There are many things that we Unitarian Universalists do well.
We Unitarian Universalists are dedicated to living our faith and most of the time we practice what we preach.
Throughout our history working for civil rights and combating oppression have been essential parts of our identity as religious liberals.
Our faith communities have worked for justice for hundreds of years, advocating for free speech and the practice of religious tolerance as far back as the fifteen hundreds.
In nineteenth century America Unitarians and Universalists stood at the forefront in the efforts to abolish slavery and in supporting women's rights.
Today, we continue to work for justice in ways that resonate with our Principles and Purposes from protecting our environment to standing up for bisexual, gay, lesbian, and transgender people.
Individually we are active in politics both locally and nationally. Collectively, we find ways to work for change in our neighborhoods and in our cities and states.
We participate in protests and teach-ins; we sign petitions and we speak in public forums.
We take our values and our principles seriously. You might say we walk the walk as well as we talk the talk.
But there is one thing that I think we do not do particularly well.
We don't do theology.
In fact, conversations about the nature of God make some of us down right nervous or even angry that time would be spent in discussing a topic that for them holds little meaning or relevance in their lives.
To be sure, we are a diverse religious community. We are atheists and agnostics. We are Christians and Jews.
We are Buddhists and followers of a myriad of earth-based religions. We are believers and non-believers.
We are a religious community. The last time I checked our sign still referred to us as the Unitarian Universalist Church of the Shenandoah Valley.
Perhaps the word "congregation" might somehow be a better descriptor than church, but that is a discussion for another day.
Our identity as Unitarians comes from centuries of folks struggling to convince the world that there just might be a number of ways to think about theology-the study of God and by extension, I suppose, the nature of Jesus.
Our identity as Universalists is deeply tied to Christianity and the decidedly radical notion that God is so loving that all souls will be saved.
That whatever hell we may experience is the hell we have created for ourselves here on earth.
But I think it unfortunate that unlike many of our friends in other denominations-liberal as well as conservative-we don't use religious language in arguing for our positions and I believe this leaves us at a distinct disadvantage.
I think the primary reason that we Unitarian Universalists don't "do theology" particularly well is that there have been so few notable modern-day theologians who claim us as their own.
Even I am guilty of often citing the writings of folks who lived four and five hundred years ago as the basis for what I believe today.
I speak of Francis David who argued for religious tolerance and Michael Servetus who directly challenged John Calvin and was burned at the stake for his Unitarian thinking.
So it's curious to me that we who think of ourselves as religious liberals are often distressed when we are asked to talk and think in religious terms.
But Henry, you might argue, didn't the secular humanism that swept over Unitarian Universalism in the early twentieth century pretty much push Unitarians and Universalists away from theology and religious thinking?
Haven't we replaced speculation and myth with reason? Hasn't science trumped superstition? Aren't we either too smart, or too clever, or too stubborn to find a theology that speaks to us today?
Now I have exaggerated here just a bit for there have been Unitarian Universalist theologians in every age-including our own.
The thinking of such scholars as Henry Nelson Wieman, who urged us to have a passion for understanding the ultimate source of creativity in the world, and James Luther Adams who wrote of the prophethood of all believers and of the importance of "faith seeking understanding in the realm of moral action," and Jack Mendelsohn who wrote of our profound ethical responsibilities and the importance of finding moral understanding in our lives.
But this morning I would like to lift up another voice, another theologian, whose work I believe is as relevant to Unitarian Universalists of the twenty-first century as any I know-the Rev. Dr. Howard Thurman.
As one biographer tells us:
"Howard Thurman was born and raised in Daytona, Fl. He was raised by his grandmother, who had been born in slavery.
Thurman was raised in the days of segregation and the Daytona schools went only to the seventh grade, so Thurman's family scraped together the funds to send him to high school in Jacksonville.
However, at the train station, Thurman was told he had to pay extra to send his baggage. Buying the ticket had left him destitute; he had no more to ship his trunk. Penniless, the boy sat down on the steps and began to cry.
Then, a stranger - a black man dressed in overalls - walked by and paid the charges. He didn't introduce himself, and Thurman never learned his name.
When Thurman wrote his autobiography, he dedicated it "to the stranger in the railroad station in Daytona Beach who restored my broken dream sixty-five years ago."
In 1923 , Howard Thurman graduated from Morehouse College. He was ordained a Baptist minister in 1925, after completing his study at the Colgate Rochester Theological Seminary.
In 1929, Thurman studied at Haverford College with Rufus Jones, a Quaker mystic and leader of the pacifist, interracial Fellowship of Reconciliation.
And it was here that he began his journey towards a philosophy that stressed an activism rooted in faith, guided by spirit, and maintained in peace.
In 1936, Thurman led a "Negro Delegation of Friendship" to South Asia.
There he met the Indian leader Mahatma Gandhi. His conversations with Gandhi broadened his theological and international vision.
God-given faith, Gandhi proclaimed, could be used to fight the oppression of white American segregation.
He challenged Thurman to rethink the idea of Christianity as a religion used by whites to keep black "in their place" with images of a white Christ and ideas of a land of milk and honey in the great beyond.
Hindu principles offered Indians a basis for nonviolent opposition to British power, he said. Did Christianity have a similar power to overcome white racism?
Thurman continued thinking and writing about his conversation with Gandhi for the rest of his life.
He passed on his thinking to James Farmer, founder of the Congress of Racial Equality, and Martin Luther King, Jr.
In his book, Jesus and the Disinherited, Thurman provided an interpretation of the New Testament gospels that laid the foundation for a nonviolent civil rights movement.
Thurman expounded on the idea of Jesus as a liberating figure, bringing new testament gospel together with non-violent resistance.
Thurman presented the basic goal of Jesus' life as helping the disinherited of the world change from within so they would be empowered to survive in the face of oppression.
A love rooted in the "deep river of faith," wrote Thurman, would help oppressed peoples overcome persecution.
"It may twist and turn, fall back on itself and start again, stumble over an infinite series of hindering rocks, but at last the river must answer the call to the sea."
In 1944 Thurman left his position as dean at Howard University to co-found the first fully integrated, multi-cultural church in the United states.
Located in San Francisco, The Church for the Fellowship of All Peoples was a revolutionary idea.
Founded on the ideal of diverse community with a focus on a common faith in God, Thurman brought people of every ethnic background together to worship and work for peace.
"Do not be silent; there is no limit to the power that may be released through you."
Ultimately, Thurman would take leave from his pastorate to accept a position at Boston University where he became the first African American Dean of Marsh Chapel. He died in 1981.
In reading over his writings, I find much that seems to speak directly to my own struggles to understand the nature of the divine and I want to share with you some of his thoughts this morning.
Thurman's theology is based on his every day experiences with life.
He doesn't write in esoteric prose but rather he puts his thoughts in narrative form that is easily accessible.
It should be noted that much of his writing was done in the days before inclusive language became customary and I do not believe his use of the male pronoun should be considered anything but a stylistic remnant of his day.
"The individual lives his life in the midst of stresses and strains." Thurman tells us.
"There are many tasks in which he is engaged that are not meaningful even though they are important in secondary ways. There are many responsibilities that are his by virtue of training, or family, or position....No one is ever free from the peculiar pressures of his own life."
"Each one has to deal with the evil aspects of life, with injustices inflicted upon him and injustices which he wittingly or unwittingly inflicts upon others....The only hope for (respite)...is to establish an Island of Peace within one's soul. Here one brings for review the purposes and dreams to which one's life are tied."
"This is the place where there is no pretense, no dishonesty, no adulteration....What one thinks and feels about one's own life stands revealed...love is love, hate is hate, fear is fear.
Well within is the temple where God dwells-not the God of the creed, the church, the family, but the God of one's heart...How foolish it is, how terrible, if you have not found your Island of Peace within your own soul! It means you are living without the discovery of your true home."
How many of us today have found our inner Island of Peace? How many have tried or have had the luxury of time to try and look within and find there inner contentment.
How many of us have the luxury of self-reflection so that like peeling an onion we can get through all of the layers of who we purport to be until we can get to the authentic center of our being?
Yes, some of us may get to the center of who we are through meditation, others through centering prayer, and some by the practice of mindfulness, but I resonate with Thurman's admonishment, "How foolish it is, how terrible, if you have not found your Island of Peace within your own soul! It means you are living without the discovery of your true home."
But, Thurman suggests, it is not enough if we look only inward. As human beings, he suggests, we have a responsibility to also look after one another.
He writes of visiting in Rangoon and walking along a road and at intervals along the way he came upon large stones by the side of the road.
On some of the stones he found a crock of water and on others were pieces of fruit placed their by Buddhist monks to comfort and bless any passerby-one's spiritual salutation to another.
At night there were lighted lanterns on the rocks with notes giving detailed directions to where the monks lived so that if a person was in distress or need, one could find shelter.
Thurman tells us, "It's not important who the stranger might be, it is not important how many people pass in the night and do not stop. The important thing is that the lantern burns every night and every night the note is there, "Just in case."
The fact that he was a traveler from another part of the world, speaking a strange language and practicing a different faith, made no difference.
What mattered, he says, was the fact that he was a stranger on an unfamiliar road-"what my mission was, who I was- this was all irrelevant."
"In your own way, 'Thurman asks, "Do you keep a lantern burning by the roadside with a note saying where you may be found, "Just in case?"
Do you place a jar of cool water and a bit of food at the road's turning, to help the needy traveler? God knows the answer and so do you!"
And so our responsibility, Thurman suggests, is not just to ourselves but to others that we may look after one another. Indeed, some will pass through and we may never notice-others will find our lanterns and seek us out.
May we be ready to welcome them.
For me the essence of theology-my understanding of God-is a melding of heart and head or as Thurman himself observed "well within each of us is the temple where God dwells-not the God of the creed, the church, the family, but the God of one's heart..."
This seems to suggest that this is not the God of intervention, or omniscience but the God of conscience and consciousness. The God of intuition.
A God of immediacy and transcendence. A God of the heart that knows only our deepest fears and highest hopes.
A God of the heart-that essence-that inner spark-known by many names that is the essence of life..the spirit of life as we sing each Sunday.
"But the need of my heart," he concludes, "is room for Peace.: Peace of mind that inspires singleness of purpose; peace of heart that quiets all fears and uproots all panic; peace of spirit that filters through all confusions and robs them of their power...
Therefore I seek the enlargement of my heart, at this moment, that there may be room for peace."
Some I know are made uncomfortable by the merest mention of the word God.
And I, too, am uncomfortable, if that God is the God of those who believe we are mere pawns in the plans of some supreme being.
And I am uncomfortable, as well, if I think of this God as being more than the invention of those who seek explanations for all of life's mysteries.
For me the God of the heart is compassion and caring. It is understanding and forgiveness.
It is the spirit of community and it is the spirit of justice and equality and freedom. And when we use the language of the heart-when we speak the truth in love-then we are in touch with the holy.
I find the nature of this God to be very appealing for several reasons.
When we mourn and would be comforted, it is the God of the heart that in times heals us of the pain of loss.
When we come to understand that life can only be lived in the present we can begin to experience that inner island of peace.
When we are scared and afraid we can find strength in the language of the heart and find peace in our being.
In order to express our appreciation for this amazing miracle we call life we can begin by expressing the love that is in our heart.
Yes, God is a tricky word.
It is a word that has been both at the center of our chosen faith and at the farthest edges.
But even if we are the most ardent atheist there is room in our hearts for love.
There is room in our hearts for an Island of Peace.
And just perhaps...just perhaps that is the place where God resides.
And perhaps....just perhaps, that is a theology we can live by.
Amen and Blessed be.