MORAL IMPERATIVE A Dialogue Sermon
James Ishmael Ford
7 November 2004

This has been an awful week for me; and perhaps for you as well? Does anyone here recall that cartoon from a year or so ago when they were first installing computer voting machines? It was a single panel showing the upcoming presidential swearing in. In the foreground instead of President Bush or Senator Kerry there was a caricature of a computer nerd with his hand on the Bible.

On Election Day I really thought the Democrats were going to win. I listened closely between the lines as various pundits held forth, trying to glean what they knew from the exit polls. And listening closely it was clear. John Kerry was going to be our next president. I’m ashamed how smugly I listened to Republican talking heads begin their tortured analysis of why they lost.

For me our national nightmare would soon be over. Many thought this. As we’ve all heard at seven thirty that evening, the Senator was apparently beginning to compose his acceptance speech. But the night wore on, and things began going the other way. I slept lightly and fitfully that night. I’d wake up constantly, and every few hours, get up, click on the computer to CNN and watch as both the popular vote and the Electoral College never gave the Senator the advantage. By five or six I knew Mr. Bush had finally been elected president.

I know there are emails going around arguing how the election was stolen by hackers, the fulfillment of that cartoon’s prophecy. But to those who want to focus on that possibility I have to say: pull up your socks. We lost. It was close. I’m sure there was conniving as there always is. Did the Republicans indulge a penchant for voter suppression? Of course they did. Did they engage in massive fraud in Florida and Ohio? Almost certainly not. If the election really was stolen, obsessive types will follow the trail all the way to the end. But for you and me to fall into that obsession is to go the wrong way. The election was hardball. And those of us on the left lost. Not by much; but by enough.

Today, let’s go in other directions. I want to reflect on possibly deeper meanings to be drawn out of this election about us. I want to explore how we’ve been presenting our faith to the world. We: Unitarian Universalists. Once again I want to speak of love. Let me rephrase that. Once again I must speak of love. I want to talk about language of reverence and why this really is important, particularly why we need to reclaim words like God as normative within our UU communities. Ultimately, however, I want to talk about hope. Hope for our selves, and hope for the world.

Over this past week I’ve received a number of email notes from friends reflecting on this election. One note sets the tone of what I hope we would be willing to explore today. Our member Doug Bates observed “No doubt you’ve heard about the statistics saying that the election hinged on the culture wars, with the so-called ‘moral values’ issue being the one that was decisive.” Doug observes, “(t)he single best, broad-scale behavioral characteristic that predicted whether someone would vote for (the President or the Senator) was how frequently they attended religious services.”

Doug went on to say “Although I don’t have data, I bet high-attendance UUs voted overwhelmingly against Bush.” Before I go on I think it needs to be recalled we do have a proud conservative tradition within Unitarian Universalism. That clearly acknowledged I’m sure Doug is right, the overwhelming majority among us find today’s progressive politics tends to more accurately reflect our liberal faith than most of what is currently being offered by the contemporary conservative agenda, certainly as presented within the Republican platform. In short I’m sure most American UUs indeed do vote Democratic.

Which is why I think Doug posed the critical question for us today when he asked, “(W)hy is so much of America (apparently) rejecting UU moral values, and what can (we) do to shape the moral-values movement to be more favorable to (our) values? Put another way,” Doug asks, “how can (we) break the Christian Fundamentalist’s attempt to have a monopoly on… moral-values issues?” I think this is a critical question. I believe in this world of hurt we have a message of healing which needs to be heard. And, I believe, this election shows up not only how much our message is needed, but how we have so far so badly articulated it.

Our understanding of ethics, our moral choices are similar to those found in the Bible and the traditions of Judaism and Christianity, but not precisely. We all, I think, Christians, Jews and Unitarian Universalists, acknowledge the primacy of love. The differences arise out of how we parse this fundamental understanding. We UUs find reason, science and, truthfully, the arts, are as inspired as the Scriptures and traditions and all point us on our way. Many Christians and Jews do, as well. But not in the same sense as we do, nor as explicitly as we do. Simply, but honestly said, our path is broader than what is found in much of traditional western religion.

We accept inspiration where ever it presents itself, whether in the Book of Job, the Bhagavad Gita, the Tao Te Ching, the poetry of Mary Oliver or even a tagger’s graffiti read while riding on the “T.” If love seems to have touched it, we suspect it may well be divinely inspired. And we weigh and consider and modify our positions out of that encounter. When we’re on our game, of course. Our shadow, always, is pride. So, as we go forward here, please recall that, and let’s engage this humbly, knowing great hurt and great joy lie in the balance.

Nowhere do we find the differences more starkly than in how we engage the issue of gay rights. Let’s hold ourselves to this issue for a bit. It was so important in this election. As almost everyone here knows in general we take a strongly different position than the majority of our sisters and brothers who claim to be people of faith. Certainly our position as a denomination, our official positions are radically different than found in most other denominations. Let’s look at this.

I think there can be little doubt the real crime of the Right in this election was how they used hate against gay people as a wedge in the election. The eleven so-called Defense of Marriage constitutional amendments no doubt drew out people voting their fear of the other wrapped in the cloak of religion. And if one wants to suggest how the election in Ohio was stolen, I think one need look no farther than the frothing up of fear and hatred against gay people bringing out voters who then also pushed the button for the president. Let me say here this is where the shadow of evil hung most clearly this week.

Here science has led the way and a fair-minded examination reveals that homosexuality is a natural minority part of our human condition. It almost certainly has evolutionary advantages, as E. O. Wilson opines, allowing a small number of people in the community not competing for reproductive advantage, but rather contributing to society’s larger needs showing a way to caring without direct genetic advantage. Here, I suggest, love is revealed as so much more than a clever device Mother Nature uses to get us to reproduce.

We here are witnesses to the vital and beautiful love among gay and lesbian people. Our liberal faith calls us to proclaim this good news: love abides. Love is greater than any creed. Love is more powerful than a few scattered phrases in ancient texts. Love, if we genuinely open ourselves to it, shatters our preconceptions and reveals how intimately connected we all are.

And this is our calling, to proclaim the good news of a healing love that is greater than any idea about it. One of our more thoughtful members Susan Avishai wrote in an email to us all about this election what theological implications we might draw from this. “We UU's don't make a huge deal about God.” Susan writes. “At least now we can use the term freely without feeling sheepish, but we tend to get our sense of the spiritual through community and good works. Like Kerry, we kinda prefer reason to argue policy or practice.”

I agree with Susan. And she puts her finger on where we’ve fallen short in our community discourse. We have an understanding of reality out of our experience of a love constantly generating out of our experience of interdependence. And we know it through reason, and we know it through our hearts. What we’ve tended to do, however, is to express it only within the language of reason. We also need to express this honestly within the language of heart. And the most ancient expression of this amazing saving love is the word God.

What we’re about is the work of the divine. Our call is a moral expression culled from our experience of God. As one concrete example we need to show our commitment to gay rights is not an abdication of moral responsibility on the part of some libertines, but a fuller embracing of moral responsibility. Our religious tradition explains how gay rights is a moral issue. We are one, we are bound up together, and whether one’s sexuality leads to reproduction or not, it can be an expression of intimacy and love. And is. Again, love is what it’s about. And this love is nothing less than the compelling mystery called God. Let’s own the word. After all, it owns us.

On the minister’s listserve there has been a lot of energy about this election and the theological meaning it may contain. I found none more articulate than Roger Otis Kuhrt who wrote to his colleagues about his hurt and rage in the face of the election. Then he shifted and wrote. “And yet I find myself confronted with the 7th principle.” There was a pause and an expletive deleted. He went on to say, “We are all in this together; you and I are embedded within the current administration. We are all one! I am not sure that the long arc of the moral universe leads to justice,” Roger adds “but I am sure it points towards love!”

Roger doesn’t take the next step. But I think we need to. This message of hope in love is divine. We are about the changing of minds and the turning of hearts, we are about finding God within and among; and making this world a witness for joy. Understanding the deeper reason for this Roger says. “(T)he most potent possibilities are within our capacity to love from a heart that is open. May it be so.” Is his prayer. “May it be so.”

Congregational Reflections

Let me end this with a dangerous metaphor of hope and possibility. My friend and colleague Lynn Ungar of the divine pen once sang.

The trees have finally/shaken off their cloak/of leaves, redrawn/themselves more sternly/against the sky. I confess/I have coveted this/casting off of flesh,/have wished myself/all line and form, all God.//I confess that I am caught/by the story of Christmas,/by the pronouncement of the Spirit/upon Mary’s plain flesh./What right did the angel/have to come to her/with the news of that/unprovided, unimaginable/birth? What right/had God to take on flesh/so out of season?//When Mary lay gasping/in water and blood/that was of her body/but not her own/did she choose one gleaming,/antiseptic star to carry/her through the night?//The flesh has so few choices,/the angels, perhaps, none./The trees will shake themselves/and wait for spring./The angels, unbodied, will clutch/the night with their singing./And Mary, like so many,/troubled and available,/will hear the word:/The power of the Most High/will overshadow you/and in her flesh, respond.

Amen.