Beginnings (A Sermon)
A few years ago, a congregation I was involved with learned about The Great Story from Connie Barlow and Michael Dowd, traveling preachers and educators who celebrate evolution. They demonstrate that rigorous science can be a source for religious inspiration. An unusually large number of junior high youth showed up for the worship service. I was hoping that would happen. The lure of science proved irresistible to the youth, as well as to a wide range of adults.
During the worship service, Connie introduced us to the universe. We heard another version of the story of the Big Bang, called the Great Radiance. She showed pictures of stars and galaxies. She facilitated a stardust communion, a blessing of glitter for anyone who wished to be reminded of the cosmic origins of all life.
I will always treasure the memory of being in a worship service where youth and adults, theists and humanists, newcomers and founding members all participated with equal enthusiasm. For my congregation at the time, common ground was hard to come by. What we needed was to start at the beginning. By retelling the origin story of our amazing universe, we felt awe and wonder together, we reconnected with our strengths, and we were called to be in relationship with one another.
The scientific story of the beginning of the universe can do that for us. I believe that origin stories, at their best, have the potential to revive our sense of wonder and to call us to be in relationship. Personal beginnings, community origin stories, cultural narratives, and tales from the history of Unitarian Universalism are all powerful narratives.
To begin with, origin stories can revive our sense of wonder. That matters to me. When I am able to experience awe, it makes the difference between existing from day to day and living abundantly. Wonder is a sign that amazing things are possible. It is a source of hope.
March 29, marks the birthday of Dorothy Tilden Spoerl, a Universalist minister and religious educator. She was born in 1906. Along with her many other contributions, she co-edited a book of cultural and scientific creation stories for upper elementary religious education. Her work inspired me to choose this topic today. Like me, Dorothy Spoerl thought a sense of wonder was essential. She said:
“Our religious education is religious if we can help our children see the awe and wonder of the immensity of the universe of which they are a part, and yet sense an equal awe and wonder about the majesty of man. Man who has struggled against odds, and reached his present position, and who can, we have faith, go on to make his planet a better place than ever it has been before. To sense the struggle, and feel one has to meet it, is basic to religious education. We do not need to worry about the education we are giving our children, nor be concerned about the propriety of using the adjective religious to describe it. Not if we have faith, and the strength to implement that faith in action—faith in man, in the world, in the universe, in the everlasting potential of the future. Indeed, our religious education is religious.”
Spoerl’s gendered language bears the mark of another age, but her ideas are forward-thinking. She asks us to open the gates of awe and wonder and to implement hope as we move toward the future.
Moving forward with hope is often difficult. There are obstacles and tragedies. Again, origin stories can inspire wonder to get us going again. Stories from turning points in our Unitarian Universalist faith serve this purpose very well. One that comes to mind is from the Revolutionary period of the United States. It is a story about one of the pioneers of American Universalism, John Murray.
John Murray had once been a strict Methodist preacher in England. In the process of attempting to convert heretics, he was himself converted to Universalism, the belief that all would eventually be saved. John Murray lost his job for embracing Universalism. His wife and child fell ill, and the Murray family amassed crushing debt for their medical care. His wife and child died anyway, and John Murray was barely rescued from debtor’s prison. Despondent, he was determined to leave everything behind, including his faith, and to start a new life in America. He booked passage on a ship called the “Hand in Hand.”
On the way to New York, the “Hand in Hand” got stuck on a sandbar in Barnegat Bay near Good Luck, New Jersey. John Murray was among those sent ashore in a smaller boat in search of provisions. Local farmer Thomas Potter came to meet Murray, saying, “I have longed to see you. I have been expecting you for a long time.”
Potter had been preparing for an experience of religious wonder. He listened to the Bible, drew his own conclusions, and built a chapel on his land where preachers could come with fresh interpretations of the gospel. He kept faith by waiting and welcoming the stranger. Potter explained to Murray about the chapel, and invited him to preach. Murray initially refused, saying he would be leaving just as soon as the wind changed and his vessel was no longer trapped in Barnegat Bay. Potter responded, “The wind will never change, sir, until you have delivered to us, in that meeting-house, a message from God.” They agreed that, if the boat had not moved by the following Sunday, Murray would preach in Potter’s chapel.
On Saturday night, Murray tossed and turned with uncertainty. On Sunday morning, September 30, 1770, John Murray preached a Universalist sermon to the Potter family and their neighbors. As soon as he was finished, a sailor ran up to inform him that the wind had turned, the ship was free, and they could now leave for New York.
Wow! See what I mean by a sense of wonder? I love that story because, even if you leave out the part about the miracle of the sandbar and the shifting winds, we still hang on to the miracle of a resilient spirit. Despair turned into hope. John Murray eventually settled in Massachusetts. He remarried. In 1779, The Independent Church of Christ in Gloucester, MA, was founded with John Murray as its first minister.
Meanwhile, two other preachers were organizing Universalists: Elhanan Winchester in Pennsylvania and Caleb Rich in rural Massachusetts and New Hampshire. Each one had become convinced of universal salvation independently. Part of the miracle of early American Universalism is that these three branches, led by three different people who didn’t know about each other before, came together to form one denomination.
Origin stories from the history of Unitarian Universalism and from the history of our universe inspire me with awe. I am amazed at the unlikely yet true events of the past. The sense of wonder I get from origin stories is a source of hope. But wait, there’s more! When we take a deeper look at narratives, they can call us to be in relationship.
One major origin story for Unitarian Universalism goes back to Transylvania in the 1500’s. Dávid Ferenc, court preacher to King John Sigismund, came to the conclusion that there was no scriptural basis to the doctrine of the Trinity. This was kind of a problem, since he was officially a Calvinist bishop. Dávid Ferenc debated at the Diet of Torda in 1568. As a result of the debates, King John Sigismund issued the Edict of Toleration, which officially recognized the Unitarian church for the first time, making it one of four protected churches in Transylvania. This was the broadest application of religious pluralism in Europe at the time. Dávid Ferenc transferred to the Unitarian church, retaining his title of court preacher for the rest of the king’s short life. Translated into English, the edict said:
“His majesty, our Lord, in what manner he – together with his realm – legislated in the matter of religion at the previous Diets, in the same matter now, in this Diet, reaffirms that in every place the preachers shall preach and explain the Gospel each according to his understanding of it, and if the congregation like it, well. If not, no one shall compel them for their souls would not be satisfied, but they shall be permitted to keep a preacher whose teaching they approve. Therefore none of the superintendents or others shall abuse the preachers, no one shall be reviled for his religion by anyone, according to the previous statutes, and it is not permitted that anyone should threaten anyone else by imprisonment or by removal from his post for his teaching. For faith is the gift of God and this comes from hearing, which hearings is by the word of God.”
Notice that the edict speaks of preachers and congregations, not individuals. Furthermore, the Edict of Toleration did not fully protect all religions or all religious people. It was, however, a step in the direction of religious freedom. Taking this lesson from a turning point in our history, Unitarians and Unitarian Universalists have advanced the cause of religious freedom ever since.
The story did not end so happily for King John Sigismund or Dávid Ferenc. In time, a new king arose who knew not Dávid. The new king kept the four recognized religions intact, but outlawed further revisions to their doctrine. Dávid Ferenc continued to grow and change in his religious ideas, which resulted in his death in prison around 1579. On the other hand, the Unitarian church in Transylvania survives to this day. Congregations might have given up after the death of Dávid Ferenc, but they didn’t.
Unitarianism was able to make the leap from being an idea to being a religion because of the members of congregations. Sometimes we get the idea the history is a single-file line of exceptional men and women, each one handing off the tradition of greatness to the next. On our first look at origin stories, we might take narratives about famous individuals at face value, being inspired by their remarkable stories. With a second look, we find out more of the rich details, and see some of the implications for our own lives. With a third look at origin stories, we see that the stage of history is brought to life by an ensemble cast. There is always more than one character, more than one storyline that brings us through time to the present moment.
Think back to the Universalist origin story I just mentioned. If UU’s have the opportunity to learn about Universalist history, they probably hear about John Murray first and they probably hear about only him at first. I did. I heard about the death of his wife and child, the ship being stuck on a sand bar in Barnagat Bay, and the watershed sermon. “Give them not hell, but hope and courage.” That individual story is iconic, inspiring, and fairly easy to remember. Hearing it a second time and retelling it for children in Religious Education, I thought about what strength we might draw from this story today, human values like restoring hope after an experience of tragedy.
With a third look at the origins of Universalism in America, finally the threads of Elhanan Winchester and Caleb Rich became visible to me. Now I see this as a story for our communities. Origin stories are the stories of peoples, not just individuals. Murray, Winchester, and Rich didn’t know each other. They each came to their conclusions independently, either through reading Universalist books or being inspired all on their own. The three of them and the members of the congregations they founded did not agree on everything by any means. Yet they persisted in organizing together. Universalism in America is a story about being in right relationship, even through disagreements and three-day committee meetings. If we look long enough at our beginnings, we see that momentous things originate in relationships.
That’s why I believe that origin stories call us to be in right relationship. Our forerunners accomplished great things because of their ability to work together. We do not have to wait for an exceptional prophet like Dávid Ferenc or John Murray; we have to organize, to face our challenges squarely, and to speak the truth in love.
I also believe our origin stories can help us to be in relationship if we claim them as shared stories. Like me, many Unitarian Universalists came to this faith from another religious background, or perhaps no religious upbringing. Even so, we can claim the beginnings of our congregations and our faith as our own. Retelling those stories gives us a shared experience. Each time we return to the narrative, we can lift up a new thread and learn something else. Origin stories, at their best, offer a sense of wonder, reminders of our strengths, and a calling to right relationship.
Some origin stories are unequivocally shared, such as the beginnings of the universe in the Great Radiance. That’s one final reason why origin stories call us to relationship: we remember that we have all come from stardust. The elements of our bodies were forged together in the hearts of stars. Each one of us belongs in the universe as an unlikely, unique manifestation of life longing for itself. Let us begin again together.
