Archive for the 'Universalist heritage' Category

John Murray Spear, Universalist and Abolitionist

Published on September 16, 2007 in 300th Anniversary, Justice and anti-racism and Universalist heritage. Closed

This sermon was preached by Rev. Dan Harper at First Unitarian Church in New Bedford. As usual, the sermon below is a reading text. The actual sermon as preached contained ad libs, interjections, and other improvisation. Sermon copyright (c) 2007 Daniel Harper.

Readings

The first reading is rather long, and is from a sermon preached in 1774 by Elhanan Winchester, one of the earliest Universalist preachers in this country — he was preaching Universalism before John Murray arrived from England.

“There is one abomination… that prevails in this country, that calls aloud not only for sighing and crying, but for a speedy reformation and turning therefrom, if we desire to prevent destruction from coming upon us; I mean, the SLAVE TRADE….

“The very principle upon which it is founded, from which it springs, and by which it is carried on, is one of the most base and ignoble that ever disgraced the human species:

“WHICH is, Avarice. This mean and unworthy passion certainly had has a principal hand in this disgraceful traffic; no one can pretend that benevolence ever had, or ever can have, a hand in such a most infamous commerce. Avarice tends to harden the heart, to render the mind callous to the feelings of humanity, indisposes the soul to every virtue, and renders it prey to every vice. Ought we not to be ashamed of such a commerce, that has it rise from no better principle than mere selfishness or covetousness?…

“HAVING considered the principle from whence it originated, and to which its existence is owing, I pass to mention the horrible manner in which it is carried on. And here almost every vice that blackens and degrades human nature is employed; such as, deceiving, perfidy, decoying, stealing, lying, fomenting feuds and discords among the nations of Africa, robbery, plunder, burning, murder, cruelty of all kinds, and the most savage and unexampled barbarism.

“BLUSH… to think that ye are the supporters of a commerce that employs these, and many other vices to carry it on! Could you but think seriously of the disgraceful and cruel manner in which slaves are obtained, methinks you could not attempt to justify the horrid practice. Numbers are stolen while going out on their lawful business, are never suffered to return home to take leave of their friends; but are gagged and bound, then carried on board the vessels which wait for them, never more to see their native land again, but to drag out a miserable existence in chains, hunger, thirst, cold, nakedness, hard labour, and perpetual slavery.

“THINK, O ye tender mothers, how you would feel, if, when ye should send your little boys or girls to fetch a pitcher, or calabash of water from the spring, you should never see them return again! if some barbarous kidnapper should watch the opportunity, and seize upon your darlings, as the eagle upon its prey! should gag your sweet prattling babes, and force them away! how would your souls refuse to be comforted! such is the pain that many mothers feel in Africa, and God can cause it to come home to yourselves, who contribute to such an abomination as this.”

[From Universalism in America: A Documentary History of a Liberal Faith, edited by Ernest Cassara. Capitalized words found in this edition.]

***

The second reading is quite short, and it comes from an address which John Murray Spear gave to the Universalist Anti-Slavery Convention in 1840. After summarizing Elhanan Winchester’s anti-slavery sermon, Spear said, “[Universalists should] oppose all monopolies, despise all partiality, break down all unnatural distinctions, elevate the despised classes, and introduce a system of perfect equality.”

[Quoted in Russell Miller, The Larger Hope: The First Century of the Universalist Church in America, 1770-1870, p. 594.]

Sermon

This is the first in a series of occasional sermons about the history of our congregation. We are the direct institutional descendants of three congregations:– First Congregational Society (Unitarian) of New Bedford; First Universalist Church of New Bedford; and North Unitarian Church (Unitarian). 2008 will mark the three hundredth anniversary of the oldest of our three antecedent churches, First Congregational Society, later First Unitarian; in honor of that anniversary, this fall I plan to tell you about several unsung heroes and heroines from all three of our antecedent churches.

And I decided to start off with the most remarkable minister who ever was called to serve in one of those three churches. John Murray Spear was the first minister of First Universalist Church, when that congregation was formally incorporated in 1835. John Murray Spear was a remarkable man in many ways, both good and at times not-so-good. On the not-so-good side, later in his life he got so far into eccentric and far-out beliefs that he managed to alienate most of his old friends. But on the good side, he was a staunch Garrisonian abolitionist who advocated an immediate end to slavery as early as the 1830′s, when that was not a popular stance; he attracted African American members to First Universalist Church in a day when integrated churches were almost unimaginable, in a day when the Unitarian church in New Bedford kept a segregated pew for African Americans; and history indicates that he befriended and encouraged Frederick Douglass not long after Douglass escaped slavery and came to New Bedford, before Douglass become famous for his oratory.

But let’s begin at the beginning, and our beginning is to understand a little bit about Universalism. As you probably know, or could figure out, Universalism originally was the belief that all souls get to go to heaven; it was the belief that a benevolent God would be too good to allow the existence of hell.

Once the early Universalists in North America reached that conclusion, they quickly went a step further. They pronounced themselves egalitarians, that is, they asserted their belief in the essential equality of all humankind. This radical egalitarianism has stuck in Universalism, and in Universalists, down to the present day. Those of us who call ourselves Universalists today may or may not believe in God, but we most certainly believe in the infinite value of every human being.

It comes as no surprise, then, that early Universalists became active in cause of liberty during the American Revolution. Caleb Rich, one of the earliest Universalist preachers, fought in the Battle of Bunker Hill. Benjamin Rush, one of the signers of the Declaration of Independence, became a prominent Universalist. In 1791, Benjamin Rush wrote, “A belief in God’s universal love to all his creatures… leads to truths upon all subjects, but especially upon the subject of government. It establishes the equality of mankind.” Historian Ann Lee Bressler tells us that Benjamin Rush’s Universalism was “a rational and ultimately cheerful faith well-suited to a free and democratic society.” [Bressler, p. 19] What was true of Benjamin Rush was no less true of other early Universalists.

And those early Universalists were not afraid to apply their egalitarian principles to difficult subjects like slavery. As we heard in the first reading this morning, the Universalist preacher Elhanan Winchester spoke out against slavery in a strongly worded sermon as early as 1774. Along with John Murray, Winchester was one of the two towering figures of 18th C. Universalism; thus his sermon against slavery had a large influence. The sermon was widely distributed, influenced many of his contemporaries, and wound up influencing later generations as well.

Between the late 1700′s and the 1830′s, however, Universalism lost some of its early egalitarianism. By the mid-1830′s, a fair number of Universalists actively supported slavery. Not surprisingly, many of them lived in the Southern states, but there were plenty of northern Universalists who distanced themselves from applying egalitarian principles to enslaved Africans and African Americans. Even among the Universalists who did oppose slavery, many refused to take the hard-line stance of the abolitionists, saying that they didn’t want to anger the southern Universalists, didn’t want to promote divisiveness in the country or in the denomination. Maybe we can better understand this attitude if we remember that through much of late 18th C. and even into the 19th C., Universalists were reviled by the orthodox Christians; to proclaim yourself a Universalist was to risk being ostracized by friends, community, even your own family; to preach Universalism meant risking bodily harm, for there were orthodox Christians who physically assaulted Universalists to prevent the Universalist doctrine of love from being preached. I don’t mean to excuse them, but by the 1830′s, Universalists had begun to achieve a measure of respectability, and so perhaps some Universalists of that time preferred to avoid controversial topics like abolitionism.

Some Universalists may have preferred to avoid controversy, but not John Murray Spear. John Murray Spear was named after the great Universalist preacher John Murray. In fact, as a baby John Murray Spear was dedicated by no less a person than the great John Murray (remember that because of his Universalist beliefs, John Murray did not baptize children to cleanse them of original sin, instead he dedicated them to the highest purposes in life). The great John Murray was willing to take great risks to proclaim his Universalist faith; and perhaps some of that willingness rubbed off on the little baby John Murray Spear, because when that little baby grew up, he turned into a man who was willing to proclaim abolition of slavery at great risk to himself.

(Since this is the first day of Sunday school, I might add here that those of you who are raising your children in this church should be aware that even today Unitarian Universalist kids wind up being staunch egalitarians, who do things like pass up high-paying jobs in favor of work that pays far less but creates justice for all, and spreads good in the world. Consider yourself duly warned. But I digress….)

When John Murray Spear came to New Bedford in 1835, he discovered that New Bedford was notable for its racial tolerance. I will not say claim that it was a fully tolerant city; there was distinct legal and personal discrimination by white folks against people of color; but for its time, New Bedford was a remarkably tolerant place. People of color could earn a decent living in the whaling industry. People of color were accorded a higher level of freedom and respect by white people than in most other places in the United States. And fugitive slaves discovered that the city was a safe harbor for them, where they could blend in to a racially mixed populace, where they could find friendly help, and where they could find secure work.

Spear was already an abolitionist when he came to New Bedford. But he went further than just being an abolitionist; he got to know prominent members of the African American community in New Bedford. For example, Spear got to know Nathan Johnson. Nathan Johnson was a prominent African American citizen of New Bedford who represented the city for a number of years at the annual convention for free people of color; and his house was a stop on the Underground Railroad. Indeed, Nathan Johnson is best known for his role in the Underground Railroad, because in 1838 he took in an escaped slave named Frederick Johnson, and it was Nathan Johnson who helped the now free man to decide to change his name to Frederick Douglass.

The historian John Buescher recently published a biography of John Murray Spear and his brother Charles, and Buescher tells us this about John Murray Spear’s time in New Bedford: “One of Spear’s church members in New Bedford was Nathan Johnson, the gentleman with whom Frederick Douglass lived when he settled in the city after his escape from slavery. In his church one day, Spear found Douglass debating with members of his congregation. They were arguing for universal salvation, and Douglass was arguing for the existence of eternal punishment. Spear was much impressed with Douglass’s abilities and encouraged him to become a public speaker.” [Buescher, p. 171]

This short little anecdote tells us three very important things about this history of our own First Universalist Church. First, we have an important connection to Frederick Douglass, because John Murray Spear was one of those who very early on encouraged Douglass to become a public speaker. Second, Douglass actually came to our First Universalist Church, and although he was misguided enough to insist on the existence of eternal punishment, it is of some interest that he came at all. Third — and this is the most interesting bit of information — Nathan Johnson was at that time a member of First Universalist Church. I’m quite impressed that our own First Universalist Church welcomed African American members that early; to the best of my knowledge, that didn’t happen in First Unitarian until much later.

All this tells us that those early New Bedford Universalists were people of whom we can be proud. They had a religious belief in egalitarianism, and they lived out that belief. Indeed, history tells us that they sometimes became frustrated with other Universalists. By autumn, 1841, the New Bedford church was one of only two Universalist churches in Massachusetts which had adopted official resolutions supporting the abolition of slavery. The New Bedford Universalists publicly expressed their frustration when the local association of Universalists refused to even consider the matter of abolition. And when the Universalist Anti-Slavery Convention, of which they were founding members, proceeded more slowly than they liked, they shrewdly invited Frederick Douglass to accompany them to a meeting of the convention in the fall of 1841. When the convention wavered at the thought of voting for a resolution aimed at the Southern Universalist congregations which supported slavery, Douglass spoke up, and the power of his oratory so convinced the delegates that the resolution passed unanimously.

We can only imagine what it must have been like to be a part of that congregation. Universalists in those days were still fairly pugnacious, still willing to speak out loudly and publicly against the doctrine of eternal punishment; and Universalists in New Bedford made no bones about wanting to abolish slavery. And even though First Universalist had a white minister and a majority of white church members, it appears certain the congregation welcomed both black and white people into their church. I think I would have liked to have been a part of that congregation; they sound like my kind of people.

Unfortunately, John Murray Spear was forced to leave New Bedford in 1841 as a direct result of his abolitionist activities. Sometime in the summer of 1841, a southern slave-holder traveled to New Bedford accompanied by an 18 year old slave named Lucy Faggins. Under an 1836 law, Lucy Faggins technically became free the moment she stepped onto Massachusetts soil. So Rev. Thomas James, minister of the African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church, and some other members of the New Bedford Anti-Slavery Society went and attempted to tell her that she was free. Then James and John Murray Spear took out a writ of habeus corpus, with the claim that Lucy Faggins was being unlawfully restrained by her master. The case ended well for Faggins, who achieved her freedom; but it ended badly for John Murray Spear. Susan Taber, who lived in New Bedford at that time, wrote about how once Lucy Faggins had been freed, the pro-slavery faction in New Bedford became determined to ruin John Murray Spear — they threatened Spear with arrest and prosecution, and made his life so difficult that he had to resign his pulpit here and move to the Universalist church in Weymouth. So ended a glorious ministry for First Universalist Church in New Bedford.

After he left New Bedford, Spear continued to work hard for the abolition of slavery. By 1844, Spear was sharing the lecture stage with Frederick Douglass in the “One Hundred Conventions” campaign of the Massachusetts Anti-Slavery Society. Spear also went on to work with his brother Charles for prison reform. His life embodied the Universalist principle of true egalitarianism.

And so I will end this sermon about John Murray Spear with a quizzical observation: here is a minister from one of our antecedent congregations, a minister who embodied our highest values, and yet his name appears nowhere in this building. We have on our walls here the names of many lesser ministers, and even the names of one or two forgettable ministers. But I would suggest that the story of John Murray Spear as I have told it this morning offers us at least two splendid opportunities as we approach the celebration of the 300th anniversary of the founding of First Unitarian. We could think about how we might celebrate John Murray Spear and the other ministers of First Universalist Church. And we could think about how we might celebrate the fact that Nathan Johnson was an early African American member of First Universalist. I don’t quite know how we will make use of these opportunities. Will we try to get the names of First Universalist’s ministers on the walls of this sanctuary? Will we name one of our rooms after Nathan Johnson? I don’t know how to answer that, but I do know that this congregation is able to come up with amazingly creative ways to take advantage of opportunities like these.

Universalism for Such a Time as This

Published on August 26, 2007 in Universalist heritage and UU identity. Closed

This sermon was preached by Rev. Dan Harper at First Unitarian Church in New Bedford. As usual, the sermon below is a reading text. The actual sermon as preached contained ad libs, interjections, and other improvisation. Sermon copyright (c) 2007 Daniel Harper.

Readings

The first reading comes from “Treatise on Atonement,” written in 1805 by the Universalist minister and theologian Hosea Ballou. Ballou visited New Bedford in the late 1820′s, and his preaching led to the establishment of First Universalist Church, which merged with this congregation in 1930. In arguing for the truth of the doctrine of universal salvation, Ballou wrote:

“I would argue again, from a reasonable idea, admitted by all, namely, that mankind, in their moral existence, originated in God. Why, then, do we deny his final assimilation with the fountain from whence he sprang? The streams and rivulets which water the hill-country run in every direction, as the make of land occasions. They are stained with various mines and soils through which they pass; but at last they find their entrance into the ocean, where their different courses are at an end, and they are tempered like the fountain which receives them. Though man, at present, forms an aspect similar to the waters in their various courses, yet, in the end of his race, I hope he will enjoy an union with his God, and with his fellows.”

[Treatise on Atonement, 3rd edition, 3.iii.]

***

The second reading this morning comes from the book “Foundations of Faith,” by the Universalist minister and theologian Albert Zeigler, published in 1959.

“The power of traditional Universalism was that, in its teaching of universal salvation, it spoke to every man of his infinite value. As the ancient Hebrew saw himself to be of divine importance, rescued and chosen by God; as the orthodox Christian found his eternal significance in the sacrifice of the Son of God for his welfare; so the Universalist saw his and all men’s divine stature and destiny in the unfailing love of God. If [the phrase] ‘universal salvation’ does not today carry that message to us, we must find another way to sing the great gospel that every person and what he does and how he does it is of ultimate concern, of infinite significance.”

Sermon

We call ourselves “Unitarian Universalists,” a cumbersome name that came about in 1961 when the American Unitarian Association merged with the Universalist Church of America. These days, many of us leave off the second half of our name — instead of saying “Unitarian Universalist,” we just shorten our name to “Unitarian.” We call ourselves “Unitarian” not just because it’s a shorter name, but also because some of the old Universalist ideas seem thoroughly outdated.

Take, for example, the idea of universal salvation — the idea for which Universalism was originally named. Back in the 18th C., most people living in British North America, later the United States of America, believed that if you were good you’d get to go to heaven when you died, but if you were bad, you’d spend all eternity in the torments of hell after you died. But in the middle part of the 18th C., a few radical preachers in North America began to question the doctrine of eternal punishment for sin. These radical preachers, people like George DeBenneville in Philadelphia and Caleb Rich in Massachusetts began to teach that God is loving, and therefore God would not condemn anyone to eternal torment; they said that everyone gets to go to heaven. In short, they preached the idea of universal salvation, that everyone gets saved.

When the Universalist preacher John Murray arrived in the New World in 1770, this radical new idea began to spread more widely British North America. John Murray preached about universal salvation through the mid-Atlantic states and New England, greatly raising the profile of the emerging movement.

Murray and other early Universalist preachers faced ridicule and scorn for daring to preach that everyone would be saved. The more orthodox Christians believed you had to threaten people with hell and damnation to get them to behave well; they said that Universalists would destroy society be teaching that hell doesn’t exist — for if the people didn’t believe in hell, then they would indulge themselves in evil and sinful behavior. To which the Universalists drily replied that there was plenty of evil and sinful behavior in spite of the threat of hell, and they pointed out that in general Universalists behaved better, or at least no worse, than the rest of society. The early Universalists were great debaters; they had to be; for wherever they tried to start a new Universalist church, the orthodox Christians would challenge them to a debate.

On one memorable occasion, John Murray was telling a crowd about Universalism when his opponents began throwing stones in the windows. In his autobiography, Murray later recalled, “At length a large rugged stone, weighing about a pound and a half, was forcibly thrown in at the window behind my back; it missed me. Had it sped as it was aimed, it must have killed me. Lifting it up, and waving it in the view of the people, I observed: This argument is solid and weighty, but it is neither rational nor convincing.”

The Universalist movement in America reached its peak in the middle of the 19th C. At one time, it had perhaps the fifth largest membership of any denomination in the United States. But then a funny thing happened. The other Protestant churches began to leave behind the idea of hell. The other Protestant ministers stopped preaching hellfire and damnation, at least, in the larger, more powerful denominations. After 80 or 90 years of debating, the Universalists basically won the debate, and it killed them.

Because of this, because there wasn’t much to distinguish Universalism from other mainstream Protestant denominations, Universalism began a long, slow decline. The denomination declined greatly in power and influence, and in the 1930′s began cooperating more and more with the Unitarians, until finally in 1961 the Unitarian and the Universalist denominations merged.

By the time of that 1961 merger that created the Unitarian Universalist Association, Universalism seemed almost irrelevant. In 1961, the big theological debates were about the death of God, not about hell and damnation. By 1961, probably half of all Universalists were humanists and didn’t believe in God anyway, let alone believe in damnation or salvation. To many Universalists, Universalism seemed little more than a pleasant tradition, a traditional holdover from times long past, charming but more than a little antiquated. Maybe they felt that the belief in hell was disappearing.

But here we are 46 years later, and belief in hell has not disappeared. In a Gallup Poll conducted in May, 2007, 69% of the American population reported that they believe in hell. The current president of the United States and many of our other elected representatives believe in hell, and believe in damnation. If these people believe in hell, that says to me that they believe in a God who is vengeful enough to condemn some human souls to eternal misery and torment. These are people who believe in the power of vengeance, who may believe that vengeance is as acceptable as diplomacy, and who may believe that vengeance is stronger than love and compassion. I sometimes wonder if such beliefs have an influence on foreign policy decisions — I suspect they do have an influence, although it seems to be an indirect influence, an unconscious influence.

And while I cannot prove it, I suspect the widespread belief in hell affects domestic policy decisions as well. Someone who believes in hell believes that some people are disposable. Hell, by definition, is a place where God disposes of some non-trivial number of souls, implying that at least some souls are disposable. If your religion tells you that some people are disposable, I would tend to think that such a belief could influence your decisions regarding domestic policy.

But because I don’t believe in hell myself, I have to admit that I don’t know how such a belief would affect a person’s actions. The real point is that hell has made a come-back in popular culture in the United States. Therefore, I believe it is time for us to dust off our old Universalist beliefs, look them over, and see what parts of Universalism could be useful to us in such a time as this.

Let us begin be stating Universalist beliefs in positive terms. Instead of saying that Universalists don’t believe in hell and eternal damnation, let us state what it is that Universalists believe in. And we may wish to use different language to state our beliefs positively. In 1959, Albert Ziegler said that if the phrase “universal salvation” no longer has much meaning for us, we need to find another way of saying the same thing. With that in mind, let me offer three positive statements of Universalist belief, and then apply them to a current issue in our community.

Albert Ziegler gave one positive statement of Universalist beliefs when he said, “The power of traditional Universalism was that, in its teaching of universal salvation, it spoke to every man of his infinite value.” Today, we would remove the gender-specific language, saying that Universalism speaks to every person, to all people, of their infinite value. A second statement of Universalist beliefs may be found among the so-called seven principles of Unitarian Universalism, the principle that states that we affirm and promote the inherent worth and dignity of all persons. We could put these two statements together, saying: Each and every person is of infinite value, and so we affirm and promote the inherent worth and dignity of all persons. There are no disposable human beings.

And here’s a third way of restating and updating traditional Universalist beliefs: all human beings share in the same final destiny. We heard one statement of that in the first reading this morning. Originally, the phrase “final destiny” was meant to refer to heaven, or final union with God. Today, when we are worrying about the effects of global climate change, when the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists has set its Doomsday Clock a little closer to midnight, when we are engaged in a war that seems to be out of control — today, the term “final destiny” may take on a somewhat different meaning. If our species is going to survive, we had better figure out how to treat each other, and treat the earth, better. As the saying goes, we had better all hang together, or we will all hang separately.

Now let’s apply these issues to a current issue in our community, an issue that has particular relevance to our church. Our church bylaws specifically state that we will not discriminate against persons because of their gender, race, national origin, class, sexual orientation, physical ability. And each week when I read the welcoming words before our worship service, I say, “Here at First Unitarian, we value our differences of age, gender, race, national origin, class, sexual orientation, physical ability, and theology.” On one level, this is simply another way of saying that we value the inherent worth and dignity of all persons. But on a deeper level, this is a pretty radical statement.

Our community, the greater New Bedford region, is a community that, on the surface, is relatively peaceful and tolerant. But like much of New England, there are deep divisions between the people who live in our community. We are divided by age — our youth are divided from older people, sometimes in very public and acrimonious arguments; our elders are often divided from younger people. We are divided by race — while we don’t have much outright racial violence, you can still find lots of racial division and racial discrimination in our community. We are divided by national origin — with the current uncertainty around immigration, and the recent raid at the Michael Bianco plant, our community is divided by national origin. We are deeply divided by class — with physical divisions between wealthy and not-so-wealthy neighborhoods, and psychic divisions because lower income people feel politically voiceless.

I could go on, but you get the point: we have some significant divisions in our community. I hasten to assure you that our community is fairly peaceful, certainly more peaceful than some other cities in Massachusetts. And I hasten to assure you that we a relatively tolerant community; compared to much of the United States, we are quite tolerant indeed. So compared to the rest of the world, you could truthfully say that we’re doing quite well.

And within our church, I think we manage to do better than even the surrounding community. Compared to the surrounding community, First Unitarian is a relatively tolerant place. No, we’re not perfect — far from it — but compared to the rest of the world, you could truthfully say that we’re a fairly tolerant and welcoming place.

But as a Universalist, I want to go further than that. If our community is relatively tolerant compared to the rest of the world, why not take it to the next level? If our church is relatively tolerant compared to our community, why not take it to the next level? We may be good, but surely we can be better. As a Universalist, I am an incurable optimist. I know every person has inherent worth and dignity, and I want to try to live my life as if that’s really true. And I want to hold this up as an ideal for the whole community.

I may be an optimist, but I also want to know how we could make this idea into reality. Speaking realistically, I know we’re not going to completely erase racism, sexism, ageism, homophobia, ableism, or other forms of discrimination in the greater New Bedford area. Nor are we going to completely erase all discrimination within our own church.

Yet I do believe it is possible for us to get better at acting as if each and every person has inherent worth and dignity. I don’t have any final answers, but I believe it would be helpful to talk more openly about the divisions that do exist in the surrounding community. Not that we should indulge ourselves in guilt and shame, for in my experience guilt and shame are not particularly effective ways to change people’s behavior. But we do need to be able to talk openly about continuing racism in our community — discrimination such as racism, sexism, homophobia, discrimination based on economic status, and so on. Thus a key skill for us to practice will be to listen deeply and carefully to one another — for it is impossible someone to talk openly unless the rest of us listen deeply and openly.

I believe that we have to spend more time talking about and examining our religious and theological reasons for ending discrimination. We have some compelling religious reasons to do away with discrimination, not just from our Universalist side, but also from our Unitarian side. I believe, too, that we have to be able to clearly state, in religious terms, why we believe each person has inherent worth and dignity. Once we can talk about our faith, once we can clearly articulate what we value and who we are, it is but a few short steps to living out our values in day-to-day life.

I believe that in this church we have to act always as if all people are valuable. Perhaps this is one of the first steps we can take towards living out our religious beliefs:– to practice living out our religious beliefs here in a relatively safe church community. Racism and sexism and homophobia and classism have been around for centuries, and we’d be naive to think we can put an end to them tomorrow. But as a first step, perhaps we can put an end to them for a couple of hours each Sunday, while we’re here at church.

And so we wind up facing the age-old question: How do we live out our deeply-held beliefs? How do we live out our most cherished values? As you would expect, I don’t have any firm and final pronouncements to offer — no person can tell person exactly how to live out his or her values. But I raise this as an important issue, a key issue for us. And I do believe that the religious insights of Universalism have much to offer us. We know that all persons are of equal value, we know that there are no disposable human beings, we know that all human beings share in the same final destination. Once we are clear about those religious values, all we have to do is figure out how to act upon them.

It’s Never Too Late

Published on August 28, 2006 in Universalist heritage. Closed

This sermon was preached by Rev. Dan Harper at First Unitarian Church in New Bedford. As usual, the sermon below is a reading text. The actual sermon as preached contained ad libs, interjections, and other improvisation. Sermon copyright (c) 2006 Daniel Harper.

Readings

The first reading comes from the closing chapter of The Country of the Pointed Firs by Sarah Orne Jewett. The story takes place in the late 19th C., and the narrator of the book has spent the summer in the coastal Maine village; but now it’s time for the narrator to bid good-bye to her friend and landlady, Mrs. Todd, and return to Boston and her job as a writer….

“At last it was the time of late summer, when the house was cool and damp in the morning, and all the light seemed to come through greeen leaves; but at the first step out of doors the sunshines always laid a warm hand on my shoulder, and the clear, high sky seemed to lift quickly as I looked at it….

“I was to take the small unpunctual steamer that went down the bay in the afternoon, and I sat for a while by my window looking out on the green herb garden, with regret for company. Mrs. Todd had hardly spoken all day except in the briefest and most disapproving way; it was as if we were on the edge of a quarrel. It seemed impossible to take my departure with anything like composure. At last I heard a footstep, and looked up to find that Mrs. Todd was standing at the door.

” ‘I’ve seen to everything now,” she told me in an unusually loud and business-like voice. ‘Your trunks are on the w’arf by this time. Cap’n Bowden he come and took ‘em down himself an’ is going to see that they’re safe aboard. Yes, I’ve seen to all your ‘rangements,’ she repeated in a gentler tone. ‘These things I’ve left on the kitchen table you’ll want to carry by hand; the basket needn’t be returned. I guess I shall walk over towards the Port now an’ inquire how old Mis’ Edward Caplin is.’

“I glanced at my friend’s face, and saw a look that touched me to the heart. I had been sorry enough before to go away.

” ‘I guess you’ll excuse me if I ain’t down there to stand round on the w’arf and see you go,’ she said, still trying to be gruff. ‘Yes, I ought to go over and inquire for Mis’ Edward Caplin; it’s her third shock, and if mother gets in on Sunday she’ll want to know just how the old lady is.’ With this last word Mrs. Todd turned and left me as if with sudden thought of something she had forgotten, so that I felt sure she was coming back, but presently I heard her go out of the kitchen door and walk down the path toward the gate. I could not part so; I ran after her to say good-by, but she shook her head and waved her hand without looking back when she heard my hurrying steps, and so went away down the street.

“When I went in again the little house had suddenly grown lonely, and my room looked empty as it had the day I came. I and all my belongings had died out of it, and I knew how it would seem when Mrs. Todd came back and found her lodger gone. So we die before our own eyes; so we see some chapters of our lives come to their natural end.” [pp. 115-116]

The second reading is from Treatise on Atonement by Rev. Hosea Ballou, the great Universalist minister whose preaching here in New Bedford in the 1820′s led to the formation of First Universalist of New Bedford, which merged with this church in 1930:

“Let us pass to the prophecies of Isaiah; see chap. xxv. 6, 7, 8. “And in this mountain shall the Lord of hosts make unto all people a feast of fat things, a feast of wines on the lees, of fat things full of marrow, of wines on the lees well refined. And he will destroy in this mountain the face of the covering cast over all people, and the veil that is spread over all the nations. He will swallow up death in victory; and the Lord God will wipe away tears from off all faces; and the rebuke of his people shall be taken from off all the earth: for the Lord hath spoken it.” No one will doubt that the provisions here spoken of are those which are provided in the gospel of salvation.

“In the first place, then, observe it is made for all people; this proves that it was the intention of him who made the feast that all people should share in its divine benefits.

“Secondly. It is testified that the veil of darkness which was over all people shall finally be taken away.

“Thirdly. That death is to be swallowed up in victory, and tears wiped away from off all faces….”

SERMON — “Never Too Late”

In the reading this morning, we heard how it is that New England Yankees say good-by. Sarah Orne Jewett writes: “I ran after Mrs. Todd to say good-by, but she shook her head and waved her hand without looking back when she heard my hurrying steps, and so went away down the street.” As a New England Yankee born and bred, that was certainly the primary way I learned to say good-by: You don’t go down to the wharf to wave good-by to a good friend as she heads off on the unpunctual steamer that goes down the bay; instead, you invent some good errand that will require you to be elsewhere so that you really don’t have to say good-by at all; and if your good friend runs after you to say good-by, wave your hand at her without looking back.

Modern psychologists would probably tell us that this is not a healthy way to say good-by. I respectfully disagree. It is a culturally appropriate way to say good-by. Living in the place we do, with the climate we have, we New Englanders have faced an quite a bit of loss over the centuries. Half the people who came over on the Mayflower died in the first winter; don’t forget that 90% of the Native Americans in New England had died from disease a few years before the Mayflower arrived. There wasn’t much good soil for farming here, many New Englanders turned to the sea to earn a living, and of course many ships went down, leaving widows on shore. We turned to manufacturing textiles, which went pretty well for a while, but now that’s gone too, and, with the exception of Boston, most of New England still struggles to base its economy on something other than tourism. Nor can we forget the Red Sox, who finally won another World Series in 2004, but now seem to have gone back to their old losing ways, dropping three straight games to the hated Yankees.

Perhaps the most poignant loss of all here in New England comes with the changing seasons. Just when we get used to the heat of summer, with its long lazy days that seem to stretch on forever — just when we get used to summer, we start noticing that the birds are forming flocks and getting ready to fly south, and the days are quickly getting shorter and shorter, and then comes a cool night when we have to dig out the blankets we put away last spring. What makes it worse is that in our short New England summers, you generally don’t get to do all the things you had hoped and planned to do; here we are in the last weeks of summer, and as usual half of my plans never materialized.

Of course when fall comes, with gloriously-colored leaves on the trees, it doesn’t last long. The leaves are incredibly beautiful for about two weeks, and then they fall off. Along comes winter which, in spite of the sublime beauty of the bare trees, and the gray ocean, and the storms that roar through, is unpleasant at best. And just when you get used to winter, everything turns to mud and muck. Spring mostly seems vastly overrated, until at last spring is in full flower, and you want it to last forever; but spring too ends all too quickly.

Nor do the seasons end neatly and cleanly. If you say good-by to summer now, you’ll be saying good-by too soon, because we will have at least one more heat wave before we’re done with it. I imagine this is what the whaling captain’s wife fel, albeit on a grander scale: she said good-by when her husband got on the boat, but was she saying good-by for good, or just for a while? Was she saying good-by for one short year, or for five long years? No one could say. Her good-bys had no certainty in them.

Our religious traditions cannot be entirely separated from our New England climate and culture. The earliest European settlers brought some religious beliefs that fir in with the New England climate. The Puritans brought both the belief that most people were going to eternal damnation after death, and a strong sense that they could create a good society against all adversity, a society that would stand as a beacon for all humanity.

This second belief, that we can overcome adversity, and the climate, and the poor soil, and the fact that ships go down at sea, has become an integral part of New England culture. We are quite convinced that we can create a better world. We have often done so. When the whaling industry started to fade out, the good old New Englanders of New Bedford started manufacturing textiles; that served this city well for many decades. Now we are trying to figure out how this city can fit into the new post-industrial economy, and I have no doubt that we will solve that problem, eventually. The Red Sox constantly lose (except for that one year), but every spring we are certain that this will be the year when they win again. Deep within us is the certainty that the world can, and will, be better by and by.

We are quite convinced that we can create a better world, and this legacy of the early Puritans has turned New England into a land of reformers. We are always trying to reform the world, to make it better. We New Englanders have been ardent Abolitionists, we have advocated for universal education, we have fought for religious liberty, we supported the Civil Rights movement, some of us supported women’s rights from very early on. Today we are at the forefront of supporting equal marriage rights, and it is no accident that Massachusetts is the first state to legalize marriage for same sex couples. The fight for justice is part of our belief system. We truly want a world where all people are treated equally well.

Given all this — given the adversity of the climate, given the fact that New England has presented its human inhabitants with quite a bit of loss, given our deeply-held sense that the world can and will be made a better place, perhaps it is not surprising that Universalism flourished here in New England. Even though the old Puritan belief that most of humanity will be damned to eternal torment upon death remains strong in some circles, New England has also nurtured a strong belief in universal salvation, the belief that all persons will get to go to heaven upon death.

Now you personally may or may not believe in heaven, or in any kind of life after death. But even if that is true for you, I’m sure you can see how there is that in the New England spirit that would support the idea of universal salvation. Think about it this way: If there is a heaven, it must be a place where true justice, and true equality reigns supreme. We could not imagine heaven as a place where injustice is possible. Given that, those of us who are true New England reformers know that all persons must be given equal access to heaven; just as we know that all persons deserve equal access to education; just as we know that women and men must be equal; just as we know that we cannot tolerate racism. If we cannot tolerate racism, how can we tolerate heaven as a place that refuses to admit some people? From our vantage point as imperfect human beings, all we can see is how flawed other people are; a hundred years ago, white people thought it was a fatal flaw to have dark skin; a hundred years ago, men thought it was a fatal flaw to be a woman; today, there are too many people who still believe it is a fatal flaw to love someone of the same gender as yourself. But if we were able to take the vantage point of God, we would see that all human beings are examples of perfection. Not to say that human beings don’t do evil things; we can do evil, we can even be evil. But there is something within us, some irreducible core, that retains something of perfection.

Similarly, if the Bible is correct and there is a God, then logically speaking that God must be a God of love. Logically speaking, the God of the Bible, whom the Bible asserts is a God of love, would not ever damn someone to eternal torment; for, logically speaking, such damnation would not be what we could call in any sense loving. Human beings may be imperfect; human beings may indulge in sin; but an infinitely good an loving God would not therefore damn those human beings to eternal torment.

I go on at some length about this topic because belief in hell is making a comeback. So while you might not use the word “heaven” yourself, and while you might not use the word “God” yourself, you know perfectly well that many of our neighbors and friends talk about God and heaven and hell. And if need be, we Unitarian Universalists can still use traditional religious language to pass on what the old New England Universalists said. They said that God is so great that God can love each and every human being. They said that because God is a manifestation of perfect love, everyone gets to go to heaven. There will be universal salvation, because you and I are worthy of being saved. We may do evil, but God’s love is powerful enough to redeem us all.

You can also see how such a belief would be attractive to the New England character. The idea that most of humanity will be damned to eternal torment doesn’t sit well with the typical New Englander. We already have to put up with New England winters. We already have to put up with high unemployment, and a difficult transition to a post-industrial economy. We already have to put up with the Red Sox, who even as I speak are going through their usual late-summer breakdown, who as usual have no depth in the pitching staff and no real team leaders. Don’t tell me that I have to suffer through years of watching the Red Sox lose late-summer games, and then be denied admittance to heaven because I didn’t measure up to some impossibly high standard of behavior. A belief in eternal damnation is just a little too much for the average New Englander to have to bear.

This brings us at last to the second reading, by the great New England preacher, Hosea Ballou. Hosea Ballou is from a different era than ours: his language may now sound dated; his extreme reliance on the King James version of the Bible, without any reference to all the Biblical scholarship we now have, may now seem quaint; his propensity for interspersing his writing with too many Bible quotes may now sound annoying. But underneath that, underneath his awkward prose, there is a deeper poetical meaning, a non-literal meaning, that sounds surprisingly contemporary. Back in 1805, Ballou wrote: “It was the intention of him who made the feast that all people should share in its divine benefits”; today we would say that all persons have an inherent worth and dignity and therefore all persons should have equal access to all that is good in life. Ballou wrote “that the veil of darkness which was over all people shall finally be taken away”; today we are still working to help remove that veil of darkness over people. On some days we fell as if we’re making some progress.

I would like to go further. When Ballou says: “That death is to be swallowed up in victory, and tears wiped away from off all faces,” I would like to be able to agree with him. I would like to think that my life has been lived to some purpose, that I have not lived in vain. I would like to think that death doesn’t bring complete annihilation, any more than I wish to think that after death some vindictive God is going to send me to eternal torment for being a heretic or worse.

Maybe it’s wishful thinking, but I think not. None of us lives in vain. If you have wiped the tears away from one face, other than your own, you have not lived in vain. If you have brought joy to one other person at any time in your life, you have not lived in vain. If you really want death to be swallowed up in victory, go and do more of that: wipe away some more tears from other’s faces; recognize the inherent worth and dignity of all persons; set a feast before those who need it; bring joy to someone else.

I would say: Heaven isn’t just about some life after this life; it’s about creating justice and love here and now. For some of you, this will not be enough; some of you will want to know what happens after death. If you are one of those people, take heed of Hosea Ballou’s proclamation of universal salvation: everyone gets to go to heaven. Take heed, and take comfort. And now take heed of what I have to tell you: it’s not enough to wait passively until you die, and then go to heaven. The underlying meaning of Ballou’s words tells us that. It’s not enough to wait passively for someone else to set a feast in front of you; you must be ready to wipe away the tears from someone else’s eyes when that is needed. If you truly want your eventual death to be swallowed up in victory, start working on it now: love other people, bring justice to the world in however small a way, proclaim that life is joy.

In this time of late summer, when the days are getting shorter quickly, it’s easy to look back with regret on all the things you meant to do all summer long, but never quite got around to doing. In your life, it’s easy to look back with regret on all the lost opportunities, on all the things that you did wrong. It can be all too easy to look forward to death as a release and a comfort, and to live passively towards that end. But it’s never too late to change. It’s never too late to turn around when you hear those hurrying steps behind you, and to meet a good friend face to face, and to say that you love them. It’s never too late to express your love, to partake of the feast of life, to swallow up death in victory. You can transform your life into one of love and joy. It’s never too late to begin.