Unitarian Universalist Church at Washington Crossing

We can do or find many things alone, within our families or in a small group, but there are certain times and some important things that we can only find within community. We come together this morning within our religious community for many different reasons. Some come for spiritual nourishment. Others come wanting to be challenged to become a better person, and challenged to build a better world. Some come because they have had enough of traditional spirituality or religion and want to search for their own spiritual center and use their own spiritual language. Others come because they have had enough of spirituality and want to seek truth and meaning within a group of people who honor reason and the scientific method. Some come largely for community in this mobile and changing society because they want to be known by others and to know others.

Still others come because they are going through a painful transition and seeking a community where they can receive support and guidance, while at the same time give to others. There are others looking for a congregation in which they can provide a safe community where their children can grow in their understanding of spirituality and religion and they can deepen their own religious and spiritual understanding.

We come seeking belonging, inspiration, grounding, growth, challenge, support and so many other things. However, what is it that binds us together as a religious community? Religion, after all, comes from a word that originally meant to bind together.

We are a varied group, individuals and families from several states, many different towns and cities. We are of different ages, genders and from different ethnic, racial, economic and religious backgrounds. We are gay, straight, lesbian, transgender, bisexual and those not at all sure when it comes to gender attraction and gender identification.

Some of us believe in God, others in a Goddess. Others believe in some higher being, but refuse to define it. Others are agnostic and would rather spend their time focusing on what they can know of this earth and avoid discussions of the divine. Still others actively and passionately disbelieve in a transcendent force. Yet, we come together as a religious community. What binds us together?

Simply put, it is a shared desire for community and a shared vision and mission based on the Principles of Unitarian Universalism. Our vision is to build a dynamic and powerful faith community that strives to be inclusive and supportive while at the same time challenging us as individuals and as a community to deepen and broaden our understanding of life, its meaning and purpose. Within this community, we encourage and affirm each individual’s quest for authenticity, wisdom and deepening. Within this community, we gather to celebrate the wonder of the cosmos and the mystery of life, its passages, its joys and sorrows. Touched by this mystery we share a commitment to build a more just and compassionate society.

We congregate today because we share that vision and that mission. Obviously we do not all agree on how to accomplish our mission. We come with great variety in our personality types, our individual temperaments and the talents we contribute.

Therefore, the question we face is not only why we come together this morning, but also how in the world we have been able to stay together as a congregation for ninety-four years. An even harder question to answer is how we get anything of significance accomplished and what sane person would volunteer to be a leader in an organization like ours. How many of the leaders we are honoring this morning woke up one morning and thought, “I really want to be the chair of this committee at UUCWC or I want to be a member of the UUCWC Board of Trustees.”

Yet, in truth, most of us, actually do sense a good feeling when singled out and invited to consider being on the Board or to chair a committee, even if we might have to say no because we may not have the time this year to take that on or because we know our talents are in a different area. When asked to help, people around here respond because of a sense of calling and a growing feeling of responsibility to a mission in which they believe.

It is within community that we become aware of our profound potential to affect individuals among us, in the larger society and world. So, it is that we commit our time, our talents and our personal resources to each other and to our shared vision and mission.

In order to ensure that we continue staying together for the rest of our first one hundred years and in order to continue for our next 100 years we created something called a covenant. We call it the covenant of right relations. It lists the way each of us wants to be treated here within our congregation.

We did this one Sunday, right in the middle of the service of worship. We divided into small groups – right here in the sanctuary and asked people to talk about how they would like to be treated within their community of faith, hope, love and action. We asked that one person in each group record the responses given. Then a group of our elders sat down and put together the words we spoke responsively as our opening words. Individually we may give greater emphasis to one or another portion, but in totality, it captures how the members of UUCWC want to be treated by one another.

Being in community here requires that we actively listen to and respect the perspectives, experiences and opinions of the others involved. Sometimes, we will be part of the minority that cannot convince the rest of the group that ours is the right way. Then, we need to look at the larger value of our community – to us as individuals and to the surrounding society and decide if we can say, “I do not agree with that, but I can live with it because this community of faith is far more important to me than this one issue.”

We can expect that even if we hold a minority opinion, that we will be heard and treated with respect. We believe that we will learn and grow from such experiences and discover as time passes that maybe we were in fact closer to the truth than those who were in the majority. Possibly, we now recognize that we were mistaken in what we thought was right at the time. Either way we benefit from the process itself, and even more, we benefit from being in a community that protects the right of conscience in a fair and democratic way.

Years ago, in another congregation in another state, I went to visit a long time member of the congregation after a heated congregational disagreement. He was not happy with something that the congregation decided. I cannot remember what it was about, but I do remember our conversation. We were talking about the disagreement and he said, “The congregation just did not listen to me.” I responded that the congregation did listen to him and heard what he had to say. We just did not agree with him. “That’s right, he responded, they did not listen to me.” To him, listening to him meant doing what he thought was right.

If we all agreed with one another all the time and never had to deal with conflict, we would become stagnant as a community and our vision would shrink and probably reek. Without some conflict and tension, we are not motivated to strive to build a more perfect world. Conflict can be the necessary process that leads to a deeper understanding of ourselves, of others and of our community of faith.

I love successfully finding creative solutions in the midst of differences. My experience, here at UUCWC, is that we strive to treat each other as individuals of worth and dignity. I have found that we strive to create possible win/win solutions rather than settle for win/lose situations. Our strength, as a congregation, depends on how well we can join together to manage disagreements and in the process support one another in promoting our shared vision and mission.

Everything we do together to reach our vision and fulfill our mission is our shared ministry. No one alone can do what we can do together. Each of us brings our individual gifts and callings into this community and it is through our collective and shared ministry that we will achieve our mission and approach our vision.