• Home
• Visitor Center
  • Frequent Questions
  • Contact the Church
• Sunday Morning
  • Upcoming Services
  • Recent Sermons
  • Announcements
  • Newsletter archive
• Our Church
  • Directions
  • Giving
  • Art Gallery
  • Board Reports
  • Church Documents
  • Brief History
  • Architecture
• Music
  • Music Program
  • Our Choir
  • Guest Soloists
  • Sunday Concerts
• Our People
  • Minister and Staff
  • Our Congregation
  • Board of Trustees
  • Photo Gallery
  • UUCS Columnists
• Social Justice
• Activities
  • Committees
  • Chalice Groups
• Learning
  • Religious Education
  • Freethinkers
  • Lifespan Education

Sermons by Rev. Don W. Vaughn-Foerster

The Unitarian Universalist Gospel
Rev. Don W. Vaughn -Foerster
Unitarian Universalist Church of Sarasota, FL
March 18, 2007

Sometimes it isn't easy to select a title for my Sunday remarks. For instance, today I want to talk about our central Unitarian Universalist message to the world - a message that I believe makes us unique among the religions. I am calling my remarks, "The Unitarian Universalist Gospel" but, at first, that title didn't really turn me on; it was too reminiscent of my earlier Methodist upbringing. So I tried to think of another one.

The first new title that came to mind was "We Seek the Unique." Somehow, that didn't grab me either. How can you talk about the unique in general terms? Then it occurred to me that by adding another "U" to our name ( a "u" for uniqueness) we could go the Trinitarians one better and be the "The Three-U (i.e. Tri - "u") nitarians, and then my title could be "Uni-Uni-Unique-Arians." This had a certain theological panache - making an oxymoronic combination intimating that the Trinity and Arianism may properly modify each other. However, I realized that, if I chose this title, I would end up talking for a very long time about something other than my subject today. Then, remembering how we, often, try to honor everybody's disparate feelings in our discussions, this title came to mind: "Is There Obliqueness to Our Uniqueness?" Now, this seemed to lose a lot of the candor that, it is to be hoped, is more characteristic of us and so I thought of another title, "Is Our Church a Den of Uniquity?" That said either too little -- or too much - about us so I went back to square one and I, finally, settled on the original title, "The Unitarian Universalist Gospel." I did so with the understanding that that which is unique about us is, also, that which we are most bent on telling the world. In usual religious terms, that would be the substance of our uniqueness, our "gospel" - our unique revelation, if one can speak of revelation in rational terms. But, that is something that should come easily to a bunch of oxymoronic "tri-'u-'nit-Arians".

Revelation is a concept that lies at the roots of religion. Most religions claim to be founded on a revelation of some sort and appeal to it as justification of their existence. That root revelation usually is set forth as the primary teaching, the good news, the good tale (the "gospel") that the religion in question proclaims to the world. Buddhism has its image of Gautama, under the Bo tree, having disclosed to him the true nature of the human condition. Islam reveres the vision that came to Mohammed in a cave in Mount Hira where he received the heavenly words that led to the Koran. Judaism appeals to Moses' experience of Yahweh on Mount Sinai. Christianity has probably more than its share of revelations. It appeals to the descent of the dove at Jesus' baptism, or to Jesus' Transfiguration, or to Jesus' Resurrection and his appearance to his disciples after the crucifixion - just to name a few. These revelations form the essential message of the "gospels" of these religions, a gospel being the "good news", the "good tale" that these religions broadcast to the world.

Unitarian Universalists, too, have a revelation and a "gospel", although it is not of the same character as these I have mentioned. These other revelations, except, perhaps, for Buddha's, are divine messages sent from heaven to earth. The Unitarian Universalist revelation, however, is not sent from heaven but rather is discovered here on earth. Perhaps a better way to put it is it is "realized" here on earth because the Unitarian Universalist revelation is something the mind and heart acknowledge inwardly as a person's experience of life deepens and expands. This makes our "gospel" quite different from the run-of-the-mill, divinely inspired, extraterrestrial "good news." Our "revelation" is something we have to dig out of ourselves for ourselves.

I do not equate our Unitarian Universalist "gospel" with a revelation from God. Neither do I see it as a kind of Christian message disguised in or translated into humanist words. And, unlike the way most other religions function, neither do I see the ideas or teachings of any particular liberal religious leader as final statement of what Unitarian Universalism is all about. Nor do I think our "gospel" is our UUA principles. To me these principles are only derivatives from a basic, first hand knowledge that has opened us up to such principles and that brought us here and keeps us here.

To set it up so that we can see our "gospel" in context, let's try to see ourselves as others see us. That's usually a good clue both about the way we act and what we want the rest of the world to know about us.

How do others see us? Despite our sociological and economic similarities with others in our community, we strike out on a different course from most of them. And so, human nature being what it is, others tend to have a suspicious and negative attitude toward our way of religion. Most Christians know us as an individualistic people (perhaps too individualistic) who depart from orthodox Christian doctrines and don't even regret it. In their eyes, this is such heresy that, oftentimes, they find it difficult to think kind, "Christian" thoughts about us.

In the eyes of those militant secularists who are disappointed with organized religion, we appear to be only halfhearted secularists. They see us as almost modern people who have not quite shaken off the last vestiges of religious superstition and who still have an emotional fixation on what they see to be outworn religious institutions. We appear to such people to be more scientific minded than mystical, more secular than devotional, more pragmatic than theological, but as having reached only a halfway house on the way to cultural maturity. To militant secularists we are only lukewarm secularists who are not yet free from the conditionings of the past. They would say that a blooper that once appeared in some church's newsletter was not a blooper at all, but a description of our Unitarian Universalist reality. The blooper read, "Don't let worry kill you - let the church help."

Furthermore, many who love the social and political status quo see our religious movement as a haven for all kinds of radicals and nuts. And, of course, traditionally, Unitarian Universalists have been in the forefront of social and cultural change. There were the abolitionists, then the suffragettes, then supporters of civil rights, war protesters, impeachment proponents, environmental activists, feminists, gay rights advocates, and then defenders of the rights of the elderly and the handicapped, and AIDS activists. Today many of our number are protesters of imperialistic policies and inhumane behavior that have become so apparent in our country's approach to the rest of the world. We have transcendentalists, existentialists, humanists, atheists, agnostics, liberal Christians, New Age enthusiasts, and Pagans. Those who would try to preserve the status quo shake their heads at the way we allow such activisms and experiments to thrive in our midst. In sum, from the outside, we appear to be an odd lot of anti-religious individuals who can't give up religion.

So, to many outside our circle, we are heretics, individualists, activists, and goof balls. One of the standing jokes about Unitarian Universalists is that we are like granola. Take away the cereal and the berries and the fruit and what you have left are only the nuts.

All of these are negative outside assessments but we UUs have made serious efforts to understand ourselves in positive terms. And, in one study and survey after another, we have learned significant things about ourselves - things that, I believe, stem from our peculiar religious "gospel". One study (Report of Commission on Goals, 1967) summarized us this way: We are, for the most part, a continent-wide, dominantly urban and suburban, upper-income, highly-educated, professionally employed people who eschew traditional ways in favor of strongly individualistic and pluralistic approaches to religion. It goes on: Even if we are theist or deist in our religious commitment, we, still, are distinctly humanistic in that we have confidence in humankind, are committed to progress, and are actively concerned with the problems of the day.

Other studies have gone on to add that we tend to believe the individual is not necessarily either good or evil and, therefore, we place high priority on self-actualization and achievement. We are open to change and new values. We value highly the search for truth, order, and harmony.

What all this says to me is that ours is a unique approach to religion. We do not conceive of religion in the same hierarchical or salvific terms as do most others. [Yes, "salvific" is a real word in my Merriam Webster's.] We aspire to be broad-minded, open, and tolerant. We tend to believe ourselves able to cope with life and its problems without reliance on outside supernatural agencies. We have confidence in ourselves and in our own ideas. We believe in doing something about what we believe; we are religious activists. We are a questioning, learning people who understand that to question and to learn requires us to be free. One might say that, in our churches and other societies, freedom of belief is rigidly enforced and dogmatism is absolutely forbidden - although explaining this to the more orthodox is like trying to explain "counterclockwise" to a child with a digital watch.

But none of this really says what is our unique "gospel" - that "gospel" which is an affirmation, that root idea, that underlies all of our other ideas and commitments. So, let me, finally, begin to put it into words.

First, out of all I have said before, let me highlight some simple words that describe us as a religious people -words that pop up whenever we study or survey ourselves. The first word is honesty - not that others aren't honest but that in religion we UUs ache to be honest. Since most of us rely on our reason (our intellect) to guide us, honesty ranks paramount. For most of us, shading the truth and accurate thinking simply cannot go together. The effort to refute facts with only metaphors is not acceptable - for most of us. It is like mixing water with an alcohol burner. The flame will splutter -- if it burns at all.

The second word is naturalness. Unitarian Universalists, when driven to basics, think the false to be bad enough, but the artificial to be worse. To be artificial is to be cut off from the very roots of our being. It is the real world, the natural world we would know. We seek the secure spontaneity that comes from being, thinking, and doing what we feel ourselves designed to be, think, and do - which is to be our natural selves in a natural world. [I said quite a bit about this last Sunday.]

Because of our emphasis on honesty and naturalness, we tend to stick to the important issues of living and not avoid them. In our dislike of the deceptive and the artificial, we hark back in many ways to the religion of the early Jewish prophets. With them we insist that what is necessary is not stale, habit-ridden ritual and sacrifice. Rather what is necessary is, as the Hebrew prophet, Micah, said, "to do justly, love mercy, and walk humbly with our God" - or with our most profound belief about reality, whatever it may be in our individual case.

All of this derives from our peculiar Unitarian Universalist affirmation that to be authentically who we really are in the world as we really know it is the greatest aspiration of which human beings are capable. In today's reading, Thoreau was thoroughly (Thoreau-ly?) gripped by this aspiration. When we are first gripped by this notion is when we become Unitarian Universalists. Thereafter, we cannot vicariously accept a priest's worship for our own - any more than we can vicariously accept a preacher's beliefs for our own - or a self-appointed moralist's opinion or a philosopher's thought or an artist's painting. We appreciate and use other people's thought and creations, but, if something is to be meaningful to us, we must experience it, we must think it, and we must appropriate it.

Of course, authenticity is a broadly human desire. It is, however, a uniquely Unitarian Universalist characteristic to be so committed to authenticity that neither dogma, nor tradition, nor scriptural and ecclesiastical authority, nor social standing, nor economic welfare - none of these - have ultimate sway over our need to look at things as they really are and our need to be our own selves - our authentic selves.

Furthermore, so far as I can tell, among organized religious institutions, only the Unitarian Universalist fellowships and churches join together to make personal authenticity both the basic principle of the individual's religious quest and the principle on which our societies are organized. Only the Unitarian Universalists seem to have discovered that religious groups desperately need to be as honest, natural, and authentic as the individuals who belong to them. When individuals are not that, our organized religious societies cease to be authentic. When our churches and other societies are not that, authentic individuals cannot belong. Where Unitarian Universalist societies fail and become like other "game-playing" groups is when they allow the urgency for authenticity to be submerged in less profound considerations, such as doctrinal statements, fund raising, partying, programming, personal agendas, etc. All of these are things we need to do but they are secondary to why we really are here. Our trap is that, if we are not careful, we can end by thinking that we are such a genuine people that even our phonies are genuine.

Thus, I take honesty, naturalness, and above all, authenticity to be at the root of the Unitarian Universalist religious way - our revelation about what life is and should be. Because of this, I believe we have a unique religious message to deliver to the world - our good news, our "gospel", if you please. Succinctly put, it is this: In this world of sham and pose and falsification, where human beings so often are made brutish, apathetic, and estranged, life on authentically human terms is possible when human beings seriously accept the challenge to be their true selves.

This may sound like a truism that is not necessary to say. But, if so, it is a truism that people in great multitudes ignore, and, by relying on priests, preachers, and other so-called authorities, distort. It is a fundamental belief that must come to each person as a self-revelation and a profound affirmation made out of his or her own intelligence and experience - if it is to have trustworthy power in their lives.

I believe we confirm this affirmation every Sunday when we light a single flame in our chalice - a flame that, symbolically, burns from the fuel of our own intelligence and experience which are the primary sources of the energy empowering both our personal faith and our free religious movement. It is our bright testimonial to our intention to use our freedom to be true to ourselves. For, is not the ultimate purpose of freedom to enable us to be who we authentically are? For what other reason would we want to be free?

"Life on authentically human terms is possible whenever the human being seriously accepts the challenge to be her or his true self." This is what I take to be our Unitarian Universalist "gospel." It is the "gospel" I see lived in person after person within our UU context. It is a "gospel" that we spread not by preaching or advertising or other concerted efforts to persuade others but simply by being who we are and touching other people as we go.