Questions of Faith

Sunday, 26 August 2007

Rev. Robert M. Hardies

Questions of faith.  Every year, once a year, usually around the last Sunday of summer, we have something a little different here at All Souls.  We have an opportunity for folks in the congregation to ask the questions that are on their hearts, questions about God, questions about faith, questions about our church, questions about life.  Over the last couple of weeks, you have submitted those questions to us and today I’m going to seek to answer some of them.  It’s going to be a little bit of a dialogue, not exactly like the dialogue between Alice Walker’s narrator and Sug, but not too much different from that as well.  A dialogue about our deepest questions, our deepest beliefs.

I want to say that as you have handed in these questions over the last couple of weeks, Gregory, the worship associate, has sorted through them and chosen what he felt were the most representative questions.  I want you to know that I just saw them for the first time last night.  It’s my goal that eventually I will have enough confidence that I can do this completely spontaneously [Laughter], but I still can’t.  And so I took a little peek at them last night and slept on them, but will still answer them more or less spontaneously.  It’s just that I know what’s coming at me.  So, with that said, Gregory and I are going to come down right on the floor and we’re going to have a dialogue about the questions of faith.

Gregory Ford:  Our first question from the congregation for you to consider:  “What happens to us when we die?  [Laughter]

Rev. Hardies:  Ease right in!  [Laughter] The most honest answer I have to that question is, I don’t know.  The second thing that comes to my mind to respond to that question, and I’ll respond more fully in just a moment, but there’s a story from the Unitarian tradition that I always like to tell when we grapple with this question of life after death and what comes after death.  It’s the story of the deathbed scene of Henry David Thoreau, a famous Unitarian.  Thoreau was on his deathbed and, just before he died, his family gathered ‘round him, holding his hand and praying with him.  He had been coming in and out of consciousness and loved one who was sitting right beside him was holding his hand and said “Henry David, tell us, have you seen the other side?”  And Henry David Thoreau opened his eyes and said to her, “One world at a time, friend, one world at a time.”  [Laughter]

And to a certain extent, that is a typical Unitarian attitude toward this question, in the sense that, while many religious traditions base the crux of their theology on what happens to us after we die, Unitarians believe that religion is lived out in this life, not the next life, and that our religion calls us to acts of justice and compassion in this life to try to achieve wholeness and redemption in this world rather than in another world, which isn’t to say that there isn’t another world, that there isn’t something after death.  It’s rather that the Unitarian faith is a faith that focuses on this life, on the here and now.

Personally, I believe . . . , in physics there’s something called the law of the conservation of energy, right, that in any closed system the energy remains constant.  I believe in the conservation of spirit, of spiritual energy.  I believe that every act of love, every act of justice, every act of compassion that we send out into the world is conserved and never goes away, never dissipates.  In fact, I don’t believe in the law of the conservation of spirit; I believe in the law of the increase of spirit, the multiplication of spirit.  And that, for me, in a very real sense, provides comfort in this question of what happens to us when we die.  Because I firmly believe that the way my life affects others now is something that will continue on, most obviously in the people who are close to us and whom we love.  But I think it’s like ripples, that each action ripples out.  Every act of love ripples out into the world and continues to have lasting effect in the world.  And that’s something that, personally, gives me comfort when I think of this question of what happens to us when we die.

Mr. Ford:  Thank you.  Second question.  And all of these questions tended to be repeated themes that came up, over and over again.  This is the question:  How do you deal with religious conflict in your family, for example, a new Unitarian from a strict religious Christian family?

Rev. Hardies:  This question comes up every year around the holiday season.  Just before Thanksgiving break, I get a bunch of panicked phone calls from people who are about to go home to see their family for Thanksgiving and they know they’re going to see Uncle Fred who is, let’s say, a very conservative, evangelical Christian.  And this person is more progressive, Unitarian, and afraid of what’s going to happen at the Thanksgiving table.  So this is what I call the Thanksgiving table question.

I think that our families are a wonderful opportunity to begin to heal the religious divide that this nation suffers from, the divide between the religious right and, let’s call it the religious left, for lack of a better word, even those aren’t the best phrases.  There is a separation in the soul of America right now, I believe, and our families are wonderful places to try to heal that because that fissure, that divide, drives right through many of our families, literally right through the Thanksgiving table.  What I always encourage people to do in these circumstances is to talk with people about your faith, but to talk on the level not of theology.  Don’t start talking about abstract principles with people, don’t debate scripture with people.  Instead, try to keep the conversation on the level of religious experience.  Tell them about your experience of the holy; tell them about what you love about your church and why.

What I find is that on the level of religious experience, we have a lot more in common than we have that’s different.  A Unitarian and an evangelical Christian can talk at the level of their experience of the holy and sometimes realize that those experiences are indeed quite similar.  It’s when you start getting on that level of theology, when you start, “Well, trinity, and the doctrine of . . . .”  Then, no, you don’t want to go there.  Keep it at the level of religious experience.  Ask them what’s in their hearts about God; you tell them what’s in yours.  That’s my best advice for people who are struggling with this situation.  And I think, I really want to encourage people, I’m grateful for the question, I really want to encourage people to push at that because I think the family Thanksgiving table is a site of reconciliation of this issue in America.

Mr. Ford:  Several people were interested in permission to have their own spiritual journeys, and this question comes out of that:  Since most religions predate Christianity by thousands of years, is Christianity really the only true faith?  Will non-believers be punished by God?

Rev. Hardies:  I was surprised by this question, actually.  The simple answer is no.  Amen to that.  [Laughter]  But this whole notion of the one true faith is, I think, on the rise in our world today.  And I think it is one of the chief sources of suffering and division in our world.  There’s a belief on the part of some people that their faith is the one true faith, and not, rather, that all of us are on a journey, through many different faiths, and that, ultimately, those paths are leading to some summit somewhere that’s the same summit, that shares something in common.  That’s my faith and so if someone’s taking another path, even though it looks like it’s divergent from mine, I’m going to trust that there’s a switchback somewhere further down the road that’s going to take them back and that’s going to take us both together at the summit.

I think it’s natural, I’m not surprised that there’s an increase in religious fundamentalism, or the belief in the one true faith.  The world is getting more and more complex and chaotic and people are trying to find a little bit of order in their lives.  Right?  We all feel this; we all feel that things are chaotic and too complex and the world is becoming a smaller, more complex place.  So people are reaching for a rock, they’re reaching for something to give them a foundation, but I think that that grasping at the one true faith ultimately is going to fail people.  Because the truth is that the world is getting more complex and the idea of the one true faith isn’t going to explain that complexity.  It only explains it if you look at the world like this [hands like blinders] and filter out all the things that don’t fit into that world view.  But as soon as the world breaks into your blinders and takes them away – and the world does that to all of us, sooner or later – then the one true faith idea breaks down.

I’ve watched, time and time again, people come into this church who were formerly of the one true faith, feeling disappointed in that faith and looking for something that welcomes the complexity of the world and tried to struggle with it.  And that’s what we try to do here.

Mr. Ford:  What do you do when you pass a homeless person on the street?  Do you think there’s something you can do or say in that moment that will truly help that person or offer him or her a moment of relief?

Rev. Hardies:  Most of you know that I just got back from being away for seven months on sabbatical and I spent most of that time in Europe, in Spain. One of the hardest things coming back was remembering again and having in my face again how mean the streets of America are. I was struck by that. I didn’t really feel that so much before I left, but I felt it strongly when I got back. And the number of homeless people on the streets of Washington, D.C. blew my mind away once again, coming back from Europe, where that problem is a much different kind of problem and not nearly as prevalent. So that’s something I’ve really been grieving actually, since I’ve been back.

I think the danger of the question is that there’s a notion that there’s a homeless person out there. And I think in the past I’ve thought about this ethical dilemma as the problem of “a homeless person.” The truth is I don’t think there is one best response to the homeless. I think that, just like we’re all different, the reasons that people are on the streets vary incredibly and I think that we need to be sensitive to that in our interactions with people on the streets of our city. So I think that means being savvy about the reasons for people being on the streets; I think it means especially . . . I know for me, I walk between my house and the church every day when I come to work and I see some of the same people every day on the street. I think in those cases for instance there are opportunities to get to know people and to establish a relationship. There are people I’ve been seeing for years in this neighborhood who, I know a little bit of their story now and have a better sense of what an appropriate response might be. Those responses could range from referring them to have dinner over at Sacred Heart Church at 5:00 at night. Sometimes it could mean giving them a couple of dollars. Sometimes it could mean just giving them a smile on the street.

And so, for me, there is no one answer to that question. It’s a real situational thing. And it’s an important one for us to grapple with. I think another important question in that whole issue, frankly, is this question which is, what happens to you every time you pass a homeless person on the street? That’s, I think, another important question: What happens to your soul every time you, [turning his head] do this, and walk by? I feel – and I’ve done that, I do that – something gets taken from me every time. And I believe that eventually you add up too many of those experiences of having something taken away from you and there’s some real damage that can be done to your soul and to your conscience.

And so, I think that’s an important question for us to tend to as well. How do the accumulated habits of our lives turn us into people that we didn’t want to be, and that we don’t think we are? But eventually habits accumulated over a lifetime become the life itself.

Mr. Ford: Sometimes I’m troubled by the hatred I feel when witnessing the wrongfulness in our political environment. Is there a limit to one’s capacity to hate, or to hate’s intensity? Should there be?

Rev. Hardies: [Exhales deeply. Laughter] I want to distinguish between hate, hatred and anger. I think anger, a kind of righteous anger can actually be, in some cases, a helpful thing. That you can do something with righteous anger, that you can turn that into a good, channel it in good ways. Hatred is something different though. Hatred is, I think, corrosive and I don’t think can ever lead to anything good. I think it’s a little bit like the inability to forgive. It’s like a cancer. It eats away at us; it corrodes our spirits and is debilitating. But it also in a certain way feels kind of good, you know? You see someone on the news at 6:00 and they’re on there and they’re saying something you don’t want to hear and you say whatever you say to the TV at 6:00 and it feels good, a little bit, to let that out. I think it’s corrosive, and I think we need to work hard to not hate in our lives.

What I try to do with that, because I feel that a lot as well, especially when I see what’s happening in our world and our nation, and what I always try to focus on is, okay, I feel like I hate this person; what is it that they have done, what values of mine have they violated such that I’m feeling this hatred? What have they done to incur this hatred in me? And to pay attention then, instead of the hatred, to the values that you love that this person that you hate has violated. In other words, flip the question around; get it away from the person and your hatred and focus it back on the values that you hold dear.

So, I know, because I know you all and I’ve read your e-mails to me and your prayers, that people are feeling a lot of anger and probably even hatred around this whole issue of the war in Iraq. And part of what we need to do is to remember that the reason we’re feeling anger and hatred is because we love peace. And that’s how you need to transform . . . and then, Okay, I love peace; what can I do to build peace in the world? And let your aggression out that way, rather than screaming at the 6:00 news, you know, go march down the Mall, go sit in a vigil in front of the White House. Channel that energy in a positive way toward your values rather than against someone. Because hate is a corrosive and ugly thing.

We’ve got time for only one more question.

Mr. Ford: What elements in our community would we need to work on in order to bring more working-class people of color to the congregation?

Rev. Hardies: That’s a tough and complicated question. I really appreciate the place that that question is coming from. In part of my time away, I’ve realized and reflected on the meaning of this church’s importance for me and how I believe that the most exciting and important witness that we can make in the world today as a congregation is to live into the fullness of the name of our church which is All Souls, and to model to the world a diverse community along lots of different lines: race, spiritual orientation, sexual orientation, all sorts of things. Because that’s where I believe our world is hurting the most; our world is broken around issues of not being able to live together amongst difference.

And so, part of my coming back from sabbatical is realizing that I think this is the most important thing that we do as a congregation is seeking to model that. At the same time I don’t think that you can just say “well, we’re going to make a few changes to our congregation” and then suddenly people come to a congregation. I think that’s simplistic and I’m not sure that’s the right approach to the whole problem. I think that religion is a facet of culture and it’s perhaps one of the most deeply embedded facets of culture. And so people of differing races, cultures, backgrounds sometimes experience religion and religious expression in very different ways.

So I think the most that I can say about that question is that if we intend to be a multiracial congregation, to be a congregation of people of all classes, people of all genders and sexual orientations, that we need to allow for the expression of lots of different cultures in our congregation, through our music, through our style of preaching, through, I don’t know, through the way our building looks and through the way we pray. All of those. It goes very deep. And that’s the level of depth that we need to be looking at, I think, to address the spirit behind that question. But I appreciate it because I think that our quest to build a diverse, multiracial congregation is really one of the greatest gifts that we can give to our city and to our nation and to our world, really. So it’s really important.

I’m sorry that we didn’t have time for more questions. We received forty or so questions. And I really want to thank Gregory. Gregory actually had all the questions out on a spreadsheet. He had organized and carefully crafted them so that the questions were the most representative of the thoughts that were expressed in the questions. I want to thank him for that. And I want to thank you all and just say that the questions that weren’t answered today, that weren’t covered, I’ve read, and you can expect that they will inform my preaching as the year goes on, not only my preaching but Rev. Lynngood’s as well.

And so just in closing, I want to say a thank you right now, and before the new church years starts, I want to just acknowledge this, which is that I have been away for the last seven months and I’ve just been delighted at how much this congregation has thrived in my absence. The credit for that goes to all of you; it goes especially to the members of the Sabbatical Committee who helped me plan this sabbatical and get it all ready. Are the members of the Sabbatical Committee here? Stand up, Judy. Judy Lieber. Who else from the committee is here? [Applause] But the person I really want to thank this morning is Rev. Shana Lynngood who led the congregation . . . [Sustained applause]