BELONGING
A sermon by Rev. Robert M. Eddy
delivered before The Unitarian Universalist Church
Pensacola, Florida
18 November, 2001

Every four years, the General Assembly of the Unitarian Universalist Association elects a Commission of Inquiry , a sort of “blue ribbon” panel and tells it to investigate some aspect of the associations’ s life and report back in four years. They can choose any aspect they think important. The commission elected in 1997 chose the topic, “Belonging: The Meaning of Membership.” The brought in their report to the General Assembly held last Spring in Cleveland which our delegate Mae Oshae. attended. Here is the concluding recommendation”
“The commission recommends that the Unitarian Universalist congregations significantly expand their membership practices and definitions to embrace all people who wish to participate in a meaningful and healthy way in the life of a local congregation. The people who are participating appropriately are the constituency of your congregations. Rather than focusing on qualifications for voting, minimum pledge payments, ate, theology, or any other attribute, we urge congregations to look at the range of people who share the worship life, the social life, and the justice=seeking life of the congregation. This is our membership, though all may not have signatures in the membership book. We recognize that this is a radical departure from the practices of many, if not most, membership committees. We also recognize that this practice raises some complicated issues around identity, accountability, inclusion, and definition.”When I first read that I thought I disagreed. In fact I thought I had caught the commission in a contradiction because in another part of the report they seem to be saying we should require more of people before they are allowed to sign the membership book. That has been my position as you know if you were here two years ago. I maintained then that deciding to join a UU congregation should be as carefully undertaken as the decision of who to marry - or at least as seriously as what car to buy. Ad I said that you couldn’t really be a UU unless you were willing to join a congregation - to commit yourself to its support with your time, your money, your devotion. It seemed the commission was disagreeing with my view.But no, I misunderstood. What the commission was really saying was that joining a congregation is only one step on a road toward becoming come completely UU I agree that membership is a process. A way not a destination Signing the membership book to join a congregation is only one step in - and I quote = “a process of deepening participation and commitment, a process that may be lifelong.” And what is the end point of that process. This may be a shock, but I think it is ministry. No not professional ministry. I’ll be talking about that next week. Professional ministry is not for everybody - but ministry as a mature stage in membership is. I’ll have more to say about that later.I have preached and will preach many sermons on what I think are sign posts along the way to ministry. One of them is cultivating a “delight in diversity”. Another is accepting and living as though we are a part of, not
the masters of the biosphere. According to the authors of Cultural Creatives nearly a quarter of the population of the O.S. already share those values and the others expressed in the principles and purposes of the UUA and in the bylaws of the Pensacola UU Church. But only about one tenth of one percent of Americans identify themselves as Unitarian Universalists or Unitarians when asked their religious affiliation. And only half of those actually belong to a UU congregation. Only about 155,000 people belong to a UU congregation. An additional 61,000 children and young people attend UU services. A really tiny minority of Americans but, I hope, a significant minority, perhaps even a saving remnant.
What should be call those 12 million “core cultural creatives” who don’t even know there is a religious community that makes their values central. Should we call them “UU’s without knowing it? I think not. Many of those folks belong to other religious communities and feel perfectly comfortable there. Perhaps we should call them “fellow travelers” Nor am I willing to consider the next category mentioned in the Commission’s report as “uu’s”. These are the people who belong to one of the many UU affiliate organizations, the biggest of these is the UU Service committee. In case you don’t know the UUSC is a membership organization made up primarily of UU individuals but anyone can become a member simply by making a contribution of $25.00 or more. Often they are members of other religious communities who simply want to support the good work the UUSC does here and abroad. If you want to know more about the UUSC go to UUA.org an click the appropriate button under Affiliate Organizations. You may be surprised to see how many of these there are. There are several other such organizations with varying percentages of members of UU congregations, members of other religious communities and many many “nothingtarians and some people I’m willing to call “non congregational uu’s.” .” These are the people who declare their UU identity only when asked? Someone has called them, “UU’s without showing it”. I do wish they would join a conjugation. I’m willing to consider them “non congregational UU’s” and urge them to join a congregation and even extend them some of the privileges of membership = more about that later. These “non congregational UU’s” may not contribute any money or time to the church, but they lend us their good name - and that’s worth something. In this part of the country especially, they are taking a stand, risking ostracism and perhaps even some persecution and I appreciate that. If they consider themselves, UU’s I won’t say they’re not. But they’re not members of a congregation. What about the people who participate in the social life of a congregation but never join? Sometimes they contribute substantially to the life of the church but don’t want to join. What shall I call them? Fair game? Well yes but I like the term Friend better. I would like to see us formalize that category - and honor it. Some of our friends have very good but personal reasons for not joining. They should be recognized for their contributions. So finally I get to the people who have actually signed the book. Surely they’re full members. Well yes. Our bylaws allow anyone who is 15 or older, says she or he agrees with the purposes of the congregation and signs the book is a members. They are no doubt members. But I have wondered before and do again about how easy we have in the past made joining. It was a matter of pride when I came into the movement and I used to condemn New England Churches which had elaborate requirements for membership. I favored having the book open every Sunday and making a good old fashioned Methodist “altar call” at the end of the service so that even a first time visitor could become a member. I’ve changed my view. You may have heard what allegedly happened at All Souls Unitarian Church in Washington DC. One Sunday morning, George Lincoln Rockwell, head of the American Nazi Party and several of his jack booted followers walked into the church and demanded to be allowed to sigh the book - as the church had said “anyone can join.” For some reason the trustee in charge was unable to find the book. There are many arguments for continuing the long-standing custom of easy membership in this congregation. There are some against it. One such argument is that any group of Southern Baptists who coveted this building could join amass some Sunday and take it all away from you. The fear of that kind of take over was what motivated the New England churches to put up barriers to easy membership. Another argument against easy membership is that we humans tend to not value what is easily attained. Easy come easy go. So, what we’re experimenting with is a system in which each person who is considering membership attends an after church luncheon (free incidentally put on by the membership committee. During that luncheon two members and the minister share their religious journey and invite their guests to do the
same. The minister gives a brief - well hopefully brief talk on what he considers the central characteristics of our way of being religious and answers a few questions. We do not ask anyone to join at that time. Instead we ask anyone wishing to join to meet with the minister twice if they’ve never been a member of a UU church and once if they have joined elsewhere. We plan to do this every three months. If person does decide to join after all that, she or he is invited to sign on a Sunday morning and be introduced to the congregation. But that’s not the end of this journey. It’s just another, albeit a very significant step. One that gives one the privileges membership the first of which is the right to vote. We have no pope or bishop or even ministers who have authority over members. The congregation is the final authority in all matters. That’s why our bylaws are so important. Perhaps the most obvious privilege of membership is being able to use the building. Non members have to pay a substantial fee for usages which are free to members. But of course the main use of our building is for programs we democratically decide we want. Now it’s possible to be a UU congregation without owning property. I may have told you the story before of the child in the shelter for the homeless who said, “Oh, we have a home. We just don’t have a house to pout it into right now.” Some of you remember then that was the situation of this congregation. But UU’s are really like a nomad tribe. We don’t have to own a building. We can meet in one another’s houses or in libraries or in schools but we’re most comfortable inside walls of our own. That despite the fact that our
“homes” are bombed or burned sometimes as were a number during the civil rights struggles in the 60s. Still we like “a place of our own” and it’s home for “us” the UU church of Pensacola.A second privilege of membership is that you can define what it means to be a member. We evolve as congregations as we grow as individuals. We are not handed down bylaws as are Methodists and Catholics. We can even craft our own covenant = an agreement on a set of principles and practices that define the way in which members will be expected to behave toward one another. This word covenant is very old in our tradition. The first covenanted congregation in America was created in a ship called the Mayflower in 1620. The congregation created by that covenant is now a UU church but it is also the mother church of Congregationalists and Baptists. This congregation-’s covenant is recited each Sunday morning. It’s a good covenant but it’s not carved in stone. As we evolve we can, if we so choose, change it. What the covenant says is less important than the fact that we can democratically change the covenant.There’s a third privilege of membership in a congregation. Ministry. I say ministry rather than having a minister” because many small UU congregations manage very well without professional ministers, without what the quakers called, “hireling clergy”. It is your privilege as a member to minister to one another. You share your sorrows and joys formally on Sunday mornings bur more importantly you help one another 7 days a week. Most of that helping is done without fanfare. Visitations, calling on the phone, taking someone to the doctor, being present at a trial, even helping out financially sometimes. Most of you ministers “do your good works in secret.” You bear each other’s woes and share each others’ pain. You work to become a beloved and loving community. All this is ministry.
And, there’s a fourth privilege of membership. You have the right to the services of a resident professional minister. Someone who lives among you and whose first priority is to be your lead minister: not your only minister but your lead minister. One who can offer services to members and to the community that no other member minister can do. My primary task is to help you be better ministers to one another and to greater Pensacola. Right now you have only half of my time but that will change in eight months when I will have fulfilled my contract with the Emerald Coast Fellowship. Hopefully, in 32 months you will have a young, well younger, full time settled minister but right now you this old man who wants very much to be your lead minister. One of the privileges of membership is is the right to call on me when ever you need my heap. I mean it when I say, “please ask@” And please, continue to tell me of any members who hasn’t yet learned to ask. A visit from your professional minister is one of the privileges of membership. Oh yes, I also do weddings and funeral series, without fee for members. But the fifth and greatest privilege of membership in this UU congregation is that here you don’t have to pretend. The answer I get most often when I ask, “why do you stay?” is “Here I can be myself.” Yes, I know, you don’t always feel that way. Sometimes some of us are not at our best in affirming the inherent worth of each person. Sometimes we get so passionate about our own freedom to be ourselves that we step on someone else's freedom to be his or her very different self. It’s not an inherited skill! But usually we catch ourselves, apologize and learn from experience how to do better next time. In many ways, a s small uu congregation is like the ideal family. And what is that Robert Frost, in his poem “The Hired Hand” defined home as “where, when you have to go there, they have to take you in.” Yes, we do have means of removing people who are so disruptive that they destroy to capacity of the family to be there for all other members. But that is the last resort. Once a person is a member of this congregation we “take him in” and keep him: warts and all.
Finally it is a privilege of membership to be part of the great Universalist tradition. I’m not referring to the Universalist Church of America. I’m referring to the great evolution in human societies from Chauvinism to Humanism. Evolution from “me and my kind” ism to “all humanity” ism. Evolution from drawing circles that keep people out to opening circles that invite people in. Evolution from seeing oneself as belonging only to a family, or a clan, or a nation, or a religion to seeing oneself belonging to the “interdependent web of life.” As Frederick Lucian Hosmer said in our first hymn, “Prophets have proclaimed it, martyrs testified, poets sung its glory, heroes for it died.” Ever wider grows the vision. So, I invite you to share that vision “break not the circle make it wider still.” Join the great crusade not against anybody, but for everybody. A crusade that sees “inherent worth” in every person, as the UU principles proclaim. Break not the circle of enabling love, break not the circle, make it wider still.” Please join me in a time of quiet reflection.