First Parish Sermon

All religions have their major stories. Judaism has the story of Moses and the Exodus and the people of Israel seeking freedom from slavery and a new religious law to guide their lives and destinies. Christianity has the story of Jesus seeking a reformation of his own Judaic faith, teaching a new law of love and mercy and forgiveness to balance justice and a harsh legalism, turning his face towards Jerusalem knowing that he faced certain death, giving his life for his dream of the kingdom of heaven on earth, and the resurrection of his spirit in the lives of his disciples and the church which bears his name. Islam has the story of Mohammed the Prophet, calling and leading the tribes of his Arab people together under a new dispensation and revelation from Allah, the law of the Koran, revealed to him in a dream. Buddhism has the story of Gautama the Buddha, leaving the protection of his wealthy father, renouncing wealth and seeking enlightenment under the Boddhi Tree. The Eight-Fold Path of the Buddha was itself a reformation of his own Hindu faith, and like Jesus, he became the model of a new religious way of life for millions beyond his own nation and continent.

These are the myth/stories of the great world religions, and the power of myth, to use Joseph Campbells definition, is that it provides "the secret opening through which the inexhaustible energies of the cosmos (i.e. 'God') pour into human cultural manifestation." What story, what myth, do Unitarian Universalists have? Since we are a branch of the Judaic and Christian traditions the stories of that religious tree of life are part of our spiritual story, though we have each of us been critical of different facets of the tradition from which we have derived.

 Most of us have deliteralized the myths and legends of our heritage, seeing them more as metaphors of human becoming than as descriptions of miraculous historical events. Like Moses, we have our moments of wandering through the desert, seeking a path of meaning and purpose for our lives, a law and a truth to live by. Like Jesus, we have our own Gethsemenes and dark nights of the soul, our own resurrections and renewals of hope and faith and courage. The Moses story and the Jesus story are very much a part of who we are as Unitarian Universalists and human beings. And we are also open and receptive to the stories and teachings of other faith traditions beyond our own--Hindu, Buddhist, Islamic, Taoist, Native American, Pagan, Humanist, Mystic.

The Unitarian Universalist story is not just one story, but many stories woven together into a web of life that is the human story, the human venture, the human quest for truth and love, the human quest for God. As the historical children of the Judeo-Christian heritage the Unitarian Universalist story is part of the Jesus story and the Moses story. But the UU story is also your story and my story and our unique and particular journeys towards spiritual freedom. Our story also has a history, and that history is both model and metaphor of our own religious journey to the divine, our own religious journey in quest of truth and love to live by.

The Unitarian Universalist story is 4th century Bishop Arias suggesting that even if Jesus was more than human he was still less than God and was himself a created being. Though his views were eventually declared heresy his ideas did not die and influenced many others in succeeding centuries to take a more human view of Jesus and a unitarian view of God.

The Unitarian Universalist story is Michael Servetus studying the Scriptures and discovering that the doctrine of the Trinity was no where to be found in the Bible and declaring that Christians should be tolerant of Moslems and Jews who also believed that God was One. A scientist and doctor he sought truth in all realms and offered healing to many. Burned at the stake by John Calvin he became the first Unitarian martyr of the Protestant Reformation. The freedom we treasure was bought at a price.

The Unitarian Universalist story is court preacher, Francis David, converting young King John Sigismund of Transylvania to Unitarianism, and influencing the king to issue an Edict of Tolerance in 1568, the first of its kind in any state in Europe, allowing Lutherans, Calvinists, Unitarians and Catholics to practice their religion free of coercion by the state. Though the king died at an early age, and Francis David later languished in prison because of his religious beliefs, Unitarianism survived and is still strong in Hungary and Romania to this day. 

The Unitarian Universalist story is Faustus Socinius, Italian scholar and religious reformer, establishing Unitarian churches all over Poland in the 16th century and writing the Racovian Catechism in which he advanced the view that Jesus was fully human and effected his atonement not by his death but by the example of his life and teachings. We become like Jesus and draw closer to God by putting his teachings into practice in our own lives. Socinius and his fellow Unitarians were persecuted and driven out of Poland, but his Racovian Catechism was translated and made its way into England and fostered the beginnings of Unitarianism in the British Isles.

The Unitarian Universalist story is Unitarian minister, Joseph Priestley, discovering oxygen in the science lab of his parsonage cellar in Birmingham, England. For Priestley there was no conflict between science and religion, both were realms of truth established by God, and reason was to be used in both realms to discover that truth. He had preached to and befriended Benjamin Franklin who invited him to come to America when Priestley's home and lab were burned to the ground by royal zealots who were critical of Priestley's political sympathies toward the French Revolution. Priestley came to Philadelphia and established a Unitarian and then a Universalist church in that city. Thomas Jefferson sat in the pew when he preached there and was enamored of Priestley's 
rational unitarian doctrine.

The Unitarian Universalist story is Thomas Jefferson creating his own cut and paste version of the Bible based on the life and morals of Jesus from the Gospels. It was admittedly an expurgated version, he clipped what he liked and left out the parts he found objectionable, and said that these teachings, which he believed were the authentic teachings of Jesus, represented his, meaning Jefferson's, core faith and religion. It was an attempt to bring rational criticism and analysis to bear upon the scriptural documents of Christianity. Unitarianism made so much sense to Jefferson that he thought all young men in the next generation would become Unitarian. In the meantime he would have to be content being a Unitarian all by himself in the state of Virginia.

The Unitarian Universalist story is John Murray reading the Bible and the writings of James Relly and becoming convinced of the gospel of universal salvation. Murray's God was too good and loving to damn any human soul forever. Murray too was driven out of England because of his religious views and came to America to get away from religious controversy. Not for long. He established the first Independent Christian Universalist Church in  America in 1780. When an irate critic threw a rock through a window near the pulpit where he was preaching, Murray picked up the rock, held it before his hearers and said, "this argument is hard and weighty, but it is neither rational nor convincing." 

The Unitarian Universalist story is Hosea Ballou, younger contemporary of John Murray, drafting his Treatise on Atonement, in which he articulated the first systematic Unitarian Universalist theology, Biblically based, and suggesting a hundred and fifty years ahead of his time, that the Unitarians and Universalists ought to get together and form a common religious enterprise.

The Unitarian Universalist story is John Adams at the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia receiving a letter from his wife, Abagail, who reminded her husband to "remember the ladies" when they drafted that founding document. She dared suggest that women had political rights as well as domestic rights. The men didn't listen and it took another Unitarian lady, a generation or more later, Susan B. Anthony, to get the ball rolling again on behalf of women's suffrage. It didn't become law until 1920. Susan B. Anthony never lived to see it either, but Abagail and Susan are very much a part of our proud story.

The Unitarian Universalist story is Universalist Clara Barton founding the Red Cross and giving institutional form to the expression of human love and compassion in the spirit of the Good Samaritan. It is also Dorothea Dix advocating before the legislature for prison and mental health reform. What would she say today if she knew that so many of the mentally ill were among the homeless in the streets of our cities? We need her crusading spirit of reform once again.

The Unitarian Universalist story is Julia Ward Howe caught up in the tragedy of the Civil War and writing the enduring words of the "Battle Hymn of the Republic", "Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord..." Her story is our story and indelibly part of our nation's story.The Unitarian Universalist story is Louisa May Alcott writing novels and stories and paving the way for women to be recognized and recompensed for their creative and artistic talents.

The Unitarian Universalist story is William Ellery Channing, late in his ministry, preaching and lecturing against the institution of slavery much to the displeasure of his conservative congregation, and holding a memorial service for his friend and colleague, abolitionist, Charles Follen, also against the wishes of his congregation, and then resigning his pulpit. Channing was a reluctant radical, but when he finally made up his mind what was the right and just thing to do, he had the courage of his convictions, and gave his all, and held nothing back, and died in the endeavor to end the evil of slavery.

The Unitarian Universalist story is Theodore Parker speaking out against the Fugitive Slave Law, working in support of the underground railroad to hide runaway salves and send them on their way to freedom in Canada, and writing his sermons with a gun in his desk drawer to protect himself against reactionary fanatics who threatened his life.

The Unitarian Universalist story is James Reeb and Viola Liuzzo, going to Selma to support Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and marching with hundreds of others in support of Voting Rights for blacks in the South, and making the ultimate sacrifice of martyrdom for the cause of justice.

The Unitarian Universalist story is young Samantha Smith writing a letter to then Russian President Andropov, asking him to find a way to ensure peace for the children of  the world, and being invited to visit the Soviet Union, winning the hearts of the Russian people and the powers that be, later dying in a plane crash and becoming a folk hero in both the East and the West. She showed that even young people can make a difference for good in the world and made us proud to be Unitarian Universalists.

The Unitarian Universalist story is your story and my story of a spiritual journey from Methodism, Christian Science, Judaism, Catholicism, Congregationalism, Lutheranism, Fundamentalism, and various other isms to a free church and a free faith which encourages our continuing personal and religious growth. Some of us were born into this free faith and have grown up in its environment, while others, the clear majority, have migrated here by various and circuitous paths. But for all of us it is a religious journey towards freedom and responsibility, initiation and growth, unity and universality, God and the divine, the highest in human thought and aspiration. 

Your journey and your story are still in the process of writing themselves. We hope you will journey with us for many years to come and that you will not hesitate to share the story of your journey to Unitarian Universalism with others. We all need truth and love to live by. And however much truth and wisdom we may have found we need the help and support and insight of all our fellow religious seekers to enlarge and round out our own. Our faith is not fixed, but growing. We are incomplete apart from our relation to one another.

We are Unitarians because we believe the source of being and existence is One, though called by many names. We are Universalists because we believe that salvation and the journey to wholeness is available to all. And we are Unitarian Universalists because we believe that reason and love in action are the best clues for discovering what it means to be human and illuminating the mystery of the divine. So may it be. Amen.