Sermon Archives : 2005/2006

Borderlines: Unitarian Universalism and Theological Self-Definition

Benjamin Papa  ·  January 29, 2006

One of the great joys and great struggles of being a minister-in-training is that I am constantly expected to do what minister-types call “theological reflection” on the happenings of my life. By way of definition, theological reflection is a mindset – a sort of spiritual orientation – that asks one to constantly be on the lookout for the presence or action of God or the divine in the seemingly mundane aspects of everyday life. This reflection, at least in theory, then allows us to consider for ourselves how we might answer the many theological questions that religious women and men for generations have addressed: What is the nature of God? What role do humans play in their own identity? How do we account for evil in the world? What saves us, and what are we saved from? As we formulate our answers, however tentative, to these and other theological questions, the process of theological reflection then asks us to consider where these beliefs and observations lead us in terms of identifying with one or more religious tradition or particular theological orientation. In short, we are challenged to know and articulate what it is that we believe.

In many ways, this is a great way to live – always having one’s eye out for spiritual enlightenment behind every tree and in every conversation. In fact, I have preached from this very pulpit my view that intentional and mindful living – paying close attention to what happens to us as we live our lives rather than blindly moving through our days – leads to a fuller and richer life. But theological reflection is not limited to the pensive contemplation of a sunrise over the ocean while we wiggle our toes in the warm sand. It is not necessarily about feeling connected to the transcendence we experience on a refreshing hike through lush green mountains in springtime. Sometimes theological reflection can be messy. For example, I was at Borders bookstore recently when my normally very well-behaved two-year-old twins, Ella and Eli, decided to throw full blown temper tantrums in the floor of the café - at exactly the same time. I have to tell you that in that moment I did not immediately reflect on the great joys of parenting or the fantastic blessing from God it is to have these two kicking and screaming youngsters in my life. But I did reflect on how I should respond to the mayhem in the floor of Borders in light of my spiritual commitment to strive to be a loving and patient parent. How should I respond to my kids knowing that I too have thrown fits in the floor – literally as a child, and figuratively as an adult?

I start this morning with this discussion of theological reflection because I believe that many of us Unitarian Universalists do not do enough of it. And I think it is an important component of defining ourselves theologically, which is the subject of my sermon this morning. In other words, knowing what one believes and does not believe is an important part of being an insightful and spiritual person. And it is nearly impossible to know what we believe about religious or spiritual matters if we do not take the time to reflect theologically on what we experience in life.

When I say that most of us would do well to do more theological reflection in our everyday lives, I do not mean to suggest that on the whole we are not a thoughtful bunch. Most of us understand in some depth the seven Unitarian Universalist principles. Many of us have also done the difficult and often painful work of engaging seriously with the religious communities in which we were raised and we have left that engagement feeling as though we could no longer belong to the fold into which we were born. But how many of us have done the hard work of mapping out our personal theologies – maybe even on paper - and then constantly tested and re-tested those beliefs in light of our lived experience in the world or personal insight received through quiet reflection, prayer, or meditation?

I borrowed the title for my sermon this morning, Borderlines, from the title of a book by a scholar named Daniel Boyarin that I read for a class I took last semester at Vanderbilt called Jewish and Christian Self-Definition. The course focused on the way that the Christian and Jewish communities in the first three centuries made theological, sociological, and psychological choices in ways that led to their eventual division. Stated from a different perspective, we looked at the ways in which a small Jewish sect that followed a rabbi from Nazareth named Jesus grew to be one of the most powerful institutions in Western society.

Boyarin’s book is dense, but his thesis is intriguing. In a nutshell, Boyarin believes that Judaism and Christianity are not – or at least were not - the utterly separate religious paths that society and most scholars of religion have indicated that they are. But rather they are two ends of a sort of Judeo-Christian continuum. Boyarin argues that Judaism did not become a religion in any meaningful sense until it was forced to define itself in relation to the new Christian sect developing in its midst. Until that point, Jews certainly considered themselves to be a “people” with distinct practices and a certain way of thinking about God. But they would not have thought of Judaism as a religion that was distinct from any other aspect of Jewish life or identity. To this day, Judaism refuses to be simply a ‘religion’ because it remains attached to this sense of so-called “peoplehood.” One can be a Jew in some sense even if one does not believe in the God of Judaism or even if one converts to another religion.

For Boyarin, “Judaism is not the ‘mother’ of Christianity; they are twins, joined at the hip.” The two religions came into being at the same time by virtue of the two sects carefully considering their respective beliefs and practices and then trying to find a place to locate themselves in the Jewish-Christian communities. Some fell decidedly on one end or the other of the spectrum, and for at least a few hundred years after Jesus’ death, some identified as both Jewish and Christian.

For our purposes this morning, an interesting aspect of Boyarin’s argument is that it was up to each individual to claim or reject one identity or the other. Boyarin claims that until late antiquity, Judeo-Christianity “should be seen as the original cauldron” of discussion, debate, and theological reflection out of which eventually arose two institutions: orthodox Christianity and rabbinic Judaism. It is interesting that in some ways the Unitarian Universalist church of 2006 resembles the ancient Christian church in that sitting side by side in our church pews this very morning are people with differing theologies, religious practices, and levels of religious and spiritual commitment. For Jews and Christians of the first three centuries as well as for many of us in this sanctuary today, the borders between owning and practicing one religious identity or another were not carved in stone.

One of the reasons that Boyarin’s work and the whole idea of theological and religious self-definition is interesting to me is that I feel as though much of my adult life has been about finding my own religious place and defining myself theologically. For me, the first significant act of theological reflection – identifying what I believe in light of my experiences - came when I was ten years old and realized I was gay. The process of reconciling my sexual orientation with the idea of a God who would damn me eternally for being gay was a crucible of faith for me. For eight years, I prayed every night asking God to remove homosexuality from me. During this time, my religious life consisted largely of trying to make deals with God. If I promised to make the best grades, and never misbehave, and always go to church, and generally be altogether perfect then – I prayed - God would remove what I was experiencing as a thorn in my flesh – my homosexuality.

When I was eighteen my spiritual grappling boiled down to this one fact: I was surer of the fact that I did not choose to be gay than I was of the veracity of the Bible’s or the church’s teaching on the topic. So in 1992 I made a clean cut from the fundamentalist tradition of my childhood. My theory was that I simply needed to find a church that affirmed gay people. Once I felt accepted as a gay person, my equivocation about religion would subside and I would go back to feeling that love of religious community and worship that had sustained me throughout my childhood.

I made my way through a number of liberal Christian churches over the course of my early college years, only to discover to my own surprise that my ambivalence about Christianity was not limited to the church’s teaching about sexuality, but was also about what the church taught about such central topics as God and salvation. I began to question core theological tenets of the Christian faith and found that I could not with any integrity claim the label of Christian for myself. Could it be that the little boy who had almost never missed church, Sunday school, Vacation Bible School, or church camp had grown up to be an atheist? Was my understanding of God so entwined with my insecurity about being gay that once I was no longer insecure about my sexuality that God simply vanished?

I spent the next six years in a sort of spiritual wasteland, identifying myself as an agnostic and making fun of people like Divinity School students who were silly enough to waste their time getting a Master’s degree in what I called “make believe.”

Then, in 1997, my journey brought me to this congregation and I discovered Unitarian Universalism. Finally, I was in a religious environment that utterly accepted me for who I was, and that also held an understanding of God that resonated for me. I resonated deeply with the Universalist teaching that holds that there are many ways for one to access God, and the particular path upon which one embarks is often the result of the family or region of the world into which one is born. The Unitarian Universalist God that I found here was not planning to send anyone to hell.This tradition and its liberating theology made my heart and soul sing for the first time in almost ten years.

After settling into Unitarian Universalism for a few years, I began to feel another nagging in the pit of my stomach. I was, and am, very comfortable with the idea that UUism allows for theological and religious questioning. We clearly need that freedom and openness. But what happens if in the process of this spiritual exploration, one feels as though he or she has found an answer of some kind? I was thrilled and comforted with the notion that many paths to God are valid, but what was my path? I began to understand that I needed to take my Unitarian Universalism one step further. I needed the hopefulness and openness that Unitarian Universalism offers, but I also needed tradition, ritual, and scripture.

Over my years as a UU, I have explored Buddhism, Judaism, and liberal Christianity in some depth as potential specific spiritual paths within my Unitarian Universalist framework. But over the last few years, as I have thought carefully and critically about what I believe and what is important to me in religious tradition, my search has slowly but surely narrowed my options down to one – well, one and a half. I have come to believe that my specific spiritual path lies mainly with liberal Judaism. Within Judaism, my Unitarian Universalism finds ancient communal tradition, ritual, and holidays to celebrate that nourish my soul. I have begun to explore Torah, attend synagogue services, observe the weekly Sabbath, and participate in Jewish holidays with practicing Jews. Within Judaism, my Unitarian Universalism finds another dimension that I need, a place to set up house and express itself. So why did I say my path has narrowed to one and a half traditions? The “half” refers to the fact that I still practice Buddhist meditation and plan to continue to do indefinitely. Although I cannot say that I am particularly engaged with Buddhism in any other way, I am deeply nurtured by the profound practice of meditation and related teachings.

And so it seems that the Southern Baptist boy from Knoxville might someday be a Unitarian Universalist minister who practices Judaism and mediates with Buddhists. I might feel more strange about my identity but for the fact that the professor of the Jewish Christian Self-Definition class I discussed earlier, A.-J. Levine, is a Jewish feminist New Testament scholar who attends an Orthodox synagogue. And this morning she is preaching at Greater Nashville UU Congregation. Maybe hell has frozen over and pigs really can fly after all.

And so, to offer my reflections on the theme “This I Believe” that Jason, Gail, and others will address in coming weeks, here are five things I believe:

1. I believe in God, who I define as the ultimate source of life and love in the universe. And so I consider myself to be a theist. For me, God is one – the highest, the ultimate. So I am specifically a monotheist.
2. I believe that God changes us and that we can change God. As human beings we are not merely pawns of a distant deity. God is as close as our very breath. Our job is to listen to God’s prodding in our lives and work to make the world a better place for all who inhabit it.
3. I believe in the power of ritual and tradition. I believe that by lighting candles and reciting ancient prayers and studying ancient religious texts we can connect to a stream of people of faith that is larger than we are - both in terms of history and geography. These religious practices often serve as opportunities for us to embody our experience of God and each other, helping us to use our hearts as well as our heads to experience the world.
4. I believe we need to be intentionally silent and still some time every day. Practices like meditation and yoga help us to free ourselves from the chains of materialism, reactivity, and self-centeredness. They help us to recognize and live within the present moment of our lives rather than planning the future or regretting the past.
5. I believe in the power of Unitarian Universalist religious communities. Places that offer the world a radically different way to live and be together than what mainstream society offers. Places that dare to affirm the inherent worth and dignity of every person. Places that take seriously the idea that we are all part of an interconnected web of existence. Places where people come together to weep together unabashedly when a son or daughter dies unexpectedly. Places where we can dance and eat and drink and celebrate when two people from our fold decide to commit themselves to love one another for the rest of their lives. Places like this. People like you. I believe in you.

And so by sharing my story with you and my ongoing process of theological self-definition, I do not mean to suggest that the way I have approached these highly personal questions is the right way or the only valid way. Or even that my own theology will not change as I continue on what will certainly be a lifelong spiritual journey. But my encouragement to you this morning is that you be intentional about how you approach your own theological self-definition. Maybe your style is to be a so-called hyphenated Unitarian Universalist like me – a UU Christian, a UU Buddhist, or a UU pagan. Or maybe you are more of a garden variety, undifferentiated Unitarian Universalist that does not feel the need to identify with any particular religious path other than Unitarian Universalism itself. Either way, do and be whatever you are mindfully. If you identify with Native American religion, study those traditions, pray or meditate about them, know why and how that tradition resonates for you. Be able to talk about it. To my mind, we profoundly disrespect other religious traditions if we appropriate them as our own and do not do the difficult work of learning about them on their own terms. Know what you are and what you are not and why.

In conclusion, consciously reflect theologically on your life and your experiences and then take those reflections and hold them up to the light of religious tradition and theological self-definition. The process is messy and scary and sometimes tedious. But is also immensely rewarding. And take time to thank God for this congregation where fellow sojourners can support us as we do this work. We are not alone. Amen.