Centering (5 minutes)

This is a time to make the transition from the busy world to the group experience. A member of the group may read these words from Unitarian Universalist minister Mark Morrison-Reed:

The central task of the religious community is to unveil the bonds that bind each to all. There is a connectedness, a relationship discovered amid the particulars of our own lives and the lives of others. Once felt, it inspires us to act for justice. It is the church that assures us that we are not struggling for justice on our own, but as members of a larger community. The religious community is essential, for alone our vision is too narrow to see all that must be seen, and our strength too limited to do all that must be done. Together, our vision widens and our strength is renewed.

Check-in (10 to 25 minutes)

Each person in the group has the opportunity to share something about his or her life. What significant events have taken place recently in your life? Have you accomplished something meaningful to you? Have you experienced any losses or setbacks? Have you had any insights or new ideas?

Group Discussion (45 to 70 minutes)

Our spiritual theme for this month is Justice. “And what does the Lord require of you?” asked the Prophet Micah. “To act justly, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with your God.” Our Unitarian Universalist covenant mentions the word “justice” twice. What do we mean by “justice”? Is justice the same as fairness? In what ways does our Unitarian Universalist history display an evolving understanding of justice? Does the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, adopted on December 10, 1948, offer an adequate framework for justice that both respects and transcends the many different cultures and religions in our world? Can you think of instances where something was unjust even though it was legal?

For group discussion, please consider the questions associated with one or more of the following numbered sections. You need not address all of these sections, and you need not address them in this order.

1. Would you say that the quest for justice is an effort to restore some golden age in the past – perhaps thousands of years ago – when people lived in truly just and compassionate ways with one another? Or is the quest for justice a gradual process of moving human society toward new achievements of justice that had not previously existed? Would you say that a just society is an inevitable outcome of human history?

2. Unitarian Universalist minister Donald Robinson wrote, “Social justice can only begin with the interaction between fortunate people and those who are disadvantaged. It is incumbent upon those who, by virtue of the accident of birth or other circumstances, have good jobs, good educational background, and good lives, to come to the assistance of those who face formidable obstacles to getting an education and leading fulfilling lives. Social justice insists that people are not their circumstances; they are their possibilities. Social justice demands that all people regardless of their birth circumstances, are entitled to a fair chance at life, that every person has the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.”

What does Donald Robinson mean when he says that people are their possibilities rather than their circumstances? What is an appropriate relationship between fortunate people and those who are disadvantaged? What does Donald Robinson mean when he refers to “the accident of birth”? Is your family history the story of fortunate people or disadvantaged people? Or both?

3. Starhawk wrote, “Integrity means that we cannot propose or accept a solution for someone else that we are unwilling to undergo ourselves.”

Would you agree?

4. Henry David Thoreau wrote, “There are a thousand hacking at the branches of evil to one who is striking at the root, and it may be that he who bestows the largest amount of time and money on the needy is doing the most by his mode of life to produce that misery which he strives in vain to relieve.”

What did Thoreau mean?

5. Reinhold Niebuhr wrote, “In every human group there is less reason to guide and to check impulse, less capacity for self-transcendence, less ability to comprehend the needs of others and therefore more unrestrained egoism than the individuals, who compose the group, reveal in their personal relationships.”

Does this observation reflect your experience? Can a nation (or a congregation) behave unjustly or oppressively even when all the individual people in that nation (or congregation) are “just the nicest people you’d ever want to meet”?

Conclusion (5 to 10 minutes)

What will you take away from this discussion? What would have made this time together more meaningful or satisfying to you? What did you enjoy? A group member may share these words from Karen Armstrong:

Many of the difficulties arise when religion is seen primarily as a quest for identity. One of the functions of faith is to help us build up a sense of self: to explain where we have come from and why our traditions are distinctive and special. But that is not the sole purpose of religion. All the major world faiths have insisted on the importance of transcending the fragile and voracious ego, which so often denigrates others in its yearning for security. Leaving the self behind is not only a mystical objective; it is required also by the disciplines of compassion, which demand that we put the rights of others before our own selfish desires.