This sermon was preached by Rev. Dan Harper. As usual, the sermon below is a reading text. The actual sermon as preached contained ad libs, interjections, and other improvisation. Sermon copyright (c) 2005 Daniel Harper.
Readings
Readings for this sermon are not included here due to copyright restrictions.
Sermon — “All Souls”
Every year on the last weekend in June, I head off to General Assembly. General Assembly is the annual gathering and business meeting of our Unitarian Universalist Association. Unitarian Universalist congregations send their delegates and their ministers to participate in this annual business meeting. In addition to the business meeting, there are lots of lectures and workshops and presentations, many of which are fairly dull but some of which I have found to be very informative and even transformative. And of course, there is a big worship service on Sunday morning, where you usually get to hear one of Unitarian Universalism’s best preachers.
This year, the preacher at the Sunday worship service was a fellow named Robert Hardies. Rob is the senior minister of All Souls Unitarian Universalist church in Washington, D.C. All Souls is an urban congregation, racially diverse, with something like 600 members. My uncle grew up in All Souls, and he remembers when A. Powell Davies was the minister there — another great preacher, probably the last Unitarian minister who really had a national audience; congressmen and senators and judges were in the congregation then, and the Washington papers would hold their Monday editions until they got the text of Davies’s latest sermon. Rob Hardies is good enough that he may well follow A. Powell Davies as a great preacher who develops a national audience.
Something Rob Hardies said in that sermon got me thinking, and has kept me thinking. I looked back at my notes of the worship service, and find that I wrote this:
“Hardies pointed out that his church is named ‘All Souls.’ But, Hardies said, ‘can you imagine a church named ‘Some Souls’?” The congregation laughed, but then Hardies continued, ‘Isn’t that the de facto name of the dominant religions in America today? The good news that Unitarian Universalism must deliver to the world… the good news that has literally saved my life, is that a god who picks and chooses is not god at all, it is an idol,’ said Hardies. ‘We must preach the old Universalist gospel that all souls are invited to the welcome table.’ ” That’s what Rob Hardies said in his sermon.
If you have been coming to this church regularly this fall, you will probably have noticed by now that I do preach the old Universalist gospel that all souls are welcome here; that we know all souls are worthy of dignity and respect. I preach that, and I mean what I say, and so far none of you has criticized me for preaching that good old Universalist heresy.
In fact, when I see how you folks in the pews live out your daily lives, I see pervasive and compelling evidence that you, too, believe that all souls deserve our respect, deserve our love. For example: I was in this building on Wednesday night when The Women’s Center of greater New Bedford and Fall River held their annual vigil in memory of those who have died of domestic violence; and among the hundred or so people I saw four members and friends of this congregation here as a public witness of their commitment to break the cycle of domestic violence. They were here because they know that all persons are worthy of dignity and respect and love, and no one deserves to be hurt or abused. Another example: our congregation sends four or five people each month to spend a morning preparing and serving food at a local soup kitchen — because they know that all persons are worthy of dignity and respect and a hot meal, even if they don’t have a home or money to buy food. Still more examples: I hear story after story about how individuals in this congregation do quiet good deeds, because they know that all persons are worthy of dignity and respect and love. People in this congregation work quietly and steadily to transform this world into a place where all persons may receive the love and compassion and dignity they deserve.
You could even make the case that our congregation should change its name from “First Unitarian” — a name which doesn’t really describe who we are or what we do — to “All Souls,” because we are working to transform the world. You could make that case; but I am not going to make that case. You see, I think we here at First Unitarian have a slightly different mission to carry out this year. If we call ourselves “All Souls,” it will be because we welcome all souls right here in our congregation. Over the next twelve months, I believe that we are called upon to work on this congregation, we are called to spend a year making sure all souls are truly welcome here, among us.
We are a small congregation at the moment. We are averaging less than fifty people each week in our Sunday morning worship services. The number of active workers and lay leaders we currently have is about half that number. In terms of our numbers, we are a small church. Now in today’s United States culture, we usually think it is bad to be small; we’re supposed to like super-sized meals, big SUVs, and large congregations. So when I say that we’re a small church, you might feel a little depressed, you might have a sense of inferiority; but I want you to know there’s no reason to feel bad about being a small church. Just because a congregation is small doesn’t mean it is necessarily bad; no more than just because a congregation is big should you assume that it is good. My little Toyota Corolla is just as good as those big Hummer SUVs you see driving around, and a small congregation is just as good as a big congregation — just as good, but quite different. Just as good, but it’s also pretty clear that a congregation our size can not lay claim to the name “All Souls.”
This congregation used to be a fair-sized congregation. Back in the 1950s, the average attendance at worship hit 170 for a while. It’s important to remember that our numbers have been dropping ever since — average attendance at worship dropped below a hundred in the 1960’s, and it dropped below fifty sometime in the 1980’s. And that’s where it has stayed ever since, hovering around fifty people. Of course, there are also the “C and E” people — that’s the “Christmas and Easter” people, who show up at Christmas and Easter, and while there’s quite a few of them, they don’t really count. They rarely give much time to the congregation, and they typically give very little money in support of the congregation. We’re glad to have them as a part of the congregation, but we can’t count on them.
The people who show up for Sunday morning worship service are the ones whom we can really count on; and they’re the ones with the real power, too. Woody Allen said, “90% of life is showing up,” and by virtue of showing up, you people here today have far more influence than you may dream of; if you mention something to me, believe me, I pay attention. If you are here each week, you are part of the ongoing conversation about what’s important in this congregation, and what’s not. If you show up for worship, you are far, far more likely to be tapped for a leadership position — and you are far more likely to succeed as a leader in this congregation, because you will have the connections, the mentors, and the friends that will allow you to lead effectively.
It is neither good nor bad that we are a small congregation; but it different from being a large congregation. In some ways, it’s good that are a small congregation. Small congregations tend to be good places for teenagers, because they have lots of contact with good adult role models, which means among other things that they learn a great deal about leadership. Small congregations tend to be friendly, cozy, and intimate, too. But although small congregations have many strengths, they are things they cannot do well.
One thing a small congregation cannot do well — it cannot take care of “all souls.” First of all, there are too few of us to do much more than take care of ourselves. Small congregations are great for feeding your own soul. But there’s so few of us to run the congregation that we don’t have the energy left over to take care of each other. I’m seeing that happen right now. I see members of this congregation who serve on the Board, and serve on a committee, and do innumerable little chores around the church, and take on a social action project or two; they put lots of time and energy into church business; so much time and energy that they just don’t have any energy left over to take care of someone else. As your minister, I’m a little too busy, too; I spend a lot of time in the office taking care of church administration because we aren’t big enough to have the volunteers available who would ordinarily take care of such matters; and as a result, I have very little time to call on shut-ins, or do pastoral counseling, or take care of you in other ways.
Of the two Unitarian Universalist congregations in the area, we are known as the “social action church.” And with that reputation, we do have influence in this community disproportionate to our small size. We do lots of good in the world, and we should be more open about that fact, and we should proud of that fact. At the same time, we should also be honest with ourselves: while we are out there saving the world, we are not doing such a good job of saving each other, and we don’t do such a good job of taking care of newcomers to this congregation who come to us looking for a transforming and saving community. We can’t; we don’t have the time, or the money, or the energy. So while we might call ourselves “First Unitarian of Social Action,” we really can’t call ourselves “All Souls” because we’re stretched just taking care of the souls that are already here, let alone adding a whole bunch more souls.
Let me make a pretty far-fetched analogy. Our congregation is a lot like my 1993 Toyota Corolla. I really, really like my 1993 Toyota Corolla. My 1993 Toyota Corolla is a social action car. I get 35 miles per gallon on the highway, and 30 miles per gallon around town. When they check my exhaust during inspection, they find that my car puts out almost none of the pollutants they test for. Oh, and of course there’s the bumper stickers which tell you to “Go Organic” and to “Ask Me About Composting” and to “Question Authority.” Yes, my 1993 is a social action car; and it’s also a cozy, familiar car that I love and that I don’t want to lose. I like it enough that I can usually ignore the rust spots and the unpleasant noises.
It’s a low-maintenance car, but it’s also showing wear and tear: the door handle doesn’t work on the passenger’s side, the steering’s getting a little too loose, and I’ve gotten to the point where I really don’t dare take it on long trips any more. I can give it a couple more years, but then, as much as I love it, I’ll have to think seriously about trading it in for something else. Well, I don’t want to push this analogy too far. Suffice it to say that my Toyota Corolla is a lot like our congregation: cozy, familiar, reeking with social action, but at best we’ve only got another couple of years on our current congregation, and then I think we’ll have to find a new model.
What would that new model look like? I’d like to hold up a vision for you of what I think we could become within five years. This fall, we have been averaging at least two newcomers each week. As it stands, we have not been following up on these newcomers: we don’t ask them for their address so we can put them on the mialing list, we don’t send a follow-up card; nor do any of the things common courtesy demands of us, we don’t invite them to join any spiritually fulfilling activities. Our lack of follow-up, our lack of common courtesy, means that most of these newcomers don’t return; they come for three or four weeks, and then when it seems as if no one cares for them, they just stop coming. Well, we do care about them, we’re just bad at showing that we care for them. If we just started following up, I bet half those newcomers would begin attending worship regularly. If we just had some regular activities that were spiritually fulfilling, like small group ministries or adult religious education, they would stick around for a long time. To be blunt: if we kept half the newcomers who walk through our doors over the next year, we could double the number of people in our weekly worship service.
I’ll go further than that. The total population of New Bedford is 93,768 people as of the 2000 federal census; and of Dartmouth, 30,666. The total population within a few miles of this church is over 125,000. 250 people would comprise a mere two tenths of one percent of that total population. Even given that we’re an English-only congregation, even given that we tend to appeal to people who are more intellectually curious than most, even though we tend to appeal to the so-called cultural creatives — I believe there’s a huge reservoir of people to draw upon, people who are looking for a religious home, looking for a religious home that believes as we do that love (not hatred) is the most powerful force in the universe, people who are looking for us. If we decide to, in four years we could easily have 250 men, women, and children sitting here in the worship service each and every week.
If we decide to, we could be more than just the social action church. We could be the congregation that does social action because we know that all souls are worthy of love. We could spread our saving message widely in the community: that love is more powerful than hatred. We could be big enough to care for each other, care for our children and youth and our elders, as a living testimony that we believe all souls are meant to be loved; and by caring for each other we’d actually have more energy left to do social action. And we could do more than engage in social action projects: with 250 people here each week, 250 people who were committed to living their lives as if love is the most powerful force in the universe, I know each of those 250 souls will live their daily lives so that they touch the souls of many more people. We could have 250 people living lives that prove love is more powerful than hate; we could have 250 people spreading our saving message that there is a religion that preaches, and practices, love for all souls.
Now, I love small congregations. I love the sense of intimacy, the coziness. (I love my old Toyota, too, even if it is falling apart.) And if you all want this congregation to remain small, I will respect your decision; because I will understand why you made that decision.
But my friends, I have to speak the truth to you: in a world filled with hatred, it is no longer be enough to remain a small congregation. In a country where the national dialogue is in large measure controlled by the religious right, in a country where the dominant religious right preaches a doctrine of “some souls,” we need to become a loud powerful voice that proclaims, “Not some souls, but all souls.” I do believe that as much as our Unitarian Universalist congregations would like to remain cozy and intimate, it is morally unacceptable for us to do so. I will go further: if we really want to be the “social action church,” and we want that to be true, we cannot remain small; for to remain small means making the moral choice that we want our influence to remain small.
So if you decide to stay small, I will respect that decision. But remember: –It is a moral choice. –And it is your choice, not mine. You know where I stand: I am here to preach the saving word that love is more powerful than hatred. But you get to choose how many people hear that saving word, because you get to choose how big we are. I hope you will choose to grow this congregation, so that we can make a difference, so that people can hear our saving message. If you’re a newcomer, I hope you will stay with us, and keep coming back even if we forget to extend the common courtesy of recognizing and celebrating your presence among us — and maybe after you’ve been coming here for a couple of months, maybe you will remind us that we need to extend some common courtesy to newcomers so that they are welcomed in the way you would have liked to have been welcomed.
If you’re a long-time member, I hope you will commit yourself to show up as often as you can. That’s the most important thing you can do: show up as often as you can, and welcome the newcomers, and keep reaching out to them until they, too, are as much a part of this congregation as you are. If you’re a long-time member, I hope you will recognize that it’s going to be so hard to lose your cozy intimate little church, but I hope you’ll keep your eyes on the prize: should you decide to get bigger, it will get easier to take care of the business of church, and you will have more time. More time to care for our children and our elders and others, and to be cared for yourself, and to do social action, and to spread the word that all souls are worthy of our love.
My friends, you get to choose what will be our purpose here. We can have the small purpose of being cozy. Or we can embrace a larger purpose: to care for and love each other; to set an example for the world of how a religion based on love would operate; to stand up against the religious right and say with our loud, strong, combined voices that we believe in life and love for all souls, not just some souls; to spread the saving word that love is more powerful than hatred; that all souls are worthy of being saved.
All Souls Day is this Wednesday, November 2. And so it is that I ask you to reflect this week on what you will do: –Will you decide to remain small and cozy? –Or will you decide that this congregation can transform ourselves and the rest of the world with our message of love?