Again, congratulations, everyone, on maintaining your presence here for almost 150 years! That in itself is quite an achievement — for any institution!

What I'd like to explore with you this morning are two themes — freedom and community — which, I'd like to suggest, have been two of the most important features, or characteristics, or passions, that have sustained this congregation all these years. So, as I look at it, freedom and community seem to have been key. See what you think.

Let's start with freedom. First, an introductory story:

Once there were three friends — a Hindu, a Jew, and a Unitarian Universalist, who were traveling together across the country.

It was late at night when their car broke down. Seeing a farm house with a light on in the distance, the three friends walked about a quarter of a mile to the house.

The farmer was very friendly, and said, "listen, fellas, you'll never get any help with your car this late at night, so why don't you spend the night here, and then we'll call somebody in the morning to fix your car?"

"Gee, that would be great," the weary travelers replied.

"The only problem," the farmer continued, "is that, well, I only have two extra beds in the house. But I do have a bunk in the barn, and I think you'll find it to be perfectly satisfactory.

The three friends each thanked the farmer profusely and acknowledged that these arrangements would be just fine.

The Hindu wound up volunteering to sleep in the barn, and so he went out to the barn. But ... after a few minutes, there was a knock on the door. It was the Hindu, saying, "Ah, listen, fellas, the barn really is fine, but, well ... there's a cow in the barn and you know how we Hindus feel about cows, being sacred and all, so I just don't feel comfortable sleeping in the barn with a cow."

"Oh, no problem!" the Jew replied. "I'll sleep in the barn." And so he went out to the barn. A few minutes later and, again, there was a knock on the door. It was the Jew, saying, "Ah, listen, fellas, the barn really is fine, but, well ... there's a pig in the barn and you know how we Jews feel about pigs, so I just don't feel comfortable sleeping in the barn with a pig."

"Oh, no problem!" says the Unitarian Universalist. "I'll sleep in the barn." So the UU goes out to the barn. A few minutes later and, once again, there was a knock on the door.

It was the cow and the pig.

So, yes, indeed, for almost 150 years, here in Muncie, you — or we (if I may include myself with you) — have confounded the norms and expectations for what a spiritual or religious organization should be. Going back 150 years to the likes of Samuel Watson and Sarah Kirby, to Adam Wolfe and India Budd, many people have considered us to be wicked "infidels" and "heretics." Some still do. Others were, and are, more apt to simply have a vague sense, like the cow and the pig, that we are ... well ... somehow different.

But let's go back. Let's go back to the time of the founding of this church — originally the First Universalist Church of Muncie — in 1859.  What was it like? And what were the salient religious issues of the times?

"Infidelity!" thundered the Rev. Dr. Claybaugh, "Infidelity is gaining strength and growing bolder." The Rev. Dr. Claybaugh was a Presbyterian minister and a professor in the theological department at Miami University in Ohio — just seventy-five miles from here — 150 years ago.  "Infidelity," Dr. Claybaugh thundered, "is gaining strength and growing bolder. There is unequivocal evidence," he continued,

that the number of avowed unbelievers and profane scoffers at serious religion is much increased within [just] a few years. As their numbers increase, so do their boldness and daring impiety....

But we are much mistaken if we compute the infidel strength by those only who scoff at the Bible, celebrate the birthday of Tom Paine, and toast the French Revolution. For there are others in the same cause, equally zealous and far more dangerous — the patrons and votaries of the Universalist, and Unitarian, and other kindred heresies.¹

So warned the Rev. Dr. Claybaugh 150 years ago at the time of the founding of this congregation.

But what was this heresy — this wicked "infidelity" — that so incited the ire and fire of orthodox ministers like the Rev. Dr. Claybaugh? Indeed, what, we might wonder, was so dangerous, what was so threatening, about our Universalist predecessors — Watson and Kirby and the lot — that caused such consternation?

Well, the answer to these questions revolves around the fact that, first of all, the early Universalists and Unitarians believed that God was a loving and benevolent God, not a stern and vindictive judge, as most people believed.

Indeed, as Universalists, unlike most people, we believed that all people — universally! — would be saved one day, reasoning that a good and loving God would never condemn anyone to eternal punishment. Eternity, after all, was just way too long to have to suffer for one's sins.

Well, that's for starters, but as we seek to understand why our predecessors were often reviled, let's go back, more specifically, to 1859.

1859 was a big year in intellectual history. Why? Because 1859 was the year that Charles Darwin's Origin of the Species was published. This was huge! Moreover, a closely related phenomenon was the growing scientific and literary credibility of what was then called, and is still called, "Higher Criticism" of the Bible. Higher Criticism combined with Darwinism was a powerful theological powder keg.

Let me say a few words about this explosive combination of Darwinism and Higher Criticism, which, amazingly, is still — even 150 years later — a huge contemporary spiritual problem for a lot of people.

Higher Criticism refers to what was then a new approach in literature to the study of literary texts. Instead of just picking up a text and reading it literally, this new approach (which is commonplace today) carefully considered a text's authorship and context in order to reach an appropriately informed understanding of the text at hand.

Well, beginning in the late 1700s and early 1800s, scholars then took these modern literary techniques and applied them to the Bible. They began, in other words, to treat the Bible as a piece of literature. Thus, the same literary techniques that indicated, for example, that the works long attributed solely to Homer were actually the work of several authors, when applied to the Bible, these techniques effectively shattered, or at least threatened to shatter, all of the traditional assumptions the orthodox Jews and Christians had held for thousands of years about the Bible's authorship.

Detailed comparisons made of the vocabulary of the books of the Bible clearly demonstrate that the Book of Isaiah, for example, was written by at least two different people at two distinctly different times in history (which is why, even today, Biblical scholars talk about "First Isaiah" and "Second Isaiah"). This is an example of applying literary Higher Criticism techniques to the Bible.

And, thus, the notion that God was once, long ago, whispering directly, word-for-word, into the ear of an earnest old man named Isaiah, who was furiously writing it all down, was no longer tenable. Indeed, the infallibility, or "inerrancy," of the Bible — an idea fairly basic, after all, to much of orthodox Christianity even today — was sharply and cogently called into question.  Higher Criticism represented — and, in fact, still represents — a devastating threat to orthodox, fundamentalist Christianity.

But, of course, it was not just the doctrine of literal inspiration which was at stake here, for a lot more was at stake, as well.  For if the Biblical books were acknowledged to be human products from various times and places, then the contents of those humanly written books — the reported miracles of Jesus and many of the key events of his life, death, resurrection, and ministry — might be suspect, as well.

No wonder, then, that the likes of The Rev. Dr. Claybaugh were so upset with the infidel Unitarians and Universalists. For the Unitarians and the Universalists, fired with the tonic of intellectual and religious freedom, readily accepted the tools and findings of Darwinism and "Higher Criticism" of the Bible. And, thus, we were an implicit threat to many of the more orthodox faiths — not because we wanted to be unfriendly or antagonistic, but simply because of our abiding faith in science and reason, and the unorthodox conclusions to which those disciplines sometimes took us.

So, in sum, even though it sometimes led to inflammatory charges of heresy and infidelity, our passion for intellectual and spiritual freedom, I would suggest, has been absolutely key to the founding story of this historic congregation — just as it is today.

In addition to our passion for intellectual and spiritual freedom, what else has sustained us over these past 150 years?

As I think about this question, I would suggest that a second thing that has sustained this congregation over the past 150 years is community. The fact that this congregation has endured, through the generations, as an ongoing community of shared memories and hopes, service and love, for 150 years is significant.

Let me tell you a story. It is a story many of you, I suspect, will remember because it is a story told by one of your members, Bea Sousa, who has graciously given me permission to share this story with you again today.

Bea wrote this in 2002 for your newsletter, The Unigram, after having attended her first Unitarian Universalist General Assembly (or "GA," as it is called), which is the Annual Meeting, in effect, of our denomination. "Five hundred of us," Bea begins,

had been milling about, putting our PVC [banner] poles together, making appreciative comments about each other's banners, preparing for our entrance to the General Assembly opening session. As a first time participant, I was expecting a quiet, dignified parade to the singing of hymns.

Two women and a man rushed up the center aisle to where a small cluster of people had gathered about 60 feet away from where I stood. It took a few minutes for us to realize the seriousness of the situation: a fellow delegate had suffered a heart attack. I could see the bobbing heads of the doctors doing CPR; as one tired, another one took over. After about 20 minutes, they all stopped. "There's no pulse," I heard one say. They conferred briefly; one started again. By now, the EMT's had arrived with oxygen and other equipment. A little while later, I heard, "It's faint."

More time passed. The clear voice of a woman minister near me led us in a prayer; all was quiet. Finally, the medical personnel turned the man on his side and back again onto a slender red board and lifted him to the wheeled gurney. The victim's face was ashen and blended into his grey hair and beard. The clear voice rose again, this time in song.
Without a moment's hesitation, 500 voices joined in.

Spirit of Life, Come unto me.
Sing in my heart all the stirrings of compassion.
Blow in the wind, rise in the sea;
Move in the hand, giving life the shape of justice.
Roots hold me close; wings set me free;
Spirit of Life, come to me, come to me.

We sang it once, twice, three times as the medics wheeled our nameless companion out of the hall. Overwhelmed, I heard, more than sang the words. A woman behind me sobbed; I handed her my last tissue. As quickly as the crisis started, our part of it was over. All we could hope was that our combined thoughts, prayers, and singing could [help] restore the spirit of life to the fallen man, as well as to the rest of us in the hall.

Bea continues:

A sense of awkwardness came over us as we made the transition back to what we had come to do, a transition clearly uncomfortable for some. A young woman quickly volunteered to carry the man's banner, and we sent her through the crowd to be the first in the parade. And then, off we went to do what we had come to do, serpentining down the halls and around corners to emerge suddenly…in flashing lights, rousing music, and clapping by an enthusiastic GA crowd! I was stunned; this was not at all what I had expected. The 3000 people in [the] plenary hall had no idea what had happened or why the Fort Collins banner came to be first in the parade.²

 IV

This story, I would suggest, can be viewed as a metaphor for our lives, especially when we are fortunate enough to be part of an ongoing community of memory and hope, service and love — like this one. We are in a procession, which is full of surprises, both backstage and in the great plenary Hall of Life. Indeed, our lives are laced with surprise and full of stories — stories of heartache and unbelievable joy, stories of improbable love, stories of miscarriages, of debauchery and redemption, stories of discovery and stories of long dark nights of the soul, stories of failure and success, stories of doubt, abuse and healing.

And if we are lucky — or, better, if we are intentional about it — we are in a caring community, like this one, where we can honestly share these stories, and where, when one goes down, others gather around and come to our aid. In community, at best, everything stops from time to time. We sing, we pray (each in our own ways), we tell our wild and precious stories; we share in the pain and in the glory of life.

Indeed, one of the richest and most challenging periods of my thirty-four years of ministry was when I was privileged to serve with you, here in Muncie. Some of you will remember this. For some inexplicable reason, we suffered a terrible series of deaths.

They just kept falling.

It was hard. Over fifteen months, we suffered twenty deaths, including four children. We sang, we prayed (each in our own ways), we told our wild and precious stories; we shared deeply in the pain and in the glory of life, together in community. For me, it was among the hardest, yet the dearest, of times.

And then, as it must, the procession eventually dusts itself off, regroups, and moves on, awkwardly perhaps, but inexorably, out into the great plenary Hall of Life.3 And just as the other delegates did not understand why the Fort Collins banner was first in the procession, so, too, much of the rich texture of our lives is frequently largely hidden from view. Yet, within a trustworthy community, it is, of course, in sacred hands — in your sacred hands and hearts.

So, friends, congratulations! Congratulations on keeping spiritual freedom richly alive here in Muncie for 150 years. May you continue to appropriately guard, treasure and deepen the quality of this always imperfect, but nevertheless blessed community of memory and hope, service and love.  For this is holy ground — a caring community with a passion for spiritual freedom. May it richly continue to be so!

Footnotes
(Click to return to your place in the text.)

1. Claybaugh, Joseph, "The Spirit's Standard," as quoted by Bruce, W. G. in "The Quintessence of Bigotry," The Star in the West, an old Universalist newspaper, September 19, 1868.
2. Sousa, Bea, "Is There a Doctor in the House?" This piece appeared in The Unigram, the newsletter for the Unitarian Universalist Church of Muncie, Indiana, July 9, 2002, p. 2, under the rubric of "Guest Column from our new UU Congregational President, Bea Sousa."
3. The Fort Collins man was saved by the way, as it turned out, and made it back home safely to Colorado. And one of those two wonderful "doctors" giving CPR was actually a wonderful nurse, Jeri Pearcy, from the congregation I am currently serving – the First Unitarian Society of Milwaukee.