Rev. Ann C. Fox
(508) 992-7081
UFairhaven@aol.com
Unitarian
Universalist
Society of Fairhaven
On Faith and Principle
a sermon by Rev. Ann C. Fox
May 18, 2008
Note: At the end of this sermon is a reading and also the UU Principles and Sources, which you may like to read first.
We are inquiring this morning about faith. I think you may have heard this story about faith before: The temporary secretary was struggling to open a combination lock on the supply cabinet. She had been told the combination, but couldn't quite remember it. She asked the pastor for help. He began to turn the dial. After the first two numbers he paused and stared blankly for a moment. Finally he looked serenely heavenward and his lips moved silently. Then he looked back at the lock, and quickly turned to the final number, and opened the lock. The secretary was amazed and said. "Pastor, I'm in awe at your faith." He answered, "It's really nothing. The number is on a piece of tape on the ceiling."
In our Unitarian Universalist world, the classic story is when someone asks you what UUs believe and you’re hard put to give a concise answer. Perhaps you’ll relate a couple of our seven principles or say, “All beliefs are accepted” or “We are free to form our own truth.” What is really being asked of us is, “In what do you have faith? This is equally hard to answer because you wouldn’t want to offend the other person or sound arrogant by saying, “I have faith in my own deepest experience.” Yet this is precisely what the Buddhist teacher Sharon Salzberg would say without apology. (I remind us that our Transcendentalist forbears believed that the only true religious experience is intuition, which is another way of saying “my own deepest experience.”)
One reason why Unitarian Universalists look to modern Buddhist teachers for clues to articulating our own faith is because Buddhism doesn’t look to a supreme being in another world to solve life’s problems. It asks us first to come to know the self, to inquire into the self and by knowing the self, we come to know the world for the problems of the self are the problems of the world. So today, we will compare and contrast some Buddhist perspectives with Unitarian Universalist perspectives.
Another word for “faith” is “trust.” Sharon Salzberg tells us that in the Buddha’s ancient language, Pali, the word for “faith” means “putting one’s heart upon.” This leads me to think of faith as being “deep trust.”
Psychologists tell us that our trust in the world is first established by being treated respectfully and kindly by our earliest caregivers. Salzberg had much abandonment in her early years. She had to rebuild her trust through her spiritual journey, trying desperately not to make her spiritual teachers into the nurturing parents she had lacked. Those of us who were blessed with kind caretakers in our childhood generally have a “built-in” faith that the world and its people can be counted upon. Our growing up experience strengthens this faith, or shakes this faith.
Faith is what gets us out of bed in the morning. Faith is what inspires us to take journeys into unknown lands. Faith is what reassures us that the “rose will open.” The hymn we sang this morning says, “I know this rose will open. I know my fear will burn away. I know my soul will unfurl its wings. I know this rose will open.” (Hymn 396) It’s a song we might sing or whisper like a prayer in a difficult time, a time of suffering, to remind us of our faith that life will go on.
Recently, someone in a group I was in said how remarkable it was that an elderly woman was attending a wedding when her husband had just died a week ago. One woman looked at me, wide-eyed and said, “Life goes on!” I could see from her gaze that this was a deep experience for her. It was an affirmation of her faith, not faith from doctrine but faith from her deep experience.
How can we consciously deepen our faith, thus accessing that place of deepest experience or “intuition” as the transcendentalist would say? Let me tell you the path that the Buddhists advise and you can ponder whether we are on a similar path. First, they say:
1. Take refuge in the Buddha. This doesn’t mean that we should adore the historical figure called The Buddha. It means that we should look to our own inner wisdom for guidance (our Buddha-nature). A UU approach: Even Jesus said to us, “All that is in heaven is within you.” My opinion is that we do know this but we need to claim it more deeply. How do we take refuge in our inner wisdom? We do more consciously what we do now: ponder more deeply and more extensively on the issues of our lives. Today, we pondered deeply about the plight of our neighbors in Myanmar by having a compassionate offering for them. May we take refuge in our deepest wisdom more often.
2. The second Buddhist teaching is to take refuge in the sangha. The sangha is the spiritual community of our peers. A UU approach: I believe that we do this and would benefit from more consciously honoring and celebrating our participation in our religious community. May we take refuge in our church community more often.
3. The third Buddhist teaching is to take refuge in the dharma, which is the truth of the world. This could be what is true about life, relationship, or nature. This is what we focus on learning to advance our understanding, our enlightenment. A UU approach: I believe that Unitarians and Universalists wanted some guidelines for us all to follow or at least consider and so, in 1984, we came up with the principles that we said in the responsive reading. And then we wanted to specify what we would use to inspire us and so we came up with the sources, which are broad and wide. May we take refuge in our principles and sources from which we draw inspiration. (Note that the principles and sources are at the end of this sermon.)
How would it be for us to say:
· I am nurtured and enlightened from my deepest experiences.
· I am nurtured and enlightened by my church participation.
· I am enlightened by pondering our principles and sources and all the issues life offers me.
My belief is that if we own and engage our faith more, we will experience transformation and a greater sense of reaching our highest ideals. If we do this, don’t be surprised if we become concerned that greater justice should be done in the world; this is our tradition from the time Unitarianism was established as a religion in the early 19th century. The Universalists also embraced justice and called it the Social Gospel (as did other Protestant denominations). If we claim and engage our principles and sources, the justice work we do will be far more wisely and calmly done.
Speaking of enlightenment, teachings, values, and so on, we have an opportunity to change or affirm our principles and sources. It is more than 30 years since they were accepted. Would you consider coming to a meeting on either Wednesday evening, May 28th at 7 PM or before church on Sunday, June 8th at 9:15 AM? At these meetings, we’ll look at the Principles and Sources and brainstorm some suggested changes. I’ll make sure that the group charged with revising them receives our suggestions. I have put sign-up sheets out in the Auditorium. Here is the opportunity to work on the dharma or understandings part of our faith.
It is still not easy to articulate adequately the content of our faith and it is good to struggle with this. Meanwhile, a modern-day Buddhist teacher has offered us simple words of explanation until we find our own. For many of us, we can comfortably say, “I have faith in my own deepest experience. It is a faith that emphasizes a foundation of love and respect for ourselves and others. It doesn’t require a belief in God; neither does it deny it.” (Adapted from the preface of Faith by Sharon Salzberg.)
May we embrace the path of our faith, which is: a) To be nurtured and enlightened from our deepest experiences; b) To be nurtured and enlightened by participation in our church community; and c) To be enlightened by pondering our principles and sources and all the issues life offers us. In more recent history, we have identified ourselves as the “Faith of the Larger Liberty.” Today, we seek to articulate that faith in our own deep experience and ground it in love and compassion.
Reading: from Faith: Trusting Your Own Deepest Experience
By Sharon Salzberg
One day a friend called to ask if we could meet… Knowing that I was writing a book on faith from the Buddhist perspective, she was confused and wanted to talk. “How can you possibly be writing a book on faith without focusing on God?” she demanded. “Isn’t that the whole point?” Her concern spoke to the common understanding we have of faith—that it is synonymous with religious adherence. But the tendency to equate faith with doctrine, and then argue about terminology and concepts, distracts us from what faith is actually about. In my understanding, whether faith is connected to a deity or not, its essence lies in trusting ourselves to discover the deepest truths on which we can rely.
I want to invite a new use of the word faith, one that is not associated with a dogmatic religious interpretation or divisiveness. I want to encourage delight in the word, to help reclaim faith as fresh, vibrant, intelligent, and liberating. This is a faith that emphasizes a foundation of love and respect for ourselves. It is a faith that uncovers our connection to others, rather than designating anyone as separate and apart.
Faith does
not require a belief system, and is not necessarily connected to a deity or
God, though it doesn’t deny one…it is an inner quality that unfolds as we
learn to trust our own deepest experience.
The Unitarian Universalist Seven Principles and Six Sources (our “scripture”):
We, the member congregations of the Unitarian Universalist Association, covenant to affirm and promote:
· The inherent worth and dignity of every person,
· Justice, equity, and compassion in human relations,
· Acceptance of one another and encouragement to spiritual growth in our congregations,
· A free and responsible search for truth and meaning,
· The right of conscience and the use of the democratic process within our congregations and in society at large,
·
The goal of world community
with peace, liberty, and
justice for all,
· Respect for the interdependent web of all existence of which we are a part.
The living tradition we share draws from many sources:
- Direct experience of that transcending mystery and wonder, affirmed in all cultures, which moves us to a renewal of the spirit and an openness to the forces that create and uphold life;
- Words and deeds of prophetic women and men which challenge us to confront powers and structures of evil with justice, compassion, and the transforming power of love;
- Wisdom from the world’s religions which inspires us in our ethical and spiritual life;
- Jewish and Christian teachings which call us to respond to God’s love by loving our neighbors as ourselves;
- Humanist teachings which counsel us to heed the guidance of reason and the results of science, and warn us against idolatries of the mind and spirit.
- Spiritual teachings of Earth-centered traditions which celebrate the sacred circle of life and instruct us to live in harmony with the rhythms of nature.
© The Rev. Ann C. Fox