Haunted Church History

October 30, 2005

Rev. Dr. Frank Carpenter, D.Min.
St. John's Unitarian Universalist Church, Cincinnati, OH

Sermon

This Sunday many traditional Protestant churches are celebrating Reformation Sunday, the time when churches throughout northern Europe broke away from the imperial Roman Church.  On the last Sunday every October Lutherans, Presbyterians recall how on Oct. 31st, in 1517, Martin Luther nailed 95 theses of disagreement with Catholicism on the door of the church in Wittenberg, Germany.

 

In our reading this morning, William Ellery Channing described how for Martin Luther, it was a time to be true to oneself. In Channing’s words, “To all who hear me, I would say, with the Apostle, Prove all things, hold fast that which is good.  Do not, brethren, shrink from the duty of searching God’s word for yourselves, through fear of human censure and denunciation.”

 

Who amongst us has not known this fear, this fear of denunciation, of human censure?  In current talk, it is called smearing.  Who wants their reputation smeared?  For some of us the most recent time when we risked censure was the Memorial Vigil for the 2000 deaths of US service personnel in Iraq. Held this past Wednesday at Vine and Central Parkway, it was not a high risk, but we could not but be aware of criticism.  One cat call I heard as I held up the names of the dead was from someone driving by, urging us to go to Canada. For myself, it was simply a time to stand up and be counted.

 

Such a time came for Martin Luther in October of 1517, a time to stand up and be counted, to hold fast that which is good.  Some of you may wonder, why should we bother with the Reformation, we are well past that.  Channing certainly emphasized that a lot more work needs to be done, and in many ways we liberals in religion have been doing that work of liberation from a religion of fear.  What need have we of remembering the Reformation?

 

What do you think people five hundred years from now will think of the civil rights movement?  This past week Rosa Parks died, the mother of the Civil Rights moment.  Can we imagine that people five hundred years from now will wonder what the issue was?  We cannot think that 500 years from now justice making people will shrug off the labors of Rosa Parks.  But they may if we do not understand it as a justice making issue.  If we do not understand the Reformation as a justice issue, we can see how others might not see the Civil Rights movement as a justice issue..

 

The Civil Rights movement was about justice, and so was the Reformation.  The reformation was a time to restore justice among the people.  Many churches take the Reformation as a done deed. The work complete.  But a justice making understanding of the Reformation does not see things that way.  Like Channing, we see the need for reformation, for justice making as continuous. As he calls for, to overturn and overturn and overturn the strong-holds of spiritual tyranny.

 

Consider the Reformation as a time of Justice-making.  Luther had every reason to be fearful.  Many reformers, shortly before Luther, John Huss, had been killed by the church and nobility.  Would Luther stand up and hold to what is good, not shrink from denunciation?

 

But Luther was acting in the cause of Justice.  Consider the most significant issue of the Reformation.  Indulgences.  What are indulgences?  Indulgences were tickets to heaven.  More exactly, the purchaser of an indulgence could shorten his stay in Purgatory.  Up and down Europe, agents of the Vatican were hawking these tickets to heaven.  What does it mean that you could buy your way into heaven?  One of the justifications for the separation of the after-life into heaven and hell was so that those who felt wronged here in this life could trust that they would get there reward in heaven.  But what could it mean that a rich landlord could buy his way into heaven with money he had stolen from his peasants?  Where’s the justice in that?  Is heaven some sort of gated suburban community?  Where’s the justice in that?

 

So Martin Luther said there was no warrant in the Bible for selling indulgences.  No. said Luther; you cannot buy your way into heaven.  A justice making issue!  It was a time to hold fast to what is good and not be intimidated by human censure.

 

Of course Luther and other reformers were not the only ones to suffer under that hard arm of the old church.  Earlier our children paraded through our sanctuary in good Halloween custom.  Halloween has its roots in the early European celebrations before the rise of the church in Europe.  Samhain marks one of the two great doorways of the Celtic year, for the Celts divided the year into two seasons: the light and the dark, at Beltane on May 1st and Samhain on November 1st. Some believe that Samhain was the more important festival, marking the beginning of a whole new cycle, just as the Celtic day began at night. For it was understood that in dark silence comes whisperings of new beginnings, the stirring of the seed below the ground. Whereas Beltane welcomes in the summer with joyous celebrations at dawn, the most magically potent time of this festival is November Eve, the night of October 31st. 

 

The charge of witchcraft was one of the most common brought against the victims of the Holy Inquisition.  Numberless witches, mainly women, perhaps no more than herbal healers, were burned at the stake for denying the authority of the imperial church.

 

While Martin Luther stood alone that day hammering his theses to the church door, there were many who stood with him in spirit and as word of his actions spread, more and more people stood up with him, ready to hold to what is good and deny human censure.

 

Even today many Christians fear paganism.  I was speaking recently with a friend who works in a local hospital.  She was telling me that the children in the hospital will not be allowed to dress up in costume this year from fears of criticism from fundamentalists.  Certainly much hew and cry has been raised about Harry Potter.  It is hard to believe that reading a book such as the stories of Harry Potter may become an act of political defiance, but such may be the case.

 

In our reading, Channing well noted the great evil of the pre-Protestant imperial church tradition

 

“If you remember the darkness which over hung the Gospel for ages, if you consider the impure union, which still subsists in almost every Christian country, between the church and state, and which enlists men’s selfishness and ambition on the side of established error…” Any alliance of church and state is te be feared.

 

The reformation is clearly not over.  We need to continue to hold fast to what is good and not fear human censure.  There are those who would strip our education of any understanding of science, weakening our national health and security by claiming evolution is a false belief.  They would call for abstinence without sex education.  How can adolescents abstain from something they don’t know about? Yes, as Channing calls for, we must hold fast to what is good and continue the work of reformation. [LINK]

 

Channing’s sermon is the great platform announcing the beginning of Unitarianism in American.  This sermon ends with this call to a continuous Reformation.  Channing knew well the very work is to struggle for justice, that reformations are not a one time thing.  The idea that the Reformation is a one time thing is the lie of the power elite.  Get it behind us.  The power elite seeks to continue to corrupt the church, corrupt believers so it can continue to collect the indulgences, the money, the power.

 

Shall we understand Jesus’ ministry any other way than an attempt to work a reformation on the Jewish religion of his time.  The priests were all gathered in the temple collecting the sacrifices, the wealth of the people. 

 

One of the priests’ hard and fast rules was that the faithful should not work on the Sabbath.  It’s one of the commandments: remember the Sabbath and keep it holy.  The Gospel of Mark tells the story about Jesus

 

  1. Jesus was walking through the grainfields on the Sabbath day. His disciples began to pick some of the seed (to eat) as they went along.
  2. The Pharisees said to Jesus, `Why do your disciples do what is not right on the Sabbath day?'
  3. Jesus answered them, `Have you not read what King David did? He and his men who were with him were hungry.
  4. He went into God's house when Abiathar was the high priest. Some bread was there for God. It was not right for them to eat it. Only the priests have the right to eat it. But David took the bread and ate it. He also gave some of it to the people who were with him.'
  5. Jesus went on to say, `The Sabbath was made for … man. Man was not made for the Sabbath.

 

Was the Sabbath, the day of rest, made for people, or were people made for the Sabbath? Does an institution serve the people or are the people to serve the institution.  Jesus was a trouble maker.  He knew he was in trouble.  All he had to do was review the history of the Hebrew people.  The leaders of the Jewish community in Jesus day claimed that they would not take the lives of the prophets and wise man of old, such as Elijah and Amos, (Mathew 23:30)  But Jesus denounced them, they would as their forbears did kill and scourge the prophets in their synagogues and persecute them from town to town (Mathew 23:34f).  Power elites, those whose influence is based in lies and corruption seek to smear, intimidate and denunciate truth speakers.  Jesus knew it.  He knew it was the history of the Hebrew people and he knew he was next in line.

 

Yet as Channing said, hold fast to what is good and do not be intimidated by human censure.  Consider another story:

 

The driver on the bus in Montgomery, Ala., that afternoon was named J.P. Blake. The 36 seats on his bus were all filled. The 14 seats nearest to the front were occupied by white passengers, the 22 at the back by blacks, which is how things had been in Alabama since anyone could remember.

 

But it was now Dec. 1, 1955, and Rosa Parks was tired. She had just gotten off work from her seamstress job at the downtown Montgomery Fair Department store. When Blake noticed a white man standing in the front of the bus, he ordered the four black passengers in the first row behind the whites to get up and move to the back.

 

No one responded at first, so Blake moved angrily toward the back and spoke more forcefully. Three of the black passengers got up.

 

Parks refused to move.

 

In a soft, calm voice, she told the driver she wasn't in the white section and wasn't moving. Blake told her the white section was wherever he said it was. When she refused one more warning, Blake had her arrested.

 

Parks, of course, was no ordinary woman. At the time, she was the secretary of the local NAACP chapter and a teacher and mother figure to scores of black children at the Trinity Lutheran Church. A product of Montgomery's working-class neighborhoods, she always carried herself in such a dignified manner that she was respected even among Montgomery's wealthiest blacks.

 

E.D. Nixon, her mentor at the NAACP, had been hoping for months for the right person to come forward to challenge the city's segregation laws. Parks was the perfect figure to represent the civil rights movement. The night of her arrest, Nixon called the Revs. Martin Luther King Jr. and Ralph Abernathy and asked for their support. Starting Monday, Dec. 5, he told the civil rights leaders, the black community of Montgomery would begin boycotting all public buses until the city's segregation laws were abolished.

 

That morning, when the buses would normally be filled with black maids heading to work, the first bus was empty. The Montgomery bus boycott had begun, and America would never be the same. [LINK]

 

Hold fast to that which is good and do not be intimidated by human censure.  And the work continues this day.  Consider two news items just this past week.

 

On Wednesday Women’s basket ball superstar Sheryl Swoopes "quit pretending," disclosing that she is gay and in a committed relationship. "I feel like I've been living a lie," the Houston Comets' star said in an interview. "I'm at a place in my life right now where I'm very happy, very content. I'm finally OK with the idea of who I love, who I want to be with."

 

George Takei, who as "Star Trek's" Sulu was part of the Starship Enterprise crew through three television seasons and six movies, has come out as gay in the current issue of Frontiers, a biweekly Los Angeles magazine covering the gay and lesbian community.

 

Takei, a Japanese-American who lived in a U.S. internment camp from age 4 to 8, said he grew up feeling ashamed of his ethnicity and sexuality. He likened prejudice against gays to racial segregation.

 

As Channing said in our reading, hold fast to that which is good and do not be intimidated by human censure.  The work continues this day.

 

Our first Unitarian Universalist Principle is the inherent worth and dignity of every person.  If that doesn’t mean that we should be true to ourselves, I don’t know what it means.  This Sunday, we recall the courageous acts of those who have stood up for what they believed in, to be counted.  They are the true reformers, the makers of true reformation, true justice seekers. Let us take with us the basic hope of humanity. Hold on to what is good and do not be intimidated by human censure.