Approaching Truth:

Part Two of Moving Beyond Geologic Time in Unitarian Universalism

A sermon offered at the Unitarian Universalist Church of Lafayette, Indiana

May 5, 2002

By Rev. Hilary Landau Krivchenia 

Readings

From Ralph Waldo Emerson --

Let us not be pestered with assertions and half-truths, with emotions and snuffle.

There will be a new church founded on moral science, at first cold and naked, a babe in a manger again, the algebra and mathematics of ethical law, the church of men to come, without shawms, or psaltery, or sackbut; but it will have heaven and earth for its beams and rafters; science for symbol and illustration; it will fast enough gather beauty, music, picture, poetry.

Reverend David Bumbaugh from: The Future of Unitarian Universalism

The heart of my faith is rooted in the seventh.  Hidden in this apparently uncomplicated, innocuous statement is a radical theological position.  The seventh principle calls us to reverence before the world, not some future world, but this miraculous, awesome world of our every day experience.  It bespeaks a world in which neither god nor humanity is at the center; in which the center is the void, the ever fecund matrix out of which being spirals.  It bespeaks a world in which, because all things impinge on all other things, everything matters.  It challenges us to accept personal responsibility for the whole and for all parts of the whole, since every decision, every relationship has significance for every other decision and every other relationship.  It calls us to trust the process, the creative, evolving, renewing, redeeming process which brings us into being, which sustains us in being, and which transforms us as we cannot transform ourselves.  It offers a vision of a world in which the holy, the sacred is incarnated in every moment, in every aspect of being, a world in which the sacred is always fully present, and always fully at risk. 

This faith calls us to complete the theological renewal our times demand, to define the religious and spiritual dimensions of the ecological crisis confronting the world and to preach the gospel of a world in which each is part of all, in which every place and every one is sacred, and every place is holy ground, in which all are children of the same great love, all embarked on the same journey, all destined for the same end.  Nothing short of this will offer a religion which is adequate to the twenty-first century.

Jacob Needleman, from The American Soul: “No idea exists alone, but is related to a network of ideas that provide a sense of direction to human life, that altogether comprise their message and benefit to the world.”

Sermon

Last week, when I called the question of who we are – as Unitarian Universalists -- and why we gather together and why we would seek to grow -- I knew it would be a somewhat different gathering this week. Yet, I believe that the important questions live in us anyway – though, all too often – just below the level of conscious hearing.  The responsibility comes to each of us to lift up the questions or, as the poet, Adrienne Rich said – “to bestow ourselves to a severer listening.”

            We have the responsibility to do this if we are to be more than a salon of critics and consumers of ideas and of religious productions.  If we are more than simply a social gathering – which Alfred North Whitehead said was the decadent phase of religion.  We have the responsibility to do this if we, Unitarian Universalists, hope to be the bearers of a living tradition and to proclaim a living faith.

             Perhaps your inner eyebrows are already raised – a faith – huh – how could a union of such skeptics and iconoclasts be called a faith?  Well, before I begin to stalk our wild and deep heart I will claim us as a faith – but not faith as in a belief in the improbable and unprovable, yet wished for – but faith as a loyalty to the truth, grounded in love and reason – loyalty.

            Without creeds, our faith is great – we look not to graven icons, but through and beyond them.  At our best, we keep the faith to ever seek a living truth – evolving – to approach this truth steadily and wisely, as one might approach a wild thing that we might destroy if we trapped or caged it.  Approaching truth has not to do with creeds or icons but with our questions, our deeds, our living.  That is faith – loyalty.

            At the very least, there are the tracks and traces that the wild truth leaves behind it in the deeds and lives of great men and women, on the ground of ever changing science, and in the heart of any honest religious vision spoken by an honest prophet.  Now, I don’t mean those voices that announce unknown futures – but those who look deeply into the present and discern the living truth.  Oh, I know those truths may be betrayed by principalities and powers – but we sit knee to knee with those of differing stories because we believe that there is a deep and true heart spoken through countless stories and symbols, by countless prophets. 

It was Emerson who said in 1838 “The sentences of the oldest time, which exclaim this piety, are still fresh and fragrant. This thought dwelled always deepest in the minds of men in the devout and contemplative East; not alone in Palestine, but in Egypt, in Persia, in India, in China.  What these holy bards said, all sane men found agreeable and true.”

This was echoed again by the Rev. A. Powell Davies in 1946: “To Unitarians the world is one community, not restricted, by nation, race or creed.  They look to the common underlying faith of all mankind to draw the peoples of the earth together, through a common loyalty to what unites them, and in the building of a higher truth through freedom of belief.” 

I think Davies spoke of a world-saving vision which history has proven to be badly needed.  So, when someone asks – “Do you, Unitarian Universalists really believe anything?” we can eagerly respond – We are rich in diverse belief but we are far less concerned with belief than with keeping a good faith.  If we believe in anything -- we believe in the living truth, fresh and fragrant, as it flowers in the free minds and hearts of all people.  Therefore, intentionally, we gather in religious diversity.  We celebrate that diversity and acknowledge that over millennia, the world has changed and the ground has shifted and new aspects of the truth and new truths have been revealed.

            Karl Popper puts this search toward truth well – and uses a phrase I would like to pursue with you some other time – uncertain truth.  Popper wrote: “once we realize that human knowledge is fallible, we realize that we cannot be completely certain.  It is simply not worth searching for certainty, but it is well worth searching for truth – for uncertain truth.”

            In life and in history the ground shifts beneath us.  To steady ourselves human tend in two ways: we can grab something nearby and grip it tightly – but it will shake with the very ground.  Or -- I remember, as a girl, the sensations of riding an in-town bus.  Standing, I would feel the shifts and jolts of the bus.  I could hold onto a pole but I knew that I, myself, had an inner balance.  I could find that plumb center – shifting with the shifting bus, to steady myself up and down the steep hills of Pittsburgh.  Now, I don’t mean a truth that’s so loose as to be relative – but one that revolves and evolves with the center of the earth like gravity.  Such truth is always tested -- measured by its result in the world – like, whether I stay on my feet.  Yet, it lives and can move from place to place – in tune and grounded with the deep – the deepest.  To have loyalty to that which is deeper than dogma is to have great faith indeed. 

            To sustain such loyalty calls for constant practice – a disciplined endeavor.  To move with the shifting ground is unsettling – by definition.  It’s tempting and easy to become distracted from such deep work.  I spoke about some of our distractions last week – just as in a personal life we can get caught up in the pursuit of things which matter but matter less – so we can get caught up in church life with things that matter far less than the endeavor toward a moral life -- which heals and transforms the individual and the world.  In Unitarian Universalism, we can find the carcasses and the shrunken husks of once vital churches who mistook the challenges and issues of the times.  Who could not open their minds or doors wide enough.  Forest Church recently wrote: “often, however, we muster more passion for that which divides us, than we do for all that unites.”  So I repeat my plea of last week – let us not be distracted.  On Buddhist retreats a bell is rung to call one back into the present.  Our principles call us back, like the bell of Mindfulness, to the practice of endeavoring toward insight and moral clarity.  To be reminded of what Unitarian Universalism is: head into the principles, as a seeker after a temple hidden deep in thick forest.  If you seek moral grounding, it is there.

            Yet, it is more elusive than any set of laws or commandments and this makes it still truer to life.  Each principle is rich with ambiguity – but taken, lived in, explored as a whole they become clearer, stronger and there emerges the truth which liveth – the values that liveth – an ethical ground.  If you find that ground, other matters will be easier to clarify.

            So let’s trek together, leaving behind the machete’s and making our way with intuition, flexibility, and, of course, reason.  The principles are printed in your order of service but it may be more helpful to listen now and to meditate on these principles later, seeing their connections – how they temper and shape one another.  Just now I want to point a way among them and their relationship to one another.  First, it’s important to know that we have an Annual Meeting in June in which representatives of the congregations gather and, after years of discussion, voted these principles into being – just under twenty years ago.  So they may be, they will be lifted up again and evolve as we learn more and are faced with new realities. 

            Emerson said: Tell me, in how many churches, by how many prophets, is man made sensible that he is an infinite Soul?”  Here!  We make that claim – that each one of you is gateway to all the infinitude we can know – all the divinity we can touch.  Therefore, our principles begin in the core of each person – and travel outward to embrace the cosmos.  What is this inherent worth and dignity?  It’s a nice idea – but not enough to build a life around.  It’s hard to read, like the runes on an magic gateway that shimmer in the moonlight.  It certainly doesn’t mean that every one of us is good or right.  Or that every one of us is contributes equally to the well being of society.  It means that whether or not the good potent in each heart is cultivated there is a core humanity at birth that gives us each membership in the community of all souls.  It does mean that no matter how powerful or powerless, how inventive or unimaginative, old or young, or even how virtuous or evil – each person is born of worth to the world and has an inherent dignity that should be honored – by due process of the law of life.

This is the precious individuality of all persons.  Now Unitarian Universalism has gotten a bad reputation for being the religion of the unbridled rugged individual.  It is true that we value the uniqueness and insight of each soul.  Sometimes we’ve gotten lost along this way – Frederick May Eliot, President of the American Unitarian Association from 1937 to 1958, said: “The negative attitude toward all organized church life, which is sometimes characteristic of people calling themselves Unitarian is due to a failure to grapple with the deeper human problems involved in any religious venture.”  Sixty years later, it can be seen that a too rugged individualism leaves us each isolated on our private hard-won mountain peaks.  This principle says that we must not fail to see the humanity – however damaged or damaging – of every person.  It is a reason for the Golden Rule, for a call to keep a basic faith with and in each other.  Not an unseeing faith – but one that respects the spark of life.  We are surely capable of choosing evil as well as good – this precious spark can grow dim or it can become like the cataclysmic collapse of a star –– a center where life, light, and goodness vanish into a dense and infinitely small core – as infinite as we can be in goodness so can we be infinite in evil.  When we face one so evil – the leader of terrorists, the fascist dictator – we can easily be sucked into that center of evil.  We can respond by doing evil in return and violating the law of the due process of life.  Sometimes we see only darkly through fear, anger, and tears – sometimes well justified.  This principle says – move forward acting with faith in that dignity – perhaps for their sake – but certainly for your own.  The second principle deepens this sense of mutual faith and moral relationship – for it is the call to justice, equity, and compassion in human relationships.  So just as one might cry out – how?  How do we affirm and promote the inherent worth and dignity of every person, part of the answer emerges – with justice – equity – and with compassion.  Not a principle for the faint of heart or the weak of faith.  If you look into the central principles, they are powerful guides, devices for navigation.  Each one grounds, buoys, or reminds us of our best, and of the commitments that we have made at our best.

It is so with the third principle -- without spiritual growth we cannot find our deep conviction – that rootedness so we are each like a tree standing by the water when we are tested by life.  A tree by the water -- from whence will come refreshing waters?  From whence our fountain of strength?  How can we be fresh as a flower in a parched world?  The source bubbles up within and among us.  The third principle calls us to a keen devotion to our own growing light, our love of life, our commitment to a path of growth for our brothers and sisters – by their lights.  But could this lead to irrationalism again? Might we not loose our way in the land of spirit and feeling?  The fourth principle then calls us back, free and yet responsible, to a search for truth as well as meaning.  Remember that uncertain truth is not a careless truth – it must test against reality – if the test be fair.  Then how will we keep from running amok in our searches and insisting on our lights and not the lights of others?  The fifth principle calls us to conscience and to democratic process.  It is a principle that speaks out of the shadows of the 20^th century – of anti-democracies and times which tested conscience to its limit.  It also speaks to our own most precious Unitarian Universalist heritage – the democracy of our association – that we elect our leaders, up to the president, that we vote on our shared principles, that we hold ourselves accountable and not some higher voice or leader – we are each accountable – to one another and to the world.  For that world and ourselves we must be pointed at all times with our hearts and hands toward a community great enough to bring forth peace, liberty, and again and again – justice for all and that is our sixth principle.  These principles must be linked to have their greatest power, these principles are more than loose affirmations – together, they point us ever deeper into the heart of life – in vision and service.  Deeper into the heart of life – deeper toward the moral challenges that lay before us.  Yet, we cannot restore this world without an understanding of the world itself and our relation to it.  Six affirmations will not bring wholeness to nourish that hunger that Martin Marty says is at the center of the religious venture.  Not our best wishes or plans will empower us to “be the change” and bring about the change we will to see.  Living in post-modern isolation – where we offer our “limited opinions and our blinkered perspectives  (Bumbaugh).”  There is yet need for that which gives us the power to come down from our separate peaks into the workshop of our common endeavor.  It is in our seventh principle that we find that power.

At the core of every religion is a cosmology – the story of primordial forces that shape life – in whose context we live, move, suffer and die.  Joseph Campbell called for new stories – resonant with the power of the ancient ones – but based on our knowing now.  Popper would say that such a story should rest not upon wish or hope but on our uncertain truth – the current body of knowledge – for that is the only truth which liveth.  I still have a book that my parents gave me as girl – called The First Days of the Earth.  And the hand of God moved over the face of the deep – that is a different book – this book was equally noble and dramatic – with boiling seas and freezing deserts, with the ceaseless transformation of life into more and more diverse and miraculous life.  What a story!  A story of generation upon generation.  A story that has grown as I have grown – as our understanding and learning has grown.

The scripture reads: there, coiled in the swirling sea, the freezing desert, the clouds of dust, and endless rains I waited, you waited, every person, every being waited – for millennia upon millennia – waited for birth.  Not conscious – unless the earth herself be conscious but belonging and interwoven into the first burning clouds.  We belong to this gradually revealed, gradually tested, gradually understood story.  We belong to this story – to this world and cosmos – the journeywork of the stars.  It is in us and we are in it.  I used to bridle at the biblical passages that made humans lords of nature.  Yet it is, as my friend Rev. Bumbaugh says, “too late to decline that election”.  He’s right – our power and responsibility is too great.  We are the serfs and the masters of evolution – the journeywork of the stars is in our hands now.  Our interdependence is proven – it is the wondrous holy story writ by science and, in the words of Stephen Jay Gould, “what can be more ennobling than a factual reality?”  This is the place where science and religion meet – by our own guiding principles.  This is a story that makes us very great and very small at once.  There is a face in this story a face that may fill us with awe – the face of this cosmos.  There is a holy personage we can walk with – the personage of every living creature.   A holy voice calling forth our strength and service – the voice of every howling wind, singing bird, newborn whimper, wail of suffering, shudder of hope and of fear – and “from the future comes a cry”.  This is our story and scripture – and our principles are the guides pointing us toward the highest and the deepest.

Therefore, I said last week – this is not the church where you can believe just anything – in fact, we care less about belief than about knowledge and about faith.  We do share some things – and they are very great.

Therefore, I said, this is not the church of the lowest common denominator but of the highest.  That calls forth something profound from us – all of these responsibilities affirmed in our principles.  Unitarian Universalism is a religion not of doctrine but of ethical conduct.  Is it hard work?  Hell, yes!  This is no tea party – this is religion – a deep-rooted faith – loyalty – the power that binds us toward the truth.  Does the road lead upward all the way – the poet asked – oh yes, came the answer.  Okay -- not onward and upward – but only onward – the upward is entirely in our hands.  Therefore, beloved brothers and sisters – for so we are – even those who hate and revile us, those who judge us, those who live half way around the world or across town – but, especially you, communitas, the spirit of transforming Community.  As we face challenges in the world and the challenges taken up by this church – keep your eye on the center, take heart – for there is a heart to this faith.  Settle for nothing less than ever approaching and serving the truth which liveth.