Over the past six discourses in this series, I have reflected on the six shared values of Unitarian Universalism that were adopted at the 2024 UUA General assembly: 

• 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 (UUA Shared Values).

Today, I will reflect on how love is at the center of all of these shared values – like a thread that weaves and holds them together in a tapestry of solidarity that works for love and justice for all persons and for all life. 

It is when times are chaotic that we need commitment to building the beloved community and keeping love at the center the most. The purveyors of chaos in our world count on the forces of beloved community in the world to be weak and to lack persistence, but we know that love and justice have the power to be resilient and regenerative.

One of the greatest moral challenges of our time is for us to remain kind and compassionate with one another in the midst of the chaos we as humanity have created. How do we keep love at the center and unravel the blanket of systemic chaos by which we are covered while simultaneously creating a new quilt of beloved community?

When persons or groups use depersonalizing or dehumanizing rhetoric about others, we may feel right or justified in responding in like manner to them, but to do so perpetuates the dehumanizing spiral towards chaos and away from beloved community. We must resist the temptation to fight the propaganda of depersonalization with more depersonalizing propaganda. We commit ourselves to keep love at the center. 

There are times when anger is both an appropriate and necessary response to the systemic injustices of the quadruple evils of racism, poverty, violence, and ecological degradation we experience in the world, but It is possible to be angry about systemic injustices without losing our love and compassion for persons, and it is possible to to be angry with individual persons and groups of persons without dehumanizing them. It is possible to keep love at the center. 

Creating Beloved Community is nearly impossible if we allow ourselves to become so polarized that we fail to be critical about our own perspectives. The squashing of dissent by the argument that it might help the cause of those we perceive as being on the “other side” is the sign of a deeply flawed democracy. Keeping love at the center entails being open to self reflection and even self correction for the sake of building beloved community. 

Many societies past and present fall into patterns and practices that are not healthy, desirable, or good for persons or the planet. In times like these, it is even more imperative that we work together to express love, do justice, and provide support for one another. Even in the darkest of times, it is important to keep shining the light of love and justice in the world – even if it is a flicker of light, it can still provide comfort and hope. And we can only do this if we are intentional about keeping love at the center. 

Whatever our orientation to religion might be, it must not be allowed to become a cover or justification for hate and injustice. Any belief system that requires we see differences in the sacred worth of persons becomes a dangerous source of injustice within the human community. Religious communities are at their best when they model ways of being a more fully inclusive human community through love and justice for all, and they are at their worst when they use fear and exclusion of others to gain and expand power to further their own narrow ethnocultural interests. Religious communities are at their best when they keep love at the center. 

Some of the most powerful movements for justice in the history of humanity were led by persons who did not feed what Howard Thurman called the three hounds of hell – fear, deception, and hatred; but who forged a path of courage, truth, and love. 

As satisfying as it may feel to fuel the fires of hatred for the purveyors of injustice, that will not be the way to defeating injustice. We must communicate a compelling vision and plan that moves us all towards a just and beloved community. The most effective way to overcome hate and fear is not through more hate and fear but rather through love and hope. The most effective way to overcome hate and fear is to keep love at the center. 

The power of non-violence and love to bring about significant systemic change within human communities has been underestimated over and over again by those who use violence, force, and fear to maintain their power. It is only through the power of love that we can cultivate a truly just and sustainable community. We will never get where we need to be though hate and fear.

The powerhouse people for good in human history have realized that the only way to overcome the power of hate and fear is through love and courage in pursuit of justice. We are called to a hope that “love force” ultimately has more power in the world than the force of hate, even if it may not always look that way in the short run.

Some of the most powerful shapers of human history have used the least amount of violence because they recognized that true power for good comes from the force of love and justice, not from the use of violent force. Gandhi, Dorothy Day, Martin Luther King, Rosa Parks, Thich Nhat Hanh, Desmond Tutu, and Wangari Maathai did not have power through brute strength or physical force. Theirs was a force of love, a force of justice that changed the world during their lives and that continues to transform the world for good today and into the future. True power, power for good, comes from keeping love at the center. 

One of the greatest acts of faith, hope, love and courage is to work for the creation of just and beloved community even though we ourselves may never get to see it come to full fruition in our lives. It is our way of expressing love for all who are and who are yet to come just as so many have done who have lived and loved before us. It is also one of the greatest ways that we can love and respect those who have worked for love and justice through the ages. We keep love at the center of our lives so that love may also be at the center of all the lives that are to come, even those lives that will exist long after we are gone. And although we may no longer be physically present with the generations to come, our love will forever remain with them. 

Every act of love and kindness and justice is ultimately not lost. They all find ways, sometimes small and sometimes large, to make a positive difference in the world, even when it seems that the world is not taking note. Every act of love and justice is good in itself, but it can also become a seed for something greater to grow and potentially flourish.

Keeping love at the center does not mean holding on to false hope. There is no guarantee that it is not too late to avoid some kind of catastrophic collapse of human civilization. As individuals, much of what would lead to such collapse is out of our control, but we do have some element of control about how we live in our lives in the midst of doom, and I want to suggest that the best way to live in times such as these is to love others no matter what. In a world of hate, fear, chaos, and division; we need people who will love others no matter what, to help plant the seeds of hope that new life and beloved community might somehow break through. 

May we find the strength in these extremely troubling times to avoid feeding the hounds of hell of fear, deception, and hatred but rather gain the courage to leave a legacy of love and justice with love at the center, expressed in solidarity with the most vulnerable among us. 

May it be so.

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