January 20, 2008 Sermon “Words and Deeds: Our Second Source”
© Rev. Roberta Finkelstein and Kate Gill Kressley

What are the sources of our faith? Several weeks ago we talked about the primary source for Unitarian Universalist religion: the direct and personal experience of transcendence available to every one of us if we will pay attention to the lessons life seeks to teach us. As we continue this sermon series based on the Statement of Principles and Purposes of the Unitarian Universalist Association, we look at the second source: 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.

What does it mean to be prophetic?  The word prophet comes from the Greek “prophetes” and means “one who speaks for another.”  The Hebrew term, nabi, refers to one who is chosen to declare a message given to him – or her – and who speaks with the authority of the one who sends the message.  Classical Hebrew prophets often begin their speeches with, “Thus saith the Lord . . . “ and it was understood that the words that followed were indeed the word of Yahweh. The purpose of prophecy in ancient Israel was not simply to rail against injustice or immorality, but to bring about a change in the behavior of the people. The intention was to  impact the community in a redemptive way. 
Our contemporary understanding of what it means to be prophetic is both broader and narrower than the classical definition.  Modern prophecy, at least in liberal religion, is narrower in that we no longer give credence to prophets being literal messengers of the divine.  We would not, not matter how anybody began their speech, believe that they were literally delivering the word of God, would we?  Modern day prophets are more likely to say, “After giving this issue a great deal of thought, considering the pro’s and con’s, I believe that . . . “ That may not have quite the impact of  thundering “Thus saith the Lord . . . “ but it is more credible to contemporary ears.  Modern prophecy is still concerned with confronting people about practices that are unfair, unjust, and immoral.  It is still about speaking truth to power, with the aim of changing a practice from one that is selfish and exploitive to one that is, for the community, redemptive. 

In another sense, modern day prophecy is broader in scope than the traditional definition out of the Hebrew Scriptures. The ancient prophets were all marginalized from the communities they preached to. Today I would like to think that we can work within the structures of our institutions; gently or not so gently nudging those institutions into conform with stated values and norms.  Being prophetic no longer requires you to rant and rave and smash pottery at the gate of the village in order to be heard. It does require you to see, and hear, and think clearly. It requires you to feel passionately and compassionately. Prophets may not be poor or marginalized or despised, but they certainly do not accept their own success or comfort as an affirmation that God is on their side. No prosperity gospel for modern day prophets; at least not the prophets of liberal religion. Those prophets of old who believed themselves to be messengers of God did not believe in a comforting God. They experienced God as prodding, insistent, restless for justice.
What I would like us to understand is that prophecy is simply away of doing religious witness. It is seeing what needs to be seen, saying what needs to be said, standing where a stand needs to be taken. But it is not just about critique of society, it is not about confrontation, blame or shame. Religious witness is about bringing to bear the real truth that a message of love can overcome hate, that the structures of evil can be transformed, in the long run, by the practice of compassion and love.  Prophecy is not about tearing down, it is about rebuilding in a different image. 

What modern day prophets do have in common with their ancient ancestors is the ability to communicate clearly. Today speaking the truth to power is more likely to mean writing a letter to the editor or an email to your congressperson than it is to mean standing on a soap box in the village square. What modern day prophets have in common with their ancient ancestors is the intention to bring about redemptive change. The reason for holding a mirror up to the face of injustice, for forcing those who take part in unfair practices to recognize themselves, is to bring about change in the structures of society that is redemptive – a change in the direction of fairness, gentleness, and loving kindness. 
Let’s move up in history beyond the ancient Israelites and take a look at some of the women and men in our own Unitarian and Universalist traditions who have brought love to bear on evil practices, and see what we can learn from our history.  Do you know about Margaret Fuller? She was part of the Transcendentalist circle that dominated the intellectual life of New England in the mid 19th century.  This circle included Emerson, Thoreau, Bronson Alcott and others. Margaret Fuller we the editor of the Dial, a literary magazine, and in her writings she articulated the struggle for women's rights. She was herself well educated, exceptional for a woman at that time.  Fuller hosted "Conversations" for women encouraging them to express opinions on religion and politics, and out of those conversations she wrote what has been referred to as that notorious feminist tract, Woman in the Nineteenth Century. She became the first female foreign correspondent, went to Rome, and directed a hospital for wounded freedom fighters.  Fuller died in shipwreck on her return trip.

Maybe her words are familiar to you. “A new manifestation is at hand, a new hour is come when man and woman may regard one another as brother and sister, able both to appreciate and to prophesy to one another. What woman needs is not as a woman to act or rule, but as a nature to grow, as an intelligence to discern, as a soul to live freely and unimpeded, to unfold such powers as were given her. Man does not have his fair share either; his energies are repressed and distorted by the interposition of artificial obstacles.  We would have every arbitrary barrier thrown down. We would have every path laid open to woman as freely as to man.  Were this done, we believe a divine energy would pervade nature to a degree unknown in the history of former ages. A new manifestation is at hand; a new hour is come.” 
Those are extraordinary words when you consider when they were written! What is most powerful about Fuller’s words is that she didn’t come across as an angry male-basher. She recognized that to achieve equality between the sexes, change would be  necessary for both women and men, and that change would benefit both women and men.  I offer you a litany of Unitarian Universalists who could be called prophetic: Pete Seeger, Clara Barton, Susan B. Anthony, Horace Mann, Joseph Priestley, Malvina Reynolds, James Reeb. These are the famous names – the ones you learn about in history class. Is prophecy always something that is only recognized once the prophet is dead? I think not. Is prophecy something that we leave to others – the famous, the infamous, the extraordinarily courageous? I think not. We are of a tradition that claims not only the Reformation notion of the priesthood of all believers, but the modern notion of the prophethood of all believers. We cannot leave the job of modern day prophecy to a chosen few. It falls to all of us. The relevance of our history is that we can learn from our forebears, be empowered by their successes, sustained by their words, inspired by their successes and sobered by their failures. We can learn from them how to be prophets. 

Rev. Meg Riley, GET THE RIGHT TITLE, spent the past more than a decade taking on the Radical Religious Right and empowering other Unitarian Universalists to do likewise.  Meg’s approach is to offer a positive vision of liberal religion and the hopeful promise that Unitarian Universalism offers. She says that our faith in human nature, or at least in the possibilities of human nature, is a great spiritual gift that we have to give to a hurting and fearful world. That vision can bring strength and hope to those who seek an alternative to religious fundamentalism. 

“But there are so many of them,” you say, “and their message is so clear and so simple. And they are so well funded.  How can we, a small group of admittedly complicated Unitarian Universalists, take them on?”  Meg Riley says to start by explaining with stark simplicity, "Bigotry is against my religion!"  Now that statement is not unique to Unitarian Universalism.  Bigotry is against the religion of Christians and Jews and Bahais and Muslims and pretty much every other religion on this earth. Followers of all those faiths who embrace a broad and generous interpretation of religion are joining together to take religion (and hopefully America) back from the narrow minded fear mongers whose well financed media campaign has made such inroads into the psyche of the American public. Our job is to take our place in that chorus of voices for reason and compassion, so that together we can bring the good news of transforming love to a scared and fragmented world. Our call to religious witness is to continue to insist, reasonably and rationally and passionately, that bigotry and hatred are against our religion.
If only it were that easy! It is, of course, not easy at all to bear witness to our faith. But given our proud history, how can we refuse the difficult job in our lifetimes? I am asking you, in this sermon series, to do more than just think about the sources of our faith, I am really asking you to live those sources.  This is a call of sorts; a call to claim your history and a call to claim your own power, to be genuine prophets of our age.

The challenge of recognizing genuine prophecy, of distinguishing false from true  is as old as recorded religious history. UU theologian James Luther Adams reminds us that Jesus gave us a very simple principle of discernment: by their fruits shall you know them.  Not all bold speech is prophecy. Not all institutional critique is an honest attempt to bring the transforming power of love to bear on a troubled world. 

In order to take our place in that historic stream of religious witnesses, we have to apply carefully our own principle of discernment. And we have to be willing to speak and act. In fact, we are already doing just that. I want to invite one of your newly installed board members, Kate Gill Kressly, to come forward now to share her thoughts about a recent act of prophetic witness here at South Church.

In the spirit of the Second Source, let us strive to be, in Rebecca Parker’s words, a community of people who seek to do justice, love kindness and walk humbly with the God of their understanding, who call on the strength of soul-force to heal, transform, and bless life. Healing, transforming, and blessing. That is what the world needs. That is our religious witness.