was conflicted and difficult at every level, and I couldn’t name any particular person or persons as the demon, or the devil. It seemed that all were caught in a quagmire, trying to do the right things, while preserving what was good, and wrenchingly coming to the understanding that Iliff, a liberal Methodist, white-bread institution (until very modern history), could be charged with institutional racism, despite its best efforts.

I became very silent, thoughtful, and prayerful during this time. I noticed the dynamics of activists struggling for power against power with their own egos blaring; administrators who seemed to squirm and dodge; professors who took courageous stands, and others who felt trapped; board members caught in the middle, some taking stands, some worrying about the future of the school.

As I was preparing for this sermon, I ran across a similar description of these events in Jane Vennard’s book, Praying with Body and Soul. Jane Vennard is a spiritual director and an adjunct professor who taught most of Iliff’s spirituality classes when I was there. She is a deep advocate of the need to do all that we do, including working for justice, with a strong practice of prayer and contemplation.

Also a United Church of Christ minister, she believes, especially among those of us who are religious liberals, that we have misstated the debate between faith and works, or prayer and activism, or spirituality and humanism, however you might characterize it. For the issue is not, she says, a split between spiritualism and activism, or prayer and justice, or contemplation and action. The problem is not between apparent polar opposites, but how you do the two things themselves at the same time.

Do you have contemplation, prayer, a spiritual aspect to your being, a meaningful interior life that directs you in your actions? Or is it escapism, a fuzziness and other-worldliness that actually keeps you from acting? And on the other side, and especially for those of you who have a more spiritual bent, it’s not that action and taking justice stands are “non-spiritual,” the problem is when people are acting from agitation, thoughtless, restless, loud, single-minded, ego-driven, often unkind agitation.

For our activists, which is many of us, that’s not how we want to be perceived if we want to make a difference in the world. Vennard argues for active contemplatives and prayerful, purposeful workers. People who seem grounded while they act, quietly purposeful and assured, people immersed in the task, working toward a goal, with certain and creative purpose.

Like me, Vennard did not find an easy place to land in Iliff’s struggle. “I prayed for all involved,” she writes, “the institution, the protesting students and their supporters, other students who were confused and disillusioned, staff who were caught in the middle of the struggle, and all the faculty and administrators who were divided among themselves. Prayer felt important and necessary. Prayer was easy. I wondered whether there was something else I was called to do, some action I needed to take in addition to prayer.”

She goes on to explain how she offered communion to the protestors, danced at a worship service and offered a prayer at commencement. None of these “actions” were enough for a questioning student critic, she writes, who wanted her to take sides. She concludes:

"I share this story of a struggle for justice to illuminate the complexities of the simple statement, ‘If you want peace, work for justice.’ If we are aware of the conflicts and complications inherent in the call to justice we will be prepared when suddenly we are called out from the peace of the way things are to contribute to the creation of a new order. What will we do? What will we say? How shall we pray?Rarely will we find one ‘just’ position and one ‘unjust’ position. We will need to search our hearts to discern what action we will take. And as we act and speak and pray, we would be wise to remember that the prophet Micah knew that doing justice went hand in hand with kindness and humility. As we respond to the call to justice, and as our prayers are turned into action, may our choices always reflect this ancient truth."

Jane Vennard embodies, for me, how Paul Rasor says that our theology is supposed to guide us to a meaningful life. We have our religious ideas, our intellectual beliefs. These are translated at the heart level and gut level into practice, prayer or meditation - the point at which we go beyond naming to owning our beliefs, and then we live them out with our hands and feet in the real world of action. That’s the order -- thinking, praying, doing.

Jane Vennard does not skip the middle step, the one skipped by so many Unitarian Universalists who are called to act for justice and peace. She prays. And how does she pray? She sites my favorite verse in the Bible. The prophet Micah asked: “What does the Eternal ask of us, but to do justice, be kind, and walk humbly with our God.”You cannot do all three without some kind of spiritual practice, some kind of prayer, contemplation, or meditation.

So, how do Unitarian Universalists pray? Well, sometimes stubbornly and reluctantly, I’ll admit. Our worship services themselves, however, are acts of prayer and meditation. As your minister, that’s my goal - that every Sunday our time together will be a form of community prayer. We pray and meditate and contemplate together in many ways, and, some of them, I know, some of you don’t like. We pray together in singing; we pray together in listening to beautiful music; and we pray together, communally, in responsive readings, where our voices are joined as one. We pray together literally in our time of prayer and meditation and silence.

We contemplate as a community during the sermon time and the time for all ages, where we also pray with our children. We pray during candles of community for our individual joys and sorrows. We pray during reflection, when each of us is asked to respond to one another in a spirit of respect and tolerance, knowing that in this community, we are certainly not of one mind. To me our whole worship service is a practice, a weekly practice.And, of course, it alone is not enough, but at least it‘s a start.

How do we pray? I would argue that every one of you prays or meditates or contemplates, probably almost on a daily basis. You probably are simply not giving yourself credit for it. And when you don’t pray, stop, muster your thoughts, your emotions, your temper, your tiredness, your patience, you know it. You blurt out thoughtless remarks, callous jokes, unthinkingly harmful analogies and metaphors. You stomp on someone’s feelings. You then stop at some point, realize what you have done, and vow to do better next time.

That’s what being a spiritual person is all about. Learning to be your best self in the midst of any moment, be it relaxed or crisis. Some of us respond well in crisis, others not. Others of us have more slips when we are in down mode -- I know I do. When I am tired, my mind is full, my heart is over-taxed, I am the most likely to snap or make one of my cryptic, sarcastic remarks. This is always my sign to myself that I need to go and be still, rest, be alone and pray.

We need this kind of internal, self monitoring, if we are to live from our deepest values. That’s what I’m asking you to consider this morning, adopting some kind of intentional spiritual practice or approach to your life so that you may find more balance and meaning.

In this month’s newsletter, I talk about how I once tried to form spiritual circles for our justice and peace activists in our metro churches, something I also did while in seminary. Although the participation was fairly high, the resistance was even greater. Some came to argue with me, not to meditate or pray. Many of our justice workers felt they did not have the time to devote to contemplation. They believed in doing action. You may too, even if your focus is not primarily justice work.

We are, through our history as Unitarian Universalists, advocates for making a difference in the here and now, the only time we know that we have been allotted, and I agree wholeheartedly with that. But as we act, I would hope that we also would strive for being effective and compassionate and, as Micah said, being kind and humble. We want to be whole people, or the most whole we can be. And we want to embody, I believe, that which we seek -- that’s what our theology is all about.

Your theology is the lived expression of your religion. It is your deepest beliefs -- what you think about ultimate reality -- God, love, science or nature. What you think about humankind and life -- good, bad, indifferent, neutral, both. How that world view, positive or negative, shapes your fundamental ethics, what you live by - the golden rule, love, justice, or the more cynical beliefs of survival of the fittest, or an eye for an eye.

Last week, we talked about how our Unitarian Universalist fundamental and historical belief is in love or compassion. If that is your belief, first you must be able to articulate it - say why you hold that of highest value.Then you must feel it, grow love in your heart. How do you do that? You pray.

I don’t know how you personally pray. You may walk, or sew, or knit, or ski, or read poetry, or memorize sacred texts, or dance or sing, or meditate, or contemplate, or pray. You are searching for the love in your heart. You are praying or hoping for courage in a difficult situation. You are praying for the right words of comfort, or for the right touch or look. You are hoping to do something important without losing your bearings. You want to be heard and understood, and you want to be able to hear and understand. That is love. And your actions are processed through the mediation of your heart -- your form of prayer -- before they are acted out in real time and real life.

Your fundamental theology may be stated differently. Perhaps it is integrity, truth, fairness, liberty, justice or peace, plurality or respect, faith or hope. Theological ‘whys” make up a huge circle and we can recognize one another from wherever we stand -- that’s the fundamental way we operate in a Unitarian Universalist church. We allow for that difference and we know we will learn valuable lessons from one another through those differences.

I am asking you today to take your religion seriously, to understand how it informs your values, and how you, in turn, inform us. Many of you probably know what you believe. You know how you feel about the human condition, the existence or non-existence of mystery or God or Goddess, the purpose of life. And hopefully that it has meaning, which I believe, and hope that you do too.

As we also talked about last week, that the goodness of life itself is also fundamental to our liberal religious heritage. Ask yourself how you take these fundamental beliefs, your intellectual constructs, and integrate them into the fullness of your being. Does a desire for peace and compassionate action make you experiment with meditation? Does a desire to act out of love and kindness make you pray, even when you might not be sure to what your prayers are addressed?

Does your hope for justice and freedom cause you to deeply contemplate the writings of philosophers and anthropologists? Does your desire for beauty and depth and meaning cause you to read poetry, write poetry, memorize verses, sing songs, dance? Realize what your spiritual practices are. Understand that they help you enmesh your spirit with your deepest beliefs.

And from there, you can act, and you can make a difference. People will hear you - your voice will not be shrill, but filled with possibility, hope and inspiration. You can change anything, move anything. If you work with the rest of us, we will change and move those things together. I truly believe that. That’s why the worshipping, praying community is so important to me. We are not just a club of like-minded people; we are not simply the desperate outcasts from the liberal sea; we are not just about being social -- we are about making a difference.

Our group theology, what we can agree to as religious people, is printed on the back of our order of service every week -- our principles and purposes. But these are only paths and values -- respect for all religious traditions, particularly our Christian and Jewish roots; practicing the democratic process; acceptance of the interdependent web of all existence; recognizing the inherent worth and dignity of every person; and the value of pluralism.

From here, we are each asked to live out our own particular religious faith and we must realize that to do so is to have adopted a theology, as our reading said, a prescriptive way of living, something that guides us. And as Harvey Cox said, “Theology can be wrong; it cannot be non-committal.” You cannot have a theology of love, that ultimate reality is love, that life is love, that living means bringing out our most loving selves, that loving others means standing for justice and fairness and peace for all, and not be committed.

And finally, as a committed religious person, which you are if you are walking with us this morning on our Unitarian Universalist journey, then you must take your religion beyond your head -- your analyses, conversation and debate.You must take your theology into your gut, and you must find, for yourself, what prayer means. What does it mean to feel it in your gut? How do you incorporate and embody your theology emotionally and spiritually? Do you feel your deepest beliefs in your very bones?

And then, when you do, you will act from that place, not all of the time, but you will act from that place as often as you can, and you will know when you have failed to do so. You cannot be an advocate for peace and have a stormy, war-like demeanor. If peace is your theology, you will embody peace, and you will act as you would want the world to act. You will be a contemplative activist, as Vennard says, a religious activist.

Our way of religion, our movement, has been lost for a while, struggling with regaining our spirituality, afraid of the baggage we carry, mostly from Christianity, where most of us learned the word “prayer.” Do not be stymied by this debate. Do not be afraid to pray in your own way. Your very life’s meaning depends upon you learning to integrate your beliefs on the spiritual and emotional level. And no internal debate about religion and language should keep you from becoming a deeply spiritual, committed person, based upon whatever theology, belief system, you hold most dear.

In this congregation, in our worship together, we name our practice prayer and meditation and silence, affirmations, candles of community and hymns. I appreciate that all of you, whether that’s your way of practicing or not, allow the community to worship together through these various expressions. It is our way of searching as a community to embody the beliefs we hold in common. It is how we incorporate and live out our covenant. It will be how we hold together as a religious people as we do more and more justice activities in our greater world - whether it’s a habitat build, or working with the family from Somalia, or mentoring a homeless family, or working on our own community definition as a welcoming congregation – it’s how we live out our spiritual beliefs.

Our desire is nothing less than to bring a message of love and hope to the world. To do that we must prepare ourselves, and each of us must incorporate that love deep within and express it from our guts. If we are walking, talking and breathing our deepest beliefs, we will act for justice, we will be kind, and we will walk humbly because we know we are walking with our God, the eternal, the mystery, the breadth and scope of nature and life. And it is from there that we will receive our strength, and the emotional and spiritual part of our being will grow as we come to embody our prayer.

AMEN