Dan Harper | Sermons

  • Mother’s Peace Day

    Sermon copyright (c) 2023 Dan Harper. As delivered to First Parish in Cohasset. As usual, the sermon as delivered contained substantial improvisation.

    Readings

    The first reading was the “Mother’s Day Proclamation” by Julia Ward Howe:

    Arise, then, women of this day!

    Arise, all women who have hearts, whether your baptism be that of water or of tears! Say firmly: “We will not have great questions decided by irrelevant agencies, our husbands shall not come to us, reeking with carnage, for caresses and applause.

    “Our sons shall not be taken from us to unlearn all that we have been able to teach them of charity, mercy and patience. We women of one country will be too tender of those of another country to allow our sons to be trained to injure theirs.”

    From the bosom of the devastated earth a voice goes up with our own. It says, “Disarm, disarm! The sword is not the balance of justice.” Blood does not wipe out dishonor nor violence indicate possession.

    As men have often forsaken the plow and the anvil at the summons of war, let women now leave all that may be left of home for a great and earnest day of counsel. Let them meet first, as women, to bewail and commemorate the dead. Let them then solemnly take counsel with each other as to the means whereby the great human family can live in peace, each learning after his own time, the sacred impress, not of Caesar, but of God.

    In the name of womanhood and of humanity, I earnestly ask that a general congress of women without limit of nationality may be appointed and held at some place deemed most convenient and at the earliest period consistent with its objects, to promote the alliance of the different nationalities, the amicable settlement of international questions, the great and general interests of peace.

    The second reading was from “Gitanjali 35” by Rabindranath Tagore:

    Where the mind is without fear and the head is held high;
    Where knowledge is free;
    Where the world has not been broken up into fragments by narrow domestic walls;
    Where words come out from the depth of truth;
    Where tireless striving stretches its arms towards perfection;
    Where the clear stream of reason has not lost its way into the dreary desert sand of dead habit;
    Where the mind is led forward by thee into ever-widening thought and action
    Into that heaven of freedom… let my country awake.

    Sermon: “Mother’s Peace Day”

    It appears that the very first mention of Mother’s Day dates back to 1870. Julia Ward Howe, a Unitarian and author of the popular Civil War song “The Battle Hymn of the Republic,” had grown horrified at the actual results of war. She was horrified by how many young men were killed or disabled by war, but she was also horrified by what war did to the moral character of those who fought. A mother herself, she wrote in her proclamation for Mother’s Peace Day: “Our sons shall not be taken from us to unlearn all that we have been able to teach them of charity, mercy and patience.” Thus she issued her historic call for all mothers everywhere to come together in an international congress of women in order to promote world peace.

    After that initial proclamation of Mothers Peace Day in 1870, the idea of a day for mothers to take action together was forgotten until 1907. In that year, an Episcopalian laywoman named Anna Jarvis organized a worship service for mothers at her church in West Virginia. She did so in part to honor her own mother, Ann Reeves Jarvis, who had been a peace activist who had worked with Julia Ward Howe, and had supported Howe’s original idea for a Mother’s Peace Day. So our modern Mother’s Day began with a worship service in 1907, which had been inspired by Julia Ward Howe’s original vision of Mother’s Peace Day.

    Since 1907, Mother’s Day has continued to evolve. By the mid-twentieth century, Mother’s Day was not centered on a church service. It had become a holiday that upheld a view of women then permeating American society: a woman was supposed to get married young, have lots of children, and subsume her identity in motherhood. This mid-twentieth century myth of motherhood ignored all the women who chose not to marry, or who were unable to have children, or didn’t become mothers for whatever reason. Unfortunately, when Mother’s Day became a day to uphold that old mid-twentieth century myth of motherhood, the original purpose of the day was forgotten. No longer were mothers actively taking control of the destiny of the world. Instead of mothers coming together as peace activists, mothers were supposed to be passive recipients of cards and flowers from their children and husbands. If they were lucky, mothers got taken out to lunch; at least then there was one less meal they had to cook and clean up after.

    During the second-wave feminist movement of the 1970s, some feminists began to criticize Mother’s Day: why should women be reduced to being mothers? Why couldn’t we value women for all their contributions to society? These were needed criticisms, helping society to understand that women could be more than stereotypical mothers. At the same time, it turned out that many feminists happened to like Mother’s Day. We liked the thought that there might be a special connection between a mother and the children to whom she had given birth. We liked giving cards or flowers to our mothers. We liked the thought of taking our mothers out to lunch — although in my family, my mother, being a thrifty New England Yankee, was resistant to buying lunch in a restaurant.

    In the twenty-first century, Mother’s Day continued to evolve and change. We began to re-evaluate the American myth of motherhood. We began to expand our understanding of what it meant to be a mother. We had already heard from women who had adopted their children, who had pointed out that their connection with their children was just as special as that of biological mothers. At the start of the twenty-first century, increasing numbers of same sex couples began having children, and male couples began to point out that they provided the mothering that their children wanted and needed. In the past decade, increasing numbers of transgender and non-binary people began having children, and they too have pointed out that mothering is not limited to just one gender.

    And in the past half century, we have also learned to adopt the the perspective of children when we think about motherhood. For some children, their fathers provide more mothering than their mothers. Some children have cold or distant parents, and get their mothering from people who are not their parents. There are of course a great many children who do get mothering from their biological or adoptive mothers, but we began to understand that those children can get mothering not just from their mothers, but from other people in their lives — fathers and aunts and older siblings and teachers and so on.

    We have expanded our understanding of motherhood, and this has come about in part because we have expanded our understanding of gender. It used to be that our society took it for granted that biological sex, gender identity, and gender role were all the same thing. Indeed, some conservative Christians still believe that if your biological sex is female then you are female, and many states in the South are passing laws that uphold this conservative Christian notion of sex gender. Many of those conservative Christians also believe that all women should be ruled by biological males, and should stay at home to raise children; these conservative Christians want to go back to that mid-twentieth century stereotype that the only appropriate role for a biological female is to be a mother.

    However, the rest of our society has come to understand that biological sex, gender identity, and gender role can be quite separate. For example — and this is an example that gets the most press these days — our society is coming to understand that there are transgender people whose biological sex happens to be different from their gender identity. But our society is also coming to accept that people can take on a gender role that is different from their biological sex or their gender identity. We are coming to understand that man can be nurturing and can even take on the role of mothering; we are coming to understand that people who do not have children of their own can take on the role of nurturing and mothering.

    We are slowly expanding our understanding motherhood to include a wider range of actual experiences. Of course we still celebrate biological females who give birth to new human beings. But now we can also celebrate those biological females who do not fit comfortably into the gender role of nurturing female, and we can also celebrate the biological males who take on the role of a nurturing mother. We can celebrate people of any gender identity, of any biological sex, who take on the gender role of mothering.

    This helps us to expand Julia Ward Howe’s original idea of Mother’s Peace Day. Howe knew that anyone who had been a mother would not want to send their child off to war. Anyone who had been a mother would not want to see their child killed or maimed or traumatized by the horrors of war. That is why she ended the original Mother’s Peace Day Proclamation with these words: “I earnestly ask that a general congress of women without limit of nationality may be appointed and held at some place deemed most convenient and at the earliest period consistent with its objects, to promote the alliance of the different nationalities, the amicable settlement of international questions, the great and general interests of peace.” Howe’s idea is quite logical and straightforward: If she could just gather all the mothers of the world together in one great room, surely they could find a way to put an end to war. She was thinking about just those biological females who happened to have given birth, but why not include in that gathering all those who people who have filled some sort of mothering, nurturing role? The more people we can find who have filled a nurturing mothering role, the more people there are who will feel committed to ending war.

    This might include people who would never be called mothers. Take me, for example. I’m a biological male, my gender identity is male, I’ve never had children of my own. Yet I spent a couple of decades doing religious education, and in my own way I helped raise two or three generations of young people. And there are quite a few people like me, people who didn’t exactly do any mothering, but who wound up doing a lot of nurturing. When add together all the mothers with the non-mothers who did a lot of nurturing, that adds up to a great many people who have put a lot of effort into helping the next generation grow up. And we would all prefer it if the next generation were not killed or maimed or traumatized by war.

    I like to think that Julia Ward Howe would have welcomed no just women but nurturing people of all genders to her “general congress of women without limit of nationality.” I suspect Julia Ward Howe would have given the women and mothers the seats of honor in the front of the congress. But she would have welcomed anyone dedicated to keeping our children safe — people of all genders; teachers and social workers and doctors and anyone who nurtured others; aunts and uncles and cousins and older siblings and anyone who didn’t happen to have children of their own but helped raise and nurture children — anyone who has contributed to raising up the next generations. I think Julia Ward Howe would welcomed us all to her great congress.

    And to me, this remains the central meaning of Mother’s Day. Not that any of this should interfere with your traditional celebration of Mother’s Day. Do whatever it is that you usually do on Mother’s Day: call your mom, let your children take you out to lunch, take your spouse out to lunch, ignore the whole thing. I don’t mean any of this to interfere with your celebration of Mother’s Day, but perhaps the thought of Julia Ward howe and Mother’s Peace Day will add to your celebration. If we were all better at mothering, perhaps the world would be a better, more peaceful place. If our world leaders learned some mothering skills, if they allowed themselves to be more nurturing, perhaps we would have fewer wars. Maybe that’s too much to ask — it’s hard for me to imagine that Vladimir Putin knows what it is to nurture others. But what if he could change? What if he could become empathetic? What if he could forget his own egotistical ambitions and learn to how to selflessly nurture those people who are not as strong or powerful as he?

    What if all our world leaders learned how to be empathetic and nurturing? That is, what if all world leaders lived up to the late nineteenth century ideal of motherhood? What if Julia Ward Howe’s great congress of mothers had actually gathered, and had actually taken on real power? We can imagine that such a congress would have focused on how to nurture and raise the next generation. And if our governments were formed with the goal of nurturing and raising the next generation, perhaps we would finally put an end to war.

    Of course Julia Ward Howe’s great congress of mothers was not able to take control of world affairs in 1870. Given the rampant sexism of the time, it was too much to expect that a congress of mothers could in fact take over the world. Nor are the chances for a great congress of mothers much better in today’s world.

    That does not mean that we should lose all hope. We can start small. We can honor and support empathetic nurturing wherever we may find it. We can honor every person in our lives who nurtures others with empathy. There are people of all genders who nurture others with empathy. There are people of all ages who nurture others with empathy. Both parents and non-parents can be nurturing influences in the lives of others. We can honor all these people, and we can support them in their efforts to raise the next generation — to raise up a generation that in its turn will be more nurturing and empathetic than we are today. Perhaps one day, everyone will know the central skills of mothering — nurturing, empathy, and kindness.

    Until that time comes, may we continue to honor the mothers among us. Those of us who had empathetic nurturing mothers can honor their roles in our lives, and if our mothers are still alive we can send them a card or maybe even take them out to lunch. Those of us who have a spouse who is a mother can honor our spouse. All of us can remember and honor all those people in our lives who helped to nurture us.

    And so may I wish all the mothers among us a happy Mother’s Day. May you be honored for all you do, and all you have done. And in the spirit of the original Mother’s Peace Day, may your example of mothering be an inspiration to the rest of the world — so that together we may, in the words of Julia Ward Howe, “take counsel with each other as to the means whereby the great human family can live in peace.”

  • Who Are We, Anyway?

    Sermon copyright (c) 2023 Dan Harper. As delivered to First Parish in Cohasset. As usual, the sermon as delivered contained substantial improvisation.

    Readings

    The first reading comes from the 2011 book “American Religion: Contemporary Trends,” by sociologist Mark Chaves.

    Why the dramatic increase in religious “nones” [since 1990]? … The best explanation for the acceleration of that trend is that it represents a backlash to the religious right’s rising visibility in the 1980s. As Claude Fischer and Michael Hout put it, “the increasing identification of churches with conservative politics led political moderates and liberals who were already weakly committed to religion to make the political statement of rejecting a religious identification.” The basic idea is this: if I was raised, say Catholic or Baptist, and I am a social and political liberal who is not particularly religious, before 1990 I still would be comfortable enough with my religious background to tell a pollster that I am Catholic or Baptist. But after Jerry Falwell’s and Pat Robertson’s rise to prominence, heavy Catholic church involvement in anti-abortion activism, and extensive media coverage of the religious right’s campaigns against feminism, evolution, and homosexuality, I am less comfortable affiliating with the religion in which I was raised. Now I am more likely to respond to a religious preference question by saying “none” because that is a way to say, “I’m not like them.” After 1990 more people thought that saying you were religious was tantamount to saying that you were a conservative Republican. So people who are not particularly religious and who are not conservative Republicans now are more likely to say that they have no religion. [pp. 20-21]

    The second reading is from “Why I am a UU: An Asian Immigrant Perspective,” by Kok Heong McNaughton.

    “I am an ethnic Chinese born and raised in Malaysia…. I first heard the word ‘Unitarian’ in 1976 from a Taiji student of mine who was a member of the Unitarian Church of Los Alamos…. I followed the activities of this church through their newsletter for several months before attending my first service.

    “This was a service about Amnesty International. It blew my mind. Back home in Malaysia, I grew up without political freedom. As students, we were told to avoid any involvement in politics. Our job was to study. Leave politics to the politicians. Accept the status quo. Don’t rock the boat. You’ll be OK. Try to make trouble? You’ll mysteriously disappear and rot in a jail somewhere. Here I was flabbergasted because here’s a group of people whose passion was to free political prisoners in third world countries! I never knew about Amnesty International. I suddenly felt this connection of humankind for one another, that there are people here in the free world who care enough to fight against injustices in the world. I never knew of a church that would take a stand on human rights issues. I had thought that all one does in a church was to sing hymns, praise the Lord, pray for one another’s salvation, and put money in the collection basket.

    “After that first service, I returned again and again. The more I found out about Unitarian Universalism, the more it fitted. I particularly appreciated the use of science and reason to explore and to determine for oneself what is the truth, what are myths, what to accept and what to reject in building one’s own unique theology. I didn’t have to take everything on blind, unquestioning faith. Another aspect of Unitarian Universalism that makes me feel special as an Asian American is the emphasis on cultural, ethnic and religious diversity. I didn’t have to check a part of me at the door and to pretend to be who I wasn’t. My ethnic differences were not only accepted, but they were affirmed and upheld. People were interested in what I had to share: I teach Taiji and Qigong, I taught Chinese cooking classes, I bring ethnic foods to our potlucks, I even share my language with those who were interested. I am often consulted about Taoist and Buddhist practices and readings, and asked if I thought the translations were accurate. My opinion mattered. This not only gives me pride in my culture, but it also encourages me to dig deeper into my own heritage, to find out more in areas where my knowledge and expertise are lacking. It helps me to look at my heritage with fresh eyes.”

    Sermon: “Who Are We, Anyway?”

    Fifteen or so years ago, back when I was working at First Unitarian in New Bedford, an old college friend who became a rabbi paid me a visit. He brought his children along to see the church building, a big old stone pile built when New Bedford had the highest per capita income of any city in the United States. I pointed out the huge Tiffany glass mosaic behind the pulpit, and a few other historical objects that I figured visitors would be interested in. Then my friend the rabbi wanted to point out a few things to his children. “In a Christian church,” he began. “Well,” I said, not wanting to contradict him in front of his kids, “We got kicked out of the Christian club more than a century ago. So I’m not sure you could call us Christians.”

    My friend the rabbi looked surprised. From his point of view, of course we were Christians: we met on Sunday, we had a church building, our services are almost identical to typical mainline Protestant church services. “Then what would you call yourselves?” he said. “Um,” I said, “Maybe Post-Christians? That probably describes us best.” While I said it, I realized that the term “post-Christian” would have little or no meaning to his children, then aged about 5 and 7 years old. Nor would the term post-Christian mean anything to the vast majority of adults in the United States.

    This trivial anecdote gets at a big question: Who are we, anyway?

    On the one hand, there’s a pretty good argument to be made that we are, in fact, Christians. So what if the other Christians didn’t let us into the Christian club when they formed the National Council of Churches, and later the World Council of Churches? Christians are fairly notorious for saying that other Christian groups aren’t “real Christians.” At various times, other Christians have said this about the Mormons, the Christian Scientists, the Seventh Day Adventists… and right now the United Methodists are splitting apart because the conservatives among them say that “real Christians” would never allow same sex marriage. Christians are pretty notorious for saying that other Christians are not Christians. So just because Unitarian Universalists got kicked out of the Christian club doesn’t mean that we’re not Christians.

    On the other hand, while there are many Christians among us, I’ve met Unitarian Universalists who think of themselves as atheist, Pagan, Jewish, Buddhist, Hindu, Muslim, or nothing in particular. I’ve been to a number of Unitarian Universalist Pagan services that had absolutely nothing to do with Christianity. I’ve hung out with Unitarian Universalist Jewish groups, who are quite firm about absolutely not being Christian. Then there are the many sub-groups among us who don’t do any kind of deity — the atheists, the non-theists, the humanists, the apatheists (people who are apathetic about the concept of God), the religious naturalists, and so on. Among the atheists there are Christian atheists, atheists who want to retain the cultural aspects of Christianity. And then there are people like me, the wild-eyed mystics who don’t fit neatly into any of these categories. We have way too much religious diversity to be considered Christians.

    Part of the problem is that Christians are generally allowed to have just one religious identity. You are either one thing, or another. You can be a Christian or a Jew, but you can’t be both. It gets even narrower than that: You can be a Roman Catholic or a Protestant, but you can’t be both. Christianity presents a distinct contrast to some East Asian cultures, where it can be completely acceptable to feel affiliated (to for example) Taoism, Buddhism, Confucianism, and folk religious practices all at the same time.

    Another part of the problem is that Christians generally think of religion as being all about correct belief. You believe in God, you believe in the Trinity, then you’re a Christian — and then the Christians try to impose that criterion onto other religious traditions. However, any comparative religion scholar can tell you that there are plenty of other religious traditions that are not focused on belief.

    A third part of the problem is that our Christian-dominated culture assumes that religion has only a few big categories. There’s Christianity, which is assumed to be the paradigm against which all other religions are measured. There’s Judaism, which is sort of like Christianity without Jesus. There’s Islam, which is sort of a branch of Christianity with another prophet. There’s Buddhism, which is sort of like Christianity because Buddha is a reformer like Jesus. There are some other major religions which kind of resemble Christianity. Then there are lots of “primitive religions” which are primitive because they don’t resemble Christianity. When you put it like this, it all sounds like nonsense, and yet a great many people in our society really do think that other religions are honest-to-goodness religions only insofar as they resemble Christianity.

    In light of our societal prejudices, no wonder it’s hard to explain Unitarian Universalism. We don’t have a problem with multiple religious identities, like Unitarian Universalist Buddhist or Unitarian Universalist Christian. We don’t have one correct belief, but expect that we will all be open and searching. We don’t feel that Christianity is the paradigm against which all other religions are measured. By our society’s standards, we are not, in fact, a “real religion.”

    And honestly, many of us are just as happy that we’re not considered a “real religion.” The religious right has created a climate where to be religious means being sexist and homophobic. The religious right has created a climate where to be religious means rejecting evolutionary science, rejecting climate science, and maybe even rejecting all science that comes up with inconvenient conclusions. The religious right has even begun to create a climate where to be religious means being a Christian nationalist. No wonder that a growing percentage of Americans, when asked to identify their religious affiliation, choose “none.” So if the Christian right claims that we Unitarian Universalists are not a “real religion,” that may be the best thing that could happen to us.

    I’ve now spent much of this sermon in explaining, not who we are, but who we are not. This is the reality of being a Unitarian Universalist in our society: we don’t fit into the neat little box of American religion. I’m afraid we just have to get used to the fact that we’re going to have to explain over and over again that we don’t require people to believe in God, that we are not Christian nationalists, and that by American standards we are not a “real religion.”

    For a positive statement of who we are, we can turn to the second reading, the excerpt from Kok-Heong McNaughton’s essay “Why I Am a UU.” A few things stand out for me in Kok-Heong’s essay.

    First and foremost, as Unitarian Universalists we care enough to fight against the injustices we see in the world around us. Our religion does not exists only to support our personal spiritualities. We also come together to make the world a better place. While this might seem to be a characteristic of many religions, our approach is slightly different. Rather than having a pre-determined notion of what we should do to make the world a better place, we look at the many problems around us and use reason to determine where we might make the most difference.

    The use of reason is an important part of who we are. Rather than relying on blind, unquestioning faith, we ask questions and and use our reasoning powers to try to answer those questions. Since we know how easy it is for us human beings to deceive ourselves, we also come together as communities to try to get closer to the truth. In other words, we use the principles of scientific method. Scientific method requires a community of peers to examine each other’s hypotheses and conclusions. You have to be willing to rethink your conclusions if other people show you evidence that you might be wrong.

    We also attempt to value the cultural, ethnic, and religious diversity among us. This actually goes along with our search for truth: we know from science that all human beings have biases that we’re not really aware of, and in order to get through our biases to the truth, we need to constantly check with other people who may lack our biases. I will also say that this for me is the most exciting part of being a Unitarian Universalist. As a straight white provincial male from west of Boston, it’s way too easy for me to think that Boston is the Hub of the Universe and that there is no life west of the Connecticut River; which means it’s way too easy for me to take for granted things that I should really be questioning. Our religious, cultural, and ethnic diversity is one of our greatest strengths.

    One of the ways we celebrate our diversity is by allowing the various individuals in our community to share their individual talents and expertise. You can see that here at First Parish. Our members teach our religious education classes to our children. One of our members with expertise in Buddhist practice leads a meditation class. Our circle ministries are planned and coordinated by our members. Our social justice programs are planned and led by our members. And while a minister leads a little more than three quarters of our Sunday morning services, close to a quarter of all our services are led by lay people. Each one of us represents a source of knowledge and wisdom, and we encourage each other to find out more where our own knowledge and expertise is lacking.

    Our religion does not provide certainty. Instead of saying, “We have the one true answer so you better come join us,” we say, “We’re trying to figure all this out, why don’t you come join us?” Can we sum all this up in a single simple positive statement? There used to be a push for Unitarian Universalists to come up with an “elevator speech,” a ten-second spiel on Unitarian Universalism that we could spit out if someone asked us to explain our religion while sharing an elevator with someone. The format of an elevator speech tends to push people to try for certainty: we are this, or we are that. But if we’re a faith without certainty, then an elevator speech will most likely misrepresent who we actually are.

    So it is that if someone asks me — Who are you Unitarian Universalists, anyway? — I don’t have a set response. I may say that we don’t care much about what you believe, but we do care what you do with your life. I may say that we believe the search for truth is ongoing, and that searching for truth works best in a community where a diverse group of people can help you challenge your unquestioned assumptions.

    Sometimes, someone is insistent to know exactly what it is the Unitarian Universalists “believe.” So here’s what I might say to give a positive statement of what Unitarian Universalism is all about. We care enough to fight against injustice; we use science and reason to help us find the truth; we need community to help us find truth; we value cultural, ethnic, and religious diversity; we all take responsibility for teaching and learning together.

    And if I meet someone who seems genuinely interested in our congregation, who seems like they’re maybe thinking about becoming a part of our congregation, then I won’t spend a lot of time explaining who we are, or what we “believe.” When Kok-Heong McNaughton started asking about her local Unitarian Universalist congregation, the person she talked to didn’t waste time in explanations: “When I indicated an interest,” said Kok-Heong, “instead of giving me an earful, she simply called up the church office and put me on their newsletter mailing list.” If we’re more about deeds than creeds, the newsletter is a pretty good way to introduce someone to our actual deeds.

    And maybe that’s the best short answer to the question, “Who are you Unitarian Universalists, anyway?” Read our newsletter. Look at our website. Know us by what we do.

  • What the World Needs Now

    Sermon copyright (c) 2023 Dan Harper. As delivered to First Parish in Cohasset. As usual, the sermon as delivered contained substantial improvisation.

    Readings

    The first reading was the poem “Perhaps the World Ends Here,” by Joy Harjo.

    The second reading was from the essay “Friendship” by Ralph Waldo Emerson.

    Gender-specific language has NOT been changed, since it may be central to Emerson’s argument.

    Every man alone is sincere. At the entrance of a second person, hypocrisy begins. We parry and fend the approach of our fellow-man by compliments, by gossip, by amusements, by affairs. We cover up our thought from him under a hundred folds. I knew a man, who, under a certain religious frenzy, cast off this drapery, and, omitting all compliment and commonplace, spoke to the conscience of every person he encountered, and that with great insight and beauty. At first he was resisted, and all men agreed he was mad. But persisting, as indeed he could not help doing, for some time in this course, he attained to the advantage of bringing every man of his acquaintance into true relations with him. No man would think of speaking falsely with him, or of putting him off with any chat of markets or reading-rooms. But every man was constrained by so much sincerity to the like plaindealing, and what love of nature, what poetry, what symbol of truth he had, he did certainly show him. But to most of us society shows not its face and eye, but its side and its back. To stand in true relations with men in a false age is worth a fit of insanity…. Almost every man we meet requires some civility, — requires to be humored; he has some fame, some talent, some whim of religion or philanthropy in his head that is not to be questioned, and which spoils all conversation with him.

    Sermon: “What the World Needs Now”

    Back in the 1960s, lyricist Hal David was working regularly with pop composer Burt Bachrach. One day, while commuting in to New York City to work with Bachrach, Hal David came up with the line, “What the world needs now is love, sweet love / It’s the only thing that there’s just too little of.” Then for more than a year, he couldn’t make any progress with the lyrics. He knew the song was talking to God, but he wasn’t quite sure what the song wanted to say to God.

    Now it would be easy to jump to conclusions about what Hal David meant by the word “God.” In this decade of the 2020s, it seems like the only people who talk about God are the right-wing Christians; as a result, when we hear the word “God,” we often think of their god, the stereotypical old white guy sitting on a cloud wearing long white robes and advocating for school prayer and the Ten Commandments displayed in every classroom. Hal David was most definitely not a right wing Christian. He was the child of Jewish immigrants who left Austria in the 1920s and settled in New York City, where they ran a delicatessen. On his website, when discussing this song, he left the interpretation of God wide open; it could, he said, be the “someone or something we call God.” In other words, not the narrow, sectarian notion of God so beloved by right-wing Christians, but an open expansive understanding that could include a range of ideas from a traditional Jewish God, all the way to “God” as a humanistic or even atheistic metaphor.

    In any case, Hal David finally figured out what he wanted to say to God: we don’t need some transcendent all-powerful God to create any more mountains, we don’t need any more oceans, we don’t even need any more rivers or meadows; what we really need is enough love to go around. Once the lyrics were done, Burt Bachrach wrote music for it, they both looked at the song, and decided it was “a flop.” (1) Burt Bachrach had hoped that Dionne Warwick, whom they felt was the singer who was best at performing their songs, would record it. But, as he later recalled, “Dionne rejected that song. She might have thought it was too preachy and I thought Dionne was probably right.” (2)

    Well, Dionne Warwick was right. The song is indeed too preachy. It begins with the chorus: “What the world needs now is love, sweet love / It’s the only thing there’s too little of.” How very mid-1960s. Not only is it too preachy, but it’s hard not to make fun of the lyrics. If we all had just a little more love, then all those 1960s problems would just go away — the racial prejudice, the Vietnam War, the assassinations — just a little more love, and they’d go away. Just another pop song about love, and the problems will all go away.

    In 1965, Jackie DeShannon finally recorded the song, and to the surprise of the songwriters, it became a top ten hit. Since then, it has been recorded and performed over and over again — by singers, by jazz groups, by hardcore punk rockers, by high school bands. It even got performed at the Democratic National Convention in 2016. The song still sounds preachy. It still sounds too much like a willfully naive and saccharine 1960s pop song. Most performances of it wind up sounding schlocky. But somehow the song has managed to strike a chord in our popular unconscious.

    There’s a good reason for that. Hal David was actually correct. The world actually does need more love. Maybe it wouldn’t solve all the world’s problems, but with all the hatred and violence in the world — yes, we do in fact need more love.

    Though we need to be careful what kind of love we’re talking about here. The English language uses the single word “love” to smush together several different concepts: romantic love, love between family members, love of oneself, love among good friends, love extended to strangers, a kind of selfless love that includes all beings, and so on. Even though this was a 1960s pop song, Hal David’s lyrics are not talking specifically about romantic love. Nor are Hal David’s lyrics talking specifically about love between family members, or love of oneself, though these might be a part of what the world needs now. The song is talking about a love that is “not just for some, but for everyone.” This is a love that is inclusive, that includes all of humankind.

    Back in the 1960s, there was an ol-fashioned term for this kind of love. They called it “brotherhood.” Brotherhood meant that people should extend idealized feelings of sibling love to all of humanity. Political conservatives like Hubert Humphrey referred to “brotherhood” in their speeches. Progressives like Martin Luther King, Jr., spoke of lifting “our nation from the quick sands of racial injustice to solid rock of brotherhood.” Indeed, some Unitarian Universalists in the 1960s, when asked what they believed, might have responded with the words of Unitarian minister James Freeman Clarke: the fatherhood of God, the brotherhood of man, the leadership of Jesus, salvation by character, and progress of mankind onward and upward forever. Brotherhood, the brotherhood of man — those old words and phrases aimed to capture the kind of love that the world needs now. If all men are truly my brothers, how could I do anything hateful to them? — brotherly love would prevent me from acting with hate.

    Of course, we now know the big problem with the word “brotherhood” — it ignores women. The second wave feminists pointed out this uncomfortable fact in the late 1960s. At first, some people pushed back against the second wave feminists saying that of course the word “brotherhood” included women and girls. In response, there were a great many women and girls who bluntly replied that they did in fact feel left out; oh, and by the way, if that’s the way things worked, then they were going to start using the word “sisterhood” to include all people. The men who liked the word “brotherhood” decided they didn’t want to substitute the word “sisterhood.” By the 1980s, we Unitarian Universalists had stopped using the term “brotherhood.”

    We really haven’t come up with another word to put in its place. I’ve been thinking about this recently. We know what we want to say: that all human beings are interdependent, we are all connected, we are all part of the same human race. What single word or short phrase might we use that communicates this rather complex idea? And it is a complex idea. Rabbi Hillel said: “That which is hateful to you, do not do to your fellow. That is the entire Torah, and the rest is commentary. Now go and study.” (3) Here is a very simple statement that gets at the same basic idea — If you wouldn’t do it to yourself, don’t do it to someone else — but then Rabbi Hillel ends by telling us to go study the Torah. It looks like a simple idea on the surface; then we need to study the rest of the Torah to help us fully understand this seemingly simple idea.

    It is this same seemingly simple idea that Emerson was getting at in his essay on friendship. Friendship, in Emerson’s essay, is the meeting of souls. Friendship is when we can be utterly genuine with another person, speaking directly to each other’s consciences; not speaking falsely, not falling into gossip or chit-chat, but a meeting of souls that is entirely honest and lacking in pretense. If we could be this genuine with others, if we could know another’s soul in this way, then we would naturally follow Rabbi Hillel’s maxim; if I fully encounter another’s soul, how could I possibly do anything hateful to them?

    But I’ve finally decided that Emerson is missing something in this essay in this essay. Yes, there are those intense friendships where you feel like your soul is directly meeting another person’s soul. Emerson writes, “to most of us, society shows not its face and eye, but its side and its back.” But I realized that many of my best and strongest relationships with other people have taken place, not face to face and eye to eye, but side by side.

    For example, I think about the times when I helped prepare a meal for a certain homeless shelter that aimed to provide not just food and warm housing, but human interaction as well. While we were cooking dinner at this homeless shelter, we spend quite a lot of time seeing the sides and backs of other people, because everyone was working; not just the volunteers, but some of the guests would also come help prepare the meal. Then, before COVID hit, an essential part of this homeless shelter was that the people cooking the meal would sit down with the guests and everyone would eat dinner together. When you’re eating a meal with other people, you don’t spend all your time staring at their faces and eyes. When you’re sitting at a table with half a dozen others, you’re going to see the faces of some people and the sides of others — and maybe the backs of other people who are sitting at other tables. And then when everyone joins in cleaning up together, once again, more often you’d be side-by-side than face to face. Emerson would say, this was society showing its side and back. But it seems to me that there was just as much real connection happening in that setting as in some intense one-on-one face-to-face conversation with a Transcendental friend.

    Emerson levels another criticism at society: “We parry and fend the approach of our fellow-man by compliments, by gossip, by amusements….” And in every homeless shelter I’ve volunteered at, in every communal living situation, in every family — there are always the little dramas going on, just as Emerson pointed out: people who are temporarily angry with each other, people who have stopped being angry with each other, and so on. But I think Emerson got it exactly wrong. Gossip, compliments, amusements: these are how we hold our fellow human beings at arm’s length; these are all ways that human communities can become more closely interwoven. When you think about it this way, Emerson’s use of gender-specific male language actually makes sense. In nineteenth century America, middle class and upper class men were able to have time to have intense face-to-face, one-on-one conversations with other men, because women took on much of the burden of housework. Since women were considered inferior to men, the kind of social interaction associated with women — small talk, exchanging news with others, keeping each other entertained while working around the kitchen table — these kinds of social interactions would also be considered inferior. Yet it is in these daily mundane tasks that the complex love of human communities becomes apparent.

    Which brings me to the first reading, the excerpt from the poem by Joy Harjo. “The world begins at a kitchen table,” she tells us, and then she lists all the other things that happen at kitchen tables: food is prepared and served; babies teethe; children are instructed in how to be human; we gossip; we dream; we laugh when we fall down; we pull ourselves back together again. Births happen next to the kitchen table, bodies are prepared for burial there. We sing there, we pray, we give thanks, we laugh, we cry, we eat “the last sweet bite.” Joy Harjo says the world begins and ends at the kitchen table.

    Emersonian friendship is a lovely ideal, especially for those who have the time for it. But I think it is the kitchen table kind of love that the world needs much more of. It begins with the love that comes when preparing food and eating it together. This love includes gossip too: not hateful hurtful gossip, not the mean gossip of junior high school, but gossip that is actually the exchange of everyday life-and-death matters: who is ill, who is caring for whom, who is well, who is falling in love with whom, all the little bits of news that come with the ordinary life of a human community. It is through this kind of talk around the kitchen table, this talk of ordinary life — who is dying; who just gave birth, who has grown up, who has become a wise elder — this is how children learn to become human. It is through these ordinary conversations that adults are reminded how to remain human, to remain humane. And sometimes the deepest conversations on becoming human happen when we are working side by side with our elders, with our children.

    Maybe this is what we should mean if we want to talk about the kind of love the world needs more of. I would not call this brotherhood, nor would I call this sisterhood; but it is a way of being human together. Like Emerson, I want to be genuine and to stand in true relation with other people; but in my own life I’ve found that is most likely to happen when human beings are cooking a meal together, when we are cleaning up together, when we are gossiping (in the best sense), when we are helping one other.

    Not that sitting around a kitchen table is going solve all the world’s problems. No more did “brotherhood” solve the problems of racism and war in the 1960s. No more did “sisterhood” solve the problems of sexism in the 1970s. But in a era when we spend more time staring at screens than we spend sitting around a kitchen table, I would say that it would be worth our while to spend more time sitting around kitchen tables than staring at screens. It is more difficult to do something hateful to another person if you have sat down with that person at a kitchen table. Once someone sits down to dinner with a homeless person, they have to see that person as just another human being. We also saw this phenomenon during the fight for marriage equality: acceptance for same-sex marriage increased as more and more heterosexual people had friends who were same sex couples. These experiences are even changing the right-wing Christians: younger conservative Christians are more likely to be tolerant of same sex marriage than older conservative Christians. We are slowly seeing this phenomenon play out in the struggle against racism: as our society becomes more and more racially diverse, racial attitudes are being changed; when you sit down to Thanksgiving dinner with your cousin or in-law who is of a different race than you are, it’s harder for you to be racist.

    This is where it begins, and this is where it ends: seeing ourselves in the other, and seeing the other in ourselves. For some, this might happen in great Emersonian moments of Transcendental friendship. But for most of us, it happens in day-to-day life. It happens around the kitchen table, if we would just notice it. This is the love, sweet love, that the world needs more of.

    Notes:

    (1) Hal David, “Words: What the World Needs Now,” Hal David: Official Website, https://www.haldavid.com/words.htm accessed 28 April 2023.
    (2) Burt Bachrach in an interview with Ken Sharp, “Burt Bachrach: What the World Needs Now,” Record Collector [UK magazine], May, 2006, issue 323.
    (3) Talmud Shabbat 31 a