Sermon

And Service Is Its Law

The Rev. Jack D. Bryant

Hope Unitarian Church

August 3, 2003

First Reading: Matthew 28:16-19

Now the eleven disciples went to Galilee, to the mountain to which Jesus had directed them. When they saw him, they worshiped him; but some doubted. And Jesus came and said to them, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything that I have commanded you. And remember, I am with you always, to the end of the age.

Second Reading: The following are excerpts from a letter written by Thomas Jefferson to a young man named Peter Carr who had solicited Jefferson’s advice on education. Jefferson is speaking about the study of religion.

[S]hake off all the fears & servile prejudices under which weak minds are servilely crouched. Fix reason firmly in her seat, and call to her tribunal every fact, every opinion. Question with boldness even the existence of a god; because, if there be one, he must more approve of the homage of reason, than that of blindfolded fear. You will naturally examine first the religion of your own country. Read the bible then, as you would read Livy or Tacitus.

. . .

These questions are examined in the books I have mentioned under the head of religion, & several others. They will assist you in your inquiries, but keep your reason firmly on the watch in reading them all. Do not be frightened from this inquiry by any fear of its consequences. If it ends in a belief that there is no god, you will find incitements to virtue in the comfort & pleasantness you feel in its exercise, and the love of others, which it will procure you. If you find reason to believe there is a god, a consciousness that you are acting under his eye, & that he approves you, will be a vast additional incitement; if that there be a future state, the hope of a happy existence in that increases the appetite to deserve it; if that Jesus was also a god, you will be comforted by a belief of his aid and love. In fine, I repeat that you must lay aside all prejudice on both sides, & neither believe nor reject anything because any other persons, or description of persons have rejected or believed it. Your own reason is the only oracle given you by heaven, and you are answerable not for the rightness but uprightness of the decision.

. . .

Jefferson had a name for his attitude towards religion. He called it Unitarianism. Thirty-five years latter in 1822, writing in a letter to Dr. Benjamin Waterhouse, Jefferson expressed the hope that there was not a young person then living in the United States who would not die an Unitarian.

Sermon

Sometime ago, the board of trustees of our church passed a resolution that said a parking space should be reserved for the use of the minister. I thought that was a nice thing to do and I appreciate the convenience it will afford when our parking lot is full. It was not a “rush project,” in my mind, so I was not concerned that it wasn’t put in place immediately. But a few weeks ago, while I was looking in a church supply catalog for something else, I happened to see a listing for reserved parking signs for churches. Remembering the kindness of the board, I mentioned it to the proper person who said, oh yes, he had it on his list to do, but hadn’t been able to find the sign. He asked me to go ahead and order it.

I went back to the catalogue, looked at the ad more closely, and realized there was a problem. All the premade signs said, “Reserved for Pastor” – “Reserved for Pastor.” That’s an interesting word, “Pastor.” It is the title often used to address the minister in a Protestant church. It suggests the role of someone who is a shepherd, a person who takes care of sheep. It is not, however, a word often used in our own religious tradition. I believe that is because the words suggests that people should be thought of as sheep – those who aren’t too bright and need to be controlled and regulated and guided in their thinking and activities. Let me assure you: You don’t look like sheep to me. The word does, however, have some positive meanings. For example, it suggests a person who is caring and compassionate. But I believe the majority of Unitarians are, because of that first meaning, uncomfortable with the word, preferring to call their ministers – ministers. That doesn’t mean the term pastor isn’t used. I hear it more than some of you might suspect – from both visitors and long time members. But the distinction is not without importance – so I paid about ten dollars extra to have the word “minister” substituted for “pastor” on the sign for the parking space designated by our board.

I do not object when someone calls me pastor, but I prefer the term minister. I prefer that word because unlike pastor – which suggests to me the idea of control – the word minister suggests the idea of service, of one who is called to minister to or to serve others. It is, I believe, much more consistent with the history and tradition of liberal religion, whose goal is not to control others, but to help people become free.

I am reminded of the idea of service each Sunday morning when I speak the invocation for our worship service. It begins, “Love is the spirit of this church and service is its law.” I like the idea of service. I especially like the fact that it is part of the invocation that I use – which last week I said set forth five core ideas about our church which I was going to use as the basis for several sermons. None is more important than the idea of service.

But what does that word mean? I think there are a number of possible meanings – and the meaning I would emphasize may surprise you. It’s a meaning I’ve heard several times, but most recently from Daniel Kantor, the Associate Minister at First Unitarian Church in Dallas. Daniel was talking about membership and he said First Church had decided to stop thinking of growing their membership in terms of adding new members. Rather, they now think of adding new members as the opportunity to serve more people in their community. I believe he’s right. We should not think of increasing membership as the opportunity to just have more people around. Instead, it is in furtherance of the idea that we should serve more people.

But how is getting new members serving people? I remember the first time I attended a Unitarian Church. It was All Souls Unitarian Church down on Peoria. The next two weeks I attended right here at Hope. It was a transformational experience for me. Having abandoned organized religion in college, I never thought I would again join or even attend a church. But within minutes of entering All Souls I realized that something important had been missing from my life. Within minutes of entering Hope I knew that I had found what was missing. The liberal church – this church – had done something for me that words cannot describe. And because of that, when I became a Unitarian I did so with the idea that I would be an evangelical Unitarian – one who believes there are millions of people who await the opportunity to discover the good news of the liberal church and that it is our duty to serve those people by reaching out to them with our good news.

The term evangelical isn’t one we use very often, but unlike pastor, it is a word I believe followers of liberal religion should embrace without hesitation. That’s because the word evangelical means the spreading of good news, and liberal religion has good news for the world.

Liberal religion has its evangelical roots in its origins as a Christian reform movement. Christianity looks to the reading I used this morning, a reading that is known as the great commission. There is a problem, of course. Instead of spreading the message of Jesus, I believe traditional Christianity has spent most of its time and energy spreading the message of theologians and philosophers who never knew Jesus and who constructed dogmas and creeds that have nothing to do with the personhood or the message of love taught by that Jewish peasant from the Galilee. That was Jefferson’s objection to traditional Christianity. That was why Jefferson – instead of advocating the traditional kind of evangelism – urged his cousin to “shake of all the fear and servile prejudices under which weak minds are servilely crouched. Fix reason firmly in her seat, and call to her tribunal every fact, every opinion.” I think he did a great service to his nephew with those words. And therein lies the heart of the good news that liberal religion has for the world.

We declare that religion need not preach the need for fear and submission. We declare that religion need not preach the need to believe without evidence or to follow without thinking. We declare that religion need not distinguish the chosen from the unchosen, the clean from the unclean, believers from unbelievers, the enlightened from the unenlightened. We declare that religion is about bringing people together. We declare that we need not think alike to love alike. We declare that doubt is the product of the honest mind. We declare that the basis for religion is human experience and that such experience should be tempered in the fire of reason. And instead of a trinity of the father, son, and holy ghost, we declare a trinity of freedom, reason, and tolerance.

In a world filled with people who are afraid, who have been told they need to be afraid, that a terrible calamity awaits them if they do not submit, liberal religion says a person should not be frightened by doubts, because every person is answerable not for the rightness of his or her decisions, but for their uprightness.

In his time, Jefferson hoped that there was “not a young man now living in the United States who will not die an Unitarian.” He was an optimist. Would that we had the same optimism – an optimism that would inspire us to realize that the mission of this church is service – the service of spreading the good news of liberal religion to a world that is hungry for such a message.

It is easy to sit back and enjoy what we have, to enjoy this church and the warmth of community that lives within its walls. But for myself, I am drawn to the idea of service, the idea that membership is not just about adding numbers, but about serving people by introducing them to the good news of liberal religion. I say this because I remember how I felt the day I heard that message. I say this because I want others to have that same experience.

Some people, however, will tell you that it is a risky business for anyone to speak about evangelism from a Unitarian Universalist pulpit. One of our ministers -- John Morgan -- tells the story of the Sunday he happened to use the word evangelism in his sermon. He knew the mere mention of that word would anger many people; so afterwards, when a woman from his congregation hunted him down with what he describes as "angry eyes," he was not surprised. “ ‘Don't ever use that word . . .,’ she said, 'We have newcomers here today!’ ” But that is precisely why I believe we need to think of ourselves as committed to service – a service that takes the form of evangelizing, of spreading our good news because there are so many people in the world who have not heard the message, the good news of liberal religion.

In point of fact, I believe we engage in a lot of activities that are evangelical in nature without realizing it. When we are active in supporting any number of social justice issues, from civil rights to public education, we are engaged in spreading our good news – and that has been true since the Unitarian Horace Mann organized public schools in the 1830’s (and was publicly accused of leading a Unitarian conspiracy for doing so) until a few days ago when members of our church helped feed the homeless – or a few minutes ago when some of our children contributed to that cause.

We Unitarians have a tendency to see ourselves as an elite. I believe it is one of our greatest failings. We believe we are too good to grow, too good to attract more than a few new adherents. We do not speak much of sin in our churches, but in this instance I believe we are without a doubt guilty of the sins of pride and arrogance. I believe the liberal church is an institution that by its very nature reaches out to people. I believe the liberal church is an institution that by its very nature is obligated to make service its law that we might spread our good news.

Several years ago Scott Alexander, a Unitarian Minister, published a book entitled Salted With Fire. It was a collection of essays about how Unitarian churches could become more evangelical. He took the title from a passage in the Gospel of Mark (9:49-51), which says, “For every one shall be salted with fire. Salt is good; but if the salt has lost its saltiness, how can one season it? Have salt in yourselves, and be at peace with one another.”

Scott argued that we Unitarians should be salted with fire, to be filled with passion for the extraordinary good news of the gospel of the free church. And, he said, we need to “be at peace with one another.” Our passion must never justify abusing our neighbors in the name of our religion. We must be proud, but not prideful, of our heritage; we must be proud, but not prideful, of the message of tolerance and respect that we have to offer to the world; and we need to acknowledge that the idea of mission and evangelism has always been central to the heart and soul of our faith – and that now – today – we needed to reclaim those words and to recognize the obligation that we have to the world, the obligation to make serve the world by spreading the good news of liberal religion.

I hope each and every one of us will feel that he or she is salted with fire. I hope you will go out of here today and tell someone of our faith. I hope you will witness our faith not just with words, but with deeds -- because there is no more powerful witness than the witness of our lives. And when you are asked -- because you will be asked – I hope you will invite that friend to church with you who has seen the evidence of your faith. Not to increase the number of members we have, but to increase the number of people that our church can serve – because love is the spirit of this church and service is its law.

Amen