"A Banner Year"

The clearest, most definitive statement of our faith

    is not what is spoken from this pulpit each Sunday.

It is not what we speak or hear:

    rather, it is what we see,

        when we look up at our wall 

            with its display of banners.

That wall shows who we are

    and what we try to practice

        in images that everyone sees

            every time we gather in this space.

 

Six of the banners represent a major religion:

    Christianity, Judaism, Hinduism,

        Buddhism, Taoism, and Islam.

The seventh banner represents our own tradition,

    Unitarian Universalism,

        with the familiar flaming chalice.

The order in which they are displayed

    is not intentional,

        although some have suggested –

            and jockeyed for –

                alternative positioning.

 

The display is not complete.    

For some time we have wanted a banner to represent earth-centered traditions,

    but we don't have one yet.

We have varying amounts of familiarity with the religions

    these banners proclaim.

And we receive their messages with varying degrees of acceptance.

They pose a constant challenge,

    demanding tolerance from each of us,

        in one way or another.

 

As I explained to the children earlier,

    the banners convey our commitment

        to a world in which people learn to respect each other

            by understanding our differences.

We come into this community

    because that is the value 

        by which we hope to live and learn.

Whatever our religious origins –

    and many of us find them represented on these banners –

        we have moved beyond them.

The path we follow now takes us into a world

    where how we get along with each other

        is what matters;

            where who we are,

                not what we are,

                    defines our human worth.

 

That is the message our faith speaks,

    and conveys by the images we place on our wall.

The challenge it poses to us

    is no different from the challenge 

        that religious pluralism poses to the whole world,

            although the stakes may be higher 

                and the resistance much greater there.

There are far too many instances of hatred and violence

    for us to ignore the urgency as well as the difficulty

        of people with conflicting claims

            living together in peace.

The stronger the claims to truth –

    as the extreme fundamentalists of every group 

        demonstrate so tragically –

            the harsher the resolution.

We have only to look at the Middle East

    to see how intractable and complex such conflicts become.

Nothing short of wanting peace so badly

    that they respect each other's truth

        will ever bring those two sides together.

And for many people,

    that is a leap they are unwilling to make.

 

Diana Eck's instructive encounter with the World Council of Churches

    shows how people struggle to make sense of pluralism.

She writes about offering a responsive reading from the Bhagavad Gita

    during a worship service for global Christian leaders

        in Chiang Mai.

Controversy immediately follows.

Some participants can not utter the sacred words from another tradition

    without feeling that they have betrayed their own.

 

Diana Eck suggests that encountering other traditions

    can strengthen one's own faith,

        but that encounter requires a willingness to hear 

            the truth other faiths proclaim –

                and risking the loss of one's certainty

                    at the same time.

The truth is, such willingness is possible

only when you have already moved beyond 

the exclusive and local claims of one faith

        and walk with others on the path of pluralism.

That path is the one Diana Eck has taken,

    from her early years in the Methodist Youth Fellowship

        where the mountains of Montana and the civil rights movement

            gave her spiritual formation,

                to her vocational commitment to study, teach and engage

                    with the religions of India.

She moves easily between uttering the words of the Bhagavad Gita

    to singing the hymns of John Wesley,

        betraying no one.

 

The old attitudes are impossible, she writes.

We know too much about each other

    not to hear some of the truth another speaks.

What we betray when we refuse to acknowledge that truth

    is nothing less than our own humanity.

 

The message our banners convey 

    is a message our world needs to hear

        about religion, 

            about truth, 

                about who we are as humankind.

The message says we are ready to move forward,

    to go beyond the exclusive claims of one origin or another,

        and to make a new claim for what the world can be,

            inclusive, 

                tolerant

                    and at peace with our differences.

Our approach as Unitarian Universalists is to seek always

    for the transcendent, universal truth

        wherever we may find it:

            in religious traditions from the west, the east, and the earth;

                and in daily life, 

                    as we experience it.

And we acknowledge that transcendence and universal truth

    can emerge out of the practice of any tradition.

We see the results in the human life:

    Mahatma Gandhi, born into Hindu culture,

        became an innovative political and spiritual leader

            with an original message of non-violence and power.

Martin Luther King, a Christian, heard this message

    and applied it with brilliant effectiveness

        to the civil rights movement.

Each person was grounded in a specific tradition,

    but gave the world a truth

        that could belong to all.

 

They are the exceptions,

    spiking high examples of what human beings can do.

But they come to mind

    because they serve so well

        as models for what the practice of faithful living looks like,

            whatever the tradition.

They remind us that it is who we become,

    not where we come from,

        that reveals the universal truth.

 

It is impossible to sit in this place

    in the presence of these banners

and not learn to understand and appreciate the value of difference

    and the common bond of humanity.

I am always struck by how frequently

    people mention the banners as a symbol

        of people coming together, in peace.

We recently opened our sanctuary 

    to a gathering of religious and labor leaders and workers.

Apart from a handful of folks from our congregation,

    the group was mainly Christian – 

        Protestant and Catholic –

            or Jewish.

The event was the election by a group of hotel workers 

    to join the union,

        a decision that was supported by all involved –

            workers, union, hotel management –

                and it called for a celebration.

How pleased I was when one of the religious leaders, 

    a Methodist minister,

        pointed to the banners on our wall      

            and described our sanctuary as a place 

                where people with differences

                    can come together.

In fact, I was so pleased, 

I was disproportionately pleased,

        reacting to this gracious acknowledgement

            of our space, and wondered why I felt it so deeply.

 

Viewing my reaction in the light of today's message, however,

    I see how strongly I value what these banners mean:

        what they mean to the world outside these walls,

            and what they mean to us.

To the world outside they represent a place

    where different people come together

        to work, to celebrate, and to struggle

            in an environment that is fair, level 

                and open to all.

To people who come inside 

    they represent our aspiration to live, side by side,

        as these banners hang, side by side,

            as if diversity truly does make a satisfying whole.

To us they represent our commitment

    to walk the path of pluralism,

        even though the challenges they pose

            go to the very center of who we are.

 

The meaning of the banners challenge each of us

    to begin with ourselves 

        and to grow towards a universal truth.

This is the process we discern 

    in the lives of a Gandhi or a King,

        and the potential we see 

            in every human being.

It is the path that takes us

    from what is exclusive and enclosed     

        towards what is inclusive and open.

 

Yes, there is ambiguity and uncertainty

    along the way.

And there is the fact that many do not understand

    how the way we practice

        is a faith at all.

Sometimes even we are not so sure.

It's not so easy to live in a world in which another's faith

    may be neatly summarized or codified,

        while ours takes time and patience.

 

Pluralism is a humbling way of life.

But it is also the reality of the world,

    and it could only be good for the world

        if a few people were just a little less sure

            they knew the way to salvation.

Uncertainty is a viable alternative religious path

    if it keeps us open to learning 

        and identifying the ways in which universal truths

            speak to everyone.

 

When Diana Eck invited her colleagues

    in the World Council of Churches to read responsively

        from a Hindu text,

            reactions were mixed,

                but the majority, she says, "were simply uncertain."

Uncertainty is an authentic response – a place to begin –

    in the encounter with religious diversity.

It does call everything into question.

It catches us off guard,

    and asks us to sit with it 

        and think about it for a while.

Being willing to have that experience

    is what our church is all about.

Every time we look at those banners

    we are reaffirming our willingness

        to be challenged and to think

            about who we are.

Diana Eck writes,

    "What we make of [this plurality of religious claims] 

        from our different perspectives of faith

            is one of the most important challenges of our time."

About this urgency we are very certain,

    confident, even, that the personal encounter with pluralism

        as we have designed it in our community

            is one way to respond to the challenge

                with humility, vision and hope.

In time to come,

    the message our banners convey

        will give much needed assurance

            to those outside as well as inside these walls

                that there is a way to live together.

And each one of us will be able

    to say something about how we took our first steps together,

        and how we kept going forward,

            and how we felt,

                and how that made us who we are.

Sources:
"Encountering God: A Spiritual Journey from Bozeman to Banaras," by Diana Eck (Boston: Beacon Press, 1993)