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Origins of Our Faith
A Sermon Given
by The Reverend Betty Jo Middleton
on October 7, 2001
at Cedar Lane Unitarian Universalist Church
Bethesda, Maryland
To those who take delight in the historical task, it will come as no
surprise to learn that "delight" appears on a list of "motivations for
the historical task" which I came across the other day.
For those who do not, some others on the list may provide more of an
impetus for reading, writing, or studying history. They are: nostalgia
or tradition; a sense of shared events; recognition and honoring of the
suffering of humanity; finding our bearings and; for a sense of identity.
I have been immersed in our religious history for the past few months,
having registered to take an online course in Unitarian Universalist
history from Meadville/Lombard Theological School, and then being
asked to lead a team revising the Unitarian Universalist history
module of the UUA's Renaissance program, a program providing
training for lay religious educators and other interested people. I have
planned to offer an adult program on some aspect of our religious
history after Christmas; if you have a topic you'd like me to consider,
please let me know.
I was on vacation at the New Jersey shore when the September 11
attacks took place. I had taken some unlikely beach reading with me:
textbooks and journals, required reading for the class. I had no work
to do; I was on vacation. While I could not concentrate on magazines
or light reading in the aftermath of that day and didn't want to
constantly watch the television reports, I found that I could focus on
the historical readings. I found this somewhat puzzling as they are at
best a little difficult and at worst, very dense. But it seemed to me I
could focus because I was actually learning something.
When I returned home, one of the many e-mails I received through the
religious education list of the UUA, was this reading attributed to
T.H. White:
The best thing for being sad is to learn something. That is the only thing that never fails. You may grow old and trembling in your
anatomies. You may lie awake at night listening to the disorder of your veins. You may miss your only love. You may see the world around you devastated by evil lunatics or know your honor trampled in the sewers of baser minds. There is only one thing for it, then to learn. Learn why the world wags and what wags it. That is the only thing which the mind can never exhaust, never alienate, never be tortured by, never fear, or distrust, and never dream of regretting. Learning is the thing for you.
Well, I am doing lots of learning just by taking an online course. A
few weeks ago I knew nothing about Virtual Classrooms and the
Digital Drop Box; now I am able to navigate my way through the
intricacies of both. As an educator, I wanted to learn more about this
new kind of distance education, having earlier tried the traditional
classroom, workshops, a correspondence course, seminary courses,
graduate school, and independent study. As one who delights in the
historical task, I wanted to learn more about our religious history and
to share that knowledge with others.
Ours is a heritage rich with stories, music, poetry, and other writings
which may feed the soul. At this time when so many people of all
faiths are seeking comfort, strength and resolve through common
worship, we too gather. As Kenneth Patton says,
We arrive out of many singular rooms, walking
over the branching streets. We come to be
assured that brothers and sisters surround us, to
restore their images on our eyes. We enlarge our
voices in common speaking and singing. We try
again that solitude found in the midst of those
who with us seek their hidden reckonings. Our
eyes reclaim the remembered faces; their voices
stir the surrounding air. The warmth of their hands
assures us, and the gladness of our spoken names.
This is the reason of cities, of houses, of assemblies
in the houses of worship. It is good to be with
one another.
This and the opening and closing words, the meditation and the
prayer, most if not all written by Unitarians, Universalists or
consolidated "UUs"are among the many we can turn to.
One thing I learned from the very first Video Lecture was that there
are two basic ways of looking at our history, especially the origins of
our faith. One is doctrinal, that is including all who have expressed
anti-trinitarian views or suggested that all might be saved eventually.
The other is institutional, looking at the roots of the
denominations/associations which grew in the fertile intellectual and
religious soil of the new world. Whichever version we choose to
follow gives us stories. I will share only a couple of them.
Both Unitarian and Universalist views were declared heresies early in
church history, so it is not surprising that they were little represented
in public before the Reformation, when anti-Trinitarian arguments
were presented as an alternative to Calvinism.
Warren Ross has said, with his tongue only slightly in cheek, that both
the Unitarians and the Universalists had "creation stories." The
Universalists' is that of John Murray, a Universalist minister in
England whose wife and baby died and who barely escaped debtors'
prison. Discouraged, he left England for the new world, determined
never to preach again. In 1770 he sailed for New York on the ship
Good Luck, which went aground off the coast of New Jersey. Sent
ashore by the captain for provisions, Murray met a farmer. The
farmer, Thomas Potter, had built a small chapel and hoped for a
preacher to come and preach the gospel of universal salvation, which
he had figured out on his own. He somehow sensed from his
conversation with Murray that Murray was the one for whom he had
been waiting. Murray refused to preach, saying he had to go on to
New York and that he would preach no more. Potter extracted from
him the promise that if the wind did not change before Sunday, he
would preach. The wind did not change, Murray preached, and so
inspired was he by the experience that he became an itinerant
preacher, spreading the good news of "hope, not hell" in New
England. "A charming story," says Ross, "and we have Murray's
word that it is true." If you go to Lanoka Harbor, New Jersey, today,
you can visit Murray Grove conference center and a reconstructed
Potter's Chapel, and walk where John Murray walked. I love to do
that, and I love this Universalist miracle story. (There are, so far as
I am aware, no Unitarian miracle stories.)
Tradition has it that Murray was the "father of Universalism in
America" but recent research suggests that Potter was not the only
indigenous Universalist around, but that there was a strong
Universalist presence along the Connecticut River in Massachusetts
before Murray arrived. Murray himself writes of finding Universalists
in Gloucester. The recent discovery of the letter books of Judith
Sargent Murray, a remarkable woman in her own right, who happened
to be the second wife of John Murray, tells us more about the early
years of this faith in America.
Universalists, Shakers, and Free Will Baptists were part of a very
complicated reaction to Calvinism and the Great Awakening. Maybe
after I finish my course I can tell you more about the complicated
parts. They, along with the Quakers, were among those who resisted
paying taxes to support the clergy of the churches of the Standing
Order. Those were the Congregationalists, of course, and included
the future Unitarians. (When I was a girl in school,
antidisestablishmentarianism was said to be the longest word in the
English language, but I understand it has been replaced by an even
longer one relating not to religion, but to technology.)
"The Unitarian tradition," Ross says in his book
The Premise and the Promise, "predictably deals not
with simple folk...but with a king."
Though 19th Century Unitarianism in America grew out of the
resistance to Calvinism following the Great Awakening, this story
takes us back to Europe, where young John Sigismund became the
king of Transylvania in post-Reformation days. With the intention of
establishing a state religion, he called for Protestant and Catholic
leaders to argue their cases. Unitarian Francis David, however,
entered a plea for tolerance. "We need not think alike," he said, "to
love alike." Thus in 1568 the king issued the Edict of Torda, an Act
of Religious Tolerance and Freedom of Conscience. While there is no
real evidence to suggest that American Unitarianism derived from this
strain, Unitarians in the United States and Transylvania have been in
touch since the 1830s, and our partner church program is a testament
to our real connection with our European cousins.
As Wright suggested in the selection read earlier, we claim as one of
our martyrs Michael Servetus, who was executed for anti-Trinitarian
heresy by the Calvinists. And in the last century, one of our more
enduring Unitarian rituals, the Flower Communion, was brought to us
from Europe. It was created by Norbert Capek, who died in a
concentration camp during World War II. He is the author of hymns
and readings in our hymnal.
The early Unitarians were leaders of Boston society, and literary and
intellectual circles, a true elite, unlike the farmers and merchants in the
Universalist churches. Some were social reformers. In fact, we may
point to plenty of social reformers on both sides of our family tree, but
in truth Unitarians and Universalists have worked both for change and
for the status quo. We tend to brag more about those struggles for
justice than the resistance to change that often has existed. Probably
more has been written and spoken about Unitarian Universalist
involvement in the civil rights movement than about the controversies
over black empowerment and governance which almost split our
fledgling consolidated Unitarian Universalist Association in its early
years or about the struggles of people of color for inclusion in our
movement.
Until recent years, women have pretty much been left out of our
histories, but that has changed in the past 25 years or so with the
writings of Cynthia Grant Tucker about the Unitarian ministers who
were the Iowa Sisterhood, the formation of the Unitarian Universalist
Women's Heritage Society, and the work of independent scholars.
This movement has led the way in the ordination of women, but not
without struggle and pain on the part of many.
Whether we choose to consider our story as one covering a little more
than 200 years or one covering 2000, its origins may be found in the
desire of men and women throughout the ages to be free to follow the
dictates of their own conscience; to be their own true selves and; to
worship according to the dictates of their own hearts and minds. We
can find within this story examples of wisdom, courage, faith, and love
to inspire us and lead us forward.
You have spent some time here remembering and celebrating the 50
years this congregation has existed. How will you use your history?
How may we use our broader history as a religious people?
In his address to the religious education conference at Crane, Conrad
Wright suggested that there are four uses for history:
The first...is the support it can give to social cohesion.
The second [that] it provides us with many of our symbols of communication...
The third...is that it supplies role models for later generations [and]
the fourth use of history is as an aid to self-understanding.
It helps us to know who we are.
As the world changes around us, we need more than ever commitment
to the community as well as the individual; open and honest
communication; role models for future generations and; real
understanding of ourselves and others. May we work on these things
for our own good as people of faith, and for the good of the world.
"The free church," says James Luther Adams,
is a pilgrim church, a servant church, on an adventure
of the spirit. The goal is the prophethood and priesthood
of all believers, the one for the liberty of prophesying,
the other for the ministry of healing. It aims to find
unity in diversity under the promptings of the spirit
"that bloweth where it listeth...and maketh all things new."
NOTES
The opening words, adapted from Barbara Pescan, the meditation by Mary Oliver,
the prayer by Philip Hewett, and the closing words by V. Emil Gudmondson are
all from Singing Our Living Tradition, published by the Unitarian Universalist
Association, as are the quotations from Kenneth L. Patton and James Luther
Adams. The reading by Conrad Wright was taken from his book Walking Together, published by Skinner House in 1989.
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