Bearing Hope, Inside and Outside

One feature of the UUA's General Assembly is the Ware Lecture, a discourse offered by someone outside our faith (although there have been some insiders in the early history of the Lecture), who bring information, a perspective, a call to us. We've heard from people like Linus Pauling, Reinhold Niebhur, Martin Luther King, Jr., Bryan Stevenson, Eboo Patel, Mary Oliver, and last year, Imari Jones.

Last week, our Ware Lecturer was Bishop Mariann Edgar Budde, who serves as bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of Washington, DC. Bishop Budde made headlines with her homily the January 2025 interfaith prayer service, calling for compassion and mercy toward marginalized groups.

I suspect many of the Unitarian Universalists who attended expected a rousing call to action, to speak out against the harms we have seen in the last 18 months - and indeed, there was some of that. But Bishop Budde spent most of her time calling us back to ourselves. She reminded us that our unwavering commitment to the inherent worth and dignity of every person means that for our entire history (even before we had that phrase), we have been First: first to respond, first to have the ideas, first to enact what seem to others to be radical suppositions that became globally accepted over time... but someone had to go first, and that someone is often us. Her lecture affirmed what a Methodist colleague said to me after our 2024 business resolution to affirm and work to protect trans lives as one of our religious values: "we (people in mainline faiths) watch what you do, so we know what we'll be doing in 20 years."

Over and over in her lecture, Bishop Budde affirmed us as "hope bearers" and it was a powerful message, not of how we need to change, but of how we need to remember who we are. She sang our song back to us, because we need to not forget the words.

But that's not what I want to write about today (well, it is but that's not my only point).

Later, in the Q&A section, Rev. Dr. Sofia Betancourt (UUA president) asked what else we might do to be stronger partners with people and organizations of good faith.

Bishop Budde's answer surprised me, because they weren't about the outer work. I'm paraphrasing wildly from my badly scribbled notes here, but essentially, she spoke about our inner work as faith communities:

What impressed her is the cherishing of the communities that we establish; she noted that her work as a bishop (much like that of our congregational life staff) is encouraging congregations to be vibrant, healthy communities. She said many disparage the inner work of nurturing community and being curious about what helps us thrive. She noted that the Episcopal Church in America is not thriving (although she said it's getting better) and that they could learn from the ways we adapt and evolve and continue to focus on our communities to create sustainability. She said that this work is as vibrantly important as our work for the good - that we need strong communities to support our work in the world.

I nearly wept at her words.

THIS is why I write this column. It's why I do board retreats and covenant consulting and short-term transitional ministries. It's also why my work in worship and liturgy is so important. I have said here and in easily a hundred sermons, "we have to get it right inside our walls if we have any hope of getting it right outside our walls." That means strengthening our covenants, our relationships, our processes, and our spiritual depth.

That we do this work better than others already is both surprising and encouraging. Bishop Budde sees something in us worth lifting up - both to us and to others.

If you're a Unitarian Universalist reading this, take in these words (and the recording/transcript when it's released to the public).

If you're outside Unitarian Universalism, I hope you reach out to a UU that you know if you could use a partner in the inner and outer work.

We are stronger when we do it together.