You enter an elevator and push the button for the 13th floor - after all, you're not superstitious, you're a rational Unitarian Universalist. There is only one other passenger. It turns out that she, too, is going to the 13th floor. This friendly woman notices the Flaming Chalice pin on your coat - shaped not unlike the flaming chalice that adorns this sanctuary. Before the door closes, she asks, "What is that?" "It's a flaming chalice pin," you reply, both embarrassed and proud. "I'm a Unitarian Universalist." "Oh, really," she says, "I've heard of your religion. I've always been curious about it. Just what is it that you believe?" The door closes and you're on your way up.
Oh, but you are prepared for just such situations. You've been to church recently and picked up a neatly printed little bookmark with the Purposes and Principles of the Unitarian Universalist Association. You whip it out and place it confidently in her hands. She reads from the "inherent worth and dignity of every person" all the way to the "interdependent web of all existence of which we are a part." You've just passed the 3rd floor. It's a very slow elevator.
"Oh, this is very nice," she says. "There isn't much here with which I disagree. It all sounds good, but isn't it rather general? It doesn't say what you believe about God or Jesus or human nature or sin or salvation or good or evil or heaven or hell or life or death. It's not very specific. In fact it sounds a little like a story I recently read. I'm a history buff.
"In 1928 the British Parliament was called upon to authorize a new prayer book for the Church of England. In the debate, one member said, 'Isn't it sort of ridiculous that this secular legislative body should be asked to rule upon the affairs of the Church because, after all, there are many atheists among us?' And another member got up and said, 'Oh, I don't think there are any atheists here. We all believe in some sort of a something somewhere.'"[1] You conclude this is a very well-read woman. You've just passed the 4th floor.
"Well, you see, in our religion there isn't any specific belief - no creed or dogma or doctrine. We're all free to work out our faith for ourselves. We call it building your own theology. That's why I like it. I have the freedom to believe what I choose. No one - not church or state or minister can tell me what I must believe." You've just passed the 5th floor and the trip is beginning to seem interminable.
"I see," says the woman, who is becoming increasingly animated, "that does sound good - this Unitarian Universalism. It reminds me of a story I heard. The great jurist Oliver Wendell Holmes was asked at a dinner party what his religion was? He answered 'Unitarian. Why?' His interrogator replied, 'In Boston everyone must be something and the very least you can be is a Unitarian.'"
This is a very erudite woman, you conclude as the 6th floor slowly passes by. Who is she? You wonder. "Well, you see, Unitarianism came from the left wing of the Protestant Reformation - it was initially a rejection of the idea of a trinitarian god and an affirmation of Jesus as a great prophet and teacher, not part of Godhead. And our Universalist forbears emerged from the idea of universal salvation - a loving God saves all people." You are proud that you remember a snippet of the history you happened to read while bored with the sermon one Sunday morning at church. That gets you past the 7th floor. You breathe more easily.
You're on a roll, now, so you continue: "You see, the genius of our faith is that we all have different ideas of God - some believe in a personal God to whom prayer is said; some of us think of God as Evolution; some think of God as Nature; some think of God as the Source of all things; some of us don't think of God at all and others of us reject the whole idea. Isn't that beautiful?" you ask, believing that this theological pluralism will impress her.
But she was not through. "Well, I have trouble with such a general God. I've always thought that 'what God lacks is convictions - stability of character. God ought to be a Presbyterian or a Catholic or something - not try to be everything.'" You frown as you pass the 8th floor.
You can't let this go by. "But, you see, our religious freedom allows us to choose whatever beliefs seem to make sense to us - feel right for us - fit the experiences of our lives. Unitarian Universalists simply could not abide a restriction on our right to think for ourselves religiously." The 9th floor lights up on the elevator display.
"I guess I'm not being clear," she says, slightly perturbed. "When we began on the first floor I asked you what you believed as a Unitarian Universalist. You have given me this nice little card, you've shared a bit of your religious history, you've told me that you have freedom to believe. All very well, but as I recall I asked you what you believed. So far I haven't a clue about your personal theology. For example, I've read a little Martin Buber. He said that freedom is a footbridge, the run before the leap - but where are you going, toward what are you leaping? Just what is it that you believe - you personally? The 10th floor goes by and you wonder if you'll get to number 13 theologically intact.
"Well, I believe that every person must make up his or her mind about religious questions. I believe the church is a living laboratory where we think unthinkable thoughts, where we ask the questions that empty the room, where we engage the fundamental issues as a community and then develop our own answers." Floor 11 mercifully appears.
"Of course," she says, "it's very commendable to believe that. Yours must be a very interesting church. While it's a very wonderful thing to be able to think as you like, the important question remains: what do you think?" She wasn't content to leave it at that. She was on a roll. "What do you think about God? Is the universe friendly? How do you know God's will, if God has will? What is the meaning of life for you? What is your mission in existence? Is human nature good or evil or what? How do you know what is true? I could go on."
And she would, but you are now at the 12th floor. By this time you are cowering in the corner, your Purposes and Principles wadded up in your trembling and sweaty hands, your mind racing back trying to recall a sermon that might give you a clue to answer even one of her impertinent questions; you wished you had paid more attention; you are reduced to prayer: may the 13th floor come soon and liberate you into some realm of theological grace.
You realize that while you have thought about all these questions, you really have not come up with any very specific answers. You have correctly quoted all the shibboleths of liberal religion, but you have not really spoken from your heart about what it is that gets you up in the morning, what it is that motivates your work in the world, how it is that you can face the ambiguities of human existence and keep going, how you can be spiritually happy in the midst of a broken world.
Just then, the elevator mercifully stops, she steps out and briskly walks down the corridor with a friendly "have a nice day," while you stand there stupefied, wondering what brought you here in the first place. And who was that woman? All you know now is that you are going to take the stairs on the way down.
This little scenario is my elaboration of what has been called "the elevator debate," a metaphor bandied about by Unitarian Universalist ministers seeking to articulate the "passionate and enduring center" of our faith.[2] In a religion of radical freedom, is it possible to state the core of our personal religious faith in words that make sense? I suspect many of us would be hard pressed to answer; being asked what one believes makes many of us feel we have been asked to undress in public - on an elevator, no less.
One well-known church consultant said that every religious tradition seeks a "transformational spirituality"[3] - that core of meanings and values and convictions that enable us to lead a life that we dare call good. Furthermore, he said that if we cannot articulate that faith in three minutes, it will not be very efficacious.
There was a public relations ad campaign put out by our denominational headquarters a few years ago that had as its theme: "Unitarian Universalism - the religion that puts its faith in you." That, I submit, is a very scary thought. We have the audacity to proclaim that religion is not God-given, but humanly created. To be sure, there is space for God in our faith, but we must articulate it ourselves. We cannot rely upon creed or dogma or bible to spell it out for us. We build it ourselves out of the raw stuff of our own experience and out of the caldron of humanity's religious traditions. That is a sobering proposition.
And so it is not enough to respond to our mythical elevator lady by touting our lofty freedom; we must use it to spell out our transformational spirituality;
it is not enough to spout off with tidbits from our heretical history, we must use that history to understand how people's beliefs continue to shape human history on our precarious planet;
it is not enough to talk about our pluralism - the rich tapestry of beliefs among us - it is for us to spell out with as much specificity as possible just where we - as individuals - stand. We cannot be religious in general - believing in a "sort of a something somewhere."
Too many people in our time want a "fast track religion." They are like the preacher who one Sunday morning announced "Today's final hymn will be No. 238: 'Take Time to Be Holy.' Then he added, 'In the interest of time, we'll sing only the first and last verses.'"
There is no "fast track religion." Our deepest beliefs, those that matter, come out of the warp and woof of our experiences, the rough and tumble of our days and the loneliness of our nights. There is no short-hand summary that will help us. Our Purposes and Principles give us a powerful context for religion-building, but they are general in nature - the good glue that binds us together as a religious community. They do not provide the very particular perspectives that make each one of us different.
Just as each of us has a unique finger print, each of us has a unique soul print - a particular way of believing and being in the world, "a spiritual signature that expresses itself in everything we do."[4] We cannot be religious in general.
And so I conclude this homiletic endeavor by spelling out as specifically as I can my spiritual conclusions at the year five and sixty - knowing this is not a finished product, but knowing that between floors 1 and 13 I must have something to say when asked the question - what is it you believe?
I avow my faith in a Cosmic Creativity that yields its secrets slowly and reluctantly to science, but expresses its essence to me through that great mystery in which I live and move and have my being. I find in Creation a benign indifference to all things human - a vast and awesome process in which the rain falls on the just and the unjust, in which the universe does not play favorites, but on the whole a propitious place for the human endeavor. I believe we look in vain for cosmic meanings, but can and must find in our own lives a why to live.
I believe in a creative impulse that pervades the universe, manifest on earth as nature, over time as history, and in humanity as love. We are co-creators with that power but gratitude for being should be our first response to this reality; we should understand ourselves as stewards of earth as a garden, not as owners of some inexhaustible mine; we should see ourselves as shapers of the human story - not simply students of it.
I avow my faith in the prophethood of all believers who seek the reign of righteousness. I believe in the spiritual leadership of all the great prophets of the human spirit who lived in love for justice: Jesus, the man for others; Job, the mythical man who helped us understand human suffering; Buddha, the Enlightened One who helps us center down when our lives are fragmented; and the modern prophets like Susan B. Anthony and Martin Luther King, Jr., who remind us there are prophets in each and every age.
I live, not to imitate them, but to seek to do my work in the world as they did theirs. My task is to play my part in repairing a broken world. We are the architects of whatever salvation the world will ever know. We are the music makers and the creed forsakers and the Beloved Community creators.
I believe in the church universal composed of all the generations who have shared birth and death and all that lies between; and while I have chosen one particular branch of that tradition - the Unitarian Universalist - I respect other ways of moving toward the unseen goal and draw upon the wisdom of all people and every tradition as I create my own loose-leaf bible, knowing that revelation is not sealed in any one time and place.
I avow my faith in the free and disciplined search for truth in religious community; I doubt there is any ultimate truth; truth is more like an infinite onion in which we peel off one layer at a time - sometimes we weep - sometimes we laugh, but we never reach the core. I affirm the authority of truth known or to be known, for surely there are new worlds to discover and no one person, no one tradition, has a monopoly on it.
I believe in the priesthood of all believers who care for one another; that our mission in is to be so that we can be for others. We live in an interdependent world and cannot live without the love and support of others, no matter how self-sufficient we may pretend to be. "We are our neighbors' keeper because that neighbor is but our larger self."[5]
I avow my faith in the inherent worth of each human being, the dignity of every earth citizen; I believe that the line between good and evil passes not between nations or races or religions but through the heart of each and every one of us. We are contradictory creatures - capable of great goodness, but also capable of great evil.
Finally, I believe in this life; I doubt any existence beyond it save for the circles of love and justice I may have set in motion here and now. I understand myself to be a finite drop in an infinite and glorious ocean. I know I am but a bit player in a vast cosmic drama, but I am determined to play my part and play it well. Amen. You are on an elevator. You have one companion. You push the button for the 13th floor. The door closes and the conversation begins. You have 3 minutes. What will you say?
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