Tuesday, December 7, 2010

“Sitting at The Welcome Table”

A Sermon for Bring a Friend Sunday
by the Rev. Melanie Morel-Ensminger
First Unitarian Universalist Church of New Orleans
Sunday, December 5, 2010


Welcome to Bring a Friend Sunday -- we are glad that you are here. If you like or are intrigued by what you hear this morning, we invite you to come to some of our holiday services this season, as we celebrate Advent and the many Winter Holidays of Light over the next 2 Sundays, and mark the Winter Solstice with a special Candlelight Labyrinth Walk on the evening of December 21st. On Christmas Eve we’ll have lessons and carols and an open communion, and the Sunday after Christmas will be another one of our special Celtic Christmas music services. The first Sunday of January we will hold our annual Greater New Orleans UU cluster Jazz Funeral for the Old Year with a jazz band, a parade marshal, and a real coffin in which to bury our concerns from 2010. (Come early! Seats fill up fast.) Join us for any or all of these very special holiday services.

I understand that there are now such things as Internet “cyber-churches” which you can join merely by clicking on their website. You can download sermons, sign up for cyber-fellowship events, and even take cyber-classes. As convenient as it might sound, I find I am troubled by this development. In cyber-church, where are the real, face-to-face, real-time relationships? It seems to me that cyber-church gives folks some of the payoffs of a real church and real religion, but without any of the challenges and deeper meanings.

There’s a quiz you can take on the Internet at the Belief.net site called “The Belief-o-Matic.” I’ve taken it several times, and I always come out Unitarian Uninversalist. (Last night, my score was 100% Unitarian Uninversalist.) But what if I were not a UU minister, and I took the quiz? What if I came out 95% or 100% UU, and didn't ever attend a UU church, should I go around calling myself a Unitarian Uninversalist?

I don’t agree with cyber-church and I don’t think you can be UU all by yourself. To me, there’s no getting around it: Real church and real religion make real demands on real people. Unitarian Universalism, as a liberal form of religion, may be different in a lot of ways from conventional faiths, but that’s one important thing that we share with all religions – within our congregations and in our association, we have mutual expectations of members, and as a religious community, we make reciprocal demands of each other for responsible and ethical behavior, both inside and outside of the doors of our churches. It takes a congregation to do this work; we need each other. As former UUA President Jack Mendelsohn says in our Reading, “We’re all in this together.”

In general, scholars speak of three kinds of religions – ethnic religions that one has to be born into, like Hinduism; orthodox religions that dictate certain beliefs from their adherents; and orthopraxis, religions that expect certain behaviors of their members.

Most Christian denominations, with some exceptions, are orthodox – there is a set of creeds that members must profess in order to stay members. Judaism, on the other hand, is orthopraxic – there are actions expected of a good Jew, but no beliefs.
Unitarian Universalism is another kind of orthopraxis; we are creedless, without any required beliefs. That is not to say that we make no demands of our members, but our expectations are ones of behavior.

In UU churches, there are certain expectations of those who are voting members. In an essay in a book about UU evangelism called Salted With Fire, my colleague Barbara Wells lists six expectations in her church’s Path to Membership:

attend services,
work on your own spiritual growth,
be involved in the life and work of the church,
contribute your fair share financially,
commit to actions in the wider world,
and connect with the larger Unitarian Universalist movement.


She writes that each of these responsibilities of membership are equally important, for each benefits the individual as well as serving the needs of the church.

By no means, however, does this list imply that membership in a UU church is reserved for well-off people with lots of free time. If someone is overwhelmed with job- or home-related responsibilities, it is understood that that person has less time to give. When a household has a low income, a large contribution is not expected. I tell prospective members at our church that a member pledges a balance of their time, talent, and treasure to the best of their current situation. And as different people will have differing amounts of time, creativity, and money, it’s also true that a single individual may have differing amounts depending on the circumstances of their life at a particular time.

And so we come together, not in cyber-space, but in a real building (that needs a lot of work); not alone, but mingled together with some folks who may be like us and some folks who may not be; some folks whose beliefs are similar to ours and maybe some folks whose beliefs are different. We have different experiences and different life circumstances, but we share some important things. We think that this life on this planet at this time has meaning, and that we can positively affect the course of history by our actions and decisions. And we all want to be with other people who share our values, who will stand with us and challenge us when we need challenging, and comfort us when we need comforting.

Stone Soup is a good metaphor for Unitarian Universalism. Alone, all by ourselves, we might not be able to formulate and articulate a clear theology, but together, we find we can do it. All those different ingredients come together and make something better, more nourishing, more interesting, more real, than the mere sum of the parts. We retell that story because it sounds like us.

Another good metaphor for Unitarian Universalism is the Welcome Table. While we normally use the flaming chalice as the pictured symbol of our liberal faith tradition, I think we could just as soon use a table that welcomes all. (Picture us all wearing little tables around our necks!) Every level of ability, every age, every gender, every orientation, every race, every color, every belief, every economic level – everyone is welcome who wants and needs to be part of a diverse spiritual community that encourages spiritual growth and demands the best from us, demands that we combine our efforts to make the world a better place. All of us sitting at the Welcome Table together, sharing that delicious Stone Soup.

In her book, The Holy Intimacy of Strangers, my colleague Sarah York writes:

Hospitality is less about what we may do for others than about who we are when we are with them. It is about serving our faith on behalf of the human community in our everyday interactions. Nurturing trust and goodwill, we create a space that hold another person with the deepest kind of respect.


She goes on to say:

The gift of hospitality is a gift of self, a gift of trust, a gift of courage. As host and guest share a mutual exchange of presence, it is a holy gift of the Spirit in their midst. Even if the host or guest is not aware of the sacred aspect of their exchange, it exists nevertheless.


At our best, that’s who we are – bringing to each other and to this liberal faith community a commitment of our hearts, minds, and bodies, covenanting with one another, with those who have gone before us, and with the Holy (by whatever name or concept that the Holy is known in our lives), pledging to do whatever is in our power to strengthen this community and to work together to bring the sacred gift of hospitality, the Welcome Table, to every person in the world. May all of us come to see ourselves bound to one another in such a covenant, and may we all sit together at the Welcome Table one of these days. So might this be! AMEN – ASHE – SHALOM – SALAAM – NAMASTE – BLESSED BE!

Wednesday, December 1, 2010

“An Ethic of Lives”

A Sermon by the Rev. Melanie Morel-Ensminger
First Unitarian Universalist Church of New Orleans
Sunday, November 28, 2010


We have all heard about the philosophy or ethic called “pro-life,” espoused by the Catholic Church and by some conservative Christian denominations, which covers their views on abortion and the death penalty. It is also sometimes called “the seamless garment” philosophy, since it is seen by its adherents as being “all of a piece” or completely consistent.

In an essay last summer for the online blog sponsored by the progressive Jewish publication Tikkun, UU seminarian Amanda Udis-Kessler posits an alternative to the pro-life ethos from the religious liberal perspective, which she calls “a pro-lives ethic.” I am grateful to Board president Max Oeschger for bringing the article to my attention, and grateful also for his patience in waiting for a sermon on the topic. (If this inspires or encourages anyone else in the church to recommend sermon ideas to the Worship Team and me, please feel free. We welcome suggestions on topics, and forwarded articles.)

What is en ethic of pro-lives? Udis-Kessler defines it thusly:

A pro-lives ethic is suspicious of principles, abstractions, and institutions, and challenges them when they do not support human and planetary wellbeing.


An ethic of pro-lives calls into account structures, systems, and individuals – what St. Paul called in scriptures “principalities and powers” – that prevent human beings, other living creatures, and the earth from being whole and healthy. Whenever a rule or law or custom inhibits or hinders the flourishing of abundant life, a pro-lives advocate would feel called, compelled, to step forward and make things right.

In her article, Udis-Kessler references an ethic of pro-lives specifically in regards to pedophilia by Catholic priests, opposition to the ordination of women, and abortion. In some respects, however, this sets up an easy, even a too-easy target, for Unitarian Universalists. For a variety of reasons, from congregational polity to our screening and training process for would-be ministers, and that we have no requirement for celibacy, our denomination has not experienced widespread abuse of minors by ministers. Secondly, women have been ordained and accepted as pastors in our movement since the mid-1800s, and finally, our denomination has been on record for decades as supporting a woman’s right to choose.

Thus, the three issues that are cited in the Tikkun article don’t have much resonance personally for UUs. It is far too simple for us to deplore how these particular issues are being handled by more conservative people of faith. In order for an ethic of pro-lives to resonate with Unitarian Universalists, we will need to raise other concerns and see how they fit with such an ethic.

What else would go into a pro-lives ethic? How can we religious liberals craft our own “seamless garment” of ethical consistency?

First and foremost, I think that active support for full human rights for bisexual, gay, lesbian, transgender, and intersexed persons – including equal marriage rights – has to be part of being truly pro-lives. Only such a position can keep thousands of human lives from, in Udis-Kessler’s words, being broken “by the world’s thousand injustices.” A pro-lives religious liberal feels called to be part of the repair of this terrible brokenness – in Hebrew, tikkun olam, to heal the broken world.

It may well be that the state of Louisiana will be one of the last to endorse equal marriage rights; indeed, Louisiana did not ratify the 19th Amendment giving women the vote until 1970 – at least we beat out Mississippi, which didn’t ratify until 1971! But even so, that does not negate the imperative for religious liberals working from a pro-lives ethic to actively stand up for it.

Another issue much in the news seems to call for the application of the pro-lives ethic, and that is immigration. Millions of people are adversely and negatively affected by our current unjust system. Families are torn apart; committed partnerships are split; children are forced to live away from their parents or one parent. It has been fashionable in some quarters to demonize undocumented immigrants, as though every single one were criminals or terrorists. But we know that is not true – and we also know that the simple fact of being in some way undocumented does NOT make one a criminal, despite what is claimed by demagogues on the Right.

Here in New Orleans, our recovery from the Storm would have been even slower if it had not been for the skilled and unskilled labor of many, many immigrants, some of whom were and are undocumented. From our pulpit last holiday season, we heard moving personal testimony from local day laborers about their lives here, about their victimization at the hands of employers, the police, street thugs, the criminal justice system, and Immigration and Customs Enforcement, known familiarly as ICE. Rev. Jim of Community Church and I have been active on the issue of Wage Theft, and have worked with local organizations in getting fair treatment of workers. A few church members from both churches have been a part of the local actions, and we’re always looking for even more of our members to get directly involved.

In response to the anti-immigrant legislation passed in Arizona, delegates to the Unitarian Universalist Association General Assembly last year voted to keep our 2012 GA in Arizona and instead of conducting business as usual, to turn that event into a week-long, fully realized educational opportunity and protest demonstration in favor of reforming current immigration laws. The UUA will be working with local Latino and pro-reform organizations to bring both light and pressure to this issue. You will be hearing more about this as we draw closer and plans get set in motion. I hope that many of you will feel called to be a part of it in whatever ways you can, from being there in person, to supporting those that go, to getting involved locally.

A third issue that fits into the rubric of pro-lives is the plight of people unable to find affordable housing. In a society devoted to flourishing, abundant life for all its citizens, homelessness would be unknown. While some conservative commentators scoff that there is no constitutional right to a home, I hope that all religious liberals would disagree. Every human being has the right to live in a decent home. It does not have to be luxurious or spacious, but it should not be under an overpass or in an abandoned post-Katrina building. And by “home,” I am not referring to a mission or a shelter. That America and New Orleans does not ensure that the poorest people have decent places to live is a scandal and a tragedy.

Closely related to homelessness is the is sue of lack of affordable and accessible care for mental illnesses. Locally, UNITY for the homeless, a consortium of some 60 groups working on homelessness in the greater New Orleans area, has found that over 86% of squatters in derelict buildings and houses are mentally ill. This is a shocking number. Pre-Katrina, many were receiving regular care and maintenance of their medications in the old Charity Hospital, but today, most get no care and no meds at all. What are poor people and working class people supposed to do with a loved one with mental illness? Why is there not a louder outcry from those with means to rectify this situation? How does lack of decent affordable mental health care promote abundant life?

Of course, in one sermon we cannot exhaust this topic. Once we commit ourselves to an ethic of pro-lives, we find that many social and justice issues are connected -- from racial oppression to despoiling the environment, to economic justice. I hope that some of you are thinking now of concerns that fit into a pro-lives rubric, and how they are all connected.

I know that I have sometimes felt at a loss when in discussions with those whose religious perspective is more conservative than mine. I often felt principled but inconsistent. Having the pro-lives framework is helpful to me. I feel like now I have something to say, a good answer, when I’m in one of those conversations.

In future, I plan to talk about how my religious faith brings me to a pro-lives stance, a perspective that values the enhancement and wholeness of lives already being lived in the world, and this principled viewpoint connects many different issues. I hope this brief look at the pro-lives ethic helps you as well. AMEN—ASHE—SHALOM—SALAAM—NAMASTE—BLESSED BE!

Tuesday, November 23, 2010

A Homily for Thanksgiving Sunday

by the Rev. Melanie Morel-Ensminger
First Unitarian Universalist Church of New Orleans
Sunday, November 21, 2010


Welcome to our special service of Thanksgiving, our annual Bread Communion. This is not a new ceremony to Unitarian Universalism; a service similar to this one was first held at the Unitarian Universalist Church of Kirkwood, Missouri, in 1976. Other UU churches hold Bread Communions around this time of year, but not all do. Part of the rich tapestry of our pluralistic religious heritage is that each UU church makes its own decisions about such things as annual rituals and holidays.

We are a gathered community within a gathered community. Few of us were lucky enough to be born into this church or into Unitarian Universalism. We did not merely find ourselves here, we choose to come. We choose to commit ourselves, we choose to make this our spiritual and religious home (however we might differently define those words). For the first time in the history of religion, a people have come together bound not by shared blood or beliefs or even shared traditions, but by shared values and a respect for each other’s journey. We are, as are all UU congregations, working and struggling and celebrating together to build a disparate group into one church community. A lot of the time we succeed, in ways that are a mystery.

We live in a gathered nation. Few of the people living in the United States today were born of pure Native American heritage -- and if we go back enough thousands of years, even their ancestors came from somewhere else. Some of our ancestors chose to come here, and came eagerly, full of hope and promise. Others of our ancestors came not of their own volition. Some came against their will altogether, dragged here in chains from their homelands. Others came in order to escape terrible conditions at home – famine, war, torture, political oppression, lack of economic opportunity, leaving behind shattered families and shattered dreams.

However they got here, they were Pilgrims all. For the first time in the history of civilization, people have come together to build a nation bound not by shared ethnicity or background or culture or religion, but by a democratic ideal of equality and freedom. Our country, more than 300 years after that first Thanksgiving, is still struggling and working together to blend these disparate peoples into one diverse rainbow tribe.

On our Thanksgiving Communion Table are breads from many cultures and nations: the French baguette, New Orleans French bread (which is really Alsation), Jewish challah, Mexican tortilla, Italian foccaccio, nan from India, pita from Greece, pumpernickel from Germany, cornbread from the American South, sourdough from the American West. White bread, brown bread, yellow bread, dark bread and light bread. Different tastes, different smells, different traditions -- but it’s all bread.

The bread represents the people of Greater New Orleans; it represents this church; it represents America; it represents the peoples of the earth. It is a table of bounty -- and yet we are aware that not everyone enjoys such bounty. It is a table of fulfillment and satisfaction -- and yet we know that not everyone feels fulfilled and satisfied. It represents our hopes and dreams and all the gifts for which we feel such overflowing gratitude -- and yet we recognize that not everyone is able to hold onto their dreams and hopes, nor does everyone receive the gifts that we do.

When we look at the breads of many nations on this table, we think of everything involved to bring them here this morning: the sweet richness of the earth itself, the sun shining, the wind blowing, the rain falling, the hard work of planting and caring for and harvesting the grain, the labor of grinding the grain into flour, bringing the ingredients together and making the bread, transporting it, cutting it, arranging the trays, and decorating this table. Elements were transformed, money changed hands, work was done -- and now we see before us a table laden with goodness.
We all have associations with bread, times of family, times of sweetness, times of feeling nourished.

One of the favorite bread stories in my family comes from my mother's childhood, when she and her best friend, my Aunt Faye, came into the kitchen and found a fresh loaf of bread cooling on a rack on the table. They both loved the taste of warm, crusty bread, with butter melting on it, and they thought nobody would mind if they cut off one end slice. But after they shared that slice, they were not satisfied, so they cut off the other end and ate that too. But still they wanted more, and they figured no one would care if they ate the bottom crust, so they turned the loaf over and cut off the bottom. But after eating that, they STILL wanted more. The upshot is, when my Grandmother walked in to check on her loaf, she found a sorry naked white rectangle on the rack, since Mama and Aunt Faye had taken ALL the crusts off.

Looking at this bread, we are reminded that always we are nourished and sustained by the hard work and sacrifices of others; we confess once again that we are interdependent, unable to get along without the help and support of others. Looking at the bread, smelling it, we feel a kinship with all those human beings throughout the milennia in all parts of the Earth who have loved the homey smell of bread baking, who have savored the wonderful taste of fresh bread, who have been nourished in soul as well as body by the eating of good bread. We are one with them; they are one with us. Looking at the bread, we acknowledge our unity horizontally and vertically with all human beings in all times and places; we recognize our interconnection and interdependence with each other, and with people all over the country and around the world we will never know.

When we eat bread when we are hungry, we know ourselves blessed by the bread, our bodies becoming one with the nutrients of the bread, the bread transformed by our eating of it. Yes, oh yes, bread blesses us.

Let us then bless this bread before we partake of it. Let us say together our unison words for the Blessing of this bread:

Blessing Over the Bread by Mark Belletini

In a world where the wheat & the weeds grow in the same field,
where suffering & greed often seem to us
to be as plentiful as joy & justice,
where mere desire is often mistaken for dire need --
the call to bless comes to us, swelling in our hearts,
the promptings of gratitude,
the urge to single out the graciousness of this life
with words of thanksgiving & beauty.
We bless this bread & this cider,
symbols of harvest, symbols of our gratitude.
We are glad to share them together.

Thursday, November 18, 2010

Guest Sermon from One of Our Partners:

“WHY I RETURN TO NEW ORLEANS”
A Sermon Delivered November 14, 2010
by the Reverend Dennis McCarty
At the Unitarian Universalist Congregation of Columbus, Indiana



READING: from an Associated Press article, March 3, 2010, by Remy de la Mauviniere and Elaine Ganley

The moon was full, the wind roared, the tide was high, and people died by the dozens. After a wall of ocean water engulfed picturesque towns along [the] coast, residents, officials, and experts are all asking why. Was it due to climate change? A freak storm fueled by hurricane-force winds? The result of human greed over desirable land or bungling actions by government officials. [The truth is, it was] all of the above.

Many observers point to the thousands of miles of sea walls. . ., many too low, in severe disrepair or reportedly dating from the era of Napoleon. They also note the new houses cropping up behind them, tantalizingly close to the. . . poorly protected but much beloved shoreline.

Environmental groups say the storm should be a wake-up call about the danger of weak sea defenses, for scientists are warning that climate change will bring even fiercer storms and rising seas in the years ahead.

At least 52 people were killed when the storm. . . swept through [the] coastal communities between 4 AM and 5 AM Sunday, surprising victims in their sleep. On Wednesday, divers were still looking for bodies in the region’s submerged homes. Houses were ruined by the thousands and the livelihoods of many more were wiped out as oyster beds were destroyed, herds of cows drowned and fields of prized regional potatoes flooded with brackish salt water.

The damage stretched to the tony [offshore] vacation island of Isle de Re, but most of the dead were found on the. . . mainland. . . .”I built this house with my own hands. I worked on it every weekend, . . .a retiree. . . said of his inundated home. . . . “It tears your guts out.”

[But these tragedies didn’t take place in the southeastern United States; not in Gulfport or Biloxi, Mississippi, not in New Orleans, Louisiana. They took place in L’Aiguillon-Sur-Mer and La Faute-Sur-Mer, southwestern France.]

France has up to 6,200 miles of sea walls, with some of them built in the 18th century, said Deputy Ecology Minister Chantal Jouanno. And about one tenth of them--620 miles--”can be considered at risk,” she said. . . . The French could possibly look north to their Dutch colleagues for expertise in flood defense, for two-thirds of the Netherlands’ 16 million people live below sea level.

SERMON: “Why I Return to New Orleans”

To anyone who doesn’t actually live there, I suppose it does look like a recipe for disaster, to live in a city that’s below sea level. But it’s not that simple. For one thing--below sea level or not--this city is a major seaport. It has a population of a half-million people. Because it sits just a few miles upstream from the mouth of the largest river on the continent, it guards a very important waterway.

Even long ago, when people first began to live here, the land was barely above sea level. Centuries of human habitation, land development, and land reclamation have caused it to settle even more. Now, the lowest points of this city are twenty feet or more below sea level. In the past, storms blowing in off the sea, have caused major damage and loss of life. If the sea walls, water gates, and levies were to fail again, the death toll could be enormous. For that reason, I suppose it is natural that someone from an inland state would suggest that the citizens just leave this place to the elements and build somewhere else, on higher ground.

But again, it’s not all that simple. For one thing, there is no ground that’s much higher, not till you get many miles away. For another, more than a million people earn their livelihoods from the commerce, tourism, and manufacturing located in and around the city right where it is. And that’s not even counting the music, museums, educational centers, and festivals. So the people stay. They do the best they can. Oddly enough, they don’t seem worried by a situation we inlanders might see as nerve-wracking.

I’m not talking about New Orleans, though. Welcome to the Dutch city of Rotterdam, which for centuries has been the busiest, most successful seaport in the world. Nor is Rotterdam the only city besides New Orleans that lies below sea level. Twenty per cent of the whole Netherlands--and twenty-one per cent of the country’s population--live below sea level. Another thirty per-cent lie three feet or less above sea level. Any mildly healthy North Sea wave, looks down on more than half the country.

Yet, the people of the Netherlands are prosperous, peaceful, and perfectly happy to be where they are. They have no desire to tear down any of their cities--and no one seems to consider them crazy. They live at or below sea level--and have engineered some of the most impressive public works in the world to keep their feet dry while doing it.

Around the world, important seaports tend to be located near the mouths of great rivers--because navigable rivers are still the world’s greatest highways for commercial and industrial traffic. Where those rivers meet the sea, cargo ships from remote lands can shelter, unload their cargoes, then take on domestic goods to be shipped all around the world. The catch is--any place where a river flows into the sea is--by definition--going to be at sea level. What’s more, great rivers carry huge loads of sand and silt, drained from whole continents. Where they flow into the sea, they drop that sediment, forming deltas that may stretch for hundreds of miles. Rotterdam stands in the heart of the Rhine River Delta, New Orleans in the Mississippi Delta. On the Nile Delta, Alexandria is easily the most important seaport in Egypt. On the Yangtze River Delta in China, Shanghai has now become the busiest port--and the largest city--in the world. All these places are at or below sea level, vulnerable to storms and erosion. It’s a price we humans pay for being a commercial species.

Great river are important in other ways, as well. Besides forming natural harbors, they provide some of the most fertile land and productive wetland in the world. But they’re dangerous allies for agriculture and commerce alike. Great rivers often flood in spring, bringing suffering to those who live all along their banks, not just at the river’s mouth. Seaports on such rivers risk flooding from upstream during spring runoff as well as from the sea itself during major storms.

No matter what any religious sentimentalist may tell you, there’s no sign this world was made just for us. The mammoth forces that shape this world, do not follow the beck and call of humanity. Here in Indiana, we worry about tornadoes. In Utah and western Colorado, where I grew up, they worry about earthquakes. In New Orleans, it’s Mississippi River floods and hurricanes. We frail and vulnerable humans--no matter how clever we are--are still subject to forces that are much bigger than we are.

Alexandria and Shanghai have both been plagued by land erosion and flooding during this century. This morning’s Reading notes that France’s coastal lowlands also have a problem with flooding. On and on. Yet because of the resources they provide--coastal lowlands are where one third of all humanity--two billion people around the world--live, despite the dangers.

People in the Netherlands have used technology and ingenuity for centuries, to deal with the onslaughts of the North Sea. Back in 1953, for example, an unprecedented combination of high tides and strong winds brought flooding that killed almost two thousand people--twice the death toll of Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans. In the United Kingdom, that same storm breached sea walls and sent a fifteen-foot surge of water up the Thames River Estuary toward London--another low-lying port city--that killed three hundred more people. The storm also brought heavy loss of life to Northern Ireland and also Belgium.

Once the storm blew over, all those nations set about strengthening their sea defenses. The Netherlands, particularly, responded with a huge public works program called the Deltawerken, the Delta Works. This project took a generation to complete and consists of a huge, interlocked series of dams, dikes, sea gates, and other barriers. It’s such a dramatically conceived project that just this year, the American Society of Civil Engineers declared it one of the Seven Wonders of the Modern World.

The largest single piece of the Delta Works is the Oosterschelde barrier, a two-mile-long dam that guards the estuary of the River Scheldt, northwest of Antwerp, Belgium. It’s made up of sixty-two huge lift gates that are raised in good weather, to allow normal tidal flow. During storms, they’re lowered, to block damaging storm surges.

An even greater engineering marvel is the Maeslant barrier, across the channel leading to Rotterdam itself. At the mouth of the Rhine River, a dam like the Oosterschelde would block the heavy shipping traffic. So they designed two huge, hollow, curved gates that look like like gargantuan rocking chair rockers, laid over sideways. When a storm is coming, the gates float out from each side of the channel on long arms, take on water for weight, and settle into place to block storm surges. Once the storm passes, compressed air forces the water out--the same way a submarine works--and the gates re-float and swing back out of the way. The two gates of the Maeslant barrier are the largest human-made, moving objects in the world.

In England, the British came up with storm-control designs of their own. To keep storm surges out of the Thames Estuary, they built a set of gates that look more like huge steel barrels, two hundred feet long, laid over on their sides. The upper halves are cut away, rather like a watering trough, so ships can float above them. Then when a storm is on the way, huge motors and counterweights rotate the lower half up and out of the water--again, forming a dam to keep storm surges from damaging London.

These engineering marvels have several things in common. They are all very large and complex. They were all expensive to build. But using the calculations of the nations that built them, they all save far more money by preventing damage and loss of life, than they cost. Finally--every one of these designs could be used, in various ways, to protect our Gulf Coast and the city of New Orleans.

But nothing like these designs has been built here. New Orleans is still protected by the same kind of sea walls and levies that have been in place for a hundred years: technology that’s a generation out of date. The very fact that modern technology hasn’t been put in place--when Europe has proven how doable, practical, and cost-effective it is--has to say something important about us as a nation and as a society.

First, we need to “get real” about the city of New Orleans. Considering all the various port facilities and authorities at the terminus of the Mississippi River--the Port of New Orleans, the Port of South Louisiana, the Louisiana Offshore Oil Port right at the river’s outlet--New Orleans is the hub of the largest shipping complex in the world. It’s easily larger than any other two ports in the United States, put together.

As Scientific American magazine noted in February, 2006: “Critics who say it is foolish to rebuild in such a vulnerable place are missing the big picture. In addition to being a cultural center, the Gulf Coast is the economic engine that drives the country. We can’t. . . abandon it. The [Mississippi] Delta produces one fifth of the country’s oil, one quarter of its natural gas, and one third of its seafood. Trillions of dollars of goods and crops flow through the ports there. These activities require extensive infrastructure and tens of thousands of employees who cannot live. . . in homes two hours away.”

It’s fascinating to me that while such European cities as Rotterdam, Amsterdam, Antwerp, and London, are protected by trillions of dollars worth of massive, high-tech machinery, our own Mississippi Delta gets rubble-and-earth technology hundreds of years old--along with trillions of dollars worth of excuses, delays, and bureaucratic wrangling. All while the people who move the commerce--not to mention the area’s other residents--are castigated for being so stupid as to live and work where they do. Yet New Orleans is no more vulnerable than any number of European and Asian port cities.

Any time I visit New Orleans, I find the same striking features. First--invariably--I find some of the best food, most unique local culture, and friendliest people I have ever met. Each time I go down there, I find myself humbled by the real kindness and hospitality of the people: their genuine desire to make me feel welcome and comfortable. That’s not to mention their passion for this city they call home and their real desire for me to understand why they love it as much as they do--even with the hardships and frustrations. I have literally seen New Orleanians get tears in their eyes, telling me how they feel about their city and how they refuse to give up on it, despite all the setbacks.

Before Hurricane Katrina hit five years ago, seventy per cent of the residents of New Orleans, had grown up there. In a culture that moves around as much as Americans do, that’s an amazing statistic. No other major city comes close. Even now, despite all the people forced to leave in the wake of Hurricane Katrina, a remarkable number have returned. I’ve heard amazing stories about struggle, frustration, and sometimes, real success, rebuilding their longtime homes and businesses, rather than building anew someplace else. The stories range from the heartwarming to the heartbreaking.

I also feel I should add: if someone spends Mardi Gras in the French Quarter--or, for that matter, six months in the French Quarter--they will enjoy some of the best food and music in the world, along with an amazing, floating party. But if that’s all you see, please don’t go home and tell people you saw New Orleans. Because you didn’t. You won’t find the real New Orleans in the French Quarter. You’ll find it out in the neighborhoods, where the people live. I don’t go back to New Orleans for the food or the culture, though both are wonderful. I go back to New Orleans for the people.

In those neighborhoods--if you listen carefully enough--beneath the warmth and hospitality and stories of human struggle and resiliency, you will also hear a more negative note. There’s a feeling of frustration in New Orleans that sometimes comes close to real anger. New Orleanians may not be able to recite the precise statistics and dollar amounts, but they know full well, how vital the mouth of the Mississippi River is to our whole nation’s economy. They know about the trillions of dollars worth of oil, gasoline, grain, seafood, and industrial products that flow through New Orleans--generating profit and prosperity in the rest of the United States. And they know just how little of that profit and prosperity stay in New Orleans.

In other words--if we define a just society as one where every person has reasonably equal access to the fruits of their own efforts and labors--then New Orleans is the perfect case study in what’s unjust about our society.

Let me elaborate: my experience is, the people of New Orleans deeply appreciate every bit of help they receive. My experience is, they would be kind hosts even if they had never suffered a catastrophe--because that’s the culture. But while the rest of us fill our cars with gas brought in through the Mississippi Delta, enrich our lives with goods and products brought in through the Mississippi Delta--and fatten our banks on money generated by the Mississippi Delta--New Orleanians have to live with the excuses, delays, and bureaucratic bumbling I mentioned before--that have destroyed so many lives and livelihoods there.

After the destruction of Hurricane Katrina, our leaders expressed amazement that such a thing could have happened. Yet, scientists and engineers had been predicting that exact disaster for years, due to faulty sea walls and levies, and the environmental degradation of the Mississippi Delta itself. The Mississippi River Gulf Outlet canal is called ”Mister Go” for short. It’s a little-used shipping canal that bypasses the lowest hundred miles of the Mississippi River. A flow study of the Mister Go, showed that a major storm would generate a surge of water exactly like the Thames Estuary surge of 1953, with the same result. When Katrina hit, that’s just what happened.

The knowledge was there. The fixes were there, too. But they had been mired in bureaucratic wrangling for years--and still are. Even after that disaster, things haven’t changed much. Investigative findings on the Gulf Oil Spill just this week, show the same pattern. The Gulf Oil Spill didn’t happen because technology and procedures weren’t available to prevent it. It happened because those in control just couldn’t be bothered to put the technology and procedures in place.

I can’t resist comparing this to what’s called the Cape Wind Project, off the coast of Massachusetts. Because of the steady, strong breezes off Cape Cod, the Cape Wind Project is a proposal to build a large array of wind-driven generators to supply electrical power to the east coast. You’d think that was a no-brainer. Massachusetts needs the power. Such a “green” generating project would avoid the exhaust emissions and other liabilities of steam generating plants. And it would be a landmark step forward in “green” technology. Polls show that a large majority of Massachusetts citizens favor the project.

Yet the Cape Wind Project has been held in legal limbo for ten years, now, by a consortium led by prominent figures with summer homes on Cape Cod--including former Senator John Kerry, former governor Mitt Romney, and the Kennedy family--in part because they fear a large, offshore wind farm would spoil the view out to sea, lower property values, and interfere with their yachting.

One can only wish that the management of BP Oil Company last summer--or the the Army Corps of Engineers in the last half century--had been as worried about the Mississippi River Delta, as the wealthy residents of Cape Cod are, about the view from their summer homes. But--that’s precisely the point. There’s a reason Rotterdam and London have adequate sea defenses and New Orleans doesn’t. The people who make the decisions about Rotterdam and London, live in Rotterdam and London. While the people who make the decisions about New Orleans are more likely to live in Washington or New York. We human beings always are more likely to invest energy and ingenuity when it’s our own livelihood or our own family that’s threatened.

There’s also a broader point--the real point of this whole discussion. We need to be humble when we advise--and judge--the unfortunate. Kahlil Gibran once noted rather icily, the wisdom of the fortunate sounds tinny in the ear of the miserable--especially when the misery comes from circumstances beyond their control.

So I do return to New Orleans every so often. I rejoice in people I’ve met there--from all around the country--who, I think, gain the same things I do, there. I go there for the human connections. I go there because I always learn something new. I go there as a reminder that people can be at their best in the midst of life’s worst difficulties. And I go there because it helps me stay humble. I always re-learn that the stream of human experience is long and deep and rich and various--and there are many things I don’t yet know--and an ounce of real listening and helping will gain me more than many pounds of what I think I already know. Amen. May it be so.

Tuesday, November 16, 2010

COMMUNITY OR IMMUNITY – YOU DECIDE

by the Rev. Melanie Morel-Ensminger
North Shore Unitarian Universalist Congregation
Sunday, November 14, 2010


Once again the wheel of the year has turned and it is the time of year that North Shore’s Nominating Committee strives to fill all open leadership spots before the Annual Meeting, when the members will come together to decide together on new officers, a church budget for the next fiscal year, and any other important matters needing congregational discussion and decision. It has become commonplace to us as Unitarian Universalists; we take it for granted. We forget that our religious ancestors fought and some died for the right to decide on congregational matters within the local church. For Unitarian Universalists, there’s no pope, no bishops – there is, in fact, no outside authority at all that to which the congregation is obliged to give obedience. Our governance is congregational polity, or church democracy, and we should remember and appreciate that not all religious congregations enjoy the freedoms we have.

Of course, both the Unitarian Universalist Association and the South West District have influence over us. We are in covenant with them, and so certain duties and responsibilities are expected on each side because of that mutual covenant. We pay dues to them, and are expected to send delegates to their meetings to participate in their deliberations; in return, we expect resources and help from them in such areas as ministerial search, building loans, conflict management, religious education, and emergencies. But the UUA is an association of free and independent congregations, and sometimes there's a tension between UU societies and the larger denomination.

In much the same way, there is an inherent tension between the historic celebration of the primacy of the individual that has characterized our liberal religious movement and the need for connection in religious community. Over the decades, we have seen the pendulum swing from one side to another, from emphasizing individual freedom on one hand, to raising up the bonds of community on the other. Like balancing on the toy boogie boards of my childhood, there is no perfect middle place in which to stand; we have to keep jiggling and juggling between the two extremes.

A few years ago, I attended a conference on Medical Ethics. The presenter, Dr. John Banja, a professor of ethics at Emory in Atlanta, began his remarks by reminding us of the fictional character Robinson Crusoe. Robinson Crusoe had absolutely no need of ethics when he was first ship-wrecked and landed on the island. He could do anything he pleased. He was completely immune to the demands of living in community – because he was alone. You might say Robinson Crusoe's theme song could have been Simon & Garfunkel's "I Am a Rock."

But on the fateful morning that Crusoe spied the footprint of another person on the beach, his situation changed. He was no longer alone. His actions, decisions, and behavior would now impact the life of another human being. NOW he needed ethics; NOW he needed a code of behavior; NOW there was the potential – indeed, almost the certainty – of conflict with another person. Ethics, said Dr. Banja, are relational; you don't need them if other folks aren't around. And when other folks are in relation to you – whether in a church, a family, a neighborhood, or a workplace – you only have 3 choices: no relationship, community, or war.

When we choose to join a church community, we choose, in effect, to limit our personal freedom. Voluntarily and by mutual consent, we give up our immunity from obligations to others. Because of our covenantal relationship with the other individuals in the congregation, we choose to act with respect and compassion. We acknowledge the inherent worth and dignity of the others in our shared community by certain specific behaviors – for example, by refraining from insulting one another, by not needlessly causing another person pain, by acknowledging the reality and validity of experiences that are different, even radically different, from our own.

In covenantal community, we realize that one of the freedoms we give up is the freedom not to be bothered. Because we are in community together, there are some things we are just stuck with, such as contributing financially, and shared leadership. We agree in advance that we will all contribute funds to the church, and we will all rotate roles, that we will each take a turn at the helm. If you joined a food co-op, you would not expect everyone else in the co-op to do all the work and then deliver your groceries to you. You would be expected to do your part, or leave the co-op. In an intimate partnership, such as a marriage, if one partner just sat back and let the other partner slave away, doing all the work, that marriage or partnership would not last very long. In covenant, we each must do our part, even if that means sometimes stepping up in a way that at first makes us uncomfortable. If only those financially comfortable gave money, if only the people comfortable with being leaders accepted leadership positions, then most congregations would soon devolve into dictatorships by very small groups, however well-intentioned.

To participate in community, we must give up the idea of absolutes and move towards acceptance, tolerance, negotiation, and compromise. In community – just as in a marriage – no one person or group can expect to have everything exactly the way they want it. When we decide to be in relationship with others, we must learn to live with, and even love, the give and take that characterizes true community. Instead of striving to win over or beat out the others, we instead come to understand that we have to manage polarities and to "split the difference" or just live with the differences that can’t be split.

This is especially important in a Unitarian Universalist congregation. We are so different from one another – different in lifestyle, political opinion, social status, economic level, theology, philosophy, age, and sexual orientation – that the ideal of getting along beautifully all the time because we all agree on every single thing grows very dim indeed. And as Unitarian Universalism attracts more and more people of varying ethnic, racial, and cultural backgrounds, the diversity among us will grow even greater.

The cover story in this month’s UU World magazine emphasizes another hidden difference – that younger members don’t have the same expectations and experiences and “back story” that older members might have. Unless we want to be a denomination of just older folks, we’ll have to adjust and make changes in order to truly welcome younger generations.

Let’s go back to Robinson Crusoe and remember that Dr. Banja said that there are only 3 choices available to us when we are in close relationship with other human beings: community, war, or no relationship at all. Community or immunity? You decide. Me, I choose community – even though sometimes it’s a pain in the neck.

In a community, we become accountable, not just to ourselves, but to the others with whom we are covenanted. We hold the relationship in such high regard that we take the time to talk and to listen to one another; we strive to keep a caring, compassionate attitude towards each other. We watch what we say and how we say it and what we do, because we care if we hurt another person. We contribute financially, not because we're rich, but because such giving is part of being a church. We sometimes accept a leadership role or task assignment, not because we are dying to do it, but because it’s our turn, or because our community needs our particular skills at a particular time. In community, we can't have "I Am a Rock" as our theme song.

These are community ethics and community expectations. Yes, they DO limit absolute personal freedom, but then folks who want absolute freedom and who want to be left alone are well advised not to marry and not to join a church. But there’s a trade-off: the limits on personal freedom that stem from a commitment to a covenant also open even richer possibilities, like the possibility of deeper, more meaningful, more authentic relationships; the possibility of trust and harmony with diverse others; the possibility of developing skills and talents you may not have known that you had; the possibility of making a positive difference in the wider world – in short, the possibility of building the kind of society we say we want to live in. Community or immunity? You choose. What happens in this congregation and in our world is up to you.

Dr. Banja closed his address on ethics with these ringing words, “Is this feasible? It must be. It must be our foundation – our core values – the last bastion from which we will not retreat.” So might this be for this congregation! AMEN – ASHE – SHALOM – SALAAM – NAMASTE — BLESSED BE.

Tuesday, November 9, 2010

“BREAD, ROSES, & RUBIES”

A Sermon for the Annual Budget Drive &
the 50th Anniversary of Ruby Bridges’ Long Walk
The Rev. Melanie Morel-Ensminger
First Unitarian Universalist Church in New Orleans
Sunday, November 7, 2010


In the fall of 1960, I had just turned eight, and was in the 3rd grade in Chalmette in St. Bernard Parish. At that time, my father, Barney Morel, worked “in the city” (as we used to say) as Sub-District Director of the United Steelworkers Union of the AFL-CIO. As such, he was known in local labor circles and in the local Democratic Party. And so he was selected by Mayor Chep Morrison to serve on a civic committee, consisting of representatives of business and labor and prominent socialites to help facilitate integration in the New Orleans Public Schools (and to provide political cover for the mayor, who could point to the committee as being responsible instead of himself).

The week my father first began meeting with the Mayor’s committee, he and my mother sat down with my sister and me (my sister was then seven; our two younger siblings were babies) to explain that we were going to go through a challenging time as a family and that we were going to stick together and be brave. They explained that Daddy was involved in something very important, but that some racist white people would not understand and would probably get angry. They said we were not allowed to answer the telephone any more, and that if we ever smelled smoke in the house, we were to go straight to the back yard and then to our neighbors’ house, where Mommy and Daddy would meet us.

It wasn’t until years later that I realized what was going on, and why my parents were so cautious. For weeks, our home phone rang off the hook with obscene anonymous callers, each of whom received my mother’s measured, “Thank you for calling” as she hung up. Thankfully, the threatened fire-bombs did not happen but it was a long time before I found out that other white families were not holding fire drills in their homes at that time.

On November 14, 1960, Ruby Bridges, having been selected by the committee as the ideal black student on the basis of a special test and interviews with herself and her parents, walked with an escort of federal agents (the NOPD had refused to guard her) through a gauntlet of screaming white adults and teenagers, many of them throwing garbage and using foul language, to enter William Frantz School in the Upper Ninth Ward as a first grader. It was the school my father had attended as a child. (It was also years later that I began to question why public schools in only working-class neighborhoods of New Orleans were first chosen to be “integrated” by only one or two or three black children.) The images of the primly dressed little black girl, walking with men in suit through hysterical angry crowds were broadcast across the nation and around the world, inspiring artist Norman Rockwell to create his strangely-named painting, called “The Problem We All Live With.”

At six years old Ruby was two years younger than I was. Every night, I sat with my parents and watched the news as this little girl so close to my own age bravely walked to and from school through angry crowds, escorted by gray-suited G-men. Every night, I wondered if I would have had her courage; every night, I wondered if I could have done what she was doing. Some nights I even dreamed I was with her, out there taking that long walk through those scary crowds.

Many years later, I actually met Ruby Bridges, along with Dr. Robert Coles, who wrote this morning’s story, as well as a book called The Moral Life of Children, which featured Ruby and Coles’ work with her as a psychologist as she went through her ordeal. They were appearing at a bookstore in the French Quarter, promoting new books they had written. Later that year, Ruby spoke at a service at First Church, in our old building, when the late Rev. Suzanne Meyer was our minister.

We retell Ruby’s story today at the same service that kicks off our Annual Budget Drive because there are important ways that these two things fit together. To any outside observer, there was nothing special about the Bridges family or about Ruby. Her parents were hard-working and ambitious for their children; they were devoted church-going people. They were loving and caring. Ruby was a sweet girl, good-natured, eager to please, eager to learn; she believed in God and in the Christian message with a child’s innocent faith. But together they did something extraordinary, something that required sacrifice (Ruby’s father was fired from the garage where he worked for allowing his child to integrate a white school), something that advanced not only their family, but people they didn’t know – and would never know. They wanted more than bread in their lives – they wanted roses too.

Dr. Coles asked Ruby during one of their counseling sessions how she was able to do what she did, walking that long walk through a mob threatening violence, and she answered thoughtfully, “I guess I knew I was the Ruby who had to do it.”

The members and friends of First Church are also ordinary, hard-working people. We are none of us rich, living off our gold-plated investments. (Not that we wouldn’t welcome such members, it’s just we don’t have any right now.) We too are church-going people, with a deep commitment to our faith. And we too are faced with a big challenge that requires sacrifice, with our church complex needing so much rebuilding and updating since Katrina, and an important ministry needing support, and we, we alone are the “rubies” who have to do it.

With the city in chaos and the state legislature publicly advising white parents to keep their children out of the public schools, Ruby Bridges walked the long walk toward equal justice. With the city once again in a time of chaotic change and the state legislature mandating improved building codes post-Katrina, we need to take the long walk of recovery together.

But it is not only recovery that we seek. It is not enough to simply rebuild our church complex up to today’s codes, not enough for us to finally complete the Community Kitchen that we will share with the New Orleans AIDS Task Force, not enough for us to get new furniture for the Sunday School classrooms and chairs for the Sanctuary, not enough for us to repair the front walk-way and put in outside lighting. All of that is necessary, of course – it is the “bread” that sustains and nurtures this faith community.

But we also need the “roses.” In the midst of threat and danger, little Ruby Bridges took time every school day to pray for the mobs who cursed her. If we do not strengthen our spiritual message, if we do not continue reaching out in the wider community, if we do not join with others in Greater New Orleans to widen the circle of love and justice and equality, then we are not doing our jobs. As Rev. Suzanne always used to say, “If we end the year in the black, with extra money, we are not doing our jobs.”

This morning we remember and honor the story of Ruby Bridges and her long walk, and we also kick off the church’s Annual Budget Drive. Commitment and courage on the part of ordinary people, working for love and justice, values that are precious to us – bread and roses and rubies. When you are contacted in the days to come by your Visiting Stewards, please remember the story of Ruby Bridges. There are no outside saviors who will step in and take care of what needs to be – there’s only us, stepping forward with commitment and courage to do what must be done both to keep our church going, and much more importantly, to keep our ministry in the city going. We are the rubies who have to do it.

Tuesday, November 2, 2010

“FEAR NOT” A Sermon for Halloween

Sunday, October 31, 2010
The Rev. Melanie Morel-Ensminger
First Unitarian Universalist Church of Chicago


Angels must be really, really scary-looking. In the Bible, whenever an angel shows up, the very first words out of their mouths are, “Fear not” -- in other words, "Don't be scared!" "Fear not" is one of the most common expressions in the Old and New Testaments. Citations in an online biblical concordance run to 8 pages; it appears 7 times in Genesis alone. It seems from time immemorial, we human beings have had a lot of fear, and have needed a lot of reassurance.

Right now, our country seems awash in fear. Some fear is based in actual lived experience. People in the Northeast fear another terrorist attack; people on the Gulf Coast fear another hurricane and another oil disaster; people in major urban areas fear crime. Some fear is engendered by our elected leaders for their own ends. Some fear is politically-based for the upcoming election. On one side, there is fear of an overturn of recent legislation; on the other, fear that the country’s moral center has collapsed, fear that we will be seen by our foes as weak. Fear is the common currency of our time.

Personally, all this fear-mongering disgusts me, and I hate that it's being used to manipulate the public. It’s not that I don’t have a healthy respect for fear; fear can actually be good for you. The late Dr. F. Forrester Church, minister of All Souls UU Church in New York, wrote a book a few years ago called Freedom from Fear, in which he described 5 kinds of fear, some of which can save your life. But most of the time, fear eats you up and destroys your chances for happiness and peace. “Fear not” is a good message for all of us.

Since August 29, 2005, most New Orleanians have been living in a state of fear so enveloping that we don’t even consciously feel it any more. The fear in New Orleans since Katrina is compounded by the fact that all of us have something fearful in our pasts, and the hurricane and the oil spill gave us hooks to hang all our fears on. The costs of living in a constant atmosphere of fear are both psychic and physical – and the toll is being seen in the rise locally of stress-related diseases and the climbing rates of suicide and depression. The price of pervasive fear is very high indeed.

I have to say that there is at least one group of people in Greater New Orleans who seem to have found a way to let go of their fears, and those are the Unitarian Universalists. The congregation of North Shore across the Lake from New Orleans continues to attract new people and new families; they bravely soldier on despite a crippling mortgage, obtained in more prosperous times, that prevents them from calling a new minister. The minister of Community Church in New Orleans and I offer one service a month and consult with their committees; out-of-town UU ministers offer occasional services, and for the rest of the Sundays they present sermons by UU ministers read by trained Worship Associates. They are active in issues in their parish, and known in the community for their interfaith efforts, especially with local Muslims.

Back in New Orleans, only a few yards from the break in the federal levee at the 17th St. Canal, Community Church UU moves forward with courage to construct their new church building. If only there had been enough money immediately after Katrina, they could have saved and improved their old building – indeed, they had already paid an architect for such plans, using donations from the UUA/UUSC Gulf Coast relief Fund – but instead FEMA forced them to tear it down and begin again. They barely have enough money for the construction, and no funds at all for furniture and furnishings and décor, but they move forward confidently, trusting that something, somehow, someway, will work out when the time comes. Meanwhile, they meet in the converted family room of a nearby house they call their “Annex,” even though there is no main building yet. Despite their many challenges, they have partnered with an innovative new school in the Upper Ninth Ward and offer tutoring programs for public school students.

At First Church, the “mother” church of the 3 UU congregations, members and unpaid volunteers (some from our dedicated partner churches) have done themselves work that would have cost thousands of dollars if done by professionals – laying floor tile, creating wainscoting to cover the ugly flood line, refinishing original woodwork, hanging sheetrock, mudding, and painting. We’ve devised an innovative plan in which the rebuilt church kitchen will truly be a Community Kitchen, owned jointly with the New Orleans AIDS Task Force, to provide meals to AIDS/HIV clients, and develop a neighborhood (maybe even city-wide!) Food Ministry. Believe you me (as my mother used to say), our monthly church work days, established pre-Katrina, are now something to see!

When the state building inspector informed us in August that post-storm updated building codes would apply to our church, we were faced with $150,000 of unbudgeted expenses to obtain a Permanent Certificate of Occupancy. If I told you that the congregation despaired and sunk into fear, you’d probably think that was only natural, but instead, members stepped up boldly, voted to borrow $50,000 from the depleted endowment, and then individuals generously came forward to loan the church money from their own personal retirement accounts.

In one of the ironic blowbacks of Katrina, the aftermath has given us much to be grateful for: the new, right relationship among the 3 UU congregations; the solidarity with other UUs and other UU churches around the country; and the realization of what really matters.

In Greater New Orleans, we have real, actual bases for our fears – that enough affordable housing may NOT be built or rebuilt in order to bring all New Orleanians home who want to come home; that the new police chief may NOT be able to overcome the culture of corruption and disregard that infects our police department; that more of our young men of color will succumb to despair and nihilism and continue to shoot and kill each other; that despite our having one of the highest incarceration rates in the world, more jail cells will be built, instead of the missing hospitals, mental health centers, day care centers, schools, and grocery stores that were lost to the Storm and not rebuilt. In some places, such very real fears might be sufficient cause to abandon the city altogether for comfortable middle-class suburbs or some other location with fewer challenges – but today’s New Orleanians are made of different stuff.

In the UU churches of Greater New Orleans, we could be afraid, very afraid, but we choose not to be. We could also be bitter – other religious groups made the choice to completely rebuild their congregations after Katrina before distributing money in the community, and we are among the very few churches that were not. But instead of feeling bitter, we feel grateful, grateful for all the UU individuals and congregations who have stood with us since the very beginning, and who continue to walk with us through this long, arduous process of recovery and renewal. We feel so much love and gratitude for the thousands of volunteers, UU and non-UU, who have come to the Crescent City and given their time and their sweat and their labor, as well as their money, to aid us in the necessary renaissance. There's a bumper stickers around the Crescent City that say, "Be a New Orleanian wherever you are" and we so appreciate all these honorary New Orleanians. We hope that First Church Chicago will continue to be “in that number” of the “Saints” who go “marchin’ in” with us.

We in New Orleans have chosen to live without fear, and we have advice for all those who want to do the same, no matter where they live. We have learned that choosing to live without fear means doing 4 simple but challenging things:

1st, remember it’s not all about YOU. However bad it is for you, it’s much worse for someone else. So get over yourself.

2nd, want what you have, and don’t obsess over what you don’t have or what you’ve lost. Focus on the folks who love you, and enjoy all the good things still available to you – good food, good music, dancing, festivals, and secondline parades. Be grateful -- gratitude is a good antidote to fear.

3rd, do what you can; don’t despair over what you can’t do. Yes, you will not be able to fix everything, but don’t let that stop you from doing what you are able to do. The journey of a thousand steps is made one step at a time.

4th, be who you are; stop imagining a better self who lives a better life. As the Buddhists say, “Be here now,” and don’t focus excessively on the future or the past. This is who you are and where you are -- so deal with it. [adapted from Freedom from Fear]


In the Wizard of Oz, the Cowardly Lion is the most courageous character, yet he is always afraid. When I was a child and learned of all my dad had done in the organized labor and civil rights movements, I told him I was proud of him for being so brave. “Oh no, Mimi,” he said, “I wasn’t brave – I was afraid all the time. I just did what had to be done.” There can be no better definition of real courage.

Courage is NOT being fearless – courage is not letting your fears rule your life. “Fear not” does not mean having no fear at all, because that is both impossible and unhealthy for us human beings. You will still be afraid, but freedom lies in choosing to go on, walking through, marching through, living through, yes even dancing through, your fears, and coming out on the other side, your true and authentic self, whole and safe and free. AMEN – ASHÉ – SHALOM – SALAAM – NAMASTE – BLESSED BE!

Tuesday, October 26, 2010

CAN UUs BE FUNDAMENTALIST?

A Sermon by the Rev. Melanie Morel-Ensminger
Unitarian Universalist Church of Baton Rouge
Sunday, October 24, 2010


A few summers ago, a 90-year-old parishioner loaned me a book he apparently found stimulating. I say “apparently” because nearly every page had a sharp comment written in the margins; reading it was like having a conversation with him and the author at the same time.

The book was When Religion Becomes Evil: 5 Warning Signs, by Charles Kimball, chair of the department of religion at Wake Forest. Dr. Kimball’s Harvard degree is in comparative religion, specializing in Islam. As a Christian with expertise in the Muslim world, he writes with insight on how religion can lose its way. In his book, he theorizes about a tendency for religious people to claim that they are the protectors of their faith’s “true core” or fundamentals – thus the appellation “fundamentalist” can, in his view, be applied to any religion. Let’s look at Kimball’s 5 points on how a religion goes bad, and see if any of them can apply – heaven forbid! – to our liberal faith.

The 1st warning sign is an insistence on absolute truth, a dogged resolve by adherents to see themselves as right and everyone else as wrong or evil. Connected to this is the idea that this truth can be found only in one interpretation, a literal understanding of the faith’s scripture, what scholars call “terminal reading.”
All religions make claims about Truth with a capital T, but since final truth is ultimately unknowable by human beings, all such claims involve presuppositions and require interpretation. Most revered texts were written long ago, often in a language not used today, so that reading requires translation of culture as well as words. Sincere people can and do appropriate truth claims in substantially different ways, so healthy religion allows for various versions of their claims, diverse ways of looking at sacred texts and interpreting doctrine.

Can Unitarian Universalists fall prey to this tendency to see one’s self and one’s group as the only ones who are right? Scholar and author Elaine Pagels says, “There’s practically no religion I know of that sees other people in a way that affirms the other’s choice.” (Sojourners magazine, August 2004) Could that include us? Do you know any UUs who believe that their theology is the only one possible for an intelligent person? Do you know any UUs who disparage other people’s religions?
What about literal belief in sacred scriptures – is it possible for UUs to be literalist? Ironically, most Unitarian Universalists don’t hold to the literal truth of any sacred scripture in order to believe in them, but far too many UUs use a literal interpretation of sacred texts in order to dismiss them. “How can anyone with a brain in their head believe in such stupid stuff as miracles or angels or levitation or reincarnation?” these UUs scoff, thus relegating to the trash bin the entire set of holy books of the Jews, Christians, Muslims, Buddhists, and Hindus.

You might say that fundamentalists in other faiths claim ab-solute truth in order to declare other faiths demonic; UU fundamentalists claim absolute truth in order to declare other faiths stupid. Other religious fundamentalists read their sacred scriptures literally in order to say they’re utterly true; UU fundamentalists read scriptures literally in order to conclude that they’re utterly false. Both are problematic terminal readings.

John Shelby Spong, retired Episcopal bishop of Newark and author of dozens of books, says he gets asked by liberals all the time, “Why…bother with the Bible at all? Why don’t you just abandon this dated book and start…over?” His answer was that we do not abandon folk tales because our moral consciousness has out-grown them; instead, we must abandon excessive claims being made for either the inspiration or the accuracy of stories found in religious traditions. (Spong online newsletter, 9/29/04)

Claims of absolute truth or absolute falsity must both be rejected. None of us knows everything, and no religion or philosophy has all the answers. Every religious text – even those revered by religious liberals! – contains outmoded tribal values, unscientific explanations of natural phenomena, xenophobic racist hostility toward foreigners and those who are different, and self-interested history, and yet every one also contains glorious poetry, great stories, and universal values of love, compassion, and community beyond boundaries. We should not throw the baby out with the bath water.

Kimball’s 2nd point is a demand for blind obedience, whether to a person in authority or to a certain interpretation of a creed. Usually this is accompanied by apocalysm – talk of the end of the world and the dawning of a new age in which followers will be singled out for special privileges. We do not have to reach far to find examples of how acceptance of unethical or immoral orders from a religious leader results in death and destruction – we all remember September 11, 2001, Jim Jones in Guyana, the Aum Shinrikyo nerve gas attack in Tokyo, the Branch Davidians in Waco. Sometimes a group will enforce conformity by using methods of isolation, deprivation of sleep and/or food, group pressure, or even psychotropic drugs – but whether or not such techniques are used, blind obedience is always a sure sign of religion becoming evil.

This is the least likely temptation for Unitarian Universalists, we who pride ourselves on our nonconformity and anti-authoritarianism. But there can be a kind of perverse conformity expected of UU nonconformity. Sometimes in the French Quarter, I see a group of young people, all dressed in black, their hair all dyed colors not found in nature, all sporting similar hardware and comparable tattoos? And I think to myself, How conformist they are in their nonconformity? We Unitarian Universalists must beware the tendency to enforce a group norm, to expect that we will all be alike in our difference from other religions.

While UUs resist giving much power to their religious leaders, some UUs can unconsciously elevate a particular minister or church or way of doing things to authority status, so that deviance from that theology or vocabulary or worship style can be seen as a kind of heresy. I remember the first time I attended worship in a UU church other than First Church New Orleans – how shocked I was that their Order of Service was so different.

To resist the pressure of groupthink, we should jealously guard our historical traditions of freedom of individual conscience, and congregational polity. The Buddha’s last words to his disciples from his deathbed can be our guide:

Do not accept what you hear by report, do not accept tradition, do not accept a statement because it is found in our books, nor because it is in accord with your belief, nor because it is the saying of your teacher… Be ye lamps unto yourselves.


The 3rd thing shared by unhealthy religions is the concept of an ideal time, when everything was in the past, or will be in the future, perfect. This can be an actual period that becomes idealized, as when certain conservative Christian groups extol the 1950s, or the memory of the Islamic caliphate for Sunni Muslims, or it can be an imagined time in antiquity or prehistory, as the Garden of Eden for some Jews and Christians, or Sumer or Crete for some feminist pagans. The perfect world might be in the future, as in the Second Coming of Christ for some Christians, or the return of Lord Krishna for some Hindus. With this mindset, people desire to get back to, or arrive at, the ideal world, and feel they have a mandate to establish their idea of God’s will on earth. Some set themselves apart, and withdraw from a world they consider corrupted.

We UUs don’t usually think there was an ideal past time (although many of us can idealize a certain time in a certain congregation), but most of us are committed to making a better future. Now, there’s nothing wrong with this – in fact, it can be quite laud-able, an expression of our faith in action. But like everyone else, we too can lean toward the view that what is right to us is automatically best for everybody, and a few UUs have been caught declaring – I hope in jest! – that if this law is enacted, or this per-son elected, they will move to Tahiti or Canada to withdraw from a country they consider hopelessly corrupted.

Healthy religion avoids the temptation to idealize a certain time, whether past or future. No one has a divine directive to impose their will on others, no matter how well-meant. (To do unto others without their input is the essence of colonialism.) We must also beware the impulse to leave when decisions are made we don’t agree with. This isn’t good for religious institutions or for democracies. The essence of diversity in religion or politics is that we are guaranteed that things will not always go our way; the nature of our covenant as Unitarian Universalists as well as Americans is that we will stick with our noble experiment despite the inevitable conflicts.

The 4th sign of a religion going wrong is connected to the defense of the first 3, and that is that the end justifies the means. We must defend the truth of our faith and of our holy book – therefore we must eliminate the unbelievers. Infidels are defiling our holy temple or our sacred land – so we must get them out any way we can. Bad people are keeping us from achieving the kingdom or preventing the return of our god – let’s kill them to reach our desired goal. Folks who ought to be in our group aren’t, or who used to be in our group have left – we must stop them. Or some among us have weird ideas, or are asking the wrong questions – we must protect our church.
We Unitarian Universalists don’t go as far as some other religions in this regard. We don’t kill or maim the people among us who think differently or who upset our institutional apple carts – we just find ways to get them to leave on their own, with only psychic injuries to show from the conflict. We act in ways most of our mothers would never have approved – we use insults or rude comments to make folks feel unwanted and unwelcome. Sadly, even UU congregations can erupt in vicious conflict, with folks acting contrary to their own principles.

The remedy to all this is both simple and difficult: Remember what was the whole point of the religion in the first place. Sure, religious tenets, scripture, sacred space and time, communal identity, and institutions, traditions, and structures are all important, and ought to be preserved to a reasonable extent, but they are not the reason the religion exists, they are not the ends of religious life. They may help facilitate a life of faith, they may promote a sense of belonging, but they are not the point. True religion’s mes-sage of compassion, of caring for others, especially those in need, can be lost, and under stress people can act in ways that are explicitly forbidden by their faith. In authentic religion the end and the means are always connected.

The last of Kimball’s 5 signs of a religion turning evil is Holy War. In an interview with Sojourners magazine, Bill Moyers said he keeps a file marked “Holy War” that is filled with depredations of every sort – Jew against Muslim and vice versa, Hindu against Muslim and Christian and vice versa, Christian against Jew and Muslim and vice versa, and even people of the same religion attacking each other. While almost all religions proclaim nonviolence as a primary value, zealous adherents can always find reason to wage war on unbelievers or apostates.

While I’d like to assure you that we Unitarian Universalists are immune to this one, I cannot. Although there’s been no out-right murder over internal conflicts in UU churches, there’s lots of evidence of character assassination and emotional destruction in UU congregations, caused by sincere, well-intentioned, and normally good people who were convinced they were right. District Executives in the UUA all have horror stories about congregations where someone was so convinced of the rightness of their cause that they were willing to nearly destroy their congregation in order to prove their point.

The solution, once again, is to remain true to the core principles of one’s faith tradition. Compassion and community are not just for when all is well, but are guidelines for times of conflict. Jesus told his disciples, “If you only love those who love you, what reward will you get? Even pagans love their friends and family.” And the Buddhist sage Thicht Naht Hanh says, “Peace is not a goal – peace is the way.”

In the final chapter of the book, entitled “An inclusive faith rooted in a tradition,” Kimball gives several “compass points” for direction in the uncertain times that lie ahead, giving the best hope for correcting the corruptions of religion. The 1st is a sense of the Transcendent, called God by many, but which is in essence something beyond the merely material. The 2nd is faith, a conviction of some things that cannot be scientifically proven, such as that life is worth living despite our pain and hardship. The 3rd point is hope, a feeling that things can get better through our efforts. The 4th, most important of all, is love – not as an emotion, which can be transitory, but as an ethic, as a way of life. Kimball adds that diversity and inclusivity are needed in order to see a more complete picture, in faith as in everything else.

“An inclusive faith rooted in a tradition” – Transcendence combined with faith, hope, and love – unity in diversity – welcoming people who are different from those already in the community – this sounds to me like an advertisement for Unitarian Universalism at our best, and is as good a description of our faith as I’ve heard. May we live up to it. AMEN – ASHE – SHALOM – SALAAM – NAMASTE – BLESSED BE!

Tuesday, October 12, 2010

Sanctuary Rededication Service

Sunday, October 10, 2010
First Unitarian Universalist Church of New Orleans
The Rev. Melanie Morel-Ensminger

Guided Meditation


Let us be together in a sacred time of meditation. If you are comfortable doing so, you may close your eyes.

Let us go back in time, back to October of 2005. Our Sanctuary is locked, but a few windowpanes are broken so that we can peek in.

The first thing we notice is the rank odor of mold that strikes us as soon as we come close to the window. As we press closer, we get a view of the destruction that Katrina wrought –

--the pews have come loose from the floor and are tumbled over each other like Lincoln logs;
--hymnals are tossed everywhere, waterlogged and discolored, a few sadly open to a well-loved hymn;
--our precious piano is upside down and clearly unsaveable;
--the beautiful plaster work of the walls, scored to resemble blocks of stone, is ruined, falling in sheets from the masonry;
--mold of different colors festoons the walls, far above the flood line, in ugly streaks;
--the wood parquet floor tiles are tumbled everywhere in the muck left by the flood waters.

Let yourself feel the emotions that this scene evokes in you.

Let us move forward in time, to May of 2007. With help from the UUA, the mold has been completely removed and the Sanctuary smells of fresh wood, as work goes on to rebuild.

Members and friends of the church, and volunteers from all over the country, work together to make our Sanctuary beautiful again. Creative ideas are birthed, and people gather to make them a reality.

In your mind’s eye, watch as the Sanctuary slowly comes to life –

--wood from the stage in the Fellowship Hall is remilled as wainscoting to cover the flood damage to the plaster;
--molding from the lost pews is remilled to form a cap for the wainscoting;
--the broken stained glass panes are replaced;
--the gaping hole at the back of the chancel is filled in first with sheetrock, and then with the beautifully restored stained glass window that honors the work of the Gordon Sisters;
--the ceiling with its ugly, perpetually falling acoustic tiles is covered with fire-resistant theatrical cloth, in panels lovingly sewn by church members and volunteers and bravely installed from high scaffolding by other church members and volunteers;
--the scarred concrete floor receives the gift of a custom-designed Labyrinth, and then the rest of the donated floor tiles are laid over the whole Sanctuary, and finished with a lovely fleur de lis.

From death to resurrection, not by supernatural miracle, but through the entirely natural miracle of church members and friends and UU volunteers working together to make things right and beautiful.

Open your eyes, if you haven’t already, and look around you, at the walls, the windows, the ceilings, the floors. This is our church home, and it has been remade, recreated, by the energies of our minds, our hearts, and our hands.

Let us be together in the silence, marveling at what has been accomplished, and giving thanks for this community of liberal faith.

Those recognized for their creativity and hard work on the Sanctuary:
The Gordon Sisters Window -- Mary Jo Day
Donation of Floor Tile -- Paulie Eisemann
The Labyrinth & Sanctuary Floor -- Marcie Brennan
Draped Ceiling & Wainscoting -- Reese Brewer
Finishing Work & Helpers -- The First Church Congregation



Words of Rededication


In late September 2005, when former First Church minister Suzanne Meyer and I peered through the broken panes of the stained glass windows that face Jefferson Avenue, the sight was both horrifying and heart-breaking. We saw and smelled what has been related in the Guided Meditation this morning. With our backgrounds in this congregation, and remembering what an herculean effort it had been for the members of this church to purchase this building complex, at that moment we both thought, Suzanne and I, that unless the UUA or some other entity entirely paid for the reconstruction, that it would be nearly impossible. We lit a voodoo candle we had purchased earlier that day in the French Quarter on the front steps, said silent prayers, and left with very heavy hearts.

We were so, so wrong. In our sadness over what Katrina had wrought, we did not have enough faith. While the UUA’s help in our recovery was important, and generous, that is NOT why this Sanctuary is so beautiful and inspiring today. As another former First Church minister Guy Lamothe loved to say, “You don’t GO to church, you ARE the church.” The single biggest factor in the rebeautification of this Sanctuary was, and continues to be, the dedication and hard work of our members, friends, and partners.

This morning we pause in the on-going labor of recovery to rededicate our sacred worship space and to express our deepest thanks and appreciation to those who came up with ideas and who spear-headed and/or directed the hands-on work, and all those who contributed to the various projects that have resulted in our renewed worship space. From those who swung hammers, to those who sat at sewing machines, to those who bent their backs carrying heavy loads, to those who gave money, to those who brought meals to the workers, all made significant contributions to our rebuilding.

I am reminded of an old story about a visitor to a European cathedral under construction in the Middle Ages. Speaking to a sculptor, a mason, and a carpenter, the visitor is told that statues are being carved, stonework is being laid, and pews are being built. Coming upon an old woman sweeping, the visitor asks what she is doing, and she replies proudly, “Why, I am building a cathedral!” Whatever it is that you did, however small you might consider it, you helped rebuild this Sanctuary.

This is no time for us to rest on our laurels, to think that anything is done, finished, and complete. This is a time to rededicate ourselves as a congregation for the work that still lies ahead. There is much to be done, and we are the ones to do it – with the help and support of UUs around the country, and with the contributions of contractors and licensed professionals, certainly, but it will be our heads and hands and hearts – and backs and wallets – that will do much of what remains to be done.

“Dedicate” comes from a Middle English word meaning to “proclaim.” Its primary definition is to set apart for religious or sacred purposes. In this service, we proclaim again our determination to use this spot, this space, for purposes sacred to us. This Sanctuary is holy to us, not because of some outside force or supernatural being, but because it is OURS by what has happened inside.

We have lived our lives in this space. We have argued over it, passionately discussed in it, laughed and cried in it, worked til we ached in it, danced in it, ate in it, sold Christmas trees in it, named our children, united with our partners, and mourned those we love who have died in it. We’ve poured our creativity and our money into it. Some of us have even slept in it a few times. And we have worshiped in it more times than we can count.

May our words and our deeds in our renewed and rebeautified Sanctuary show to the world our commitment to the values enshrined in our liberal faith, and may we find ways to re-energize ourselves for the work that lies ahead. AMEN – ASHE – SHALOM – SALAAM – NAMASTE – BLESSED BE!

Tuesday, October 5, 2010

50 YEARS OF UNITARIAN UNIVERSALISM

A Sermon for Association Sunday
by the Rev. Melanie Morel-Ensminger
First Unitarian Universalist Church of New Orleans
Sunday, October 2, 2010


One of the most difficult things about being a Unitarian Universalist is the name – few other religions have a 10-syllable moniker to contend with. Whenever one of us is asked what church we go to or what religion are we, we have to trot out the whole dang thing. And you can’t get away with just saying “UU,” since you then have to explain what that stands for – or what it used to stand for, and then what it stands for today. Why are we “Unitarian Universalists” anyway?

Fifty years ago, representatives from the American Unitarian Association, founded in 1825, and the Universalist Church of America, founded in 1790, met to sign official papers of merger, creating the Unitarian Universalist Association of Congregations. Although it may seem in retrospect to have been inevitable, since both denominations were liberal in theology and social issues, and both were dedicated to the principle of congregational autonomy, and the two had cooperated with each on various things for close to a century, it certainly did not seem to be a sure thing at the time. While it’s true that the Unitarians and Universalists had a lot in common, there were still enough significant differences to spark disagreement and controversy on both sides. As UU historian Russell Miller has written, there were indeed “deep differences of theology, class configuration, philosophy, behavior, and attitudes which cannot be easily overlooked or minimized.”

Conversations on merger had begun more than 100 years before, and had continued, off and on, through the decades. For several generations, they had been forming joint ventures, doing projects together, and recognizing each other’s ordained clergy. For years, all over the continent, Universalist ministers served Unitarian congregations, and vice versa, and strong Unitarian churches helped out struggling Universalist churches, and vice versa – as in Chattanooga during the 1890s, when the Universalist congregation met in the Unitarian building until they could afford to build their own. (There was a vote to see if the Universalist member were willing to merge with the Unitarian congregation where they had been meeting, but typically it was voted down.)

One of the most important differences that arose in the conversations on merger was numbers – numbers of people and amounts of money. In the mid-20th century, roughly the years 1948-1958, there was a tremendous burst of growth in Unitarianism, first, with the influx of post-war young parents of the children soon to be known as the Baby Boom.

The second reason for Unitarianism’s expansion during this period was the inauguration of the Fellowship Movement, under the guidance of Humanist minister Lon Ray Call and layman Monroe Husbands. With their leadership, all over the continent, groups large enough to be a Unitarian congregation but not yet large enough to be a church with a full-time minister were organized into lay-led fellowships that were grassroots, intensely local, and often very innovative in worship style. That they later developed characteristics of anti-authoritarianism, anti-clericalism, hyper-individualism, and theological conformity was not intended but should not have come as a complete surprise. At this period, fully one-third of all Unitarians were members of lay-led fellowships. But, interestingly, financial giving to the denomination did not rise as fast as the membership figures, and the AUA was often strapped for cash.

During the same period, the Universalists were declining in numbers while perversely growing stronger financially. Ironically, it can be said that Universalism lost by winning. The theological message of Universalism, that God is Love and will not condemn human beings to burn in hell forever, had caused its dramatic increase in membership in the early to mid-1800s. This was, as you might expect, a very comforting and attractive message and people flocked to Universalist churches to hear it. But as the 19th century drew to a close, other mainline denominations got the point and began to downplay or even discard doctrines of eternal punishment and rhetoric about the fires of hell. With the Methodists, Lutherans, Presbyterians and others dropping talk of eternal damnation, there was less and less need to join a Universalist church. (Even today, in order to regularly hear sermons that rant on hell, you’d have to attend the most theologically conservative churches.) Universalism as a theology won the day – but ironically Universalism as a denomination lost.

As their membership aged and dwindled and their congregations closed, bequests from deceased Universalists and the reversion of church property meant that Universalism was a denomination with a healthy endowment and an unhealthy membership roll. Thus, as Unitarianism and Universalism approached merger, there was a great deal of concern among Universalists that it might only be a “marriage for money” as many put it. And all the individualism, iconoclasm, and mistrust of authority that so strongly characterized not only Unitarian fellowships but also many congregations, led to a comparable mistrust on their part that the Universalists might be too old-fashioned, too bound with the past, and too centralized for consolidation to work. (I once preached a sermon about changes in our religious movement, beginning with merger, that was entitled “What Were They Thinking??”)

The class issue was complex and sensitive, just as class remains today for the merged denomination. Unitarianism in America grew out of the Standing Order churches of New England, officially sanctioned by the government and supported by tax dollars. Thus, Unitarians tended to be Establishment types, members of the ruling and professional classes, with access to economic power and resulting better education. Universalists, on the other hand, historically opposed and fought vigorously against the stranglehold of the official churches, and were, with the Baptists, instrumental in the “disestablishment” cause. Their members tended to be rural, working class folk, often farmers, with less formal education than Unitarians. (While the Universalists were not well-educated in schools, they tended to be self-taught and great book readers.) Interestingly, the individually richer Unitarians, due perhaps to their distrust of centralization as well as their philosophy of individualism and autonomy, gave far less, per capita, to their denomination and congregations than did the less well-off Universalists.

Another complication was the difference in organizational style. For many years, Universalists felt themselves to be under siege. Civic leaders in some places, as in Ellisville, Mississippi, put up signs that said “No dogs or Universalists allowed” as late as the 1900s. (Even earlier, George Washington himself had had to intervene during the Revolutionary War to allow a Universalist minister to serve as an army chaplain.) With their sense of persecution, it made sense for Universalists to have a powerful central organization and a constant feeling of having to battle for their right to exist. Conversely, Unitarians, with their establishment credentials and love of freedom, failed to give the AUA any organizational “teeth” until the end of the 1890s and the start of the 20th century. How a new merged denomination would be organized was thus a major question not easily resolved.

Finally, there were concerns on both sides about theology. Unitarianism had officially stepped away from its historical and traditional theism and liberal Christianity, starting in the time of William Ellery Channing in the mid-1800s (when in a controversial sermon he laid out the principles of “Unitarian Christianity”), continuing with the so-called Issue in the West in the late 1800s (when Unitarians took the word “God” out of their mission statement and substituted “the Good”), and culminating in the Humanist Controversy in the early 20th century.

This did not mean, of course, that individual Unitarians and congregations did not remain theistic and/or Christian – the freedom of conscience and congregational autonomy so important to both denominations ensured that there were many, although they were beginning to be outnumbered. Even today, there are congregations whose worship style is firmly, if liberally, Christian in content and style.

Although there were some Universalist ministers and lay people who were (if you’ll excuse the expression) devout humanists – notably, Humanist poet and hymn writer Kenneth Patton – and while there were strong affirmations within Universalism of a universal religious sense and the universality of religious experience (first articulated at the Universalist Convention of 1870), Universalism was still firmly holding the Bible and Jesus as central – although their liberal conclusions on both did not endear them to other Christians. (The Universalist Bond of Fellowship, adopted in 1953, read, “to do the will of God as Jesus revealed it and to cooperate in establishing the Kingdom for which he lived and died” – not exactly an orthodox formulation!)

In 1953, administrative functions of the two denominations in the areas of religious education, publications, and public relations were combined and the Council of Liberal Churches was formed. Many UUs who were youth during this period are very proud that the continental youth organizations merged before the adult denominations did. During merger talks in the 1930s, one name proposed for the proposed consolidated denomination was “The United Liberal Church of America;” another was the “Free Church Fellowship.” Former president of the AUA Frederick May Eliot called the formation of the council was “one of the most important events in the history of American Unitarianism.”

This was followed in 1954 by a joint commission on merger and by a joint biennial conference of Unitarians and Universalists in 1959. After that meeting, both denominations held plebiscites to make the final determination, which overwhelmingly affirmed the decision to merge. On May 25, 1961, merger was accomplished and the new combined denomination was called the Unitarian Universalist Association of Congregations. (What happened to “The United Liberal Church in America” or the “Free Church Fellowship”? you may well ask. The sad truth is, neither was willing to relinquish its historic name. Similarly, there remain today churches which so far have refused or neglected to incorporate the “other” name into their identity.)

The most hotly contested issues for most of the people voting in 1961 remain sticking points today for many UUs: To what extent is Unitarian Universalism part of the great “family tree” of Christianity? To what extent is Unitarian Universalism beyond Christianity, standing as a new universal religion? And is Unitarian Universalism a religion, or a way of being religious? (Sorry, those are not questions this sermon will answer – you’ll have to decide for yourself!)

One of the biggest lessons we learn (or are reminded of) from the merger 50 years ago is that there are no easy answers. Today Unitarian Universalism faces challenges in balancing the equal and seemingly opposing needs for independence and interdependence, pluralism and consensus, spirituality and social action. We still cannot expect to completely agree among ourselves on how much social action is not enough or too much, whether in our congregations or at the UUA level. Finances remain a challenge at the UUA level as well as for many if not most UU congregations. And you can still generate an argument among certain UUs over whether or not the ministerial credentialing process and settlement system violates our historic congregational polity. But if it wasn’t that, it’d be something else, because we’re a contentious bunch.

Despite our conflicts, here we are, 50 years later. There has been a deepening in recent years of spirituality and taking worship seriously in UU congregations. The children of the Baby Boom generation are now entering our churches, either as former UU Sunday School kids returning with their own families, or as unchurched seekers looking for freedom of conscience, spiritual relevancy, and work for justice and community in the wider world. After 50 years of Unitarian Universalism, we can say that we are more resilient than ever, with a saving message for all those who desire what we have to offer. We may not be the universal World Religion once envisioned at merger, but our saving message is as relevant as ever in the 21st century. May we always draw strength and inspiration from both sides of our religious heritage as we carry liberal religion forward to the next 50 years! AMEN -- ASHE -- SHALOM -- NAMASTE -- BLESSED BE!