A sermon by the Rev. Daniel Schatz, delivered at BuxMont Unitarian Universalist Fellowship, September 14, 2003

Sermon:  The Faith of the Open Mind

In celebration of this day,

this beginning,

this gathering of souls,

we kindle the flaming chalice,

lamp of our faith

and symbol of our heritage.

I call that mind free which masters the senses, and which recognizes its own reality and greatness:  which passes life, not in asking what it shall eat or drink, but in hungering, thirsting, and seeking after righteousness.

I call that mind free which jealously guards its intellectual rights and powers, which does not content itself with a passive or hereditary faith:  which opens itself to light whencesoever it may come; which receives new truth as an angel from heaven.

I call that mind free which is not passively framed by outward circumstances, and is not the creature of accidental impulse:  which discovers everywhere the radiant signatures of the infinite spirit, and in them finds help to its own spiritual enlargement.

I call that mind free which protects itself against the usurpations of society, and which does not cower to human opinion:  which refuses to be the slave or tool of the many or of the few, and guards its empire over itself as nobler than the empire of the world.

I call that mind free which resists the bondage of habit, which does not mechanically copy the past, nor live on its old virtues:  but which listens for new and higher monitions of conscience, and rejoices to pour itself forth in fresh and higher exertions.

I call that mind free which sets no bounds to its love, which, wherever they are seen, delights in virtue and sympathizes with suffering:  which recognizes in all human beings the image of God and the rights of God's children, and offers itself up a willing sacrifice to the cause of humankind.

 I call that mind free which has cast off all fear but that of wrongdoing, and which no menace or peril can enthrall:  which is calm in the midst of tumults, and possesses itself, though all else be lost.

-William Ellery Channing

"I read this minister in the paper," said my friend. "At first he talked about what a good thing it was to have an open mind. But then he said that having an open mind is like having an open mouth; sooner or later it has be closed around something of substance, some nourishing food. And that's why, he told us, we should close our minds when we come to the true religion - his religion."

I thought about this for a minute. On the one hand, it was sort of nice to hear that this obvious religious orthodox had at least a modicum of tolerance for open minds, at least for awhile. But there seemed to be a flaw in his logic. After all, the greatest teachers and sages the world has seen seem to have been those whose lives were a continual process of opening, who were able to keep their minds open and continue to grow as long as they lived.

I thought of scholars, like Thomas Aquinas, whose insatiable curiosity led him to be labeled a heretic in his lifetime, and who a generation later was sainted. Or mystics, like Francis of Assisi, or Julian of Norwich, who kept their minds and ears always open to the next revelation that might come their way. I think of poets and scientists, like Joseph Priestly, or like the Mexican nun Sor Juana Ines de la Cruz, whose greatest tragedy was the confiscation of her books by 16th century authorities.

Imagine what the world would have been like if Moses, the Buddha or Jesus had closed their minds around the nourishing truth of their day. It was indeed a nourishing truth for many people, and for millions if not billions it still is substantial, deep stuff. But for some, it wasn't final.

Imagine living in Thomas Jefferson's time and closing your mind to new ideas - the idea of a representative democracy, the idea of the separation of church and state, or that idea that Jefferson never fully lived, though he acknowledged it to be true - that the holding of slaves was an evil.

Imagine closing your mind to the guidance of science or to the universe's myriad mysteries that are larger than science.

I thought about all of this, and then it hit me. The comparison between an open mind and an open mouth is completely accurate. If we close our mouths around substantial and nourishing food, and fail to then open them again, we die.

There is always new truth, whether it be moral, physical, or emotional. It may be a new scientific discovery or it may be a change in our own souls, so that we must come to relate to the world in a different way. It may be the changing morals of society. Whatever the case, truth is not constant. Experience is ongoing. Revelation, as the Unitarian theologian James Luther Adams taught us, is not and can never be sealed. There is always new truth.

This year Unitarian Universalists across the country are beginning an important conversation. It is a conversation based on a simple question, yet attempts to answer it fully could easily fill twelve hours worth of preaching. 

The question couldn't be more basic: What is the core of our Unitarian Universalist faith? 

It's a simple question, one we're often asked in different forms. When people find out we're UUs, they want to know what that means. Usually, they ask in terms familiar to them: "What do you believe?"

Does this conversation sound familiar?

"So, what do UUs believe?"

"Well, we don't believe that Jesus is the Messiah, or at least most of us don't, and, um, a lot of us don't believe in God, but a lot of us do, and we're not Christians, except for some of us, and the Bible isn't our only source, and for some it's not even a source at all."

"So, what do UUs believe?"

"Well, um, we have Buddhists and Christians and Atheists and Pagans and Humanists and Hindus and theists and all kinds of others."

"So, what do UUs believe?"

"Well, we have these principles and purposes, and they talk about the inherent worth and dignity of every person, and justice equity and compassion, and a free and responsible search for truth and meaning, and world community. But not all of us agree about all of them, and it's not a creed, and they're only a few decades old."

"Don't you agree on anything?"

"Well, a lot of us listen to public radio."

I have a little sympathy with those who see Unitarian Universalism as sort of a collection of vague wackos, or those who wonder why we bother to show up on Sunday mornings at all.

After all, I used to find myself on the wrong side of this conversation, constantly trying to answer a question that could never be answered, because it was the wrong question. The core of Unitarian Universalism is not and never was belief - not even in the ancient past, when Unitarianism was named after those who denied the doctrine of the trinity and Universalism after the belief that all human souls would ultimately be saved. Even then we were not about belief - we were and remain a way of life that stresses growth, questioning, integrity and community.

Each one of these elements is central to our faith, and each, as we practice it, is dependent upon an open mind. Other religions embrace growth, integrity and community. Some even embrace questioning, but only in Unitarian Universalism have I ever found a religion that puts a questioning, questing spirit at the center. I know of no other religion so fundamentally based upon an ongoing and unending search for truth and meaning.

We are the faith of the open mind.

We are the people who ask questions.

I think of an old teacher of mine. It's fair to call him old - he was 94 when I became his Minister in New Hampshire, 95 when he extended to me the Right Hand of Fellowship at my ordination, and 97 when he died last year after a lifetime in the Unitarian and then Unitarian Universalist ministry - a prophet, a poet, a tree farmer, and a brilliant philosopher of religion. His name was Duncan Howlett, and he lived the most Unitarian Universalist life I can think of. Until the day that he died, he never ceased questioning authority, whether it was the authority of his teachers, the authority of laws that were immoral and divisive in society, or even the authority of his own beliefs and convictions. He didn't go about this in a harsh or vindictive way. I once asked him how he dealt with a difficult issue in one of his congregations, and he said, simply, "I asked questions." Then he said, "I kept asking questions until they felt they had to come up with some answers."

In the last of his many books, Duncan wrote about what he called "The fatal flaw at the heart of religious liberalism." The flaw was and is simple - we don't follow our own teachings enough. He wrote:

The Liberals in religion never achieved the goal they sought. Always there came a point where they ceased asking questions, ceased reaching out for new concepts, and returned to the older pattern of belief. This was a fatal flaw, yet they left it untouched at the heart of their movement.... Cannot the Liberals again take up the observing, questioning, exploring tradition... set it at the heart of their movement and hold steadfastly to it?

When we close our minds, we cease to practice Unitarian Universalism. When we become dogmatists, we cease to be liberals. There can be no such thing as a dogmatic religious liberalism. It would be like an ocean without tides, or a world without wind - cold, lifeless, useless to its inhabitants.

We are a faith without dogma and creed. Our substance is the stuff of exploration. Ours is a responsible and free search for truth and meaning. I want to emphasize the responsible part, because without it we have no core. We are a people who seek freely not for what we wish to be true but for what is true. We seek with an open mind, but none of us can accept every new idea - some ideas are unacceptable. We listen with an open mind and try to understand where people are coming from and respect them, but there are ideas out there we would do well to treat with skepticism. A responsible search for truth is one in which we ask not only the intellectual questions, but also the emotional and ethical ones - is this an idea that respects all human life? Is this an idea that lifts up one group of people at the expense of another? What may I do to lift up the dispossessed, to respect all life? A responsible search for truth is one in which the heart is not suppressed by the mind, nor the mind by the heart, but one in which emotion and reason come together creatively. A responsible search for truth is one in which our minds remain open and free. 

This way of life we share is not easy. Few if any of us can always be open to every new idea. We're human. We get tired. We find it difficult to think in new ways, and we have whole sets of personal and emotional reactions in addition to our intellectual ones that sometimes close our minds. I recall with embarrassment times when I have been too quick to close myself to an idea that was unpalatable or nonsensical to me. It will happen again. Even the most advanced practitioners of Buddhism must meditate to calm their anger and let go their attachments. Likewise, the Christian saints freely admitted many of their foibles. Why should Unitarian Universalists be exempt from such imperfection in the practice of our religion?

This is why we need a community of Unitarian Universalists. As difficult as it can sometimes be to live the faith of the open mind, the difficulty would be multiplied a hundredfold if we had to live it alone. We need a community of seekers - to help us ask new questions, to guide us in new directions, to enable us to live the answers we find even as we continue to question, to share in our ordinary lives of growth and care and celebration and grief, and to forgive us and hold us when we fall. To be a solitary Unitarian Universalist would be a lonely life indeed. We need one another.

We especially need one another when we come across ideas that we find wrong - simply wrong. Maybe it's because we failed to keep an open mind and heart, or maybe we did keep an open mind, but after careful examination we still think that something another person believes or says is just wrong. It happens. It happens within our own community. We don't always see eye to eye. 

None of us has perfect truth; at best, we each hold a part of it. Some ideas will be rejected initially, then embraced - the idea that gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgendered people should be supported in their love just as much and just the same as heterosexual people is a good example. Other ideas will flourish for a brief time, then be rejected or forgotten. The flirtation with eugenics that was popular in the 1930s among many intellectuals, including some Unitarians, could not pass the test. What was intellectually possible was so only at the expense of ethics and the human heart. That idea has fallen away.

We need one another's honesty and love if we are to find the courage to seek both freely and responsibly. All of us, sometimes, will be wrong. But I would rather live in a faith in which people are free to be wrong and encouraged to keep questioning and seeking and growing, whether or not they think they have the truth, than one in which difference is covered over and free thought squashed.

If we hold as our ideal the faith of the open mind and make it our spiritual practice to quest and to question, imagine what we may yet discover! The possibilities are exhilarating.

I can think of no faith more exciting than one that acknowledges the new truth that may appear at any moment and does appear at every moment, with every new experience of life.

I can think of no faith more fulfilling than one in which we are called to live with integrity without sealing our minds, to do justice and walk humbly not because God has told us we must, but because it is simply the right way to live and the right thing to do.

I can think of no faith more adventurous than one in centered in an ongoing quest for meaning and truth and goodness.

I can think of no faith more caring than one in which everyone is accepted not as a "true believer" or a "convert" but simply as a human being, full of failings and achievements, good ideas and not so good ideas, questions and curiosities, heart and life, who has chosen to take part in a community of seekers.

An open mind, a loving heart, giving hands - it sounds so simple, but there are worlds of spirit in each word - and a universe of possibility that awaits us.