This morning we continue with a series of reflections on our shared values in Unitarian Universalism that were recently adopted by the UUA General Assembly in 2024. The last three times I was with you, we looked at the values of interdependence, pluralism, and justice, and today I will be reflecting on the value of transformation.

In describing Transformation” in the UU  Shared Values, the General Assembly adopted the following language: “We adapt to the changing world. We covenant to collectively transform and grow spiritually and ethically. Openness to change is fundamental to our Unitarian and Universalist heritages, never complete and never perfect.” 

It is helpful to recognize that the people who have done the most to change the world for good have also been the most open to transformation in their own hearts and minds. The way to a good society, much less a great society, is never through the hardening of our hearts or the closing of our minds. It comes through relationships of love and justice and through a self examination that leads to personal transformation for the sake of the world. 

I am currently re-reading Plato’s early dialogues about the last part of Socrates’ life, his trial for “impiety” and “corrupting the youth of Athens,”  and his death by execution; and it struck me that Socrates was killed for similar reasons to what has led to the current situation in our society – an unwillingness for people to admit that they do not know what they think they know and a violent resistance to admit individual and societal shortcomings and to make any effort to learn from them and be transformed for the better.

Socrates saw that wisdom as the synthesis of knowledge and virtue is not possible without humility. This is a wisdom that I wish more persons in my faith tradition would embrace. So many Christians in the United States conflate the wielding of power to control those they deem as a threat with “good leadership,” and by doing so they embrace the logic or Herod rather than following the way of Jesus.

Being in power is not the same as being a good leader. A good leader helps others move toward a good end that brings positive value into our world. A good leader does not simply exude strength and wield power. A good leader encourages others to be transformed into better and more loving persons within community rather than seeking to divide persons from each other by scapegoating those perceived as “other.”

Some of the persons who have brought the most positive transformation in the world have been viewed as “losers” in their lifetime, often crushed and many times killed before their work for transformation came to full fruition, but the seeds that they planted later found fertile ground in which love and justice could grow.

Change should never just be for the sake of change, but rather for the sake of something better, and if it is not for something more loving and more just, it is not for the better. If our means for bringing change into the world do not reflect the ends we are pursuing, we will likely never come close to attaining them.

It is clear that our society and the world need to change, but we cannot lose sight of the importance that the change we seek be guided by love and justice. Otherwise the transformation we create will undoubtedly be change for the worse and lead us farther away from realizing the vision of Beloved Community.

Reflecting on my own experience, the most significant changes in my perspectives on how I should be and act in the world did not come about as the result of convincing arguments, but rather through transformative relationships. Perhaps this is why persons and powers  who are benefiting from the status quo and who do not want us to experience positive transformation are working overtime to keep us divided from one another rather than experiencing transformative relationships with each other as members of one world house.