First Parish Unitarian UniversalistWe Don’t “do” Conversions
A sermon preached by the Reverend Diane Teichert
First Parish Unitarian Universalist - Canton, MA
December 5, 2004
As the sermon title says, we don’t do conversion here.
I want to talk about this in two ways this morning, in regard to two (on the face of it) very different perspectives. The first is from your perspective, the person in the pew.
The second is from the perspective of the people who are served by the Unitarian Universalist Service Committee, some of whom are pictured on the little box we hope you’ll take home with you today to put on your kitchen table or counter and fill up with money between now and January. This Guest At Your Table fund-drive is the only appeal we make here at First Parish for the Service Committee each year.
We don’t do conversion here.
You’ve perhaps heard that some folks here like to say, “one thing I like about Unitarian Universalism is that you don’t have to check your brain with your hat, at the door.”
Well, you don’t have to check your religion at the door, either!
By that I mean: if you have come to Unitarian Universalism from some other faith tradition, we don’t ask you to give it all up. In fact, I encourage you to look back over it to discover what in that religion is good and right and meaningful to you and retain it for yourself, even as you look back over it to understand where it wasn’t helpful and didn’t make sense.
Every religion has something of value in it, and I believe that those of us who came out of some other tradition will feel more whole, more wholly ourselves—perhaps, even, more holy (with no “W”)!—if we make peace with what we’ve left behind. Even when our anger is most justified—as it is in cases of emotional or sexual abuse by a member of the clergy—there will be something to salvage.
When I look back over the religion of my childhood, which was liberal Presbyterianism, I recall that I loved congregational life. My parents did, too, but I loved it myself. Just as I do here. I really liked knowing the people, I enjoy being involved in the activities, I felt good about worship. Even as I left the (to me) unbelievable doctrines behind, I retained these loves from my childhood. I love the sense of community in congregational life.
Now, I can well imagine that warning signs may be flashing in the minds of those of you who grew up as Unitarians, or Universalists or Unitarian Universalists, depending on your age. What does she mean, that people don’t have to give up their religion when they become Unitarian Universalists? If she persists with that line of thinking, pretty soon we’ll turn into whatever religion the majority of these newcomers left! We’ll be saying Mass every week! Maybe she has a secret desire to be a priest?!!
Of course, those of us who come to Unitarian Universalism from another religion cannot expect to recreate it, or aspects of it, here. Sometimes people do, either consciously or subconsciously, and of course that isn’t helpful to the them or to the congregation.
But, because we don’t do conversions, because we don’t expect people who came from another religion to erase it, as if they could ever be a clean slate again, we find ourselves as a community desiring to learn about and honor the traditions of religions other than Unitarian Universalism, especially the ones represented in the personal histories of our own members.
At this time of year, this desire becomes fully apparent. Today, we sang “O Come O Come Emmanuel” as the opening hymn and lit the first and second Advent candles, because this is the second Sunday in Advent, the four weeks prior when Christians prepare for Christmas—preparing in a spiritual sense, not a shopping sense, as our Reading a few moments suggested.
Next Sunday, the third Sunday in Advent, we will light three Advent candles. On that day, we will also light five candles on the Menorah to honor Hanukkah, which will be by then five of eight days old. The following Sunday, December 19 th, we’ll light four Advent candles and a yule log, to celebrate the Winter Solstice. The Menorah will be on display but not lit, because Hanukkah will have ended; similarly, we’ll display the unlit kinara, the candelabra for Kwanzaa, which begins the day after Christmas.
Each of these winter holidays, these festivals of light, are celebrated in First Parish households, and so we honor them here as well. But given our interest in all of the world’s religions, we also like to learn about and honor even the traditions not represented yet among us, as we did with the Eid al Fitr, the end of Ramadan a few weeks ago.
So, we don’t do old-style conversions here, but UU minister Daniel Ó Connell conceives of four simple (not easy!) steps to converting UU-style or, for recommitting to Unitarian Universalism for those of us who have been around for a while and perhaps have grown complacent, as follows:
Identify your religious history. To deepen your spiritual journey, you must know your map, where you have been and what it means to you.
Articulate your own theology . We may not ever finish the process, but too many of us never really get started. Why are you here? Where is the joy in your life? What do you willingly give your life to? What do you believe about life and death, the divine, spirituality and religious experience, ethical living?
Take some spiritual risks. If you don’t believe in God, try prayer anyway. If you don’t like being around the poor and destitute, work in a soup kitchen. If you’re afraid of death, volunteer in a hospital. If you’re worried about our country, organize a public forum. If you’re not creative, write poetry, paint, or sing. Use your spiritual fear like a Geiger counter—not to stay away, but to run headlong toward. Such risk-taking will help you grow spiritually and it will modify your theology, which in turn will suggest new spiritual risk-taking.
Become an elder. When we first get involved with a religious community, we pay attention to our own spiritual needs. Many of us come to a Unitarian Universalist congregation for the first time fresh from or in the midst of crisis. It is natural to first find out how First Parish can serve our spiritual needs. But converting to Unitarian Universalism, or recommitting ourselves to it, cannot stop there. O’Connell says, Once we identify our individual religious history, articulate our own theology, and take some spiritual risks, we must take our “ministry” or service out into the larger world, through and with the congregation, working for a more just and peaceful world. (Adapted from “How to Convert” in UU World magazine, July/August 2003)
That, my friends, that work for a more just and peaceful world, is where the Unitarian Universalist Service Committee enters in. That’s their job, in our name. To work, on our behalf, for a more just and peaceful world. They’ve got a mission, but it’s not a missionary effort.
As you heard from Judith earlier, when the UUSC works in an impoverished or oppressed community, whether domestic or abroad, their purpose is empowerment, not conversion. They work with, and sometimes help start, local organizations through which people can work for the changes they need.
Kind of like the barnyard animals in the Time for All Ages story this morning, among which were cows that type up the group’s demands. No missionary in that barnyard saying, “folks, if you really want those electric blankets, you must give up your animalism and accept my religion as your own. When you do, all manner of good things upon you will fall.”
The UU Service Committee does not do missionary work. They do not proselytize our religion as they work for a more just and peaceful world. I’ve always liked this about them, and about us.
By contrast, international aid and development programs that come with religious strings attached seem to me to violate the inherent worth and dignity of the people they are meant to serve, by demeaning and sometimes even destroying their indigenous cultural and/or religious traditions.
But, I’ve begun to wonder about our high principles in this regard. Is it somewhat elitist? Why wouldn’t we want to preach our good news of universal love, the inherent worth and dignity of every person, the interconnected web of the natural world…to low-income people here or abroad? Do we assume it’s not for them?
If we, through the UUSC, were somehow able to continue the empowerment approach, but add to it an invitation to consider our Unitarian Universalist good news and join us in this covenantal religion, might we be furthering our principles—our values of welcome and inclusion, and of peace through justice, and our open-minded interpretation of sacred scriptures—that our badly divided world so sorely needs?
I don’t know, it would be a delicate enterprise. The power of the “haves” (that would be us) over the “have nots” complicates things greatly. Converting people to Unitarian Universalism does not appeal to me, but preaching our good news does! Extending our welcome does! Inviting people to get to know us and our ideals, and we them and their ideals does!
We don’t do conversions, but we Unitarian Universalists are doing more reaching out with our message of love and hope than ever before—locally, at the district level and nationally. I think it’s exciting! With our rainbow flag, our paid newspaper ads, and increased efforts in recent years to be visible in the community, even First Parish is getting out there with this good news! Let’s be ready to offer a radical kind of hospitality!
So may it be. Amen.