Dan Harper | Sermons

  • All Kinds of Patriots

    This sermon was preached by Rev. Dan Harper. As usual, the sermon below is a reading text. The actual sermon as preached contained ad libs, interjections, and other improvisation. Sermon copyright (c) 2005 Daniel Harper.

    Readings

    The reading, a poem about the horrors of war, is not included here due to copyright restrictions.

    Sermon

    Today is the Sunday closest to November 11, Veteran’s Day, the holiday when we honor all those men and women who served in the armed forces of this country; November 11 is also Armistice Day, the day when we commemorate the signing of the 1918 armistice which put an end to “the war to end all wars.” But war is one of those topics we Unitarian Universalists struggle with. Some of us oppose all war; others of us believe war is sometimes necessary. So on this weekend when we honor veterans and commemorate the end to World War I, let’s explore what, if anything, we hold in common about war and warfare. Not that we’ll come up with a final answer this morning, but it’s the beginning of a conversation, the beginning of an exploration.

    As Unitarian Universalists, we are firmly within the tradition of Western religion, and while individually we may find inspiration in other, non-Western, religious traditions, we are nonetheless each embedded in a society with deep roots in the Jewish and Christian religions. Thus it is that when a man like Martin Luther King asked us to consider who was our neighbor, we know he meant to refer to the teachings of Jesus, who is reported to have said, treat your neighbor as you yourself would like to be treated. Thus it is that we are all familiar with the teachings of the book of Exodus, which tells the story of how Moses led his people out of slavery and into the freedom of the desert; and the story tells how in the desert God appears to Moses and gives Moses a series of moral precepts, or commandments, including the commandment, “You shall not murder” [NRSV]; or, as this commandment is more familiarly (though perhaps less accurately) translated, “Thou shalt not kill.” [KJV] Therefore, as people of the Western religious tradition, we have gut-level knowledge of these two ethical teachings: treat your neighbor as you would like to be treated, and thou shall not kill.

    Thomas Aquinas, who lived in the High Middle Ages and who was one of the greatest philosophers of the Western tradition, realized that these two moral precepts seemed to indicate that all war must be immoral. But in his book the Summa Theologica, he argued that in fact some wars can be considered just wars. And Thomas Aquinas offers three criteria to help us judge whether a given war is actually a just war or not. Let’s look at those three classic criteria for determining if a war is just.

    For one of his three criteria, Thomas Aquinas writes that a just war must have a just cause:

    “…[A] just cause is required, namely that those who are attacked, should be attacked because they deserve it on account of some fault. Wherefore Augustine says: ‘A just war is wont to be described as one that avenges wrongs, when a nation or state has to be punished, for refusing to make amends for the wrongs inflicted by its subjects, or to restore what it has seized unjustly.’ “

    In the ongoing discussion about the Iraq war, we have been hearing both pro-war and anti-war people repeatedly referring to this criterion. But this is a criterion we religious liberals are wary of using. As Universalists we are certain that love that will transform the world, not violence or vengeance. Therefore, while we might be able to condone warfare as a short-term necessity, it seems difficult for us to justify it in terms of vengeance or punishment.

    Another criterion for just war, according to Thomas Aquinas, goes like this:

    “…[I]t is necessary that the belligerents should have a rightful intention, so that they intend the advancement of good, or the avoidance of evil…. For it may happen that the war is declared by the legitimate authority, and for a just cause, and yet be rendered unlawful through a wicked intention. Hence Augustine says (Contra Faust. xxii, 74): ‘The passion for inflicting harm, the cruel thirst for vengeance, an unpacific and relentless spirit, the fever of revolt, the lust of power, and such like things, all these are rightly condemned in war.’ “

    Again, this criterion for war remains current, and we’ve heard supporters and opponents of the Iraq war using it. We religious liberals like to use this criterion. With our strong emphasis on the dictates of conscience, we spend a lot of time thinking about intentions, and we well know that the best actions can be sullied by wicked intentions. But we are most likely to use this criterion at a personal level, for those who serve or have served in the armed forces: if your overall intention is honorable and good, by the dictates of your conscience, then your own military service is justified and justifiable. But while necessary on a personal level, this criterion does not seem to us to be a sufficient reason for going to war.

    Which brings us to Thomas Aquinas’s third criterion for a just war, which requires:

    “…the authority of the sovereign by whose command the war is to be waged. For it is not the business of a private individual to declare war, because he can seek for redress of his rights from the tribunal of his superior…. And as the care of the common weal is committed to those who are in authority, it is their business to watch over the common weal of the city, kingdom or province subject to them. And just as it is lawful for them to have recourse to the sword in defending that common weal against internal disturbances, when they punish evil-doers… so too, it is their business to have recourse to the sword of war in defending the common weal against external enemies….”

    As religious liberals, this particular criterion for just war is most problematic for us. Thomas Aquinas assumes here that society is based upon a hierarchy and authority that begins with God, who is the ruler of us all. From God, power flows down to ecclesiastical and governmental authorities, who rule masses of people, and finally trickles down to individuals. We religious liberals have a different vision of society that begins with the connections that bind us each to each; these connections lead us to develop covenants, explicit statements of how we are bound together, and the promises we make to each other; and ends with the possibility that any or all of us can have direct experience of the transcending mystery of the universe, from which experience we might be able to draw new moral and ethical insights to share with all those to whom we are connected, and with whom we are bound together by covenant. Therefore, we find that we religious liberals cannot really use this criterion to determine whether a war is just.

    Indeed, we are not entirely comfortable with any of these three classic criteria for what constitutes a just war. As Unitarian Universalists, we have two ultimate authorities: first, our individual consciences; second, the communities to which we are bound by covenant. So our determination of a just war is made not because someone in authority over us says that a given war is just, nor because we wish to punish someone else; and while we require good intentions, good intentions alone are not enough of a reason to go to war. Rather, we look to our individual consciences, and to our abiding understanding of the transforming power of love.

    Because we recognize the authority of individual conscience, we are going to find Unitarian Universalists with a wide range of understandings about what constitutes a just war. Among our ranks, we have many veterans who have served in the armed forces and who are proud of what they have accomplished through their service. We also have conscientious objectors who have refused to serve in the military on moral and religious grounds, and who are proud of their adherence to principle. I have talked with both veterans and conscientious objectors who say that their Unitarian Universalist faith gave them strength as they lived out their very different choices.

    Therefore, as a religious lbieral I don’t think it’s possible to describe a war as just, any more than I can describe a war as purple, or fuzzy. If I describe a war as just, what do I say to the conscientious objector who feels all wars are unjust? If I describe a war as unjust, what do I say to the veteran who served honorably in that war? As a religious liberal, I find that I am not inclined to make some straightforward, abstract judgment about whether a given war is just or unjust. There is no easy determination; which is so often the case for us religious liberals — there’s no one easy answer.

    Wars are big, messy. A soldier has a very different experience of war than does a child. As we heard in today’s reading, a child in Belfast in 1940 could be fascinated by the pieces of shrapnel she found; she must have had a very different experience from the pilot of the plane that dropped the bombs on Belfast. It’s impossible to reduce war’s bigness and messiness to the point where we can all them unequivocally just or unequivocally unjust. There are moral consequences of going to war; or of not going to war; and whatever action we take, we are bound to face up to those moral consequences. Any action we take is going to have good consequences and bad consequences. We make the best choices we can, but we can never make perfect choices, and so we often have to deal with the unintended consequences of our choices; and we have to deal with the consequences of the choices made by people we are in relationship to.

    Nor can we pass off blame for unintended consequences onto someone else, but because of our understanding of relationships and of covenant we should not do that. I have opposed the war in Iraq from the very beginning, and it would be easy for me to say that, because of my opposition, I am not responsible for what happened in Abu Ghraib prison; but I have to accept responsibility for what happened there, because of my deep connections to this country. It’s easier to say, “Don’t blame me, I voted for John Kerry,” or to say, “People who oppose the war are destroying this country.” It’s easier to point your finger at someone else and say, “I didn’t do it — it’s them.” But if we’re going to get serious about the transforming power of love, we cannot divide the world up into “us” and “them.”

    In our Western religious tradition, Jesus of Nazareth remains one of our most influential teachers and prophets. Jesus offered some cogent advice for healing human relationships. He said, treat your neighbor as you yourself would like to be treated. Herein lies the true core of our Western tradition. Treat your neighbor as yourself; and remember that every other person is, in some sense, your neighbor. When war happens, it gets in the way of us treating others as neighbors; and therefore we do all we can to bring war to a close and to achieve a just and lasting peace.

    In the love for all human beings, therein lies healing for us all. In that direction lies the path to a just and lasting peace. We come to this place of sanctuary each week in order draw strength in these troubled times. May we use our strength to go out and heal the world, one human relationship at a time.

  • Ecotheology at the Pond

    This sermon was preached by Rev. Dan Harper. As usual, the sermon below is a reading text. The actual sermon as preached contained ad libs, interjections, and other improvisation. Sermon copyright (c) 2005 Daniel Harper.

    Readings

    The reading this morning comes from the book Walden by Henry David Thoreau:

    “A lake is the landscape’s most beautiful and expressive feature. It is earth’s eye; looking into which the beholder measures the depth of his own nature. The fluviatile trees next the shore are the slender eyelashes which fringe it, and the wooded hills and cliffs around are its overhanging brows….”

    Sermon

    The story of Henry David Thoreau’s stay at Walden Pond has entered our common mythology. Even though not many people actually read the book Walden, probably most of us know the outlines of the story. I’ve begun to think that story is pointing us in the direction of a new theology, and ecological theology or eco-theology. The story as it’s written in the book goes something like this.

    Henry Thoreau had grown frustrated by a society that drove the divinity out of human beings: it is bad enough to be a slave in the southern states, but, said Thoreau, it is “worst of all when you are the slavedriver of yourself.” Thoreau looked around and saw that his neighbors were enslaved by owning farms, and holding down jobs, and having to work, work, work without time for reflection, without time for oneself. So he decided to try an experiment: he would go off into the woods where he would build himself a little cabin, and grow some of his own food, and pick up work as a day laborer when he needed some cash. His experiment was designed to show that it was possible to live comfortably while working only a few hours a day, leaving plenty of time for reading, contemplation, and spiritual growth.

    With that object in mind, Thoreau got permission to live on some land near Walden Pond. He borrowed an axe from a friend and set to work building himself a cabin, which appropriately enough he moved into on July 4th, Independence Day, thus celebrating his independence from the slavery his neighbors suffered under. He planted a couple of acres with beans and other vegetables (he was a vegetarian, so he didn’t need to keep any animals) and picked up the odd job here and there. But mostly, he was able to devote his time to long conversations with friends, reading and study, writing, and (most importantly) spending time in Nature.

    And then at the end of two years, two months, and two days, Thoreau decided it was time once to again become what he ironically termed “a sojourner in civilized life.”

    Using conventional theological terms, you could say that Walden is a book about salvation. But Thoreau does not offer a conventional salvation story of the kind we’re used to hearing in our culture. Thoreau isn’t saved by his belief, and he doesn’t have to make an altar call. No angels descend from some heaven to redeem him, nor is he saved by the influence of some other person. Instead, he is saved by profound encounters: he is saved by deep conversations, by reading and writing, and above all by transcendent encounters with Nature. I happen to think this unconventional salvation story has a lot to offer us as Unitarian Universalists, so I’d like to explore this a little further.

    First and foremost, Thoreau’s story of salvation suggests to us Unitarian Universalists that we don’t need to work so hard. I suspect this is the hardest message for us to hear because we Unitarian Universalists like to take the weight of the world on our shoulders, thinking that we have to solve all the world’s problems by ourselves. We are obsessed with doing social justice work, to the point where we believe we are bad human beings if we are not working on at least five all-consuming issues. We are obsessed with social justice work sometimes to the point where our entire lives become consumed with social justice, where we have jobs doing social justice and where our leisure time is consumed with doing social justice and our families become laboratories for doing social justice work and where all our friendships are centered around social justice projects — or if we’re not living our lives that way, then we think we’re bad human beings. We judge each other by these high standards.

    But in Walden, Thoreau challenges this notion of ours. If you read Walden carefully, you realize that Thoreau is in fact engaged in social justice work the whole time he lived at the pond. In the chapter titled “The Village,” Thoreau writes:

    “One afternoon, near the end of the first summer, when I went to the village to get a shoe from the cobbler’s, I was seized and put into jail, because, as I have elsewhere related, I did not pay a tax to, or recognize the authority of, the State which buys and sells men, women, and children, like cattle, at the door of its senate-house.”

    In other words, Thoreau engaged in civil disobedience because of his opposition to governmental practices. Then in the chapter titled “Visitors,” Thoreau writes in his characteristic mix of levity and dead seriousness:

    “Men of almost every degree of wit called on me in the migrating season. Some who had more wits than they knew what to do with; runaway slaves with plantation manners, who listened from time to time, like the fox in the fable, as if they heard the hounds a-baying on their track, and looked at me beseechingly, as much as to say, ‘O Christian, will you send me back?’ One real runaway slave, among the rest, whom I helped to forward toward the north star.”

    In other words, Thoreau’s cabin functioned at least once as one of the stops on the Underground Railroad. We’re also pretty sure that he was involved in the Underground Railroad in other ways, beyond helping that one real runaway slave to freedom.

    Thoreau was deeply involved in social justice work, but I feel his social justice work arose from his religious convictions, not the other way around. It’s tempting to believe that your duty to doing social justice work is more important than religious introspection and reflection. But I’ve seen what happens to a person who fills his or her whole life with such duty: his or her whole life fills up with social justice work and there is no more room for him or her; the self disappears leaving an empty husk enslaved to social justice work. It’s one thing to go to jail and lose your freedom because you know what you’re doing; it’s another thing to become enslaved to duty, to be a slave with the hounds baying on your track and you wishing for an Underground Railroad to save you from yourself. Equally troubled are the people who are enslaved by guilt, who think (rightly or wrongly) that they don’t do enough social justice work. Guilt can put you in chains stronger than any iron.

    So it is that Thoreau warns us against enslaving ourselves, warns us against living lives of quiet desperation, and he gives his own story as one example of how we might escape from all kinds of such slavery.

    Which brings us to something else Thoreau’s story of salvation offers us Unitarian Universalists. Once we clear some space in our lives by freeing ourselves from the quiet desperation of always having to do something, we have the time and the space to engage in deep conversations. Thoreau said that was one problem with his small cabin:

    “One inconvenience I sometimes experienced in so small a house, the difficulty of getting to a sufficient distance from my guest when we began to utter the big thoughts in big words…. The bullet of your thought must have overcome its lateral and ricochet motion and fallen into its last and steady course before it reaches the ear of the hearer, else it may plough out again through the side of his head.”

    That’s one of the blessings of our huge old building: we have the space for our big ideas to ricochet around a little bit before we hear them. And it’s not just this big old grand room, but the other rooms, too. I’m always glad when I go into Social Hour that the ceilings are so high and the rooms so broad, notwithstanding the fact that we can’t afford to heat them adequately this winter, because I feel the need for all that room; I love Social Hour best when I hear big thoughts uttered in big words, in those big old rooms.

    Nor need we limit our conversation to each other. One of the most remarkable things about Thoreau’s Walden no longer seems so remarkable: he wrote the book just a few short years after the first English translations of such classic religious scriptures as the Bhagavad Gita, the Confucian Analects, and the Koran; and in those few short years, Thoreau had already started deep conversations with all those texts. We forget how radical he was, having a religious and spiritual conversation that went beyond the Bible, and the Greeks and Romans, to include all the great scriptures of the world. No wonder he needed so much space for his conversations.

    That’s two reasons why we need lots of space in our own lives. It requires lots of space to have a real conversation with another human being; we can’t have those conversations in a cramped space, because our thoughts will just plough through each other’s heads. And it requires lots of space to have conversations with the wisdom of the ages, with the great religious scriptures of all ages and all cultures. Lacking both these kinds of conversations, we become less than human. Lacking these deep conversations, we become automatons who thoughtlessly carry out tasks with which we have enslaved ourselves.

    Which brings us to yet something else Thoreau’s story of salvation suggests to us Unitarian Universalists. In traditional Western culture, we have two most important types of relationships. First, there’s the relationship we have with each other; second, there’s the relationship we have with God. (These two types of relationships apply to atheists, too, because for Western atheists it’s critically important to show that humanity has a null relationship with God because there is not God.) These two types of relationships are summed up by Jesus, a figure of central importance in Western culture, when he says that we only have to worry about two commandments: we are to love our neighbors as ourselves, and to love God with all our hearts and minds.

    Thoreau adds a third type of relationship: the relationship of humanity to Nature, to the natural world; and he puts this third type of relationship at the center of his book. In Thoreau’s story of salvation, our relationship with Nature is a saving relationship. In our reading this morning, Thoreau almost anthropomorphizes the Natural world, making a pond seem like an eye:

    “A lake is the landscape’s most beautiful and expressive feature. It is earth’s eye; looking into which the beholder measures the depth of his own nature. The fluviatile trees next the shore are the slender eyelashes which fringe it, and the wooded hills and cliffs around are its overhanging brows….”

    Yet Thoreau says it looks like an eye because in it we measure the depth of our own nature. So it is with any deep and abiding relationship: we become more human and more who we are through that relationship. To say this is to link our personal salvation with the salvation of Nature. With the Arctic ice cap melting and rain forest disappearing and species after species of animal slipping into extinction, we’re not just talking about some kind of abstract salvation, we’re talking about literally saving endangered species and whole ecosystems — we’re talking about literally saving ourselves.

    The dominant theology in our Western culture is quite explicit: we human beings have dominion over the natural world, and we are told by God to go out and subdue that natural world. But Thoreau says we don’t have to dominate Nature in this way; instead, we relate to Nature as a source of wisdom, as a place for healing and reflection.

    I am captivated by Thoreau’s story of Walden. He lives by a pond for two years. There he finds that a satisfying life does not require him to work constantly. There he finds that a life where he’s not constantly working allows him time for deep conversations with other people, and with the wisdom of the ages. There he finds that instead of having to fight against the natural world and subdue it, we can live in Nature, that we can as it were engage in deep conversations with Nature.

    At the end of the book, Thoreau leaves Walden Pond and goes back to take up his life in Concord village. He ends the book by saying, “Only that day dawns to which we are awake. There is more day to dawn. The sun is but a morning star.” The end of the book is but the beginning.

    I started off this sermon by saying that Henry Thoreau had grown frustrated by a society that drove the divinity out of human beings. I, too, have grown frustrated with a societey that drives the divinity out of us human beings. Our society drives the divinity out of us by keeping us constantly busy, and constantly working. Even when we retire, we are expected to keep busy by immersing ourselves in innumerable projects. This constant busy-ness distracts us from our true natures, from our true humanity; we enslave ourselves with our busy-ness; and the result is that we constantly complain that we have no time. We don’t have any time, enslaved as we are, because our time does not belong to us any more.

    Because we have no time, we can no longer take the time to engage in deep conversations. Nor do we have time to cultivate three kinds of relationships: relationships with each other, relationships with whatever it is that is divine in this world, and relationships with Nature. When we don’t cultivate these relationships, we become less than human; we are lost, not saved.

    In order to reclaim our humanity, eco-theology calls on us to save ourselves, to liberate ourselves from being slaves to busy-ness. If we lose our basic humanity, we will continue to be enslaved; and we will continue to enslave other people because we can no longer know their basic humanity; we will either lose our connection with the divine or become enslaved by a warped notion of divinity; and we will continue to enslave and exploit Nature.

    Thoreau offers us just the beginnings of an ecological theology, just a glimmer, as when the first light of the sun begins to light up the sky behind the morning star. A hundred and fifty years after he wrote his book, we can still glimpse that beginning; we haven’t done much more than glimpse that beginning; and while we have managed to end the legalized slavery of African Americans, we still are far from liberation.

    A path of ecological theology seems to open before us. It appears to be a path of liberation. I believe ecological theology may help us understand better the links between the destruction caused by racism, and the destruction caused by exploiting Nature, and the destruction of our very souls by dehumanization. I believe this kind of theological exploration will be the most important conversation we have together as Unitarian Universalists — but there’s still a lot of exploring to do. You can be a part of this exploration — all you have to do to start is to clear a little time in your life to call your own, time when you can come here and be a part of this conversation.

  • Saint Barnum?

    This sermon was preached by Rev. Dan Harper. As usual, the sermon below is a reading text. The actual sermon as preached contained ad libs, interjections, and other improvisation. Sermon copyright (c) 2005 Daniel Harper.

    Reading

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

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

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

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

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

    Sermon

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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