Love is the doctrine of this church.
The liberal church…this church…is often understood to have freedom at its center. Freedom from the rigidity of creeds. Freedom from hierarchical religious authority.
Freedom “from.”
But that is to misunderstand the tradition out of which we come.
And I believe it is also to miss…by a mile…the challenge and the opportunity we face as we begin to regather.
Because the center of this faith is not freedom “from” anything. It is freedom…yes…
But Freedom … to search for what love calls us to do and how love calls us to live…on every new day.
Let me quote Rev. Alice Blair Wesley: “Ultimately, the only freedom adequate to human dignity is the freedom to do what love asks of us. And the greatest blessings of life come to us and through us to all the world when…we are trying together to live with the integrity of faithful love.”
She goes on: “This is what it means to say together (as we did at the beginning of this service):
Love is the doctrine of this church.”
The freedom to do what love asks of us. To live with the integrity of faithful love.
Wesley is perhaps the leading voice for what is called the “free church” tradition…the tradition of congregational independence…congregational polity it is called…that we have received…the tradition which we are now challenged to live out in a changed world.
To claim that the only freedom worth the effort, the only freedom adequate to the fullness of being human, is the freedom to do what love demands of us…
This is not freedom “from” anything.
Because, you see, if he only freedom worth the effort is the freedom to do what love asks of us…
this is freedom to be bound by our very best understanding of what love calls us to do.
It is freedom to be committed, freedom to take our lives seriously enough…to be faithful.
And our commitment to that faithfulness…the hope that adheres us to that faithfulness…is given voice in our covenant…
This morning we recited together the entire, original Griswold covenant…it has roots that reach far back but Williams arranged it for our faith…
We recited not only: “Love is the doctrine of this church.” We say that often.
But these final words as well:
Thus do we covenant with each other and with God.
Thus do we covenant with each other…the covenant, the accountability…is horizontal…with each other…yes that…
AND with God.
However you may name that which transcends…that which is larger than your single life…whatever language you use…Spirit of Life, the Buddha-nature, the power of human possibility…or if, as I do, you use the language of God…covenant also has a vertical dimension.
Even if you use no name at all for that which is larger than your single life…
We are in covenant not only with one another…but with Life itself.
James Baldwin spoke about “doing our first works over.” Particularly when love makes it clear that change must come…that change is coming…
Baldwin said: “In the church I come from…we were counseled, from time to time, to do our first works over. …Go back … as far as you can, travel your road again and tell the truth about it. Sing or shout or testify…or keep it to yourself…”he said…”but know whence you came. Examine everything …and tell the truth about it…as best you can.”
Do your first works over.
Years ago, I argued with the “free church” proponents within Unitarian Universalism…because it is so easy to center the assumptions and the hopes of those who are already here…and miss the voices on the margins.
I argued that the free church tradition did not have space enough for my understanding of love of neighbor, of justice…did not have room enough for a freedom understood as liberation from oppression, from those things that push us down.
But we have more resources today. This church has gotten the message about oppression, about exclusion and about appropriation. We have the lens of the 8thPrinciple to help this church not miss so much, nor make so many assumptions born of privilege…
In this time, when we have been “cracked open” by Covid, when we know that change must come…
This is the time for First Unitarian, I believe, to do its first works again…so that the church can meet its New Day.
Topics: Gratitude