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Sermons by Rev. Don W. Vaughn-Foerster

On Feeding Our Religion - or Eating It
Rev. Don W. Vaughn -Foerster
Unitarian Universalist Church of Sarasota, FL
February 18, 2007

Once upon a time a minister told his congregation that the church needed some extra money. He asked the people to consider putting a little more than usual into the offering plate. He said that whoever gave the most would be able to pick three hymns. After the offering plates were passed, there was a $1,000 bill in one of them. Excitedly, the minister said he would like to personally thank the person who had given that bill. A quiet, saintly woman in the back shyly raised her hand and the minister asked her to come to the front. When she got there, the minister thanked her and asked her to pick out three hymns. Her eyes brightened as she looked over the congregation, pointed to the three most handsome men, and said, "I'll take him and him and him."

Actually, this woman's response to the minister's offer isn't much different from the way people generally approach religion in its organized form. Like her, many folks come looking for a religious setting that fits their own whims and personal desires. From this standpoint, especially in the free approach of our UU context, any organized form of religion tends to have as many facets as there are differing expectations and purposes among its members. Some would have their congregation be mainly an institution with great civic prestige; others want it to be a refuge, untouched by the distortions, fears, frustrations, and anxieties of everyday life; others want it to be a clan of friendly, supportive persons, or an ark to keep religious liberals afloat in a rising flood of dogmatisms and unreason, or a school to instill religious principles in our minds, or an agency to correct social wrongs and work for justice, or a theological-philosophical platform from which to proclaim religious liberalism to the community.

This UU Church of Sarasota has - and should have - these many facets to some degree. All of these are worthy goals and each person should be free to pursue those facets of their choice. They are largely the reasons people join; but, actually, they are not the fundamental reason for the group's existence. They are secondary goals and they tend to become unpersuasive and to fall apart if the deeper, primary purpose of religious organization is not observed.

It's easy to lose sight of this primary purpose. The secular world tends to minimize the depth dimension of organized religion while, at the same time, expecting it to be a vehicle for pursuing partial, secondary goals. This turns the whole thing on its head and leads many people to view religious organizations as only a public means toward private ends.

Besides, there is what I call the "self-inverting" dynamic - a process characteristic of almost anything people do. By "self-inverting" I mean the human tendency eventually to make a thing into its opposite. This dynamic is glaring in the history of organized religion. The Christian church is the model on which much of western organized religion is based. The Christian church began with the vision of itself as a fellowship of equals based on self-giving love (i.e. koinonia based on agape) and as a place where its members gathered to worship "in spirit and in truth." But, early organizational demands quickly led the church to divide and assign tasks. Hierarchies came quickly and easily after that. These were changes that made self-giving love ever more difficult and cut a gap through fellowship, leaving the professional leadership on one side and the ordinary believer on the other.

The result has been a social institution that is not well understood anymore because of the way it is used for its lesser functions than for its larger purpose. The way many people (both orthodox and liberal) use organized religion today reminds me of the way Native Americans are said to have reacted to the first telegraph poles to be erected across the plains. As the poles appeared on the plains, it seems that many in the tribes apparently felt themselves unexpectedly blessed by a new supply of firewood. They would chop down and burn for fuel an item that others depended on for communication.

Too often this has been the fate of religion in its organized form. People, who do not understand its larger purpose, tend either to dismantle it, or to use it according to their whim and immediate need, or to co-opt it with their private dogmatic ideologies. They start with a creative, idealistic vision (perhaps) but end with a self-serving act. Thus, organized religion has tended to become not a creative dynamic fellowship but a fuel for self-satisfaction and need-fulfillment - religious firewood, so to speak. In many ways it changed from being a motivating power into becoming a cafeteria, where people go through a serving line and choose from a variety of programs that appeal to them. They take only what they want from the serving line, without contributing new dishes - or resources - to it. A dynamic ideal -- one that leads toward understanding and cooperation -- can only be supported and pursued, not chewed on or nibbled at for its goodies.

But, the original high purpose of organized religion hasn't been lost. Actually, that purpose becomes clear from time to time. To caring observers it becomes even clearer as the acids of secularism and the dogmatisms of orthodoxy eat away at religious organization. Many people today are again getting a clear vision of what their organized faith can be but often is not. It can be a genuine fellowship of equals who are committed to common values and who relate to one another on the basis of self-giving, self-revealing love. It can be a place to pursue those impulses to be fully human that enable people to live in the world with one another, fully, responsibly, truly, and well. It can be a cathedral of the spirit where our highest ideals and our deepest affections are better understood and become anchored in our hearts and minds. It can be where, as one of the prominent historians of the last century, Will Durant, said: we "stand before the stars almost naked of supernatural creed and transmitted moral code," grapple with the chaos of the modern world, and rebuild civilization within ourselves.

Durant's is another way to state that larger purpose (the vision) that I see undergirding this Church's secondary functions as institution, refuge, clan, ark, school, and platform. It is what gives credibility to those facets of religious organization that members want to use (and are free to use) for their own purposes. This vision enables the Church, from time to time, to be less like a religious cafeteria doling out goodies that people pay for only to consume, and more like a source of ethical and spiritual power, expanding and deepening the lives of those who come.

The question arises, however, that, when a Church seems to focus on only secondary matters, how is it brought back to be a source of ethical and spiritual power? I see at least three necessary steps. First, we must make sure that our own whims and desires don't blind us to the Church's greatest value. It's too easy to quibble over religious words and habits of celebration and worship or to disagree over how to pursue social change, or bog down in doctrinal differences. If sight is lost of the grander vision of a religious enterprise as a primary means that frees us to be genuinely civilized and human together, the whole enterprise is relegated to only secondary importance. Then, only self-servingness and ego-centrism can grow.

Secondly, we need to look at our personal conduct with one another. People tend to use, manipulate, or otherwise control one another so that others can be the means through which they get the group to do things for them that they want done. In essence, people try to make one another into conduits of their own satisfactions. In terms of enlightened self-interest, this may seem to work out fairly well and, on a superficial level, satisfactions do get exchanged with one another. This works, that is, as long as everyone is willing to play the game -- i.e. to agree that only the secondary purposes are to be pursued.

However, if our intent is truly to enliven our minds and hearts and to promote love and understanding, this won't do the job. It only barters our affections and our services with one another like marketeers. On the usual, superficial level, marketeers don't need to understand or to be understood. They only need to make a sale, to effect an exchange of goods or services. The deeper reality is that the ultimate basis of being religious together is to become not just seekers of satisfactions and need-fulfillment but rather givers of these things to others. It has been said so often that it is trite (but it is still true): "Ultimately, only as we give do we receive!" - because it is only as we make room within ourselves by giving that we can create a home within ourselves for what we receive. It is the giver (not the receiver) who initiates the bond of fellowship, although it is the receiver's giving in return that confirms it. If we want to be at home here, first we must help others to be at home here. Otherwise, there is no home - only a public meeting place of self-concerned individuals and in-groups.

Thirdly, we need to make sure the Church is a source of spiritual and ethical power -- a true cathedral of the human spirit to give flesh to its vision. This means doing what we believe -- making our ideals real in life, being true to our conscience in our actions. This means doing practical, material things that make the liberal religious ideals actually alive and free.

Today, since we are kicking off the pledge campaign for the next fiscal year, this has a special meaning. It means making certain that the physical existence of this Church is ensured - i.e. that its grounds, building and utilities, that its program, that its public face to the community are sufficiently supported. Unless this is done, all other things said about free religion are only talk - word fantasies to make us think we are doing something that in reality we are not doing. We must, in effect, put our money where our hearts and minds are. We must provide well for the material success of our ideals. Our vision has neither meaning nor power unless it moves us to bring our whole selves to its support - unless we act to see that it has not only ethical and spiritual integrity but physical, practical substance, as well.

There are some unavoidable practical costs of freedom. Unless there is a place to meet, you can't meet. Unless there are program materials and leaders to work with, there is no program. Free religion - certainly free organized religion - cannot be practiced unless its bills are paid. Of course, along with hard cash, freedom (especially religious freedom) can have other more stringent emotional and social costs. There are those who would have us "pay" for charting our own ethical and spiritual course with our sense of safety, or our job security, or our friendships, or our family relations. And, these more subjective costs are hard to bear unless we "ante up" the additional material costs that come with organizing ourselves as a free, mutually supportive religious community that enables us a place to be together in a difficult world.

Annually, at this time of the year, members and friends of this Church are confronted with the challenge to provide enough financial support to make this enterprise work. Inevitable questions are: How do you value this Church? What is its worth to you? Where would you go if this Church were not here? Where would the moderating influence of free religion in Sarasota be if this Church were to weaken or disappear?

Nobody can or should set a dollar amount as the cost of membership. That violates the first principle of a free religion. Yet, everybody who belongs has the responsibility of giving according to their means and according to the depth of their commitment to free religion. Because everyone has different resources and different commitments, there is no way to average out such things. There is only the ultimate practical test of whether both commitment and resources are strong enough to make this Church an effective center of religious freedom in this part of Florida. Jesus probably never said it, but his principle of "giving to others" implies it: the Sermon on the Mount would never amount to much unless a large enough amount was given to keep its ideals alive. Perhaps lost somewhere in the caves of Qumran, where the Dead Sea Scrolls were discovered, there is a sermon by Jesus entitled "A Sermon on the Amount." If there is such a sermon, Jesus probably started it this way: "Disciples and Friends of the Spirit, money is a blessing that is of no advantage to us except as we part with it [at this point he would be prematurely quoting Ambrose Bierce]. On the subject of money, I have good news and I have bad news. The good news is that there is enough money for us to support our program, pay our bills, and build a new wing on the temple. The bad news is it is still in your pockets."

This Church's ultimate function is to be the place where we are free to be ourselves-- our most human and humane selves. It is to be the place where we can focus on what is most important and meaningful for us and where we can exchange our energies and our spirit with one another. It is to be a place where we can contribute our own energies and resolve to confront us with ourselves, to inspire us to live the truth about ourselves, and then to provide that power of love and understanding which enables us to support one another. In sum, we come to this free religious organization to build our world together on moral and spiritual terms free of enervating dogmas. And, when this happens within this Church, it, necessarily, spills over to affect the world at large and to reduce to some extent, perhaps, the world's moral and spiritual chaos.

Will this happen if we are not serious about having it this way? This question reminds me of the story of Tommy, a little boy who was doing very badly in math. His parents enrolled him at a Catholic parochial school in hopes that the school's structured approach would help him. When Tommy came home after the first day, he had a very serious look on his face. He didn't kiss his mother. He went straight to his room and started studying. After dinner he went right back to studying. This went on for several days and he, soon, came home with an "A" in math. His mother asked, "Tommy, what was it? ... the nuns? ... the books? ... the discipline? ... the uniforms?" Tommy looked at her with a grimace on his face and said, "Well, on the first day of school I knew they weren't fooling around when I saw that guy on the wall nailed to the plus sign!"

We don't have such motivating symbols in this Church, but we do have something more powerful than symbols. We have the trust -- the good faith -- that we extend to one another when we walk through these doors looking for the genuine fellowship of equals who are committed to common values. We have our mutual commitment to one another to do the most we can to live a fully human life together