Unitarian Universalist Prophets©
December 1, 2002
Unitarian Universalist Fellowship of Midland
Jane Thickstun, Celebrant

I hope everyone had a pleasant Thanksgiving holiday, no matter how you spent it. Now the Christmas carols will start playing incessantly for a while. For all the songs associated with Christmas, there is just one song associated with Thanksgiving. It’s called "Over the River and Through the Wood"-- do you remember it?

"Over the river and through the wood,
To grandmother's house we go;
The horse knows the way,
To carry the sleigh,
Through the white and drifted snow..."

The song is from a poem by a Unitarian, Lydia Maria Child, who attended the Wayland, Mass. Unitarian church in the mid-1800's. Child’s writing won the acclaim of Edgar Allen Poe, but besides being an accomplished writer, she was also a feminist and abolitionist. The article on the website of the Unitarian Universalist Association says that she attended the Unitarian church to hear abolitionist sermons. It also says, "Mrs. Child grew close to abolitionist William Lloyd Garrison, a connection that led her to speak out against the evils of slavery and which resulted in her literary downfall." The Rev. Kenneth Sawyer, minister of the Wayland church today, is lifting up Child’s story "to help us recall that ‘people can respond bravely on behalf of their ideals.’"

We are engaging this year in an exploration of the sources of our Unitarian Universalist faith, as listed in our statement of Principles and Purposes. The second source our living tradition draws from is: "Words and deeds of prophetic women and men which challenge us to confront powers and structures of evil with justice, compassion, and the transforming power of love."

This is the only source that lists people as such; the others are all teachings of various traditions, or direct experience. This source suggests that individuals can serve as examples for us. But not just any individuals – it says "prophetic women and men." How are they prophetic?

Not in the modern sense of being able to predict the future, or prophesy. The word refers to the "prophetic tradition" of Western religion. Think of the biblical prophets. In the Hebrew Bible, or Old Testament, there are prophets everywhere. They warn of impending doom if Israel doesn’t get her act together. Some seem very wise and some just seem kooky, but all attempt to speak truth to power. Most are outsiders to the society, or at least are outside the power structures, which enables them to see the problems that others can’t see from within the structures of power. To be prophetic in this sense means just what it says in the source – "to confront powers and structures of evil."

Actually, I don’t like the word "evil" used this way. What prophets confront are political and societal structures that oppress or otherwise do harm, and the power systems that enable those structures to persist. They speak out against injustice wherever they see it. Jesus spoke out about the money-changers at the temple – people profiting from religion. He also stood beside and defended the outcasts of society, like lepers and prostitutes. Our Unitarian and Universalist histories are full of heroes for the abolitionist cause – seeking to end slavery in the 1800's, and for the civil rights movement in the 1900's -- seeking to end racism. Our faith tradition has many individuals who have worked and spoken out for the rights of women, homosexual and transgendered people, people of differing physical and mental abilities, and so on. Our faith tradition has also had many individuals who have worked and spoken out for peace, for separation of church and state, for a woman’s right to choose what happens to her body, for death with dignity, for animal rights and for ecological integrity.

There is a saying about ministry, that a minister’s job is to comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable. Comforting the afflicted is the pastoral role of a minister; afflicting the comfortable is the prophetic role. That’s what prophets do. They stir things up, they make the comfortable uncomfortable. Their tactics are similar to those of some of the Hebrew prophets. Activists are fulfilling a prophetic role with their actions. Other people use words to confront power.

Theodore Parker is one who used words in a prophetic way. He has been called "the most feared and best hated preacher in America." While still a new Unitarian minister, he preached an ordination sermon that "rocked the foundations of Unitarianism, and caused repercussions throughout the country." The sermon, called "The Transient and Permanent in Christianity," said that elements of Christianity such as miracles, revelations, creeds and doctrines are transient, while the permanent is found in the moral sense born in the hearts of good people. He said the truths in the teachings of Jesus are true not because of his authority, but rather that we give Jesus authority because his teachings ring so true. But his impact was not just theological. Parker was an outspoken abolitionist. In a book called These Live Tomorrow, Clinton Lee Scott says, "His sermons, while grounded on solid scholarship, were neither sensational nor oratorical, but were fearless discussions of serious issues. He spoke to the conscience of the community on the social evils of the time: low wages, bad housing, inadequate schools, and a press subservient to its advertisers. With the years, he ‘grew more radical but not less religious,’ and increasingly threw himself into social reform, urging greater freedom for women, temperance, prison reform, and preaching against capital punishment and war. . . . To him slavery was more than a political issue; it was a religious issue, for it denied to black people the freedom that the Creator meant all people to have. He gave aid to escaped slaves, and was one of the most outspoken among those who protested the Fugitive Slave Law. For his part in ‘the underground railroad’ he was threatened with a jail sentence, but this did not silence him or stop his activities." (These Live Tomorrow, p. 120)

Another prophetic Unitarian was the Englishman, Joseph Priestly. Though known today mainly for his scientific achievements - as, for instance, the discoverer of oxygen and the inventor of carbonated water - his education and career was ministry. As a minister, though, he was unorthodox - he had Unitarian views, though there were no Unitarian churches in England at the time. He ministered to dissenters, congregations outside the Church of England, and preached a belief in the simple humanity of Jesus, a doctrine held by few in his day. For a while he was employed as literary companion to a wealthy patron of the arts and sciences, but as Scott says, "when the American Revolution broke out, . . . Priestly, always on the side of freedom, openly championed the cause of the Colonies, and for this stand was forced by his employer to resign." He supported the French Revolution as well, published books promoting Unitarian views, and worked for separation of church and state in England. There was a great deal of hostility toward him, and in 1791 a mob attacked his house. The family barely escaped with their lives, and the house, his laboratory, all his equipment, books and papers were destroyed. After that, Priestley came to America, where he influenced the early growth of Unitarianism, starting a church in Pennsylvania before the New England Unitarians broke off from the orthodox Congregationalists. (These Live Tomorrow, pp. 11-20)

Susan B. Anthony started life as a Quaker, but as a young adult she and her father joined the Unitarian church because the Society of Friends in Rochester, NY would have nothing to do with the anti-slavery movement. She was involved with the temperance cause as well, the movement to ban alcohol. But of course, she is best known for her work in the women’s suffrage movement. She originally got involved because she felt frustrated with her limited effectiveness speaking out about the other causes, and she became convinced that social reform needed the added votes of women. Starting at age 32, Anthony worked tirelessly for 50 years for women’s rights. Scott says of her early efforts that "rowdies often broke up the meetings, poked fun at her on the streets, and women slammed their doors in her face, but there was no stopping Susan Anthony. The hardest part was the indifference and antagonism of the women themselves who seemed to resent any effort to better their condition." (These Live Tomorrow, p. 153) It was even tougher to arouse interest in women’s rights as the anti-slavery movement heated up, and the Civil war broke out. After the war was over, the women’s suffrage movement was pushed aside in favor of Negro suffrage. But Anthony kept on, persevering with few gains to motivate her. According to Scott, "her victories came by hard work, sacrifice, daring and endurance, and in the equal suffrage movement they were few. Yet the final triumphant cry of this eighty-six-year-old undefeated woman, the words of her last public speech, were, ‘Failure is impossible." (These Live Tomorrow, p. 156)

The prophetic women and men who provide a source for our faith by challenging us to speak out or act for justice need not be Unitarian or Universalist. We are inspired by many individuals from many cultures and historical periods. The reading mentioned, for example, Jesus and Buddha, St. Francis of Assisi and Albert Schweitzer, Clara Barton and Martin Luther King, Jr. (Of course, Clara Barton was a Universalist) We might also mention people like Rosa Parks, Abraham Lincoln, and Mahatma Gandhi. And they could be people we know or have known in our own lives.

My grandmother was someone in my life who showed me the way "justice, compassion, and the transforming power of love" can confront habitual ways of thinking that can harm others. One time she was describing her sister Grace to me. She said that Grace was kind to everybody, even the unpopular kids. She described a time when Grace stood up to someone who was taunting another girl. She told it with such obvious pride that it made me aspire to be that way, too.

How does our faith draw on prophetic individuals? Our Unitarian Universalist movement is what it is today because of the prophetic men and women who have been involved with it. It has been formed in part by their presence and activity from within it. But the sources are not a historical statement of how the institution of Unitarian Universalism got to where it is now. They attempt to describe how we, as individuals, feed our faith now; where we get our inspiration from on a daily basis. Our individual faith, our way of seeing and dealing with the world, can draw on prophetic women and men by being open to hearing them, and to learning from them, by seeing their vision, and acting on it. Or we can find our own prophetic vision, and act on it.

These people challenge us to follow their example. They challenge us by inspiring us. We admire their courage. Often they spoke out at great risk. Many lost their lives because they spoke out. Jesus was crucified, Socrates was given hemlock, Martin Luther King, Jr. was shot, Ghandi was killed . . . the list goes on and on.

How do these people find the courage to confront powers and structures of evil, even at great personal sacrifice? With justice, compassion and the transforming power of love. When the motivation to seek justice comes from a compassionate, loving heart, it truly is transformative. It eventually transforms the world, though results may not be seen in a lifetime. It may transform other individuals the prophetic one comes into contact with, as they become inspired by the vision and filled with love and compassion themselves. But whether it has any effect in the world or not, it transforms the person working for justice. Being concerned for the situation of others takes us outside ourselves, it expands us. Such love takes us beyond our own selfish interests. It gives us a purpose beyond ourselves that can give life meaning.

The powerful and important thing about the Unitarian belief that Jesus was a human being is that it means we can all be like him. We all have the same stuff in us that all of these prophetic people have. They can inspire us to act because they were all ordinary, flawed, frightened human beings, just like us. And we don’t need to become famous to know that we are having an effect. If we live out our principles and act from love, we are following their example. If you can make a difference in just one person’s life, you’ve changed the world.

May our faith be deepened and enriched by the prophetic women and men we know and know about. May we find the prophet in ourselves and work for justice with love and compassion. May we ourselves be examples to inspire others. And may we be transformed by the love flowing from us to the world around us.

The Unitarian Universalist Fellowship of Midland is recognized by the Unitarian Universalist Association as a Welcoming Congregation. We welcome, affirm, promote and celebrate the full participation of all persons in all of our activities without regard to age, gender, sexual orientation, race or any other such category of exclusion.

Please feel free to contact us with any feedback, corrections or questions at jaham@delta.edu