UU Sermon: Love at the Center
Love is the most powerful force in the world.
Love holds everything together.
Love binds electrons into atoms.
Love creates fractal patterns in leaves, and in the human body.
Love burns to keep distant stars hot.
Love is God.
God is Love.
There are over 4,300 religions in the world, and over 85% of the world is a member of a religion.
Religions sometimes have one god, sometimes they have many gods, and sometimes there are no gods. I believe that all these Gods are reflections of the same truth, and that God, Goddess, all that is does not require people to believe.
No matter where a religion originates, or what it expects its followers to do, as far as I know, there is one thing that religions agree on, and that is the importance of Love.
Unitarian Universalists are constantly growing our faith, and this growth sometimes happens through the article 2 study commission. Article 2 is a section of the Bylaws, Principles and Purposes of the Unitarian Universalist Association, the UUA. Article 2 guides how we, as a denomination, do our work with each other and in the world. The last time that we revised Article 2 was in 1985. 1985 was a long time ago! The bylaws actually state that we should revisit article two every 15 years, so we are overdue! The world has changed a lot, and so has our understanding of what’s important. We now have a deeper understanding of the problems in the world, and how these problems affect us as individuals and congregations. We now better understand our responsibilities to create a world that works better for all. We better understand our abilities to create change.
So, the study commission, which suggests the next revision of article 2, states that love is what brings us together as people and that love is what brings together our shared values. These shared values are Pluralism. Interdependence. Transformation. Generosity. Equity. Justice. I’ll say these again. Pluralism. Interdependence. Transformation. Generosity. Equity. Justice.
I’ll start with pluralism, because pluralism is what initially brought me to Unitarian Universalism in 201. I was raised Lutheran, but lost my faith in a single moment as a teenager. I became Pagan 22 years ago, and still am Pagan. I needed a faith community that respected that I believed in Odin, Thor, Freya and the Gods of my ancestors. Because I believe that all Gods are reflection of the same life force that moves through us all, I found it easy to connect with others who believed in other Gods, and in no Gods at all. The church where I’m now a member has an atheist as the minister, and there are people of a wide diversity of faith backgrounds, all welcomed, all celebrated.
Interdependence. In the United States, we have this idea that people can be self-made, or truly independent of one another. But this kind of thinking can only lead to isolating people from each other, from their families and friends, from their schools, workplaces and places of worship, from their culture, from the global community, and other forms of non-human life and the living planet itself. We can only save ourselves from our problems of war, inequality, and climate chaos if we honor our relationships with one another and with all of life.
Transformation. Just as caterpillars close themselves into a chrysalis, turn into utter goo, then form delicate and beautiful wings before emerging into the skies, so we too have the power within our divine selves to grow and change. None of us are the worst things we have done, and we all have potential and promise embedded into our spirits. The only constant in life is change, and by embracing growth in ourselves, in our communities, in the ways we relate, we are always on the way to building the beloved community.
Generosity. This means not only sharing financially with others when we are able, but also generosity of spirit and of mind. This means volunteering for the pastoral care team to talk to a lonely neighbor, writing letters to people in prison, making eye contact with the person on the street corner asking us for food, helping someone who’s mentally ill with their errands, or choosing to think well of somebody who we are in an active conflict with.
Equity. Different than equality, which is about everybody getting the same thing. EQUITY is about everybody getting what they need, given their circumstances. For example, there are college access programs for high school youth who come from identities that are underrepresented on college campuses. This is right and good, because these youth face challenges that not everybody faces. If life is a race, and one person has 20 hurdles on their course, and another has zero, then giving both people the same amount of time to run is not equitable. Sometimes, meeting the needs of the person with the most needs helps everybody. For example, if you have to choose between shoveling the ramp or the stairs, shovel the ramp first because the able-bodied kids can use the ramp but the kid in the wheelchair might not be able to climb the stairs.
Finally, Justice. Cornel West said that Justice is what Love looks like in public. Justice is my north star, I have a tattoo that means justice. Justice isn’t necessarily courts of law, in fact I think our US legal system is unjust in the ways it operates. Justice, to me, means being in right relationship. If someone harms another person, then Justice would mean the speaking of that truth, and then restitution that benefits the person who was harmed. The person who did the harm is embraced in loving community, and supported in figuring out why that happened, and how to keep it from happening again. Casting people out, locking people up, doesn’t give anything to victims and it creates more trauma. Justice is about not only looking at acts of harm differently, it means creating a world where everybody is able to thrive. It means dismantling sexism, racism, white supremacist culture, patriarchy, homophobia, transphobia, classism, the prison industrial complex, and other interlocking systems of oppression and institutionalized harm. It means creating a world where every person has everything they need, and there is potential for harmony in all of our relationships.
We don’t live in that world yet, but we can move ourselves in that direction.
And, that comes back to love.
It doesn’t matter to me whether you believe in God, the goddess, many Gods, or no god at all.
What matters to me is that you love, and that you live love.
Love is more than an emotion, love is an action. Love is showing up. Even if we don’t feel worthy of love, even if we feel cut off from the feeling of love, we can still love others with our willingness to show up, our willingness to be kind, our willingness to make eye contact, even our willingness to try to learn how to accept and eventually love our own selves.
There are many inroads to love. Pluralism. Interdependence. Transformation. Generosity. Equity. Justice.
Love is how we treat others, it’s how you treat ourselves. When we connect with love, we are connecting to the force that burns in the stars and creates microscopic life. There is an inroad for everyone, we just need the willingness to try.
Love is waiting.