Tolerance, Intolerance, and the Wisdom to Know the Difference

First Unitarian Universalist Church
Tolerance, Intolerance, and the Wisdom to Know the Difference
Rev. Sandra Fees
February 3, 2008
Page 1 of 4
© 2008, Rev. Sandra Fees
Excerpts may be quoted with attribution.
I met with Jean Wesner about a month ago to talk with her about
today’s service. She was the highest bidder for what we call the auction
sermon. For those who are not familiar with the church auction, it is
held annually and one of the items up for bid is a sermon of your
choosing given by the minister. The topic Jean selected is tolerance.
Jean wanted to explore what it means to be tolerant of others and how
well we practice tolerance with the people in our everyday lives.
I asked Jean if I could share some of our conversation with all of you, and she very quickly
agreed that would be fine. Jean described to me how she has been wrestling with the idea of
being tolerant with the people and situations she encounters every day. She isn’t so much
worried about other people being tolerant of her. She is interested in exploring her own ability to
be open and tolerant of others.
Jean had recently been watching a television interview of a well-known and distinguished man.
The interviewer was a woman wearing a short skirt. Jean was distracted by that short skirt. But
what seemed to bother Jean the most was not the short skirt but her own reaction to it. After all,
how much difference does it make how short the woman’s skirt was?
Interestingly, this is just the kind of question Jean’s son would be likely to ask. Jean admires him
as a person who truly models tolerance and has taught her, she says, the most about what it
means to be tolerant. He isn’t concerned about how other people dress, for example, and does not
criticize or judge what other people do or don’t do. He seems to have mastered the art of
tolerance.
In looking at the history of our Unitarian Universalist faith, tolerance has been a core value and
continues to be highly valued among us. While the word tolerance does not appear in our
principles or sources, it has often been considered, along with reason and freedom of conscience,
to be at the very heart of our tradition.
At core, we offer an accepting religious alternative to the religions and institutions that in one
way or another are exclusive to certain groups of people.
I want to take a few minutes this morning to talk about why and how that happened. Our history
of religious tolerance began with King John Sigismund in Transylvania. He signed the Edict of
Torda in 1568, the first edict of its kind that provided a legal guarantee of some religious
freedom. It was signed at a contentious time in religious history and repudiated the attempts to
impose a single religion.
With the Enlightenment, came a new societal appreciation for tolerance. Voltaire and the 18th
Century Enlightenment was based in reason and the belief that a better society could be built on
principles of common sense and tolerance. Its legacy is an emphasis on human rights for those
who are oppressed and tyrannized by religious conflict.
Tolerance, Intolerance, and the Wisdom to Know the Difference (cont’d.)
Rev. Sandra Fees
Page 2 of 4
© 2008, Rev. Sandra Fees
Excerpts may be quoted with attribution.
We came to give religious tolerance especially high value because we were often the target of
intolerance, hatred, and oppression for our non-orthodox religious views. Even in modern times,
we are aware of what it means to be the target of religious criticism. A number of our
congregations that have hung banners across their church facades in support and celebration of
same-sex marriages have been subject to vandalism and theft.
The result of our being a tolerant faith is that we have long been on the forefront of including
women as well as gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender individuals in the clergy. I note the
inclusion in the clergy because ordination has historically been a higher level barrier than
membership in churches has been. So, for example, some Catholic and Methodist congregations
are open to gay people worshiping in their churches but not serving in their pulpits. We have also
been on the forefront of recognizing diverse theologies in our spiritual community.
As Kind Sigismund’s court preacher Unitarian Francis David said, we need not think alike to
love alike. That means on any given Sunday morning we find ourselves sitting side by side with
theists, agnostics, mystics, naturalists, humanists, and pagans, among others.
For us, creeds, doctrines, and these theological labels are necessarily subordinate to our deeply
held values. What matters most to us is how we live our values in the world and how well we are
able to be in right relationship with others.
When I hear people describe their ability to come to this church and be themselves, I often feel
they are describing my experience. When I first became a UU one of the things I loved most was
that I could come to church as I was.
I discovered I didn’t need to hide part of who I am or simply be superficially polite. I could
express myself in ways I hadn’t been able to prior to that. I could come to church in the clothes I
wanted to wear – whether that meant dressing up or wearing a pair of jeans. I found that I could
speak out on issues that mattered to me. And in all that, I felt to a large extent, that I was accepted
in ways I had not been before.
Being tolerant as a religious community has to do with being open to different religious ideas.
That is one significant way of honoring human differences. But there are, of course, any number
of other ways we are challenged to be tolerant – with differences of gender, race, age, differing
abilities, social status, income level, physical appearance, speech and language, and mental or
physical health. And let me add in this build up to a presidential election, the challenge to be
tolerant of differing political perspectives.
I like to think of myself as a fairly tolerant person and I’m pretty sure most of the rest of you do
too. Yet, like Jean, we may have to admit there are some things and some people we may not be
quite as tolerant of as we would like to be. Or maybe we aren’t always as tolerant as we think we
are.
One of the reasons is that we don’t always recognize that we have strong ideas about certain
people – maybe even prejudices. We don’t always see or admit that we have been influenced by
family, friends, and the media to have certain perceptions about people. We may jump to
Tolerance, Intolerance, and the Wisdom to Know the Difference (cont’d.)
Rev. Sandra Fees
Page 3 of 4
© 2008, Rev. Sandra Fees
Excerpts may be quoted with attribution.
conclusions and not take time to get to know people for who they are and to appreciate their
motivations and struggles.
It can be a real act of humility to withhold judgment and be open to difference. It means
acknowledging that we don’t have all the answers and that our ways of being in the world are not
necessarily right or better than another person’s. It is best not to be too sure of ourselves.
Being tolerant of other people isn’t simply about avoiding uncomfortable conflicts or being
politically correct. As people of faith, we are called to go deeper than that. We are called to strive
for respect. To choose love.
Tolerance acknowledges the worth and dignity of the other person. When we are tolerant, we are
recognizing that each person carries within them the spark of the divine and the integrity of being
human.
By not jumping to conclusions or disagreements, we make it possible to get to know another
person’s experience and grow in relationship. This means moving beyond a superficial kind of
tolerance. Civility has its place and it is far better than its counterpart.
But if we are to learn to be tolerant, we may need to do more than simply put up with
differences. We may need to do more than feign being okay with other people’s differences. It
may not be enough to simply ignore what we don’t like or avoid people who rub us the wrong
way.
There is a cost to superficial forms of tolerance. It seems to me that we all pay a price for this
form of tolerance. When we haven’t learned to accept people in our hearts, then we are still
carrying around our criticisms and our judgments, even if we aren’t giving voice or action to
them. This can be a tremendous burden. What I call superficial tolerance does not get to the root
of our negative feelings and eradicate them. It masks them. The intolerance may still be present
even if we don’t act on it.
Many of us have internalized cultural messages and criticisms. It is extremely difficult to unravel
the prejudices we have internalized. We carry them around and we even turn them against
ourselves.
We can find it difficult to accept the differences in ourselves, even more so than in others.
Despite our strong urges toward freedom of expression, we also have a strong desire to be
accepted and to fit in. So for many of us, the challenge is not only being able to be more tolerant
of others. It is that we are so often so hard on ourselves and need to learn to be more tolerant of
ourselves.
When I was in grade school I had a mild lisp. It was serious enough that my parents were advised
to have me do a bit of speech therapy at school. I remember being deeply embarrassed.
Tolerance, Intolerance, and the Wisdom to Know the Difference (cont’d.)
Rev. Sandra Fees
Page 4 of 4
© 2008, Rev. Sandra Fees
Excerpts may be quoted with attribution.
I don’t however remember anyone making fun of me. Still I do remember being incredibly selfconscious.
I was upset enough that one day I skipped my therapy session and just hung out in the
hallway. I wasn’t a kid that skipped class so it was a really big deal for me.
Even though the therapy was designed to help me overcome the very thing I was embarrassed
about and ultimately did, it also brought more attention to my “problem,” which I dreaded. It
reminded me that I was somehow different. And different was not good.
Unlike Jacob in this morning’s sermon reading, I was not able to believe that nothing was wrong.
I was not able to move past my fear and embarrassment. I was afraid people would laugh at me.
Given the amount of judgment I placed on myself, it is clear to me that I learned that somewhere.
I worried that others would criticize me, or reject me. It is no wonder. I was doing that to myself.
In her book Radical Acceptance: Embracing Your Life with the Heart of a Buddha, Tara Brach
offers a guide to the practice of Radical Acceptance. Brach is a clinical psychologist and teacher
of Buddhist mindfulness.
She says, “we practice radical acceptance by pausing and then meeting whatever is happening
inside us with this kind of unconditional friendliness. Instead of turning our jealous thoughts or
angry feelings into the enemy, we pay attention in a way that enables us to recognize and touch
any experience with care.”
Radical Acceptance teaches that “nothing is wrong” – with us or with others. We can encounter
ourselves and each other with “unconditional friendliness.” Imagine how freeing, how accepting,
how comforting that would be. Imagine doing that for yourself and for others in your life. This is
what it means to say yes to life, to be open to life in all its fullness and diversity. That, I believe,
is what it means to be tolerant.
May we find ways to say “yes” to life. May we learn to offer unconditional friendliness. May we
extend the reach of our love to embrace others who may be different from us.
So be it. Amen.