Sunday Services
"The Spiritual Life of a Church"
A sermon by the Rev. Judith E. Meyer
Unitarian Universalist Community Church
Santa Monica, California
September 29, 2002
In one of our Unitarian Universalist programs for adults,
"Building Your Own Theology,"
participants create a personal timeline
that chronicles significant events from their past.
Whether the span
the timelines cover is long or short,
what they reveal is always the same.
Our history is more than a series of events.
It is a spiritual journey,
with developmental leaps and bounds,
and changes,
portending challenge and growth.
Looking back holds many life lessons.
What seemed at one time to be a failure
is actually a positive turning point.
A loss can lead to unanticipated gain.
Plans do not turn out as expected.
Through it all,
the only constant is change.
I remember the first time I laid out my timeline,
because its revelation is still so vivid.
The events, people, ideas, and decisions
that formed my life path
were nothing extraordinary.
The timeline showed the predictable influences
someone like me would have.
And yet when I looked at it,
I could see an amazing pattern of growth and change,
leading me somewhere
I could not have known
when I started out.
I often didn’t know what I was doing.
I see now that was all right.
And some of the dark times
led directly to illumination.
>From our Unitarian Universalist perspective,
every person has a spiritual history.
It is composed of the people, events, ideas, and choices
that are part of every life.
But what gives it spiritual meaning
is the pattern of growth and change
that takes place in it.
That was my revelation.
I looked at my history
and saw that it, too,
was a spiritual life.
Despite its unremarkable trappings and traces,
my story had its own meaning and worth.
It was all there
in the modest little journey
laid out before me on drawing paper.
A church like ours is a living being too,
with a history we can chronicle
and a pattern of growth and change
all its own.
Its story is composed of the events, decisions, ideas, and people
that have shaped us over the years.
And its spiritual life is the meaning and worth
of that story.
It keeps unfolding.
We are a very different congregation
from the one that first gathered seventy-five years ago.
As our church history reminds us,
that was a time when there were no freeways
and "plenty of parking spaces everywhere."
Our span has paralleled the staggering growth,
development,
and demographic shifts of our larger community.
World and local events have left their imprint on us.
Social attitudes and roles
have undergone a transformation.
Trends in liberal religion have evolved as well.
A 1930 letter describing the "Spirit and Purpose"
of All Souls Unitarian Church -
that was our first name -
invites visitors to join the fellowship.
It reads,
"In these times when we are hearing so much
about the conflict between the teachings of science
and the creeds of orthodox churches,
there is greater need than ever
to maintain a church of the FREE MIND,
that frankly welcomes whatever truths
scientific investigation can establish …"
This was a time when reason and intellect
were coming into their own
as religious values.
Religious liberals were interested
in education and human development,
not theological speculation.
The Unitarian Humanist movement,
which emerged during the years
our church was getting started,
explicitly ignored the concept of God
and defined religion as human experience.
Reading our 1930 pamphlet,
it is clear that this church was firmly rooted
in Humanist principles.
Unitarianism in the west already leaned in this direction.
Far from the norms and traditions of New England,
our predecessors out here
moved in the forefront of modernism.
The 1960s brought a wave of change
into our religious community.
The Unitarians and the Universalists -
two separate traditions with contrasting characteristics,
decided to merge.
At first this development did not affect us here in Santa Monica.
There were no Universalists down the street
ready to join us for Sunday morning services.
But the merger took hold elsewhere,
and eventually it took hold here.
The Universalists added a new dimension:
A faith in a loving God
and a trust in human goodnesss
were two important characteristics of their tradition.
The Universalists supplied a spiritual and emotional quality
that complemented the intellectual and reserved style
of the Unitarians.
The Universalist influence has gradually changed our church,
infusing it with the values of inclusiveness
and loving community.
In 1995, in grateful recognition of that influence,
we voted to change our name
and our identity
to "Unitarian Universalist."
Over the years many of us have welcomed the spiritual depths
not only of Universalism,
but also of feminism,
mysticism, and eastern religions,
to complement the more analytical approach
we once cultivated.
This shift has been gradual,
but its impact has been great.
Today we search together
for a sustaining spirituality,
grounded in our historic Humanist affirmation of humanity.
There have been other big changes as well.
That 1930 letter inviting our neighbors to church
mentions neither God nor any sacred prophet,
but lists with pride the figures from American history
who were Unitarian:
John Adams,
John Quincy Adams,
Daniel Webster,
Oliver Wendell Holmes,
James Russell Lowell,
and Bret Harte,
among them.
Today that list would be balanced
by including Margaret Fuller,
Louisa May Alcott,
Caroline Severance,
Julia Ward Howe,
Clara Barton,
and Dorothea Dix.
What a story that simple correction represents!
Throughout our history,
Unitarian and Universalist women have been reformers and activists,
writers, and ministers,
just as the men have.
But it took the women’s movement of the late twentieth century
to bring them into the prominence
they deserved.
It has taken even longer for women to have political power.
Our church’s history is not all that different.
We welcomed our first woman Minister of Religious Education in 1966.
But a look at our lay leadership record
reveals that over our entire seventy-five year history,
only six women have served
as president of the congregation.
That suggests to me that more changes
are yet to come!
If we were to lay out all this history
in a timeline on a long piece of paper,
we would see a hardy institution
that has undergone many changes
over the years.
Unlike a religious community that possesses a fixed creed
or immutable scripture,
we are constantly in motion,
living in the times we are given.
Our history gives us the reassurance
that we are part of something greater than ourselves,
the human search for truth
and meaningful life.
Our continuity comes from carefully handing down
the spirit and practices of our community
from one generation to the next.
Yet with each new generation,
our church does change.
That is not always easy.
Think about the characters in the children’s story
I read earlier.
We are just like them.
We resist change too.
Just when we settle into a routine,
something new comes along,
challenging us and making us uncomfortable for a while.
But change is good,
even if it does disrupt us.
That is how we grow -
not just as individuals,
but together, in community.
Change is the dynamic by which we move forward in life.
When we look back,
we can see how necessary and positive it is.
The spiritual life of our church
continues to unfold today,
as we work together to build a community
in which each of us can grow.
Throughout its history
run the hopes and struggles of people
searching for a better life
and building a better world.
By those hopes
and those struggles,
we move in the right direction.
References used for this sermon include The Unitarians and the Universalists, by David Robinson (Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1985) and The Past as Prologue, 70th Anniversary Commemorative Booklet, Unitarian Universalist Community Church of Santa Monica.
This text is for personal use only, and may not be copied
or distributed without the permission of the author.