Sermon by Rev. Alan Taylor
Preached at Unity Temple Unitarian Universalist Congregation
January 22, 2006
First Reading:
from Iqbal Mohammed as
quoted in Singing the Living Tradition
Where
in our hearts is that burning of desire?
It is true that we are made of dust and the world is also made of dust, but the
dust has motes rising.
Whence comes that drive in us?
We look to the starry sky and love storms in our hearts.
Whence comes that storm?
The journey of love is a very long journey, but sometimes with a sigh you can
cross that vast desert.
Search and search again without losing hope,
You may find sometime a treasure on your way, my heart and my eyes are all
devoted to the vision.
Second Reading:
a sermon excerpt from Hosea Ballou adapted by Rev. Jim Robinson
Brethren, for too many generations we have been taught that
God plays favorites. Those who believe and act as God pleases, will enter
heaven. Those who believe or act differently, will receive eternal damnation. We
are told that God is like this, so people will be scared, and act properly. I
ask you: Is this the God you believe in: a God who scares humans, sending most
into eternal torment?
Jesus taught: when a child asks for bread from its parent,
what parent would give their child a stone to eat? And if earthly parents love
their children so well, will not our Heavenly Parent love us even more? What
Heavenly Parent would ever condemn even one of its children to eternal
suffering? No, my friends, that is not what I believe. I preach Universalism:
God is Perfect Love, and will bring all human souls to heaven.
People say to me: "But if I knew that I am so loved by God,
and will enter heaven, no matter what, then I will spend my life on earth in
debauchery, chasing after sinful pleasures." Brethren, that is a great
misunderstanding. We humans sin because we hate ourselves - we do not know how
thoroughly loved by God we are. When our heart absorbs the grace of God's
unconditional love, then the very desire to sin is gone from us. We only want to
be kind and merciful to our neighbor.
People say to me: "Then is a Mohammedan saved? Is a Jew
saved?" I reply: "Of course - everyone is saved.”
Sermon:
You
may have caught on NPR the fascinating story of Carlton Pearson in This American
Life. Carlton Pearson is our nation’s first black televangelist. Oral Roberts
groomed him and came to refer to him as “my Black Son.” Pearson has recorded
songs that have been nominated for Grammies, he has been a high profile minister
with a church of 20,000 followers in Tulsa, Oklahoma, and he even ran for mayor
of his city. But his world has come crashing down around him. He lost the
mayor’s race. Over three-quarters of his church have left him. He is no longer
welcome at his alma mater,
Oral
Roberts
University.
Most of his colleagues refuse to speak to him. Even his drycleaner won’t do
business with him. Why? Because Bishop Pearson began preaching that God would
never let any soul be forever damned because, as he says, God is a loving God. I
am continually surprised by how many people respond to universal statements of
love with fear, hatred, and loathing. Sadly, so many people would ostracize a
previously adored and beloved human being and leader simply because he claimed
there is no such thing as an eternal hell.
There has
long stood an assumption in much of popular theology that if you aren’t good
then you aren’t worthy of love—that if you make a big mistake late in life—or
even early in life—that that messing up can erase all the good that has come out
of your life. And many so-called Christians today claim that failing to accept
Jesus Christ as one’s Lord and Savior is the most awful mistake you could ever
make because, they claim, Jesus died on the cross for our sins, and accepting
this is the only way to avoid eternal damnation. These religious attitudes are
not based on the power of love—they are based on the power of fear.
The early
American Universalists created a religion by facing down the fear of hell with
love. Circuit riders traveled throughout the frontier by horseback. They were
men and women who were seized with the conviction that because love is at the
heart of reality, no one will ever suffer eternal damnation. Their convictions
were strong, they couldn’t contain themselves. They felt compelled to go out and
share the good news, even though others often pooh-poohed their faith. There are
accounts of John Murray and George DeBenneville, the earliest Universalists,
then Hosea Ballou and Quillen Shinn at the turn of the nineteenth century, and
by 1870, women including Olympia Brown and Augusta Jane Chapin. All were
itinerant preachers for large parts of their ministries, and each of them were
said to light up in excitement and a cheerful certainty when preaching, their
countenances transformed when speaking of the love of God.
Now, I’ve
got to confess that my insides are transformed by simply uttering these words of
John Murray in the presence of others: “Go out into the highways and byways of
America,
your new country. Give the people, blanketed with a decaying and crumbling
Calvinism, something of your new vision. You may possess only a small light but
uncover it, let it shine, use it in order to bring more light and understanding
to the hearts and minds of men [and women]. Give them, not hell, but hope and
courage. Do not push them deeper into their theological despair, but preach the
kindness and everlasting love of God.”
In 1805,
Hosea Ballou wrote the most significant Universalist work, called Treatise on
Atonement. He argued that we create heaven and hell in the here and now by how
we live with one another. Ballou forcefully rejected every violent doctrine of
the atonement and taught that Christianity took a wrong turn when it claimed
that we are saved by Jesus’ suffering on the cross, that instead it was Jesus’
embodiment of love that was most important.
Ballou
used everyday metaphors to convey his message. When preaching in a community
where he was a visitor, he met the hostess of the home where he was to stay. She
was cleaning with a mop in her hand when she asked him, “Well, Mr Ballou, they
say you claim that all will be saved. Do you really believe that doctrine?”
He responded, “Yes, Madam.”
“All people,” she pressed, “just as they are? How can you possibly believe
that?”
Ballou then asked, “What are you going to do with that mop in your hand, dear
Madam?”
She replied, “I’m going to mop my floor.” “Do you intend to mop the floor just
as it is?” “I mop it up to clean it.”
And then Ballou responded, “True. You do not require it to be made clean before
you will consent to mop it up. Similarly, God saves us to purify us; that’s
what salvation is designed for. God does not require us to be pure to save us.”
And here
we come to the primary difference between Universalism and Unitarianism. As
Ballou argued that God loves all human beings despite our shortcomings and
failings, the Unitarians were preaching about salvation by character, the notion
that we are saved by our striving to live a moral life. This idea of “salvation
by character” was an integral part of the Unitarian worldview in the late
nineteenth century. Ballou countered by writing a widely published sermon called
“Salvation Irrespective of Character.” And this really upset both liberal
Unitarians and conservative Calvinists. It upset the liberals who felt you had
to be good to be in right relationship with God. And it upset the conservatives
who claimed that only the elect were headed to heaven, and they would naturally
be of good character. It was scandalous to both liberals and conservatives to
consider the uncouth and lazy as equal to the virtuous and hardworking in the
eyes of God. But that is precisely the implication of Universalist theology. As
Thomas Starr King noted, who served as both a Universalist minister and then a
Unitarian minister, the difference between the two is that the Universalists
believe that God is too good to damn them and the Unitarians believe that they
are too good to be damned. King would have agreed with Ballou that because we
are all children of God, the transformational power of love is available to
everyone, regardless of whether we think we or anyone else should deserve it or
not.
This may
sound like a kind of theology that lets you off the hook from being a good
person. Ballou gladly debated others who thought so. Even when riding on
horseback next to a Baptist minister, he engaged in a spirited debate. The
Baptist minister said to him, “So what you are saying to me is that even if I
decide to kill you and steal your horse and money that I still will be loved by
God and go to heaven?” Ballou thought a moment and responded, “If you were a
Universalist you wouldn’t even think of doing so.” For Universalists, opening
to the love of God compels people to love as they are loved—and many
Universalists, like Adin Ballou, Hosea’s cousin, argued that God’s love comes
into the world through us human beings. We have the power to love because we are
loved. We become instruments of God’s love when we live with hope and courage
and put love into practice. The basic ethic for Universalists is that we must
put love in practice and avoid doing anything that tromps on another’s dignity,
for the sake of love. Notice just how similar this is to Martin Luther King,
Jr., Gandhi, and their understanding of agape love. If there is any rallying cry
for Universalists, it was coined by King or one of his leaders of the Selma
march as it was often heard: “We are here to love the hell out of Alabama.”
Marlin Lavanhar, my UU colleague in Tulsa tells me that his congregation may
very well begin a campaign, “We are here to love the hell out of Tulsa.” Perhaps
Carlton Pearson will join him!
This past
week I attended a clergy meeting where a young woman came to briefly speak about
her work with the Christian Peacemakers Team in Columbia. Suzanna Collerd
graduated from OPRF six years ago, attended Vasser, and upon graduation from
college went to Columbia to provide witness and support to indigenous people who
are often victimized by the military. Towards the beginning of her presentation,
she said, “I have a personal experience with the transformational power of
love.” My ears perked right up, given what I’m talking about this month, and I
thought: What exotic place or with what foreign people would the experience of
this young woman be tied to? She then said, “I was sixteen years old. I had
gotten so angry at my mother that I fumed in my room, certain I would never talk
to her again. And then my mother came in my room and said, ‘Suzanna, I know you
don’t want to talk to me right now, but there’s something I want you to know. I
will love you no matter what. In fact, I challenge you to find a way to get me
to stop loving you. Even if you become a serial killer, I will still love you.’”
Suzanna said that day she suddenly understood unconditional love. And now
knowing that she is loved and loved unconditionally, she has decided to devote
her life to helping people in places where love is so badly needed. I tell this
story with Suzanna’s permission, and I share it with you because the
transformational power of love can come in the most ordinary of places -- here
in Oak Park, in one’s own home, and in the most ordinary of circumstances, a
teenager fighting with her mother. And I also share it with you because this
kind of love, the love a parent has for a child, is the same kind of love that
Universalists believe is at the heart of reality, or using theological language,
the kind of love that God has for every human being.
If Ballou
was alive today, he would be very interested in the work of Rita Nakashima
Brock, a contemporary theologian who has made a startling discovery in studying
the art of Christian communities throughout history. In early Christianity,
there are no portrayals of the dead Jesus, no crucifixions, no focus on the
death or suffering of Jesus. This is significant in the same way that before
Constantine made Christianity the state religion, Jesus was never portrayed as a
regal figure, only a loving, ordinary man. And until 964, Christian art never
portrayed Jesus as dead or dying. Then, in the 11th century images of
the crucifixion began to proliferate. And what political and theological shifts
occurred in the 11th century for the Holy Roman Catholic Church? In
1095, Pope Urban II initiated the first crusade. He declared that when killing
Muslims and Jews for the sake of God, soldiers would be acting in the name of
love, thereby earning a place in heaven. And thus began the bloody religious
history known as the crusades. Anselm of Canterbury who would become known as
St. Anselm developed the idea that Jesus had to die on the cross to atone for
our sins. And the church incorporated this idea into its doctrine that today is
one of the most prevalent, and I believe hurtful, beliefs in modern
Christianity.
The roots of Universalism reach back to the early years of
the Christian Church. Origen of Alexandria, who lived in the 2nd and
3rd centuries, rejected the idea of original sin and taught that
every human being is born in the "primal state of blessedness." He taught that
human beings choose to neglect or enhance their participation in goodness and
blessedness, that it is a matter of free will, and that all souls will
eventually be reconciled to God. As Rita Nakashima Brock and Rebecca Parker
express so well in their book, Proverbs of Ashes, the belief that we are saved
by an act of violence implicitly condones violence. Ballou, in 1805 argued many
of the same conclusions as Brock from her study of Christian art: that the love
of God, for early Christians, emerges from Jesus’ life, not his death.
Ballou also insisted that Jesus was human, not God. And here
he agreed with the Unitarians, that love is not supernatural although its source
is divine. Love does not come through exclusive avenues but is accessible to
all. The power of love is not something to manipulate or appease with complex
rituals. The presence of love does not require a priest or a church. There is no
need for a specific recitation of a prayer or catechism. And lastly, there is no
need to fear for one’s soul. Hell, as understood as an afterlife, is a
theological construct that exploits people by catering to their worst fears.
Hell does exist all right. Hell exists in this world. When isolated, cut off
from life and love, we develop our own personal hells. Hell is also a state of
being that can be foisted upon others through cruelty. That is why it makes
sense that the Universalist mission is to love the hell out of this world.
Back in
Ballou’s day, all the theological fuss typically focused on death, that is, what
happens when we die. I appreciate Universalism’s answer that we will all be
enfolded in love when each of us emerges through death’s door, but that isn’t
what is truly core to the Universalist message. What is at core is what it means
to be saved. What does it mean to be saved, especially for those of us that
don’t believe in a literal afterlife? This particular point has been the most
frustrating part of preparing this sermon. I struggled over the last several
days to articulate what the early American Universalists have to offer a living
faith that is relevant for today. And then it finally became clear. This
language of “being saved” has more to do with being transformed and made whole
than it does with the afterlife. It is challenging to get out of the habit of
equating being saved with the afterlife. But if we do so, then the Universalist
message becomes far more relevant. The Universalist message comes down to this:
we are free to love. We are free to love! We are free to love as we are. We are
free to love for who we are. To really get this is awe-inspiring such that I
want to shout Hallelujah! Now these five words -- “we are free to love” -- may
seem mundane but from the perspective of religious history, they are liberating!
If we turn
away from love, it is our loss, and in theological terms, God’s loss, but there
is always the invitation to turn toward love and to be made whole. Despite who
we are, what we’ve done, how awful we’ve been, we are still free to love. We
have the power to love, and when we turn to love we are made whole.
As
Universalists have always argued, no one has a monopoly on the power of love,
that it is not confined to one tradition. Likewise, the poet Hafiz, a 16th
century Sufi poet writes,
“We have not come into this exquiste world
to hold ourselves hostage from love…
or to confine our wondrous spirits,
but to experience ever and ever more deeply
our divine courage, freedom, and light.”
“Love is
the doctrine of this congregation.” The covenant we say each morning makes
clear we don’t ground our collective faith in a set of rationally constructed
ideas, whether from the enlightenment or from the history of the Christian
church. Our covenant was penned by a Universalist minister. His name was
Griswold Williams. I can easily imagine a minister from another denomination
saying, you Universalists have no doctrine, no sacraments, no prayers and
Williams countering, “Love is the doctrine of our church, the search for truth
its sacrament and service its prayer.” But more than that, he writes, each week
we covenant with one another and with God to dwell together in peace, to seek
knowledge in freedom, and to serve humanity in fellowship to the end that all
souls shall grow into harmony with the divine. This is the Universalist way.
Several
weeks ago, when I preached on the fears that fetter us, I made the claim that at
the core of our faith tradition is the transformational power of love, that our
work as a congregation is to cultivate a faith that ushers the power of love
into our lives. And, then, last week I traced the theological development of
Martin Luther King, Jr. as turning away from liberal theology because it has
long grounded itself in reason rather than the power of love. What I didn’t
mention was that Martin Luther King, Jr. also rejected the neo-orthodox position
of his time. For theology over the last century has polarized into two camps:
the liberal camp who believes that a faith cultivated by reason is the only form
of faith that has integrity and the neo-orthodox camp that believes we are
trapped by our own sinful nature and cannot find wholeness when relying on our
own resources. Now, King turned away from liberalism, with its reliance on
reason and the perilous pride that so easily emerges from it, and he did so
because of the transformational power of love. But King also never embraced the
neo-orthodox position, for he maintained that human beings have the
possibilities within of acting on behalf of love, resisting injustice, and
bringing goodness in the world. And he did so because of his faith in the
transformational power of love. The same is true for Universalism.
This four
part series on the power of love, of which this is the second sermon, was
largely inspired by my desire to locate the power of love within our own faith
heritage and theological tradition. Last week, I concluded that King is right,
that we as human beings need to base our religion ultimately not on our faculty
of reason but on our capacity to love, that is, our capacity to actively love to
bring forth goodness and resist injustice. And this week I have come to
recognize how the Universalist insistence that we are free to love goes hand in
hand with Martin Luther King, Jr.’s, compulsion to love. In the next two weeks,
I will explore the power of love in the context of relationships and this
congregation.
As the
Universalists realized, it matters how you approach life, whether you move
through the world from a place of fear and judgment or whether you seek to
cultivate hope and courage with the faith that a goodness lies at the heart of
all life. You may possess only a small light but uncover it, let it shine, use
it in order to bring more light and understanding to the hearts and minds of men
[and women]. Give them not hell, but hope and courage. Do not push them deeper
into their theological despair, but preach the kindness and everlasting love of
God.
Blessed
be. Amen.
© Copyright 2006 Rev.
Alan Taylor, All Rights Reserved.
