The Authentic Interests of the Church

September 20, 1964
Rochester

September 27, 1964
Williamsville

Belair, 72

Filed under 1980

The Authentic Interests of the Church

You will understand that I am dealing with our variety of Church. Others can speak for the Roman Catholic Church, the Methodist Church, a Jewish Congregation, the Christian Science Church, a Moslem Mosque or a Quaker meeting. My concern is for the Unitarian Universalist Church. What emphases should dominate its congregational affairs, religious education, worship, discussion and social groups? Although I make little reference this morning to it, most of you know that I am aware of our heritage, Unitarian Universalist and Judeo-Christian. The past has guided us, influenced our minds and fastened a strong hold on the emotions of some of us. But the past should not dominate, The authentic interests of the Church can not be derived from what the Church was, but what it has become. Persons interested in this Church as a religious institution will stay with us or depart from us on their appraisal of its worth and character today.

The authentic interests of the Church today are to serve persons in their needs. It is hardly necessary to say that the Church is not a disembodied power that automatically generates spiritual light. The Church is always the persons who make it up at any given time. But the symbol and organization of this constitutional, cooperative community is "The Church." There is an old sermonic chestnut about the minister who preached on the subject, "Recognition of Friends in Heaven." A note was passed to him which read, "Rev. Sir, could you preach a sermon on 'Recognition of friends on earth? I've been coming to Church for six months and no one has spoken to me yet. " A reasonable task you might set for yourself is to take a pad and list the ways the Church does serve persons; and the way the Church should serve persons. How should we recognize "friends on earth?" The question is much wider than friendly hospitality on Sundays, much as we should prize such welcoming.

I would like to speak of three ways we can serve friends on earth; ways I believe to be the authentic interests of the Church:

First, the Church must serve persons in their fears and hopes. Among the most remarkable natural wonders of Yellowstone Park are the hundreds of hot springs and geysers, of which Old Faithful is the best-known. Some of the geysers erupt spectacularly on regular or irregular schedule. Many others do not make this spectacular burst of steam, gas and hot spray, but observation discloses a constant hot bubbling, as water is heated to the boiling point deep in the Earth's twisting crevasses.

The dispositions of persons are somewhat of an analogy to the Yellowstone geysers. Some of us erupt on some regular or erratic schedule; others are not inclined to furious outburst, but bubble constantly inside. We may be effective in our jobs and considered stable in our reactions, but nevertheless the anxieties steam away inside.

We fear for our jobs and status; we worry about our children's activities and future; we fret about a world whose problems seem completely estranged from any actions we might take to alleviate the tense issues. Calendar commitments are forever knocking holes in the dykes of our reserves for rest and re-creative opportunities. The point of excess strain seems hazardously close too frequently.

Increasingly, some of us note that the Church can serve persons in these small and large crises of anxieties. Now, this is not to indicate that the Church can or should be a do-it-yourself psycho-analytic production line. It cannot and should not.

But we are coming to recognize more fully that the experience of Church is not a one-way street beginning at the pulpit and ending at the pew, with other activities committed to supporting this process of sound from preacher and choir, and silence from the pew. Communication is multi-circuit.

The Church serves by providing the setting for dialogue, self-disclosure and the empathetic sharing of the concerns and anxieties of others. I hope that we ministers are beginning to recognize and embrace the value of this sharing of experience. If I may speak personally, nothing appalls me more than that I should be considered the giver of formulas or equations which swiftly solve problems of importance. Nothing attracts me more than to be among the explorers of knowledge; to be a part of spirited search for concensus; and to be among those who have shared the deep things of life wherein we heat the forge which makes malleable the iron of tough decisions.

The Church is serving and can serve better when there is recognition of the positive gains we can make as persons, who in smaller groups or larger gatherings can trust each other with our feelings.

The Church will not erase your anxieties, balance your checking account or tell you what to do about that crucial issue you must decide next week on your job. But the Church can directly and indirectly bring the scatterings of your life and strength into focus, to the end that you will be able to marshall all the resources which are yours.

The Church exists to remind you that the human spirit counts. I'm told that anybody who is anybody talks computers today. The coded tapes become the sources of great expectations for productive abundance beyond our wildest dreams; and also the triggers for nagging fears that the human family may not possess the political and economic dynamism to assimilate such amazing devices, Both the hopes and fears need to be disciplined by the religious truth that the human spirit counts. David Sarnoff stirred a reminder of this significance of the human spirit when he discussed the marvels of computers and what they could do for man. But he spoke a word of caution about the decision-making values of the computers. Then he cited an example! If a modern computer had been fed all the data about the practicality of defending England during World War 2 from the Nazis, the machine would have advised, "give up, the weapons, planes, personnel arid resources just do not exist." But there was no computer, and Winston Churchill scorned the odds and said, "fight; we shall never surrender." And a whole world is different because of that human spirit and the courageous, stubborn response of the English people. The human spirit counts. It is an authentic interest of the Church never to forget that; and to serve as a catalyst for the increasing strength of the human spirit.

A second authentic interest of the Church is a consequence of the first, in that the Church encourages, stimulates, even provokes persons to grapple with the forces that determine destiny. The Church says to you, "come to terms with your nature and your destiny." Here in a free church, it does not matter to the Church as an institution whether you are an agnostic, or Christian believer, or you-name-it. But it matters to you. THE HISTORY OF SYNANON is a fascinating book which deals with cooperative effort to help persons who have become addicted to narcotics. One penetrating observation dealing with this grievous addiction is that many of the addicts with the most fixed habit ("primary") are those who have never developed any type of constructive life pattern. This is an indication pointing to the universal need of a way of thinking. So this Church serves by urging each person discover his pattern for himself. It should no longer be any area of soreness that some of us are Humanists and some are Theists. (Parenthetically, I would say, that for me, more and more life appears to be "humanism within a mystery" of Time and Space, Creation and Destruction. My conviction grows that it is as naïve to ignore the humanistic spirit as it is parochial to reject the overwhelming reality that we have been created by a wondrous force that is not ourselves. (I intend to elaborate in a few weeks when I shall speak of the "God beyond God.")

The Church has a genuine stake in providing expression for these tides of freedom as their differentiated waves tumble on each other as persons reach for the shore of meaning. A poet and theologian have each surmised this truth. Although each speaks of art, the expression is just as true of the authentic interests of the Church. The poet, Willis Eberman wrote,

"No community altogether knows its own heart.
The artist must tell it, must reveal what the average surmise;
must make music or murals from the mass of inarticulate life.
The secrets that he must utter are their own, not his...."

The theologian, Paul Tillich, (SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY, VOL. III, p. 64), wrote, "A work of art is authentic if it expresses the encounter of mind and world in which an otherwise hidden quality of a piece of the universe (and implicitly of the universe itself) is united with an otherwise hidden receptive power of the mind (and implicitly of the person as a whole.)"

A transposition of these two insights about art tells us of the genuine interests of the Church. The Church as a gathered community of seekers must "reveal what the average surmise; must make (words) music, murals from the mass of inarticulate life." The Church as a fellowship of persons covets the "encounter of mind and world" so that both these qualities of the Universe are disclosed and the receptivities of whole persons fulfilled.

Third, in my outline, but carrying the highest priority, the authentic interest of the Church is to serve persons in their need to make ethics count. "Why do you call me Lord, Lord and not do the things I ask?" That ancient challenge confronts us today. In the old Jewish scripture of 2nd Chronicles, the King of Israel called in the seers and sages to seek advice for a war campaign. Their advice was that it was God's will that the king should do as he wanted to do. This is always easy advice to give; comfortable advice to receive. But Micaiah, a prophet, did not repeat what the King wanted to hear. Quite the contrary. Micaiah told the King that if he wanted his action approved by God, the King would have to change his ways. (See reference, Nels Ferre, GOD'S NEW AGE.)

Recall Savonarola (1452-98) whose stern preaching about corruption and vanity enraged Lorenzo Di Medici. Lorenzo sent word to the eloquent monk demanding that he change his preaching style, Savonarola retorted, "You change your ways!" (See Kyle Haselden, THE PULPIT, June, 1964).

There is a profusion of examples from our heritage of the central relationship between religion and ethics. What a man believes is tested by what he does. But of most relevance to us is the perennial question, which always calls for decision, "What should I do?" Morality may have its guidance counsels deep in the culture, but moral realities are always contemporaneous.

What does it mean to act ethically today? It's not enough to know that ethical decisions comprise a large part of a religious heritage. Can I separate being "good" from what I do or do not do in the major crises of contemporary life – national elections, full equality of opportunity, war and peace, nations increasingly united? In order to act ethically one must know what the human needs are in the year, month, day, hour. What does it mean to be "good" today? Anecdotes from 2nd Chronicles and the life of Savonarola may be illustrative, but what is decisive comes back to you and to me with the pressing question, ''What is the good I ought to do? What is the right attitude I must maintain?" To walk away from decision is an answer too.

There was a news item a few months ago (Christian Century, 5/20/64, p. 662) reporting that the Swiss Government had announced that when national television launches its commercial advertising next January 1, five categories will be barred – those involving alcohol, tobacco, medicine, politics and religion.

These may be taboo on Swiss televion, but there are no issues involving the genuine interests of man which can be barred from the Church. Tc do so is to deprive the religious person of the opportunity to make his ethics count.

Robert Payne in his biography of LENIN, commented, p. 632 ''human misery is rooted not in the laws of nature but in those institutions man must learn to change."

There are several ways that persons answer the call of ethical insistence. Some maintain that out of the inspiration of the Church they, individually, act ethically and decisively in politics, education, industry, trade, fraternal organizations and neighborhood. One can not criticize this kind of commitnent. One wishes devoutly that it were much more wide-spread.

Others among us see that the relevant Church is the issue-conscious Church, and believe that the ethical force of the Church as an institution should be brought to bear on other institutions and upon issues. Yet, who can deny that it is far easier to get a complex church budget passed rather than action en a social issue, even where human values dictate rather clearly the nature of decision.

Because of this, small numbers of persons form Unitarian Universalist Fellowships for Social Justice, as with the Rochester Area Chapter UUFSJ. An auxiliary organization, not subject to the will of an entire congregation, it can speak and act with far greater speed and facility. But also, the views of a great many are not brought to bear in the considerations. And this is no longer enough. With the advent of the New UUA Department of Social Responsibility, at the Continental level, we are in a new age, wherein congregations can find new incentives and ways to confront issues in novel approaches that not only will give every interested member a chance to be heard, affirmatively or dissenting, but also will provide adequate machinery for decision and communication to the entire church constituency and the public.

The role of the Church in pronouncing upon issues and laboring as a society in achieving social goals is the most central issue of our decade. Yet if as Unitarian Universalists organized in religious society, we cannot find ways to work more unitedly on ethical jobs to be dnne and identified by congregational procedures with ethical causes, then the individualism we so justly boast will have had consequences to be deplored. David McClellan, a social psychologist, studying relationships in achievement observed, '"what people are concerned about determines what they do, and what they do determines the outcome of history." (ROOTS OF CONSCIOUSNESS, p. 32).

To summarize, the authentic interests of the Church are the needs of people
to recognize who they are on earth—the person-to-person need;
to come to terms with the great questions of origin and destiny—what can we believe?
to make ethics count—what can and should we do; and how should we work together in the doing?

In his significant biography of the crucial years of Woodrow Wilson's life, WHEN THE CHEERING STOPPED, Gene Smith tells of the triumphal tour of President Woodrow Wilson prior to the deliberations of the Peace Conference at Versailles. In the course of the tour, Wilson visited a Church near the Scottish border where his grandfather, Thomas Woodrow Wilson had been the minister. With his great dream of peace possessing his soul, President Wilson, standing in front of the Communion rail said, "We shall be drawn together in a combination of moral forces that will be irresistible.... it is from quiet places like this all over the world that the forces accumulate which will presently overbear any attempt to establish evil."

Wilson's dream was shattered as his physical health was shattered in his lifetime, but the dream of a world free and fair always revives. It is from "quiet places like this that (moral) force accumulates." I believe that it is the authentic interests of the Church to help make substance of the dream:

to recognize friends on earth;
to know what we believe;
and to make our ethical convictions count.

Difficult—excruciatingly difficult—yet can we make a lesser commitment than found in those grand lines from Tennyson's "Ulysses?"

"We are not now that strength which in old days
Moved earth and heaven: that which we are, we are,
One equal temper of heroic hearts,
Made weak by Time and Fate, but strong in will
To strive, to seek, to find and not to yield."