A sermon by Kenneth P. Langer
Copyright 2023, K. Langer
( The first Universalist church in Gloucester story - the church with the No Trespassing sign. The church was not very welcoming.)
The wonderful thing about being able to come here and speak to you is that I get to talk about things with which I am passionate about. In the past few years I have become passionate about something called Radical Welcoming.
In UU churches throughout the country the term “welcoming congregation” has come to mean churches who have been certified to be open to persons of all gender identities. That program began with a General Assembly vote in 1989 and, soon after, a process of certification was developed. The process was focused on education about LGBTQ communities, discussion throughout the congregation, and community outreach. Since its inception the program has been very successful and has spread throughout the country. I am proud to be part of this welcoming community.
Being a welcoming community, I believe, is a point of great honor for us. For far too long, gender fluid people have suffered in American society for no reason other than for being themselves. Sometimes the worst indignities have come from those who claim the focus of their religion is love while they actively exclude people who may not conform to their ideals of correctness. UU churches have made a step in the right direction by affirming that all expressions of gender are welcome but LGBTQ people are not the only ones being rejected and dismissed by religious communities. People of color, people who are dealing with serious economic challenges, people of different religions, people with no religion, people whose rights are being denied, and people of different cultures are just examples of a few of the groups who are shunned by some traditional religions in this country and, sometimes, by even our own tradition. What we need is not just a welcoming tradition in our congregations. We need radical welcoming.
In 2020, the UUA Commission on Institutional Change issued a report entitled “Widening the Circle of Concern.” Its goal was to “support long-term cultural and institutional change that redeems the essential promise and ideals of Unitarian Universalism.” In 2021, the General Assembly approved a Statement of Conscience which, among other things, called upon UU congregations to “build relationships across boundaries of privilege and oppression.” Now in 2022 we stand on the threshold of a new world. The pandemic has proven to us that we are all connected. Something that happens in some small distant village can affect the entire world. Ecological disaster affects every single being on this planet. A war in eastern Europe threatens to cause economic suffering, environmental disaster, and starvation in countries across the globe. At no time have we come to understand how intricately our lives are bound together and yet(!) we continue to fight amongst ourselves, we continue to draw lines and foster divisions, and we continue to isolate ourselves. Radical welcoming is one small way in which we can resist those tendencies.
At this point, you might ask what the difference is between welcoming and radical welcoming. Before I answer that, let me tell why I became fascinated with the topic.
After the first couple of years in seminary I began to seek out opportunities to give sermons throughout New England. I was lucky enough to be invited to speak at quite a few UU churches. At first, of course, my sermons were given over Zoom where I had little chance to see the actual church but soon churches started opening up and I was invited to go to the site–sometimes to give a sermon to an empty room and a camera but later to a room full of masks.
At one of the first UU churches I stepped inside there was an inscription that said something to the effect that here you could be saved from the tortures of hell. It was a strange thing to see inside a UU church and is certainly not the kind of message we want to convey, but the church was historical and the members wanted to keep some of its ancient artifacts in place. What struck me, though, was how it made me feel as a visitor to the church. Historical artifact or not, it did not make me feel warm and fuzzy when I stepped inside and read those words. As I started speaking live at other churches I began to think about what it would be like to visit each of these them as a newcomer. What if I knew nothing about Unitarian Universalism? Would I come to understand it when I walked through the doors, when I walked through the building, when I met people inside? What if I was someone who was looking for a church after being turned away from other denominations? Would I feel welcome, accepted, or would I be invisible? What if I was a UU and had just moved here? Would I be able to find my way around the church? Would I be ignored if I looked different, talked different, believed different things than those around me. Would I want to become an active member of this church?
I began a process of informal research where I simply walked through churches and sought answers to those questions. What I found was that every church I visited proclaimed they welcomed everyone and I believe that they all meant it. UU churches are well intentioned. We have our hearts in the right place but sometimes the things we do or don’t do give off a different message than the ones we say. Let me give you a few examples. One church had a beautiful and well-designed welcome center complete with helpful information, maps, and pamphlets. The only problem with it was that it was situated in a small hallway away from the entrance where visitors were encouraged to enter. Visitors never saw the Welcome Center. At another church, visitors were encouraged to join members at coffee hour after the service but were never told where coffee hour was being held and it was not obvious to anyone who looked for it. After several more of these experiences I began to turn my informal research into a more formal pursuit and I discovered the concept of ‘Radical Welcoming.’ The idea of reaching out to others to widen our circle of concern and compassion fascinated me and I wanted to learn more.
The term Radical Welcoming was coined by Episcopal priest Stephanie Spellers in her book “Radical Welcoming: Embracing God, the Other, and the Spirit of Transformation.” She points out that a lot of liberal churches are welcoming yet are still struggling to become multicultural or multi-racial. For her, the difference between welcoming and radical welcoming has to do with intention and commitment. Bringing different people together into a shared community involves overcoming fear and accepting change. Both are challenging things for anyone. Radical welcoming involves a process of constant growth and metamorphosis within a congregation. It’s the difference between, say, knitting and quilting. Knitting involves bringing new strands into an existing pattern. New thread is introduced but must become part of the current pattern. With knitting, material is intertwined into one form. With quilting, separate and unique designs are brought together. The design of the quilt is allowed to take shape through the addition of each new and unique pattern. The individual pieces make their own contribution to the whole and yet are held together by a few consistent threads of solidarity. Another way to look at it is that welcoming is about telling others about us and inviting them to join our way while radical welcoming is about listening to others and inviting their stories to become part of our own. It’s about listening to the hopes and dreams of others. It’s about asking people what it is they seek and what it is that fulfills them. It’s the difference between transmission and transformation.
Why did I become obsessed with Radical Welcoming? Because I believe our Unitarian Universalist message of hope and inclusion desperately needs to be heard and shared with people–all people. No one has to commit to our way of thinking but they should at least know it exists–that there is a compassionate alternative to the messages of hate and division currently being spread in the world.
We are like a pearl in an oyster. The ocean floor is made up of all kinds of sediment and tiny creatures from all over the world. Whenever a small bit of this material enters an oyster, the oyster covers it in a special substance. Eventually a beautiful luminescent pearl is created. We are like that pearl. We come from many places and are all different in some way. Then, here, we come together and form an effervescent brilliant pearl. But, like the oyster, we hide that beautiful pearl in a shell. We are so annoyed at the coercive and, sometimes, aggressive tactics employed by some religious traditions to convert people that we resort to silence and avoidance about our own worldview. But I firmly believe (And I know you’ve heard me say this before) that we have a message of acceptance and hope that the world desperately needs. I am passionate about Radical Welcoming because I want those who seek a refuge from hate and oppression and dominance to know who we are and to be able to find us. I am passionate about radical welcoming because I want us to continue to grow and to actually transform into that multicultural, multi-racial, multi-spiritual, multi-gendered, multi-generational, and multi-beautiful beloved community we always talk about. I want us to be part of the radically welcoming world we dream of becoming.
In the name of that which you hold in your heart to be most sacred, may it be so