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So today is the second in a series of sermons that I am delivering on the Sources of the Living Tradition that is Unitarian Universalism. I've been moved to do this series, I realize, by an urge to give us a shared vocabulary and a foundation of concepts and language with which to discuss this sometimes nebulous, often beautiful and very powerful way of life that we pursue together.
The Sources are the second half of the current statement that best describes what Unitarian Universalism is about, the Principles and Purposes and Sources of our denomination, which you can always find at the front of the hymnal, on the web site and in those handy little brown cards on the front table if you want to take one with you.
Many of us are familiar with the Principles. Those are the guidelines for our way of living: Respecting the inherent worth and dignity of every person, the interdependent web of existence, a free and responsible search for truth and meaning, etc. But the sources are less familiar. They are where our tradition comes from. Last time I spoke on the first, and perhaps the most important Source: The direct experience of transcending mystery and wonder that people experience. That gets called by many names. But that source of life and learning and love and faith and power that resides within us within nature, within all things.
The second Source from which our Living Tradition arises is: Words and deeds of prophetic women and men that challenge us to confront powers and structures of evil with justice, compassion, and the transforming power of love.
So this is yet another place where we can find the energy and inspiration that allows us to live out our principles of freedom and respect and engagement and love.
In some ways I think there is a little meaning in the order of the Sources, perhaps just by happy chance. Often these prophetic words and deeds grow out of that first Source: direct experience. People have some internal shift or some change in awareness and they are moved to speak out of that. That's what I think the founding of religions is generally about. Someone, the Buddha or Jesus or whoever, goes to the mountaintop and gains an insight, a clarity, whatever it might be. And then the horrible, messy work of trying to convey that experience to the rest of the world begins.
And so, with this Source we begin to move from the transcendent realm of awareness, consciousness, the Holy, down into the human realm. That pull, that kind of directional move is very Unitarian Universalist. Always back here to us, to now, to how we do things together.
The beautiful thing, of course, about being a Unitarian Universalist is that our prophetic men and women aren't confined to a single religious tradition. In fact, they are not confined to religion at all. Wherever women and men from any walk of life: secular, religious, political, musical; wherever those women and men have challenged us to stand up to evil and to blossom love within, we will seek their wisdom. We are concerned not only with the founders of the faith, but we're deeply concerned with those who carry that work forward in any generation — a number that, I might say, includes ourselves. Ours is a way of unfolding revelation, or of never-ending revelation. Where every generation, indeed every person, can be a prophet, a hero.
The word "prophetic" appears in this Source, so it's worth saying a little bit about what is meant by that. "Prophet" has a number of definitions. I'll use my old and shameful trick of quoting the dictionary, which Rita says is a cheap sermon-writing technique, but you know, it's good to get your terms straight, I guess. There are four definitions of prophets. We're concerned with some more than others. Webster's defines a prophet as:
- "One who utters divinely inspired revelations." That would require a lot of unpacking; we'll leave it for another day.
- "One gifted with more than ordinary spiritual or moral insight." Chew on that a bit.
- "One who foretells future events." We'll probably leave that one for the time being as well. And,
- "An effective or leading spokesperson for a cause, doctrine or group."
I'm deeply concerned with that final meaning.
However, this foretelling of future events leads to a little side bar. The word "prophet" comes, of course, from the Biblical tradition originally and I want us to hold that tradition in mind because I believe that's the origin of this term, "prophetic women and men." We're looking back that far. Biblical prophets, in spite of many claims to the contrary, really weren't about foretelling future events. It's actually really hard to read the Biblical prophets and think that they were talking about anything other than their own day — where things were going awry and powers and structures of evil were threatening the land. What the prophets are about is transforming our view of those things and giving us energy to face them. That said, there was a little bit of a tradition that imagined that some prophets could see the future. And in one of the great moments of Biblical circular reasoning, one of the writers of Leviticus asks, "How do know the true prophets from the false prophets in this regard?" The answer is, "Well, the true prophets are the ones whose future predictions came true." Needless to say, that is not very much help in the present moment. And so that foretelling of future events piece is something we have tended not to be concerned with, especially given how frequently those foretellings have been wrong. But, spiritual and moral insight; revelations from the divine source form within, or speaking out for causes, doctrines, or groups, these are the prophets we are interested in: people who further justice, compassion, and the transforming power of love.
One thing I like to do personally with these Sources is really pick them apart and chew on them and I invite you to do the same. Some of these phrases can provide a week's worth of reflection. "Confront structures and powers of evil" for example. "Evil": that's a loaded term right there. And I must say there is so much unpacking to do with that particular phrase "structures and powers of evil," that it's just going to have to wait until another sermon. (That was hard to do; I like to preach everything I know every single time, but we’re going to save the problem of evil for another day.) What we’re talking about now, though, is dealing with those things that we would call harmful, restrictive, freedom-reducing, pain-increasing. But I do want to say that the words and deeds that we are elevating with the second Source, the things that our heroes have done and said; it's not about calling people evil. That’s key. Liberal religious people aren't interested in dividing humanity into the good guys and the bad guys. We’re interested in nurturing those qualities in all people that make for peace and justice and happiness, but we are also interested in removing the barriers from that happening —and they are manifold. The prophetic women and men we respect don't condemn, but they do confront. They confront institutions when they are no longer marked by compassion and justice. This is the common thread of prophets through the ages: Speaking truth to power, often at great risk. And they also confront those powers within us, such as greed, delusion, and hatred, that can lead people astray and that can only be overcome by love. We also note it says "words and deeds." It's not enough to simply talk about what's right and wrong; you have to do something to bring it about.
This very morning I received a poem in my email from Garrison Keiler, a close personal friend. He sends me his Writer's Almanac every day courtesy of the NPR web site. Nevertheless, the poem struck me as perfectly appropriate for this, remember that it's not just words, but words and deed. The poem is called "Philosophy" by Daniel Hoffman.
In sophomore year the great philosopher, Then ninety, out of retirement came, to pass His wisdom on to one more generation. Reading his last lecture to our class That afternoon the mote-filled sunlight leaned Attentively with purpose through the tall Windows in amber buttresses that seemed to gird the heavens so they wouldn’t fall. The blaze of his white mane, his hooded eyes, The voice that plumbed us from reflection’s skies So far above temptation or reward – The scene has never left my mind. I wrote His lecture down, but, in an old trunk, my notes have crumbled, and I can’t recall a word.
We’re to stand up to the structures and powers of evil, not merely analyze them, nor stand in self-righteous judgment against them. This is a call to bravery here; a call to heroism, even. If we name our prophets and our heroes, people who really have confronted structures and powers of evil, it is often a list that reveals some very untimely ends: Martin Luther King, Jr., Malcolm X, Jesus, who is himself listed by most Americans as a hero, certainly met an untimely death, Oscar Romero, a liberation theologian from South America who was gunned down in the pulpit for preaching about the rights of the poor. In recent days, I keep coming back to Rachel Corrie, the young woman who was killed by a bulldozer while protesting the destruction of Palestinian homes. These folks were prophets. They dared to stand up, and they paid a price. We may not all find ourselves in that spot, but we certainly can be inspired by them. I want to tell you just a little bit about one of my heroes and then I want to invite you to name some of yours.
From our own tradition, from the Universalist tradition, one of my great heroes is the woman Olympia Brown. She was born in Vermont to Universalists and remained a Universalist her whole life. She was a pioneer in every sense of the word. She was born on a pioneer farm in Michigan; she was one of the first women of her era to go to college; she was the first woman to go to Divinity School; and she was the first woman in America to be ordained by a recognized religious tradition (the Universalist tradition). She was an amazing, determined, fighting woman who never let go of her quest for women's rights. The mere fact of being the first woman who was ever ordained, would make her hero enough for me, but she was a suffragist par excellence.
When I read her autobiography, my notion of what can really be done in a single lifetime was transformed. While maintaining full time ministries she also was a full time activist for women's rights. She worked with Susan B. Anthony, Lucy Stone, and other folks in that first great wave of suffragists in the 1800's. She traveled Kansas trying to get a state constitutional amendment passed to give women the vote. She traveled alone from town to town, often in great danger from hecklers and people who opposed her purposes. She made more than 300 speeches. She would not be deterred. She kept her maiden name — one thing I kind of love about her. Most importantly, she kept the fight up until her very last days. She'd been part of the first movement of suffragists in the 1860's and 1870's, but in 1913 she joined a radical party called the Women's Party that was led by Alice Paul and Lucy Varnes. She welcomed their more confrontational and streetwise tactics. They began mounting large vigils and demonstrations to mobilize support. When she was asked to be a charter member of this more militant and energetic group, she said "I belonged to this party before I was born." She joined in many of the demonstrations organized by the Women's Party — out in the cold and in the face of dangerous confrontations often with police abuse. In her 80's Olympia Brown was there. In a memorable moment, she publicly burned the speeches of Woodrow Wilson outside the White House.
When the suffrage amendment was finally passed in 1919, Brown was one of the few original suffragists alive to savor the triumph. She voted in her first presidential election at the age of 85. And then to relax in her retirement, she became one of the original members of the Women's International League for Peace and Freedom and caused trouble until her death at the age of 91. Having myself drawn inspiration from many older trouble-making Unitarian Universalists, I want to finish this little tale of her with what the Baltimore Sun said of her on her death: "Perhaps no phase of her life better exemplified her vitality and intellectual independence than the mental discomfort she succeeded in arousing between her 80th and 90th birthdays among the conservatively minded Baltimoreans." I'm not like Olympia Brown —- yet. But I want to be. And that's why Olympia Brown is my hero. I think that's what heroes, that's what these folks whom we name in this second Source, are about for us. We can acknowledge that they are exceptional people — that doesn't mean we’re not exceptional people too. The point is that these folks have trod this heroic path before and they let us know that we can do it too. We don't have to give up.
What I'd like to do right now, just briefly, is have you consider for a moment: Who are the people in your life who have most inspired you to stand up for what is right and good? Who are the people who most gave you the gifts of justice and compassion and the transforming power of love? Writers? Family members? Teachers? Artists? Political leaders? Revolutionaries? Let’s say those names into this space so that we can know whom we are talking about.
How can we think we're alone in this work we want to do of changing the world, bringing forward love, and power for goodness? We’ve named quite a cast of characters; we could spend the rest of our lives just from those people who you named. We're not in this alone, as Thomas Starr King reminds us.
I want to say the work of those people is not ended. That's our work today. Every generation — every moment — needs its heroes and prophets. If words and deeds of prophetic women and men is the source form which Unitarian Universalist arises, then, friends, it's up to us, as always to be that next group. If we want to spread our faith, the surest things we can do are walk our walk and talk our talk and that's in every little way. We don't necessarily have to stand out in the middle of freezing rain demonstrations, but we can do what we can do. When it comes up, we can say, "That racist joke isn't funny"; we can say, "I'm not going to buy anything from these people who perpetuate evil." We can write letters to our leaders and our families and our friends; we can volunteer; we can give a little more to our church or charity than we think we can. And we can take risks. All of the people you named as heroes did and in the end they are no different than we are.
Heroes, it seems to me, over the last 20 or 30 years have gotten a bad rap. Nothing seems to be grabbed onto more than are revelations such as Martin Luther King was a womanizer or that somebody whom we hold up as a hero was mean to his kids, or that she had some human flaw in some way. I think discrediting heroes is a way to let us off the hook, to allow us to remain uninspired. But I say, let's turn that around. Every person we named here, was, well just like us: imperfect, mean to people at times, not on the game the whole time, and yet they did what they did and their meaning and their words are still with us. So, we're not off the hook; we are inspired.
Heroes and prophets have always just been people. Just us. The point is to take the long view. I want to finish with a quote — another one that is related to the women's suffrage movement, which I find so personally inspiring. This is from Carrie Chapman Cat, a second-generation feminist. She spoke of the 72-year struggle for women’s suffrage. She said that during that time they were forced to conduct 56 campaigns of referenda to male voters, 480 campaigns to get state legislatures to submit suffrage amendments to voters, 47 state campaigns to get state constitutional conventions to write women's suffrage in, 277 campaigns to get state party conventions to include women's suffrage in their planks, 30 campaigns to get presidential party convention to adopt women's suffrage, and 19 campaigns over 19 successive congresses. Millions of dollars were raised, hundreds of women gave the accumulated possibilities of an entire lifetime, thousands gave years of their lives, and hundreds of thousands gave constant interest and such aid as they could. The young suffragists who helped forge the last links of that chain were not born when it began, and the old suffragists who forged the first links were dead when it ended. But we're those links in that chain, friends. You don't have to see the end of the game sometimes all we do plant seeds and wait for the tree to blossom 1000 years from now. As long as we bind ourselves together, support each other, we'll never lose faith that it can be done. These individuals we've named can inspire and challenge us, but individuals can't do it alone. The most effective way to confront powers and structures of evil is by building powers and structures of good. That's what I hope we're doing here. Oh you prophets. I'd like to say maybe Unitarian Universalism is, if you'll forgive me, a prophet-sharing plan.
May we all reap its rewards.