First Unitarian Society of Chicago & Meadville/Lombard Theological School Quest On: The Call, The Way, The Hope 2008 Gulbrandsen Lecture

Transcription

1 First Unitarian Society of Chicago & Meadville/Lombard Theological School Quest On: The Call, The Way, The Hope 2008 Gulbrandsen Lecture Questioner: The rev. Dr. Oiyamah A Rahman Questions adapted from the Rev Eric Cherry, International & Interfaith Officer for the UUA Lecturer: The Rev. Dr. Richard F. Boeke, Moderator, Friends of the International Council Of Unitarians & Universalists (ICUU). Founding President, U.S. Chapter, International Association for Religious Freedom Questioner: Canadian Unitarian Minister Phillip Hewett once safely commented, Unitarian Ministers are very good at answering questions no one is answering. The form of this lecture is an effort to answer questions. Questions recently asked by Eric Cherry, who has the task of networking international contacts for the UUA. Response: Back in 1993, I remember following Natalie in Japan. We were with several hundred tugging on long ropes pulling carts of white stones. Stones to place around the newly rebuilt Grand Shrine at Ise, Japan. We shouted. We sang. And we felt the meaning of the tribal wisdom which says, Each generation must rebuild the shrine. Natalie believed in helping the new generation to take up the heritage of head, heart and hand. To rebuild the shrine. It is the special role of Meadville/Lombard and other seminaries. It is a vital role of every congregation.

2 1. Questioner: Now, for the first question: as an internationalist, you have been asked, why are you so committed? Why do you continue to QUEST ON? What is the motivation for Unitarian involvement in Interfaith and International Outreach? What does this well-known passage from Hebrew Scripture say to you? Genesis 4:9 Then the LORD said to Cain, Where is your brother Abel? I don t know, he replied. Am I y brother s keeper? How does your Unitarian faith inform your response to the question, who is you sister, who is your brother? And, are you their keeper? Response: How do we respond to this question? It starts, Where is your brother Abel? This parallels the question put to Jesus centuries later, Who is my Neighbor? Jesus answers with the story of the Good Samaritan. The story closes as Jesus asks, Who then was neighbor to the man who fell among thieves. When the answer came, He that showed mercy upon him, Jesus said, Go thou and do likewise. A brother is not someone we keep like an animal in the zoo. Rather both these ancient stories remind us of our kinship with the whole human family. Many would follow Albert Schweitzer in extending this kinship to all of life. Emerson saw our kinship with the stars as he said, Man is a piece of the Universe made alive. How do we get out of the current cycle of terror and war? How do we hitch our wagon to a star? In the face of terror and war, the strong leaders answer, follow us, and we will protect you with armies, missiles and might. We will build a line of security so strong that no enemy can threaten us. We will give our weapons to our allies. We will stay in Iraq as long as it takes even a thousand years. This is ancient wisdom. But for me the world changed with the first Atomic Explosion in As the great flash shook earth and sky, words from the Hindu Gita, flashed through the mind of Oppenheimer, I am become death, the destroyer of worlds. The option of living in fortress America or fortress England ended. Global Friendship became an imperative for survival. I am often inspired by the words of Martin Luther King, Either we shall learn to live together as brothers, or we shall perish together as fools.

3 2. Questioner: What is THE CALL? What moves us out of our shell to engagement with the wider world? One of the most commonly applied experiences of calling also comes from Hebrew Scripture: the call of the Prophet Isaiah. Isaiah 6:8: Then I heard the voice of the Lord saying, Whom shall I send? And who will go for us?: And I said, Her am I. Send me! How were you called to be internationally engaged? Response: How are we called? One story is that of a man calling the future. He calls and finds, there is no answer, there is no future. The present governor of Californai fascinated millions in The Terminator as the movie portrayed a possible future after Atomic War. Often when someone dies in an accident, or a child is killed, we ask ourselves, Why am I still alive, when this good person is dead?: When we see disaster coming and do nothing, we feel ashamed. I joined a million marching in London opposing the invasion of Iraq, partly because I would feel shame if I didn t. It s like the shout of Henry the Fourth to a Lord who was too late for the battle, Go hang yourself, We fought at Arques and you were not there. My family moved every year until I was eleven. I often felt a loner: Not fully accepted. I can identify with outcastes. In a Baptist Church, I was accepted. I listened to missionaries who traveled to Asia and Africa to save the world. I got a sense of World Mission: In Christ there is no East or west: In him no South or North, but one great fellowship of love across the whole wide earth. The Baptist dream of universal community has never left me. What left me was the Christian Imperialism that insists Christ is the only way. We can be loyal to our football team without insisting that it is the only team. This may be hard for Manchester United supporters, but it is possible. It is this different dream of World Community, which led me to become a Unitarian Universalist Minister. At the heart of the call is the ancient vision of the Kingdom of God, the Commonwealth of Man. Yes, y call is motivated by fear. So the Old Testament teaches, the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. The New Testament responds, There is no fear in love, for perfect love casts out fear. This shared love and compassion was manifest in the friendshp of Buddhist Nikkyo Niwano and Unitarian Dana McLean Greeley. Together they founded Religions for Peace. Niwano said to Greeley, If we had known you like this, we could not have bombed Pearl Harbor. But if you had know us as you now do, you could not have dropped destruction on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

4 3. Questioner: There are many deeply spiritual benefits that emerge from international Engagement. In the Tao Te Ching we read: But if you accord with the Way All the people of the world will keep you in safety, health, community, and peace. What do Unitarians know about THE WAY and this promise of safety, health, community and peace? What are the spiritual benefits of international engagement? Response: For a Century the major contact of Unitarians with the rest of the world was the International Association for Religious Freedom, the IARF. This was our bridge to liberal religious groups in Europe, Japan, India, and Africa. IARF Congresses in Berlin and Tokyo attracted thousands. The IARF was our main contact with Unitarians in Eastern Europe. When the Berlin Wall came down, Natalie Gulbrandsen led busloads of Unitarian Universalists from the Hamburg IARF Congress to the Czech Republic and Transylvania. Partnerships were created between churches in North America and churches in Eastern Europe: direct church-to-church aid and friendship. Church after church in America found, We gained more than we gave. As in the wonderful line in The King and I, by your pupils you ll be taught. Natalie, like Oscar Hammerstein, sought friendship with all the world. The UU Partner Church Council is partly her gift to us. As is the Meadville/Lombard Program, started by Spencer Lavan, which for a dozen years has provided an English Teacher to Unitarian Seminary students in Transylvania. The vision is reaching groups around the world who want to join us. The International Council of Unitarians and Universalists, the ICUU gives a closer connection with new members in Africa and Mexico. What spiritual benefit do we gain? We gain most when we meet face to face with friends from India, Indonesia, and terra del Fuego, and discover they not only have open minds and hearts like ours, but also they are enthusiastic! When I was in training to become a U.S. aair Force Chaplain, each morningin the next room to ours, the recruiting sergeants would begin their day by chanting, We are enthusiastic, we are enthusiastic When we encounter dedication and spirit, the spark of our own spirit is rekindled. Like the disciples at Pentecost, We are enthusiastic!

5 4. Questioner: Much of the work of international engagement is difficult and risky. Sometimes we fail. Take into account that great love and great achievements, involve great risk. When you lose, don t lose the lesson. What feeds or sustains the interfaith and international engagement of a Unitarian Universalist Congregation? What sustains our HOPE? Response: Albert Schweitzer gave us a great chalice lighting. He said, At ties our own light goes out and is rekindled by a spark from another person. Each of us has cause to think with deep gratitude of those who have lighted the flame within us. It is said that great congregations make great preachers. So it is that by working with great people both locally and internationally, our spiritual lives are fed. In my ministry I have always reached out to be part of a team. When I started as minister in Horsham, I invited three friends from the World Congress of Faiths to join a Unitarian in speaking at my induction. I then invited a representative from the local Ministers Fraternal to speak. I learned that Unitarians were not welcome, and that no local clergy would join in Inter Faith Worship. I responded by making tries to start a local Inter Faith Group. On the third try, Imam Sajid from Brighton challenged those assembled to begin. Six signed on as members. Now there are over 50 members, led by an Anglican Lay Reader. This autumn, a former Catholic Priest is organizing monthly programs of Inter Faith Worship. There is always the temptation to reduce the budget for outreach. I think of the poem of the Japanese Christian, Kagawa. He wrote, Penniless, for a while I can live. But it breaks my heart to know I cannot give. A friend of Kagawa was Tokyo Unitarian Minister Shinichero Imaoka. Imaoka s son told us, My father was bad father. He gave away everything. During the war, my mother had to hide food so my father would not give it away. To make ends meet, Imaoka taught school. He became Principal. When I visited his office he showed me his picture with one of his pupils, Prime Minister Yoshida, who helped bring the peace article into the postwar Japanese Constitution. Imaoka lived to be 106 years old. I will always remember honoring his death as I stood in the rain with hundreds of Shinto and Buddhist Priests. I do not Religious Freedom as a goal in itself. It is often abused. But I support the International Association for Religious Freedom because it brought me friendship with Dr. Imaoka, Shinto Priest Yukitaka Yamamoto, and many others.

6 Questioner: What is our Vision? Scripture says where there is no vision, the people perish. Where is our paradise? Where are we going? Response: Some get caught up in creation how did it all begin? Others study eschatology how will it all end? For much of the 20 th Century, the American Unitarian dream was summed up in the five points of James Freeman Clark which closed with the words:..and the progress of mankind onward and upward forever. After a pilgrimage to Hiroshima, I know I did not believe in the The progress of mankind, onward and upward forever. Working my own way through the riddle, I sat under a Zen Master in San Francisco. After early meditation he asked me to join him for breakfast. I asked him, How did the world begin? He took a bite of seaweed, and said, Don t know. Nobody else does. I asked him, What happens when we die? Again he answered, Don t know, nobody else does. I was thankful to learn that even a master does not know everything. For a term I studied the riddle at Divinity Hall at Harvard where Emerson gave his Divinity School Address. I studied Unitarian Tradition. I studied World Religions, Religions in Japan. I wrote on William Ernest Hocking, especially his books, The Meaning of God in Human Experience, Living Religions and a World Faith, and The Coming World Civilization. I was taken by his dream of a growing world community with a common faith, a dream still followed by Bahais. But after years working in Inter Faith, my dream is not of One Faith, But of faiths working together in common trust. This is a motto of the World Congress of Faiths, Many faiths, a common trust. This is the vision of Eboo Patel, author of the new Beacon Press Book, ACTS OF FAITH. Eboo will be interviewd by UUA President Bill Sinkford at the 2008 UUA General Assembly. The Kingdom is here and now. I seek to live now as thought I already live in the Kingdom: eternity now in the quality of my daily life. I cherish and affirm the interdependent web of all existence of where we are a part. Where is our paradise? It is here. It is here. It is here. The greatest miracle is to walk the earth. Thanks to the astronauts, we have seen our planet from space. The day before she died in the spaceship Columbia, UU Laurel Salton Clark of Wisconsin sent this message back to earth: Hello from above our beautiful planet earth. The perspective is truly awe inspiring Wherever I do get to look out, it is glorious. Even the stars have a special brightness. Amen.