Unity Church Unitarian ~ August 3, 2025
There’s a story, in Oxford, about the time when the Unitarians came to Oxford. Manchester College was built in the late 19th century, and the story goes that shortly after it went up, two Oxford theology dons walked past the new, heretical, college. “Well, it looks very Unitarian,” said one, “Cold and imposing.” “like it will stand until Judgement day.” Said the other. “Yes, until judgement day. But not a day longer.”
What does it mean to be a Unitarian Universalist in the world right now, in 2025? We have the same reputation, sometimes earned, as that story from Oxford, as the ‘frozen chosen,’ an intellectual faith movement grounded in the use of reason to understand the world, more interested in admiring a problem than fixing it. Cold, a little aloof. Well meaning, certainly, but not who you want at a party. Sufficiently unorthodox not to be invited to the fun parties regardless.
But let me tell you a story. It’s a story that some of your have heard before. Years ago, a young person walked into the sanctuary of First Unitarian Church of Baltimore. He was sick, body and heart. About to spend a year in and out of the hospital, though he did not know it yet. Troubled by the brokenness of the world, the dissonance between his youthful optimism and the cynical, heartbreaking work he had done after college. He wasn’t sure what he needed, but thought it probably felt like church.
This is, you’ve probably put together, my own story. I joined First Unitarian in Baltimore in the few months between coming home from the Peace Corps and getting a cancer diagnosis at 25. But it is not just my story. It is also the story of so many people who come through the door every week. Sometimes it is dramatic, sometimes just a vague disquiet, a dis-ease of the soul. Almost everyone who comes in does so in some kind of transitional moment of their lives. If that was you, and you are comfortable, could you raise your hand for a moment?
Here’s the next part of my story: in that year, when my soul was wounded and then I started chemo, outside my immediate family it was a community of Unitarian Universalists that caught me. It wasn’t just my parents who cared for me – though they did – it was these almost strangers who I had sat in pews with for only a few months, showing up at my door with food, knitting a shawl that is in my office to this day, calling to say “hey, I didn’t see you at Church last Sunday, are you alright? Do you need a ride this week?” And there was balm for my soul: In the midst of what felt like impossible pain (I was in my 20s, everything was turned up to 11), I found myself singing
“We’ll build a land where we bind up the broken, we’ll build a land where the captives go free/Where the oil of gladness dissolves all mourning, oh we’ll build the promised land that can be.”
When I say this faith saved my life, understand that it is not hyperbole. It is midwestern understatement. 15 years ago Unitarian Universalism bound me up and then sent me forth.
Right now there is a lot of literature about the end of organized religion. Some numbers: Attendance at religious services, particularly for mainline and liberal denominations, is down nationally over the last twenty years. Religious Education enrollment is dropping faster than adult attendance, suggesting that we aren’t brining young people and families into church. This spring there were 86 Unitarian Universalist congregations looking for full time called or contract ministers. 23 found a minister to serve. In a recent report to the British General Assembly of Unitarian and Free Christian Churches, Rory Castle Jones quoted a Unitarian minister who told him “Optimism is our scarcest resource.”
In a moment when (I would say) an organized liberal church is most needed, we are dwindling, institutionally. It seems strange: one might think that a church with low formal expectations (no creed, diversity of thought) would be thriving. But instead… optimism is our most scarce resource.
“Do not go quiet into that dark night,” the poet writes. “Rage, rage against the dying of the light.” I want us to survive, as a movement. I want us to survive because I would like to be able to retire in 20 years or so, sure. And I want us to survive for the young person, broken in heart or body, who comes through that door wondering what we have to bind them up. I want us to be like the poets, be like the prophets, compelled by the words we feel so deep we cannot keep them in. “The word of the Lord is upon me,” Jeremiah speaks, “I have fire in my bones.”
Here’s a bit of research I think about a lot: counterintuitively, the churches that are ‘stickiest’ to new members, the churches that don’t seem to follow the broad strokes of institutional decline in the first quarter of this century, are not the ones where the barriers to entry are low. The places where new folks are told “Yeah, come and see what you like, we don’t have anything in particular in mid for you, but take a look round and see what you like,” tend to get a lot of visitors, but not the kind of bone-deep commitment that churches need. Instead, it is the high-friction, high demand congregations that make the most difference in their people’s lives – and by extension, tend to be ‘stickiest.’
I am so proud to serve a church that is, in this way, sticky. Here at Unity Church we are explicit: we have expectations of our membership. We see the brokenness, the deep hunger and loneliness in the world and we have a prescription for it. It goes like this:
· Develop a spiritual practice that helps you find and keep your balance.
· Develop the skills of small group intimacy that let you go deep quickly with strangers.
· Let the compassion that rises from doing your work within and among (the first two pieces) lead you to bless the world.
This is the expanded version of “within, among, and beyond,” that comes up so often at this place. Here at Unity, we expect our members to engage with their deepest selves and each other, then to go out and be in the world acting as people of faith. The specifics (what practice, how you bless the world) are still up to each person, by the expectation, the prescription, is universal.
Practice. Intimacy. Blessing.
Within. Among. Beyond.
One of the advantages of churches is that we get to think in decades and centuries rather than weeks, months, and years. So this prescription is evergreen. In good times, practice, go deep with other people, bless the world. In hard times? Do the same thing. Maybe more. In these hard times, when I turn on the radio while driving my daughter to camp at the JCC and hear about the intentional starvation of children in Gaza? In that impossible moment, the prescription I write for myself is the same: Spiritual practice and going deep to develop compassion, and then work to bless the world. WORK
There’s one more thing that research tells us about churches. The most common time for people to visit churches, outside of major holidays, is late summer. This is when young families are getting ready for the school year, thinking about what their routine should be, sometimes starting new jobs. So for the month of August, we are going to do something a little different- a series of Sunday morning worship services, based on what it means to be a member here at Unity – that three part prescription of practice, intimacy, and blessing. At each, I’ll be preaching, but like this – we’ll save the robe and pulpit for September, and just have a conversation. And at each, we’ll have a pick up choir meeting at 9:00 for anyone that wants to show up, learn some new music, and sing together.
There is an ask that goes along with this plan, though, and that’s this: I know I am not the only person in this room whose life was saved or changed by finding this faith. I know, because in the 367 days since I started here, I’ve had one on one meetings to get to know each other with well over 100 of you, and so many of you have told me your stories. How you found meaning through music at Unity, how coming here felt like come home, how you have found in the people here lifelong friends, how Unity Church has been a place that shows up in your life on wonderful and terrible days alike. I’ve heard about lives changed through spiritual practice, about how this place has helped some of you become activists, how getting involved with outreach through Unity gives you hope. I know your stories, they are beautiful, and good.
And I know – down in my bones know – that there are people in Saint Paul, in this metro area, who need the message we have. And I know, just as deeply, that if we are the ‘frozen chosen,’ cut off from the world and rarely exposing ourselves, content in our cold and imposing fortresses of intellect and architecture, that optimism will continue to be scarce, and our institutions diminished. That is not the Unitarian Universalism that I want. I want us to know what this community has and feel compelled to share that. Not the frozen chosen, I want fire in our bones.
So this month I want you to invite someone to Unity Church. No, not the person you are sitting next to in the pew right now. It could be someone you met here, who has fallen away in the last few years of transition, who you miss. Or it might be a friend, a colleague who’s mentioned that they are having a hard time, that they are lonely. Call that person. Take them to lunch. Send them the video of this service. Tell them your story. If you were one of the people who raised your hand earlier, remember what that felt like – what it was like to be caught by a church, and to have a place that supports you in finding meaning and belonging in the world.
And if you happen to be visiting this morning, or are watching online, welcome. We are so glad you are here. Church is where we practice being human together in the midst of Times Like These. Reach out, ask questions, try out the prescription we have. Use this place to find meaning, and then help others. Bless the world.
May we always be that church. Amen.
Our closing hymn is Lead With Love.