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Listen Now!
Rev. Anya Sammler-Michael
Our individual perspectives do not prevent a common
understanding.
I might define a Granny Smith apple by telling you about its
round and shiny light green exterior. My
friend who has a great appreciation for the fruit's taste might explain its
tart sweetness and near floral scent. An
owner of a Granny Smith orchard might define a Granny Smith by sharing its
growing season, predators, and preferred climate. And if any of us was asked to define what
exactly an "apple" is - the task would explode with complexity. Yet in most instances, when the word "apple"
is shared in conversation, understanding abounds.
Our individual perspectives do not prevent a common
understanding.
If I believed that there was only one true and right apple
(my personal favorite, the Stamen) - and if I was willing to defend my
prejudice to the death, the common understanding would suffer. I would think apple and in my mind an image
of a pure and ripe Stamen would appear.
When my friend held up a Granny Smith and asked me if I wanted to share
some of her apple - rather than enjoy the offering, I might shout "Apple?! That's not any apple I know!" and demand a
duel!
A ridiculous enterprise to be certain, but none so foreign
when the word "religion" is defined.
From the birth of monotheistic faith onward believers have
conjured the notion that there is one true faith and a multitude of dirty
little wrong ones.
A great example comes from the history of the early
Christian church. The word Heresy came
into wide use at the same point that the idea of Orthodoxy (right teaching) was
born. In a vehement tract "Against
Heresies," Iranaeus, an early Church father reviles the Gnostics as
unrepentant, unforgivable "evil expounders," and warns all true
believers to run from their false teaching.[1]
Ireneus established the orthodoxy - the "one true and
life-giving faith."[2] At the same time that he rejected all the
false ones - all the heresies - all the Granny Smiths!
But before we scoff at Ireneaus, let's turn the mirror on
our own history. The Unitarian Church
did its own heretic bashing. Before we came to embrace the Transcendentalists -
Emerson, Thoreau and others, many prominent Unitarians wrote tracts dismissing transcendentalism
as ridiculous - ‘a foul turn in our movement'.
We might not use the word heretic - but we too may believe that there is
one true way and a multitude of dirty little wrong ones.
And all of this makes defining religion treacherous. My definition springs from my prejudice. It
will look a lot more like a Unitarian Universalist definition than, say, a
Buddhist or Jewish definition of religion.
But it is worth the struggle.
The purpose is not solely academic - not for a Unitarian
Universalist - not for a minister or a lay participant in a faith community
that hears questions from inside its ranks asking ‘Is this a religion?' and
protestations from outside demanding that it is not.
Recently, the not-for-profit status of one of our
congregations in Texas was challenged.
Since our movement is non-creedal, the legislation proposed that
Unitarian Universalism is not a religion.
The challenge was quickly put down, but a fierce unrest remains in my
heart.
This is not the way I always felt. In my early teen years I was convinced by
Marx's observation that "religion was the opiate of the people." I saw how religion enabled the inquisition,
the witch-hunts, crusades, wars, the holocaust, and I could see no good in
something that paired with such evil.
At the time I was participating in a Liberal Religious Youth
group at my home congregation in New Haven, Connecticut. But I didn't call that religion. I drove a wedge between what I did on Sunday
and what Religion did in the world. And
at that time, I needed that wedge - it gave me the freedom to love this faith.
But I no longer need or desire that wedge. I look over our religion's history and see a
bold engagement - brilliant men and women willing to struggle within a tradition, to expand the
definition of what it means to be religious, to demand religious freedom and
encourage free thought.
Michael Servetus, murdered in 1553 by John Calvin for his
Unitarian heresies, proclaimed, "God gave us the mind so that we can know
him." A protest that paved the way for
the Unitarian Universalists of Sterling to claim ‘a faith where reason and
spirituality merge.'
And indeed Servetus charged us, before his execution, to
further the cause of rational religion saying, "I will burn, but this is a mere
event. We shall continue our discussion
in eternity." That eternity is
ours. I hope our work for the cause of
religious freedom will be so bold.
So I stand here aware that I far too often let others define
the word religion for me
-
that I far too easily welcome the label heretic
-
that I far too easily rest in the shadowed
comfort of an outsider's status.
I stand here aware that I far too rarely stand and defend
this faith with confidence,
- that I far too rarely let that fierce unrest that lives in
my heart proclaim the beauty that is this faith
- the awesome herald
of life's possibility that is this religion.
It is for this reason that I too define the word religion -
so I may know it and claim it, and use it with pride.
So lets journey back first to the etymology, where the word
"religion" began. The word "Religion" dates to the 13th century -
loaned from the Latin religio,
meaning ‘reverence for the God or gods,' or ‘careful ponderance of divine
things.' Going back even further - the origins of religio are obscure but many
scholars trace the root to ligare,
meaning to ‘bind' or ‘connect' - then adding the re, meaning ‘again' religare would be to bind again, or
reconnect.
Re-connect to what?
Well, the word religare comes
from the Greek Philosopher Plato's culture.
In his work, Plato's Symposium,
Aristophanes claims that the gods initially created near perfect beings that
were, basically, two people stuck together - one man and one woman, two men, or
two women... But these beings were too
near perfect and their brilliance threatened the supremacy of the gods. Jealously, the gods split them in two. From that point onward the half beings would
circle the earth, searching another to complete them. And only when they were re-connected would they find peace.
Re-connect. Buddhist
meditation is a process by which practitioners re-connect with their true
self. The Hindu faith calls believers to
re-connect with Brahma or a unified sense of being. Earth based religions aid believers to
re-connect with the earth or earth mother.
The Jewish faith encourages Jews to re-connect with God by living their
part of a covenantal relationship.
Christian believers hold that they can re-connect to God through
Christ. Islamic believers reconnect to
God by engaging a disciplined faith.
In all of these faiths, and others, re-connection is our
path to enlightenment, to oneness with God, atonement with earth.
... and religion is the structure that invites and
encourages this re-connection to occur.
This is where my definition grows roots. This is also where it becomes apparent that I
am speaking from a liberally religious perspective. As the poet Jallal al din Rumi shares: "There
are hundreds of ways to kneel and kiss the ground."[3] Rather than define religion as a particular
approach to a particular problem. I
define it as a vast field of approaches to a particular problem.
Well - actually a universal problem. One that is hinted at in the reading we heard
earlier. Why is there a mad rush for
lingerie? Why do some people devote
their lives to God, hidden away in a monastery? The lives we choose are built
around our bodily needs for food and shelter, but not solely. And they are
built around our political or social wants, but not only. There is more that we year for. You might say we are called.
I remember only a little from the first adult services I
heard in my home congregation, the Unitarian Society of New Haven - but what I
remember made an indelible mark. Within
the service the minister shared a poem, spoke of a troublesome event that had
happened somewhere in the world, and shared some on the emotional response to
tragedy... then somehow wove it all
together - drawing connection she helped us explore a previously hidden
meaning.
Like a basic worship service, our lives are a bundle of
disparate bits and pieces. We have
rational thoughts, emotions, and physical needs. We want to act ethically, but not all
‘ethical' decisions are clear. We engage
in a political sphere. We have friends
and relatives that need our care, children that need our discipline. Our capacities are limited but our dreams,
not so much. We read the paper. We read poetry.
Religion is a structure that can help us to re-connect, that
can bind the disparate bits of our lives. It provides a way for us to
comprehend our existence not solely as a bundle of disparate bits and pieces,
but as a whole, a unified, meaningful experience. This can happen in a worship service - but it
goes deeper than that.
For theists this wholeness centers on God, and God's
relationship to the creation, for religious humanists it may be the recognition
that we are all somehow connected in this interdependent web of existence.
But for all religious humanity this breath of understanding
takes one step toward making sense of it all.
Albert Einstein asks: "What is the meaning of human life ...?" Then
responds that "To answer this question implies
a religion." He allows that "All
religions, arts and sciences are branches of the same tree. All these aspirations are directed toward the
ennobling of man's life, lifting it from the sphere of mere physical existence
and leading the individual toward freedom,"[4] but it is the religious question that blatantly
and directly asks ‘what does all this mean?'
And here again it will become apparent that I come at this
discussion from a liberally religious perspective. An orthodox believer might say that it is the
purpose of religion to answer that question - to explain ‘what all this
means.'
I don't believe a religion must provide, or even can provide
an answer but I know that it can offer a structure - a structure where we can
encounter that astounding question, where our search can be encouraged, where
we can engage together, with our tradition, with our community, and with all
our senses in the active and ever evolving process of answering for our selves
and for each other, what all this means.
It is, dear community, a high calling and a beautiful way to
share in this experience of life. It is
a base for ethical living, for compassion and empathy - a structure that is
ever evolving - holding us to answer for our actions, to re-connect to that
force or ideal or God that will enable us to summon the better angels of our
being.
Amen and May it be So.
[1]
Selections from the Work Against Heresies, Irenaeus, Bishop of Lyons:
358-369.
[2] Ibid,
369.
[3] Jallal
al din Rumi: "Spring Giddiness," transl. Coleman Barks.
[4] Albert
Einstein, "The World as I See It," 1934.
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