Promise Making Animal

The Great Jewish thinker Martin Buber once reflected
that what makes human beings human
was that they make promises to each other.

Buber was indoubtedly aware of the reversable thumb,
our upright posture and our expanded cranium, 
the indications the zoologists might look at when comparing our bones
relative to other mammals.
Buber knew that we are called homo sapiens, 
which roughly translated means the human like creature who thinks.
Buber knew about the contributions of linguists,  and anthropologists.
Buber didn't disregard these scientists,  but Buber was a Jewish scholar,
and his insights came from that profound and wise faith tradition.
For Buber what makes us human is that we make commitments,
and our commitments,  our promises, 
are what makes our social arrangements profound and deep,
our promise making endows our relating to each other
with a religious quality.

With all due respect for the zoologists,  anthropologists, 
and all the other savants of science
in my experience with the human condition, 
Buber is right.
We lose something profound when promises are broken,
we lose our ability to trust,  we lose our confidence in that relationship.
Break enough promises and break the human spirit.
Oh we still have a reversible thumb, 
we will still be have the bones of a homo sapiens if they dig us up.
but we will have lost something essential to being human if we lose spirit.

The ancient Jews raised promise making to a central place
in their religious understanding. 
They spoke of a covenant that defined their people,
they were called to be a special people,
to witness justice,  mercy and right relationship to the nations.
keep the covenant and be a Jew,
break the covenant God would have no witness to his will.

Like all profound religious ideas
this one has been misused at times,
In the true meaning of being chosen
being a Jew did not confer special status on individuals
but rather special obligiation.

But we understand that some would have seen their covenant
as the bestowing of priviledge,

We are god's chosen people
and therefore better than those of the nations,  the gentiles.

But if a profound idea is often misunderstood,
There are always those who return to the original truth

Over and over again sensitive and thoughtful Jews
understood that the concept of covenant was being misunderstood.
becoming narrowed and being formalized.

And they protested. 

Prophets came amongst the people
and renewal and rededication was often the result.

Which brings us to the second part of Bubers insight.
We make promises, and we also break promises.
Mature human beings understand that promises are not always kept,
how many times did I resolve to quit smoking before I actually did.
how many times did I promise myself to write home more often,
when I was young and about seeing the world.

I didn't live up to my own promises to myself,
and like many others,  I have experienced divorce,
We make promises and we fail to often to give life to those promises.
But I continue to believe we become human
by the making and keeping of promises.
To fail must not become the basis of cynicism,  of despair, 
we must grow from our failures.
To fail must become the basis of recommitment.

We are promise makers,  promise breakers and promise renewers.
We renew ourselves by taking on commitment again.
We overcome our failure,
by taking stock of our failures to live according to our promises,
and with this now hopefully mature understanding
we renew our covenants.

Our covenants as Unitarian Universalists
are the promises we make to establish our religious community.
Like the ancient Jews and like all human beings before and since,
we do not always live our ideals, 
` but it is our ideals that define us,
and it is in recognition of our failings,
that we renew our covenants, 
promising again to be human with each other.This Summer at General Assembly the assembled delegates
heard a major report,  its theme was Congregational Polity,
Polity  is the way we govern ourselves
in this association of religious liberals,
how we conduct the business of making religious community together,

We have a polity in which each congregation is autonomous, 
but each congregation is also in association with other congregations. 
Over one thousand,  one hundred congregations
make up the Unitarian Universalist Association
each of these congregations has promised to affirm and promote
the principles of Unitarian Universalism,
to work with other congregations to promote our common faith.

The report was authored by the Commission on Appraisal,
the commission is an elected body, 
the commission members are elected by the General Assembly.
The commission studies problems in our Unitarian Universalist community,
problems that are suggested to it
by rank and file UUs very much like ourselves.,
It has just finished a four year study on the topic
examining our congregational policy.

It is interesting that the title of this report is "Interdependence"
in other words it argues that our way of being together
is one in which we are mutually dependent.

The report urges us to strive to become a community of congregations,  engaged in mutual support,  learning from each other,
communicating and sharing our successes, as well as our difficulties.

Here at Lakeshore Unitarian Universalist Congregation
we seek to value each individual,
and join together to create something that no individual can create. 
We seek to become a community. 
Being part of a religious community is a personal commitment
that reflects a theological vision,
For Unitarian Universalists that theological vision includes
a sense of the fundamentally interdependent
or covenantal nature of human existence. 

Human beings are human beings because of their relationships
to community,  and all relationship involves obligations. 
These obligations work in both directions. 
We have obligations to other people in community,
and they have obligations to us. 
That is what is meant by rights. 
We have a right to expect respect, 
we have a right to expect that our ideas will be heard
without being dismissed our put down
because they may not be comfortable, 
we have a right to have imput into the collective decisions
that affect our lives, 
we have a right to freedom of conscience.

Often times communites enshrine these individual rights
in constitutional strictures,  but they do not stress their corrallaries. 
We need to make it clear,
in order for our rights to be recognized in community, 
we in turn must be respectful, 
we must listen and try to understand disagreeable ideas, 
we must respect the freedom of conscience of others. 
We can all cite many other examples of this,
but parodoxically the rights of the individual can only be guaranteed
in a community of mutual obligations. 

Communities are more than collections of individuals doing their thing,
communities are places where we grow in relationship. 
There are many important ideas in this profound study, 
I will be discussing some of these ideas in evening discussion groups
during the coming year.    In addition.
I will reflect on this study with you from time to time from this pulpit
and in my column in the newsletter.

What I found  most profound for me is this idea,  and I quote:

The central purpose of the congregation
(the locally gathered, self governing religious community)
is to link the person to universal religious community. 
We may say that the congregation is the means by which
we participate in "the community forming power."

Through the congregation the individual enables
the universal religious ideals to become more than a nice idea; 
the individual is necessary for these ideals to be historic reality.  Conversely,  through the congregation the universal religious community calls the individual out of solitariness into solidarity
with social,  natural and spiritual realities that transcend the self.       
/end quote/

In my words, the congregation provides the means for each of us
to grow in empathy and relationship to the entire human community
and commit ourselves to the human quest for justice and peace, 
to grow in awareness of this natural world,
and to gain a sense of intimacy with that source of our being
in which we live,  and move  and have our being.

This the religious meaning of congregation, 
to link each of us to a community that goes beyond this local gathering.
this is our interdependency,  this is our mutuality.

It is September
and it is getting to be about time for the Canadian Geese to fly South.

Let us think about the geese for a moment, because. 
We who would be a community of religious liberals
can learn much from the Geese.

I am indebted to my collegue Richard Speck for this information.
First of all,  Do you know why the Geese fly in V formation?

It has been learned that as each bird flaps its wings,
its creates an uplift for the bird immediately following.

By flying in V formation,
the flock as a whole adds at least 71% greater flying range
than if each brid flew on its own.

Whenever a gooose falls out formation, it suddenly feels the drag
the air resistance,                            the price she pays for trying to go it alone.
so she will quickly get back in formation to take advantage
of the lifting power of the birds in front of her. 

So the first lesson of the Geese for Unitarian Universalists. 
Because we share a common direction with other religious liberals,
and we work together,
we can get where we are going faster and easier,
and that's because of the general uplift
that takes place in congregation.
Ã¥Now when the lead goose gets tired,  he or she rotates back in the wing
and another goose will fly point.

Second lesson of the geese: 
it is a good idea for members of the congregation
to take turns taking on the hard jobs
and for hard workers to rotate back once in awhile
and let someone else take the lead.

The scientists have also learned that the geese honk in order to encourage
the geese who are leading
to keep on flying and providing uplift to everyone else behind.

Third Goose lesson:  We must encourage those who take on leadership
with an occassional hearty honk.

Obviously if we were to look up and see flocks
in which the flock constantly
criticize and undermine their hardworking leaders,
we would be looking at a bunch of not very smart geese.
perhaps not Canadian geese at all,
they won't be able to fly very far together.

So Unitarian Universalist congregations can learn that lesson as well.

Finally, and I really want you to get this,  when a goose gets sick,
or is wounded by a gun shot and falls out of formation,
two geese will leave the formation and follow the goose down
to help him and try to protect him.
and they will stay with him until he is either able to fly,
or until he is dead,
and then they will launch out on their own,
or the will join another formation
in order to catch up with their original group.

So the final lesson from the geese:
When the people of the our community
understand that
this congregation has covenanted to stand by them
and support them,  and be with them
in the difficult moments of life's journey, 
they would be lining up at the door to get in.