The Unitarian Universalist Community Church of Santa Monica

"Service is Our Prayer "

A small moment of enlightenment came to me at an interfaith meeting recently. This sort of thing has happened before. There is something about being with people who are somewhat but not entirely like-minded that delivers fresh insight about what it means to be Unitarian Universalist.

This time we were talking about creating a new group of faith-based organizations to advocate for the local agencies that form the Westside Shelter and Hunger Coalition. These agencies work directly with the most needy people in our community, people suffering from multiple problems: homelessness, mental illness, addiction, abuse. The Coalition came out of an interfaith effort over twenty years ago. Many of us - our church included - have always been active, but over time the interfaith community has diversified considerably; new outreach is needed to bring people back together.

The Coalition needs our support. It is not easy working on the front lines of social services when fear and misunderstanding dominate community attitudes. Agencies like Step Up on Second or OPCC face continued opposition to expansion of their programs into our neighborhoods, even when local zoning gives them the right to do so. And yet, as every one of us knows, the situation for homeless people grows more desperate all the time. It is only natural that faith-based organizations would want to help, and they do. From the Salvation Army to the synagogues of the Pacific Palisades, religious communities organize willing volunteers of all ages. Our church alone provides hundreds.

These same dedicated souls sometimes lament that the voice of people of faith no longer carries the authority it once did. At the interfaith meeting I attended, conversation drifted in this direction. We asked ourselves, what can we do to restore our status and get back our influence over the prevailing climate of indifference? How do we express our moral authority?

It tells a lot about your faith how you answer this question. I was the first to respond. "Moral authority," I said, "comes from our volunteers. Look at how many of our people know from their volunteer experience what a homeless person is up against and how these agencies do so much to help. That is credibility. That is moral authority."

No one disagreed with me. I realized afterwards, however, that others might not have answered the question the same way. Traditional faith communities turn to a higher authority for guidance about how to be good people. They believe that moral authority is God-given, not human. It comes from scripture, ancient teachings, priests and pastors. People don't acquire it on their own. As the contemporary evangelical phenomenon Rick Warren writes in his best-selling book, "The Purpose Driven Life," "It's not about you."[1] It's about God's purpose for you.

So my statement was, in its own little way, a radical one. If you want to find moral authority, look to the people doing the work. Ask them to tell you what they experience. There is the power that changes neighborhoods and transforms lives. It is about you and what you can do.

I realized later that my response to the question about moral authority is what has always made Unitarian Universalists different. Our predecessors often declared that our faith is based on "deeds not creeds." This convenient nineteenth century sound-bite spoke volumes about another kind of purpose driven life, a life that takes its meaning and hope from service to others. Judge the depth of your faith, they might have said, by how you spend your time. What matters is not what you believe about the divinity of Jesus or the nature of God; what matters is your character and how you develop it.

Our Unitarian Universalist forbears were hopeful; sometimes too hopeful. They had an abundance of faith in the goodness of humanity, in the capacity of all people to grow and learn and change. This faith led them to value human enterprises - education, service, social reform - as the path to a better world. Their first response to human suffering was to act, not to pray.

Clara Barton, a lifelong Universalist, started out as a progressive educator. The Civil War changed her life. She began working with the wounded and fielding requests for medical supplies. According to historian Frank Schulman, Barton's "organizational ability came to the attention of President Abraham Lincoln, who asked her to search for missing soldiers."[2] As a result, she formed the American Red Cross.

This is a person we see as living our faith. She took the compassionate response to suffering from one person working alone to an organization of people working together. I have no idea whether she prayed or not.

The words of our covenant claim the faith exemplified by Clara Barton as our own. As we read earlier, "Love is the doctrine of this church. The quest of truth is its sacrament. And service is its prayer." When confronted with reality - whether that be the truth of our hearts, the reasoning of our minds, or the suffering of others, we must respond to it. We are not alone. Every compassionate human being responds to suffering. People of every faith understand that their work is to serve, to give back, and to heal. The impulse to come together as an interfaith community is a healthy expression of the power we sense we can generate together. Whatever our reason for doing so, something good can come of it; whatever it is we hope we get out of it.

Joseph Goldstein, a Buddhist, wrote about being in India, and giving an orange he had bought in a bazaar to one of the hungry-looking children who were begging nearby.[3] "It felt good to respond to him," Goldstein admitted. But when the child "just took the orange and walked away," Goldstein got a glimpse of his own motives: how he wanted something more for his generosity; and how he got nothing in return. Or so it felt. It was an instructive moment for him. He gave - yes, but with that gift came an expectation, an affirmation of himself that the hungry boy had no obligation to provide.

Perhaps this is why people seek their reward in heaven, but as for the rest of us, including Joseph Goldstein, we have the spiritual task of serving simply because we are needed. Most volunteers can attest to receiving far more than they give: grateful recipients, recognition from organizations, admiration of friends. But that is incidental to the more compelling commitment to make service the center of our spiritual lives.

Service is a challenge: like a prayer that goes unanswered; or an act of trust in unknown results. It causes internal as much as external change, for who can serve others without searching one's own soul.

Here in our community, opportunities to serve come along even when we don't seek them out. One hot afternoon this summer, I was walking my dog down Ocean Park Boulevard when a young woman on a bicycle crashed into a car parked on the street. She fell off her bike, and by the time she staggered a couple of feet up to the curb, I could tell she was drunk and out of control, though not injured at all. The car was not damaged either; it was a close call, but no harm done. A bottle of whiskey had fallen out of her bicycle basket and into the street.

I helped her gather up her things, and rolled her bike onto the sidewalk. The woman was barely able to walk, let alone ride a bike, but I could tell she might become belligerent, so I spoke to her with care. "You need to lie down in the shade, over here," I told her, "and drink some water, and don't try to ride your bike until you feel better." She considered my advice, rolled her bike off the sidewalk, and lay down in the grass in the shade of the church on Fourteenth Street. She thanked me for my kindness. I left her there, hoping she would be safe for a while.

I should have done more. I could have called the OPCC homeless outreach team, or the Santa Monica police. But I didn't, I can't say why; perhaps because I felt that I had done what I could, that the fragile bit of trust that allowed her to take my advice was my only contribution; perhaps because I wanted to be on my way; perhaps both. I realize now that this vulnerable person needed more help than I had to give. It was a good reminder for me, not just about the questions that inevitably arise whenever we involve ourselves with others, but about how we can only do so much alone. We need to do more than hand a hungry child an orange or help an intoxicated woman out of harm's way. Exchanges of kindness and compassion make the world a slightly gentler place, and teach us about ourselves, but if we really want to serve others, we must go beyond ourselves.

To say that "service is our prayer" is to take our spiritual life out of the private realm and into the world. It is to take a path of learning and discovery, growing not only in compassion but in wisdom about what the world needs. And what the world needs is people working together. The call to serve is the call to be in community with others: with the people we see on the street; with the agencies that transform compassion into expertise, often against all odds; and with all the people, no matter how they pray, who cannot help but care.

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[1] Rick Warren, "The Purpose Driven Life" (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Zondervan, 2002).
[2] Frank Schulman, "This Day in Unitarian Universalist History" (Boston: Skinner House, 2004).
[3] Joseph Goldstein, "Transforming the Mind, Healing the World" (New Jersey: Paulist Press, 1994).