Several years ago, when I traveled to Hungary and Romania on a pilgrimage to many historic sights of our Unitarian heritage - our group made a stop at a synagogue in Budapest. The synagogue was unbelievably gorgeous - filled with ornate wood, beautiful glass, and a domed roof - we moved through the building and for what felt like hours I stood near the center of the sanctuary turning in slow circles trying to take it all in. A balcony wrapped around three sides of the room - and as I stood and stared a fellow member of my group came up and whispered in my ear. "This city used to have one of the largest population of Jews in Europe," he said, "it used to be a center of Jewish culture - back before World War II, before the Nazis arrived - but when they got to Budapest they set up headquarters right here," my friend said, "right here in the synagogue. They would bring the Jews into the sanctuary to wait, and from the balcony the officers would give orders about who would go to which concentration camp. The synagogue, this holy place, became a clearing house for the murder of its people." I stood taking it all in in horror - this place where I stood just moments before in wonder, in awe and amazement - was a sight of tremendous tragedy - of almost unbearable pain and desecration.
In time I began walking again, and eventually we came to the courtyard behind the synagogue - there we looked out on a sculpture similar to a silver weeping willow tree with the names of each person who had passed through the synagogue on the way to the camps engraved on an individual leaf - so many leaves, and so many names hanging down - such incredible beauty - there in the tree and in the synagogue itself - transformed out of pain - created and restored to tell the story of all of the stuff of life, of human experience, of hell and heaven here on earth - created and restored that out of that pain, out of that cement parking lot as writer Natalie Goldberg calls it - might come the possibility of a different future.
The possibility of a different future.
Imagine with me a time not so long ago - if you will - a time when science and religion stood at odds - when discoveries about evolution questioned the authority of the Biblical creation story, when historical and literary criticism challenged the authorship of the gospels, when the use of the scientific method - of search and research always with the open mind - seemed to be unlocking new secrets of the body, mind, and planet every day - Imagine a time when peace and prosperity for all seemed just around the corner if only we could put our minds to it. Imagine a time when the possibility of a different future seemed within reach.
Imagine the hope you might feel. Hope in the potential for a brighter future, hope for health and fulfillment for all as new technologies and discoveries continually grew in their ability to improve lives. And imagine if you will, that with all of this hope, with all of this progress might come disappointment, too - disappointment that given all of our ever-increasing knowledge, all of our belief in the potential of each individual, all of our will and work toward the common good - still the masses of society turn away from true happiness, from true joy and fulfillment and helpfulness - into instead the drive for money and possessions, the drive for personal security, the desire for a pleasantly numb existence rather than facing the discomfort and inevitable exhilaration of transformation.
While this may sound quite familiar, the time I am describing occurred not quite a hundred years ago here in America - a time when a dramatic influx of new scientific discoveries challenged yet again the claims of supernaturalism and myth that had formed the basis of many religions for so long. American religious humanism rose out of this time, and before long - onto the scene came Unitarian minister and theologian, Curtis Reese, who identified the primary problem and leveled the following charge in 1927. "Most of the ills that beset the human body, most of the terrors that frighten the human spirit, most of the plagues that lay barren the earth are amenable to human control. And they have not been controlled chiefly because man, not understanding his own power, has fallen in slumber upon the bosom of the eternal."[1]
Fallen in slumber upon the bosom of the eternal, Reese says, waiting for someone, for something else to take responsibility, to take up the task of caring for this world. The science exists, he would say, the technology exists, to cure illness in far greater numbers, to eradicate poverty and feed the hungry, to understand and live in peace with one another - and yet we turn away - squandering our resources, waiting for someone, for something else to save us, he says, turning our power over to an understanding of the eternal that strips us of our responsibility to use our knowledge for the common good here on earth.
This charge, leveled by Reese, spurred on the creation of a clear and concise document setting forth the primary tenets of religious humanism - developed, signed, and published by a group of philosophers, theologians, and ministers in 1933 - including our own minister, the Reverend David Rhys Williams. The Humanist Manifesto, as it was called, identified religion as the means for realizing the highest in human potential. The signers affirmed the concept of evolution; rejected theism, deism, and the supernatural; recognized the impact of culture on molding the individual; removed the distinction between the sacred and the secular; rejected theories of mind/body dualism; encouraged the development of a cooperative economic system; emphasized the ultimate purpose of human life to be the complete realization of the human personality - of fulfillment and growth in the here and now; encouraged a fostering of the creative in all and an increase in joy in living; and above all else urged the living out of these principles in the creation of satisfactory conditions of life for all, not merely the few.
Each of these principles intertwine with one another, and each is, of course, worthy of explanation and expansion - perhaps even of a whole sermon of their own - but today I'd like to focus on one idea - one particular gift that religious humanism gives to us - whether we agree with all of its tenets or not. Religious humanism, in rejecting ideas of heaven and hell, in rejecting ideas of a God who will come down and save us and this world, in rejecting the notion that some parts of human experience exist outside of the realm of religious thought and responsibility - religious humanism, in rejecting these thoughts and ideas, places responsibility and power squarely into the hands of the individual, calling us each to account in the here and now - asking what we have done and what can we do to live our lives to their fullest potential and to improve the condition of the world.
With no afterlife to redeem us, no god to save us, no eternal existence waiting for us after death - we are given the gift of a merging of the secular and the sacred. With this particular gift of humanism, each bit of our life, every single human experience becomes precious, becomes worthy of interest and exploration - and as we live with this understanding, we may begin to experience life with the intense awareness of beauty and connection known usually only by the dying. With this gift, with the realization that in many ways heaven and hell exist within our own lifetime, that our chance for salvation, for developing to our fullest potential - exists here and now, in a time-limited framework - this gift can heighten our awareness and move us forward, inviting us to take responsibility for ourselves, for our development, and for our impact in the world in whole new ways.
This seemingly small concept - that we are all we've got and that this is our chance to shine - carries endless implications - the most obvious of which is, for me, the concept of individual responsibility and personal power. With individual responsibility and personal power comes the possibility of awakening, of awareness, of individual and global transformation. Writer Natalie Goldberg knows this possibility intimately. "Personal power," she writes, "could not come from college or an English lit book. It had to come from deep within me." For Goldberg - power could not be given to her from an outside source- it came only when she stopped running away, when she turned into her past, turned into her life, and learned there to grow a rose out of a cement parking lot.
Most of us have places in our lives that feel like that cement parking lot Natalie Goldberg describes - memories of mistakes - of our own and of others, islands of desolation, of guilt and shame that keep us running, keep us longing for escape, for that seemingly pleasant numbness that keeps us stuck in our own morass. And most of our societies, our businesses and our institutions, carry within them places of shame, times of exclusion, and moments or decades when the betterment of a few took precedence over the good of all.
Religious humanism tells us that there is hope of shifting those places in our lifetime, hope of growth, of salvation through our own works, through our own growth and development and effort - here and now. Religious humanism tells us that our chance will come around again, that the opportunity for change - to think, and act and be different - will come up in front of us if only we look for it - and this faith tells us, that when we make that commitment to change - to growth -to fully developing our own potential and the good of the world - that we will live a life of ever-increasing creativity and joy.
At its essence, religious humanism is an optimistic faith. Optimistic in the belief that, through scientific inquiry, progress will continue. Optimistic in insisting upon ever-increasing joy in living. Optimistic in the belief in the potential of each and every person, and absolutely insistent upon the fact that, as its most recent adherents expressed in the Humanist Manifesto III, published in 1993, "The responsibility for our lives and the kind of world in which we live in is ours and ours alone."
With all of this insistence upon individual responsibility, we may be tempted, of course, at times to run away, to hide our head in the sand and say oh no, this is too much - this I cannot do. But the call for us to take responsibility, to look within for strength and power that we might transform ourselves and this world - this is a mandate not only of religious humanism, but of many other faith traditions as well. Western Buddhist Nun, Pema Chodron says it this way, "This is how there could be a sane world, she writes, It starts with sane citizens, and that is us. The most fundamental aggression to ourselves, the most fundamental harm we can do to ourselves, is to remain ignorant by not having the courage and the respect to look at ourselves honestly and gently." Courage and respect, she says, courage and respect and gentleness. We cannot run away - not from our past, and not from our present - if we are to be the change we hope to see in the world.
We are called to listen closely to the words issued by our own past prophet, Curtis Reese, when he preached, "Humans are capable of so ordering human relations that life shall be preserved, not destroyed; that justice shall be established, not denied; that love shall be the rule, not the exception. It but remains for religion to place responsibility at the heart of its gospel. When this is done, science and democracy and religion will have formed an alliance of wisdom, vision, and power."
It but remains for religion to place responsibility at the heart of its gospel. Responsibility at the heart of its gospel - what would it look like if responsibility became the heart of our gospel? If the implications of our actions, each and every one, became of primary concern?
And as we heed the call of the past, we are invited also to answer the call issued by our present day prophet, the poet Mary Oliver - If the path to heaven does not, as she says, lie down in flat miles - but lives in the imagination with which we perceive this world and the gestures with which we honor it, oh what will we do, and what will we say?
What will we do with this optimistic faith that calls us to see both heaven and hell here on earth, that calls us to place responsibility for the betterment of ourselves and of this world at the center of our life, that calls us to build a beloved community of love and justice here and now? What will we do with our own individual histories, our pasts and our present -the regrets and hopes that we carry - as opportunities for change present themselves? How will we respond to that longing for escape, for the seemingly pleasant state of numbness that draws us away from recognizing our own power for change and our responsibility in this world? How will we take up the charge of our history and of our faith - placing responsibility at the heart of our gospel - acknowledging the sacred nature of this world - knowing that the good of each must become the concern of all? How will we respond as we consider the calling of this powerful and optimistic faith?
May we strive to answer these questions with all earnestness and urgency. May this community of fellow seekers and all who make up the world - support, challenge and guide us on our journey. May we all be called back, again and again, to the urging of our own hearts and minds, to the knowledge and potential of our own power to effect change, not only in our lives but in the larger world as well. May it be so, and Amen.
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