Dan Harper | Sermons

  • Election Day Sermon

    This sermon was preached by Rev. Dan Harper at First Unitarian Church in New Bedford. As usual, the sermon below is a reading text. The actual sermon as preached contained more than the usual amount of extemporaneous remarks and improvisation. Sermon copyright (c) 2008 Daniel Harper.

    Readings

    The first reading comes from the Election Day sermon of an early minister of this church. In May, 1776, Samuel West, then minister of our congregation, was invited to preach the Election Day sermon before the Massachusetts colonial legislature. West preached a carefully balanced and beautifully written justification for rebelling against King George. Before I read a fairly long extract from this sermon, I will only say that Samuel West uses the term “magistrate” in much the same way that we would use the term “elected official.”

    “If magistrates are no farther ministers of God than they promote the good of the community, then obedience to them neither is nor can be unlimited; for it would imply a gross absurdity to assert that, when magistrates are ordained by the people solely for the purpose of being beneficial to the state, they must be obeyed when they are seeking to ruin and destroy it. This would imply that men were bound to act against the great law of self-preservation, and to contribute their assistance to their own ruin and destruction, in order that they may please and gratify the greatest monsters in nature, who are violating the laws of God and destroying the rights of mankind. Unlimited submission and obedience is due to none but God alone. He has an absolute right to command; he alone has an uncontrollable sovereignty over us, because he alone is unchangeably good; he never will nor can require of us, consistent with his nature and attributes, anything that is not fit and reasonable; his commands are all just and good; and to suppose that he has given to any particular set of men a power to require obedience to that which is unreasonable, cruel, and unjust, is robbing the Deity of his justice and goodness, in which consists the peculiar glory of the divine character, and it is representing him under the horrid character of a tyrant.

    “If magistrates are ministers of God only because the law of God and reason points out the necessity of such an institution for the good of mankind, it follows, that whenever they pursue measures directly destructive of the public good they cease being God’s ministers, they forfeit their right to obedience from the subject, they become the pests of society, and the community is under the strongest obligation of duty, both to God and to its own members, to resist and oppose them, which will be so far from resisting the ordinance of God that it will be strictly obeying his commands. To suppose otherwise will imply that the Deity requires of us an obedience that is self-contradictory and absurd, and that one part of his law is directly contrary to the other; i.e., while he commands us to pursue virtue and the general good, he does at the same time require us to persecute virtue, and betray the general good, by enjoining us obedience to the wicked commands of tyrannical oppressors. Can any one not lost to the principles of humanity undertake to defend such absurd sentiments as these? As the public safety is the first and grand law of society, so no community can have a right to invest the magistrate with any power or authority that will enable him to act against the welfare of the state and the good of the whole. If men have at any time wickedly and foolishly given up their just rights into the hands of the magistrate, such acts are null and void, of course; to suppose otherwise will imply that we have a right to invest the magistrate with a power to act contrary to the law of God, — which is as much as to say that we are not the subjects of divine law and government.”

    (Full sermon online here.)

    The second reading is very brief, and it comes from Section C-2.1 of the bylaws of the Unitarian Universalist Association, of which we are a member congregation.

    “We, the member congregations of the Unitarian Universalist Association, covenant to affirm and promote:…

    “The right of conscience and the use of the democratic process within our congregations and in society at large….”

    Sermon

    It’s election day on Tuesday, a day when registered voters will be selecting national, state, and local candidates, and deciding on a number of ballot questions, and I want to talk with you this morning about the election. No, I’m not going to endorse any specific candidate because I don’t think that’s something a minister should do. No, I’m not going to talk much about the presidential election, because even though the presidential campaign has dominated the news, it is only a small part of this coming election.

    And since I’m a big supporter of the separation of church and state, I want to begin by telling you why I think it is appropriate for me to preach about election day. One of the peculiarities of Unitarian Universalism is that we, as a matter of religious principle, assert the value of the democratic process, and we have religious reasons for doing so. We are religious supporters of democracy. You may ask why this is so.

    To begin with, we value democratic process because we have found that the best form of church governance for us is centered in a democratic local congregation — this is known as congregational polity. We believe strongly in the use of reason and the importance of personal conscience, and so instead of giving primary importance to distant, faceless hierarchies, we have chosen to make the local church the center of religious authority. Of course we also make sure that we have strong connections to other Unitarian Universalist congregations, but those are connections between equals rather than hierarchical relationships.

    Then within the local congregation, we value democratic process because we think no one person has complete access to the truth. Over the last few centuries, we have discovered that it makes sense to listen to all people, not just the rich and powerful people; — no one person has all the answers, and just because someone is in a position of authority does not mean that their answers are better than ours. We have found that a good democratic process is the best way to take advantage of the insights of a wide range of people, so that we can gradually get closer to the truth.

    So because of this, and perhaps some other reasons, we value democratic process as a matter of religious principle. I trust you have noticed that, although we assert the value of the democratic process as a religious principle, that is not the same thing as asserting the value of democracy as it is practiced in local, state, and national levels here in the United States. We can support any democratic process that matches our religious standards for democracy; and so it is that Canadian Unitarian Universalists can be just as supportive of their parliamentary form of democracy as we are of democracy in the United States; and any Unitarian Universalist can be supportive of democracy as practiced by the United Nations. I say all this because I want to be clear that we Unitarian Universalists are not tied to any specific instance of democratic government;– indeed, we may find that our religious values require us to be critical of some democratic governments. Nor are we tied to any specific political party;– indeed, we often find that our religious values require us to be very critical of both major political parties here in the United States, and critical of all the minor political parties as well. Our ideal of democratic process is just that — an ideal, and we often find that reality does not measure up to our ideal.

    Given that we support democratic processes, I have three things I’d like to talk with you about in this election day sermon. I’d like to talk about whether it is your duty to vote; I’d like to talk about what role religion should play in politics; and I’d like to talk about several specific issues that confront us in the coming election.

    …

    Let’s start with the easiest bit first, whether or not it is your duty to vote. Of course we must remember that a fair number of our members and friends are not eligible to vote, whether due to their nationality or age or whatever. With those exceptions in mind, it is my firm conviction that Unitarian Universalism does NOT require us to vote in any election.

    I’ll bet you thought I was going to say that everyone had to vote. But remember the second reading this morning:– we affirm and promote “the right of conscience and the use of the democratic process within our congregations and in society at large….” Thus, if voting violates your deeply-held principles such that is against your conscience to do vote, then as a religious principle, you should not vote. This is what we might call “principled non-voting.”

    Principled non-voting can mean that you refuse to vote at all, or it can mean that you refuse to choose between candidates whom you feel are unacceptable as a matter of principle. There have been times when I have refused to vote for a candidate for a particular office because I felt none of the candidates was morally acceptable.

    You might also engage in principled non-voting when you get into the voting booth and discover to your surprise that you have no idea how to choose between two candidates. My favorite example of are the elections for governor’s council here in Massachusetts — it’s almost impossible to find out what the candidates stand for, and more than once I have chosen to not vote for anyone for governor’s council as a matter of principled non-voting.

    There’s another possibility for principled non-voting, a possibility which I don’t think applies to anyone in this church. If someone gets into the voting booth and realize that they can’t vote for a particular candidate because of skin color, or gender, or anything else, then I suggest that it is best for them not to vote at all. We’ve been hearing about this in the current presidential campaign — there are people who will refuse to vote for Barack Obama because he’s black; and there were people who refused to vote for Hillary Clinton in the primaries because she’s a woman, or who will refuse to vote for Sarah Palin because she’s a woman. Here in our congressional district, no doubt there are people who will refuse to vote for Barney Frank because he’s gay. It should be obvious that if there’s someone who refuses to vote for a particular candidate because of skin color, gender, sexual orientation, or what-have-you — then that someone should engage in principled non-voting, and simply not vote for or against either candidate.

    None of this is news to anyone here, I’m sure. Out of religious conviction, we should take advantage of the right to vote, unless voting violates our conscience, in which case principled non-voting is perfectly acceptable.

    …

    Now let’s talk about what role religion should play in politics.

    In the first reading this morning, we heard from the 1776 Election Day sermon by Rev. Samuel West, the minister of our church back in the late 18th century. This is a fairly typical Revolutionary sermon that tries to justify rebellion against the British government, while acknowledging the necessity for maintaining civil order. It is a fairly typical 18th century sermon because West obviously believes that the universe runs according to rational and reasonable laws and principles; that God is a rational being; that human beings are generally rational beings but that we also need a government to keep us from acting wickedly towards one another; and that government is a necessary institution to promotes the general good of humankind. All this is pretty standard stuff out of your high school American history class.

    But I get something more out of what West has to say. He tells us that as long as magistrates “promote the good of the community,” then they are doing God’s work; but when magistrates do not promote the good of the community, they are no longer doing God’s work but instead are “pests of society.” Over the past few years, we have seen a number of American politicians claiming that God is on their side, but Samuel West puts the lie to such claims;– God isn’t on any politician’s side, God is on the side of goodness and justice. King George claimed that God was on his side, but Samuel West said that King George was wrong. Politicians can bring government into alignment with the law of God and the law of reason, says West — but politicians can not bring God into alignment with their political views.

    Whether or not we believe in God, I think Samuel West is onto something here. He is telling us that what’s most important about a politician is the results they achieve. Conversely, he tells us quite directly (and I quote), “whenever [magistrates] pursue measures directly destructive of the public good they cease being God’s ministers.” I interpret this to mean that we should pay very little attention to what politicians say about their religion — but we should pay a great deal of attention to what politicians do to make this world a better place. The proof is in the pudding.

    Given that principle, I believe that politicians should keep their religion out of their politics, and let the rest of us be the judge of whether or not they are acting in a moral and ethical manner. Of the four major-party presidential and vice-presidential candidates, I feel John McCain and Joe Biden have been pretty good at not talking about their personal religious beliefs. However, I have at times been uncomfortable with Sarah Palin and Barack Obama, both of whom at times have seemed to me to inject a little too much of their religion into their politics. Obama has been making a point of the fact that he’s a Christian, which is perhaps understandable considering the racial and religious slurs that have been thrown at him; but sometimes I feel he has talked too much about his Christian faith. Palin, for her part, has been a little too forthcoming about her Christian faith, and about her support for creationism. At the same time, I have also noticed that it’s the woman and the black man who feel they have to talk a lot about their religions, and it may be that both John McCain and Joe Biden have the luxury of being able to dodge questions about their religious faiths because they are white men.

    Maybe the real problem is that American voters push their politicians into talking about religion. It should not matter to us whether a politician is a Pentecostal, a Congregationalist, an Episcopalian, or a Roman Catholic — nor should it matter to the politician. Colin Powell was on the television program “Meet the Press” last week, and he said the following: “Is there something wrong with being a Muslim in this country? The answer’s, No, that’s not America. Is there something wrong with some seven-year-old Muslim kid believing that he or she could be president?” We will answer that there’s nothing wrong with a Muslim kid believing that he or she could be president someday. We also know that too many people in America today would only accept a Christian as president. This is wrong — it should not matter what religion a politician adheres to, as long as they are moral and ethical in their actions. I don’t know what to do about this problem, except to point out that it exists — and to reaffirm that we don’t care what religion a politicians holds, as long as they try to keep their religion out of their politics.

    …

    I’d like to end this sermon by alerting you to five issues that I think we Unitarian Universalists should pay close attention to as we evaluate the various candidates for state and national offices.

    First, as Unitarian Universalists, we trace our religious heritage back to the great teaching of Jesus of Nazareth. If what was written about him is even a little bit accurate, Jesus was deeply concerned with the fate of poor and disadvantaged people. He taught that the first should be last, and the last should be first — which I take to mean that we should take care of the poor before we take care of the rich. Thus, when evaluating any political candidate, I suggest we ask ourselves how this candidate will care for poor and disadvantaged people.

    The second issue is also drawn from the teachings of Jesus of Nazareth. Jesus was quite firm that we should work for peace; indeed, he is reported to have said, “Blessed are the peacemakers.” There are many different ideas of how to achieve peace, and I have talked with people in the military and people who are peace activists whom I would call peacemakers. Also, peace goes beyond international affairs and includes peace in our local communities as well. While we might disagree about how to achieve peace, I suggest that when evaluating any political candidate we ask ourselves if this candidate is committed to peace.

    The third issue also comes from the teachings of Jesus. You may remember that Jesus told us to love our neighbors. And Jesus was quite clear that every human being is our neighbor, that human love must cross race, ethnic group, class, and gender. Based on this principle, we Unitarian Universalists fight racism and sexism and all forms of prejudice. Therefore, I suggest that when evaluating any political candidate, we should ask ourselves whether this candidate sees all persons as their neighbor, and ask ourselves whether this candidate will fight racism, sexism, and all forms of discrimination.

    The fourth issue I’d like to mention is the principle of ecojustice. As Unitarian Universalists, we are affirm the importance of the web of all existence of which we are a part, and we are committed to maintaining human and non-human communities in a sustainable fashion. The word “ecojustice” implies that economic justice and ecological justice cannot be separated and are of equal importance. With this in mind, I suggest that when we evaluate any political candidate, we will want to consider whether this candidate is committed to ecojustice and to sustainability.

    Finally, as Unitarian Universalists we are committed to the use of reason. We are in favor of extending human knowledge through science, and we believe it is good to be an intellectual. Thus I would suggest that when we evaluate a political candidate, we spend some time considering whether the candidate supports science and scientific research, supports the use of reason in making decisions, and supports being an intellectual.

    …

    We Unitarian Universalists cherish freedom of thought. We don’t hold with religious dogma, and I’d like to believe that we don’t hold with political dogma either. What I have tried to outline in this election day sermon is (I hope) not dogma, but rather matters of principle:–

    As a matter of principle, we should either vote on Tuesday; either that, or we may choose to engage in principled non-voting. Forgetting to vote, however, or being to lazy to vote, are not valid options for us.

    As a further matter of principle, we should resist the temptation to mix religion and politics. We should pretty much ignore what politicians say about their religion — but we should pay a great deal of attention to what politicians do to make this world a better place. We don’t care if a presidential candidate is Muslim or Christian or atheist; what matters to us is whether that politician will provide principled and ethical leadership.

    Finally, there are five issues that, as a matter of principle, I feel should be of concern to every Unitarian Universalist:– caring for the poor people in the world; peacemaking; opposing discrimination in all its forms; sustainability or ecojustice; and the importance of reason, science, and the intellect.

    I will close by reminding you that these are only suggestions. I expect that you are a reasonable, thoughtful human being; I expect that you will listen to your conscience; and I expect that you will participate in democracy based on your own deeply-held principles.

    May we each live out our highest principles, according to conscience, on election day.

  • Glory Days, or, Hit by a Fish

    On this Sunday, we recognized a Unitarian church which, like First Unitarian Church in New Bedford, is also celebrating its three hundredth birthday this year. Thus, the readings did not relate to the sermon, but instead celebrated the birthday of All Souls Unitarian Church in Belfast, Ireland. These readings are included here:

    Greetings to All Souls Belfast

    Whereas All Souls Church in Belfast, Ireland, affiliated with the Non-Subscribing Presbyterian Church of Ireland and with the General Assembly of Unitarian and Free Christian Churches, will celebrate the three hundredth anniversary of their founding this week;

    Whereas First Unitarian Church in New Bedford, a member congregation of the Unitarian Universalist Association, was established three hundred years ago this year when Rev. Samuel Hunt was settled as minister in what was then called the town of Dartmouth;

    Whereas both congregations are a part of the worldwide Unitarian fellowship, sharing in the values of liberal religion;

    Whereas we feel a special connection with All Souls because Maggi Kerr Peirce has been a member of both congregations;

    Therefore, we do extend our warmest greetings to the congregation of All Souls Church, wishing that their congregation may thrive and continue to uphold the values of liberal religion for at least another three centuries.

    Given under our hands this fourteenth day of October in the two thousand and eighth year of the common era…

    [Signed by members of the Board of Trustees of First Unitarian Church in New Bedford.]

    A short history of All Souls Unitarian Church in Belfast, Ireland

    Read by Maggi Kerr Peirce

    John Abernethy, called “the father of non-subscription”, was a prominent Irish Presbyterian minister who led many ministers and congregations out of the Synod of Ulster into a separate liberal-minded denomination, known today as the Non-Subscribing Presbyterian Church of Ireland, and affiliated with the worldwide Unitarian movement.

    In 1705 Abernethy founded a meeting, subsequently known as the Belfast Society, of ministers and lay people who gathered to discuss the Bible and recent theological scholarship. Members pooled their resources to buy new books and prepared papers on the latest publications. They trained themselves to engage in theological disputation and gradually began to challenge accepted religious notions of their day. A nineteenth-century Presbyterian historian described the Belfast Society as a “seed-plot of error”.

    James Kirkpatrick, an Irish Presbyterian minister, was the first minister in Belfast to argue for the principles of non-subscription. He was a founding member of the Belfast Society. In common with Abernethy and others he adopted an increasingly critical attitude towards humanly formulated creeds, particularly the Westminster Confession of Faith.

    In 1706 he accepted a call from the Belfast congregation as colleague to the Reverend John McBride. The Belfast congregation, which had grown rapidly, numbered more than three thousand members. At the time of Kirkpatrick’s call McBride had fled to Scotland to avoid arrest for refusing to take the oath abjuring the claims to the throne of James II’s son. McBride had suggested that the original Belfast congregation should be divided and a second meeting house built. Eventually, after complicated negotiations, the Belfast church did just that. A new meeting house was built immediately behind the first as the home of Kirkpatrick’s Second congregation. This was the beginning of unitarianism in Belfast.

    [From material written by David Steers, minister of All Souls’ Non-Subscribing Presbyterian Church, Belfast from 1989 to 2000.]

    Sermon was preached by Rev. Dan Harper at First Unitarian Church in New Bedford. About half the sermon as preached was extemporaneous, and the text below is a rough reconstruction of the actual sermon. Additionally, the text below has been slightly corrected based on further historical research. Sermon copyright (c) 2008 Daniel Harper.

    Sermon — “Richard Huff, Quiet Revolutionary”

    Years ago, I was watching some stupid television show, and I saw a comedy routine in which, much to his surprise, a man got slapped in the face with a fish. I said it was a “comedy routine,” although if you think about it, getting hit in the face with a fish is not really that funny. In fact, I don’t remember anything else about that comedy routine, so it couldn’t have been very funny. But I have retained this image of a very surprised man, and since then I’ve sometimes thought that that image of getting hit in the face with a fish is a good image for the way life can surprise us in very unpleasant ways.

    So I tell you this, and it occurs to me that it’s possible that when you go home, you’ll be sitting down to eat lunch and ask yourself, “Now what did Dan talk about today? Something about a fish?” — and that’s all you’ll remember about this sermon. If you remember nothing else about this sermon, please also remember this:– when life slaps you in the face with a fish, you don’t have to blame yourself. It can be tempting to blame yourself when life is hard — but please don’t. You don’t have to blame yourself when life is hard on you.

    Because that’s what happens in real life sometimes. Even when everything is going astonishingly well, even when you’re doing everything right, suddenly the rules of the game can change on you. This is what has happened to many of us, financially speaking, over the past few weeks:– We thought we were doing everything right, when suddenly the stock market falls apart, retirement plans lose a third of their value, the state can’t borrow money so it makes major cuts, unemployment rises, and so on. We thought we were doing all right when this financial crisis slapped us in the face with a fish, metaphorically speaking.

    As Unitarian Universalists, we already know that we have to be always ready to change and grow and transform. That’s why we don’t like creeds or doctrines:– the creed that we adopt today may strangulate growth tomorrow. Therefore, out of religious principle, we like to remain ready to change and grow and transform ourselves. And yet even with our openness to change, even with our willingness to transform ourselves to meet new realities, sometimes we too get surprised by events.

    This morning, I’d like to tell you about one such event that happened here in our own church some fifty-three years ago. Back in 1954, our church seemed poised for explosive growth; but the very next year Sunday morning adult attendance began to decline rapidly, the Sunday school began to decline more slowly, and that decline continued pretty much right through the quarter century. So here’s the story:

    …

    Like every church, our church has always had ups and downs. In the 1920s there were years when this church had more than a hundred children and teenagers in the Sunday school each week, and more than a hundred adults sitting in the pews for the morning service, and even more adults at church for the Sunday evening vespers service (yes, we used to have a vespers service here). And there have always been times when we weren’t so successful. In the 1930s, adult attendance dropped, and the Sunday school shrank in size. Fortunately, during the 1930s, most of the membership of First Universalist Church transferred to First Unitarian, and those folks kept us from declining even further.

    In 1938, when Duncan Howlett became our minister, our attendance shot up, and stayed high the entire time he was here. After Howlett left in 1946, on the surface it seemed as though our church declined in energy and numbers for a half a dozen years. But growth and change and transformation were happening underneath the surface: the old pew rental system finally disappeared; the minister was integrated back in to the governance of the church and was allowed to address the annual meeting without having to ask permission first; the Sunday school stayed strong and large; and many groups and organizations within the church remained strong and vibrant, including the Women’s Alliance, the Sewing Circle, the Murray Club organized by the old Universalists, and other groups. In the late 1940s and early 1950s, this church may have looked a little sleepy on the surface, but good healthy activity was taking place below the surface.

    The society around the church was changing rapidly at this time. Even though New Bedford slowly continued to lose manufacturing jobs, the economy finally emerged from the Great Depression. After the Second World War, lots of young couples got married and had babies, and this was the beginning of the famous Baby Boom. There was a resurgence of civic engagement; that is, people were eager to become active in community groups; the 1950s were the high point of civic engagement in the twentieth century. With the rise in civic engagement, lots of people started going to church.

    In the midst of all this societal growth and change and transformation, our church called a new minister, Richard Huff. He seemed exactly the right man to be minister at our church in that time. He was a former Navy chaplain, so he could relate to all the returning soldiers. After the war he became the minister at the Unitarian church in Stoneham; when he arrived there, they were a dying church, but when he left they were thriving and growing. He was a “kind man,” a man of “great charm” and a “good preacher” (here I’m quoting what people have said to me about him); he was just the right kind of personality to be the minister of this church. All these characteristics were evident when he arrived here in 1953. But I think he had another, less obvious, characteristic that perfectly suited him to be the minister of this church at that moment in time: he was the kind of man who knew that both people and churches have to constantly change and grow and transform themselves in order to continue to thrive.

    When Richard Huff arrived in 1953, attendance skyrocketed. Our church had gotten up to an average attendance of 130 adults on Sundays when Duncan Howlett had been here, probably the highest attendance our church had seen for most of the twentieth century. After Howlett left, attendance dropped down to about a hundred adults, but when Richard Huff arrived attendance shot up to 167 — that is, attendance increased more than fifty percent in his first year here! And the next year, attendance remained just about as high.

    The number of children in the Sunday school did not shoot up, however. On the surface, the reason appeared obvious: we didn’t have adequate space to accommodate all the children. On Sunday morning, I have been told that there were groups of children everywhere; one Sunday school class even had to meet in the balcony of the Tryworks Auditorium upstairs in the Parish House (if you’ve seen that space, it’s hard to imagine how you’d have a Sunday school class up there). So our church began to build additional Sunday school space: part of the basement was renovated in the early 1950s, and the lower basement was renovated a few years later.

    But Richard Huff and a few other forward-thinking lay leaders in the church began to realize that it wouldn’t be enough to simply build more classrooms. They began to realize that if the church were going to be serious about the Sunday school, it was time to hire a paid director of religious education. However, these were the years when many Unitarian and Universalist churches were hiring their very first paid directors of religious education; many churches were looking for qualified people to fill those jobs, and there just weren’t enough qualified people to go around. Our church tried to hire one of those qualified people, but at the very last moment she decided she did not want to leave the place where she had been living. The lay leaders and the old Sunday school superintendent tried to keep things going, but Sunday school attendance slowly began to drop.

    The number of adults on Sunday mornings dropped even faster. By 1958, when our church celebrated its 250th birthday, adult attendance had dropped down to just over 100 adults on a Sunday.

    In the midst of all this, Richard Huff and his family were going through a serious and major family crisis, that apparently involved all of his immediate family. He resigned as minister, and apparently left the ministry for a number of years. Eventually, though, he returned to the Unitarian ministry, and wound up as the minister in Fitchburg, Massachusetts.

    Our church’s attendance continued to decline after all this happened. The Baby Boom was slowing down, so there weren’t as many families bringing children to church. Then in the 1960s the social and economic situation in New Bedford grew more difficult, with urban riots and growing unemployment. And all across the nation, people just stopped going to church as much. The net result was that, like many Unitarian Universalist churches across the country, we kept shrinking right through the 1960s and 1970s.

    …

    So our church started shrinking around 1956. It would be easy for us to blame this on the changes in the society around us, the changes in New Bedford. But if it were the changes in the society around us which stopped our growth, I think the decline would have been more gradual, and I think it would have come five years later. Instead, we stopped growing so suddenly, it was as if someone smacked us in the face with a fish. I’d like to briefly explain to you what I think happened here in our church around 1956.

    When Richard Huff arrived, the minister of this church was the central node through which all church communication passed. The minister was the only one who really knew everyone: the shut-ins, the staff, the people who never came to church, the children and the Sunday school teachers, as well as the people in the pews on Sunday morning. There’s even a name for this kind of church: it’s called a “pastoral-size church,” a name which tells us that the pastor, or minister, is the central communication node for the whole church. If you have a really good minister, you can take a pastoral-size church up to an average attendance of about two hundred men, women, and children; but if you get above that, one minister simply can’t manage all the communications that need to happen. Yet from 1953 through 1955, our church had an average of about two hundred and fifty people on Sunday morning: we went over that magic number of two hundred, and then we dropped right back down.

    Over the past thirty years, church experts have done a lot of research on how to make the transition past an average attendance of two hundred — it can be done, but it requires a church to change the way they do just about everything. Indeed, this is the current crisis of the liberal churches. Most of our liberal churches, of whatever denomination, never get above that magic number of an average Sunday attendance of two hundred. Sometimes a really skilled minister will keep a church above that level for a few years or a couple of decades, but when that person leaves, attendance declines back down.

    …

    There’s a moral to this story. Of course, there’s a moral to this story, but it’s not the moral you expect. In fact, there are two morals to this story.

    This first moral is very simple: If things don’t work out the way you expect, you don’t have to automatically blame yourself. Sometimes life slaps you in the face with a fish, and when that happens, it’s not your fault. When life is hard, please go easy on yourself.

    The other moral of this story has to do with our church. It turns out that the evangelical Christians are having a similar problem, but in reverse. Brian McLaren, an evangelical Christian who has been working hard on church growth from the evangelical side of things, has said that the Christian “conservatives tend to be rigid theologically and promiscuous pragmatically and liberals tend to be rigid methodologically and a lot more free theologically.” In other words, the Christian conservatives stick rigidly to their doctrine and dogmas, but they’ll try all kinds of new organizational strategies; whereas us religious liberals are pretty free and open about what we believe, but we are pretty rigid when it comes to the way we do church. Then McLaren goes on to say: “Maybe we could trade.”

    And that’s the other moral of the story. As religious liberals, we are already free in our thinking; we are already quiet revolutionaries in our religion. And perhaps we can now free up our organizational thinking so that we are just as free. Perhaps now we can become quiet revolutionaries in the way we do the business of the church, in the same way that we have long been quiet revolutionaries in the way we do theology.

  • The Global Financial Crisis

    This sermon was preached by Rev. Dan Harper at First Unitarian Church in New Bedford. As usual, the sermon below is a reading text. The actual sermon as preached contained ad libs, interjections, and other improvisation. Sermon copyright (c) 2008 Daniel Harper.

    Readings

    I was going to preach a nice historical sermon this morning, part of a serires on the 300th anniversary of this church. But with the crisis in the global financial markets over the past week, this morning I will instead be preaching on the economy.

    The first reading this morning is from the Hebrew Bible, the Prophets, the Book of Isaiah, verses 16-18 and 21-26 of the first chapter:

    Cease to do evil;
    Learn to do good.
    Devote yoruselves to justice;
    Aid the wronged.
    Uphold the rights of the orphan;
    Defend the cause of the widow.
    “Come, let us reach an understanding,”
    — says the Lord…
    The faithful city
    That was filled with justice,
    Where righteousness dwelt —
    But now murderers [dwell].
    Your silver has turned to dross;
    Your wine is cut with water.
    Your rulers are rogues
    And cronies of thieves,
    Every one avid for presents
    And greedy for gifts;
    They do not judge the case of the orphan,
    And the widow’s cause never reaches them.

    Assuredly, this is the declaration
    Of the Sovereign, the Lord of Hosts,
    The Mighty One of Israel:
    “Ah, I will get satisfaction from My foes;
    I will wreak vengeance on My enemies!
    I will turn My hand against you,
    And smelt out your dross in a crucible,
    And remove all your slag:
    I will restore your magistrates as of old,
    And your counselors as of yore,
    After that you shall be called
    City of Righteousness, Faithful City.”

    [New Jewish Publication Society translation]

    The second reading is from “The Miracle of Mindfulness,” the 1975 book by Thich Nhat Hanh, who is a Vietnamese Buddhist monk. He writes:

    “Thirty years ago, when I was still a novice at Tu Hieu Pagoda, washing the dishes was hardly a pleasant task. During the Season of Retreat when all the monks returned to the monastery, two novices had to do all the cooking and wash the dishes for sometimes well over one hundred monks. There was no soap. We had only ashes, rice husks, and coconut husks, and that was all. Cleaning such a high stack of bowls was a chore, especially during the winter when the water was freezing cold. Then you had to heat up a big pot of water before you could do any scrubbing. Nowadays one stands in a kitchen equipped with liquid soap, special scrubpads, and even running hot water which makes it all the more agreeable. It is easier to enjoy washing the dishes now. Anyone can wash them in a hurry, and sit down and enjoy a cup of tea afterwards. I can see a machine for washing clothes, although I wash my own things out by hand, but a dishwashing machine is going a little too far!

    “While washing the dishes one should only be washing dishes, which means that while washing the dishes one should be completely aware of the fact that one is washing the dishes. At first glance, that might seem a little silly: why put so much stress on a simple thing? But that’s precisely the point. The fact that I am standing there and washing these bowls is a wondrous reality. I’m being completely myself, following my breath, conscious of my thoughts and actions. There’s no way I can be tossed about mindlessly like a bottle slapped here and there on the waves.” [pp. 3-4]

    Sermon

    Well, as I said earlier, this morning I had planned to preach on a nice safe historical topic. I was going to preach on the history of our covenant here in our church. We would have taken a nice historical trip back in time, and I would have told you wonderful things about the three hundred year history of our church.

    But then current events intruded. The stock market dropped 678.91 points on Friday. The Dow Jones Industrial Average has dropped 39.4% since October 10, 2007. The pundits in the news media are freely making comparisons with the great crash of 1929, when the Dow Jones dropped 89% from September, 1929, to July, 1932.

    The financial situation in this country has gotten worrisome. The financial situation in the whole world has gotten worrisome! I’m worried, and I’ll bet most of you are worried too.

    The financial situation in our church is worrisome, too. We have become overly dependent on our endowment, which provides more than half our operating budget. Our endowment is now dropping in value. That means the income from our endowment is dropping as well.

    Forget the church, many of us are finding that our personal financial situations are worrisome! If you’re like me and much of your retirement money is invested in stocks, you have been watching your retirement savings dwindle. Hey, I still have an account in Washington Mutual — you know, that bank that almost went belly up a couple of weeks ago? — and I’m in the process of getting my money out. On top of what’s going wrong with stocks and the banks, the price of everything is going up. And for those of you who own your own home — well, we’re all expecting property values to drop.

    OK. We all know what’s going on, and I don’t need to recap the news for you. What I’d like to do this morning is to talk with you about how we might respond to this crisis religiously, as Unitarian Universalists. Religion is supposed to help us make sense out of this crazy world we live in; as Unitarian Universalists, can we make sense out of the global financial crisis? Religion is also supposed to help us answer the question, “What ought I do?” — can we figure out what Unitarian Universalism is calling us to do in these times?

    …

    I’d like to begin with our prophetic response to this crisis. Now, by “prophetic,” I don’t mean that we can see the future. I mean “prophetic” in the sense of those old Biblical prophets who went around telling everyone what’s wrong with society — the kind of prophet we heard in the first reading this morning. As Unitarian Universalists, what is our prophetic response to this financial mess?

    We know that greed is one of the primary causes of this financial crisis. Let me give you an example of how we know this is true. Earlier this week, Richard Fuld had to testify before Congress. Fuld was the president of Lehman Brothers, fourth largest investment bank in the United States until they filed for bankruptcy on September 15. Fuld testified to Congress that he took home three hundred million dollars in pay and bonuses over the past eight years — that’s an average of 37.5 million dollars a year. He was quoted as testifying to the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, quote “I don’t expect you to feel sorry for me.”

    No, we don’t feel sorry for you, Mr. Fuld. You were greedy. Now you are sitting pretty in your designer suits while the rest of us schlumps have to deal with the mess you have left behind. It is hard to feel sorry for any of the investment bankers who made their millions before the stock market started to fall. We don’t feel sorry for them, we just call them greedy and selfish.

    Greed has driven the stock market for quite some time now. But actually, greed has driven our whole society for some time now. We have been convinced that we can get something for nothing. We have all dreamed of buying a house that goes up and up in value so that when we sell it, we make out like bandits — houses have become an investment that will make us rich (we hope) rather than a place to live. Everything has become an investment. I’ve dreamed those dreams, and I’ll bet lots of you have, too. Alas, those dreams come down to greed: wanting something we don’t have, that we can obtain for no real effort.

    Selfishness plays a part, too. How can someone like Richard Fuld take home three hundred million dollars and think he really deserves all that money? There’s an element of selfishness in such an attitude. Yet selfishness extends beyond the Richard Fulds of this country down to our economic level. I discovered recently that according to a recent study, less than half of all Americans give any money to charity. It gets worse — when you look at those of us who do give money to charity, most of us give very, very little money away. Indeed, most of the charitable giving in this country comes from a small minority of people who are very generous. Yet most Americans have substantial discretionary spending. Michael Durrall, a financial consultant to churches, tells us that most church members could double their charitable giving and not notice a change in their lifestyle. (Obviously, he is referring to the fifty percent of Americans who give any money at all to charity, because for the other half who give nothing, doubling zero is still zero and so obviously they would not see any change to their lifestyle if they doubled their charitable giving.)

    But let’s go back to the leaders of this country — and I mean the financial leaders of this country, who may or may not be our elected leaders. Our financial leaders have set a general example of greed and selfishness that is appalling; it is time that we stop letting them lead us into greed and selfishness. One way we make sense out of this financial crisis is through prophetic response to this appalling greed that has taken over our country:– we condemn the current culture of greed and selfishness, and call for new standards of ethical financial leadership.

    …

    We need to do that, but we also need to acknowledge our personal responses to this financial crisis. The financial situation is bad right now, and we have to make personal sense from this mess we’re in. Many of us — me included — are fearful, worried, even angry. I don’t know about you, but one of the things I’m dealing with right now is keeping my fear and worry under control. In order to keep fear and worry under control, I have been engaging in

    First, I’ve been thinking in terms of living simply. “Simplify, simplify,” said Henry David Thoreau. The point of living simply is to focus on what’s of greatest importance. The latest electronic gadget is not of greatest importance. In the second reading this morning, Thich Nhat Hanh reminds me how much we take for granted. We have access to laundry machines! We have things like dish detergent, and running water! We have more than we usually remember that we have. When I can remember how much I already have, I face away from the greed that tells me that I need all the latest appliances. I don’t need those things — I suppose I could even learn to be like Thich Nhat Hanh, and wash out my clothing by hand. It might be a good way to be mindful of all I do have.

    Of course, those of you who have children may have a hard time with this approach. Children have become very vulnerable to marketers, and when all their friends at school have a cell phone, or a certain video game, then they absolutely have to have one too. It is harder for people with children to practice simple living. At the same time, the real point for all of us is not to practice simple living the way Henry Thoreau did — we don’t have to go out and live by Walden Pond — rather, it will be enough to practice simpler living. We can simplify, but not to the point of giving everything up.

    My second spiritual practice for these times that I am working on is the spiritual practice of giving money away. I am doing this because I know that those of us who do not risk getting put out on the street have a special responsibility to increase our charitable giving in order to support those who are more financially vulnerable than we are.

    Now for some years, I have had a spiritual goal of giving away ten percent of my income (that’s pre-tax income) each year. I’ve been working on this for a while now, and in 2005 I was up to giving away eight percent of my income. That felt like a spiritual accomplishment, and it felt good. It was one of the best things I’ve done in my spiritual life — I felt more centered, and more focused on what’s truly important in life. Well, then my partner found herself with less and less work, and as our household income declined, and we kept cutting back, and one of the things I had to cut back temporarily was my charitable giving. Now I’m down to giving away five percent of my income.

    But this financial crisis have strengthened my resolve to increase my charitable giving back up to eight percent, and then on to ten percent of my income. This will not be an easy goal to attain, and I’m not going to let myself feel guilty if I don’t make it to my goal as quickly as I’d like. This is not about guilt; rather, I’m suggesting that this kind of thing can be a spiritual goal for all of us. By giving away part of our income, we turn ourselves away from the predominant greed and selfishness of our society — and I will tell you from my own experience that this has the effect of reducing my own personal fear and worry.

    So it is that part of my personal response to the financial crisis has been to calm my fears and worries by engaging in two personal spiritual practices that relate to the financial crisis: living more simply, and giving part of my income away. I don’t mean to imply that you need to take on either of these spiritual practices yourself. But I do want to say that each of us can find personal spiritual practices which can help to calm our fears and worries, and to strengthen the best part of our selves.

    …

    Now I’d like to talk just a little bit about what we can do here together as a church. What might this church’s spiritual response be to this financial crisis?

    I’ve already hinted at one answer, when I said that those of us who can do so should think about those who are more vulnerable than we are. So it is that here in the church we can focus our energies on what we can do to help out the surrounding community. Indeed, we are already doing this. For example, Bill Bennett, Maryellen Kenney, and Ted Schade have taken over the operation of Universal Thrift because Lorial Laughery-Weincek, who was running the thrift store, is recovering from illness and will be unable to return to volunteering for quite a while. Fill, Maryellen, and Ted knew that in times like these, our community needs that thrift store, so they stepped in. Universal Thrift provides decent clothing and housewares at very affordable prices to people who can’t afford anything else. (In fact, the thrift store accepts vouchers from social service agencies for people who really have not money whatsoever.)

    Perhaps it’s time for us expand this service to the community. Maybe we can mobilize more volunteers to go out and find good cheap clothing and housewares, get them ready for sale, and then sell them for very cheap prices to people who need them. Since we already have a thrift shop in place, right now, I would judge that this is the most spiritually important work that we can do. By doing something tangible for the community, we are also engaging in a communal spiritual practice — because when we do good in the world, we are helping to strengthen the best part of our selves.

    (By the way, the thrift store also happens to make money for us, because many of the people who shop in the store are not destitute, but simply want good value. Thus our thrift store represents the new concept of social innovation, where charitable organizations can make money while doing good. The money we make through the thrift store goes directly into our operating budget, which means it helps pay for heat and building maintenance. It is now our biggest fundraiser.)

    The thrift shop is just one example of what we can do to set up our church so that we transform the world around us into a better place, while at the same time transforming ourselves for the better. We also send a crew once a month to help serve at the soup kitchen. In another, more personal, example, we can each be sure to bring one canned good every week for the food pantry box, so that we can continue to support the Shepherd’s Staff food pantry.

    These are very tangible thing we can do, but it is equally important for us to do something far less tangible, and that is to offer our liberal religious witness to the world. We know that some of the conservative religious folks will say that the way out of the financial crisis is to trust in some Daddy God who will fix everything for us. We know that the prosperity gospel folks will be out in full force telling people that you just have to believe in their God, and you will get rich. We know that some of the most conservative religious folks will even try to tell us that the financial crisis has been brought upon us as a judgment form God because we legalized same sex marriage and abortion and women’s rights and so on. We want this church to keep its doors open, and to grow ever bigger, so that we can counteract some of the problematic religious messages that are out there.

    We need to be a big strong church so we can counteract these other religious messages. We need to be a big strong voice for liberal religion so that we can tell the world:– This happened because we were stupid and no Daddy God is going to clean up after us, so we’re responsible for cleaning up our own mess. We need to tell the world:– No one is going to get rich just because they believe in the right God, and in fact let’s get away from the greed that says we should be rich. We need to be sure to tell the world:– This financial crisis did not come about because we legalized same sex marriage or gave women the vote. That means that all of us who showed up here this morning are doing exactly the right thing:– by simply showing up here on Sunday morning, we are affirming our religious values. The more of us who show up here on Sunday morning, the better we can counteract all those negative religious messages that are out there.

    Finally, let us remember that church is supposed to be fun. If this financial crisis continues, we’re all going to need to have some fun. If you volunteer down at the thrift shop, it’s supposed to be fun because you get to volunteer with like-minded people. If you volunteer in the Sunday school, passing on our religious values to our children in order to help the next generation move away from greed and selfishness,– well, teaching Sunday school is supposed to be fun, because you get to play with kids, and you get to meet the other Sunday school teachers. The same is true for volunteering with any program in this church. Or you can show up for the Independent Film Series tomorrow night, and watch a great movie, and then talk about it with other thoughtful intelligent people — and having thoughtful intelligent conversations is exactly what we need to be doing right now, so we can start to figure out a new moral and ethical direction for our society. All these things are fun, and all these things are free, and all these things have a positive influence on us and one the world.

    We need some positive influences in our lives right now. We need to be able to make sense out of the financial mess that’s happening around us, and we need to feel that we can do something to deal with that mess. It would be easy to let fear and worry take over our lives right now. What I have suggested is that we don’t let fear and worry take over our lives. We can offer a prophetic response, and say that greed and selfishness have contributed to the financial mess that we’re in. We can take personal spiritual action, transforming our lives, strengthening our selves so that we can better face the financial crisis. We can band together in this church, so that together our liberal religious witness can transform the world around us. By doing these things, we strengthen that which is best in ourselves.