"It's Free, But It's Not Cheap"

The Rev. Suzanne Meyer

My colleague Robert Fulghum, the author of All I Really Needed to Know I Learned in Kindergarten, and It Was On Fire When I Lay Down On It, is a Unitarian minister from the Seattle area. Since his best-selling books have made him virtually a household word, not to mention a millionaire, he's had to learn how to deal with the media, the press, with reporters. Bob tells of one experience he had with a reporter who wanted to discuss Fulghum's theology:

"Do you believe in God, Rev. Fulghum?"

"No, but I do believe in Howard."

"Howard? You believe in Howard?"

"It all has to do with my mother's maiden name."

"Your mother's maiden name?"

"It was Howard. She came from a big Memphis clan that was pretty close knit and was always referred to as The Howard Family. As a small child, I thought of myself as a member of The Howard Family because it was often an item of conversation, as in The Howard Family is getting together, and The Howard Family thinks people should write letters to their grandmother. The matriarch, my grandmother was referred to as Mother Howard."

"And you thought She was God Rev. Fulghum?"

"No, no. I just wanted you to first know how it was that Howard was a name that was important to me from early on in my life. What happened was that I got packed off to Sunday School at around age four and the first thing I learned was The Lord's Prayer, which begins 'Our Father, which art in heaven, Hallowed be thy name' and what I heard was, 'Our Father, which art in heaven, Howard be thy name,' and since little kids tend to mutter prayers anyhow, nobody realized what I was saying, so I went right on believing that God's name was Howard. And believing I was a member of his family—the Howards. Since I was told that my grandfather had died and gone to heaven, God and my grandfather got all mixed up in my mind as one and the same."

"You're not putting me on, are you?"

"Not at all. All human images of the ultimate ground of being are metaphors, and as metaphors go, this is a pretty homey one. And I thought it for so long that even when I passed thought all those growing up stages of skepticism, disbelief, revision, and confusion—somewhere in my mind I still believed in Howard. Because at the heart of that childhood image there is no alienation. I belonged to the whole big scheme of things . . ."

"So. Mr. Fulghum do you still believe in Howard?"

"I'll give you what may seem to be an enigmatic evasion, but it's truly the only answer I have to your question. It's a line from the writings of a 13th-century Christian mystic named Meister Eckhardt 'the eye with which I see God is the very same eye with which God sees me.' That's what I believe."

"Does that mean you think you are God?"

"Yes and no. It depends. In some cultures if a man says, 'I am God', he will get shunned or even locked up as crazy. In some other cultures, if a man says 'I am God', people will say, 'What took you so long to find out?' If you say you pray and talk to God, people will think you are religious. If you say God talks to you, people will think of you as loony."

"The journalist smiled, I smiled. She changed the subject. None of this discussion of Howard appeared in her article. Maybe when she asked the first question, I should have just said 'Yes', as a favor to her. But the truth is I haven't finished thinking about God, and the God of my childhood and the God of my middle age are mixed in with the God of wisdom that may yet come to me in my later years. Howard would understand."

Here ends the reading.

Many people are like the reporter who interviewed Robert Fulghum—they are either/or type thinkers. You either believe in God, or you don't. You either believe in heaven or you don't. Or the Bible as literal truth or you don't. Black or white, and no shades of gray; no room for different opinions or different ways of understanding, no room for questions or doubts. After all that's what religion is supposed to be about, isn't it—telling people what to believe, the one correct way to think about God, about heaven, life after death and so forth. And they'll ask you: What does your church believe? What are people who go to your church supposed to believe about God, life after death, and so forth. Church, after all, is the place you go to replace your questions with the right answers to the big mysteries of life and death.

Free Religion: that sounds like an oxymoron, because everybody knows that religion is all about restricting your freedom of belief, narrowing down the possibilities, eliminating some answers right off the bat. And if you have questions, or doubts, or a differing opinions then you are an unbeliever, an infidel, a heretic, or an atheist, or worse. The kind of either/or mind set that has fueled a lot of so called holy wars. Holy wars, now there's a real oxymoron. But there is another way in religion. It's called Free Religion. And free religion may well be the costliest kind of all.

When people come to this church for the first time, I notice that they often look around, front and back, up and down, and they sometimes even scratch their heads and wrinkle their brows. "It looks like a church all right, but something's missing. Let's see? No crucifix, no star of David, no stained glass windows with the Virgin Mary, or Jesus, or Joseph, no stations of the cross, no kneelers, no statues of the saints, no icons, no alters, no angels, no candles. Heck, not even a sign advertising Thursday night Bingo. And you call this a church. Just look round. There's not much here."

Most houses of worship are full of what we commonly call religious symbols: crosses, stars of David, angels, stained glass windows depicting scenes from the Bible, Jesus in Gethsemane, Moses and the Ten Commandments, sometimes statues, or icons.

Now the dictionary says that a symbol is something used to stand for something else, especially a material object used to represent something that cannot be touched, tasted, or heard. Religious symbols point to something beyond themselves; something we more often than not, have difficulty putting into words—the things some people call spiritual, sacred, holy. Religious symbols are a kind of short hand way of telling a long story. You can find out a lot about people, what they value, what is most precious to them, by looking at the things they have typically used inside their houses of worship to represent their faith. And so someone might come into this church and wonder, what do we stand for? Where are our symbols? What do we value? What do we worship? There doesn't seem to be much here.

Ah, but there is. There are plenty of religious symbols here in this room if you know how to look and if you know what to look for. This sanctuary is full of symbols that tell the story of Free Religion.

Unitarian and Universalist Churches belong to what is known as the Free Church Tradition. At this minute you are sitting on one of the most powerful symbols of the Free Church. That's not just a piece of uncomfortable furniture you are sitting on; it is a symbol of what we call The Free Pew.

How many of you have had a friend, or even a stranger, say to you, "You go to First Unitarian, don't you? Tell me, what is it that your church believes?" Next time give this reply: Churches don't have beliefs, people do. And in truth, there are as many different beliefs in this church right now as there are men, women and children sitting in the Free Pew.

Mature beliefs are carefully formulated over time through life experience, reason, moral intuition, conscience, and character. Beliefs are not found, they are forged out of the careful and disciplined reflection on the experiences of a life time. So how could we all share the identical beliefs, when we've all had different experiences of life? You've never walked a mile in my shoes, nor I in yours. Your experience of love is not identical to mine, nor is your experience of grief. What brings me joy may leave you cold. What makes me laugh may be what makes you cry. The music that delights your soul may be to me just so much noise. To expect your beliefs to be identical to mine is to require that one of us ignore or deny his or her life experience. When it comes to our most cherished personal beliefs, the things we are willing to live for and to die for, one size does not fit all, one creed does not fit all. How could it?

It is not the mission of First Church to demand of you conformity of belief. Rather it is the mission of this Free Church to help each and every person become a fully functioning free individual. Ours is the mission of creating the kind of environment in which freedom flourishes, because we have concluded over the years that God, the Holy, the Ground of Being, whatever you are moved to name it, is made manifest in freedom. Creeds, doctrines, dogmas, second hand opinions don't bring people closer to their God. These human made devices more often than not have only come between individuals and an authentic experience of the Holy. In the Free Church tradition each man, each woman, stands alone before his or her God.

The pew on which you are sitting is a symbol that points to a long history of struggle. It represents the struggles of ancient Hebrews who left slavery in Egypt in search of the Promised Land. This humble bench represents the early Christians who sought to emulate the religion of Jesus, not the religion about Jesus.

This pew is a symbol of the Renaissance thinkers who sought to be free of constraints in both the pursuit of arts and science. It is a symbol of the radical wing of the Protestant Reformation which taught that each person ought to read the scriptures for himself and make up his own mind. This pew represents the Pilgrims and the Puritans who risked their lives across a vast ocean to stake a claim to religious freedom in this continent. It is a symbol of all the unsung and often forgotten men and women who fought and died for the right to worship according to the dictates of their own hearts; those brave souls who stood unashamed before their God without church or state, minister, priest, or king telling them the right or the wrong way to pray.

The pew on which you are sitting is a symbol of Galileo, Copernicus, Darwin—every great teacher, scientist, philosopher, or researcher who fought to free humanity from ignorance and superstition. It is the symbol of the pioneer, the explorer, the unfettered spirit, the questioning mind, the cheerful skeptic, the one who cannot abide the predigested opinion, the ones who would not give even lip service to a creed.

This free pew is a symbol of resistance to holy wars, jihads, pogroms, witch hunts, and hate crimes. It is a symbol feared by tyrants, and dictators. This pew is a symbol of integrity, of intellectual honesty, of freedom of conscience. The freedom of each individual to stand before his God mediated only by his conscience, surviving thousands of years of attempts to extinguish it, is symbolized by this humble bench.

This plain, simple, unadorned wooden pew on which you sit symbolizes the mind which thinks critically, reasons lovingly, doubts boldly, and lives faithfully with life as it unfolds.

In short, this pew is a powerful symbol of the Free Church because it represents the Free Mind. That's a pretty potent symbol. It's simple; it's straight forward; it's hard. This free pew is no easy chair, no lazy boy recliner. Just as the free pew puts some demands on the body, what it symbolizes put demands on the intellect, and the conscience. Emerson said, "Nothing at last is sacred except the integrity of your own mind." Know your own mind. Avoid the easy answers.

You'll hear it said, "Oh, you are a Unitarian. You go to the church where you can believe anything you want to believe". Or even, "Isn't that the church where they don't believe in anything at all?" It is a grave error to say that we members of the Free Church believe whatever it is that we want to believe, and equally in error to say that we are the ones who believe in nothing at all. In truth, we all believe only that which we must believe. I believe only what my reason, my experience and my moral intuition will permit me to believe. And as your minister, I want you to have the freedom to believe only what you must believe, as well. You must search and test your own experience. Believe only what you must. What for you is tried and true. That is the essence of the free pew, and the essence of this religious community.

On that pew over there sits someone who found God through Alcoholics Anonymous. He believes what he must believe. And over there sits someone who discovered God in nature. She calls the mountains her cathedral, and the lake is her healer. She believes what she must. And the man over there feels closest to God when he's helping to build a house for a low income family. He believes what he must. And the woman sitting somewhere in the middle who volunteers for hospice. She feels God's presence when she sits at the bedside of the terminally ill. She believes what she must. And over there is a woman who volunteers in our religious education program. She sees in each child's face the image and likeness of the Divine. She believes what she must. And there is someone who sings in the choir. Music brings him closer to heaven. And over there is the one who has suffered a great loss, the death of a loved one, and for him God is totally absent from his experience. He believes what he must. And some where on that side, the one who has not found God at all. But he believes in life, and in loving his neighbor as himself, and in friendship, and in the redemptive power of service to others. He believes what he must. And she calls herself a Christian. And he calls himself a Buddhist. And the one over there calls him an agnostic. She calls herself a mystic. She prays; he meditates. And each believes only what they must believe, what for each of them has been tried and proven true.

Look around. There is something here. That something is people who demand an original, unmediated relationship with their God—with what is for each one of them sacred. That something is people who prefer to think for themselves in matters of faith. That something is people who choose to believe, or choose not to believe based on the dictates of their own conscience. They trust the lessons that life has taught them. They have searched their souls, and struggled to find answers that resonate with their experiences. Often times they have found answers tossed them aside and found new answers. To some questions, they have learned to live with no clear answers at all. They are all different and yet they all have one thing in common; they shun second-hand religion. Churches don't have beliefs, people do. And in truth, there are as many different beliefs in this church right now as there are men, women and children sitting in the Free Pew. We believe what we must. And we defend each other's sacred right to do the same.

Many people just assume, and wrongly so, that the opposite of Free Religion, or as it is more often called Liberal Religion, is conservative religion. Not so. The opposite of Liberal Religion is not conservative religion but Authoritarian Religion. Liberal as the term is applied to religion is not about a particular ideology, but rather a particular methodology by which we search for our own answers.

But the question is sure to come up, "if we are each free to believe only what we must, why belong to a church at all? Why not be just as free at the lake or free at the golf course on Sunday morning?"

Because without each other, freedom is meaningless. Alone on a desert island, you are not free, you are just alone. That's why it is a free pew and not a free folding chair. We need each other. Without each other, freedom has no meaning, no purpose, at all. When you sit in the pews of this church, surrounded by your friends and neighbors, you are free to believe as your conscience dictates. This church exists in order to celebrate and protect that freedom. We exist as a church in order to institutionalize freedom. Without each other, we are alone, not free. And when we are alone, our freedom is most vulnerable. We need each other to protect each other's right to be free.

Where you sit is just a bench. Simple, unadorned, not even very comfortable. It is a free pew, but it is not a cheap pew. Free religion demands that you think; that you act on what you know to be true; and that you live with a certain level of existential ambiguity. For many people that is too high a price to pay.

Next time you walk into this house of worship, take a look around. There are plenty of symbols here, if you know what to look for. This pew is just one of them. It represents a lot of history, in the long fight for the right to worship freely. It is a monument to those who have died defending our right to worship according to the dictates of our own hearts. It is the symbol of the freedom each and every one of us has to believe only what we must.

Says my colleague Robert Fulghum:

"On a long flight from Melbourne to Athens, an Australian carpenter, an Indian college professor in hydrology, and I had a memorable late night theological discussion. The three of us were seated in one row, and the subject of God came up because our meals were accompanied by a little card on which was printed a short prayer of thanksgiving.

"The professor made some remark about not being thankful to any of the gods for this particular food. The carpenter composed a prayer of complaint. And the discussion was off and running.

"The carpenter declared his theology had a lot to do with fleas and a dog. Arguing whether or not God exists is like fleas arguing whether or not the dog exists. Arguing over the correct name of God is like fleas arguing over the name of the dog. And arguing over whose notion of God is correct is like fleas arguing over who owns the dog.

"We three ate our meal in silence for a while—digesting that godforsaken meal and the Australian version of theological Truth.

"I think Howard would understand."

Amen.

Let us pray: O God, in whose image and likeness we are created, you have given us minds so that we might come to understand your creation and hearts so that we might love the world. Bless us as we struggle to discover you, each in our own way. Guide and protect us. Bring each one of us to a mature faith. Bless our doubts, bless our struggles, bless even our disbelief, bless our freedom to find you and know you through our own experiences and not the experiences of someone else. Keep us continually dissatisfied with a second hand faith, and draw us each one into a relationship with our highest values and aspirations, that is original, unmediated and free. May we have the wisdom and the courage to guard that freedom with our lives. Amen.