"The More the Merrier"

READING

The reading this morning is by Diana Eck, Harvard University professor and founder of the Pluralism Project, which explores the religious diversity of our country. She writes,

The history of religions is not over -- it is still happening before our very eyes. . . . Religions are not fixed entities that are passed intact from generation to generation, culture to culture. On the contrary, religions are more like rivers -- dynamic, ever changing, splitting, converging. How these traditions are changing in the U.S. is fascinating research, making the comparative study of religion in 20th Century America a field of study in itself.

A Vietnamese monk in Phoenix told one of our researchers, "We must take the plant of Buddhism out of the pot and plant it in the soil of Arizona." What will Buddhism become as it takes root in American soil? As laity take over many of the roles of monks? As monks adapt their lives and monastic rules to demands of a Thai American congregation in North Hollywood? As women take on roles of teachers, roshis, Zen masters? We pose these as research questions, but the answers are still tentative, still in the making.

What will Islam become in the U.S. with so many Muslim cultures converging in Houston -- Pakistanis, Indians, Trinidadis and Syrians -- all now Americans and all Muslim? How will the emergence of pan-Islamic organizations like the Islamic Society of North America influence the history of American Islam? Will there be a more "ecumenical" Reformed Islam, somewhat like the Reform Judaism that developed so distinctively in the U.S.? What will Hinduism become in the U.S., where an ancient, complex tradition now has to develop means of transmission that are brand new, such as weekend classes or youth summer camps? Hindus from India who were never asked, "What do Hindus believe?" are now having to answer that question -- in their neighborhoods and offices, in schools and P.T.A. meetings. The Northern California Hindu Businessmen's Association has published a simple reference card to "The Ten Commandments of Hinduism" -- a real innovation in a tradition that has never been codified or formulated in such a way. In some countries of Asia, temples and mosques may have state or royal patronage; one did not belong to a particular temple as a "member." In the U.S., however, these religious communities need to recreate themselves with a network of voluntarism, with membership lists for tax-exempt status, with newsletters and fund-raising dinners. In short, many of these communities have begun to generate the whole infrastructure of denominationalism.

Finally, with this new multireligious landscape, the United States is changing too. What will this wider range of cultures and religions mean to American life? . . . The national identity crisis of the last five years, taking the form of the so-called "culture wars" and the current multiculturalism debate is about this question of our complex identity. Who do we mean when we say "we"? It is the most important question any people can ask. "We the people" of the United States is an increasingly diverse "we." In a world in which the "we" is being defined in ever more narrow ethnic or religious terms, the experiment of America is well worth watching.

SERMON

Next Sunday we will enjoy our annual winter holiday pageant. The pageant is an intergenerational event, drawing on the talent in our congregation to create a service that is uniquely our own. It helps that so many of our participants work in the entertainment industry. This is the only church pageant I've ever known that has its own script doctor, along with real directors and actors, theater professionals, and recording artists to help the rest of us perform. It's always fun.

This year, however, we need some education to prepare for it, especially for those who are new to our church. For our pageant will observe eleven holidays, each associated with the season. Yes, we will be celebrating the Shinto solstice celebration, Divali, Bodhi Day,
Inti Raimi (an ancient Incan festival for the "resurrection of the Sun"), St. Lucia Day, Kwanzaa, Hanukkah, Ramadan, Yule, Christmas and Las Posadas (featuring the Friendly Beasts), and Epiphany, also known as Three Kings Day and Twelfth Night. It's a lot to fit into one Sunday morning. No doubt it will amaze our guests for other reasons too. "Who are these happy people, celebrating every holiday in sight?" I can hear them asking themselves.

Every one of us, including me, can benefit from asking questions about this all-inclusive approach to the season. What does it say about us and how we experience religious tradition? And what does religious tradition really involve? Are we honoring the many faith perspectives and cultures that contribute to our colorful pageant? Or are we flitting around like spiritual dilettantes, plucking what appeals to us and consuming it, concerned only with what we like, ignorant of another people's lifeline to meaning and salvation? Throwing lots of images and customs together challenges everyone's idea of tradition. But when you think about it, what each of us considers to be a tradition is really just something attached to one way of doings things, over and over.

It took me many years to understand that a cherished holiday tradition for many families was the Christmas day movie. I was truly shocked when just a few years ago, David and I went to a movie on Christmas Day and I could see for myself that the theaters are full of people! I had no idea.

When I was a child, my parents' idea of how to spend Christmas Day was to sit in the living room and listen to classical music as a family. My father worked for RCA and he always had a state of the art audio system. And there is a lot of good Christmas music.

Many norms about the holidays come from early childhood - for better and for worse. They are not fixed for any good reason. They are simply arbitrary in the way that life can be when parents are making all the decisions.

Our idea of religious tradition is similar. I noticed a holiday sign on a neighbor's lawn this week: "remember the reason for the season," it said, the words printed against a cross. It struck me that this cliche had an authoritarian tone to it, and a lack of imagination about what the other neighbors were up to. For them, the "reason for the season" could be the winter solstice, just to name one.

When you think about the rich and sometimes dizzying religious diversity we have here in Los Angeles, you can understand why some people just want to have one religion to call their own. It's a real need and a valid approach. But even for those who celebrate only one holiday, Christmas, for example, their tradition is also dynamic and changing.

As any pagan is quick to remind us, Christmas evolved out of a much older observance. The "reason for the season" really is the solstice, experienced with diminishing fear and wonder in cultures around the world, but still a powerful underlying element to Christmas today. The tree, the yule log, the carols - all customs dating back to pre-Christian days.

Similarly, Hanukkah, an actual historical event, was forgotten by the Jews for many years. Not until the story of the Maccabees was translated from the Greek and reintroduced into the Jewish calendar did it become the tradition we now know. We'll learn more about all the "reasons for the season" next week.

The winter holidays are a good example of the complex layering and adapting that faith traditions undergo everywhere, at all times. No religion is static and fixed, whatever its claim to authority. The truth is that all religious traditions change according to place and time, evolving to stay alive and relevant. Diana Eck and the Pluralism Project are studying this phenomenon. "Religions," she writes, "are more like rivers - dynamic, ever changing, splitting, converging." Their history is never over - "it is happening before our very eyes."

Diana Eck also mentions an instance of one tradition appropriating elements of another. "The Northern California Hindu Businessmen's Association has published a simple reference card," she notes, "to ‘The Ten Commandments of Hinduism' - a real innovation in a tradition that has never been codified or formulated in such a way."

The Vedanta society, a branch of Hinduism, worships Jesus as one manifestation of divinity. According to Steven Prothero, author of "American Jesus," Swami Vivekenanda, who established Vedanta here in this country, gathered his followers every Christmas Eve. They "celebrated Christmas by reading the story of the Nativity, contemplating the Sermon on the Mount, listening to lectures on the life of Jesus, singing Christmas carols, and doing darshan(sacred seeing) of Christ the Yogi. . . . And in Vedanta societies from Boston to San Francisco, they continue to do so today."

A Vietnamese monk asks, what does Buddhism look like, planted in the soil of Arizona? It begins to look like what happens in a Unitarian Universalist church. It is an active encounter with our world and a creative human enterprise.

To incorporate the elements of different traditions and mold them into images and rituals that make sense to us is all that human beings have ever done with religion. When you strip away the false sense of authority that allows one tradition to dominate another, what you have left is the freedom to experience, to learn, and to grow from all the varied expressions of the religious imagination. It really is the more the merrier.

Deep within this whirlwind of activity, however, is the question of identity. Who are we, if we are an eclectic mix of so many disparate strands of tradition? What does it mean to be Unitarian Universalist if we have no distinctive path of our own? These are questions we ask ourselves all the time.

We have also often thought that our predicament was uniquely our own. The downside of nurturing diversity is the diffusion of a common sense of self, something we can call our own, other than our questions, that is. We shoulder the responsibility of finding our individual path among the many that are offered to us.

And yet, as Diana Eck points out, this predicament is actually widespread in this age of religious pluralism. "The national identity crisis of the last [few] years," she writes, "taking the form of the so-called 'culture wars' and the current multiculturalism debate is about this question of our complex identity. Who do we mean," she asks, "when we say 'we'?" That is our question too, a reflection of the world in which we live and the constantly flowing river that religion really is.

The answer to this question is that who we are is never fixed or rigid either. Who we are is always in flux, just as our questions and our answers suggest. What does not change, and what we really celebrate with a pageant of eleven holidays, is how connected we are, not only one to another, but to all people everywhere, of every faith and every land. I say, welcome them all into this sanctuary, and into our spirits, for truly it is so: the more the merrier.

Resources used to prepare this sermon include "The Challenge of Pluralism," by Diana L. Eck, in "Nieman Reports," Summer 1993; and "American Jesus," by Stephen Prothero (New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux), 2003. Thank you to church neighbor Mary Romanek for additional information on the Vedanta society.