The Beloved Community
Given by James Covington on June 6th, 2004
There is an old story about a preacher trying to get serious with his congregation and speak about the imminence of death and its power over us. His opening sentence was that “in 100 years, every member of this congregation will be dead.” And with that, a man in the fourth row began to laugh.
Now there is nothing in in the world more upsetting and disconcerting to a preacher than to have someone miss the mood and intent. So he thought the brother had misheard him and he said again, “I’m here to say that within the next 100 years, every member of this congregation will be dead.”
At that, the man laughed again. The preacher began to get a little angry, so he turns to the laughing man and said, “You think that’[s funny?” “Yes, I do.” “Why do you think it’s funny?” “Because I don’t belong to this congregation!”
I want to belong to a congregation, I want to be part of a faith community, I want to participate in a morally inspired movement—that understands all of us to be sisters and brothers, all recipients of the gift of life, and all bound together in life.
I want to belong to the “Beloved Community,” as Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., saw it, where our lives and destinies are wrapped up together.
Martin Luther King, Jr. often referred to “the beloved community,” as a more inclusive way of speaking about the Commonwealth or Kingdom of God. Those terms are rather antiquated for most of us, hence, Dr. King must have believed that the “beloved community” would serve as a better point of reference for his vision of human sisterhood and brotherhood that would transcend every difference of race, class, or creed and I would add to that, ability, disability or sexual orientation.
I first became interested in the idea of “beloved community” upon reading The Prophetic Imperative, a book written by Richard Gilbert, former minister of the First Unitarian Church in Rochester. Gilbert employs the term primarily as a transcendent symbol of our commitment to justice. It includes humanists and theists as well as others of different theological persuasions. It is an image embodying our highest hopes for the human community in terms of compassion, justice and equality.
In the coming days, as we plan for our Fellowship Retreat in October, we here at the Fellowship will be re-defining ourselves as a religious community, and will be determining our mission as we look to the future. I want to suggest to you this morning that one way to define ourselves is as a Beloved Community, seeking to embody the principles of love and justice in its own life. How do we do this?
Imagine, if you will, a circle within a circle. In the center circle is worship—the celebration of the value experiences of life. Out of this spiritual center grows what we think and do as individuals and as a community. Our connectedness with cosmos, world, history with each other, is confirmed and celebrated here. We express a sense of awe and wonder at the cosmos; gratitude for the grace of living; comfort for being in a caring community, inspiration to leave here better than when we came. These are our common aspirations, no matter our theology. They enable us to live with our finitude.
I am convinced that despite our different theologies when we came here we make a miracle, people of vastly different theologies together in common purpose. The fact we are different is not an impediment to worship—rather it enhances it as we seek to discern the meaning of word and gesture even when we are not comfortable with it. We create a worshiping community. It is a miracle.
But if worship does not embody commitment to the Beloved Community of Earth, we take no delight in it. In this understanding, worship “is an expression of, and not a substitute for social responsibility.”
The outer circle circumscribes three equal segments: in one is mutual ministry, a caring community in which we nourish one another despite our political differences, bind up the wounds of our defeats, and share our joys, personal and social. While it may seem the church as caring community and social change agent are contradictory and in competition, they are complementary.
In the second segment of the outer circle is growth or religious education—a life-span community of religious learning and growth. Here again, we have reference not only to what happens in the church school for one or two hours Sunday morning, or a weekly adult education class, but the totality of potential learning experiences for people of all ages. In religious education we seek to understand the history of our tradition, how to apply principles to everyday living, and how to deepen our spiritual selves through common sharing and exploration.
In the third segment of the circle is the church as a community of moral discourse and action. By this I mean that at every age level there should be an ongoing conversation about moral values and social action in a Unitarian Universalist spiritual and ethical framework, e.g. economic injustice, poverty, racism and environmental issues.
Such a conversation can neither be indoctrinating nor neutral in tone. Nothing would be further from such moral discourse than to make our churches political propaganda stations for the latest liberal social action fad. The church must seek to penetrate the political order with justice, but not itself be co-opted in to the platform of any political party or social movement.
If I have described this circle within a circle aright, you will notice that each section touches every other section. They are understood not as administrative categories, but as dimensions. This is the doctrine of the prophetic church of the Beloved Community.
In short, life is our only chance to both grow a soul and repair the world. We cannot really do one without the other. Ultimately, mystic and prophet should be one. Charles Peguy , a French spiritual and political leader wrote that “Everything begins in mysticism and ends in politics.” Paul Tillich once said, “There is no vacuum in spiritual life, as there is no vacuum in nature. An ultimate concern must express itself socially.” And in “On Being Human Religiously,” James Luther Adams, taught us that “The holy thing in life is the participation in those processes that give body and form to universal justice.” Our spiritual values must express themselves in the world of powers and principalities. Our point of reference is the Beloved Community, a concept that transcends my meager efforts. The task is to learn to live with the partial fulfillment of a just and sustainable world, recognizing that we are finite creatures who aspire infinitely. Our task is unfinished just as the cosmic creativity is ever in process.
Then there is the concern, if we do all the above well and grow in membership, about how we maintain a sense of community and intimacy. Right now, we are at our capacity. We have grown 300% in membership in the last 10 years. I did not plan it this way. Growth has not been a major of goal of mine. We’ve had no growth plan. There are lots of reasons we’ve grown, I say, but the short answer is the “erotic energy.” And I mean by that there is life and joy and celebration here. People have a good time here and they care about one another and they care about their town, their state and their country. But if we grow, we will lose the intimacy and sense of community.
My thoughts are these: The truth is that community doesn’t have to do with size. It has to do with common values, and it has to do with intentionality. It has to do with a sense of the past and events and memories that are shared over time. To become a part of this congregation community, to really be here, requires hearing the stories from our noble history, honoring our ancestors and planning for a common future that we wish to give to our children and our grandchildren and new strangers seeking a beloved community.
The question again: how does one come into community? Community is something we actively enter into, not something we passively wait to happen to us. I see people join this church and they immediately start doing something. They begin investing themselves in the community. These new members will become part of something larger than themselves and that feels good. Chances are they will be around for a long time. And they will receive more than they give.
Today churches are often seen as just one more yuppie consumer item. Where can I get the best value—the most church for the least investment? Where is the best show? The Unitarians do pretty well: no rules, no original sin, and they don’t expect as much in the plate as the Presbyterians—let’s go there!
Community does not come out of this consumer mentality. Community comes when we bring presence and authenticity to a group we join. When the tears ease out during “Spirit of Life,” and you glance over and see someone else tearing up, too. When you’re in an adult education class and you share not only your strengths, but your terrible failings and weaknesses, and you feel accepted just as you are. When you join with Social Concerns to initiate a community project.
In order to create community, you have to empty yourself. Whether you are an old or a new member, if you want to experience community, you can’t come with your agenda that you imposes on others. Come with a heart that stands open, with a willingness to receive, with the propensity to hear. People are attracted to this community, or to any community, because of the way they see people being treated. Are people relating to one another with respect and dignity? When someone is in pain, is that pain acknowledged? Is there a general air of optimism and good will and celebration.?
Our fellowship is being called forward now by some simple facts of space and circumstance. We are at a pivotal point. If our growth is any indication of life and need, we have some formidable tasks before us. Before we do anything, we need to know individually and collectively how important this community is. If it is authentically important to us then I believe our tasks will draw us together as never before and bond us as a community. I believe it will, because I know what kind of people you are. I remember a couples of years ago, when I was expressing my concern about maintaining intimacy, replying, “I’m not here for intimacy. I’m here to do a great work.”
And how do we do that great work? We do it together. I for one am not going to get on my horse and lead you to some mythical cottonwood trees. We do this together. In the real world. Where real people are hurting and laughing and working and loving and dying. Because we have hope that is drawing us forward to a great work. And we have love that will sustain us all along the way.
What really holds us together is less ideological than narrative. It is our stories intermingled with the stories of others and the collective story of humanity.
How demonstrate that? Let me tell you a story which I think is indicative of the spiritual glue holds us together in one religious body.
At the Berry Street Essay during the 1994 General Assembly of our denomination, the Rev. Carl Scovel, Minister Emeritus of Kings Chapel in Boston, delivered the lecture. Carl is a devout Unitarian Universalist Christian and spoke of what he called “The Great Surmise.” At the heart of creation lies a good intent, a purposeful goodness, from which we come, by which we live our fullest, and to which we shall at last return. . . . Our work on earth is to explore, enjoy, and share this goodness. Too much of a good thing’ said Mae West, is wonderful. Sound doctrine.
Responding to this discourse was the Rev. Deane Starr, a good friend of Carl’s for 30 years, an agnostic and iconoclast. He disputed Carl’s confidence in this “good intent,” saying he found conflict and a cosmic indifference to humanity at the heart of creation. He was puzzled at Carl’s sense of loneliness, a gap filled for Carl by a loving concern at the heart of creation. Deane, the humanist, found his sense of ultimate community with nature.
Then this rational humanist stunned everyone by singing a song seldom heard among us, but which had been part of his pietistic past, the feeling for which remained. “I come to the garden alone where the dew is still on the roses. . . . and he walks with me and he talks with me.” Then he led everyone to sing it – most of them did! It was a strange but powerful moment.
Deane went on to explain: “My third son, Paul Michael, died of AIDS on December 31, 1992. I was positive that never again could I experience joy; I would have been content simply to find some release from anguish. I wondered whether I could find that relief by a return to the religion of my youth. Perhaps I could find comfort, once again, in the arms of Jesus. So I attended a little fundamentalist church in Naples, Florida. It didn’t work; I left the service as deeply in pain as when I entered it. That evening, I took a sunset cruise out into the Gulf of Mexico. The sunset was unbelievable!
“The entire sky, from horizon to horizon, was aglow with color, reds, and purples, and pinks, and gold. Then the colors faded and that indescribable deep, deep indigo of late twilight filled the sky. The boat turned around to head back to Naples. There on the eastern horizon was a full and glorious golden moon.
“With the tears streaming down my face, I realized that even though my son’s being had been scattered, he remained a part of this awesome beauty. We can never contain the beauty in which we live and move and have our beings, but whether we live or whether we die, we are contained within this beauty.”
Carl Scovel, ruminating on the experience, wrote: “That gave me a new angle on Unitarian Universalism. It’s a community where Christians give the lectures and humanists lead the hymns.”
That riveting story tells me why we are here. Carl and Deane shared their lives with us. And that, I think, is our genius, being radically open to human experience and to each other. That is the way we create unity of spirit among diversity of belief. Where else could you have found such a story – of a devout Christian and a passionate humanist, who differed so sharply theologically, and at the same time, shared such a depth of human experience? That, I submit is our highest common denominator. It is the very essence of The Beloved Community of Human Beings. So be it.