“A Love Story”
for
Association Sunday
A Sermon by Rev. Dr. Jan Carlsson-Bull
First Parish Unitarian Universalist
Cohasset, MA
October 18, 2009
for
Association Sunday
A Sermon by Rev. Dr. Jan Carlsson-Bull
First Parish Unitarian Universalist
Cohasset, MA
October 18, 2009
Chapter 1
Above all, Unitarian Universalism holds a love story, a love story so large that it embraces countless chapters across the ages. Unitarianism and Universalism didn’t merge into a grand blended family until 1961, but the threads of thought and belief were dancing in the same space centuries ago.
Origen of Alexandria was one of the earliest Universalists. It wasn’t an easy stance in the 3rd century CE, even though Alexandria of that time has been compared to New York City in ours for its diversity of culture and thought. The Roman imperial powers were clinging for dear life to the control of culture and thought.
But Origen, like Emerson 16 centuries later, was “a mind on fire” and he was determined to speak it and teach it and write it. A brilliant student, he was not passive in accepting orthodox teachings; he was considered a heretic. Remember that all of us gathered here this morning are heretics—that is, choosers. At yesterday’s all-parish retreat, when we were asked to name one especially memorable experience here, we couldn’t do it. That is, we couldn’t name just one. We chose otherwise. We behaved in the spirit of Origen and so many other of our spiritual forebears.
To name one heretical belief of Origen’s, he was a universalist—probably not like you are or I, but nonetheless a universalist in claiming that all souls will eventually make it to heaven. There might be a detour or two into a hell that he didn’t deny, but eventually, God would call each and every person unto himself. In Origen’s words:
“…the process of amendment and correction will take place imperceptibly in the individual instances during the lapse of countless and unmeasured ages, some outstripping others, and tending by a swifter course towards perfection, while others again follow close at hand, and some again a long way behind."
That is, some take awhile, but God still welcomes the “late bloomers”—my choice of words, not Origen’s.
To make matters worse, Origen didn’t screen his students very carefully. He held a rather open door classroom, admitting students at all levels of spiritual and intellectual competence, including women.
As threatening as Origen’s universalist theology and his inclusive practices was his deference to uncertainty and its tie-in with free will. How we choose is driven not by destiny but by our particular path en route to holiness. We might say that Origen was enamored of the “holy possible” and trusted in a loving God who would welcome all souls—no matter how far off course—onto a path leading to salvation. In other words, no micro-management. This, remarks Origen scholar Rebecca Lyman is “extremely strenuous spirituality.”
For Origen, free will transcended even death. If a badly behaving person goes to hell—entirely possible in Origen’s thought—there is still hope. Origen scholar Richard Bauckham explains:
Within this scheme punishment is always, in God's intention, remedial: God is wholly good and His justice serves no other purpose than His good purpose of bringing all souls back to Himself. Thus the torments of hell cannot be endless, though they may last for aeons; the soul in hell remains always free to repent and be restored.
Origen’s story is above all a love story that transcended his intellectual prowess. His truth was inclusive, inviting, and open. We should not be surprised that Origen did not die in his sleep. The powers that be could not tolerate his celebration of creed-resistant, free-will, and open-hearted faith in a God who ultimately loves.
Sources:
Richard Bauckham, “Universalism: a historical survey,” Themeloios 4.2 (September 1978): 47-54, http://www.theologicalstudies.org.uk/article_universalism_bauckham.html.
Rebecca Lyman, “The Perils of Rock Climbing: Origen as Spiritual Pioneer,” in The Role of the Dissenter in Western Christianity: From Jesus through the 16th Century, Edited by Alicia McNary Forsey. A Publication of Starr King School for the Ministry, Berkeley, California, 2004, 47-55.
“Origen, Unorthodox Church Father,” (source: Encyclopedia of Christian Apologetics (ISBN 0-8010-2151-0), http://www.ovrlnd.com/Universalism/Origen.html.
Chapter 2
Universalism was the first religious denomination in this country to ordain a woman. Her name? Olympia Brown. If you visit Atwood Hall on the campus of St. Lawrence University, you can find a bronze tablet which bears the following inscription:
Universalism was the first religious denomination in this country to ordain a woman. Her name? Olympia Brown. If you visit Atwood Hall on the campus of St. Lawrence University, you can find a bronze tablet which bears the following inscription:
OLYMPIA BROWN
1835-1926
CLASS OF 1863
SHE WAS THE FIRST WOMAN
TO BE GRADUATED BY
THE THOELOGICAL SCHOOL
AND
ST. LAWRENCE UNIVERSITY
HER UNIVERSALIST ORDINATION
IN 1863 MADE HER THE FIRST
WOMAN IN OUR COUNTRY TO
ACHIEVE FULL MINISTERIAL
STANDING RECOGNIZED BY A
DENOMINATION
PREACHER OF UNIVERSALISM
PIONEEER AND CHAMPION OF
WOMEN’S CITIZENSHIP RIGHTS
FORERUNNER OF THE NEW ERA
“THE FLAME OF HER SPIRIT STILL
BURNS TODAY”
So it does, with the same passion for open thinking and inclusiveness that infused the life of Origen 17 centuries earlier. Olympia’s life was a love story of family bonds, intellectual curiosity, strength of will, friendship, follow-through, risk-taking, ministry, and equal rights for women.
Born in 1835 in the tiny Michigan village of Prairie Ronde, Olympia learned from her father, Asa, and her mother, Lephia, what it took to persevere. Her parents had migrated a year earlier from the Green Mountains of Vermont and set to work as farmers tilling the far richer soil of the upper Midwest. The eldest of four children, Olympia was curious, imaginative, and attentive, playing in the woods and forbidden swamps and exploring to her heart’s content. Early on she learned about equal rights, with her maternal aunt and uncle operating a station on the Underground Railroad in the nearby village of Schoolcraft.
So dedicated to education were Olympia’s parents that her father took the lead in building a schoolhouse after the brand new Michigan legislature introduced a public school system. It was there that Olympia was introduced to formal education. Curious and quick, she cultivated in these early years a lifelong penchant for learning, teaching, and advocacy for girls and women to enjoy the same rights as boys and men.
As a young woman of 19, Olympia and her sister and a friend headed east to Mt. Holyoke College. Eager and confident, they were not prepared for the rigidity of rules and religion in place at this college. Each young entrant was expected to classify herself as a ‘professing Christian,’ ‘hopefully pious,’ or ‘hopeless.’ Raised as a Universalist by her mother, this did not sit well with young Olympia. Yet she and her sister were subjected to one hellfire sermon after another. Desperate, she wrote to Universalist headquarters in Boston for books that would help her refute what she was hearing. And she asked a question that would guide her lifelong:
“’Why don’t preachers dwell on God’s love when that was such a motivation behind Christ’s teaching?’”
Olympia turned a corner. She left Mt. Holyoke behind and entered Antioch College the following autumn. Headed by the progressive Boston educator, Horace Mann, this co-educational institution held liberal promise. It was at Antioch that Olympia met Antoinette Brown—not a relative. Olympia arranged during a lecture visit by this well-known advocate of women’s rights for Antoinette Brown to preach a Sunday sermon, for not long before Antoinette had sought ordination as a Congregational minister and was refused because of her gender, but her penchant for preaching was undiminished. Olympia heard her and was electrified.
Through unfolding friendships, a dedication to women’s rights, and a fascination with religious exploration, Olympia moved into a life that took her to St. Lawrence University’s theological school and through years of perseverance led to her ordination as a Universalist minister in 1863. It was a life that called her to preach as a minister and lecture as a suffragette across the country on behalf of women’s rights, and to join the feminist ranks of Susan B. Anthony and Lucy Stone and Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Antoinette Brown become Antoinette Brown Blackwell. En route she married, she had children, and she had grandchildren. She lived and loved at high intensity and grand depth. And on the morning of November 2, 1920, at the age of 85, Olympia Brown cast her first vote, along with her lifelong friend Antoinette Brown Blackwell, in a presidential election.
Olympia lived six more years. Beloved by her husband, her son and daughter, her grandchildren, and thousands of women across the country, she was likely reviled by many who shrank in fear at the notion and practice of equal rights for women. At the age of 91, Olympia traveled with her daughter to Europe and had an absolutely smashing good time.
A love story? Wondrously so.
Sources:
Born in 1835 in the tiny Michigan village of Prairie Ronde, Olympia learned from her father, Asa, and her mother, Lephia, what it took to persevere. Her parents had migrated a year earlier from the Green Mountains of Vermont and set to work as farmers tilling the far richer soil of the upper Midwest. The eldest of four children, Olympia was curious, imaginative, and attentive, playing in the woods and forbidden swamps and exploring to her heart’s content. Early on she learned about equal rights, with her maternal aunt and uncle operating a station on the Underground Railroad in the nearby village of Schoolcraft.
So dedicated to education were Olympia’s parents that her father took the lead in building a schoolhouse after the brand new Michigan legislature introduced a public school system. It was there that Olympia was introduced to formal education. Curious and quick, she cultivated in these early years a lifelong penchant for learning, teaching, and advocacy for girls and women to enjoy the same rights as boys and men.
As a young woman of 19, Olympia and her sister and a friend headed east to Mt. Holyoke College. Eager and confident, they were not prepared for the rigidity of rules and religion in place at this college. Each young entrant was expected to classify herself as a ‘professing Christian,’ ‘hopefully pious,’ or ‘hopeless.’ Raised as a Universalist by her mother, this did not sit well with young Olympia. Yet she and her sister were subjected to one hellfire sermon after another. Desperate, she wrote to Universalist headquarters in Boston for books that would help her refute what she was hearing. And she asked a question that would guide her lifelong:
“’Why don’t preachers dwell on God’s love when that was such a motivation behind Christ’s teaching?’”
Olympia turned a corner. She left Mt. Holyoke behind and entered Antioch College the following autumn. Headed by the progressive Boston educator, Horace Mann, this co-educational institution held liberal promise. It was at Antioch that Olympia met Antoinette Brown—not a relative. Olympia arranged during a lecture visit by this well-known advocate of women’s rights for Antoinette Brown to preach a Sunday sermon, for not long before Antoinette had sought ordination as a Congregational minister and was refused because of her gender, but her penchant for preaching was undiminished. Olympia heard her and was electrified.
Through unfolding friendships, a dedication to women’s rights, and a fascination with religious exploration, Olympia moved into a life that took her to St. Lawrence University’s theological school and through years of perseverance led to her ordination as a Universalist minister in 1863. It was a life that called her to preach as a minister and lecture as a suffragette across the country on behalf of women’s rights, and to join the feminist ranks of Susan B. Anthony and Lucy Stone and Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Antoinette Brown become Antoinette Brown Blackwell. En route she married, she had children, and she had grandchildren. She lived and loved at high intensity and grand depth. And on the morning of November 2, 1920, at the age of 85, Olympia Brown cast her first vote, along with her lifelong friend Antoinette Brown Blackwell, in a presidential election.
Olympia lived six more years. Beloved by her husband, her son and daughter, her grandchildren, and thousands of women across the country, she was likely reviled by many who shrank in fear at the notion and practice of equal rights for women. At the age of 91, Olympia traveled with her daughter to Europe and had an absolutely smashing good time.
A love story? Wondrously so.
Sources:
Charlotte Coté, Olympia Brown: The Battle for Equality, Mother Courage Press, 1988.
Chapter 3
What’s so scary about a rainbow? As a child I would run outside at first word that a rainbow was arching overhead. I was awed. I continue to be awed. As a child I first heard that story about an angry God turned forgiving, about a God who was so frustrated with creation’s bad behavior that he—and God was definitely a he then—caused a great flood to cover the earth. Only a few were spared, a man named Noah and his curious extended family, lifted aloft in a homemade ark for forty days and forty nights. The boat rocked, and the rain fell, and all the creatures not on board are said to have perished. Then slowly, ever so slowly, the waters receded and this land-starved crew came forth onto dry ground. Noah built an altar to God and God blessed Noah and his family and made a covenant with them that never again would there be such a flood. The sign of this covenant was a rainbow. In the Book of Genesis, we read:
“I set my bow in the cloud, and it shall be a sign of the covenant between me and the earth.”
(Genesis 9:13)
While we as Unitarian Universalists might not accept the literal truth of this story, we like all other peoples of the earth gaze up at a rainbow in awe. We remark on the spectrum of colors.
Ours is a faith grounded in a covenant of love, inclusive all-encompassing love. It is no accident that the rainbow has become the sign of intentional welcoming of all among us who are commonly marginalized by religion, all among us who are gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender. It is no accident that my heart sings when I see the rainbow flag flying atop the entrance of our Meeting House, proclaiming this covenant of inclusive love.
Last May we voted to become a Welcoming Congregation. It’s not easy for some of us to act on this. It’s not easy for some of us to fly high with this decision, but here we are in a faith grounded in a covenant of love bolstered by further promise and possibility that we can live it.
Last June at the General Assembly of our Unitarian Universalist Association, “Standing on the Side of Love” was launched as “a public advocacy campaign that seeks to harness [the power of love] to stop oppression.” Standing on the Side of Love lifts “compassionate religious voices to influence public attitudes and public policy” on “immigration, LGBT rights, and more.”
Last Sunday, reports my friend Adam Gerhardstein, Campaign Manager for Standing on the Side of Love,
“Over 50 faith communities across the nation stood on the side of love to call for full equality for gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender people.
In Denver, people of faith worshipped on the steps of the capitol. In Clearwater, Florida, gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender people of faith shared their personal stories with the media. In Washington, D.C., I marched with over 1,500 people of faith under the Standing on the Side of Love banner at the National Equality March, attended by more than 100,000.”
Rainbows by the thousands are evident in the photos taken in Washington last Sunday—rainbows and broad smiles and hopes for a renewed covenant of love and compassion.
Unitarian Universalism holds a love story, a love story so large that it covers countless chapters across the ages. From the “strenuous spirituality” of Origen through the hard-won voice and vote of Olympia Brown, from an ancient story of a rainbow arching in the sky as a sign of a covenant between God and humankind through the rainbows of fabric and hope lifted by people of faith and hope in churches, on statehouse steps, and in the streets of our nation’s capital, a love story unfolds. Its chapters number far more than the few that I share with you this morning.
What’s so scary about love? My friend, the late Forrest Church, used to say that the opposite of love isn’t hate; the opposite of love is fear. Only love overcomes fear.
Just days before she cast her vote in the 1920 presidential election, Olympia Brown preached her final sermon. Speaking to her longtime congregation of the Universalist Church of Racine, Wisconsin on September 12, 1920, she concluded with this charge:
Dear Friends, stand by this faith. Work for it and sacrifice for it. There is nothing in all the world so important to you as to be loyal to this faith which has placed before you the loftiest ideals which have comforted you in sorrow, strengthened you for noble duty and made the world beautiful for you. Do not demand immediate results but rejoice that you are worthy to be entrusted with this great message and that you are strong enough to work for a great true principle without counting the cost. Go on finding ever new applications of these truths and new enjoyments in their contemplation, always trusting in the one God which ever lives and loves.”
May it be so as we seek to live out a love story that never ends.
I love you. May the God of love bless us each and all. Amen.
What’s so scary about a rainbow? As a child I would run outside at first word that a rainbow was arching overhead. I was awed. I continue to be awed. As a child I first heard that story about an angry God turned forgiving, about a God who was so frustrated with creation’s bad behavior that he—and God was definitely a he then—caused a great flood to cover the earth. Only a few were spared, a man named Noah and his curious extended family, lifted aloft in a homemade ark for forty days and forty nights. The boat rocked, and the rain fell, and all the creatures not on board are said to have perished. Then slowly, ever so slowly, the waters receded and this land-starved crew came forth onto dry ground. Noah built an altar to God and God blessed Noah and his family and made a covenant with them that never again would there be such a flood. The sign of this covenant was a rainbow. In the Book of Genesis, we read:
“I set my bow in the cloud, and it shall be a sign of the covenant between me and the earth.”
(Genesis 9:13)
While we as Unitarian Universalists might not accept the literal truth of this story, we like all other peoples of the earth gaze up at a rainbow in awe. We remark on the spectrum of colors.
Ours is a faith grounded in a covenant of love, inclusive all-encompassing love. It is no accident that the rainbow has become the sign of intentional welcoming of all among us who are commonly marginalized by religion, all among us who are gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender. It is no accident that my heart sings when I see the rainbow flag flying atop the entrance of our Meeting House, proclaiming this covenant of inclusive love.
Last May we voted to become a Welcoming Congregation. It’s not easy for some of us to act on this. It’s not easy for some of us to fly high with this decision, but here we are in a faith grounded in a covenant of love bolstered by further promise and possibility that we can live it.
Last June at the General Assembly of our Unitarian Universalist Association, “Standing on the Side of Love” was launched as “a public advocacy campaign that seeks to harness [the power of love] to stop oppression.” Standing on the Side of Love lifts “compassionate religious voices to influence public attitudes and public policy” on “immigration, LGBT rights, and more.”
Last Sunday, reports my friend Adam Gerhardstein, Campaign Manager for Standing on the Side of Love,
“Over 50 faith communities across the nation stood on the side of love to call for full equality for gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender people.
In Denver, people of faith worshipped on the steps of the capitol. In Clearwater, Florida, gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender people of faith shared their personal stories with the media. In Washington, D.C., I marched with over 1,500 people of faith under the Standing on the Side of Love banner at the National Equality March, attended by more than 100,000.”
Rainbows by the thousands are evident in the photos taken in Washington last Sunday—rainbows and broad smiles and hopes for a renewed covenant of love and compassion.
Unitarian Universalism holds a love story, a love story so large that it covers countless chapters across the ages. From the “strenuous spirituality” of Origen through the hard-won voice and vote of Olympia Brown, from an ancient story of a rainbow arching in the sky as a sign of a covenant between God and humankind through the rainbows of fabric and hope lifted by people of faith and hope in churches, on statehouse steps, and in the streets of our nation’s capital, a love story unfolds. Its chapters number far more than the few that I share with you this morning.
What’s so scary about love? My friend, the late Forrest Church, used to say that the opposite of love isn’t hate; the opposite of love is fear. Only love overcomes fear.
Just days before she cast her vote in the 1920 presidential election, Olympia Brown preached her final sermon. Speaking to her longtime congregation of the Universalist Church of Racine, Wisconsin on September 12, 1920, she concluded with this charge:
Dear Friends, stand by this faith. Work for it and sacrifice for it. There is nothing in all the world so important to you as to be loyal to this faith which has placed before you the loftiest ideals which have comforted you in sorrow, strengthened you for noble duty and made the world beautiful for you. Do not demand immediate results but rejoice that you are worthy to be entrusted with this great message and that you are strong enough to work for a great true principle without counting the cost. Go on finding ever new applications of these truths and new enjoyments in their contemplation, always trusting in the one God which ever lives and loves.”
May it be so as we seek to live out a love story that never ends.
I love you. May the God of love bless us each and all. Amen.
Sources:
The First Book of Moses Commonly Called Genesis, The Bible, Revised Standard Version
Adam Gerhardstein, E-mail Report of October 14, 2009.
Standing on the Side of Love: Harnessing Love’s Power to Stop Oppression, http://www.standingonthesideoflove.org/about/.
The First Book of Moses Commonly Called Genesis, The Bible, Revised Standard Version
Adam Gerhardstein, E-mail Report of October 14, 2009.
Standing on the Side of Love: Harnessing Love’s Power to Stop Oppression, http://www.standingonthesideoflove.org/about/.
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