Our Bodies, Our Spirits, Our Lives: On Launching Our new Congregation Service Project

There’s a now famous incident told about a reporter from the New York Times who, many years before she was famous, asked permission to follow Mother Theresa through one of her work days in her mission hospital in Calcutta.

It was not a media event. It was not while she was on one of her world fundraising tours, which she later used to raise money for the missions. There were no cameras or crowds present as the reporter followed her through a typical workday.

At one point in the day, she spent several hours cleaning and redressing the open sores of the dying in an AIDS ward. The reporter became nauseous and had to go outside to the fresh air. When Mother Theresa came out to check on her, the reporter said, “Mother, I must be honest and tell you that I could not do such work for all the money in the world.”

Mother Theresa patted her hand and said, “Neither could I, my dear. Neither could I.”

While it is perhaps intimidating for us ordinary mortals to contemplate the lives and motivations of such rare spirits as a Mother Theresa or a Clara Barton, what such lives illustrate for us in larger-than-life examples is the call to Service that springs from one’s faith. The call from within the believing heart – to come out and serve in some helping, healing, saving work that makes some tiny piece of the world better, safer, healthier, more just, or simply more livable for one’s effort.

It doesn’t matter what one’s formal faith tradition or creed might be. One universal consequence of a faith-filled attitude towards life is this call to come out of ourselves and join however one can, in whatever way one can, in the honest work of redeeming a wounded and weary world.

I don’t think it matters one iota what the claims of a given faith tradition might be – whether this tradition claims to be the One True Path to God, or whether that tradition claims to follow the greatest Prophet, whether that tradition claims to be the Favored of God, or whether this tradition claims to hear the Divinely inspired Word of God, or which tradition is based on which Sacred Text or which Holy Book, or Old Testament or New – I accept as a given that sincere and good people can find elements of truth and meaning and inspiration in all of them.

We hear a great deal of commentary these days about whether the fanatical warmongers of the world really represent “valid” interpretations of great traditions like Islam or Judaism or Christianity.

With all due respect to the fervent believers everywhere, I think it is much more significant to measure how one’s theology lives than how it reads.

In my experience as a lifelong student of religion, despite whatever claims to theological uniqueness and primacy may exist among the various faith traditions, what holds true for all of them is this universal: by their love shall you know them. That is what any faith – any faith worthy of the name, any faith worthy of respect – is about. Love. Love of God, as one understands such a notion. Love of self, love of neighbor, love of life, love of the world.

If a religion is not founded on Love as its heart and soul, then what possible claim to Truth can it make? What possible Hope can a loveless religion have to offer the world? What possible theological claim can it make on humanity?

John Murray once preached, “the moment one allows faith to enter the heart, there must Love abide.” No other kind of faith deserves respect. Love is the measure. Love is the proof of one’s faith. No matter the particulars of tradition, place, or time. This is the faith beneath all traditions. The faith that calls us to live in Love.

I believe that religion without a notion of service is an empty promise, a hollow vessel, commanding no loyalty offering no redemption to a wounded and imperfect world.

Service is that which calls us into relation, out of ourselves, into connection and engagement with a world ever in desperate need of help and healing. Service is love made tangible. Service is faith put in motion. Service is hope extended to others.

I was pleased last Spring when an initiative was brought to our Annual Congregational Meeting by a number of people supported by the Board proposing to establish an Annual All-Congregation Service Project. The idea was that we as a congregation wanted to do more to encourage both individual and collective “Good Works” in the wider community. The idea was to look toward creating an inclusive kind of year-long outreach project possibly centered around a single general area or social issue that would involve as many people as we could from our membership.

Heaven knows there was no lack of worthy issues to choose from. Hunger, Homelessness, Peace, Healthcare, Illiteracy, and Sexuality and Gender Equality issues were among focus areas that were considered. Any one of them would give us work to do for a lifetime. But we needed a place to start – for as the saying goes, “just because you can do everything is no excuse for choosing to do nothing”. At Annual Meeting, as the discussion evolved and people considered issues, it emerged rather by consensus that there was some passionate interest in building on issues that our congregation began to engage during the interim ministry period, some three years ago, when the ‘Standing On The Side of Love” campaign was first being promoted in our denomination.

That effort has been reinvigorated by the UUA General Assembly this year (that’s the denominational governing body of our Unitarian Universalist Association, for those of you who are new to our faith).

Following the tragic shooting at one of our churches in Knoxville this past year, our denomination is redoubling its commitment to delivering the message that no one should be dehumanized through acts of exclusion, oppression or violence because of his or her identity.

“It is clear our nation is suffering through an epidemic of identity-based violence and oppression,” says Peter Morales, president of the Unitarian Universalist Association. “Our response to these heinous acts must be personal. We must stand on the side of love, in solidarity with those who are targeted based on their identity.”

Based on Unitarian Universalism’s aspirations to create a beloved community, grounded in the principle of the inherent worth and dignity of all people, the campaign will pursue change through advocacy, public witness and speaking out in solidarity with those whose lives are publicly demeaned. The religious point of view has too often been ceded to those who use religion to shut people out, but American history would not have progressed on any social issues without people of faith who fought for justice and who continue to do so.

Standing on the Side of Love continues the UUA’s long tradition of working to expand who is included when religious people speak of beloved community. The UUA’s record encompasses women’s ordination and suffrage, education reform and economic justice.

Standing on the Side of Love is a campaign promoting respect for the inherent worth and dignity of every person. We stand with all who share our belief that no person of any immigrant status, race, religion, gender and sexual orientation or political view should be dehumanized through acts of exclusion, oppression or violence.

We’re calling our local project for this year “Our Bodies, Our Spirits, and Our Lives.” The mnemonic for that is OBOSOL. Right now we see our project as focusing mainly on issues of gender and sexual orientation as areas of continuing serious social oppression and inequality in our society. It’s really amazing to read the daily newspaper just this past week and see how many times and in how many ways the issues of gender and sexual orientation equality come up in our national dialogue. The March on Washington for Gay and Lesbian Marriage Equality this week reminds us that civil marriage is still not a civil right for everyone in this country. ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell,” that ridiculous hushed-up policy invention of the Clinton era, still hangs over the heads of the thousands of LGBT troops who continue to serve with honor in the American military. And every time I read of Justice Ginsburg’s fragile health, I immediately remember that a woman’s right to choose what happens with her own body can be one slender vote away from being overturned by the Supreme Court.

I know, I well understand the progress that we have made in this country during my own lifetime in regard to Women’s Rights, and Racial Civil Rights and Gender legal issues. But I also shudder to realize that hate crimes are a daily reality – actually one every seven minutes according to the FBI statistics – against all manner of minorities in our land. We kid ourselves into a false sense of security if we think that equal rights for minorities does not affect each and every one of our families. Our sons and daughters, the members of our families who may be Lesbian or Gay or Bi-sexual, and Transgendered; our friends and their families; our neighbors; our colleagues at work – the oppression of any affects every one of us.

It is not enough to congratulate ourselves for being as liberal and tolerant as we think we are. We need to continue to push our society until the same freedoms that are enjoyed by some of us are enjoyed by all. That means for those of us who have been privileged in our society we must be willing to take uncomfortable positions on occasion, to stand on the side of love, which is to say, to stand with those whose difference puts them at risk in this society, still. I know that most of us here have good hearts and the best of intentions when we say we welcome all to this church. My hope for us this year, through this service project, is that we can find ways to make our values come alive in outreach and in higher profile in the community.

So, this is what the program is about, “Our Bodies, Our Spirits, and Our Lives.” We need help on the committee, which is being chaired by Brian Dauth. We have a lot of ideas for places we might get involved. There is a Women’s Health center that may need support and escorts for women clients. There is a teen center that is working with LGBT teens. We have speakers coming from the UU UNO office. Some members of our congregations including some youth marched in Washington last week. There will be a table downstairs where you can learn more today. You’ll be hearing and seeing much more about the project as the year unfolds. I think it is potentially very powerful work, transformative work. I’m proud of the congregation for supporting it.