A Sermon by the Reverend Ellen Rowse Spero
First Parish Unitarian Universalist Church,
Chelmsford, Massachusetts
March 12, 2006
Copyright 2006, Ellen Rowse Spero. All rights reserved.
Becoming a Welcoming Congregation has been on this congregation’s "to-do" list for awhile now. I am grateful to the members of the Welcoming Congregation Ministry team who have volunteered to take leadership on this. I think also that because so many of us have been aware for the past couple of years that we should go through this process and taken several steps toward becoming welcoming to gays, lesbians, bisexual and transgendered persons, for example, performing same-sex marriages, that we are already a welcoming congregation. Why go through the process. Aren’t we already welcoming? Shouldn’t we focus our welcome on all, and not just one group of people? Why should we let the UUA tell us what to do?
These are all fair questions, questions that the process of the Welcoming Congregation program will hopefully help us answer. I would like to encourage this congregation’s engagement in these kind of conversations and explorations about becoming an official UUA Welcoming Congregation, building on what we have already heard this morning from the Welcoming Congregation Team and from Carole. I have some thoughts and reflections to share as well that I hope will make us think about how a process like the Welcoming Congregation can help us become more deeply who we already are: a spiritual community, a community of faith, grounded in our Seven Principles that begin with the inherent worth and dignity of every person and end with our awareness of our interdependence and interconnectedness with all life.
We make much in Unitarian and Universalist history of those individuals who did great things, who stood up against the prejudices and tyrannies of their day to speak truth to power. We like to lift up the progressive voices from our past, whether they are in the areas of social justice and social change, science and learning, art and literature, or politics and leadership. I think the challenge of the Welcoming Congregation process is that it asks us not to wait for those to stand up individually for what is right in their time so we can know it in ours, but to do it ourselves now, and as a whole community. It asks us to stand as one on what we believe is right and true. This is different for us, who have held so tightly to the freedom of the individual, often over the consensus in the community.
When I have watched the Welcoming Congregation process in other congregations, I have realized that this underlying assumption often goes unspoken and unexplored. The way the process is set up, the congregation is supposed to go through a year or more of education about the depth of discrimination and oppression gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgendered persons have experienced, particularly from religious institutions, about confronting our own prejudices and fears, and how we need to change the way we go about certain things: from the wording in our bylaws to paying attention to inclusive language to being aware of we can reach out beyond these walls. After the time of learning comes The Vote. As it is presented then, the Welcoming Congregation process seems to be one of a straight up and down democratic vote: here are the issues, let us discuss and debate them and then let’s vote on whether we agree or not. Congregational polity at its best, yes?
There are problems with thinking about this as something simply to be voted on. The first, there must be winners and losers. And second, that the vote is perceived by some as the end point (phew, we got through that process, now we get on to the next) but by others as a beginning of a mandate (okay, now the real work begins, let’s march, let’s hold forums, let’s do Welcoming Congregation 24/7). So the real conversation about what this means begins after the vote, leaving those on both ends unhappy.
One of the things Larry Peers spoke with us about during the "From Stressed to Blessed" workshop in January was the difference between the kind of decisions that can be made through straight democracy and those that require democratic discernment. Straight democracy, discussing and debating and the voting, is really good for decisions around things like budgets, bylaw changes, accepting new members, and the like. It is good for making decisions where the outcome, win or lose, does not challenge or change the basic identity of the congregation. Discernment is something different. It is not about speaking. It is first and foremost about listening. Part of the listening is to the stories of others: in the case of the Welcoming Congregation process, those who have suffered or watched those they love suffer because of who they love or because they do not fall into the either/or categories of gender, whose true selves must be hidden. Part of the listening also is to our own fears and prejudices, the barriers we place as individuals, as a community, and as a society, to keep at a distance those who are different, whom we don’t understand. Ultimately, the process of discernment asks us to listen to our call as a community of faith. What are our shared core values? How do we live them out?
In the case of the Welcoming Congregation process, we are discerning together what it means to be welcoming to gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender persons. We are also discerning why it matters that we do so. I believe for us to be a truly welcoming congregation, we have to discern a shared understanding of that means. So to do so is not simply to vote at a congregational meeting but to take the time to engage in the listening and discerning opportunities that the Welcome Congregation Ministry will offer us. We will still vote. But when we come together to vote, it will be because we listened, we have come to a shared understanding that allows us to take a stand as a community of faith. There will always be a continuum. Some will feel more impassioned than others and want to get more deeply involved, just as is true with all the other ministries here. But before we vote, I believe we need to articulate our basic, shared agreement of what it means to a welcoming congregation: what is our covenant for right relationship with regard to sexual orientation and gender? How do we make all welcome?
Thus, becoming a Welcoming Congregation is an act of covenant. This is not something we do to conform to the UUA’s demands or expectations. We are discerning and deciding if we wish to enter into covenant with the other congregations in our Unitarian Universalist Association who have already become Welcoming. How our participation is this covenant takes shape and what it means to us for our connection to our larger communities, the Unitarian Universalist one and the one outside our walls are also part of the discernment process.
Another "but why" that is often raised about the Welcoming Congregation process is why just the G/L/B/T community? Shouldn’t we be welcoming to everyone? Shouldn’t we explore ways to do that, rather than just for one group? The answer is yes and no. Again, I go back to something that Larry Peers talked with us about. We can’t do everything at once. We can’t reduce all the fears, prejudices, oppressions, and discriminations experienced by the different peoples in our society into one little box. But we can start by going in depth and breadth somewhere. We have a group of people in our church who feel strongly about the Welcoming Congregation and are willing to lead us through it. What we learn together in this process of discernment will help us in the next, if we wish to keep exploring how wide our welcome can become. I believe also that there are times when we need to stand up and be counted and now is such a time. The UUA has done so for a generation. The United Church of Christ has just joined us. Other denominations are facing serious splits on the issue. If we trust in the foundations of liberal religion: that each human life is sacred; that our capacity for good is equal to or even greater than our capacity for sinfulness, that our life together on this earth at this time matters, that diversity is a good thing, that God is experienced when we love one another as we are so loved or our humanity is made whole when treat one another with the respect and care with which we would want to be treated. We need to stand up and be counted for there are many religious voices in the world teaching otherwise, loudly and persuasively, with fear and anger as their tools.
I believe that if we do this right we will discern, to build on Carole’s reflection, that we are all more human than otherwise. We cannot overcome our fears and prejudices unless we take the time to understand what it is like to be discriminated against, to be diminished, even to be hated, for what one is by the gift of gender, race, sexual orientation and the like. We must learn to transcend these differences and see how we are all human. It is only then that I believe we can take the next step of seeing one another as unique souls, each reflecting the depth and breadth of the divine image, the spirit of Life and Love, the Mystery that binds us one to another across time and death and the space between the stars. I return again and again to the words of Dr. King I read in January: it is the work of the church to heal the broken-hearted and to liberate the captive. Here’s a chance to discern the work and do it well.