Unitarian Universalism – Page 23 – Dan Harper

Singing for Freedom

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) 2008 Daniel Harper.

Readings

The first reading is by Bernice Johnson Reagon, scholar, composer, and singer in the a capella group Sweet Honey in the Rock:

“I have had singing in my life since I was a young child. However, my experience with the performance of music form a formal concert stage came by way of the Civil Rights Movement and a group called the SNCC Freedom Singers. We were a group of a capella singers, but we were first field secretaries for the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), the organization of the Movement formed by student leaders who left their campuses to work full-time against racial injustice in the United States. The Freedom Singers… began to travel throughout the country singing freedom songs to anybody who would listen. Being a fighter for freedom in the Movement meant that our stages were wherever we were, and the songs were a way of coming together, holding each other and proclaiming our determination as citizens to fight racism in this land of our birth. The Freedom Singers sang in concert halls, schools, living rooms, clubs, folk festivals, in elementary, junior, and senior high schools, in colleges and universities. As a group, our concerts were often a way of introducing and connecting people who wanted to find ways to be a part of the Movement, to the culture and energy of activism taking place….

“As a singing participant in the Movement, I began to notice how well the old songs we knew fit our current situation. Many of the freedom songs we sang we had learned as spirituals, sacred songs created by slaves. Our struggle against racism often found us reaching for connections with those who had during the nineteenth century fought to end slavery in this country….”

[If You Don’t Go, Don’t Hinder Me: The African American Sacred Song TraditionUniversity of Nebraska Press, 2000), pp. 100, 104]

The second reading is from the book Sing and Shine On: A Teacher’s Guide to Multicultural Song-leading by Nick Page. Nick is a composer, conductor, and teacher who is a Unitarian Universalist who grew up in our church in Lexington, Massachuestts. Nick writes:

“An interdependent system is one in which every action affects every other action. A forest fire in Brazil affects the weather in Moscow by creating huge dust clouds that eventually float over Russia. Every element in an ecosystem depends on every other element, even the so-called nonliving elements such as minerals, oxygen, and sunlight. Yes, light is an integral element of all life. The sun is food for many of earth’s life forms. Physicists speak of photons of light as being interchangeable. When the light from an object hits a person, only some of it bounces off. Most of the photons are absorbed in the person. Its energy becomes that person’s energy. This is how incredible interdependence is — everything is constantly becoming everything else — as when you spend a lot of time in a forest or at a beach. More than memory remains with you after you have left.

“After a powerful singing celebration, I leave with the power of the event still with me. The sense of harmony and connectedness remains. This feeling of being connected to everything is an incredible feeling — truly transcending. We walk in beauty, in harmony with the world around us.

“The meanings of the survival of the fittest do not work in the context of an interdependent system. A herd of caribou, for example, survive by caring for each other, protecting each other from harm. And yes, the wolf survives by attacking the caribou, but the wolf attacks the weakest member of the herd, thus enduring the strength of the herd as a whole. The survival instinct is universal. Competition and cooperation are both parts of this instinct.

“When we sing together, our cooperation and interdependence become the perfect analogy for the interdependence and cooperation within nature….

“Although we humans claim that it is independence from each other that we crave, we truly cannot live without each other or other forms of living things. All life is interdependent with all other life. We have many kinds of bacteria that live inside our bodies. Without them, we could not digest our food. The bacteria are not separate guests inside us — they are part of us, what biologists call host/parasite relationships. We aren’t as independent as we think. This also applies to our place in both our cultures and the natural world. We are very interdependent creatures.”

Sermon

Why is singing so important to our religion? In a one hour worship service, we sing together four times, totaling perhaps ten minutes of singing; in other words, approximately one sixth of each worship service is devoted to singing together. Why do we devote so much of our worship service to singing? In a traditionally Christian church, we would sing together in order to glorify God; however, in a Unitarian Universalist congregation, some of us do not believe in God, others of us may believe in some form of God or divinity but don’t see that singing to that God or divinity is necessary, and of course there are those who do sing hymns in order to glorify God or the divine; but we have no consensus, so we can’t say that we all sing to glorify God because that would not be a true statement for all of us. So why do we Unitarian Universalists sing in church? It seems to me that we sing together for the purpose of transforming ourselves and transforming the world.

About a year ago, I read Bernice Johnson Reagon’s book, If You Don’t Go, Don’t Hinder Me. Now Dr. Bernice Johnson Reagon is someone for whom I have the deepest respect. I first came to know her as a singer and the founder of the a capella singing group Sweet Honey in the Rock, and I have respect for her fantastic voice and musicianship. But Dr. Reagon is also a scholar, and I respect her scholarship into African American music and folk traditions, and her work in the Smithsonian Institute in Washington, and the fact that she has been awarded a MacArthur “genius” grant. She is also a social activist, who first became active in the Civil Rights Movement in the 1960s and has never stopped fighting for social and racial justice — I believe I first heard her singing live at a 1978 rally in Washington, D.C., for the ill-fated effort of putting women’s rights in the U.S. constitution. So anyway, Bernice Johnson Reagon is one of my heroines.

Thus I was particularly struck by one thing in particular that she wrote in her book If You Don’t Go, Don’t Hinder Me. She said: “As a singing participant in the [Civil Rights] Movement, I began to notice how well the old songs we knew fit our current situation. Many of the freedom songs we sang we had learned as spirituals, sacred songs created by slaves. Our struggle against racism often found us reaching for connections with those who had during the nineteenth century fought to end slavery in this country.” When Bernice Johnson Reagon and other members of the Civil Rights Movement needed songs to lift them up during the long hard fight for civil rights, they were able to draw on their vast repertoire of spirituals, that is of sacred music that they learned in church.

Although I have been hanging around Unitarian Universalist churches all my life, I can’t say that I have such a vast repertoire of sacred songs to draw upon; but then, I don’t have a particularly good memory for music; I’d say I know less than a dozen songs from our hymnal by heart all the way through, if you don’t count the Christmas carols. However, most of the hymns that I do know all the way through tend to be the songs that are related to social justice and transforming the world. I know Holly Near’s “We Are a Gentle Angry People” by heart because years ago I sang it at pro-choice rallies. I know “We Shall Overcome” because when I was a child we had that song on Pete Seeger’s album of songs from the Civil Rights Movement, which we played over and over and over again. Of course I know “This Little Light of Mine,” which I probably learned in my Unitarian Universalist Sunday school, but which I know by heart because I have sung it at events like last year’s Christian Peace Witness for Iraq.

I wouldn’t be surprised if the same thing is true of many of you. Unitarian Universalists tend to be politically active, so even if you are new to Unitarian Universalism, chances are pretty good that you have run into such songs as “Gonna Lay Down My Sword and Shield,” a staple in the American peace movement, or “We Are a Gentle Angry People,” well-known at gay pride events, or “Lift Up Every Voice and Sing,” the African American national anthem, or “Step By Step the Longest March,” an old union song — and each of these songs is also in our gray hymnal. Singing songs like these is inherently a religious act, because it can help us to transcend our narrow selves and experience deep interconnection with other people and the entire universe. And singing has the power to help transform the world for the better, which is also an essentially religious act — at least, in my understanding of what religion is, or should be.

But this may not be entirely obvious as yet. So let me give you three examples of how singing can be transformative.

Let us begin with the most dramatic example of all: the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s, which has been called the “singingest movement ever.” And I’d like to give you a very specific example of how singing empowered people, how singing allowed people to draw strength from one another.

Candie Anderson was one of the people who got arrested during the sit-ins in Nashville, Tennessee, in February of 1960 — forty-eight years ago this month. She was an exchange student at Fisk University, a white student at a black university. The African Americans of Nashville had already begun to push at the segregationist policies and laws, and by the end of 1959, students were being trained in how to do direct non-violent protest. Then on February 1, 1960, off in Greensboro, North Carolina, four students from North Carolina Agricultural and Technical College sat down at that segregated Woolworth’s lunch counter, asked to be served, and got national press coverage. Their action galvanized the students in Nashville. On February 13, the Nashville students staged their first large-scale sit-ins, and they kept at it all month long.

Candie Anderson, that young white exchange student at Fisk University, wasn’t sure at first what she should do. She asked herself: “The biggest question for me was the rather lonely one of what can a white student do? What would my presence at the lunch-counter mean? Would I alienate and enrage the community to a greater extent than the Negro students? Or would it whos that this is more than a Negro problem? I didn’t know….” She decided that she was going to stand in solidarity with her black friends and fellow students, and she, too, participated in the sit-ins.

By February 27, the white segregationists started to fight back. When the students from Fisk and other area colleges staged a sit-in, this time they were met with violence, and more than eighty students were arrested. Candie Anderson and a few of the other white students who were participating in the sit-ins also were arrested — but when they got to the prison, she had a shock awaiting her. Here’s what she wrote about it:

“We were crammed into a narrow hallway to await booking and I studied the faces around me. Many were calm and serious, some were relaxed… a few were really frightened. But there was a unity — a closeness beyond proximity. It was a shock then to be suddenly removed from this large coherent group and thrust into a lonely cell with only one other girl, the only other white female. We protested and inquired why we could not join the large group of Negro girls across the hall. The entire jail was segregated…. The contact which became more real then was vocal. Never have I heard such singing. Spirituals, pop tunes, hymns, and even old slurpy love songs all became so powerful. The men sang to the women and the girls and the girls down the hall answered them. They shouted over to us to make sure we were joining in…. We sang a good part of our eight hour confinement that first time. The city policemen seemed to enjoy the singing….” [Sing for Freedom, Guy and Candie Carawan, p. 22.]

This is part of what Bernice Johnson Reagon means when she says, “the songs were a way of coming together, holding each other and proclaiming our determination as citizens to fight racism in this land of our birth.” Songs have the power to draw people together, to unify them in an expression of truth and beauty. Songs help us express our deepest commitments in a way that can make them understandable even by those who oppose us: Candie Anderson wrote that on the date of the first trials in Nashville, as the students were going into the courthouse, she saw something remarkable. She wrote: “I looked out at the curb where the police were patrolling, and caught one big burly cop leaning back against his car, singing away [about] “Civil Rights”… He saw me watching him, stopped abruptly, turned, and walked to the other side of the car.” [Ibid., p. 24] So wrote Candie Anderson. And this is precisely what the poet William Congreave meant when he said, “Music has charms to soothe the savage breast,/ To soften rocks, or to bend a Knotted Oak.”

Let me give you another example of how songs transformed the world. This story takes place in central Europe after the First World War, when the Czech and Slovak people were finally allowed to form the new country of Czechoslovakia, after having been dominated by the Austrian Empire for centuries. The Austrians had imposed Roman Catholicism on the Czechs and the Slovaks, but as soon as Czechoslovakia was liberated from Austrian domination, the citizens of this new country began to form their own churches.

Norbert and Maja Capek were two Czech people who had fled their homeland because of the Austrians. They had both become Unitarians while in the United States. When Czechoslovakina independence came, Norbert and Maja Capek returned to their new country, and they started a Unitarian church, because they felt that the principles of religious freedom inherent in Unitarianism were perfect for their new country. So they started a Unitarian church in Prague, and in fifteen years it became the largest Unitarian church in the world.

One of the difficulties they faced in starting their own church was what songs they should sing. The old songs from the Catholic tradition came with memories of political domination; they needed new songs for their new religion. So Norbert began writing songs for his church; he wrote hundreds of songs; and some of his songs became so popular that they entered into the folk music of the land, and they are still sung today in the Czech Republic.

When the Nazis invaded Czechoslovakia, the Capeks decided that Maja would leave for the United States, where she could raise money for relief efforts; so she came here, and as it happens she wound up living the New Bedford, and became the minister of the old North Unitarian church in our city. Norbert stayed in Czechoslovakia, and he was quickly imprisoned by the Nazis. At first, he was held in Dresden prison; and while he was there, to keep up his spirits, and the spirits of the others whom the Nazis had imprisoned, he wrote songs. Let me read you an English translation of one of the songs he wrote in Dresden prison:

“In the depth of my soul
There where lies the source of strength
Where the divine and the human meet,
There, quiet your mind, quiet, quiet.
Outside let lightning reign,
Horrible darkness frighten the world.
But from the depths of your own soul
From that silence will rise again
God’s flower.
Return to your self,
Rest in your self,
Live in the depths of your soul
Where the divine and the human meet….
There is your refuge.”

I would like to tell you that Norbert Capek’s songs gained his release from prison, but such is not the case: he died in Dachau prison camp in 1942. This is a story that does not have a happy ending. But while his songs did not gain his release from prison, I feel sure that they did gain him some measure of inner freedom, inner comfort and peace. And the songs that he wrote over the course of his life did leave a lasting legacy: his songs transformed individuals, and his songs helped to transform a national culture.

This is a remarkable thing: that a song, something completely insubstantial and evanescent, can change people

In the second reading this morning, we heard one possible explanation of why this is so. In the second reading, Nick Page, a singer, choral director, and composer, tells us that we are all interconnected, and we are interconnected with the entire earth. Nick tells us that while he is singing with other people, he gets a deep feeling of that interconnectedness, and that even afterwards (he says): “The sense of harmony and connectedness remains. This feeling of being connected to everything is an incredible feeling — truly transcending. We walk in beauty, in harmony with the world around us.”

So says Nick Page, and I think he’s right. Nick talks about how singing can literally transform us at a biological level. For a very crude example, I would point out that one reason we sing a song right before the sermon is so that we can all stand up and get some oxygen into our lungs, which means it is less likely that any of us will fall asleep during the sermon. There are also physical phenomena in singing that physically affect our biological beings. Additionally, songs help us to encounter the beauty and mystery of this world, songs can open to us the wonder of the universe. The act of singing transforms us physically, biologically, emotionally, and spiritually.

Singing transforms us, but singing may be an endangered species. Rather than sing yourself, it’s so much easier to sit back and check out music videos on YouTube, or plug into your iPod’s earphones. And if you do sing yourself, you don’t have to sing directly to other people: you can go off by yourself and record your singing, or you can sing through a microphone; both of which are fine things to do, but what is lost in those cases is the direct contact between singers, or between a singer and an audience. Part of the sacred beauty of singing arises when you hear it directly, unmediated by any electronics; because even the best electronics attenuate the highest overtones, even the best electronics change the music subtly so that it doesn’t have the same physical and emotional effect on us. If you’re a listener, much of music’s power comes from being face-to-face with the musician, and a live performance that is technically flawed but where you connect directly with another person is far more powerful than any recording, or any amplification can be.

I’ll give you an example of what I mean: Sometimes when I stand here and sing a hymn while Randy is playing the organ, I suddenly find myself literally resonating with the notes of our organ. The organ and the human body produce sound in very similar ways, similar enough that you can find your lungs and throat vibrating in sympathetic vibration to the organ. And when you are singing with other people, when you really get in tune with the other people, if you listen carefully you will hear a whole world of overtones opening up in the music. And when we are singing with the marimba, as we are doing today, the sound of the marimba fills this room, and when we sing along, we are drawn up into the sound.

What I am describing of course are moments of transcendence: when we transcend ordinary experience and become aware of how we are interconnected with the universe. When I go to church, I hope for those moments of transcendence; I don’t always get them, but I hope for them. There are moments of passive transcendence, as when we sit and listen to transcendently beautiful music; but what I value most are the moments of active transcendence, when I am an active participant in transcending.

This is why I think we sing in church: to experience little moments of transcendence. This does not imply that we must sing as well as Billie Holliday or Placido Domingo or Paul McCartney. The students from Fisk University who sang in the Nashville jail weren’t professional singers, but their singing helped them to transcend their situation. Norbert Capek was not a great singer, but his songs helped him and others to transcend Dresden prison.

And this is equally true of ordinary people in ordinary life today. Perhaps you read the article in last week’s Sunday New York Times, describing song circles or community singalongs — many of which happen to meet in Unitarian Universalist churches — these are groups of ordinary people who come together to sing, and when these ordinary people sing together, so the article said, something extraordinary can happen. In our culture today, we are taught to be passive consumers of music; but when we sing together, we are no longer mere passive consumer: we are creating something ourselves. That means we are resisting the forces that seek to make us less than human and oppress us by turning us into mere consumers; but when we sing together, we find that we are fully human and spiritual beings who transcend mere consumerism.

Singing is an ordinary act, it is something babies do without thinking about it. But singing together is also transcendent. By transcending the ordinary, we wing as a path to liberation:– both spiritual liberation, and literal liberation from the oppressive forces that seek to dominate us. We sing to know our interconnectedness:– in a world where there is so little community, where we are fragmented by race, age, class, singing can serve to build connections between us. The singer Holly Near says: We are singing for our lives. We are indeed.

300th Anniversary Celebration

The sermon below was preached by Rev. Dan Harper at First Unitarian Church in New Bedford as part of a special worship service anticipating the three hundredth anniversary of the establishment of the congregation. As usual, the sermon below is a reading text. The actual sermon as preached contained ad libs, interjections, and other improvisation. Sermon copyright (c) 2008 Daniel Harper.

Readings

The first reading was read by Honorable Scott Lang, Mayor of New Beddford.

The first reading is an act of the General Court of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts that is the first written record of the establishment of the congregation which became First Unitarian Church in New Bedford:

[1st SESS.] PROVINCE LAWS (Resolves, etc.). — 1708-9.
CHAPTER 8.

Legislative Records of the Council, viii., 360
Executive Records of the Council, iv., 566.

VOTE FOR PROVIDING A MINISTER FOR DARTMOUTH. £. 60, PER ANNUM, ALLOW’D AS A SALARY FOR MR SAMLL HUNT.

WHEREAS it has bin reported & represented to this Court, at a Session in the Year past, by her Majesties Justices of the Court of General Sessions of the Peace for the County of Bristol sitting in Court, That the Town of Dartmouth within the said County, having been several Times presented, & complained of for not Providing them selves of a Minister, as by Law is directed, And that the necessary Orders by them made thereupon, as by Law they are impower’d, not being duly observed, but eluded, and render’d ineffectual for Remedy thereof, They remaining destitute of such a Minister; And Mr Samuel Hunt Minister having been lately treated & prevailed with to go, & reside there, & serve them in the Work of the Ministry;

Resolved that the said Mr Hunt be sent to the said Town of Dartmouth to be their Minister, And that Provision be made by this Court as the Law directs, for his honourable Support & Maintenance.

And that the Sum of Sixty Pounds be allowed as a Salary for the said Minister for the Year ensuing, And in Case his Abode there shall be for less Time, in the same Proportion. [Passed June 8.

The second reading was read by Rev. Bette McClure, pastor of the First Congregational Church in Fairhaven.

The covenant of “The Second Church in New Bedford” (now Fairhaven Congregational Church) was written in 1794, doubtless under the influence Dr. Samuel West, when the Second Church amicably separated from the mother church in Acushnet. We no longer have the original church covenant, so this represents the earliest covenant still in existence.

“We whose names are hereunto subscribed, having been called to the Faith and Fellowship of the Gospel, do in the first place humbly acknowledge ourselves unworthy of so great a favor, and desire with all the heart to adore and admire that free rich grace of his, which triumphs over so great unworthiness: and we desire in an humble reliance on the grace of God promised in the Gospel to all those who sincerely trust in Him, thankfully to lay hold on his covenant and to choose the things that please Him.

“We declare our serious belief of the Christian religion, as contained in the sacred Scriptures, which we own as the only test and standard of Christian faith and practice. We heartily resolve and engage, by Divine assistance, to conform our lives to the rules of God’s holy word so long as we live in the world. We give ourselves up to the Lord Jehovah, and avouch Him this day to be our God and Father, through Jesus Christ, and receive Him as the everlasting portion of our souls. We give ourselves up to Jesus Christ, and receive him as the great head of the church, and rely on him as our Prophet, Priest, and King, and trust in his grace to bring us to eternal blessedness. We acknowledge the Holy Ghost as our comforter and guide. We acknowledge ourselves to be under the most sacred obligation to glorify God by a strict conformity to all his laws and ordinances, and particularly in the duties of a Church state and body of people associated for obedience to Him in all the ordinances of the gospel, depending on his gracious assistance for the faithful discharge of the duties thus incumbent on us. We do promise by the help of divine grace to walk together as a Church of the Lord Jesus Christ in the faith and order of the gospel, so far as the same shall be made known unto us; conscientiously attending the public worship of God, the ordinances of the Gospel, viz. Baptism and the Lord’s Supper, the discipline of the church, and all Christ’s holy institutions and ordinances in communion with one another, carefully avoiding sinful stumbling blocks and contentions as becomes Disciples of Christ, united in the bonds of Love and Fellowship. — We do also by baptism present our offspring with us unto the Lord.

“And this we do in a reliance on the atoning blood of Jesus Christ for the pardon of our sins, humbly praying that the great Shepherd of the the Sheep would prepare and strengthen us to every good work to do his will, working within us that which is well pleasing in his sight. To whom be glory for ever and ever, Amen.”

Sermon — “Forward through the Ages”

Three hundred years ago, Massachusetts Puritan congregations were governed by two distinct bodies. On the one hand, there was the church: the church was concerned with matters of the spirit, and had charge of the worship services and communion. On the other hand, the town government had control over such practical matters as paying the minister’s salary and maintaining the meetinghouse.

But most of the people who lived in the old town of Dartmouth — remember that the old town of Dartmouth included what we now know as Westport, Dartmouth, New Bedford, Fairhaven, Acushnet, and parts of other towns — most of the people who lived here were not Puritans; they had little interest in having their town tax dollars support a church that they would not attend. And so, as we heard in the first reading, the Great and General Court of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts decided on June 8, 1708, to establish a government-sanctioned Puritan church in Dartmouth, by voting that an orthodox Puritan minister be settled here. This act of the state legislature represents the oldest extant written record of our congregation.

I’m sure you noticed this was not a voluntary matter for the town of Dartmouth: the Massachusetts state legislature was going to give them a minister whether they liked it or not. Nor did town residents have a choice in which minister they would get: Samuel Hunt having been prevailed upon to go and serve as minister in Dartmouth, the state legislature resolved that he should be sent here. The Massachusetts Puritans wanted their colony to be a shining example to the rest of the world of the integration of religion into civic life; and they were resolved that Dartmouth should shine as well, whether or not Dartmouth wanted to.

There was also a spiritual beginning for our church, about which we have no written record. In those days, New England Puritan congregations each had a covenant, a document that stated the conditions for admission to membership in the church. Such a covenant would be the written record of the beginning of spiritual side of our church, but that document has been lost; all we have is the oral tradition that a few Puritan families began meeting together as early as 1696. The second reading, written by the church members in 1794, represents the oldest extant covenant that we have.

And perhaps you noticed that the covenant was a voluntary agreement. It begins with this phrase: “We whose names are hereunto subscribed, having been called to the Faith and Fellowship of the Gospel,…” — which is to say, you decided whether or not you wished to sign the covenant. You did not have to sign it; you were perfectly welcome to attend worship services if you did not sign it; signing it was a voluntary act.

Religion has to do with the eternal and permanent, but looking back over three hundred years of our church history I am also aware of how much of our religion is evanescent and impermanent. I would not want to be a part of the old 18th century Puritan church;– I would not want to listen to three-hour sermons; I am not comfortable with the wording of the old covenant; I would not wish to be a part of a government-sanctioned church. But I am also aware that our congregation has kept coming back to certain eternal and permanent truths: the truth that we should organise around a voluntary agreement; the truth that we want to serve as a shining example to the world so that we may make the world a better place.

We have changed again and again. We have had to change; the world has changed around us. Our task is to sort through all the changes to find that which is permanent and eternal.

By the mid-19th century, First Unitarian Church (then known as First Congregational Society, Unitarian) was a wealthy church. The church grew in wealth and influence in the middle 1820’s, when a number of wealthy Quakers left New Bedford Friends Meeting to be a part of this congregation. By the time we built this building in 1838, the congregation paid cash for it, and had surplus cash left over when the builders were paid off. Following the Civil War, during the long tenure of William Potter as minister, the pews in this church were filled with wealthy and influential people through the early 20th century. Mr. Potter, being concerned with the health of this city, has been credited by some with convincing some of the wealthy men in this congregation to move their capital out of the whaling industry, and into textile mills. This admirable act of persuasion helped create new jobs that allowed New Bedford to remain prosperous even as the whaling industry collapsed. But this act of persuasion also shows how, at that moment in our history, we stood at the center of power, money, and influence in this city.

Contrast that with the experience of First Universalist Church, who were never at the center of power, money, and influence. In the 1830’s and 1840’s, the members of First Universalist and their minister, John Murray Spear, were ardent abolitionists. People like Nathan Johnson, who was active in the Underground Railroad, belonged to that church. They were so ardent in their abolitionism, that they upset some of the powerful men who ran the city (some of whom were Unitarians), and who favored a gradual end to slavery that wouldn’t upset the economy too much. But the Universalists were such ardent abolitionists that John Murray Spear was eventually chased out of town for being too much of an abolitionist. Though not at the center of power, the Universalists still worked for positive change.

During much of the 19th century, First Unitarian was filled with wealthy and influential people; First Unviersalist was not. This was only a quirk of fate, an evanescent and impermanent state of affairs. But both First Unitarian and First Universalist aimed to make the world a better place — the one by providing jobs and improving the economy; the other by ending the moral outrage of slavery — and that passion for positive change is what is permanent and enduring.

Let’s move forward in time three quarters of a century, to 1958, when we celebrated our 250th anniversary. The 1950’s in the United States were a strange time for churches. The historian Lawrence Cremin has called it the period of Civic Religion:– a time when everyone knew that a sort of generic Protestant Christianity was the civic religion of the land. The prayers that were said in schools were Protestant prayers; all our presidents were Protestants. My friend Mike Durrall tells the story of an American town in the 1950’s where the residents voted to decide who was the town’s best Christian; and the only Jew living in town won the vote.

During the 1950’s, churches that seemed even vaguely Protestant filled up with people. You didn’t have to advertise your Protestant church; individuals and families voluntarily showed up and joined the church. In 1957, our church experienced its highest attendance since the Depression. We averaged over 140 adults in the main worship service every Sunday; and about 80 children and 10 adult teachers in Sunday school; for a total of some 230 people. Many United States churches recorded their highest attendance in the mid-1950’s.

By 1967, ten years later, the average attendance of First Unitarian was half what it had been in 1957. Our attendance has generally declined ever since. Nor are we alone: most American churches have declined in attendance ever since the 1950’s; indeed, we are doing better than the majority.

We can no longer assume that people will just show up at church; nor can we assume that once they find their way here they will know how to get involved, or even what to do once they come through the front door. That was merely an evanescent and impermanent social truth of the 1950’s, which has now dissolved. Yet we continue to adhere to the permanent and eternal truth that membership in our church must be voluntary; we refuse to coerce people into joining our church, even if that means a decline in attendance.

Now let us move forward in time to 2008, the year of our three hundredth anniversary. In this postmodern age, we are in the middle of another set of social changes that once again is forcing us to change the way we do church: forcing us to find new ways to embody the eternal and permanent.

Let me give you one small example of what I mean. Over the past two years, the Religious Services Committee and I have been experimenting with new ways of conducting worship services. In initiating these changes, I had been inspired by the innovations of the Emergent Church movement.

The Emergent Church movement started when a number of evangelical Christians realized that an entire generation of Americans, Generation X, was drifting away from church. The majority of Gen-Xers were steeped in a postmodern mindset that questioned authority; questioned absolutes and demanded multiple points of view; was more interested in aesthetics than ontology; and loved the feeling of ancient and medieval religious forms. And so the Emergent Church movement created worship services that questioned authority by bringing the preacher out of the unassailable pulpit and down on the floor among the congregation; included many voices in the worship service, not just the preacher’s voice, to present more than one point of view; emphasized the arts and new media rather than systematic theology; and brought the feel of ancient and medieval religion into their services. And because the Emergent Church movement knew that Gen-Xers did not grow up in churches, they explained every element of the worship service.

I had been inspired by this Emergent Church movement, and the Religious Services Committee and I started using some their ideas in our worship services. We brought the minister out of the pulpit for parts of the service. We began using worship associates, so you’d hear more than just one voice. We’re working on including more arts in worship: poetry, and fabric arts, and lighting up our Tiffany mosaic, and putting art on the cover of the order of service. Fortunately, we already have this neo-Gothic building, so we already have that medieval feeling. And we have begun explaining every element of the worship service.

None of this has changed the eternal and permanent truths of religion; indeed, all these changes in our worship service are evanescent and impermanent, and will be swept away by future changes. But in the mean time, we have begun to attract people in their 20’s and 30’s to our worship services; and our average attendance this past fall was up 20 percent.

We are in the middle of many changes right now. Change never ceases. It is easy to get lost in the changes. We look back over our three hundred year history, and witness all the changes:– the change from the old Calvinist theology to our current religious naturalism; the change from the three-hour Puritan sermons, to our current worship services filled with music and the arts; the change from being a church of the wealthy and elite, to our current diverse church with people from all economic strata and from different races and ethnicities — we witness all these changes, and wonder what remains constant.

At least two things have remained constant. First, we are organized around a voluntary agreement, a covenant. This lies at the core of who we are: religion must be voluntary, not coercive.

And secondly, like that old Puritan church, we too try to be an example to the rest of the world. We aim to make this world a better place, to make this world into a kind of heaven on earth.

In closing, let me mention two ways we aim to make this world a better place. First, we aim to fight the discrimination that continues to pervade our society. Following the example of old First Universalist Church, we aim to fight the ongoing racial and ethnic discrimination that is a legacy of slavery in the U.S., and model a truly multi-racial community here. We stand up for the equality of men and women, and we do this in a city which continues to be a very sexist place. We stand up for the rights of gay and lesbian persons, so that recently we were in the middle of the fight for equal marriage rights. All this we do as an expression of the eternal and permanent religious truth that all persons have equal dignity and worth. And as we build common bonds among diverse groups of people, we find ourselves to be well-placed to take on another huge moral problem facing our era:– and that is the devastation wrought by global climate change — both the ecological and economic devastation, a devastation that is already having a greater impact on the poor and on communities of color.

Bound together by our voluntary covenant, we can move forward through the ages:– we acknowledge and celebrate the past, but we can leave that which is evanescent and impermanent behind. Bound together by our voluntary covenant, we shall continue to take up new moral and ethical problems, as we engage the changes in the society around us, and try to bring about a heaven here on earth.

Ralph Waldo Emerson Speaks

Worship service conducted by Rev. Dan Harper at First Unitarian Church in New Bedford. See note below.

Readings

The first reading is from Ellen Tucker Emerson’s biography of her mother, Lidian Jackson Emerson. In this passage, Ellen describes the first time her mother saw Ellen’s father, in 1829 :

“On one Sunday when Mother was in Boston she went to Dr. Barrett’s church at Chambers St. and had a seat at the side of the pulpit. When she looked at the minister she was struck by his long neck, she didn’t know a human being could have a neck so long. He began the service. When church was over she found herself leaning eagerly forward, and as she looked back on the whole dear and beautiful service, and noticed that she now felt tired of her position, she made up her mind that she must have taken that position when the minister said his first words and had been too much absorbed to move from beginning to end. She inquired who the preacher was and was told it was Ralph Waldo Emerson….”

Second reading —

I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Marvellous are thy works; and that my soul knoweth right well.

[Psalms 139.14]

Sermon

This is a re-creation of a sermon preached by Ralph Waldo Emerson. Please read the “Note on the sermon” below.

Everybody knows that he is wonderfully made. And yet it will occur sometimes to a thoughtful mind as strange, that we do not continually break out into expressions of astonishment at ourselves. When an Asiatic prince came to Paris and was asked what seemed to him most surprising in that capital, he replied “to find himself there.” With better reason, a man might say that, to himself, his own existence in the world was more amazing than any other fact. I believe almost no few person does perceive the exceeding strangeness of their own constitution, and yet it is more wondrous than any fiction that was ever conceived. “Truth is strange — stranger than fiction.”

The proposition that “we are wonderfully made,” is applied by people generally to the external condition of men and admitted without debate and without afterthought. And surely our external constitution is ingenious enough to justify the expression.

The fine contrivance in every part of our frame, the perfect fitting of the members, the admirable working of the whole machine transcend all praise : Then, the fitness of man to the earth; and his peaceful dwelling among the cattle, the birds, and the fish, turning the earth into his garden and pleasure ground, the round of the seasons, and the universal order of the plants, is all set down in the books. The external fitness is wonderful indeed ; — but I doubt if to those who saw this only it would have ever occurred (in the first instance) to remark upon the marvel. It has been said with some ingenuity of conjecture that “without the phenomenon of sleep, we should be atheists” ; because, if we had no experience of the interruption of the activity of the Will, “we would never be brought to a sense and acknowledgment of its dependence on the Divine Will.” With more assurance it may be said of the things apprehended by the senses, that they are so nicely grooved into one another that the sight of one suggests the next preceding and this the next before, that the understanding would run forever in the round of second causes, so that we see men go through life and die without surprise, but that the Reason sometimes grows impatient of the narrow circlet, and demands tidings of the First Cause. Were there not graver considerations to be remembered, there is something almost comic in seeing such a creature as is a man growing up with perfect senses and faculties, and going in and out for seventy years amid the shows of nature and of humanity making up his mouth every day to express all degrees of surprise at every impertinent trifle, and never suspecting all the time that it is even remarkable he should exist.

But superficial views will not always satisfy us. It will not always suffice us to ask why this bone is thus terminated and be answered that it may fit that socket, or why is this animal thus configured, and be answered that the residence and the food of the animal requires such frame but the question starts up and almost with terror within us, why the animal or any animal exists? to what farther end its being has regard beyond this nice tissue of neighboring facts? Why organization, why order exist? Nay, why this interrogator exists, and what he is?

Indeed if you will steadily contemplate the bare fact of your existence as a man, it is one of such bewildering, astonishment that it seems it were the part of reason to spend one’s lifetime in a trance of wonder — altogether more rational to lift one’s hands in blank amaze — than to assume the least shadow of dogmatism or pride.

I say these things because I think that man has not yet arrived at a just perception of his own position and duties in the Creation, who is not yet alive to the miracle that surrounds him. “Let others wrangle,” said the pious Augustine, “I will wonder.” It is related of the wisest man in the ancient world, the Athenian Socrates, that on one occasion he stopped short in his walk and stood stock still in a fast contemplation from sunset to sunrise in a rapture of amazement.

But we may be conscious of the mystery without always saying so. Certainly ; and a man might be well forgiven his omission to express his admiration of that which is, if his employments indicated any sense of his powers and relations.

But see the oddity of his demeanor. This little creature set down, he knows not how, amid all the sublimities of the moving universe, sharp-sighted enough to find out the movement not only of the sphere he inhabits but of all the spheres in the depths around him ; and not only so, but capable by the subtle powers of intellect and affection of acting upon remote men as upon himself : Yes, and from his little hour extending the arms of his influence through thousands of years, and to millions of millions of rational men : Nay, by means of virtue of entering instantly upon a life that seems to make the whole grandeur of the Creation pale and visionary : — Yet this little creature, quite unmindful of these vast prerogatives, struts about with immense activity to procure various meats to eat, and stuffs to wear, and most of all salutations and marks of respect from his fellows. He seems to think it quite natural he should be here, and things should be as they are, — so natural, as not to deserve a second thought : And the moment he has got a neat house to sit down and to eat and to sleep in, he is so possessed with a sense of his importance, that he not only thinks he deserves much more attention than if he knew the whole order of the creation, but he expects confidently great deference from his fellow men.

We go so gravely about our ordinary trifling employments that we are apt to lose the sense of the absurdity of much that we do. We allow by acquiescence a man that has more houses and ships and farms than his neighbors, to assume consequence in his manners on that ground. Although we know very well, when we ponder the matter, that if instead of a few thousand acres of land, or a score of ships or houses, he owned the entire property of the civilized world, he would be as much in the dark, as mortal, and as insufficient to himself as he is now. He could not then solve not so much as one word of the vast mystery that envelopes us ; he would not have a particle more of real power. In the great All, he would be the very insect he is now.

Yet the extent and consistency of the world’s farce keeps each particular puppet in countenance, and we go on in the universal hunt for station and real estate and horses and coaches and ships and stocks and attentions and compliments, hiding the vanity of the whole thing in the confusion of the particulars. Is it not as if one should have a nest of a hundred boxes, and nothing in the last box?

And hence the wise laughter of the ancient philosopher Democritus who made a jest of all human society and pursuits. No wise man he said could keep his countenance in view of such utter folly.

There is much that is ludicrous in the solemnity with which we labor year after year until we fall sick and die in the work of taking a little from that heap and adding it to this other which we are pleased to call mine. We have no leisure to laugh, we are so intent upon the work. We keep each other in countenance and as all are agreed to consider it in the ludicrous language of the world “the main chance,” the nonsense of the whole thing is carefully kept out of sight.

But why call it ludicrous? Is it not necessary that we acquire property? –Assuredly it is. Let us carefully distinguish between wisdom and folly. We are of an animal constitution and have animal wants, which must be supplied and indispensably demand continual exertion. This whole matter of commerce, — a net woven round every man — grows out of it and it is good that every man should do his part ; and one sow the field, and one weave the cloth, and one draw the contracts, and one plough the sea, and one build the ship, one throw the harpoon. There’s much that is wonderful but nothing that is ludicrous in this simply considered.

The ludicrous part of it is in the acting as if it were the ultimate end ; just that for which we lived ; and the entire oversight of the end for which this is only means. The proud man, the sensualist, the denier of divine power, the avaricious, the selfish : — By such earthworms the wonder of our being is not perceived, they are merely the highest class of animals, and like ants and horses and elephants, they do not perceive anything extraordinary in their life.

And what remedy? What can save us from this capital error, or repair it? The exercise of Reason, the act of reflection redeems a man at once out of this brutishness; the man who reflects is a man, and not an animal. I take it to be a main object of that education which this world administers to each soul, to touch the springs of wonder in us, and make us alive to the marvel of our condition. That done, all is done. Before, he was so wrongheaded, so at discord with things around him, that he was ridiculous : now, he is at one with all. He accepts his lot : he perceives the great astonishment. He adores. Awaked to truth and virtue, he perceives the wonder he did not perceive before. The chief wonders of the human condition begin with the act of reason.

Let me, for more accurate consideration, separate a few of the particulars that amaze the contemplative spirit.

See how cunningly constructed are all things in such a manner as to make each being the centre of the Creation. You seem to be a point or focus upon which all objects, all ages, concentrate their influence : nothing past but affects you ; nothing remote but through some means reaches you. Every superficial grain of sand may be considered as the fixed point round which all things revolve, so intimately is it allied to all, and so truly do all turn as if for it alone. This is true to the least leaf or moss.

Who has ever selected one individual from the annual reproduction of nature without profoundest astonishment? — Who has not seen the summer blackberry lifting his polished surface a few inches from the ground without wondering : How did that little chemist extract from the sandy soil the spices and sweetness it has concocted in its cells? The whole creation has been at the cost of its nurture. A globe of fire near a hundred millions of miles distant in the great space has been flooding it with light and heat as if he shone for no other. It is six or seven months that the sun has made the tour of the heavens every day over this little sprout before it could bear its fruit. The sea has evaporated its countless tuns of water into the atmosphere that the rain of heaven might wet the roots of this little vine. The elastic air exhaled from all creatures and all minerals and yielded the small pensioner the gaseous aliment it required. The earth by the attraction of its mass determined its form and size ; and when we consider how the earth’s attraction is fixed this moment in equilibrium by the innumerable attractions, on every side, of distant bodies, we shall see that the summer blackberry’s form and history is determined by causes and agents the most prodigious and remote.

What then shall we say of the manner in which one man is made the center round which all things revolve and upon which all things scatter gifts? Let us take one from the crowd — not one of the sons of prosperity but a poor solitary virtuous man who is capable of reflection.

He stands on the top of the world : he is the centre of the horizon. Morning and Evening lavish their sweetness and their solemnity upon his senses; summer and winter bring to him the instruction of their harvests and their storms. All that he sees and hears, gives him a lesson. Do not the ages that are past record their experience for his tuition, and millions and millions of rational spirits epitomize their fate for his behoof? Is he not continually moved to joy or grief by things said a thousand years ago? He understands them. His soul embraces the act or the sentiment, as if it were done or said for him only. Is not his condition different for every one of the men that has acted upon the world? See how much Luther ; — see how much Calvin, Newton, Columbus, have affected his condition ; — and all the inventors of arts. Do they not give him the unshared total benefit of their wisdom? Does not Socrates, Solomon, Bacon, and Shakespeare counsel him alone? Does not Jesus live for him only? Does not God exist for him only? — and Right, and Wrong, and Wisdom, and Folly? — and the whole of Pleasure ; and of Pain ; and all the Heaven of thought ; — Are they not all poured into his bosom as if the world had no other child?

And this perfect world exists thus entire to every man, to the poorest drover in the mountains, the poorest laborer in his ditch. Quite independent of his work, are his wonderful endowments. There is enough in him, (granting that he is capable of thought and virtue) to puzzle and outwit all our philosophy. The history of one man, inasmuch as it is searching and profound, is as valuable as the history of a nation. Thoroughly acquaint me with the heart of one living man, though the humblest — and what can Italy or England teach me more, with all their wars and all their laws? Sharpen the insight of these obtuse perceptions of ours and show us the motives, the fancy, the affection, the distorting and coloring lenses that pauper makes use of, and the redeeming power that still sets him right after countless errors, and that promises him a kingdom of heaven whilst he shuffles about in his field; and we shall be able to do without Tacitus, Hume, and Clarendon.

Thus, in the first place, is each man placed in the focus, at the heart of the world. But that is only half of his power. That is merely to receive influence. He receives only to impart. He is appointed to action. He is an active being and is not designed to be an idle eye before which Nature passes in panorama but is by his action enabled to learn the irresistible properties of moral nature perceived only by the mind as laws difficult to be grasped or defined yet everywhere working out their inevitable results to the last jot and tittle in human affairs, whereupon if a man fall it will grind him to powder. There is nothing in material nature, certainly nothing in fiction, so splendid and perfect as the law of compensations, — the law according to which not an act is done by any moral being draws after it its inevitable fruit which no chance and no art can elude.

The Creation is so majestically woven that nothing can do him any mischief but himself ; an invisible immortal fence surrounds his whole being, which forever defends him from all harm he wills to resist; that the whole Creation cannot bend him whilst he stands upright ; but on the other hand that every act of his, is judged not hereafter; but instantaneously judged and rewarded : that the lightning loiters by the speed of Retribution ; that every generous effort impulse of his is to its full amount compensated by the instant enlargement and ennobling of his soul ; that his patience disarms calamity ; his love brightens the sun ; his purity destroys temptation ; — Whilst falsehood is a foolish suicide and is never believed ; selfishness separates itself from the happy human family idleness whips itself with discontent ; malice multiplies foes. So that ever it seems, as some have maintained, that he is solicited by good and by evil spirits and that he gives himself up to them whose bidding he does and they labor continually to make him more entirely their own, and induce him and confirm his last action by repetition and by fresh energy of the same kind.

To open to ourselves, to open to others these laws — is it not worth living for, to make the slavish soul acquainted with the mighty secrets of its own power? — that by self-renouncement a kingdom of heaven of which indeed he had no conception begins at once in his heart ; — by the high act of yielding his will, a total sacrifice, — that little individual heart becomes dilated as with the presence and inhabitation of the Spirit of God.

Shall I select a third trait of our human condition so wonderful, which only begins with reflection, that it turns all our evil to good? — Thus the moment Reason assumes its empire over a man, he finds that he has nothing low and injurious in him but it is, under this dominion, the root of power and beauty ; that which was debasing him, will now prove the very sinew of his character ; his petulance, is the love of order ; and out of his natural necessities grew this complex structure of civilization.

Nay what he blushes for, and reckons his weakness, because it is different from other men whom he admires, — the odds are, it is what he should throw himself on his knees and thank God for, as his crowning gift. For there is somewhat peculiar in every man, which is, on that account, apt to be neglected, but which must be let grow, and suffered to give direction to the other faculties, if he would attain his acme and be dear and honorable to his brethren. — He finds that whatever disadvantages he has labored under ; whatever uncommon exertions he has been called to make ; whatever poverty ; what sickness ; what unpopularity ; what mistake ; yes, even what deep sin he has been given up to commit ; when once his soul is awaked to truth and virtue, touched with the veneration of God, and stung with the insatiable desire of making every day his soul more perfect — then all these, the darkest worst calamities, the sorest sorrows, are changed, are glorified ; — he owns his deep debt to them and sees (with even rapture) the omnipresent energy of the God who transforms all things into the divine.

And what is this Admiration? What is it but a perception of his true position in the Universe and his consequent obligation. This is the whole moral and end of such views as I present. I desire a man to consider faithfully in solitude and silence the unknown nature within him, that he may not sink into his own contempt, and be a spectacle of folly to the Universe. I would have him open his eyes to true wonder, that he may never more be agitated by trifles. I would have him convinced that by the act of his own will alone can that which is most worth his study be disclosed to him. I would have him open his eyes to see that the unreflecting laborer is a brute ; that the reflecting laborer only is a man. Let him consider that all riches though convenient to the senses cannot profit himself ; but that a true thought, a worthy deed, puts him at once into harmony with the real and eternal. Let him consider that if he loves respect, he must seek it in what really belongs to a man and not in anything accidental such as fortune or appearance. Instead of making it his pride to be announced as a person of consideration in the state or in his profession, or in the fashionable world, or as a rich or a traveled or a powerful man, let him delight rather to make himself known in all companies by his action and by his discourse as one who has attained unto self-command ; one who has thought in earnest upon the questions of human duty ; one who carries with his presence the terrors and the beauty of justice ; and who, even in the moment when his friends ignorantly censure him, is privy to the virtuous action he has performed, and those he has in hand.

It is a maxim of state that that an ambassador carries his country with him, so that he and they who belong to him, are not amenable to the laws of the country where they reside, but to their own. The good man always carries his country with him. The miracle which his soul contemplates is so much more to him than all outward objects and events that wherever God is, there is he at home.

What is in this Admiration of which I speak? Is it not the fountain of religion in his soul? What is it but an acknowledgment of the incomprehensible? — not a sight only but a love and adoration of the Wisdom and Love which breathes through the Creation into the heart. What does the world inspire but a lofty Faith that all will be, that all is well, that the God who thus vouchsafes to reveal himself in all that is great and all that is lovely, will not forsake the child whom every hour and every event and memory and hope educate. What does it intimate but presages of an infinite and a perfect life? What but an assured Trust through all evil and danger and Death.

Why should we fear Disease, let it come in what unwanted forms it will? — when the soul has once awakened to duty and love no change that merely touches the body can affect its everlasting peace. It is defended and embosomed in the love of God.

Brethren, I aim in presenting these truths to awaken the divine spirit in us, not to specify single duties. If a man will admit these thoughts, will listen to the pleadings of God through the voice of Nature and the wonders of human life, he will then be not less but more disposed to a faithful performance of his specific duties. He will feel that though all else is visionary and may come to nothing, the love of God remains forever, that Duty which is God’s law is never one moment relaxed, and only in a sacred obedience to it in every moment in every alternative do we bring ourselves into unity and accord with good spirits and with God.

Note on the sermon

This sermon was originally preached by Rev. Ralph Waldo Emerson to the Unitarian congregation in New Bedford on September 7, 1834, in the old wood-frame Unitarian church that once stood on the corner of William and Purchase Streets.

Why Emerson was in New Bedford

From 1823 through 1834, Orville Dewey was the minister of the Unitarian church in New Bedford, then known as the First Congregational Society of New Bedford. Dewey was prone to overwork, and by 1833 had so worn himself down that he felt he needed to take several months away from his parish duties. He asked a number of other Unitarian ministers, including Ralph Waldo Emerson, to fill the pulpit while he was away.

In 1833, Emerson was at a crossroads in his life. His first wife was dead after they had been married only three years; then he had resigned as minister of Second Church in Boston, saying that he could no longer in good conscience preside at communion services (at that time a part of the liturgical life of all Unitarian churches); and then he had gone to Europe, where he had met Wordsworth, Thomas Carlyle, and other intellectuals, and had imbibed the heady atmosphere of Romanticism. When he returned to the United States in the fall of 1833, he needed money and so was pleased to be able to preach for an extended period in New Bedford.

Emerson was no stranger to New Bedford, having preached here for three Sundays in November, 1827. During the 1833-1834 season, Emerson preached more than a dozen Sundays to the Unitarian congregation in New Bedford : November 10 through December 8, 1833; January 26 through March 30, 1834 (though not on February 23 or March 2 when he was preaching to the Unitarian congregation in Plymouth, at which time he met Lydia Jackson Emerson, the woman who was to become his second wife); and finally on September 7, 1834. In those days, there were services on Sunday morning and evening, so Emerson preached approximately 30 sermons in New Bedford in 1833-1834. Of the sermons Emerson preached here for which we have texts, only one was delivered first in New Bedford; all the others were sermons he had previously preached to other Unitarian churches. But the sermon you will hear this morning is one that Emerson apparently wrote specifically for the New Bedford congregation.

The scholar Robert D. Richardson, Jr., tells us that in 1834 Emerson had at last reached his full maturity as a writer. Thus the Emerson who preached in New Bedford in 1834 had already arrived at his mature prose style, “an appropriate language for the direct statement of personal intuition” (Richardson, pp. 179-180). You can hear Emerson’s mature writing in this sermon.

Emerson after New Bedford

New Bedford wound up having a permanent effect on Emerson. While staying here in 1833-1834, he got to know Mary Rotch, a remarkable religious thinker in her own right. By 1833, Rotch, a Quaker by birth, had become a member of the Unitarian church after having been ejected from the city’s Quaker meeting for her too-liberal theology. Emerson met this profound and liberal thinker at a key moment in his intellectual life, and many scholars have pointed out his indebtedness to Rotch’s theology.

Emerson could have remained in the city, had he wished. Orville Dewey’s health had been so broken down that in 1834 he resigned as minister of the New Bedford congregation. The congregation asked Emerson to replace Dewey, but Emerson said that he could not in good conscience preside at the communion table, and that he could only offer a prayer if he happened to be moved to do so. Surely he knew this would be unacceptable, and of course the church balked at his terms. Instead of serving the Unitarian church in New Bedford, Emerson made the choice to devote himself to writing and lecturing. By October, 1834, Emerson was living in his grandfather’s house in Concord, Massachusetts, and writing the essays and poems that would first make him famous.

About the text of the sermon

The text of the sermon today is taken from The Complete Sermons of Ralph Waldo Emerson, Volume 4. Emerson rarely provided titles for his sermons, so this is known as sermon no. 169.

Sermon 169 exists in two variants, 169A and 169B. The Complete Sermons of Ralph Waldo Emerson offers both variants, but considers 169B to be the definitive version. Since 169A was the earlier version, the version he preached in New Bedford, I have generally chosen to preach the earlier, non-definitive, text, although I sometimes included material from the later sermon when that later material helped clarify the earlier version.

In The Complete Sermons of Ralph Waldo Emerson, 169A appears as an exact transcription from the manuscript, including deleted phrases, insertions, incomplete sentences, etc. No doubt Emerson could preach from such a text, since he knew what he wanted to say; however, I had to make many decisions between alternate words and phrases, and I have had omitted what seemed to me to be extraneous material. I have also modified punctuation in several places, to help me read the text. Thus, while I have done my best to stay true to Emerson’s original intent, the sermon you are hearing today is in fact my editorial creation.

Finally, it should be said that Emerson was a gifted preacher, a genius as a public speaker. My own ability as a speaker does not come close to his level. Yet sermons are meant to be spoken, not read; so while I cannot match his delivery it is always better to hear Emerson’s sermons read aloud than to merely read them in a book.

— Dan Harper

References

Allen, Gay Wilson. Waldo Emerson: A biography. Viking Press, 1991.
Emerson, Ellen Tucker. The life of Lydian Jackson Emerson. Ed. Delores Bird Carpenter. Michigan State University Press, 1992.
Emerson, Ralph Waldo. The Complete Sermons of Ralph Waldo Emerson, Volume 4. Ed. Wesley T. Mott; series editor, Albert J. Frank. University of Missouri Press, 1992.
Richardson, Robert D., Jr. Emerson: The mind on fire. University of California Press, 1995.