The Free Mind

A Sermon Delivered by 

The Rev. Thomas Schmidt

January 20, 2008

at the Unitarian Universalist Congregation of the Lowcountry

I know many Unitarian Universalist were active in the in Civil Rights movement of the 1950’s and 60’s and even marched with the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.  It is generally well known that a Unitarian Universalist minister, the Rev. James Reeb was a martyr for the cause. He was one of many that “answered the call of Dr. Martin Luther King for clergy to come to Selma, Alabama, to protest violence by state troopers against civil rights marchers. On March 9, 1965, Reeb and two other UU ministers, Rev. Orloff Miller and Rev. Clark Olsen, were walking back after dinner to a meeting led by Dr. King when they were attacked by a group of white men. One hit Rev. Reeb in the head with a club. The blow was fatal; Rev. Reeb died March 11, 1965.”

It is much less well known that Dr. King and his wife Corretta Scott King attended Unitarian Universalist churches when they visited Boston.  The Rev. Rosemary Bray McNatt reports that the Kings even considered becoming Unitarian Universalists at one time, but realized they could never “build a mass movement of black people if [they] were Unitarian.”  This fact says a great deal about our tradition.  The fact that Dr. King would even consider joining our ranks speaks highly of our shared commitment to social justice. Conversely, the fact that the Dr. and Mrs. King didn’t join our ranks seems to indicate that we as a movement have not been proactive in the pursuit of racial diversity in our congregations, an issue that requires far more time than is possible today to address.  

Regardless, I think we should be proud as Unitarian Universalists of our widespread participation in the Civil Rights movements and its ongoing commitment to the principles and teaching of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.  I would argue that more than in any other institution, most especially any religious institution, Unitarian Universalism remains true to the message of peace and inclusivity that was the hallmark of Dr. King’s message.

There is a profound connection between the Principles of our faith tradition and the espoused theology of Dr. King.  “We are tied together in the single garment of destiny, caught in an inescapable network of mutuality.  And whatever affects one directly affects all indirectly. For some strange reason I can never be what I ought to be until you are what your ought to be.  And you can never be what you ought to be until I am what I ought to be.  This is the way God’s universe is made, this is the way it is structured.”  

This, my friends, is our Seventh Principle, respect for the interdependent web of existence, this is our first principle, the inherent worth and dignity of every person; this is all of our principles rolled into one compact and power-full statement. In an article called “Martin Luther King, Jr., Buddhism and the Concept of Impermanence,” Roy Money notes that this notion of interdependence can be found throughout Dr. King’s writings and speeches.  This is probably why his words so often find their way into Unitarian Universalist worship services, sermons, and literature.  

Recently, I read an article, thank you Olive for bringing it to my attention, written by the Rev. David Bumbaugh in which he writes, “The years have passed, and I have grown older and I have watched what has happened to the image of Martin Luther King, Jr. First, we made him a hero, and we softened his message so that it would not challenge us in any fundamental way. Gone is his concern about the morality of an economic system in which the rich get richer and the poor get poorer, in which “the righteous are sold for silver and the needy for a pair of shoes.” Gone is his challenge to examine our cultural life in the light of enduring values, and in its place is a three-day holiday and an excuse for conspicuous consumption for those who can afford it.”  

It saddens me that so much of the fire, the passion, the urgency of Dr. King’s Message has be lost.  It worries me that Dr. King’s inclusive language and theology has been generally rejected in his own baptist tradition and in all but the most liberal of Christian churches. It sickens me when I hear our nation’s leaders and many of our would be leaders invoke the name and legacy of Rev. King one day of the year, for their own political purposes, while the remaining 364 days in the year they actively defend and support laws that uphold the triple evils of poverty, racism and war. 

  Before his assassination nearly forty years ago, actually forty years ago this coming April, he began to make connections between what he called the Triple Evils, the evils of poverty, racism, and war.  The web site for the King Center notes that the triple evils have several different contemporary manifestations, for example: poverty can be linked with “materialism, unemployment, homelessness, hunger, malnutrition, illiteracy, infant mortality, slums,” to which I add health care and addiction.  Racism can be linked to “prejudice, apartheid, anti-Semitism, sexism, colonialism, homophobia, ageism, discrimination against differently able, etc.”  And finally, war can be linked with “militarism, imperialism, domestic violence, rape, terrorism, media violence, child abuse,” to which I add environmental destruction and police violence.

Quoting Rev. David Bumbaugh again: “As one who grew up in a rigidly segregated society, I am witness to the fact that the world is now a different place and a better place because of Martin Luther King, Jr. and the struggle for civil rights. But I also know that the underlying, structural changes for which he lived and died, the fundamental values he challenged us to serve and advance, have not been so completely realized. The gap between the rich and the poor grows with every passing day. The gap between the favored and the desperate has never been so wide. The dream of a compassionate society no longer guides public policy. Vengeance has replaced justice in our courts and mercy is defined as weakness.” 

The questions that stands before us as people of faith, as a cultural and religious manifestation of the Dream we share with Dr. King is this: What are we able and what are we willing to do in light of these facts?  War we willing to do in light of these words from Dr. King: “The church must be reminded that it is not the master or the servant of the state, but rather the conscience of the state.  It must be the guide and the critic of the state, and never its tool.”  At this time in our nation, perhaps more now than at any other time, religion is being used as tool to justify war, to justify any number of immoral and unjust acts.  The result, our nation has not been so divided since the Civil War.  

Divided and distracted there is little that can be done to change the course of our country.  There is very little debate that something must be done, where disagreement occurs is generally around where to begin, what is the central problem.  Education is the problem, we need to fix our education system.  Immigration is the problem, we need to do something about immigration. Health care is the problem, we need to do something about healthcare.  Tax reform, elections reform, lobbyist reform, the list goes on and on and the fact is that everyone is right, each is a problem that needs immediate attention.  But none of those issues are at the root of the problem.  These issues are the result of a more more basic, more long lasting reality. At the root of all the problems that we now face as a nation, that now faces us as a species, that now faces us as members of the interdependent web of life, at the root of all suffering, is the false belief, the idolatrous attachment, our species tends to have to our individuated selves. 

Generally speaking, our minds remain imprisoned in our bodies, imprisoned by materialism, consumerism, causism, individualism, and number of other “isms” that prevent us from fully realizing our full potential.  Unitarian Minister, The Rev. William Ellery Channing, generally recognized as one of the founders of our tradition from the early 19th Century gives us a way out of our self-imposed prisons of the mind:  

I call that mind free which masters the senses, and which recognizes

its own reality and greatness: which passes life, not in asking what it

shall eat or drink, but in hungering, thirsting, and seeking after righteous-

ness.  I call that mind free which jealously guards its intellectual rights 

and powers, which does not content itself with a passive or hereditary 

faith: which opens itself to light whencesoever it may come; which receives 

new truth as an angel from heaven.  I call that mind free which is not 

passively framed by outward circumstances, and is not the creature of 

accidental impulse: which discovers everywhere the radiant signatures of 

the infinite spirit, and in them finds help to its own spiritual enlargement.  

I call that mind free which protects itself against the usurpations of society, and 

which does not cower to human opinion: which refuses to be the slave or 

tool of the m any or of the few, and guards its empire over itself as nobler 

than the empire of the world.  I call that mind free which resists the bondage 

of habit, which does not mechanically copy the past, nor live on its old virtues:

                but which listen for new and higher monitions of conscience, and rejoices to 

pour itself forth in fresh and higher exertions.  I call that mind free which 

sets no bounds to its love, which, wherever they are seen, delights in virtue 

and sympathizes with suffering: which recognizes in all human beings the 

image of God and the rights of God’s children, and offers itself up a willing

                sacrifice to the cause of humankind.  I call that mind free which has cast 

off all fear but that of wrongdoing, and which no menace or peril can enthrall:

               which is calm in the midst of tumults, and possesses itself, though all else be lost.

The precursor to freeing the mind, to free the self from the shackles of our various “isms” is awareness, to fully appreciate what it means to be free, we must must be ware to what extent we are not free.  Ken Wilbur wrote the following words, which I believe to be an excellent description of the state of being we call freedom: “The directions to finding [the unity many call] God, which are printed on the box in which your Heart came, are simple: relax the mind and body; with reverence and devotion, gaze into the Heart; feel the Love-Light radiance that permeates your entire body, and your entire mind, and all of nature, and all nations everywhere.”

We free our minds through regular and sustained self-reflection and examination, meditation, psychotherapy, centering prayer, etc. etc.  Full self-realization, the freeing of the mind from all of its self-imposed limitations, recognized through the centuries as enlightenment, call it what you will, is the reason many of us are here, why we commit ourselves to this congregation and support its mission.  

On August 28, 1963, the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. ended his now famous “I Have a Dream” speech with these words.  “When we allow freedom to ring and when we let it ring from every village and every hamlet, from every state and every city, we will be able to speed up that day when all of God’s children, black men and white men, Jews and Gentiles, Protestants and Catholics, will be able to join hands and sing the words of the old Negro spiritual, ‘Free at last! Free at last! Thank God Almighty, we are free at last.” 

How is it possible to hear the freedom ring, when our minds are too busy, too cluttered with the latest celebrity gossip; too absorbed by the Big Screen High Definition Plasma television, too preoccupied with all the “isms” of this world. Freedom is ringing, freedom is calling us, the dream is awaiting us. Will we answer the call, or will we allow it go to voice mail and answer at a more convenient time.