First Unitarian Universalist Church of New Orleans
Sunday, June 7, 2009
Worship in the Unitarian Universalist tradition is different. I can kind of epitomize those differences when I tell you I had trouble finding a suitable piece of clip art for this morning’s Order of Service cover. Most of what is available on the Internet shows Christian, Jewish, or Islamic symbols -- but no flaming chalices. Or the clip art shows a person kneeling, or worse, prostrating themselves. There’s a good reason why kneelers and prayer rugs are not usually found in UU churches. Worship in the Unitarian Universalist tradition is different.
Some might even argue that what UUs do inside their churches on Sundays is not even “worship” at all. These UUs might suggest using some other term, and getting rid of the old word. But if it’s NOT worship, then what the heck are we doing here together on Sundays when we could be home in bed, or reading the New York Times over cups of coffee? This sermon is an attempt to answer that question, as well as related questions about UU worship.
First, What is worship? For Unitarian religious humanist Kenneth Patton – a cosigner of the Humanist Manifesto – worship is in the appreciation of nature, the love of friends and family, in the understanding that comes between people who are different. Lebanese poet Kahlil Gibran, sounding very UU in The Prophet, held that religion is the way a person acts, not what a person professes to believe. In The Handbook of Religious Services, put together by the Church of the Larger Fellowship (a group dedicated to helping those who do not live within convenient traveling distance of a UU congregation) it says:
Whenever something beautiful is perceived, whenever there is a deep sense of connectedness with other persons, with the natural world, or with the transcendent (however defined), whenever one perceives an ethical challenge, whenever life is deliberately focused or ordered -- all of these situations may be considered worship.
Using these definitions, then, all of us, whatever our personal theology or spirituality, have worshiped and do worship, even if we’re not comfortable using the word.
What does it mean “to worship”? If we let religious fundamentalists dictate the meaning of the word “worship,” we might well have to develop another term. (In fact, I’m often surprised at the number of religious liberals who seem willing to concede the definitions of a lot of good words over to the Religious Right.) Practices of thoughtless adoration, blind faith, and veneration of idols fly in the face of human conscience, rationality, and intellect. For religious liberals, that can’t be what we mean by worship.
Worship is a word much misused, but its original definition and purpose could hardly be disputed by the strictest atheist humanist among us. The American Heritage Dictionary defines worship as “reverent love and devotion accorded the sacred, and the ceremonies by which this love is expressed.” As a transitive verb, it is synonymous with honor and love, esteem and devotion. As an intransitive verb, it refers to participation in religious ceremonies, the performance of acts of religious devotion.
Worship is derived from a combination of two Old English terms for “worth” and “shape.” Thus, worship literally is “worth-shape” – the acts and behaviors we perform to give shape to what we consider worthy in human life. Worship is what we do to create and mold value, and to honor those values we have created. Everything we do that lifts up what we value, and thus gives shape to our lives is worship. In the UU context, worship cannot be anything that degrades humanity, it cannot be anything that devalues the human spirit. Worship for UUs must fit who we are, must give shape to the special values we hold dear.
There are two possible answers to the “who” of worship for UUs. If we ask, “Who do UUs worship?” the answer might be, Some of us are not worshiping anybody, and some of us are worshiping a “what” instead of a “who.” And if we ask, “Who worships in a UU church?” that answer is easy – anyone who yearns for the free expression of their spiritual yearnings, anyone seeking a diverse religious community, anyone needing a place to feel comforted and supported in their life journey, anyone who prefers variety to sameness, that is who worships in a UU church.
That pretty much covers the “what” and “who” of UU worship, but what about the “how”? That’s harder to answer, since there are so many different ways Unitarian Universalists worship:
•Some Unitarian Universalists in New England say the Lord's Prayer almost every Sunday;
•Unitarian Universalists at All Souls Tulsa sing African-American spirituals and traditional gospel hymns, sometimes waving their arms in the air;
•UU Pagans gather in circles under the sky in parks, beaches, and churchyards all over the continent on the quarters and cross-quarters of the year-wheel;
•Unitarian Universalist Buddhists meet in silence for meditation and concentration, and chant together in an ancient language not their own;
•UU Christians gather to share communion to honor Jesus called the Christ;
•Indigenous Unitarians in India, Transylvania, and the Philippines pray and sing in their own languages and practice spiritualities vastly different from each other and from their North American counterparts.
As my colleague Mark Bellettini once pointed out, with all our diversity as a religious movement, “It stands to reason …that no one style of worship has universal appeal among us…Local culture, a particular minister or lay worship team, inherited traditions – even geography – contribute to the style of Unitarian Universalist worship.” However it is done – whether in silence, in talk, in prayer, with music or without, in circles, rows, standing, sitting, high church or low church, formal or informal, liturgical or academic, worship in the UU context is the outward act of shaping our values and embodying our principles according to the culture and style of a particular UU congregation. In worship, we envision a life given the shape of justice and we turn ourselves to the work and play of giving life just this shape – and each UU congregation does this in a way that’s right for their location, their minister, and their people.
It’s funny about the “when” of UU worship – as far as we’ve traveled down the road of religious difference, we still meet on Sunday mornings. UU congregations that have tried, either through whim or necessity, to change the day or time of worship usually find it’s useless. But Sunday mornings are not the only time we UUs worship – we worship at every single potluck supper, every retreat, every church picnic. With the right sort of spirit, serving a meal at Ozanam Inn, as we will do with our sisters and brothers of GNOUU this afternoon, is worship. We even worship at Board and Finance team meetings. Any time we focus on what we value, what we hold worthy in human life, we worship. The same holds true for the “where” of UU – we worship in churches and fellowship halls and in rented rooms; we worship in parks and on beaches and in the woods. We worship in classrooms and in grand sanctuaries and in convention halls. Whenever and wherever UUs gather to celebrate and praise and mourn and give thanks and struggle with competing values, we worship.
That leaves us with the thorny issue of why we still use the old word, freighted with so much baggage. Many UUs find theological terms such as liturgy, prayer, holy, sacred, grace, etc. to be barriers to their understanding. These same people often resist calling what we do together on Sunday mornings “worship.”
There are arguments to be made for other words, but I will not make them. Aside from the fact that the word worship has nothing in its definition or in the way Unitarian Universalists use it to offend us, I’m comfortable and happy using it and will continue to do so. If you are among those who want or need to employ a different word, I say, Have at it. One of the wonderful things about the free church tradition is freedom of the pulpit and freedom of the pew – that is, congregations invest in their minister the freedom to preach the truth in love as their hearts and consciences dictate, and retain for themselves the absolute freedom not to agree.
Worship for UUs is seeking the holy in the human and the natural; worship is expressive, encompassing forgiveness, renewal, comfort, and challenge. Good worship is an art form; Ralph Waldo Emerson likened it to pottery, calling preaching “life passed through the fire of thought.” Worship is a good term for us, encompassing UU spiritual values, in the original sense of the word, and signaling to outsiders who might be interested in our liberal religious faith that we are unafraid to use the traditional theological words in their true forms on our own terms. Worship is, in short, too good a concept, too valuable an expression, to cede it to the misuse of others.
The last question in this sermon is, Why do we worship? The answer is simple: We worship because, despite evidence to the contrary, we still have faith in the inherent goodness of humanity. We worship because our doubts are many but our hopes and ideals are even greater than our doubts. We worship because we know we don't know all there is to know. We worship because sometimes we are too happy, too sad, too excited, too afraid, too hopeful, to be alone, and we need to be in religious community. We worship because we love and need one another as much as we love and need our solitude. We worship because we are all born and live and we all have to die – and we want our brief existences to have meaning and purpose. We worship because worshiping together – shaping as a community the meaning and worth of our lives – is what human beings do. We worship because it just may be that worship is the most human activity of all. AMEN – ASHÉ – SHALOM – SALAAM – NAMASTÉ – BLESSED BE!
