This sermon was presented by Rev. Judith Campbell at Stevens Chapel on Feb. 2, 2003.

Reflections on Our Third Principle

Acceptance of one another and encouragement to spiritual growth in our

congregations. This statement is so self evident that you might wonder why I am even bothering to preach on it. I asked myself the same question. And frankly, when I undertook this series, I thought this would be one of the easier ones, until I sat down to write. It was then I that realized that there are really two principles at work here: acceptance of one another AND encouragement of spiritual growth in our congrega-tions. And while the two are clearly related and interdependent, they are also two separate things. We must really -I mean really - accept one another before there can be meaningful spiritual growth in a congregation, any congregation, OUR congregation.

Practicing this is easy as long as the person next to you, or across the aisle, or coming in the door for the first time thinks the way we do, dresses the way we do, and worships and responds the way we do. I wonder if my openly gay friend, who is a Conservative Republican and very active in the Republican party, and who is pro-military action in the Middle East would be welcomed here. He considers himself a UU and is planning to join a church in the near future. Could we really be open and affirming to him? Could we welcome his lifestyle and not his politics? And if we can’t, we are not practicing what we signed up for. That’s when we - when I - really have to face up to these principles we have agreed to try to live by and really live them.

Encouraging spiritual growth may in fact be encouraging a person, a child or a spouse even, to grow around us or beyond us, or in a totally different direction. And that’s what we SAY we are doing. But the reality, when it happens, and someone or something challenges us, pushes against what is familiar and comfortable, we are forced to question our own beliefs and practices. It’s comfortable and easy to think that we are clearly the best, the most liberal and the most inclusive and enlightened, so we don’t need to think about it. We like to think that we are religiously and spiritually there. But are we really?

We are what we are, and we have really good intentions, until someone unintentionally or intentionally pushes up against our values or our ethics or our sense of right and wrong. We try hard to be liberal and encouraging to all comers, but Fundamentalist Christians, old guard republicans, anti-abortionists, and military hawks could find it hard to feel welcome in many of our hallowed "inclusive halls". And if that is the case, then we are hypocrites.

We must always remember that we intend to value the right to make decisions, to think for ourselves, and to listen to all sides of an argument. But it is very easy for us so called "liberals" to dismiss out of hand anything that is not in our own party line. That kind of thinking is just as narrow as that which we would condemn in others, but it’s just go\\\t a different subject heading. In this room today, there are undoubtedly Christian with a big C, people who belong to the National Rifle Association, and people who consistently vote Republican. These groups were certainly represented in my last church, and they were just as "UU" as the next person. And they are on a spiritual jo\urney which is just as valid as mine. And the views and values that are represented must not be dismissed or disrespected.

There is a minister in our denomination, who started her career as a middle of the road Unitarian Universalist of Jewish ancestry. She is very bright, highly educated and very visible and vocal in the denomination. And I believe she is completely sincere in her \\thinking and her ministry and her personal religious practice. Her widely publicized theological journey has taken her from a pretty standard "Unitarian" framework into and through UU Christianity, to the American Baptist Church (the liberal wing of the Baptists). I believe she now holds dual fellowship with the American Baptists. And at first I questioned that. But then I realized it is not supposed to fit me; it’s her choice and her journey. My job is to respect it.

I hate it when I have to abide by what I espouse, practice what I preach. Actually I don’t at all. It just means I’m pushing up against and questioning my own stereotypes and prejudices and it means I’m growing in spite of myself!

I have a very dear Roman Catholic Priest friend. I may have mentioned him to some of you. He is a tribal Nigerian that I met while I was taking my religion courses at Harvard Divinity School. Through the year that we were taking a course together, we became quite good friends. He celebrated and blessed my ordination into a liberal Protestant Ministry, and I waited and watched with him as he struggled through a Doctorate in Early Christian Studies at the University of Chicago. We are as different as chalk and cheese, and color is the least of our differences. There are things we respectfully do not discuss; abortion is one of them. Clearly there is no point in it. We have encouraged each other in our spiritual and in our religious growth for over 8 years now, and it will continue for many more. But then, he is not a member of this Church and neither of us is trying to convince the other of anything.

So, how do we grow spiritually as individuals and at the same time collectively as a congregation? The two are related, but they are not the same. In a book entitled, "How Congregations grow" the author talks about different kinds of congregational growth. He lists growth in numbers, growth in outreach, financial growth, and an inward deepening spiritual growth. How do people who are on individual spiritual journeys grow collectively as a congregation, especially when, like the Frost Poem, "two roads diverge " or, more likely, many roads diverge?

First of all, we have to want to! Then we have to commit work at it.

My job in this process is to be attentive to the different needs and interests of the congregation as a whole, and to provide opportunities for our membership to grow and to deepen our congregational spiritual experience.

One way I do that is to try to offer different kinds of services on a Sunday morning. Poetry services, our intergenerational services, Music services, and hopefully, one day, even Dance on a Sunday morning. In the future, I want to be able to offer the occasional service on other than a Sunday morning, a less formal, more intimate, more participatory experience. And, when time permits and interest is evident, I will. But despite what I just said, Spiritual growth is not limited to Sunday mornings. Far from it. Spiritual growth, the widening and deepening of our experience and understanding of that which is above and beyond our physical and material world, is an ongoing process. Sunday morning services simply open us up to the possibilities and affirm and confirm our awareness and understanding of beloved community, the brother and sister travelers and our children.

Spiritual growth happens big-time in our men’s and women’s groups! It happens as we share our truths and our realities and our fears in a safe confidential setting. It happens around a quilt, or confronting a new piece of music and trying to make a joyful noise together. Spiritual growth happens when we explore our own thoughts in relation to Henry David Thoreau’s transcendental thoughts in the discussion group led by our Pastoral intern, Janet Holladay. Spiritual growth happens in our congregational democratic process when we are respectful of differing views and opinions and genuinely try to learn about the other view rather than just challenge it and make points for "your-side".

Spiritual growth has been happening around the building of the ramp, and will continue as we implement stages two and three of our accessibility plans (if we all live that long!!!.) How can a bathroom be part of our collective, deepening spiritual experience? Well between the blows and the curses and the frozen pipes and the building codes, a group of dedicated people, supported by the rest of us, has made the commitment to make this an accessible building. Right now, we have only one member who is in a chair, but we have several members who find the ramp far easier to negotiate than cement stairs. We can be proud of our progress, even proud of our disagreements because we are moving forward on a very physical plane - inclined plane even - with a much higher purpose than meeting accessibility regulations and building codes. That’s the spiritual part. We want all who would come through these doors, and once here, to be able to go to the bathroom if they need to. And according to my research, most people need to, at least once in a while. Some of you might not think that building codes around bathroom accessibility is a particularly "spiritual" concern, much less the focus of part of my sermon. But just try praying or meditating or even listening to this sermon for very long if you have to go to the bathroom!

For many people, the physical is very much interconnected with the spiritual. For me, my quilts, my writing and, soon to be again, my painting is my outward expression of my spirituality; it is a significant part of my practice of religion, and a significant part of my larger ministry. Your encouragement and support of that is vital to me in my spiritual journey, which should be, I hope, intricately and intimately connected and interwoven with your individual and congregational spiritual and religious growth.

And because spiritual growth and experience is such a personal and individual thing, weaving our individual journeys into a collective experience is no small undertaking. That’s why it happens so slowly and so beautifully, and sometimes without our even knowing it until we are right in the middle of it and we look around ourselves, and realize just how deep the connection is ,the connection to one another, the connection to something, however we name it, to something greater than ourselves. Love is the doctrine of this church, the quest for truth is its sacrament, and service is its prayer.Collectively, we believe in the power of love to change our lives and the lives of those around us. For some, the power of love is also the power of a holy other, a godhead. For others, love is the connective tissue of all creation that we must recognize, respect and renew on a daily, if not hourly, basis.

The quest for truth, the search for the light is as individual a quest as each and every one of us is an individual. It is the journey, not the destination, which unites us, and our acceptance and inclusion of the diverse paths we take to make that journey.

And Service is our prayer: Making soup is a prayer, Making cookies for someone or something is making lots of little individual prayers, Calling on a sick friend, Calling on a well friend, calling out a greeting, Calling on the bereaved and the lonely and knowing when to call it a day and rest.

Encouraging spiritual growth in our congregations, in the larger denomination, at the national level is that which encourages the establishment of UU Christian Congrega-tions, is that which allows for a congregation with huge financial assets to create a foundation which gives that money to more needy congregations as part of their ministry, is that which encourages another Congregation to develop a prison ministry, and another to work together to open a home for battered and abused women and their children.

Spiritual growth is seeing beyond the trees and entering into the forest. Moving beyond the by-laws, which we must have if we are going to call ourselves a congregational polity. Moving through and beyond the by-laws, and into a trusting and caring relation-ship with members and friends of this community even if, and maybe more especially if, we don’t always see eye to eye with them on all if the issues, but share a larger vision of a better world through all of our efforts.

Spiritual growth is all of us celebrating the birth of a child or cooking and baking for a wedding or a church supper or for the newly bereaved. It is decorating the church for the holidays and then putting away the decorations. It is opening our homes for our annual B&B if we can. It is welcoming a new member the second and third time he or she comes and helping her or him become a real part of our community.

Spiritual growth in community is a way of intentionally living the cycles of our days in relationship with one another, and seeing those days and those events and rites of passage as part of a much greater reality and unity of which we are all a part and for which I am profoundly grateful.Amen, and Blessed be.