.... What is essential in the churches is their service of righteousness, their steadfast witness to moral precepts and spiritual ideals. In an age surrendered to the grossest forms of materialism, the churches {must} keep alive the thought of God…. In a period which seems to have lost all sense of moral values, the churches {must} impose standards which shall some day be the salvation of the [race = people]. At a moment when society seems to be given over utterly to strife, contention, and barbaric slaughter, the churches {must} proclaim unfalteringly the truth that love is the sole and perfect law of life.

READING: Holmes, sermon after the close of WWI
     Valiant is the [human] heart [of man]. Set in a world whose bounds [he = we] cannot trace -- armed with puny hands and brain, to do battle against the gigantic forces of sky and sea and earth -- beset behind and before by the twin mysteries of birth and death -- knowing only the unknowable, searching only the unsearchable, living only to die, [man = humanity] has stood erect as one lifted by God's hand, and has moved ever onward, through centuries of unspeakable pain, fear and frustration, with unconquerable courage and unquenchable faith. It is impossible to read however imperfect a record of [man's = our] thoughts on death and after, as written from earliest to latest times, without confessing that there is indeed an undying fire of the divine in us, and [a] bowing in adoration before it. Especially is this true of the testimony which has been coming to us from brave young hearts, in the filth of the trenches, in the icy wastes of the sea, even in the vast spaces of the air, during these years of the world's blackest tragedy and most awful agony. Something there is within [man = humanity] or above [him = us], that makes [him = us] greater than [himself = ourselves], stronger than the universe, mightier than the mysteries which always challenge, and sometimes beat [him = us] downward, to despair. [Man = humanity], in [his = con]fronting of death and [his =the] dream of immortality, is all that we need, after all, to teach us of God. The soul is its own best testimony to the everlasting reality of religion.

PRAYER: JEA

O Spirit within all humanity that makes us larger than ourselves,
O Spirit that joins us with all things, with the great universe about us,
Grant us a religion for our day as strong and vibrant as that of old.
We would have inspiration, to encourage us and strengthen us.
We would have succor for our wounds, spiritual and mental.
We would have love to support us and nurture our hearts.
We would have prophetic courage to right wrongs and work for justice.
Confront our daily lives with the call to live and worship,
Filled with joy at all the human mind and body can accomplish,
Filled with confidence in the dawning future for ourselves and others,
Filled with hope amidst strife and violence and meanness. For these values
We pray; and we seek within ourselves and among our neighbors
The love and support and trust to find the answers. AMEN.

      Religion, Christian, Jewish, Buddhist, Hindu, pagan, concerns itself with ethics and spirituality. (1) Ethics, how we conduct ourselves in our daily living, was first emphasized by the great Jewish prophets who arose, surprisingly, just as the Jewish nation was conquered and its people exiled. (2) Spirituality, not so much how we live (that is ethics) but why we live, is commonly thought to be the core of religion. Spirituality actually describes our sense of belonging — belonging to family, community or tribe, ethnic or cultural group, the world about us. Today’s known world is a vast universe, but the ancient world was a much smaller cosmos — to most early people it was no further than the eye could see or a person could walk in a few days.
      All religion is concerned with these two verities: ethics and spirituality. Modern religion is distinguished from all ancient religions by the dramatic facts of modern life: the scientific and technological innovations that connect the world by travel, voice, video, and computers. Only five hundred years ago we did not know the earth was round, that it circled the sun, that it had seven great land masses scattered among the oceans, and that on these masses lived human beings that were amazingly varied in their physical and cultural descriptions, yet were so much alike just the same.
      The word "religere" from which "religion" is derived means "to connect". Our world is vastly more religious today than ever before, by that definition. Yet old religions still divide people according to beliefs, cultures, genders, and so many tiny details. A modern religion must connect people, all people, despite all their differences — because of their differences. [motto]

1. Religion is time sensitive
      My in-laws live in western Pennsylvania, where Jim worked in a specialty steel fabricating mill. American steel mills were the envy of the world for a century, all the way through World War II. Then something happened. The vanquished nations suffered, but there are no real winners in a war. We rested on our laurels, or our arrogance. We ceased to be innovative in industry, and we began to invest in overseas production. There were inevitable consequences, as the string of empty mills along the rivers of Pennsylvania attest.
      Religion is time sensitive, just like the modes of production. We cannot make steel as we did in the 1880’s, using the same mills and furnaces. That technology was once on the cutting edge; now it languishes in hisotry’s dustbins. A few American mills continue to exist, some in a niche market, some doddering off to their final production run. New so-called specialty mills have been built, and a few old mills were modernized and continue to be competitive. My father-in-lay, Jim Schlemmer, oversaw the modernization at the Ellwood City Forge. It is now the only one of the many mills in that western Pennsylvania valley that remains open and working.

2. Modern religion
      John Haynes Holmes, told his New York City congregation that religion had changed. In the church he had renamed The Community Church in Manhattan, only a few blocks from where the Empire State Building was to be built, he spoke to a broad cross-section of people, surely the most diverse racially, culturally, and economically of the time. Holmes saw religion dying in Europe: church attendance was down, and intellectuals were attacking it on all sides. He asked a simple question: is modern religion possible? Can we have a religion that faithfully reflects modern times as ancient religions reflected their times?
      The question is still appropriate; the answer is not clear. The popularity of religious and cultural fundamentalism in all faith traditions, with their megachurches and "lite religion", the bookstore shelves filled with quasi-religious books on economics, politics, and the New Age, and the media attention to Christian music and television notwithstanding, the question remains. Must religion be based on the insights of ancient prophets speaking to ancient cultures, must we abandon the effort to live ethical lives with a feeling of connection to our universe, nature, and other people?
      Holmes noted that churches are filled with science, history, psychology, and philosophy that are outdated and cannot be found in libraries except under the rubric of religion. Those disciplines have moved far beyond the examples, procedures, and facts that religion still relies upon. Churches have become intellectual backwaters, places to visit for a lazy morning of comfort or to be socially visible, but they are not a resource for modern lives.
      A modern religion cannot contradict science and technology. A modern religion cannot contradict this planet’s age, as does "creation science", or demand that ancient cultural morality rule modern lives. It incorporates the changes science has inspired. It must soar into the vastness of space and inspire us as that wonderful NASA photo of the little blue-green ball that is Earth from space. Its spiritual forms must be contemporary and creative.
      In ethics, religion must understand human freedom, oppose slavery in all forms, including prejudice. It must understand human sexuality in a new way, for reproduction is no longer the only way to validate and affirm sexual relationships. It must recognize that violence in such a highly populated world is too dangerous. It must recognize that the environment is not a "parts store" for our use, but must be protected for its beauty, its usefulness, and its unique place in the lives of human beings.
      A modern religion must celebrate human life with all the fervor of ancient religious rites, but in a modern idiom — in the language, music, dance, art, dress, and poetry of modern times. A modern religion is appropriate to modern life as ancient Greek or Egyptian or Indian or Chinese religion were in their day. We are energized when our religion speaks to us in our "language."

3. Religion
      For all this sensitivity to modern needs, religion remains our only spiritual resource. Only religion can unite people who differ in political affiliations, social class, education, sexual orientation, work, and personal habits. No other organizations or social agencies exist for this grand purpose. There are, of course, many groups that try to unite people around particular interest: business, hobbies, politics, and so many others. Only religion unites people across all these barriers with one another and the universe. In his farewell address this summer, former UUA President Buehrens said,
Imagine it. People who are really different from each other — with dissimilar backgrounds, ideas, and religious practice choosing to gather together in spiritually transforming, moral[ly] significant communities of hope and compassion."
      Modern spirituality must do this: bring us together to worship in communities of hope and compassion. Spirituality is about compassion and hope. Let us not have the ancient forms, but the eternal content of spirituality: hope and compassion. Let us worship, alone and in communities, in ways that encourage compassion and hope, peace and justice.
      In our worship (as individuals and in community), walking through a forest or along the beach, we must celebrate our lives, not the noble lives of the prophets and seers of old. We do not denigrate their lives, rather we preserve their values. Their lives may inspire us, they can never command us. The old days of authority are over: we are free individuals in a democratic society. This is true even for religion. We share the world with one another and its creatures, plants, and forms. It belongs to no one alone to control.
      Religion is much more personal today than in ancient times. As a rule, people are better educated, live in more culturally diverse communities, and experience the world through television, radio, and the internet. (Our own members, Doug, Mary, Dana, and Scott Goodin are in Kazakhstan — the new directory will have their mailing address, phone, and email.) We know both how vast is our planet and how small.
      Our spirituality must reflect our culture and our times, as did the ancient spirituality of the Jews, early Christians, Hindus, Buddhists, and what we have come to call the "first peoples"?the earliest human communities. They developed their religious insight and understanding, their worship and their ethics, out of their own lives. They did not seek from others the great truths that all of us must come to know in our own hearts.
      We, too, must seek our own religion, a religion compatible with science in its ethics and spirituality. Ours must be a religion that fits us today. as their religion fit the ancients in their day. It must be alive to the rhythms of our time, inspiring us in our language, thought and worship. We can do this together. We can be radicals, introducing people to one another [motto]. We can be agents of the new spirituality that is as old as the first person to gaze at the stars on a clear winter’s night. We too can be awed by the vastness of space and time, and by the nearness of the inner voice of conscience. We are part of something so much bigger than ourselves, yet which supports and nurtures us, rather than demeaning and condemning us. Let us worship, along and together, the great spiritual web that weaves one united world and the great ethical code that expresses the respect and care we have for one another and the world about us.