In 2024, after “a multi-year process of discernment and discussion,” the Unitarian Universalist General Assembly adopted six shared values. The shared values are published on the UUA website, with the following rationale and descriptions: 

Unitarian Universalism is a living tradition that has changed in many ways from the original Christian roots of its Universalist and Unitarian heritages, and it continues to evolve today. Most recently, this evolution has taken the form of adopting new language to describe who we are as UUs. At General Assembly in June 2024, UUs voted to replace existing Seven Principles and Six Sources language in our bylaws with language describing Unitarian Universalism through these shared values:

• Interdependence: We honor the interdependent web of all existence and acknowledge our place in it.

• Pluralism: We are all sacred beings, diverse in culture, experience, and theology.

• Justice: We work to be diverse multicultural Beloved Communities where all feel welcome and can thrive.

• Transformation: We adapt to the changing world.

• Generosity: We cultivate a spirit of gratitude and hope.

• Equity: We declare that every person is inherently worthy and has the right to flourish with dignity, love, and compassion.

It is important to note that love is at the center of all these shared values and love is the thread that holds them all together. 

Today, I am reflecting on the shared value of interdependence and our commitment to “honor the interdependent web of all existence and acknowledge our place in it.”

Our interdependence reminds us that no thing separates us from each other. We breathe the same air. We all require the same sustenance that our communities make possible. Our very coming into being is the product of intimate relationship. Our lives are infused with the value and meaning of deep connections within community. That which separates us are the ideologies and causes of our own making. Our lived reality is one of interdependence no matter how how hard we attempt to mask it with the artifice of individualism.

Using the language of 20th Century UU philosopher, Charles Hartshorne, our lives and experiences “literally participate” in the lives and experiences of others as theirs do also in ours (Hartshorne describes his understanding of literal participation in a letter to Edgar S Brightman, Oct. 18, 1934). And as my mentor in social ethics, Walter Muelder, maintained, we are not simply individuals; we are always persons-in community, a community that incudes both human and other than human life. 

Whatever else reality is, at its core, it is relations. We are related to all, and all is related to us. If one could trace all of our relations, one would see that we are in some way related to every aspect of the universe all the way back to that which we perceive as its beginning, the mystery of which still eludes our understanding.

Although we can only experience our interdependence in the present moment, our interdependence connects us to the past as we owe our present existence to those who have come before us, and we are connected to the future as we seek to live responsibly and sustainably for the well-being of all that is to come.

Responsible freedom is grounded in interdependence. Lasting freedom is grounded in our willing each other to be free. Justice is grounded in keeping people from using their freedom to oppress others. Love is grounded in liberating those who are oppressed and in resisting those who oppress them.

The existentialist philosopher Simone de Beauvoir recognized that the quality of our freedom is inextricably linked with the freedom of others. A responsible use of our freedom is to not only will ourselves to be free, but also to will others to be free. When we use our freedom to cut other people off from their freedom, that is oppression, and the proper response to oppression is liberation (see Simone de Beauvior’s The Ethics of Ambiguity).

As our readings this morning illustrate, the value of interdependence is shared across diverse and varied cultures and traditions. Some express our interdependence as “beloved community,” others as “inter-being,” others as “Ubuntu,” others as “relations,” and others as the “web of life.” They all share a recognition of our inextricable connection with each other. 

We actualize our full personhood as we embrace our interdependence with others. Interdependence is not about losing ourselves in the collective; it is about finding ourselves in beloved community.

The most dangerous lie of our current economic systems is that nature is a commodity to consume rather than a community in which to live. Our false understanding that we are separate from other than human life intensifies our false understanding that we are separate from each other. The mutually reinforcing lies that we are separate from nature and that we are separate from each other lead to the commodification of people and the planet.

Our commodification of other than human life sets the stage for our commodification and depersonalization of each other. Rather than seeing ourselves as interdependent participants of equal value within the community of all life, we are reduced to consumers and resources, valued primarily for what we can purchase and produce.

This warped sense of self understanding contributes to a warped understanding of morality and the worth of persons. For example, our culture perpetuates the myth that people become billionaires because they are better people, when in actually they might simply be worse people who have no moral qualms about exploiting persons and the planet for profit.

When we recognize the true value of our interdependence, we see clearly that there is no such thing as a self-made billionaire. Persons become billionaires through the exploitation of others, some more explicitly so than others. The wealth that comes through the exploitation of others gives billionaires a false sense of independence. They tend to fail to see the reality of their interdependence with other persons and the rest of life, thus often feeling an exaggerated sense of self-worth that keeps them from being kind and empathetic persons, which makes it easier for them to continue to exploit others for their own gain and to expand their power and control over our economic and political processes. Tragically, we are seeing this play out before our eyes as our flawed democracy slips further and further into the snare of full-blown oligarchy run by the ultra-rich who think their ability to profit off of others warrants their having more and more power and control over the lives of the masses. 

In days ahead, there will be many attempts by the American oligarchs to weaken our sense of interdependence with both human and other than human life. We will falsely be told that Americans and a certain brand of religion have more worth and value than others. We will falsely be told that the well-being of migrants and refugees is not connected to our well-being. We will falsely be told that protecting the quality of life and the rights of persons who are LGBTQIA+ is a threat to the well-being our communities. We will falsely be told that we can ignore our interdependence with nature and that we can continue treating Earth as a commodity, even though overwhelming scientific evidence shows that we are destroying a livable climate and creating the sixth great extinction event on Earth. 

Our shared value of interdependence helps us to see clearly these lies as the lies that they are. Our shared value of interdependence calls us to be bold and courageous and to resist these lies that separate and divide us from each other. Our shared value of interdependence and responsible freedom call us to concerted action to stay connected, to love both human and other than human life, to will the freedom of others, to work relentlessly for justice for all – especially the most vulnerable, and to do all in our power to liberate the oppressed from the systems and powers that objectify and dehumanize them. 

May our shared value of interdependence empowered by love hold us together even while so many powers in this world attempt to tear us apart.

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