John Chmaj- Hallelujah! The Miracle of Worship in Walnut Grove

Hallelujah! The Miracle of Worship in Walnut Grove
Coming back around to Christianity

We UU’s are very astute at probing weaknesses, inconsistencies and inherent paradoxes in faith traditions. It’s part of our makeup to be wary and suspicious about faith traditions that appear to require us to submit part or all of our precious religious freedom. It’s also, true to say, all too easy to find hypocrisy and dogmatism in every faith tradition if we look carefully enough. As a result we modern UU’s tend to do a pretty good job of discounting the Christian message as a general rule. Our history with Christianity has been a complex one, born directly from the Christian roots of Unitarianism, yet in a continually renewed struggle to reconcile UU principles with the constraints of Christian fundamentalism. Christianity in the fundamentalist extreme requires an ‘all or nothing’ acceptance of the framework of creation (the Bible), the meaning and direction of life (expressed as God’s plan), and the exclusive place of Jesus Christ as the only Son of God and Savior.
Seen from the purely high-level doctrinal point of view these criteria would seem forever at odds with the UU principles of religious freedom, openness, acceptance, and the primacy of individual spiritual experience. Yet as we come closer into contact with real folks, real Christians who have achieved a vision of Truth and Faith that resonates directly from their hearts, we begin to find a commonality of purpose and perception that should not be as surprising as it is. After all, it was our founder William Ellery Channing, who wrote - in DEFENSE of Unitarianism as not being heretical Christianity(!), but declaring it in fact a valid faith tradition in his Letter to Samuel Thatcher (1815):
“Our great and constant object has been to promote the spirit of Christ, and we have been persuaded, that in this way we should most effectually promote the interests of Christian truth.”
AND
“If there be an act which, above all others, is a transgression of the Christian law, it is this. What is the language of our Master? ‘A new commandment I give unto you, that ye love one another. By this shall all men know, that ye are my disciples, if ye have love to one another.’ ‘Bear ye one another's burdens,’ says St. Paul, ‘and so fulfill the law of Christ.”
Our youth group visit to Carthage Texas has provided just such an experience of the loving bond that we share with our American cousins, the Baptists:
Today our youth group and leaders had an extraordinary experience – thanks to the generosity and open-heartedness of Pastor Pat Wright, the Total Experience Gospel Choir, and the residents of Carthage Texas we were given a rare and privileged opportunity to participate in an authentic and intense Baptist service. Carthage is a very small town in eastern Texas where Pastor Wright grew up, and the service was held at Walnut Grove Baptist Church, a small but comfortable facility well off the beaten trail. The occasion was the annual reunion of townspeople, a big celebration, and as a result many parishioners were present, as well as multiple pastors and reverends from around the region. The minister gave a heart-felt, passionate and direct appeal to us to let Spirit into our hearts. He spoke of the power of love, the transforming power of personal connection, how “the kingdom of God travels from heart to heart”. He spoke of unconditional love, of the pure freedom of the unfettered heart to love others, how he loved US, and “there wasn’t a thing we could do about it”! His sermon was from the book of Luke, the parable of the prodigal son. As he spoke with the classic gospel preacher’s cadence – every phrase a lyric, a rhythm, a pulse added to the pyre of the fiery vision he slowly built in our imagination – he outlined the lesson of unconditional acceptance, of the importance of bringing that which is lost home again, of including ALL of us in our account of humanity. At the pinnacle of his preaching he rendered the vision of Christ on the cross, the horror and the grace that emerged simultaneously from the epic event. Stone by stone, above, below, behind, in front, he built for us the vision of the tomb, and of the eventual stairway to heaven trod by Jesus to ascend the clouds. He invited us all to participate in breaking through our own spiritual barriers, to use our ability to love to transcend ourselves and build a new kingdom of community for ourselves and our children. He served as our channel and witness to the mystery of the Christ, of how Jesus’ complete surrender to his deepest truth serves as a beacon of faith to souls today.
Here was truly a house of God – a place where we all built our truth together, in the sanctuary, with the pastor as our catalyst and guide, where EVERY person present was a part of the tapestry of worship. In short, a journey of the highest energies we can summon forth when we testify to one another. In the hearts of the congregation were embodied the Truths of all great faith traditions: direct participation in the experience of the Divine, Joy and Exultation in its expression, and the dynamic building of Community in our mutual experience and acceptance of the message within and among each other. The people of the congregation were beyond friendly - we were “radically welcomed”, as Michelle put it. There was delight, gratitude, and an immediate sense of our mutual membership in the human family as we were integrated into the service. It’s hard to describe complete acceptance but we all know it when we feel it, and here we who had come from such a different place were brought into community with the sense of mutual empowerment and respect – a true coming together.
According to Pat white folks don’t come to black church in this part of the country, so our presence and participation was not only unusual, I believe it created additional energy and awareness of this special moment for all of us. We watched an inaugural presentation of their young Spirit Dancers, four small children led by one of the congregation’s youth acting out the love of God with simple dance. The Total Experience Gospel choir added its own strong, clear and transcendental power to the proceedings, an amazing musical testament that only heightened the sense of divine Presence and Possibility. Throughout it all the congregation murmured, chanted and shouted encouragement and feedback, punctuating each new revelation and bearing witness to their commitment to take the message in. As this all washed over me I had my own personal cultural revelation – that here I was watching an authentic American faith tradition, not adopted, not transplanted, not filtered, but a living tradition grown directly from the soils and toils, the souls and history of the people of Carthage. Our youth group has visited over 30 different sanctuaries, temples, mosques, shrines, and cathedrals in the past four years. Here, more than any other place I have personally experienced, I participated in a faith tradition in its pure form, delivered by the culture which created it, and being transmitted to all who would have it as a living, dynamic thing. When the pastor asked the youth to step forward to bless them the altar and aisle was crowded all the way to the back of the church with the dozens of youth, well over 50% of those present. It was truly a special day in Carthage, and even though as Pastor Wright explained later most folks were there for the reunion, it did not diminish the power and purpose that all who were present felt. As one of the elder choir women exulted early on, we had us some CHURCH today!
This is certainly not a unique Baptist experience, although the minister was particularly skilled and inspired today. There are over 70 Baptist churches listed online in the Carthage area alone. What was unique for today was the natural connection we Unitarian Universalists present were able to make with those things so central to our own faith tradition, how much we really have in common with the Christian message, and how accessible it is to us when delivered with true faith and openness. We needn’t be afraid nor judgmental about the Christian tradition. All we need to do to ‘have us some church’ is to apply the same criteria to our selection of Christian participation that we – AND these Christians – do:
We seek the spiritual in our hearts
We acknowledge the potential transforming power of Truth and Faith
We develop and share our experience in loving community
Yes, sir, we had us some church TODAY!
Christ be with YOU,
John Chmaj