Dan Harper | Sermons

Category: Unitarian Universalism

  • Music service

    On May 7, instead of a sermon, our music director, Randy Fayan, played an extended piece on the organ — J. S. Bach’s Passacaglia and Fugue in C Minor (BWV 582). Unfortunately, we are not able to present a recording of this worship service. However, here is Rev. Dan Harper’s introduction to the music:

    Today, instead of hearing a sermon, Randy Fayan, our music director, will play an extended piece of music. I shouldn’t say he will play the music instead of a sermon: it will be the sermon. And instead of a reading this morning, I’d like to say a few words about music in churches.

    As I was talking with Randy about this worship service, I asked him what his thoughts w ere about music in churches. Randy pointed out that In Unitarian Universalist churches, people brings many of their own ideas to church; as a non-creedal religion, we Unitarian Universalists have a great openness to a variety of religious ideas. And nowhere is that more obvious than when music — because when you’re listening to music, you have to bring yourself into contact with the music; you have t o bring your own ideas, your spirit, to the music; for only then can it make sense.

    Randy put it this way: “The more you invest in listening to the music, the more you get out of it.”

    At this point, I said to Randy that this sounds a lot like religion. Not only that, I said that more and more these days I believe that both listening to music and doing religion are more meaningful when they are done in community.

    To which Randy responded that he listens to recorded music less these days; there’s something about listening to live music, with all its imperfections, that is superior to even the best recorded music. I believe t he same is true of religion: you need to be there in the room with other people.

    This helps explain why we come to church to listen to Randy’s music. We could just as easily stay home and listen to a CD of the exact same music: but something would be missing. We could even drive to Boston or Providence or New York and hear some famous performer play the same piece of music: but while this would be better, it would still be different. Part of the difference is that when you listen to music in a church, you are listening to music in the way it’s really meant to be played: for listening to and playing music is always a sacred act. And music is meant to be heard, not in some big anonymous group, but in a crowd with people you know and care for.

    Here in a worship setting is where music is meant to be heard. Here, you can invest yourself into the music, let it move you, knowing that you are surrounded by people who care. Here you don’t have to applaud — in fact Randy has asked that you completely refrain from applause until after the postlude is over — you don’t have to applaud, because in a community like this, everyone knows that we appreciate Randy’s music, and we don’t have to show him that by applauding — and that way, too, we’ll hear the music as it is meant to be heard: as a prelude to meditation, as an accompaniment to your own soul-work. So during the sermon, when Randy is playing, you can sit and let the music move you and take your spirit places you may not have known existed.

  • A Universalist Easter

    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 and story copyright (c) 2006 Daniel Harper.

    Readings

    The first reading comes from the Christian scriptures, the book known as the Gospel of Mark. In this snippet, the rabbi Jesus quotes from the Torah, first from Deuteronomy, and then from Leviticus:

    “One of the teachers of the law [asked Jesus]… ‘Of all the commandments, which is the most important?’

    “‘The most important one,’ answered Jesus, ‘is this: “Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one; love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind.” The second is this: “Love your neighbor as yourself.” There is no greater commandment than these.’” [Mk. 12.28-30]

    The second reading this morning, which I take in part as a commentary of the first reading, comes from the Treatise on Atonement, written by the great Universalist preacher Hosea Ballou in 1805. I should add that the First Universalist Church in New Bedford, which merged with this church in 1930, traces its history back to the moment when Hosea Ballou once preached in New Bedford. Ballou wrote:

    “The belief that the great Jehovah was offended with his creatures to that degree, that nothing but the death of Christ, or the endless misery of mankind, could appease his anger, is an idea that has done more injury to the Christian religion than the writings of all its opposers, for many centuries. The error has been fatal to the life and spirit of the religion of Christ in our world; all those principles which are to be dreaded by men, have been believed to exist in God; and professors [of Christianity] have been molded into the image of their Deity, and become more cruel than the uncultivated savage! A persecuting inquisition is a lively representation of the God which professed Christians have believed in ever since the apostacy. It is every day’s practice to represent the Almighty so offended with man, that he employs his infinite mind in devising unspeakable tortures, as retaliations on those with whom he is offended.” [p. 147]

    So end this morning’s readings, with these scornful words of Hosea Ballou.

    Story for all ages

    This morning, I’m going to tell the Unitarian version of the Easter story. This is the Easter story I heard as a child, and I thought I’d share it with you this Easter. Why is our version of the story different? When we retell that story, we don’t assume that Jesus was God. And that leads to all kinds of little changes that add up in the end…. Tell you what, let’s just listen to the Unitarian story of Easter and find out.

    If you were here to hear last week’s story, we left Jesus as he was entering the city of Jerusalem, being welcomed by people carrying flowers and waving palm fronds.

    On that first day in Jerusalem, Jesus did little more than look around in the great Temple of Jerusalem — the Temple that was the holiest place for Jesus and for all other Jews. Jesus noticed that there were a number of people selling things in the Temple (for example, there were people selling pigeons), and besides that there were all kinds of comings and goings through the Temple, people carrying all kinds of gear, taking shortcuts by going through the Temple.

    The next day, Jesus returned to the Temple. He walked in, chased out the people selling things, and upset the tables of the moneychangers. Needless to say, he created quite a commotion! and I imagine that a crowd gathered around to see what this stranger, this traveling rabbi, was up to. Once the dust had settled, Jesus turned to the gathered crowd, and quoted from the Hebrew scriptures, the book of Isaiah where God says, “My Temple shall be known as a place of prayer for all nations.” Jesus said it was time that the Temple went back to being a place of prayer — how could you pray when there were people buying and selling things right next to you? How could you pray with all those pigeons cooing?

    I don’t know about you, but I think Jesus did the right thing in chasing the pigeon-dealers, the moneylenders, and the other salespeople out of the Temple. But the way he did managed to annoy the powerful people who ran the Temple. It made them look bad. They didn’t like that.

    In the next few days, Jesus taught and preached all through Jerusalem. We know he quoted the book of Leviticus, where it says, “You are to love your neighbor as yourself.” He encouraged people to be genuinely religious, to help the weak and the poor. Jesus also got into fairly heated discussions with some of Jerusalem’s religious leaders, and he was so good at arguing that once again, he made those powerful people look bad. Once again, they didn’t like that.

    Meanwhile, other things were brewing in Jerusalem. The Romans governed Jerusalem at that time. The Romans were also concerned about Jesus. When Jesus rode into the city, he was welcomed by a crowd of people who treated him as if he were one of the long-lost kings of Israel. That made the Romans worry. Was Jesus planning some kind of secret religious rebellion? How many followers did he have? What was he really up to, anyway?

    Jesus continued his teaching and preaching from Sunday until Thursday evening, when Passover began. Since Jesus and his disciples were all good observant Jews, after sundown on Thursday they celebrated a Passover Seder together. They had the wine, the matzoh, the bitter herbs, all the standard things you have at a Seder. (By the way, if you’ve ever heard of “Maundy Thursday,” which is always the Thursday before Easter Sunday, that’s the commemoration of that last meal; and while not all Bible scholars agree that least meal was in fact a Seder, many scholars do think it was a Seder.)

    After the Seder, Jesus was restless and depressed. He had a strong sense that the Romans or the powerful religious leaders were going to try to arrest him for stirring up trouble, for agitating the people of Jerusalem. He didn’t know how or when it would happen, but he was pretty sure he would be arrested sometime.

    As it happened, Jesus was arrested just a few hours after the Seder. He was given a trial the same night he was arrested, and he was executed the next day. The Romans put him to death using a common but very unpleasant type of execution known as crucifixion. (And the day of Jesus’ execution, the Friday before Easter, is called “Good Friday,” a day when many Christians commemorate Jesus’ death.)

    Because the Jewish sabbath started right at sundown, and Jewish law of the time did not allow you to bury anyone on the Sabbath day, Jesus’ friends couldn’t bury him right away. There were no funeral homes back in those days, so Jesus’ friends put his body in a tomb, which was a sort of cave cut into the side of a hill. There the body would be safe until they could bury it, after the Sabbath was over.

    First thing Sunday morning, some of Jesus’ friends went to the tomb to get the body ready for burial. But to their great surprise, the body was gone, and there was a man there in white robes who talked to them about Jesus!

    When I was a child, my Unitarian Universalist Sunday school teachers would tell me that what had probably happened is that some of Jesus’ other friends had come along, and had already buried the body. You see, there must have been a fair amount of confusion that first Easter morning. Jesus’ friends were upset that he was dead, and they were worried that one or more of them might be arrested, too, or even executed. The burial must have taken place in secret, and probably not everybody got told when and where the burial was. Thus, by the time some of Jesus’ followers had gotten to the tomb, others had already buried his body.

    Some of Jesus’ followers began saying that Jesus had risen from the dead, and following that several people even claimed to have spoken with him. But in our Sunday school, we say that we Unitarian Universalists don’t actually have to believe that Jesus actually arose from the dead. It’s just that his friends were so sad, and missed him so much, that they wanted to believe that he was alive again.

    SERMON — “A Universalist Easter”

    I’ll start this morning by telling you a fairly stupid Unitarian Universalist joke. It seems that two Unitarian Universalists died and went to heaven. Somewhat to their surprise, they found themselves standing in line in front of a pair of large pearly gates, waiting to talk with someone who was unmistakably St. Peter. When they finally got to St. Peter, he asked them what religion they were, and they said, “Unitarian Universalists.”

    “Unitarian Universalists?” said St. Pete. “Well, even though you’re heretics, you did so much social justice work on earth I’m going to let you in to heaven, instead of sending you to hell.”

    The two Unitarian Universalists look at each other, and finally one of them says, “You mean you actually send people to hell?!” — using the exact tone of voice that vegetarians use when they say to you, “You mean you actually still eat meat?”

    “Oh yes,” says St. Peter.

    So the two Unitarian Universalists start chanting, “One two three four, we won’t go in heaven’s door/ Five six seven eight, we are going to close hell’s gates,” and next thing you know they’re picketing the Pearly Gates carrying signs saying, “God Unfair to the Damned,” and “Ban Eternal Torment.”

    Needless to say, we Unitarian Universalists don’t believe in hell. To a Unitarian Universalist, the concept of eternal torment is most likely to be a fable used by certain religious leaders to try to frighten people into good behavior; and the more cynical among us would add that “good behavior” is defined as that sort of behavior that helps keep those certain religious leaders in power. We don’t believe in hell, and indeed the concept of hell is likely to fill us with a certain amount of righteous indignation, just as we heard in the stupid joke with which I began this sermon.

    While we usually take this for granted, I would like us to take the time to explore a little of why we Unitarian Universalists don’t believe in those hoary old stories of hell and eternal torment. Easter seems like one of the best days on which to do this exploration; because some of our more traditional Christian brothers and sisters know Easter as the holiday where Jesus (they would say “Christ”) rose up from the dead; and they would echo the words of Paul of Tarsus, who wrote: “Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures…”; the third day being, of course, Easter. This is what our more traditional Christian brothers and sisters say and believe with all their hearts and minds; but we know this to be wrong, we know in our hearts and in our heads and in the depths of our soul that this is simply wrong. Let us, therefore, articulate why it is wrong.

    At the most basic level, whether or not you yourself believe in God, it is quite clearly stated in the Christian scriptures that God is love. God is love; and God loves all persons, even the poor and oppressed. That God loves the poor and oppressed is one of the more remarkable innovations of Christianity; most earlier religious traditions were quite willing to neglect the poor and oppressed. Yet if God is love, and if God loves all persons no matter how despicable they might seem on the surface — how could that kind of god dispose of any person by throwing them into hell for eternal torment? To say that God would throw people into hell is illogical on an intellectual level; and it violates emotional logic as well, because a God of love would obviously be incapable of such vicious hatred.

    That’s the argument at the most basic level; and really we shouldn’t have to go beyond that argument. God is love; therefore God will not damn anyone. Once we make that argument, it is up to people with other beliefs to explain to us why a God of love would dispose of persons; it is up to people with other beliefs to explain to how “love” can include torture, humiliation, and eternal torment. Nor do you have to believe in God yourself to make this most basic argument, because really what we are doing is pointing out the impossible contradictions bound up in the idea of the traditional Christian hell.

    Let me give you an example of how this basic argument works. Each year on the second Sunday in September, a mile-long stretch of Solano Street in Berkeley is taken over by a street fair called the Solano Stroll. 250,000 people come to watch the clown parade (think Rasta clowns instead of Bozo the clown), to eat fantastic food, to listen to music from rock and roll to the Royal Hawaiian ukulele band; there are art cars, jugglers, and more. Naturally, the Unitarian Universalist church sets up a booth — these are obviously our kind of people. Well, the year I served at the Berkeley church, the organizers of the Solano Stroll put the Unitarian Universalists right next to a booth full of fundamentalist Christians. Some of these good people came over to find out what we believed in; needless to say, they were a little shocked by us. They wanted to argue with me, and we went back and forth, until I finally told them that everyone gets to heaven because God is love. That took some of the wind out of their sails. You could see the wheels turning in their heads, and almost hear them thinking: “If I tell him that he’s going to go to hell, he’s going to say, ‘You mean you don’t believe in a God of absolute love?’, and then he could say that I don’t believe that God is all-powerful….” And pretty soon, they all drifted away. All except for one young man whom I think I may have convinced; he kept talking to me, wanting to know more; but eventually he, too, went back to his friends.

    So it is that the old Universalist ideas retain their power even today, 200 years after Hosea Ballou. Universalism has a saving message for many people, if they can but hear it.

    Using traditional Christian language, we could say that message like this: “God is love; everyone gets to go to heaven: doesn’t matter whether you’re rich or poor; doesn’t matter what religion you follow; doesn’t matter whether you’re gay or straight; doesn’t matter what color your skin is; doesn’t matter whether you’re a man or a woman: all that matters is that because you are a human being you are deserving of love.”

    Or we could use less traditional religious language, and actually leave out the word “God” altogether. We could say, “Love is the most powerful force in the universe; not television love, but the deep love we must have for all human beings; we know that all persons are worthy of dignity and respect no matter how much money they may have, no matter what religion they belong to, no matter what their sexual orientation, no matter what their racial or ethnic identity, no matter what their gender:– for your worth and dignity are an inherent part of you as a human being.”

    Recently, I’ve been going even further beyond traditional religious language. I’m now willing to say that love is the most powerful force in the universe and I’m willing to extend that love to other living beings along with human beings. This isn’t romantic love; nor is this sentimental love limited to those animals and plants that I find cute and cuddly. It’s a love that extends to all living beings, to the entire biosphere, as ultimately sacred; and even though we have to eat other living beings in order to survive, we can do so with a sense of reverence; even though we have to fight against things like the influenza virus, we can do so in reverence for the awful beauty which is truly a part of all living things. But this is a pretty radical notion; and there are still quite a number of philosophical and theological points I’m trying to figure out. And I have to say I don’t recommend trotting out universal love for the biosphere when you get into a discussion with some of the more traditional Christians.

    Yet no matter what kind of religious language we use, we can affirm the central principle of Universalism. Traditionally, Universalism referred to the universal salvation of all persons; in other words, everyone gets to go to heaven. Go beyond the old traditional language, and universalism calls us to recognize the inherent worth and dignity of all persons here and now. Go even further beyond traditional religious language, and we might say that all living beings should be valued, and saved from extinction, as we try to create an ecojustice heaven here on earth. But always, love is the central principle.

    And I firmly believe that Jesus of Nazareth was a Universalist, although he wouldn’t have called himself that. But clearly he knew the power of love. He said that all the teaching of the old religious sages and prophets came down to two simple points: Love your God with all your heart and mind and soul, and love your neighbor as yourself. By the way he said this, you know that Jesus’s God loved all persons without distinction; and so we are told did Jesus live out his life, consorting with the poor and the downtrodden, hanging out not with the elite but with ordinary fishermen, and with tax collectors and prostitutes. When he spoke of love two thousand years ago, it was in a time and place that was quite different from our time and place; and today some of us might say that we shall love the universe with all our heart and mind and soul, and love our neighbors as ourselves. No matter how we say it, we remain in the tradition of the great teachings of Jesus: ours is a religion with love at the center; ours is not a religion that threatens eternal torment to anyone.

    And why then do we celebrate Easter, if we don’t believe that Jesus rose from the dead in order to save us from eternal torment? I think Hosea Ballou, that old Universalist preacher, would say that Easter is a chance, not for us to recall that Jesus died to atone for our sins; but rather, that Jesus lived to help us reconcile ourselves to God, and to God’s love.

    Today, we are likely to tell Jesus’s story in a different way, like this: Jesus was arrested on trumped-up political charges, and then he was executed to serve the interests of the powerful elite of Roman-ruled Judea. Jesus’s message of love threatened to change the way the political establishment worked; Jesus’s teachings threatened to replace a corrupt political establishment with a heaven here on earth based on love and resulting in true justice and true peace. That is why Jesus was executed; and we remember his story in order to remember that love is the ultimate subversive act, one which has the potential to bring about true peace and true justice in our world.

    Nor do we necessarily believe that Jesus literally rose from the dead. But we do know that his ideas, his teachings, his message of love, did indeed rise up to take on a new life after he was executed. Those ideas are still alive; they are with us even today. Even though Jesus was executed, love remains powerful. Love is constantly renewed; even when we think it is dead, love rises up and astonishes us with its power.

    May your life be renewed by love; and may you find new life in the firm knowledge that you, too, are worthy of love.

  • Saint Barnum?

    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.

    Reading

    The first reading this morning is from the autobiography of Phineas Taylor Barnum, better known as P. T. Barnum, the great showman and circus promoter. In this passage Barnum talks about how he became a showman; and as is typical of him, he is not bashful.

    “By this time, it was clear to my mind that my proper position in this busy world was not yet reached. I had displayed the faculty of getting money, as well as getting rid of it; but the business for which I was destined, and, I believe, made, had not yet come to me; or rather, I had not found that I was to cater for that insatiate want of human nature — the love of amusement; that I was to make a sensation on two continents; and that fame and fortune awaited me so soon as I should appear before the public in the character of a showman. These thins I had not foreseen. I did not seek the position or the character. The business finally came in my way; I fell into the occupation, and far beyond any of my predecessors on this continent, I have succeeded.

    “The show business has all phases and grades of dignity, from the exhibition of a monkey to the exposition of that highest art in music or the drama, which entrances empires and secures for the gifted artist a world-wide fame which princes well might envy. Such art is merchantable, and so with the whole range of amusements, from the highest to the lowest. The old word ‘trade’ as it applies to buying cheap and selling at a profit, is as manifest here as it is in the dealings at a street-corner stand or in Stewart’s store covering a whole square. This is a trading world, and men, women and children, who cannot live on gravity alone, need something to satisfy their gayer, lighter moods and hours, and he who ministers to this want is in a business established by the Author of our nature. If he worthily fulfills his mission, and amuses without corrupting, he need never feel that he has lived in vain.”

    The second reading this morning is from a letter written by P. T. Barnum on November 18, 1882. This letter reveals a lesser-known side of the great showman and circus promoter. The letter was written to Dixon Spain, a leader in the English temperance movement.

    “I have been both sides of the fence in this liquor-drinking custom, and I know whereof I speak. From 1840 to 1848 I was a pretty free drinker and prouder of my ‘wine cellar’ than any of my other possessions. Thirty-two years ago I became a total abstainer. Had I not done so, I should doubtless have been in my grave long since, for I had gone so far in the miserable and ruinous habit or ‘treating,’ being treated, and ‘liquoring up’ that this unnatural appetite would have soon become stronger than resolution, and I should have succumbed as thousands do every year…. Indeed, this pernicious habit is the cause of by far the greatest portion of poverty, crime, and suffering found in any country where it exists.”

    Sermon

    We Unitarian Universalists don’t have saints. Yet sometimes I think we should have some kind of Unitarian Universalist saints. We need role models who aren’t quite as great as the great sages and prophets like Jesus and Buddha and Lao Tzu. I know I should be as caring as Jesus was, and as calm as Buddha was, and as insightful as Lao Tzu was, but I’m not. I’d like to have some more realistic role models to follow, people who set a good example for me and whom I can realistically hope to emulate in this life.

    I have a candidate for a Unitarian Unviersalist saint: P. T. Barnum. Phineas Taylor Barnum is probably the most famous person to have ever been a Universalist. Everyone knows the name P. T. Barnum — certainly as one of the orginators of a circus that still bears his name, and as the man who was alleged to have said, “There’s a sucker born every minute” (for although there’s no evidence that he ever said that, he certainly made his living at least in part from preying on the inherent credulity of human nature).

    Already, you may be having some doubts about Barnum serving as a Unitarian Universalist saint. He doesn’t quite sound like the kind of person we should try to emulate. He was always trying to put one over on the public, as we heard in the children’s story this morning. He perpetrated many frauds, such as the famous Feejee Mermaid which was actually a strange example of the taxidermist’s art where a fish tail was sewn to the body of a woman. He was famous for recognizing that there is no such thing as bad publicity, and welcomed even the most scurrilous news reports about his various enterprises, and about himself. He boasted and bragged about himself, and in many ways represented all the worst of popular culture. If he lived today, he would probably be a rock star. Just imagine if a rock star like Madonna or Mick Jagger were a Unitarian Universalist — are those the kind of people we would want to make into a Unitarian Universalist saint? In short, it’s hard not to feel a little ambivalence about P. T. Barnum.

    Yet when I read his famous autobiography, which he titled “Struggles and Triumphs,” I can’t help but fall under his spell. Yes, he was a boaster and a bit of a humbug, but he had his share of sadness and disaster too: the time his house burned just as he was getting married; the time he was swindled out of almost his entire fortune by some sharp operators; the death of his first wife. In his autobiography, he speaks openly and honestly about these things; and that makes him more human.

    He also speaks openly and honestly about fooling the public, and he speaks about it so openly you are charmed rather than outraged. Like the time when his first museum got too crowded because people would spend the entire day there, so as to get their money’s worth. Barnum was losing money because he couldn’t fit any more people into the building. So he put a huge sign reading, “This Way to the Egress.” After seeing the rest of the museum, people wondered what on earth an “egress” could be (could it be a giant bird? or some other amazing animal? or what?), and they followed the sign down the steps and through the door — only to find themselves out on the street again, with no way back in. You are charmed by such a story, even as you realize how Barnum took advantage of the ignorance of the crowds, assuming they would not quite know what an “egress” was. We are charmed because Barnum knows human nature so well, and while he takes advantage of human nature you can also tell that he has a deep affection for humanity. And Barnum recognizes that he, too, is only human, and he’s just as open and honest about telling stories about how others fooled him, or uncovered one of his little deceptions.

    My fascination with Barnum has grown because of the peculiarities of his moral world. Barnum’s moral world is not shaded in black or white; everything is shades of gray. Most of his actions are not entirely honest; but he’s never entirely dishonest. He justifies his many small dishonesties by pointing out that people want and need to be amused, and his dishonesties are always in the service of amusement. Or, as he so quaintly says it: “Men, women and children, who cannot live on gravity alone, need something to satisfy their gayer, lighter moods and hours, and he who ministers to this want is in a business established by the Author of our nature.” By “Author of our nature” Barnum means “God.” Barnum believes he is engaged in a vocation God has called him to. Even a dishonesty like the Feejee Mermaid is acceptable to God, insofar as it provided some amusement, some light entertainment for those lighter moods and hours, for men, women, and children. Barnum entertained people by using light-hearted deceit, while giving his audience a metaphorical wink out of the corners of his eye as if to say, We both know this is a bit of a humbug, but it sure is fun, isn’t it?

    Yet for all the shades of gray in Barnum’s moral world, I can find at least two subjects where he claimed moral certainty. He was an advocate of temperance and was convinced that the drinking of alcohol was unreservedly bad; and he was a Universalist, convinced that all human beings would one day wind up in heaven.

    I find Barnum’s advocacy of temperance particularly interesting. It does not seem to fit in with the rest of his character. How could the man who had no scruples about exhibiting the Feejee mermaid worry about a little social drinking? One biographer of Barnum believes that his dislike of alcohol came out of his fear of losing his self-control. In his book Humbug: The Art of P. T. Barnum, Neil Harris writes that around 1847, Barnum [quote] “observed a great deal of intoxication ‘among men of wealth and intellect’ and began to brood about what might happen if he became a drunkard himself. Barnum had never been in any danger of that [continues Harris]; his drinking had been moderate… but fear of losing self-control had always plagued him.” [p. 192]

    The temperance movement was a big part of 19th C. Unitarian and Universalist history, and those 19th C. temperance advocates could sound quite patronizing: drinking should be abolished because it inflames the passions of the working classes; — or the reasons sound Puritanical: drinking alcohol is an indecent pleasure and therefore oughtn’t be allowed.

    But as a temperance advocate, Barnum was neither Puritanical nor patronizing. He was not patronizing because, as his biographer Neil Harris points out, “his concern lay with efficiency, and he happily displayed statistics proving the financial rewards of temperance to the family and to the taxpayers of the community.” Nor could Barnum be accused of Puritanism; there was nothing of the Puritan about him; even his talks on temperance were known to be entertaining and amusing.

    We could learn a lot from Barnum today. Today, we not only face the ongoing problem of alcohol abuse, we also face an epidemic of illegal drug use. And so many of the arguments against the abuse of alcohol and drugs still sound patronizing and Puritanical. We can learn from Barnum to make arguments based on efficiency and functionality.

    Let me give one specific example so you can see how it could possibly work. Barnum would make sure that any church he belonged to would allow no alcohol to be served at church functions. His arguments would be functional: The church is open to serious legal liability if alcohol is served at any church function, especially considering that church endowments are tempting targets for lawsuits. His arguments would emphasize efficiency: The church’s insurance carrier is liable to raise insurance rates if alcohol is served at any church function. His arguments would be practical: Since the congregation includes people under the legal drinking age, a church that serves alcohol is in danger of allowing illegal drinking. It’s a matter of not wanting to see the church’s endowment decimated by a lawsuit.

    Personally, I am not a teetotaller like Barnum. Yet I find myself nodding in agreement to his arguments for temperance. He doesn’t try to tell me I’m a bad person because I have a glass of beer once a week. Remarkably, he is not judgmental. I suppose it would be hard for someone who perpetrated a fraud like the Feejee mermaid to be judgmental. But I also believe that Barnum’s refusal to be judgmental stems from his deeply-felt Universalism. Because the fundamental fact in Barnum’s moral universe is that all persons are essentially good and worthy.

    In his pamphlet, “Why I Am a Universalist,” Barnum says the ultimate result of existence will be that all persons get to enjoy eternal life. Yet as we heard in the opening words this morning, eternal life doesn’t carry the conventional meaning, eternal life doesn’t mean “a heaven filled with saints and sinners shut up all together within four jeweled walls and playing on harps.” (Can you imagine someone like P. T. Barnum wanting to go to a heaven where he had to play on a harp all day?) Instead, Barnum says that heaven means a “moral and spiritual status.” Salvation lies in finding eternal life here and now. And the example of Barnum’s life implies that we don’t have to be perfect to get to that point. We don’t have to be perfect, we just have to be worthy of love.

    Barnum tells us that “this present life is the great pressing concern.” He tells us that some kind of salvation is available to us all; and that is the real moral certainty in his moral universe. Today, we might use different words to say the same thing; we might talk about inherent worth and dignity of all persons and justice, equity and compassion in human relations. We might talk about acceptance of each other just as we are. Yet we still agree with Barnum in the essentials: conduct is three-quarters of life; and this present life is the pressing concern.

    So it is that I propose P. T. Barnum for Unitarian Universalist sainthood because of his acceptance of humanity as it really is. No one is perfect, and Barnum is a perfect example of one who’s not perfect. He knows that he has had his moral lapses, his failures and successes, his struggles and triumphs, just as we all have had. As a Universalist, Barnum also knows that no one is better than anybody else, that in spite of his successes he’s no better than you or me, that even in his worst failures he was still as good as you or me, that underneath our various successes and failures we’re all the same. We’re all simply human.

    P. T. Barnum is not exactly a moral exemplar. But I still think he deserves to be one of our Unitarian Universalist saints. He deserves to be a saint because he sets a pretty good example for us; he sets an example we feel is possible to live up to. He deserves to be one of our saints because he tells us that we ordinary people are just as good as the best of humanity. He is deeply human and therefore deeply flawed — but he knows that every person is ultimately worthy of the eternal life that has no reference to time or place but only to the simple fact that each person is worthy of love.

    For all his bluster and bragging, he’s really saying something quite simple: we’ll all worthy of love.