HomeGood Morning!
There is so much tragedy that fills the life of our planet. I need not run through a litany of death and destruction for you. And while every moment of pointless violence or the early death of a sister or brother should fill us with sorrow, there are some acts which strike closer to us emotionally than others. That does not diminish our faith in the inherent worth and dignity of every person, or our belief that the death of any person is a loss for the world, it merely marks our deeper connection to some.
Our Unitarian Universalist heritage is a complex one, and no simple statement can encompass it all, still, it remains true to say that from our Universalist forebears we inherit the belief in universal love and acceptance towards all people, and from our Unitarian forebears we inherit a history of striving for social justice.
We are at our best, and are truest to the two traditions that form our history when we act in distinct but interrelated ways: when we create in our congregations communities of welcome and hope and when we also do the work of social justice. We are at our best when we welcome people regardless of their sexual orientation and also work for same sex marriage rights. We are at our best when our congregations are places of welcome and safety for transgendered people and when we also work to guarantee their legal rights. We are at our best when we feed the homeless but also work to end homelessness and hunger.
We are at our best when we combine the work of creating community in our congregations, of doing the work of social service, and of doing the work of social justice. These are only a part of what we are, they do not by themselves define us, but they are important aspects of the whole.
The attack on the Tennessee Valley Unitarian Church, which resulted in the death of one member of that congregation, Greg McKendry, and one member of the nearby Westside Unitarian Universalist Church, Linda Kraeger, and the wounding of six other people, was a shock to many of us because it was an attack that targeted Unitarian Universalists because they were Unitarian Universalists. This attack is being treated by the police as what it was, a hate crime, a hate crime directed at Unitarian Universalists.
And it was violence in the spiritual home of our fellow religionists, in the very building that they have dedicated to be their place of worship and their place of safety.
While we may never know the full complexity of motives that drove the killer to act, it appears now that they were targeted for death because they believe in simple and yet threatening ideas: a genuine welcome to all and the search for social justice; and because they were true to their heritage they did the work of community, of social service and of social justice. That is not to say that they are political liberals; many of them may be. Rather, they are religious liberals. The apparent shooter can be forgiven for confusing the two since so many of us do as well.
It is commonplace among us to say that we believe in a world of peace and justice. It is commonplace among us to say that we believe in welcoming all into fellowship in our congregations, to say that all have a place at the welcome table; it is commonplace for us state our belief in equality for all people, to say that people of all races and creeds, women, gays, lesbians and bisexuals, and transgendered people, should have full equality, full rights and should be welcome as they are. And it is commonplace among us to say that we should and will strive to bring closer the day when that goal is achieved within our congregations and within the greater society.
It is so commonplace among us that we can think of these as bland almost meaningless statements; we can forget how rare it is in the world to say these things, and how much rarer it is in the world to mean them and to speak and work for them. And we can forget just how radical--and how threatening to some--those statements and actions are. They are radical ideas.
They are the radical call of true religion. Whether Jesus who went to the outcast or Buddha and Gandhi who denied the validity of caste, or our brothers and sisters in Tennessee who it appears now were targeted because they believe in a transcending love that encompasses all human beings, that calls upon us to show compassion for, to join in fellowship with and to stand as allies with the outcast, the marginalized, the excluded and to deny and act to tear down false divisions and barriers between people.
My personal reaction to this shooting has been a flow of emotions and thoughts. I felt surprise and then shock. I felt sorrow and compassion for those killed and wounded, for their families and loved ones, and for the people present in the congregation that day who will forever be scarred emotionally by this event, especially for the children. I felt gratitude for the nearby Presbyterian Church where the children ran in the immediate aftermath of the shooting. That congregation took in the children and gave them protection and comfort.
I felt gratitude for our own religious association and for the Unitarian Universalist Trauma Response Team that sent team members to Knoxville on Sunday afternoon.
And I felt anger at the hatred and insanity that apparently led to this act.
I felt anger at all of those who promote hatred and division, bigotry and prejudice. And I felt fear—fear for us, fear for myself. Could this happen here?
Fear and anger. Those are the two emotions which themselves are to be feared the most. It is human to have them, it is healthy to acknowledge them, it is important to contain them.
Fear and anger can so twist an individual mind, heart and soul that violence and the killing of innocent people in order to relieve the pain can seem reasonable, even mandatory.
Fear and anger can so twist a people that a nation founded on the Enlightenment philosophy of human rights can justify to itself the use of secret prisons, secret trials and even torture.
Fear and anger could so turn the heart and mind that a religious movement or a religious congregation committed to universal welcome and affirmation could turn to exclusion and closed doors in the false search for safety and security.
Fear and anger can so twist the individual human heart, mind and soul that the search for someone to blame, the search for someone to excoriate and attack becomes overwhelming. I could do that. I could become so angry at the shooter or at the purveyors of bigotry who inspired his hate that I forget that they too are people and are worthy of my compassion and love. I could become so angry at them that I become their mirror image, engaging in a false culture war that denies everything I believe in and that my religious tradition stands for. Let me remain true to myself. And let our Unitarian Universalist movement remain true to itself.
We are a religious movement that seeks to overcome barriers of hatred, that seeks to overcome bigotry and prejudice, not through stoking the fires of our own bigotry but through faith in the power of the human heart and mind and faith in the power of human love to dissolve those barriers. It is for that faith that those people in Tennessee were targeted and some were wounded or killed. Let us not betray them or ourselves by yielding to our own anger and fear, by yielding to our own hatreds. Instead, may this moment be one in which we become even more committed to the vision of a world of peace and justice.
Imagine a world in which barriers of race and class, of religion and creed, of gender and nationality, of sexual orientation and sexual identity have all been swept aside. Imagine a world where these false divisions have collapsed and where people are seen for their individual qualities and are not judged by false categories and stereotypes.
That is a world which is already coming into being. It is a world which is breaking in as we speak. The day of full community is slow in coming, but it is in process. There is resistance to that world. There is fear of change, of giving up the old ways and the old judgments, but these are the pains that change brings in its wake. Already the sounds and sights of new equality are appearing across this land and across this world. Those who cannot accept it struggle against it. Our goal is not to attack them in return, but is to speak to and ease their fears, for this world that is coming into being will include them as well. In each of those who struggle against full inclusion let us see a sister or brother who has not yet accepted that change, let us see the pain and fear that inspires their anger and rejection, but let us also see within each of them someone who might and even will join in making that change if we together love them strongly enough.
May we build a world in which every person has adequate food and water, clothing and shelter; in which every person has health care and the right to an education; in which every person is free to speak his or her mind, to vote on matters of importance to them, to participate in choosing their leaders. May we build a world in which the Universalist vision, the vision in which every child of God is welcome and affirmed, and a world in which the Unitarian vision, the vision in which equality and justice are truly for all, is brought into being.
May this be our task: to answer the radical call of our religious faith, to build a world of justice and love, and to do so without hatred or rancor against those who hate us; may our faith be strong enough that despite the hatred aimed at us we can see every person—every person—as a child of God, a child of the cosmos. May our faith be strong enough to transform the hatred and fear of others into universal love. May we nurture one another in communities of hope and promise, communities that serve as symbols of the world that can and will be; and may we do so filled with the spirit of peace and determination and love.
So let it be.
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