Dan Harper | Sermons

  • Music Sunday: “Rhapsody in Blue”

    This service was conducted by Rev. Dan Harper at First Unitarian Church in New Bedford, in cooperation with Randy Fayan.

    Readings

    This is our annual music service, a chance for us to reflect on the importance of music in the life of our church, and in our own lives.

    First reading and commentary

    The first reading is short and requires commentary. In an essay titled “Vonnegut’s Blues For America”, an essay about the blues, Kurt Vonnegut wrote:

    “No matter how corrupt, greedy, and heartless our government, our corporations, our media, and our religious and charitable institutions may become, the music will still be wonderful.

    “If I should ever die, God forbid, let this be my epitaph:

        “THE ONLY PROOF HE NEEDED
        FOR THE EXISTENCE OF GOD
        WAS MUSIC.”

    [Scotland, Sunday Herald, 7 January 2006.]

    By way of commentary, it must be noted that Vonnegut was a humanist, that is someone who did not believe in the existence of God. During one interview, Vonnegut told this story:

    “…I am a humanist. I am honorary president of the American Humanist Association… I succeeded Isaac Asimov as president, and we humanists try to behave as well as we can without any expectation of a reward or punishment in an after life. So since God is unknown to us, the highest abstraction to which we serve is our community. That’s as high as we can go, and we have some understanding of that. Now at a memorial service for Isaac Asimov a few years ago on the West Coast I spoke and I said, ‘Isaac is in heaven now,’ to a crowd of humanists. It was quite awhile before order could be restored. Humanists were rolling in the aisles.”

    If Vonnegut did not believe in God, for him to say that music is an adequate proof of God is certainly humorous. Yet he was also a member of a Unitarian Universalist church, so I would expect that he wouldn’t fall into the trap of humanist fundamentalism. Therefore, I believe he is clearly saying that if you do believe in God, music is the only proof you need for God’s existence; and if you don’t believe in God, music can provide an adequate salvation for your soul.

    Second reading and commentary

    The sermon this morning will consist of our music director, Randy Fayan, performing George Gershwin’s “Rhapsody in Blue.” And for the second reading, I have a short quotations about this piece of music from Gershwin himself; who told his biographer, Isaac Goldberg, how the composition of “Rhapsody in Blue” came to him, all at once, on a train ride from New York to Boston:

    “It was on the train, with its steely rhythms, its rattle-ty bang, that is so often so stimulating to a composer — I frequently hear music in the very heart of the noise… And there I suddenly heard, and even saw on paper — the complete construction of the Rhapsody, from beginning to end. No new themes came to me, but I worked on the thematic material already in my mind and tried to conceive the composition as a whole. I heard it as a sort of musical kaleidoscope of America, of our vast melting pot, of our unduplicated national pep, of our blues, our metropolitan madness.”

    [George Gershwin, quoted by Isaac Goldberg. “George Gershwin: A Study in American Music.” 1931. Quoted in Orrin Howard, program notes LA Philharmonic
    http://www.laphil.org/resources/piece_detail.cfm?id=314, accessed 5/3/07]

    Some brief commentary on this reading: “Rhapsody in Blue” represents some of the best of the American national mythology: our ideal of a multicultural society that can bring together many different cultures; the energy that can arise from that multiculturalism; all grounded in the blues, our great national music, a music of personal liberation.

    Third reading and commentary

    The conductor Michael Tilson-Thomas, who revived the original orchestration of “Rhapsody in Blue” in 1976, in a performance with the Columbia Jazz Band, told a writer for the Washington Post:

    “[Gershwin] took the Jewish tradition, the African-American tradition, and the symphonic tradition, and he made a language out of that which was accessible and understandable to all kinds of people.”

    [Ron Cowen, “George Gershwin: He Got Rhythm”, The Washington Post, 1998. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/national/horizon/nov98/gershwin.htm, accessed 5/3/07.]

    Tilson-Thomas’s words need a little bit of commentary: In this one piece of music we have Gershwin’s own European Jewish tradition, a tradition shaped in part by a tremendous sense of the history of the Jews, and part of that history is the story of a people who retained their identity in the face of persecution by a majority Christian culture. And we have Gershwin’s deep knowledge of African American music — the blues, and jazz — a musical tradition shaped in part by the history of the African peoples in North America, and a part of that history is the story of a people who retained significant portions of their musical culture in the face of their enslavement and brutal treatment at the hands of a majority white culture.

    Music does many things, but one thing music does is to help us remain human in the face of devastating trouble and loss. Music seeps into our very souls, and confirms that we are indeed human — vitally human, full of life and passion. It is a form of salvation that is available to us here and now, in this life; we don’t have to wait for some afterlife.

    Music is also fleeting; it lasts for a certain amount of time, and then it’s done. Randy’s performance of “Rhapsody in Blue” will last for sixteen minutes and thirty seconds, give or take a few seconds; and then it will be done. Once the music is done, where will our salvation be then?

    Yet I persist in believing that we can accomplish some measure of salvation here in this life; that we can somehow build a heaven here on earth, here and now. Music can light a spark within our souls; music can relight the flame within us, the fire of love, and commitment, and passion, and deep humanity.

    That’s why we have music in our worship services: to heal our souls. As we listen to “Rhapsody in Blue,” we can find a measure of salvation in this music. And when Randy has finished playing, we’ll sit in silence for a moment — no applause, this is a worship service — we’ll sit and let the healing sounds soak in a little bit. And then we’ll greet one another, and wind up the worship service as we always do….

    Sermon

    For the sermon, Music Director Randy Fayan played George Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue.

  • Ecojustice

    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) 2007 Daniel Harper.

    Story

    “The Quails and the Net”

    Gautama Buddha was a great holy man who lived long, long ago in India. He was so wise that people came from far and wide to learn from him. Many of these people stayed with him, and became his disicples, or followers.

    Once upon a time, Buddha noticed that several of his disciples were spending a great deal of time arguing among themselves. As a result, these disciples began to disturb the other people who had come to learn from Buddha. Not only that, but Buddha felt that because of their arguing, they were not making any progress toward becoming truly enlightened beings.

    That evening, Buddha sat all his followers down together, and he told them this story:

    *****

    “Once upon a time, long, long ago, there lived a large flock of quails in a forest. Now in near this very same forest there lived a hunter who made his living from capturing quails and selling them to people who wanted to eat them. Every day this hunter would slip quietly into the forest and sit hidden behind a big bush. Then he would imitate the call of a quail. He did it so perfectly that the quail thought the hunter was one of them.

    “Upon hearing the hunter’s call, the quail would come out of the safe places where they had been gathering food. Once the quail came out into the open, the hunter would leap out from his hiding place and throw a big net over as many quails as he could reach. He would bundle up the net and take all the quail away to the marketplace to be sold to people who wanted to eat them for dinner.

    “As you might expect, this state of affairs did not please the quail at all. In fact, they were scared silly because this hunter was capturing so many of them.

    “The quail decided to hold a meeting to discuss the problem. One wise quail brought up a good point. She said:

    “‘You know, that net the hunter throws over us isn’t very heavy. If we all agreed to work together, we could escape. As soon as he throws the net over us, if we all fly up together at the same time, we can lift the net up with us and get away.’

    “The other quails thought this was a good plan. They all agreed to work together to escape the next time the hunter threw the net over them.

    “The very next day, the hunter came back to the forest. He imitated the call of a quail so perfectly that all the quail were fooled again. Then he threw the net over as many quail as he could reach, expecting to bundle them up as always.

    “But this time the quail who were caught under the net knew what to do. Instantly, before the hunter could bundle them up, they all flew up in the air together. They lifted the net up with them, and settled down together into a nearby rose bush. The net got tangled up in the thorns of the rose bush, and the quail scurried away to safety.

    “The hunter was left to pick his net out of the sharp thorns. After hours of work, he finally untangled his net, and walked home, tired and discouraged.

    “The next day, the hunter came back to try his luck again. He gave his imitation of the quail’s call. All the quail came running. When they felt the net settle over them, they instantly began to fly to a nearby patch of brambles. They settled down into the brambles leaving the net caught on the sharp thorns. Once again, the hunter was left to untangle his net from the sharp thorns.

    “This went on for some days. The hunter was growing more and more discouraged. Finally, one day the hunter came back into the forest, gave his perfect imitation of the quail’s call, and threw his net over the quail when they came out into the open.

    “But this time, when it came time for all the quail to fly up together, one quail happened to step on the foot of another quail.

    “‘Hey,’ said the second quail, ‘who kicked me?

    “‘Nobody kicked you,’ said a third, ‘It’s just your imagination.’

    “Yet a fourth quail said, ‘Oh, he’s just ocmplaing because he’s lazy. he never lifts his share of the net.’

    “Still another quail said, ‘And who are you to talk? Yesterday I noticed that you did very little of the flying, leaving all the hard work to the rest of us.’

    “As the quail fought and bickered among themselves, the hunter bundled them up in his net and carried them off to market. They were all fat, plump quails, and the hunter got a very good price for them.”

    *****

    The followers of Buddha listened very carefully. They all believed that they had lived many lives in the past, sometimes as animals and sometimes as humans. The Buddha told them that the story of the quails was really a story of them in one of their past lives.

    “When you were on this earth as quails,” said the Buddha, “you argued among yourselves, and were caught by the hunter, and were eaten for dinner that very night. You are no longer quails. Is it not time for you to stop arguing among yourselves?”

    The disciples who had been arguing so much grew embarrassed and ashamed, and from that day on, so it is told, they no longer engaged in silly arguments.

    Readings

    The first reading this morning is from “Philosophical Creed” by Abner Kneeland (1833).

    “A Pantheist’s Creed”

    “I believe in the existence of a universe of suns and planets, among which there is one sun belonging to our planetary system; and that other suns, being more remote, are called stars; but that they are indeed suns to other planetary systems. I believe that the whole universe is Nature, and that the word Nature embraces the whole universe, and so far as we can attach any rational idea to either, that God and Nature are perfectly synonymous terms. I am not an Atheist, but a Pantheist; instead of believing that there is no God, I believe that, in the abstract, all is God. I believe that God is all in all, and God is in each of us; and that it is in God that we live, move, and have our being….”

    The second reading this morning is a very short poem written by the Universalist Edwin Markham:

            “Outwitted”
        They drew a circle that shut me out —
        Heretic, a rebel, a thing to flout.
        But Love and I had the wit to win:
        We drew a circle that took them in.

    Sermon

    It’s Earth Day weekend, and at last we have real spring weather; which means that we have been able to celebrate Earth Day in the most appropriate way possible, by spending time outdoors. In fact, we have set up chairs in the garden so you can enjoy your coffee there after the service.

    Unfortunately, it’s all too easy to make Earth Day into a pleasant holiday designed for middle class white folks who like to spend time outdoors. Many of us, however, believe Earth Day should be more than that; that includes most of us here in this congregation. Earth Day isn’t just about saving the Earth, it’s about saving ourselves as well, because we human beings are just as much a part of the earth as polar bears and penguins. It is true that we human beings have invented ways to have a disproportionately large impact on the earth, but we are also very much a part of the ecosystem we are impacting. Thus the philosophy of Earth Day cannot be fully captured by the usual environmentalist slogans of “Save the planet!” — it’s ourselves we are trying to save; we are trying to save all of humanity, along with polar bears and penguins.

    How do we do that? Can we do more than repeat the usual slogans of “save the earth” and “reduce carbon emissions”? I have come to believe that we must get to the moral and ethical and religious roots of saving the planet — that we have to fundamentally change the way we think and feel about what it means to be human, and how humans relate to all other living beings. In other words, we have soul work to do.

    And I have discovered a relatively simple idea that helps me with my ecological soul work: the idea of ecojustice. “Ecojustice” is not the same thing as “environmental activism.” Ecojustice — that’s the prefix “eco” in front of the word “justice” — is meant to encompass both ecological justice, and economic justice; so ecojustice helps me understand the relationship of my soul with all other living beings, both human and non-human living beings. Ecojustice grows out of theology and morality, whereas I see environmental activism as predominantly political in nature.

    So I would like to tell you about the religious principles behind ecojustice. As I see it, the religious principles behind ecojustice are very much the core religious values of this congregation. Therefore, you might decide, as I have, that ecojustice makes sense as a primary focus for what we do together here at First Unitarian, as a religious community.

    Let me begin by stating what I believe is our deepest religious value. I believe our deepest religious value, the taproot, as it were, of our entire faith, is a deep and abiding respect for all sentient beings, growing out of the idea of radical love. Historically, we Unitarian Universalists have come out of Christianity, and one of the gifts we received from Christianity was the teaching of Jesus of Nazareth, who summed up everything he taught in two commandments: love your God with all your heart and mind and soul; and love your neighbor as yourself. We Unitarian Universalists have now become what I call post-Christians; and a large part of our becoming has been to extend Jesus’s teachings on love.

    So as we heard in the first reading this morning, the Universalist minister Abner Kneeland proclaimed in 1833 that: “I believe that the whole universe is Nature, and that the word Nature embraces the whole universe, and so far as we can attach any rational idea to either, that God and Nature are perfectly synonymous terms.” Jesus taught that we should love God with all our hearts and minds and souls; when Abner Kneeland extended that and taught us to consider all of Nature as God, that implies that we should love all of Nature with all our hearts and minds and souls.

    Another example: in 1866, a Unitarian minister, Henry Bergh, founded the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals. Not that Bergh limited himself to extending rights to animals; he also helped found the New York Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children. Bergh believed that all human beings, including children, have moral rights; he believed that animals have moral rights, that they have their own inherent dignity and respect just as human beings do. Jesus taught that we should love our neighbors as ourselves; and Henry Bergh taught us to extend our concept of neighbors beyond adults to include children and animals, and people who are not like us; all these are neighbors whom we shall love as we love ourselves.

    Since the time of Abner Kneeland and Henry Bergh, Unitarian Universalists have continued to pursue these theological ideas. This is not to say that we have arrived at any kind of theological consensus; Unitarian Universalists have no particular interest in arriving at a single theological consensus. Yet all of us, or nearly all of us, would say that Nature is sacred; some of us would agree with Abner Kneeland and say that Nature is God, while others of us would find other ways of proclaiming that Nature is sacred. And all of us, or nearly all of us, would say that animals have moral and ethical rights; I think most Unitarian Universalists would agree that all sentient beings have moral and ethical rights.

    All sentient beings have moral and ethical rights, but what do I mean by all sentient beings? I mean this:– people who look like us and talk like us are clearly sentient beings; people who are less similar to us but who live near us are clearly sentient beings; really all human beings constitute sentient beings; as do other large mammals like dolphins and elephants and chimpanzees. Since it’s hard to define exactly what we mean by “sentient,” to be on the safe side I would include all living beings; and finally I would include all beings. So we move out in widening circles: from those who are most like us, to those living begins who are least like us.

    This is where it becomes a religious act. It’s easy to love those who are like us; if someone has the same color skin as yours, if someone talks the same language as you do, if someone looks like you; then it is easy to love them as you love yourself. But it gets more difficult when someone speaks a different language than we do, looks different than we do, has a different religion than we do; then it is more difficult to love them as we love ourselves. And when someone is a different species than we are, especially one of the species that aren’t cute and cuddly, species like turkey vultures and shelf fungus; then it becomes more even difficult to love those beings as we love ourselves.

    The religious principle of radical love, found in all great religious traditions in one form or another, can help us grow beyond what is easy. As we grow and deepen our religious faith, we shall grow into loving all our neighbors, all sentient beings, as we love ourselves. As we grow and deepen in this way, we widen our circles of love.

    A short poem by poet Edwin Markham gives voice to how this can happen:

    They drew a circle that shut me out —
    Heretic, a rebel, a thing to flout.
    But Love and I had the wit to win:
    We drew a circle that took them in.

    I suspect most of us have had this kind of experience, when others drew a circle to shut us out. Some Unitarian Universalists have experienced this on the basis of our religious faith:– we’re considered heretics by many Christians in the United States, and so we have been shut out in a variety of ways; perhaps you have been shut out by your childhood faith, but welcomed here. Some of you in this room have experienced this because your skin was the wrong color; or because English is your second language; or because you aren’t a United States citizen; or because you happen to be attracted to people of the same sex; or because of learning disabilities, or health problems, or economic status, or even because you’re just too doggone tall or short or fat or skinny.

    Edwin Markham was a Universalist, and his poem tells us how radical love can deal with this experience of being shut out. “Love and I had the wit to win,” says Markham, “We drew a circle that took them in.” That is the essence of radical love:– when someone tries to draw a circle to shut you out, Love can draw a circle that takes them in. This is another way of saying:– love your neighbor as yourself, and everyone is your neighbor.

    The idea of ecojustice grows out of this fundamental theological principle. Everyone is your neighbor. People like me are my neighbors; but then Love and I widen the circle more. All human beings are our neighbors, even when they don’t look like us or talk like us; but then Love and I widen the circle more. As the circle widens, we come to discover that all sentient beings are our neighbors; my soul is connected with all souls. At the most basic level, loving all your neighbor means you don’t want to kill them unless absolutely have to. So obviously we don’t kill our immediate family, people who look like us and talk like us. And as the circle widens, we realize that we must extend the same morality to all sentient beings, to all living beings.

    Let us trace these widening circles from the perspective of our own congregation here. Our bylaws expressly state that we welcome all persons. At the beginning of each worship service, we affirm that we welcome all persons: “we value our differences of age, gender, race, national origin, class, sexual orientation, physical ability, and theology” — and we mean what we say. We have a number of people in this congregation who are not U.S. citizens, and other for whom English is not their first language — that’s not a big deal for us. Even though many of us are white, we have a significant number of people who do not identify as white — and we do pretty well with that (though we could do better). We have people of all different income levels, from quite well-off, to people with very little income. Love and we have the wit to win; we draw our circle to take in all these people from our local community.

    And we draw a still wider circle. You have probably noticed that we display the United Nations flag in our sanctuary. The first United Nations flag was given to our congregation many years ago by Louise Sawyer’s sister, and it has been here ever since, as a reminder that we pledge allegiance to all the peoples of the world. Not just the people in our community, not just the people our country, but all human beings everywhere.

    And we can draw a still wider circle, as we in this congregation are beginning to do. I have said that we value all sentient beings; and indeed, as a religious principle, we value all life. So it is that we are finding ways to widen the circle still farther, to widen the compass of our moral and ethical circle still farther.

    While environmental activism seems to widen our circle still farther, I sometimes feel that environmental activism can cause us to jump right from our immediate family, to non-human life, while skipping the rest of the human species. And while I’m reluctant to say it, too often environmental activism as I’ve experienced it has done precisely that — it values other species sometimes more than fellow human beings. From a religious point of view, I find this troubling.

    From a religious point of view, I have come to value the perspective of ecojustice. Ecojustice links economic and ecological problems — the prefix “eco” means both “economic” and “ecological,” where economic justice often has more to do with other human beings, and ecological justice often has more to do with non-human beings. By tying together economic justice and ecological justice, the term “ecojustice” reminds us that we don’t get to choose between ecology and economy, because religiously speaking both are matters of extending justice to beings who don’t happen to look like us.

    Let me give you an example of how this works for me, personally. Personally, I’m very committed to cutting carbon emissions and stopping global climate change. Yes, I want to save the polar bears who will die if the Arctic ice cap melts. But I also want to cut carbon emissions to save hundreds of thousands of Bangladeshis who live in low-lying river deltas and who will be displaced by rising sea levels; I also want to save hundreds of thousands of people in Central Africa who are being displaced due to desertification caused by global climate change. And quite frankly, I want to save my own soul, because I know global climate change has been caused by my American lifestyle and I’m sick of feeling guilty.

    Ecojustice allows me to understand how global climate change is a justice issue. The horrors of Darfur came about because people were displaced by desertification in Central Africa, and desertification is caused by global climate change. Global climate change is a racial justice issue: at this point, non-white people are far more affected by global climate change than affluent white people in North America and Europe. Global climate change is an economic issue: global climate change is already disrupting economies, especially in low-lying areas like Bangladesh and New Orleans. These are ecological problems, they are human problems, they are my problems.

    As Unitarian Universalists, our theological principle of radical love — love for all humanity, love for all sentient beings — allows us to extend the circle of our love as far as possible. Thus, as a religious tradition we are uniquely placed to deal with a problem like global climate change, or any ecojustice issue, because our theology allows us to understand how love can be extended to the widest possible circle. And here at First Unitarian, I feel we already live out this theology more than do other Unitarian Universalist congregations. We really do welcome people of differing ages, genders, races, national origins, economic classes, sexual orientations, physical abilities, and theologies — we aim to live out a just society in our own congregation.

    We work to live out a just society here in our own congregation, and we already have members who are committed to both ecological and economic justice. We have the appropriate theological principles. Even if you’ve never heard the term “ecojustice” before this morning, we already know how to do ecojustice. It’s a unique religious contribution we make to the local community and to the wider world.

  • Greatest Strengths

    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) 2007 Daniel Harper.

    Readings

    The first reading this morning is from a modernized version of the Cambridge Platform. The Cambridge Platform was drawn up in Cambridge, Massachusetts, in 1649, and is the fundamental founding document of all those New England congregations that, like ours, trace their origins back to the Puritans. I will read from a modernized version published by the First Congregational Society of Millers Fall, Massachusetts, in 1998 for the Cambridge Platform’s 350th birthday.

    “It is a covenant that makes church out of the various gatherings of Gentile believers in these days.

    “The more detailed and clear this covenant (or consent, or voluntary agreement) is, the more fully it puts us in mind of our mutual duty, and encourages us in it. Such a covenant also helps establish the legitimacy of a local church and makes clear who are its true members. Yet we conceived the essence of a covenant is the agreement and consent of a group of faithful people to meet regularly together as a congregation for worship and mutual edification, and the primary evidence of this agreement is the actual practice of doing so…. In the Scriptures, people make covenants in a variety of ways, such as by word of mouth, sacrifice, written agreement and seal, and even at times by silent consent without any writing of words at all.”

    The second reading this morning if from Ralph Waldo Emerson’s essay “Friendship.”

    “We have a great deal more kindness than is ever spoken. Maugre all the selfishness that chills like east winds the world, the whole human family is bathed with an element of love like a fine ether. How many persons we meet in houses, whom we scarcely speak to, whom yet we honor, and who honor us! How many we see in the street, or sit with in church, whom, though silently, we warmly rejoice to be with! Read the language of these wandering eye-beams. The heart knoweth.

    “The effect of the indulgence of this human affection is a certain cordial exhilaration. In poetry, and in common speech, the emotions of benevolence and complacency which are felt towards others are likened to the material effects of fire; so swift, or much more swift, more active, more cheering, are these fine inward irradiations. From the highest degree of passionate love, to the lowest degree of good-will, they make the sweetness of life.”

    Sermon

    I am not going to preach on the topic that was publicized for this morning. Instead, I am going to tell you about the greatness and the goodness of this congregation; and about the voluntary principle of our congregation.

    As a newcomer to New Bedford and to this south coastal region of Massachusetts — I have lived here less than two years — I have found a remarkable cultural characteristic that seems peculiar to this region; at least, it is a cultural characteristic which I never encountered in four decades of living elsewhere in Massachusetts. That remarkable cultural characteristic is the strong tendency to talk about everything that is inadequate about New Bedford and the South Coast area, while only apologetically saying what is good and beautiful and wonderful about this part of the world.

    Over and over again, I hear residents of this city emphasizing the problems we face: underperforming schools, drugs and unemployment, pollution in the harbor, corruption in town governments and inefficiencies in city government, a decaying infrastructure, lack of commuter rail service to Boston. All those problems are very real; but it seems to me that our problems are more than outweighed by the very real advantages we can claim. The great strengths of this region include its illustrious past, its cultural treasures, its artistic community, the great and wonderful diversity of its inhabitants, its proximity to the ocean, its spectacular natural beauty, and its kind and polite people. Yet all too often, these are not the first things we mention.

    As you would imagine, this cultural tendency has infiltrated this congregation. I see it at work among members and friends of this church, and indeed I find myself easily slipping into this habit myself:– we can all tell each other about everything that is wrong with our church, and we do so readily. So members of the Board can readily tell you that our basement leaks and we recently had a foot of water down there; I find myself apologizing when people walk into this room because there is some peeling paint and water damage evident; when you come to this church accompanied by children, someone is liable to warn you that we don’t have many children here. We are quite adept at telling the world, and telling each other, that we aren’t as good as we could be.

    This morning I would like to tell you how good this church is, and how much it has to offer. Emerson tells us, “We have a great deal more kindness than is ever spoken.” All humanity, he tells us, is bathed in love as in a fine ether — that is, as if in an insubstantial element that we cannot see and which it is all too easy to ignore. This congregation has a great deal more kindness and love and strength than we ordinarily talk about; it is time, I think, to start talking about it.

    I am going to tell you what the five greatest strengths of this congregation are, in my view. If you wish to argue with me, and tell me that I should have named this or that strength — that is the response I hope to provoke. I want you to start telling the rest of our church, and start telling the wider community, what it is that we do well.

    In my opinion, our greatest strength is something that we so take for granted, that it is all but invisible to us; and that is our covenant. Every historically Unitarian congregation traces its religious roots back to the Puritans. And every congregation that traces its roots back to the Puritans traces its roots back to the Cambridge Platform, the foundational document that outlines an ideal for congregational organization.

    In our first reading this morning, we heard a short passage from the Cambridge Platform that talked about covenant. All congregations in the Puritan tradition are founded on the idea of covenant; also known as consent, or voluntary agreement. That is to say, no bishop or pope nor any ecclesiastical authority can force you to enter into membership in one of our congregations. Nor do you automatically become a member of this congregation simply by virtue of being born into it. You must willfully consent to become a member of this congregation; you must enter into the agreement of membership voluntarily; and that is what is meant by covenant.

    This principle of covenant is our greatest strength. We do not force anyone to join us. We do not proselytize, for we understand that proselytizing is a form of coercion. We say: here we are, here is what we stand for; and should someone express interest (by, for example, walking into church on Sunday morning), we extend an open invitation to spend time with us, learn who we are, and then decide if that person willingly consents to join us.

    For the first century and a half of its existence, our congregation had written covenants. Over the past fifty years, we have covenanted together “by silent consent without any writing of words at all,” as the Cambridge Platform puts it. In an effort to articulate our unwritten covenant, I have attempted to put it into spoken word, and I say those words at the beginning of each worship service. Every few months, one of you approaches me, and suggest changes in the way I articulate our unwritten covenant. So, for example, recently Bob Boynton gently reminded me that love should be a part of any covenant, and now I say: “We come together in love to seek after truth and goodness, to find spiritual transformation in our lives; and in the spirit of love we care for one another and promote practical goodness in the world.” In other words, I’m not making this up on my own — I’m trying to articulate our voluntary agreement, the covenant that already exists in this congregation.

    However it is articulated, our covenant remains our greatest strength. It is through our covenant that we refuse coercion, and affirm voluntary agreement in matters of religion. This is our greatest strength.

    Our second greatest strength seems to me to be related to the first. Our second greatest strength is that we offer a liberal religious witness in a world that desperately needs it. The dominant religious attitudes in the United States today often take one of two basic forms. On the one hand, there are those religious groups which assert that they have sole access to truth and righteousness, and that they shall bring their religion to the rest of the world by guile, by force, or even by the sword if need be. On the other hand, there are those religious groups which assert that if you do not follow their teachings, you shall be condemned — condemned either to hell, or to guilt, or to sin, or to some other form of utter misery. Both of these dominant forms of religion have proven to be extremely intolerant of differences and diversity. They not only want to make over the rest of us in their religious image, they typically want to demonize gays and lesbians, denigrate women (although many of them deny this), and so on. In short, these religious groups are coercive.

    As religious liberals, we offer a public witness that religion need not be coercive, that religion need not rely on force or guile. We promote a religious attitude that does not require hell, guilt, sin, or misery. Instead, we represent a religious attitude of acceptance, love, and kindness. This is our second great strength.

    And this brings me to our third great strength, which is our focus on the community. When I say that one of our strengths is our focus on the community, I have some very specific criteria in mind. My criteria come from the book “Beyond the Ordinary: Ten Strengths of United States Congregations,” which is based on the largest research study on U. S. congregations ever done. These researchers give seven criteria for congregations which focus on the community; the percentage of worshippers who:– voted in the last presidential election; contribute to charitable organizations other than their congregation; are involved in social service or advocacy groups in their community; are involved in social service or advocacy groups in their congregation; have worked with others in the last year to solve a community problem; say that social justice is one of the three most valued aspects of their congregation; and report openness to social diversity as one of the three most valued aspects of their congregation. Based on these criteria, I believe we would easily score in the top twenty percent of all U. S. congregations.

    I believe we have yet another strength in community focus that is probably impossible to measure, and that is our building. We have an absolute treasure of a building. You already know that our building has excellent acoustics, that it is remarkably well cared-for, that it has dignity and beauty. What you may not know is that our building is perceived by many in the wider community as a kind of sanctuary, even for those who are not religious or who belong to other congregations. Not long ago, I was contacted by one community group, a group composed of people from a variety of racial and ethnic backgrounds, who wanted to meet here because this was the only building in the city in which they would all feel reasonably comfortable. Another example: gay and lesbian citizens have told me that they know they can come into this building and feel relatively safe and accepted. So it is that our religious liberal witness of tolerance and acceptance takes on physical form in our building; and the wider community knows this building as a relatively safe and accepting place.

    On to our fourth great strength. And when I tell you what our fourth strength is, I know that some of you will tell me I’m wrong. I believe that our ability to care for our children and youth is one of the great strengths of this congregation. But, some of you will say, we have been unable to hire a Director of Religious Education this year. But, others of you will say, we don’t have all that many children.

    It is true that we have not been able to hire a Director of Religious Education. But we have dedicated and caring Sunday school teachers who have cared for our Sunday school children this year; and we have dedicated and caring youth advisors who minister with our teenagers. Yes, it would be easier for us if we had a Director of Religious Education; but even without one, I see our children and youth growing as human beings, and growing into a deep sense of liberal religion. This is especially true with our teenagers, where I can say without exaggerating that we have saved lives.

    It is true that we don’t have that many children and youth. At the moment, we are averaging about four children a week, and three teenagers a week, with other children and youth who don’t come as regularly. Yes, that’s a small number, but remember that we are a small congregation, and we only average forty adults on any given Sunday. We may not have many children and teenagers, but we are extremely good at caring for those children and teenagers who are a part of our congregation. So I believe caring for children and youth is our fourth strength.

    Now let me tell you the fifth and final great strength of our congregation, which goes hand in hand with the fourth one. Our fifth great strength is that we look to the future. Our congregation has existed since 1708; we are almost three hundred years old; and we know we are going to be here for centuries to come. We are going to be here and we are going to be a liberal and leavening influence in this community, beyond our own personal lives.

    I have a short list of criteria that help define what I mean when I say we look to the future. We are now ready to try new things; we have a strong sense of who we are, and we are strongly committed to maintaining our liberal religious presence in this region; we have a growing sense of excitement about our immediate future; and we have begun to see that this congregation is moving in a new direction although we may not sure quite yet what direction that might be. [Criteria taken from “Beyond the Ordinary”]

    This fifth and final strength of ours encompasses and amplifies all the other strengths. By looking to the future, we ensure that our covenant, our voluntary agreement together, the very principle of voluntary religion, will continue into the future. By looking to the future, we ensure that we will adapt our liberal religious witness to the changing religious and social landscape around us; and that we will not be cowed or discouraged by religious extremists and conservatives. By looking to the future, we ensure that we will continue to focus on the community, changing and adapting to the changes in the community around us. By looking to the future, we ensure that this congregation will be here for those who are now children.

    You may argue with me about which of our strengths are greater than others. I’m sure some of you will buttonhole me after the worship service, or call me up in the week to come, and say reproachfully, “How could you have forgotten such-and-such a strength?” At least, I hope you will tell me about the strengths I have forgotten to mention; and I admit that my list of our church’s strengths is probably a little idiosyncratic.

    But my real point is this:– I believe in what this church does. I believe that we do at least five things extremely well. I believe the surrounding community needs our liberal religious witness now and for all the years to come. I believe that we are a redemptive force in the surrounding community. I believe that what we do is so important that it must continue; and I cannot see that anyone else is doing quite what we do.

    Personally, I try to show what I believe by participating in this congregation as best I can. Yes, I am paid to be the minister here, but I also volunteer my time by, for example, coming in on my Sundays off to teach Sunday school; I give five percent of my annual income to this church; and in the past year I gave a thousand dollars in honoraria I received to the minister’s discretionary fund.

    I do not ask you to do the same. You may choose to give less than you are able, either financially or in terms of volunteer hours — everyone has to find their own level of commitment. On the other hand, I know that some of you give more of your time than I do; and I know that some of you make greater financial sacrifices in your financial giving than I do — and to you I say, you serve as an inspiration to me, and I’m working on getting to where you are now. Emerson says, “The emotions of benevolence and complacency which are felt towards others are likened to the material effects of fire; so swift, or much more swift, more active, more cheering, are these fine inward irradiations.” And that’s really the whole point of participating in a church like this one — to warm your soul by participating in a voluntary community of benevolence and warmth.

    I know this is a great congregation;– I know that the community needs us, and even values us;– I know that our children need liberal religion’s saving influence in their lives;– I know that I need liberal religion’s saving influence in my own life. So it is that many of us are honored to participate in making this congregation stronger, by giving of our money and time, and so extending its influence even farther into a community that desperately needs our redeeming influence.