On Stone Soup and Guests at Our Tables

Love is the Doctrine

A sermon delivered by The Rev. Kathy Schmitz on February 3, 2008

At Pathways Church, A Unitarian Universalist Community in Southlake, Texas

Quote: “Is that all there is?” the song asks.

There is something else.

It’s simply this –

the limitless potential of love within each person

eager to be recognized, waiting to be developed, yearning to grow.

From Love: What Life is All About by Leo Buscaglia

Reading before the sermon: from The Frog Prince from A Bucketful of Dreams by Christopher Buice.

Love is the doctrine of this church

The quest of truth is its sacrament

And service is its prayer.

These are the sermon titles for the next several weeks. They are also the first three lines of the covenant that this congregation recites in unison each Sunday morning.

It is a covenant spoken, in various forms, by many Unitarian Universalist congregations.

Like so many things recited on a regular basis, it is important, now and then, to stop and consider what the words mean and to remind ourselves of the reason for their inclusion in our services each week.

So today we consider the first line: Love is the doctrine of this church.

Love is the doctrine of this church. Let’s start with the word doctrine.

What does the word doctrine mean? Technically, it means teaching.

But in religious circles it is often interpreted to mean irrefutable teaching. In other words, the creed, the dogma, the test or standard by which membership in a particular faith is determined.

How many of you grew up in, or have spent time in, a religious tradition, that had a doctrine to which you were expected to conform?

When suggesting that love is the doctrine of this church, the originators of this line, may have meant to have something so broad and hard to argue with that the line means, we have no doctrine, no dogma, no creed. We simply teach love. I’ll come back to the idea of simply teaching love, but first, for perspective, I want explore the other types of doctrines that exist.

For comparison, let’s consider the doctrine of a few different faith traditions.

The Assemblies of God list 16 key doctrines in the statement of Fundamental Truths. Included are such statements as:

The Scriptures, both the Old and New Testaments, are verbally inspired of God and are the revelation of God to man, the infallible, authoritative rule of faith and conduct

The Lord Jesus Christ is the eternal Son of God.

This is what is taught. This is what one is expected to believe.

In the year 2000, The Southern Baptist Convention revised and renewed its statement of faith and said, in part, that “these are doctrines we hold precious and as essential to the Baptist tradition of faith and practice.” The list includes statements pertaining to 18 areas. The list includes:

When I looked up Roman Catholic Doctrine, I found a flow chart one person had created full of lines and arrows, showing the relationship of the various church doctrines to each other. Its author admitted it looked rather like some sort of board game. (I thought it was kind of fun.)

In Islam, the ability to recite, with sincerity, the Shahada, or Confession of Faith, is non-negotiable. That is, to be a Muslim, one must be able to make the statement: There is no god but Allah and Muhammad is the prophet of Allah.

The more liberal a tradition is, the less likely it is to have required doctrine. For example:

In the liberal United Church of Christ, creeds, confessions, and affirmations of faith are not "tests of faith" rather these function "testimonies to faith" around which the church gathers.

Reformed Judaism is without creed or doctrine. While there are historical statements about what it means to be a Jew, many of them are variously disputed within the tradition.

Because more conservative traditions usually have specific doctrine, or faith statements with which one is expected to agree, it is often challenging for conservatives to understand liberal traditions.

Since the defining feature of their faith is their doctrine, they look to understand us by our doctrine.

They ask us what they think is a short answer question – and we reply with an essay or some of us with a blank stare.

They want to know what we, as a group, believe. Instead, we can only tell them what we have agreed to.

Sometimes those newly exposed to Unitarian Universalism try to make the UUA Principles, which you will find on the poster in the lobby, into a set of doctrine.

But these 7 statements are more of a description of who we are as a movement. There is no requirement that they be believed by individuals. They are part of covenant entered into by the member congregations of the Unitarian Universalist Association.

By saying that “Love is the doctrine of this church” what we are really saying is that what matters is not what we believe, but how we have agreed to be together. We have agreed to be together in love.

In the service last week, Eric Terrell quoted Francis David, the Early Unitarian from Transylvania, as saying: We need not think alike to love alike.

We can be together in love even though we be do not all believe the same thing.

We are held together by covenant rather than creed.

The idea of covenant is an ancient one, and it was a play in the earliest days of our movement in this country. One example comes from the story of the founding of the church in Dedham, MA. It is a story from the year 1637 and this Unitarian Universalist church still stands just 6 miles from where Charlie and I lived until last summer.

I draw on the work of The Rev. Alice Blair Wesley for this story.

(The Lay and Liberal Doctrine of the Church: The Spirit and the Promise of Our Covenant

by Alice Blair Wesley

Lecture 1 of the 2000-01 Minns series of 6, Love Is the Doctrine of this Church. . .)

In 1637, almost 400 years ago, a new township to be called Dedham was created in the territory we know today as Massachusetts. 30 families from various parts of England settled there. The first order of business was to create a town government and organize the building of houses and the allotment of fields for farming. It was after these basics were attended to that the new community could turn its attention to the founding of a church.

The people involved were not all that different from people in the suburban Dallas - Fort Worth area today. Arriving from many places to an area with a growing population, they did not know each other well. They certainly did not know each other’s religious sensibilities.

So they decided to get to know each other. The records show they began a series of neighborhood meetings, “lovingly to discourse and consult together. . . and prepare for spiritual communion in a church society, * * * [gap in the record] that we might be further acquainted with the (spiritual) tempers and guifts of one an other.” They met weekly at various houses and anyone in town was welcome to attend.

They had a few simple rules for their meetings.

Each week they decided what the next week’s topic would be so that they could reflect on it during the week.
Each week, the host would speak to the question first, and then each person would have their turn.
All were invited to share their own understanding and doubts, but not to argue.

In reading the description of these early meetings, I am reminded of the small groups that exist in our congregations today. On learning that the people of Dedham met this way for a year before forming their church, I thought of how small group meetings were an important part of the process through which Pathways was created just 4 years ago.

It is been said (by James Luther Adams) that “There is no such thing as the immaculate conception of an idea.” There is something endearing to me about knowing that Pathways employed a technique that has stood the test of time, and has served our liberal religious tradition for centuries.

Returning to Dedham, it is interesting to note that, although these early settlers were readers of the Bible, they did not start with discussion about the Bible. Rather, they talked about questions that pertained to the creation and maintenance of a just and peaceful society. They were coming from the turmoil of a European society caught up in the Protestant Reformation. They knew that religious freedom could only flourish in a society which ensured justice and peace for all its inhabitants. Then, as now, there could be no free church unless it was set in a larger society where discussion of concerns for peace and justice, and the laws that support these, were not suppressed, but rather were openly expressed. They knew the wider society must support free religion, but, it is also interesting to note, that they also saw the church that they would create as having responsibilities to both its membership and to wider society.

As the inhabitants gathered, they wondered about their qualifications to gather for such conversation. And they agreed that they were qualified if “in the judgement of charity,” they seemed to be and think they were acting out of, what we today would call genuinely deep, religious love.

The result of these conversations was that members of their new church would be joined by covenant in a spirit of love. In their coming together, they agreed to be guided by a spirit of love, as best that they understood it, or would come to understand it, as it worked in their own hearts and minds.

The Rev. Alice Blair Wesley, on whose work I am drawing concludes her comments about Dedham with these words.

For any who might suppose our 17th century free church ancestors talked mostly about original sin, predestination and hellfire, I am glad to be able to tell you, not one of those topics is even once mentioned or so much an hinted at, in the record of the founding of the Dedham Church. The document describes these discussions of 1637-38 and the talk, talk, talk they engaged in, at each step of the way to the founding…

In these pages there is much use of the words: reason, reasons, reasoned, reasoning, deliberation, make trial of, clearing, cleared up, encouragement, advice, advise, counsel, agree, agreed, agreement, approbation, liberty, liberties and promising. There is also repeated use of the words: sweet, comfort, help and brotherly. But by far the most commonly used words in this written history are: affection, affections, affectionately, embrace and love, loving, lovingly. … Why? Because then and now and for as long as human history lasts - when all is said and done, done and said some more - the integrity of the free church comes down to our loyalty to the spirit of love at work in the hearts and minds of the local members. The laypeople who founded First Church, Dedham knew so and clearly said so, and that is why we still say together, so often in our churches now, “Love is the doctrine of this church. . .”

End quote.

This same attitude of support and cooperation traveled with our movement as it spread westward. The covenant which guides the ministers of this district contains these words:

Before there were Districts of the UUA, and before there was the UUA, there were a few scattered congregations throughout Oklahoma, Texas, Tennessee and Louisiana. The ministers and lay leaders of these congregations gathered themselves together into the Southwestern Unitarian Conference so that they could be in relationship with each other.

Clergy and lay leaders have supported each other since the beginning and have developed a noncompetitive understanding of responsibilities and roles.

It was a way of staying in loving relationship and commitment to one another.

End quote.

It was a way of staying in loving relationship and commitment to one another. It still is.

Love is the doctrine of this church.

How we come together, the promises that we make to each, our loving commitments, these are what hold us together.

We believe different things about the nature of our unfolding universe.

We believe different things about what happens when we die.

We have different names and concepts for that which we hold most important in life.

These differences are not unimportant.

Yet, it is our agreement to be together in love that we cherish,

Our agreement to be together in love in spite of our differences.

For me, it is also our agreement to be together, not just in spite of our difference, but in celebration of our difference, that matter.

For I see the management of diversity as one of the great challenges to human kind, especially in our day.

Can we here, within these wall, with all of our differences, learn to be together in love?

Can we here, create within these walls, the kind of community that we would like to see in the world beyond these walls?

What a gift to ourselves and to greater society if we can learn that we need not be afraid of difference.

What a blessing to a world too often torn by dogmatism and polarization.

Can we?

I believe we can, but it will take practice, for humans do not seem to come by the skills of love easily.

The book being read in our Growing Together Circles is called Love: What Life is All About (by Leo Buscaglia). Perhaps the thing that I like best about the book is that I don’t agree with it all. It provokes a reaction in me. It makes me think about love. What it does effectively is show the complexities of love. This is not any easy topic. And so together we explore the topic.

Love is the doctrine of the church. I said before that we do not have a doctrine, or a dogma, or a creed. We simply teach love.

And yet we know that there is nothing simple about love. After thousands of years of human civilization we have not perfected the art of human love.

And still, we come together, agreeing, as we do, to be guided by a spirit of love, as best that we understand it, or will come to understand it, as it works in our own hearts and minds. It will take the wisdom all of our hearts and minds to continue to deepen our understanding of this commitment that we make. It will take practice.

So I invite you this week in your life here at Pathways and in the world at large, to keep that spirit of love in the forefront of your awareness.

Look for opportunities to invoke the spirit of love.

Specifically, should you find yourself this week challenged by another person, ask yourself, “How can I be guided by a spirit of love in my interactions with this person?”

If you are up to the task, remind yourself that this person is lovable and deserves to be loved by you. How does that change your interaction?

If conjuring love seems beyond your capabilities in that moment, then I invite you to intellectualize the challenge. Ask yourself, what if you did love this person? What would be different then?

Here at Pathways, and in Unitarian Universalist congregations in general, you will not be asked to subscribe to creeds or dogmas you do not believe.

You will, however, be asked to commit yourself, again and again, to the challenging and wonderful task of bringing more love into your life and into our world.

For when all is said and done, and done and said again: Love is the doctrine of this church.

Please join me in a moment of silence.

(silence)

Please join me, if you will, in a spirit of prayer and meditation.

Spirit of Compassion, Source of Joy & Wonder,

Arouse in us a continuing dedication to love.

Awake in our conscience a renewed commitment to justice.

Stir in our hearts a deep passion for peace.

In all areas of our lives

may we be strengthen

to more fully live our highest values

that we may bring into being

the abundant blessings possible

for ourselves, our communities, and our planet.

Amen and blessed be.