“O, the beauty in a life that illumines honor anew, that models wise and gracious ways to every seeker; that every day shall serve in joy and do the right. O, praise the life whose beauty shows a justice true”1—words of the late Toribio Quimada, founder and Bishop of the Universalist Church of the Philippines. Bishop Quimada’s story is both beautiful and tragic. Born in 1917 into a poor, Catholic farming family, he was the kind of kid who questioned everything, especially religion. His family had no Bible—the Church prohibited laypeople from keeping Bibles in their homes. He longed to see for himself what the scripture actually said. He finally read the Bible at age twenty when economic circumstances forced his family to move in with his uncle in San Carlos City. His uncle belonged to an independent Protestant church called Iglesia Universal de Christo, which his family joined. Here, laypeople read the Bible, and as he read he became convinced that what the scripture said contradicted what he had been taught.
Through his own spiritual intuition and through the message of his uncle’s church, Quimada developed a Christian Universalist theology: God loves everyone. God saves everyone. He became a minister in this church but still had questions. By chance he came upon a newspaper from Wisconsin with a listing for a Universalist Church. He began writing to Universalists in the United States and eventually received support from the Universalist Service Committee, a connection which enabled him to found the Universalist Church of the Philippines in the mid-1950s.
According to the Rev. Fred Muir, who has written about Unitarian Universalism in the Philippines, Quimada “preached that a loving God is not capable of preparing … hell for people to be tormented forever with fire. He preached that the contradictions found in the Bible are proof it is not the word of God but a great book written by [inspired] people. He preached that Jesus Christ is not the son of God, but rather a gifted son of Joseph and Mary, who delivered a message of justice, equality and compassion.”2
Over thirty-three years leading the Universalist Church of the Philippines, he not only preached a gospel of justice, equality and compassion, Bishop Quimada worked tirelessly for justice and equality in the Philippines. In 1988 he was murdered while working on a campaign to protect poor, landless farmers from abuses by landowners and government officials. “O, the beauty in a life that illumines honor anew, that models wise and gracious ways to every seeker; that every day shall serve in joy and do the right. O, praise the life whose beauty shows a justice true.”
We kick off our annual appeal this weekend, and this morning I am mindful of the spirit of Bishop Quimada’s ministry, a spirit of seeking one’s truth, proclaiming that truth, and acting on that truth. Over the next month our stewards will be contacting our members and friends, asking to meet for a conversation about UUS:E—what it means to each of us, how it sustains each of us, how it inspires each of us—and asking for a financial pledge from each of us for the 2009-2010 fiscal year. It’s a challenging time to be asking for money. I confess I’ve lost sleep wondering about the near future of our congregation, wondering if, like so many other congregations, due to the impact of the economic recession on our families, we will be forced to make truly difficult financial decisions. And of course, we have the added challenge this year and next of building up our operating budget to pay the debt on our building loan. A year from now we will be in a beautifully expanded, greener, fully accessible building—we will love it!—and we will be paying for it one way or another.
I’ve lost a reasonable amount of sleep—many of my colleagues across the country have lost sleep—but anxiety is a small part of how I’m feeling. Ultimately, I’m excited. I’m hopeful. I’m looking forward to this messy exile we’ll be experiencing sometime this summer when the construction begins. I’m looking forward to settling into our new space next year. I’m excited and hopeful in part because this past week the Stewardship Committee has been stewarding our leaders and I’ve had the privilege of being present for some of those conversations. People have talked about being cared for in times of crisis; gaining clarity and insight in times of confusion; building relationships; developing friendships; coming together in times of sadness and joy. People have talked about memorials services, weddings and child dedications. People have talked about the value of liberal religious education for their children; the value of theological diversity; the value of this free pulpit; the value of far-reaching and open principles rather than rigid confessions of faith; the value of covenantal religion rather than creedal religion. And people have talked about increasing their pledge for the coming year.
Being present to these conversations fills me with excitement and hope—but there’s more to my optimism than this. Since I began praying for and contemplating what I would say to you as we kick off our annual appeal in the midst of the worst economic recession since the Great Depression, the words, “there is a spirit,” kept entering my consciousness. Every time I found myself awake, in the middle of the night, my mind racing with negative thoughts, the words, “there is a spirit,” would bring me a sense of peace.
There is a spirit surrounding and pervading our lives. I can’t tell you how large it is—I know it is large. I can’t tell you how old it is—I know it is old. I can’t tell you how far it reaches—I know it reaches far. I can’t tell you the depth of its wells—I know they run deep. I can’t tell you the temperature of its fires—I know they burn exceedingly hot and brilliantly bright. I can’t tell you how it brings healing and wholeness to our lives—I know it does. I can’t tell you the nature of its love, but I know it can inspire profound love in us if we let it. I can’t tell you how it responds to our longings, our hungers, how it quenches our thirst, but I know it can if we open ourselves to it, heart, mind, gut and soul. I can’t tell you the quality of its moisture—I know it is moist.
It is the spirit at the heart of this faith community. It is the spirit at the heart of Unitarian Universalism. Certainly it is the spirit I sense at the heart of Bishop Quimada’s ministry, “the beauty in a life that illumines honor…that models wise and gracious ways…[that] shows a justice true,” to quote his hymn again. But this spirit is larger than Unitarian Universalism. It is larger than any single denomination. I might call it the spirit of liberal religion, but it is larger than liberal religion. It is the spirit that leads people to seek truth; the spirit that leads people to challenge injustice; the spirit that leads people to welcome creativity and embrace change; the spirit that leads people to apprehend their connectedness, their interdependence, their oneness with all life; the spirit that leads people to the ethic of “do unto others as you would have others do unto you.” It is the spirit that leads people to hope in the most difficult times. It is the spirit that calls forth the best in humanity. It is the beauty in a life that illumines honor, models wise and gracious ways to every seeker, serves in joy, does what is right, shows a justice true. This spirit has taken hold of me these past few weeks.
I encounter this spirit when I read of Jesus first walking out of desert obscurity into the temple in his home town of Nazareth and reading from the scroll of Isaiah about good news for the poor, freedom for prisoners, sight for the blind, release for the oppressed, and the coming Jubilee—the year of God’s favor when debts are forgiven and slaves are set free.3 We cannot know for sure whether this event actually took place. But there is a spirit surrounding and pervading our lives. The author of Luke recognized Jesus’ ministry as a manifestation of this spirit. He—or she—wrote of it as the “Spirit of God.” This will mean different things to different people, but for me the writer is saying a spirit surrounds and pervades our lives—a justice seeking spirit, a healing spirit. The writer is saying this spirit called Jesus into his ministry, and it is the same spirit that called Isaiah and the ancient Jewish prophets into their difficult ministries; the same spirit that called them to challenge the authorities of their own time, to demand that their own kings and priests take heed of the struggling masses, care for the poor, seek justice for the oppressed, practice mercy. Contemplating the presence of this spirit in our lives today fills me with hope and excitement.
This spirit is bigger than the Christian New Testament. It is the same spirit, I believe, that inspired the Chinese philosopher, Confucius, centuries before Jesus, to challenge the prevailing assumptions of his day, to reject esoteric speculation about Heaven, and to focus on virtue in this life, to focus on consideration (shu), to focus on doing your best for others (zhong).4 It is the same spirit, I believe, that inspired Siddhatta Gotama, the Buddha, centuries before Jesus, to plumb the depths of human suffering, to grasp the impermanence of our existence; and then, instead of struggling to overcome it, instead of withdrawing from the world, to embrace it, to practice mindfulness, to practice compassion and loving-kindness as avenues to enlightenment.5 Contemplating this spirit fills me with hope and excitement.
This spirit is bigger than religion! My apologies to Karl Marx, who made famous the phrase, religion “is the opium of the people,”6 but I feel it when I read his work. He might vociferously dismiss the notion that his life work manifested a spirit akin to that at the heart of Jesus’ ministry and the justice-call of the Jewish prophets. But Marx possessed a profound concern for justice and a profound compassion for workers, for the struggling masses, for the proletariat. He expressed a justifiable rage at the elite and owning classes who relentlessly exploited them. There was a spirit at the heart of his work that that led him to engage in a “ruthless criticism of everything existing… [a] criticism [that] must not be afraid of its own conclusions, nor of conflict with the powers that be.”7 There was a spirit at the heart of his work that led him to say, as we heard earlier, “The philosophers have only interpreted the world, in various ways; the point, however, is to change it.”8 And if organized religion attempted to stifle this spirit; if organized religion collaborated in the exploitation of the poor; if organized religion joined with elites in sustaining illusions of spiritual happiness in the midst of oppression, then, as with the Jewish prophets, as with Jesus, organized religion must be critiqued and challenged. Contemplating the presence of this spirit fills me with hope and excitement.
It is the same spirit that inspires mystics to seek the sacred through prayer and meditation; the same spirit that inspires painters, musicians, sculptors, dancers, and poets to seek the sacred through creativity; the same spirit that inspires scientists to seek the truths of the natural world; the same spirit that inspires the heretic, the nonconformist, the dissenter, the non-believer (to use the President’s language) to profess their understanding of truth even when it conflicts with the powers that be. It is the spirit of children, joyfully engaging the world, joyfully asking questions, joyfully following their hearts. It is the spirit of teachers, tutors, mentors, counselors, doctors, nurses, police, firefighters, public servants—all those who dedicate their lives to serving others and strengthening the fabric of community.
There is a spirit surrounding and pervading our lives. It does not recognize human divisions. It crosses oceans. It climbs mountains. It traverses deserts. In the words of Rev. Belletini, it recognizes “no superior land, no chosen site, no divine destiny falling on any one nation.”9 It recognizes “one earth we all share, we, the living with all else that lives and does not live.”10
There is a spirit surrounding and pervading our lives. Friends, we feel it as morning breaks with the arrival of spring. We feel it in life poised to break through the thawing earth; in late March sun warming our days; in returning bird-song; in fresh air; in tiny buds beginning to form on tree branches; in earthworms digging; in our own re-emergence from the blue tombs of our winter lives; in our own sense of resurrection amidst spring’s rebirth; in the life that maketh all things new.
There is a spirit surrounding and pervading our lives. It is much larger than this Unitarian Universalist faith community. And yet a piece of it moves through these halls, moves through this house of peace, into our hearts. Of all the places I go, I come here to encounter this spirit—to feel its energy, to feel its movement in my life. I come here to build a ministry with you in response to this spirit. Knowing this spirit is alive and well here—trusting it, believing it, relying on it—I am left with the deeply held conviction that we can and will achieve our goals even in these difficult times, that our hopes for the future are justified, that the beat will go on, for all the days to come.
Amen. Blessed Be.
1 Quimada, Toribio, “O, the Beauty in a Life,” Singing the Living Tradition (Boston: Beacon Press and the Unitarian Universalist Association, 1993) #182.
2 Muir, Frederic, John, Maglipay Universalist: a History of the Unitarian Universalist Church of the Philippines (Annapolis: Unitarian Universalist Church of Annapolis, 2001). This quote comes from a children’s story adapted from Maglipay Universalist which can be found at: www.uupcc.org/re/materials/pcc/Philippines%20story.doc.
3 See Luke 4: 16-21.
4 Armstrong, Karen, The Great Transformation: The Beginning of Our Religious Traditions (New York, Anchor Books, 2007) p. 247.
5 See discussion of the life and teachings of Sidhatta Gotama in Ibid., pp. 326-342.
6 Marx, Karl, Contribution to the Critique of Hegel’s Philosophy of Right: Introduction, in Tucker, Robert, ed., The Marx-Engels Reader (New York: W.W. Norton & Co., 1978) p. 54.
7 Marx, Karl, “For a Ruthless Critique of Everything Existing,” in Ibid., p. 13.
8 Marx, Thesis on Feuerbach, in Ibid., p. 145.
9 Belletini, Rev. Mark, “Communion Circle,” Sonata for Voice and Silence (Boston: Skinner House, 2008) p. 32.
10 Ibid., p. 33.
