The Call to Action

James Luther Adams was one of this century's foremost theologians. He was the lion of liberal religion, a member of a Boston Unitarian-Universalist congregation, one of the big names at Harvard Divinity School, and he died at an advanced age just after I completed my first year of seminary there. His most important book is called On Being Human Religiously. In it he brilliantly sets out guiding principles for a free faith based on his best known idea: the "Five Smooth Stones of Liberalism."

Each of these smooth stones, or points, is a brilliantly defined and refined point upon which the next one is built, and together they comprise an exciting, clear and tangible world view which is grounded in the realities of the world and of human experience. It's tempting to review all five, but they're far too much to put in a single sermon. In line with the theme of our service today, I want to review his fourth smooth stone, the fourth and penultimate part in his theological algorithm.

James Luther Adams wrote:

Now, anything that exists effectively in history must have form. And the creation of a form requires power. It requires not only the power of thought, but also the power of organization and the organization of power. Thus we are led to the fourth element of liberalism: we deny the immaculate conception of virtue and affirm the necessity of social incarnation....There is no such thing as goodness as such, except in a limited sense there is no such thing as a good person as such. There is the good husband, the good wife, the good worker, the good employer, the good layperson, the good citizen. The decisive forms of goodness in society are institutional forms. No one can properly put faith in merely individual virtue, even though that is a prerequisite for societal virtues. The faith of the liberal must express itself in societal forms, in the forms of education in economic and social organization, in political organization. Without these, freedom and justice in community are impossible. The faith of a church or or a nation is an adequate faith only when it inspires and enables people to give of their time and energy to shape the various institutions - social, economic and political - of the common life. A faith in the commanding, sustaining, transforming reality is one that tries to shape history. Any other faith is thoroughly undependable, it is also, in the end, impotent. It is not a faith that molds history. It is a faith that enables history to crush humanity. Its ministry prepares people to adjust to the crushing by focusing on, and salving, the personal experiences of hurt."

Basically, James Luther Adams is making two points here. The first is that religious liberalism denies the immaculate conception of virtue, instead we recognize that virtue must have a social incarnation. As he says, freedom, justice and love require a body as well as a spirit. And ours are the bodies, and ours is the spirit, that must answer the calls we hear going out to redress wrongs, work for justice and freedom, to continue the most humane and the highest and the most important work of humanity, which is leaving this world a better place, because we were here, than we found it. That is the legacy that matters, that is the most valuable, the most precious inheritance we can leave our families and loved ones.

Better preachers than me have preached that message and will preach it again. It is the second part of James Luther Adams' fourth smooth stone that is perhaps harder and more unusual to hear: A faith that does not try to shape history is undependable, and impotent, and worse, it enables history to crush humanity, its ministry prepares people to adjust to the crushing by focusing on, and salving, personal experiences of hurt, and believing that justice can only be part of another life after death.

There are commonly understood to be two kinds of ministry, prophetic and pastoral. Prophetic ministry calls people to high causes, to be their best selves, it tells home truths to those who need to hear them, and focusses on transcendence and change. Pastoral ministry, cares for people, eases their hurts, nurtures them through times of crisis or turmoil, sustains them through suffering and need. The best ministers, both lay and clergy, are good at both. Adams' point could be understood as a call for liberal religious tradition to be a prophetic rather than pastoral tradition. But that is over simplistic. Adams is saying that commitment to prophetic values is the most important way of caring, but not the only. His concern is just that liberal religion is not one that merely helps the hurt to lick their wounds. He says, rightly, that that is not enough.

Some feminist theologians say that his is a patriarchal model, that men are always sounding the call to rally folks to battle, and it is always left to the women to nurse the wounded, mourn the dead, and save the sick, until the next battle cry is heard. They see Adams' words as putting down the essential and blessed work of succor, caring and love. But we must remember who Adams is addressing and when he did his work. He wrote and worked for liberal causes following World War II, and during the Army McCarthy hearings and during the Civil Rights Movement and the Vietnam War and the Cold War. He was ultimately concerned that a denomination populated mostly by upper middle class white people, who could be a major force for justice, remember their responsibilities as religious communities to work for more than their own well-being. There are Unitarian-Universalists from Clara Barton who founded the Red Cross to Tim Berners-Lee, who intentionally created the World Wide Web as a free venue for the exchange of ideas and knowledge, who have changed the world and the course of history, because of their beliefs.

We are all people and so we suffer. We get sick, we die, we lose those we love, we struggle to provide good lives for ourselves and our children. We need to take care of ourselves and each other, and mercifully we have Unitarian-Universalist congregations which work hard to help members and friends in emotional, financial or spiritual need. But a congregation that does only that is not enough. All our congregations, and our own Fellowship, need to exist in history, with a sense of commitment and responsibility to the course of human events. Our faith and our congregational life must not be undependable, nor impotent, we must never enable history to crush humanity and prepare people to adjust to the crusting by ministering only to the personal experiences of hurt.

Our Social Action committee is what lifts us into the realm of meaningful religious liberalism and ultimately meaningful existence as a congregation. People may look for justice and caring and freedom not only within these walls, they may depend upon us to work caringly beyond these walls, in our communities for freedom and justice. We all have seasons in our lives when we have some extra time and energy to give to the work of humanity. If you are someone who currently has time and energy to give, please see a member of the Social Action committee after the service. We bring service to the altar of humanity, and we take a different gift, and a sense of communion away. Hazrat Inayat Khan, a Sufi, wrote:

"When there is a fruit or something sweet and good to taste, the child comes to its mother and says. 'Will you give it to me?' Although it would have given pleasure to the mother to eat it, she gives it to the child. The eating of it by the child is enjoyed by the mother...She enjoys her life in the joy of another. Those who rejoice in the joy of another though at their own expense have taken the first step towards true life. Our life is much vaster, deeper, greater."

May we honor the work of those in our church family who offer a ministry that is prophetic as well as pastoral. May we remember that our turn to answer the call will come, has perhaps come today. May we work with a will and a committed heart when the call does come to each of us. And may we pledge ourselves anew as a congregation to a ministry that is both pastoral and prophetic, caring for all experiences of hurt, heeding all souls, working always for freedom and justice for the humanity down the street and across the continent, knowing the world will be a better place when we leave it because we were here.

Amen.

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