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Numerous people are unsatisfied with traditional religion. The membership of mainline churches has been going down for many years now, and people who come to Eliot for the first time often come from either an unchurched background or having gotten a "divorce" from their previous religion are shopping around for something with a better spiritual fit.

Some folks find us through research. Maybe they go to www.belief.net on the internet and take that little quiz– there's a link to it from our web site– and they answer all the questions, and the test tells them they are 97% Unitarian, and they think– holy cow! What's a Unitarian? Could I be one? And if so, what does that mean? Do I have to wear funny clothes?

In church lingo, there is a term for people who are on a spiritual search and are investigating organized or disorganized religion. And the term is "seekers."

Some seekers have been on a path of Do-It-Yourself religion. Are you familiar with the D-I-Y concept? They’re the folks streaming out of a crowded Home Depot or Lowe’s store on Saturday afternoon, pushing a cartload of stuff — perhaps a new tubular skylight, power drill, caulking gun, joint tape, trowels, pans, hammers, miter saw and the like. They’re facing a project — however grimly— and they’re going to do it themselves.

But this D-I-Y movement is not just about home improvement. The impulse is seen also when we print our own photos, make our own movies, or publish our own book without the help of other people.

Well, why not a D-I-Y religion? I know some people who do just that. They say they don't need a church to be religious. And I usually say something like: you don't want religion to get in the way of a religious experience, right? Yes, that's it.

But, there is a danger and a loneliness that can creep in when we try and D-I-Y everything.

You heard a bit of the biography of the transcendentalist poet Jones Very this morning, the occasion of his 192^nd birthday. Here was a young man who discovered he wasn't the atheist his mother was.

He was attracted to the Unitarian transcendentalist message that God need not be mediated through the traditional ways. He took to heart part of the Unitarian minister Ralph Waldo Emerson's famous Divinity School Address: Emerson was preaching to a graduating class of Unitarian ministers when he said:

Yourself a new born bard of the Holy Ghost, cast behind you all conformity, and acquaint men at first hand with Deity...look for the new Teacher that shall follow so far those shining laws, that he shall see them come full circle.

Because Jones Very had no religious community and because he so desired to become one with God, he came to consider himself to be the new Messiah. As his biography says:

"With the light of grace shining through him so clearly, Very could not remain in his position at Harvard for long. He was soon dismissed, and returned to the house of his mother in Salem. Her passion could not withstand her son's. She was quickly converted to his cause.

Very was, however, a bit too anxious to share his good news of great joy. After sharing the fullness of his vision with Elizabeth Peabody, he proceeded to enlighten the ministers of the town. One of these, the Reverend Upham, was somewhat less than convinced, and had Very forcibly committed to McLean Hospital in nearby Charlestown. He was released after a month when the hospital realized that a) he was harmless and b) they could do nothing for him".

It may be that we feel that way about church: (a) it is mostly harmless and (b) it can't do much for us.

Jones Very was a true Do-It-Yourself-er in religion, but he veered into dangerous territory without a guide.

If you have no community to support you, and if the world you inhabit does not encourage you to work on your spiritual journey, you end up not paying much attention to your own spiritual life.

If you are fully human, one day, you begin to wonder who you are, why you are going through the routines of your life and where a deeper sense of satisfaction may lie.

This existential dread may come upon you when you or a loved one has a close brush with death or a mid-life crisis or even just standing in the 20-item grocery line behind someone who clearly can't count.

Who am I? What am I doing here? Where can I find true satisfaction?

If you have no religious community to bounce your spiritual questions and ideas off of, you may come to quite logically believe that you– in fact– are the God Most High– and like Jones Very, you lose all your friends and write transcendentalist poetry. Or more likely, those who come to identify as God, take on the Seven Deadly Sins and all their offspring.

We know there are things you really can’t do on your own. Lots of games & sports & great enterprises require other people to make them work.

In the olden days, before computers & word processors, it was pretty easy to hand write or use a typewriter and make your text bold or underline it. But hardly anybody used or had italics. But there comes a day when you want something more. And so, you might go through all the trouble of learning how to use a computer, and voila! Now you can use italics. But wait, there’s so much more you can do with a computer, things you hadn’t even thought about before.

And there may come a day when walks in the woods and meditating by yourself isn’t enough all by itself and you want something more. And so, you might go through all the trouble of learning about different religious communities. Sort of spiritual speed dating. Try out this place, then another, try and find the right spiritual fit.

We can feel uneasy when we become spiritual seekers. We may feel we are out of our element. We know there are a lot of weird ideas about religion and religious people and maybe that sort of squeamishness has kept us far, far away from churches.

At the beginning of the search for spiritual community, it may feel like the old Peanuts cartoon, a kid is standing on a street corner for a long time. Another kid comes up and says– what are you doing? And the 1^st kid replies: I’m running away from home, but I’m not allowed to cross the street by myself.

And that’s how the spiritual search can feel. If we are moving away from a disenchantment from our old religion or from simple spiritual emptiness, do we really want to move toward something like organized religion? Do we really want to cross that street?

What about my individuality? Will that be lost? Or thwarted? Or discounted? How can I trust that these people are who they say they are?

If they believe different things about God & Jesus & Death, how can they possibly sit next to each other? In lots of churches, that isn’t supposed to happen. How come they celebrate that here? How can one church hold Christians, Jews, Buddhists, Atheists, Agnostics and Pagans? How can that be possible? There is no such church– right? What would the neighbors say– [singing]: Christians, Buddhists, and Pagans, Oh My!

Don't Unitarians want to be right? Don’t they want to be “blameless in the sight of the Lord?” Don’t these Unitarians believe in anything? What is the True U?

Rather than religious instruction, we promote religious education

            Instead of authoritarianism, we stress authenticity

We use not one scripture, but many

Our emphasis is not on the hereafter, but the here and now

We stress deeds not creeds; that it’s important to show your work, to live your faith

Freedom, reason, tolerance, love are our overarching values

And we may say we are saved by Love, we are made holy by character

There’s a lot to unpack there and a lot of it will be counter-intuitive– for example, how can a religion use more than one scripture?

A lot of people say a particular religion is a particular scripture. The Jews have the Tanakh; the Christians the bible; the Muslims the Koran; and so on. Can something really be a religion if it draws upon the world’s religions?

Unitarian Universalism draws upon 6 sources.

First is your own direct religious experience of transcending mystery and wonder,

Words and deeds of prophetic women and men;

Wisdom from the world's religions;

Jewish and Christian teachings;

Humanist teachings which counsel us to heed the guidance of reason;

and Spiritual teachings of earth-centered traditions which celebrate the sacred circle of life and instruct us to live in harmony with the rhythms of nature.

60% of Americans have never heard of Unitarian Universalism. It comes as a surprise to many that there can be a religion like this. A religion that doesn’t invite you in or kick you out based on things known only through faith.

Lots of religions say that if what you believe about God, Jesus, or life after death is the same as us, then Welcome! And if you believe otherwise, then adios and good luck to you.

Can UU-ism be a religion at all if we say we don’t invite you in based on things known only through faith? We invite you in if you are interested in a free and responsible search for truth and meaning. If you can accept religious and spiritual and even political diversity. Uh-oh. This is a pretty radical idea.

How is it that all these people here at Eliot have come to still be here? How can they put up with each other if they are different? What keeps them together?

It is true that we are all on our individual spiritual paths; but it is also true that we can learn quite a bit from each other. That's one thing that keeps us together

You know, if you want to learn a new skill, say, surfing, for instance, you could buy a surfboard, read a surfing how-to-book, watch a surfing instructional video, and then give it a go on the rolling surf by yourself. Trouble is — you’ll likely be wiping out more often than not.

Eventually you might learn surfing through trial and error. You’ll get the thrill, but miss out on the skill. If you’re not overly careful, you’ll probably pick up a few bad habits, too.

There is a shortcut to learning new skills — find a competent teacher. Find a master — someone who has the know-how, and then go to that major player to learn.

There are spiritual teachers all around, including right here at Eliot Chapel. But like top notch surfers, you can’t tell who the good spiritual teachers are just by what they wear.

There is a man at Eliot named Luis who might tell you what it’s like to have a heart attack in a hospital, a sextuple bypass surgery, and then not many days ago, walk his eldest daughter down this aisle to be married.

There is a woman named Margaret who can teach you a lot about passion for justice and the importance of political action.

There’s a man named Rich who may teach you how to live and reside within a religious community for some 40 years and still manage to keep a smile on your face, still be interested in unfolding creation all around.

There is even a man named Leon, who I am told, has a singing voice so beautiful and so loud, that it has raised the dead.

There are men & women & youth here who can teach us about how to deal with heartache, about overcoming the destructive behavior of addictions.

There are men and women who can teach us how to sing, how to figure out what we really believe. There are men & women & children who are willing to help us raise our own children.

There are people here at Eliot who commit to foster free religious thought, to nurture spiritual growth, and to act for social justice. Indeed, that is our mission in life.

The call to spiritual wholeness and growth is not entrusted to just a few people who already have everything figured out.

The call to experience the Great Mystery is your birthright.

Jones Very may have thought that only he was God incarnate. But the Great Mystery is available to everyone.

And the challenge of positive social change, is a challenge available to everyone too. Unitarian Universalists believe that a few ordinary but motivated people can change the course of history, can cause positive social change.

JRR Tolkien, in his story The Fellowship of the Ring said: ‘such is often the course of deeds that move the wheels of the world: Small hands do them because they must, while the eyes of the great are elsewhere.’

In one part of the book, Tolkien describes the sense of calling that tugs at the small, ordinary hobbit named Frodo Baggins. He sits in a Council that has been called to decide who will take a powerful yet corrupting ring back to its source to destroy it. It must be destroyed where the presence of evil is greatest. Who would undertake this quest?

“No one answered. The noon-bell rang. Still no one spoke. Frodo glanced at all the faces, but they were not turned to him. All the Council sat with downcast eyes, as if in deep thought. A great dread fell on him, as if he was awaiting the pronouncement of some doom that he had long foreseen and vainly hoped might after all never be spoken. An overwhelming longing to rest and remain at peace ... filled all his heart. At last with an effort he spoke, and wondered to hear his own words, as if some other will was using his small voice.

““I will take the Ring,’ he said, “though I do not know the way.’” E. Clifford Cutler, Sermon at St. Stephen’s Church, January 20, 2002, Ststephenscohasset.org.

And so this is our task too, that we heed the call to the spiritual journey, though we do not know the way. But Frodo had his fellowship of the ring. His fellowship was composed of individuals from different races, different beliefs, different strengths & weaknesses.

And so too, do Unitarians have each other– from different backgrounds & beliefs– to form our own Fellowship. Because we know that out of this diversity can come a more powerful unity that can transform our lives and the world around us.

Our individual light may seem small, but hundreds of candles together/ overcomes the darkness.

Let us take the journey together. Let us sing This Little Light of Mine. I invite you to rise and sing.