Honest Religion: One More Honest Adult

July 13, 2008

First UU Church of Austin

4700 Grover Ave., Austin, TX 78756

www.austinuu.org

Listen to the sermon by clicking the play button.

A few months ago I received an email forward. You know, one of those forwards that has a new piece of information that will shock me, something I am supposed to send to all of my friends and family before it is too late. No, this email was not the one informing me that one of our presidential candidates is a secret Muslim intent on turning our government over to Iran (although I have received that one), nor was it one of the string of emails warning me of evil men lurking in the parking lots of Wal-Mart, Target, or my local gas station waiting to attack at any moment. Has anyone else been getting these, or is it just me?

No, this particular email forward wanted to shock me by bringing some truth to light about a public figure who was not who he appeared to be – someone who represented our highest aspirations of innocence, education, and family. This email was about Mr. Rogers.

I was told that Fred Rogers had a violent criminal past he hid from us, that he was forced to work on public television for children as part of his parole, that he had served in the past as a sniper in the Navy Seals with many confirmed kills – that the real reason he wore those sweaters was to cover up his many tattoos from his time in battle.

Of course, this email was far from honest, but I got sucked in for a moment. The truth about Mr. Rogers is far less shocking. He had never served in the military but instead was ordained as a Presbyterian minister, and his trademark sweaters were all hand-sewn by his mother.

After spending some time online debunking this email, thinking to myself that my beloved internet had once again stolen another hour of my life, I found something that moved me. In an interview on the television show, Hour Magazine, in the 1980’s, Fred Rogers discussed the philosophy behind his show and his interactions with children. “I’m sure you know this,” he said, “but the best thing you can ever do is just be yourself.” The best thing we can do for children and others, he said, is simply to “give them one more honest adult in their lives.”

Throughout the last few years, this church has been placing ads in the newspaper, one of which reads, “Honest Religion.” After seeing this interview, I got to thinking: “What does honest religion look like on the ground?” What would it look like for a place like this to call us each to give to the world “one more honest adult?”

Our Unitarian Universalist community has a long tradition of its members searching to build an honest religion and an honest spiritual life. We have hundreds of years of experience attempting to build a faith whose members don’t have to take for granted what they hear in church. A faith like ours challenges each and every one of us to ask whether what we hear and experience here honestly fits with what the real world looks like, with what our lives teach us.

This is not a simple religion. In an honest faith like ours, none of us can have our worth determined by what some book, some society, some theologian, or any other person says. Each of us is constantly, every day, called to ask these questions for ourselves: “Who am I, really? What moves me? Am I living the life that wants to live in me?”

In my own experience, when I slow down and take this challenge of honest religion in my life, I experience two things that seem to contradict one another at first. One the one hand, I discover that there are places in my life where I could be doing a lot better, that I could be in much better relationship with my family, friends, with what I call God. On the other hand, though, I find that no person in the world deserves more love by birth, that the world is not divided into “saved” and “damned,” that what is sacred is infused within all people and creation. It is funny ? I find that we are not yet as good as we could be, and yet more precious than we can ever know.

I’m willing to bet that there is at least someone else here today whose has found it’s not simple to live as an authentic person. It is not always easy to be honest, even with ourselves. A struggle in much of our society today is people trying to appear as something different, something they think would give them more value. The lower and middle classes are buying themselves into poverty trying to look like the upper class. So many of us spend our time and money trying to appear thinner, smarter, more educated – or just anything but ourselves. In the film version of the book, Fight Club, one character laments, “Advertizing has us chasing cars and clothes, working jobs we hate so that we can buy [things] we don’t need…we’ve all been raised on television to believe that one day we’d all be millionaires and movie gods and rock stars??

Our culture often has its own suggestions as to what we should strive to be. What is it that honest religion would ask to us to be? Long before modern movies, of course, people were dealing with issues just like ours. In the book of Luke, the teacher Jesus cautioned his disciples not to be deceived, that a person’s life is not measured by the sum of their possessions. The Buddha, too, knew this when he proposed that in a world full of deception, full of distractions about who we are, a world in which we can constantly cling to attachment, one of the most radical things we can do is be aware in this moment, present for life as it really is – living instead of labeling.

I cannot speak for you, but in my life, this honest religion is easier said than done. It is so tempting for me to have others believe that I’m strong enough to deal with any adversity. It is tempting sometimes not to ask for help, to present this version of myself to the world that is smart enough and competent enough to handle anything that comes my way. Anybody else? It is almost too compelling to wear the label of most talented, best looking, most creative, the perfect friend, parent, or partner. I wonder what it would look like to live such an honest life, to let go of those masks, to shake off the weight and the stress of trying to be perfect people that we cannot be – that no one can be.

For me, honest religion means finding out who I am in this world without the negative stories we tell about ourselves as well. How often have I told myself that because I failed once, I could not succeed again? How often can we replay that mistake, that dumb thing we said or did over and over again until we start to believe that’s who we are?

Let this religion call us to give the world one more honest adult. Many of us left traditions that told us human beings, just for being born, were so depraved and sinful that we would deserve hell without someone’s assistance – that real change in the world would not be possible if a supernatural force did not do it for us. Let’s be honest, we can’t wait for that to happen if we want justice in this world.

However, it seems that in liberal religious communities, we’ve also sometimes told a false story about what it means to be human. Many of us, including myself, have sometimes let ourselves believe that human beings were born so inherently good that we will continue every day to progress onward and upward. We get shocked when evil things happen. An honest religion, I think, is going to have to live within the tension that the 20th century brought us – that human beings can be beautiful and frightening, all at the same time.

And a religion such as this is not just a challenge for individuals, but for our communities as well. Honest churches must continually face with courage the core questions of our identity. Who are we? What are we called to do? Whom/What do we serve? We have to ask ourselves, “Are we called to be a sanctuary for the like-minded? Are we called to be the religious wing of the DNC? Is our purpose in this world to be the best kept secret in religion?” I don’t think so.

But in being honest with ourselves, again this means that we are confronted not only with our imperfections, but also with our best selves – our amazing selves. This means also that we must live up to the honor of this religious tradition (and this is a good thing). To be honest with ourselves, we do have something to offer this world. We have something to offer people who come looking for community, who come looking for change. As a community, we DO have history. We didn’t just arise from the vapor somewhere in the 1960’s. Thousands of years and countless individuals brought us to where we are.

I think it is safe to say that, for many here, our past selves would be pretty surprised to see us sitting in this church on Sunday morning. I know mine would be. An honest religion knows that you aren’t a bad person for not going to church, but that those of us who do have come for a reason. We seek to renew our minds, to learn more about life itself, to find community, to call our best selves into the world. Each of us had a lot of choices of where we could have been this morning: sleeping, seeing a movie, reading a good book, catching up with friends. But something brought us here, together. If I am a UU Christian, something has me here this morning instead of the liberal Christian church down the road. If I’m a UU Buddhist, something calls me to a place like this instead of the Zen center or local sangha, etc.

For those that might be newer to our community, you’ll find that there is a tremendous amount of theological diversity in a Unitarian Universalist congregation. However, this strength can sometimes lead us to believe that we’re more different than we are alike. But we can see the unity in this diversity; we can experience the shared values that bring us to a place like this. When we are honest, we know that there is something to sink our teeth into here. But it’s hard to admit that what we do matters, because if we do, we have to live up to it.

Last week, I talked about the well known UU theologian and ethicist James Luther Adams. In the book, On Being Human Religiously, Adams points out what he believes to be the central, necessary assumptions of religious liberalism, and, using an image from the biblical David and Goliath story, he calls them the “Five Smooth Stones of Religious Liberalism.” Here’s what Adams offers:

1) “Revelation is continuous.” Here, an honest faith proclaims that there is always more truth to be found in our religious lives. All the truth of the world cannot possibly be contained in one book, one teacher, one tradition, and so we keep searching.

2) All relations between people should be based on consent, and not coercion. The honest religion cannot make you believe something or join its congregation. It is an invitation into a shared life together. It invites you to bring your mind with you.

3) We have a moral obligation to direct our efforts toward justice in this world. In other words, the honest church knows that we do not only serve ourselves; justice is shaped with human hands.

4) We deny “the immaculate conception of virtue.” Here Adams means that there is no abstract good, we must bring goodness into the world. “The good” is brought about in our history, in our relationships, in good partners, citizens, friends, and leaders.

5) The resources that are available for achievement of meaningful change justify an attitude of ultimate optimism. There is hope in the ultimate abundance of the Universe. Adams was not naive about the evil in the world. Indeed, he saw it firsthand when we worked with the Underground Church movement in Nazi Germany. However, he asserted, as can we, that the honest religion knows things do not have to be the way they are. We can change the world.

Finally, Adams concludes this essay with an optimism about the core of liberal religion: “Thus, with all the realism and tough-mindedness that can be mustered, the genuine liberal finally can hear and join the Hallelujah Chorus, intellectual integrity, social relevance, amplitude of perspective, and the spirit of true liberation offer no less.”

I don’t know about you, but this is the kind of honest religion I would like to be a part of. We know that religiously liberal does not have to mean religiously timid, but it must mean honest; it must mean humble. When it comes to addressing questions of the sacred, of God, of value and meaning, a common statement coming out of an honest church is going to have to be “We don’t know yet.”

When asked to define the call of a religious life, the prominent Unitarian Universalist minister, Rev. Forest Church, offered this: “Religion is our human response to the dual reality of being alive and having to die.”

What does an honest religious life call us to do? If anything at all, to give to the world one more honest adult. We cannot make each other compassionate, we cannot remove human greed or all violence from the earth, but we can be present and real for this world as it is and each other as we are. Honest religion is not always grand. In fact, it seems that it is made up for the most part of the common moments of life. It might mean saying what we mean when we mean it, like “I love you,” or “I’m sorry.” It might mean giving voice to that uncomfortable fact or emotion in the room that everyone feels but is afraid to admit. It might mean living with our imperfections, our vulnerabilities knowing well that we are not the only ones, that we are not alone.

It asks of us each day, “Who is this self I’m presenting to the world? What masks am I wearing to protect me, and what are they keeping me from doing?” It calls us to speak up, not to remain silent and complicit in the midst of bigotry, racism, or injustice when we know that there is more potential for our beloved community to become real. It calls us to speak up when injustice is done in our name, especially when injustice is done in our name. The prophets of the biblical tradition focused on Israel first.

My spiritual friends, let us give to the world one more honest adult. If we “believe” as Rev. Adams said that revelation is not sealed, then let us search for more truth together. If we can believe that honest religion invites and does not coerce, let us begin the conversation now, let us invite others here. If we know that no supernatural force will bring justice in the world, let us prepare for much work. If we can say unashamedly that there is more hope in this world, let us not be quiet about it, let us make it known in our words, our songs, and in our lives.

Let us offer the chance for some real “honest religion,” because this world needs it. May this place and our communal lives together give the world for each of us, one more honest adult. What better time than now?

Amen.