Adapted from a Sermon Given by the Rev. Celia Parker Wooley
Delivered (& Edited) by the Rev. Melanie Morel-Ensminger
Sunday, May 10, 2009
In honor of Mother’s Day, this morning we celebrate our Unitarian and Universalist and Unitarian Universalist foremothers and their contributions to our liberal religious movement. All of our readings and three of the hymns in this service were written by women of our religious heritage, and the sermon is adapted from one given by Unitarian minister Celia Parker Wooley on May 16, 1889 -- 120 years ago next week! -- at the Western Unitarian Conference in Chicago.
The adaptations I have made include substituting gender-inclusive terms, updating some old-fashioned and hard to understand language, using “Unitarian Universalist” where the original text used “Unitarian,” and doing some serious editing. (UUs of the past apparently had a greater capacity for sitting and listening for long periods of time!) But I think you will find, as I did, that the message of this 120-year-old sermon is extremely timely and relevant to our congregation’s contemporary concerns. Here are Reverend Wooley’s words:
We consider the ideal Unitarian Universalist church from 2 points of view: the thought side, or that of its main principles, and the practical side, or its relation to active life. In considering the first, we must look at 2 things: the beliefs usually taught as Unitarian Universalist, and the method of thought by which these beliefs have been reached.
Unitarian Universalism is not so much an organized system of religious belief as it is a religious movement. It is more a method of thought than an outcome. Not that the outcome of Unitarian Universalist thought is unimportant -- on the contrary, the main beliefs described by that name are of wide philosophical import and moral necessity to humanity, which assure their permanent abiding place among the world’s treasures of thought…
Unitarian Universalists hold no monopoly of the great fundamental postulates of our faith, such as belief in the unity of God and the dignity of human nature. Beliefs like these are at once too universal in their scope, and too inseparably connected with the very processes of thought, to be claimed by a single company of the world’s thinkers.
Dearly as we may prize and profit by those beliefs which define our conception of the universe and our relation to it, the Unitarian Universalist should not hold them more dear than those faculties of reason and judgment which have enabled us to reach such beliefs. The mental attitude of the true Unitarian Universalist is illustrated by the choice of the continued right to search for truth above the privilege of receiving it as a gift…
Life is symbolized in every field, material or intellectual, not so much by accomplished results as by movement, continued self-expansion, growth. The religious liberal recognizes this principle and applies it to matters of religion.…The instinct of spiritual growth in humanity -- THAT is the fact that lies at the bottom of everything else connected with the world’s religious history. Unitarian Universalism was the first form of religious faith to frankly recognize this fact…
For though Unitarian Universalism has from the first stood plainly for the principle of reason in religion, it has not stood ONLY for that -- nor even always mainly… Rev. William Channing Gannett, in a pamphlet entitled “Unitarian Universalism or Something Better,” showed the twofold growth of Unitarian Universalism first as a movement of thought, and second as certain results of thought embodied in the Unitarian Universalist ideas of the unity of God and the worth of humanity’s spiritual nature…
Unitarian Universalists can consistently have no other basis than one of fellowship, for this is the only one that recognizes the worth of human character, irrespective of the varying creeds and beliefs… The ideal Unitarian Universalist church can rest on no policy of exclusion…The inevitable conclusion reached by a review of the past is that this ideal church must rest on the broadest possible basis of fellowship, welcoming to its communion all thoughtful, truth-seeking minds.…
With this distinctly ethical aim, the ideal church will yet be something more than ethical… It will be a church, not simply a society. Convinced of the reality of the religious sentiment in humanity, so closely blended with, yet distinct from, love of goodness, it will employ such suitable forms of expression for this sentiment as it can find. Worship and aspiration will serve as factors of its spiritual life along with the work of duty and benevolence. Hymns and prayers will find as natural a place in its ritual as sermons; hymns because the voice must utter the feelings of praise, gratitude, and lamentation that rise in the heart; and prayer because not all the learning of the ages can prevent the instinctive turning of the soul to its source.
…The ideal Unitarian Universalist church, then, will have its religious service, one that has no dwarfing or stultifying effect on the intellect of the worshiper; a service at once rational and reverential, uplifting to the heart, strengthening the understanding, and consecrating the spirit to continued service in the world. Its services will be of a general and special order. There is no reason why the rational church should not adapt to its own use many of the features of the older sects, where this can be done without logical contradiction, and with true spiritual benefits…
We come now to the practical side… The ideal church will be, above all else, a working church. The highest church fellowship aims to bring solace to the heart and strength to the understanding. As Rev. Jenkin Lloyd Jones has written:
If the Unitarian Universalist church is to preserve its right to its Pilgrim inheritance, it must continue to be the pioneer church, seeking to give shelter to the shelterless, and a church to the unchurched. It can only do this by a growing indifference to the dogmas and beliefs that divide, and a growing zeal for the duties that unite.
The ideal church will be essentially modern, not only in its spirit and object, but so far as possible in the ways and means with which it seeks to carry out its work.… We need not return to the bare, plain models of the Puritan meeting house, but use and simplicity should be the main motive of the modern church builder. The real use of the church of today is that of a religious workshop with classrooms, library, parlors and domestic arrangements to further the life of the church. There is no objection to painted windows and illuminated texts on the walls, provided these and other devices be enlarged from a simply decorative purpose, and made to further the true spirit of the church, to embody a rational and living purpose.…
The ideal church will be a recognized agency in the work of modern culture, the intellectual center of the neighborhood. The church that is fully alive to its highest mission and opportunity is as much in the mood for work on weekdays as on Sunday; and the Wednesday or Friday evening meeting of an adult education class is a necessary correlative of the Sunday service. Only as the church itself becomes a leader in the world of thought can it command the respect of thinking men and women. The pulpit teaching that does not quicken the mental currents of the listeners, until they seek new channels of work and activity, falls wide of the needed mark; and on the other hand, the congregation that is content with intellectual nourishment derived from a single Sunday discourse, no matter of how high or profitable an order, is of a poorly-inspiring quality…
In its relation to the social questions of the day, the ideal church is the example of helpful and progressive humanity. Its mission is to help the needy and comfort the afflicted; but in ways that shall increase, not diminish, the general sum of self-respect. It aims to further the spirit of a noble self-reliance in all people, morally as well as intellectually, to establish more enlightened methods in the administration of charity and justice, and cultivate a deep sentiment of humanity. Believing that humans are not fallen, but rising creatures, the ideal church believes also in the whole person, and in the development of all our faculties, setting itself to the accomplishment of the great high task of human improvement…
Our ideal church -- what is it then? Primarily it is this: a religious organization whose basis of spiritual union lies deeper than any statement of belief can possibly reach, in the natural emotions of love, awe, and gratitude common to all people, emotions that rise with the contemplation of the great mysteries of nature and being. A simple, natural piety pervades the hearts of all the worshipers in this church -- men and women of faulty human lives, but with a glowing conviction and inspiring purpose that keeps their faces set in the right direction.
There will be plenty of belief in this church, religious belief, devout, tender, and strong; but not the belief that constrains assent from opposing minds, or likes to shape itself in words alone; rather the belief that takes the form of a continually expanding sense of trust -- trust in that which is above and beyond us, the source of everlasting natural laws; trust in each other as friends and co-workers; and trust in that wonderful system of social order and progress to which we belong. There will plenty of believing in this church, but it will be of that glad, spontaneous kind which needs no coercion from another…
Will this church ever be? It already is. For that matter, insofar as it includes every struggling attempt of humanity to realize it, it has always been…
How happy are we to have gained a vision of this church, whose scripture is the written thought of the good and great of all time, whose worship is the setting of the soul in tune with nature and the laws of its own being, whose communion is that of brotherly and sisterly kindness and love, and whose crowning object is attained in a humanity freed from error, suffering, crime, and war. This vision leads us through the centuries, at once the witness and the reward of all our efforts.
From her time to ours, 120 years later, words of wisdom from a foremother. May we take her words to heart and strive to be such an Ideal Church. AMEN – ASHÉ – SHALOM – SALAAM – NAMASTE – BLESSED BE!
