October 24, 2004

Rev. Henry Ticknor
Unitarian Universalist Church of the Shenandoah Valley

A Holy Day of Obligation

One of the traditions inherited by our Universalist forbearers was the delivery of an annual election day sermon. Not only did preachers in every New England town preach every Sunday, but in keeping with the Calvinistic belief that all human activity falls under the jurisdiction of God’s word, sermons were preached at significant public events such as anniversaries, thanksgiving days, fast days and election days.

According to one writer, “Published colonial sermons show that most ministers did not mix religion and politics on Sundays. However, when they were asked to preach an Election Day Sermon, that was different.”

In the Massachusetts Bay Colony, Election Day was a colony-wide holiday. It began with a canon firing, military exercises and usually a procession of government officials to a nearby church. Here most of the politically and socially important members of the community would listen to the preacher go on for several hours.

According to Barbara Brown Zikmund who is the editor of a history of the United Church of Christ—or the Congregationalists, as they were once known, “Election Day sermons followed a typical pattern.

First they asserted that civil government is founded on an agreement between God and citizens to establish political systems that promote the common good…Second, the people were encouraged to follow those they had elected, and the elected were to promise to act for the good of all. As long as the leaders acted ‘in proper character,’ the people were to obey. On the other hand, if elected officials acted contrary to the terms of the agreement, the people were ‘duty bound’ to resist.

Russell Miller provides some further insight into this tradition in his history of American Universalism titled The Larger Hope. Miller writes that, “A clergyman selected for the purpose was expected to deliver a religiously oriented inspirational discourse to the incoming and outgoing officials…The clergymen (and at this time they were all men) so chosen, sometimes served as chaplains while the legislature was in session.”

Thomas Whittemore, one of the more vigorous defenders of civil liberties of the time, came out against this tradition saying in 1830 that, “ the tradition of the election day sermon had become an expensive anachronism which served no good purpose and might even do harm.”

According to Miller, Whittemore believed that these sermons, “had become increasingly politicized or sectarian in character, or were not at all appropriate to the occasion.” Whittemore sited two sermons in particular; in one the preacher predicted the destruction of the material universe and another devoted his discourse to “ a strong attack on the use of alcoholic beverages in general and the ‘liquor traffic’ in general. Now let us move forward to our own times.

Bill Sinkford, the President of the UUA, in a recent pastoral letter sent to all of our congregations wrote:

“Since our congregations opened their doors for the new church year last month, they have been ministering in a deeply divided nation. The United States seems to have vanished beneath the battle lines drawn between blue states and red states, conservatives and liberals, Democrats and Republicans.

Most destructive and divisive in this political campaign is its tone of fear and fundamentalism—the notion that there is only one way to be religious, only one holy scripture worthy of being followed. Only one way to be patriotic. Only one way to be a family. And, sadly, only one way to be an American.

We religious liberals share our pews with those who do not share our theology. Liberal Christian, Jew, humanist, Buddhist, Pagan -- all find a home in our UU congregations. We know pluralism as a blessing, and our lived experience, that our differences need not divide us, is a great gift that we can offer this campaign-scarred nation.

He then included the following meditation:

My friends, after the wrenching divisions of this campaign season, we need that blessing and that wholeness. In this spirit, I offer a prayer, in the hope that we may each play a part in the healing we all need:

Spirit of Life and Love
be with us now in prayer.
We seek the blessing and wholeness that come
from knowing that we are bound one to another,

Let faith, hope, and love abide with us.
May we open our hearts, finding there the discipline
to avoid stridency,
which deepens not understanding
but widens the chasms between us.

May we open our hearts, finding there the courage
to join our hands with people of other faiths
with whom we do not always agree,
knowing that to clasp hands with others is to extend our reach
farther
than we ever could alone.

May we open pour hearts, finding there humility,
knowing that many who disagree with us
are grounded in a faith
as deep as our own.
May we always acknowledge and honor the humanity
of those with whom we disagree
may we remember what religion is:
a binding together of that which has been sundered.
For in this remembering, we lay wide the possibilities for
reconciliation and healing.

And he concludes with these words:

Dear friends, as Americans, there is more that unites us than divides us, and there can be but one common destiny for this nation.

So let us stand purposefully on the side of love. The message of fear has been trumpeted throughout this election season. The message of love is quieter, but it is the antidote to that fear. Let us do what can to help this quieter message be heard. And let us all do our part to bless and make whole a country wounded by partisan conflict and weary of division.”

Here we are, just over a week away from Election Day 2004. I know that I am personally tired of the rhetoric, the accusations and counter accusations, the photo ops and the endless analysis on all sides. Perhaps the poet Yates described this year’s elections best when he said, “The best lack all convictions, while the worst/ Are full of passionate intensity.” Or perhaps it was Shakespeare when in Macbeth he wrote, “Life’s a tale, full of sound and furry, signifying nothing.”

As a nation, we are by necessity having to come face to face with a huge range of national and global issues—such issues as terrorism, the occupation of Iraq, globalization, global warming, job loss, tax policy, health care, threats to our civil liberties, and on and on... and as we al know there are real and substantive differences between the two major parties and the candidates.

But, rather than preach a sermon simply exhorting you to vote, which I expect and hope you're all planning to do whether or I tell you to or not —for my hope is that for all Unitarian Universalists election day will be a “holy day of obligation”—I want to talk about the moral and spiritual dimensions of our participation in the democratic process. I want to talk about our participation as individuals and as religious liberals.

On November 2, when we stand in the voting booth with only our conscience to support us, I hope that our votes will be informed by our Unitarian Universalist principles just as our friends on the religious right will be voting in ways congruent with their faith stance.

The Unitarian minister and lecturer Ralph Waldo Emerson said, "Those who stay away from the election think that one vote will do no good. Tis but one step more to think one vote will do no harm."

In keeping with our liberal religious beliefs, I hope that we will each vote in accordance with our belief in the inherent worth and dignity of every person.

That we will vote in accordance with our belief in justice, equity and compassion in human relations. That we will be informed by our beliefs in the right of conscience and the free and responsible search for truth and meaning in our lives. And lastly, I hope we will vote in accordance with our understanding of the respect for the interdependent web of all existence, of which we are a part.

And notice here that I said religious liberals because not all religious liberals are also political liberals. Just as we have Christians and Buddhists and atheists and seekers in our congregations, so, too, do we have liberals and conservatives, Republicans, Greens, Democrats and libertarians and probably a few more I can’t name.

Our former UUA President Bill Schultz once said, “Politically conservative Unitarian Universalists must recognize that they may well be in a minority on some issues. But politically liberal Unitarian Universalists must recognize that how they treat people in the minority is a reflection of their religious values…When controversial matters are up for discussion, every voice must be heard and respected.”

So, in keeping with our UU belief in the inherent worth and dignity of all persons, when I go to cast my vote on November 2, I will do so in the hope that my voice will help one day to enfranchise people who are unable to participate in our political and economic processes—those new Americans who are working hard and supporting our economy; but who have no legal status as Americans. I hope that my vote will help to procure appropriate health care for all who need it and to help all students have access to an appropriate education.

I will vote for our children with special needs and those who are non-English speaking and who are being left behind simply because they cannot pass a government designed test.

I will vote for our children who are being left behind because they are illiterate in their own language and our current system of assessment is all based on English proficiency.

The educator Jonathan Kozol said in his book Savage Inequalities, “One is struck by the sheer beauty of this country, of its goodness and unrealized goodness, of the limitless potential that it holds to render life rewarding and the spirit clean. Surely there is enough for everyone within this country.

It is a tragedy that these things are not more widely shared. All our children ought to be allowed a stake in the richness of America. Whether they are born to poor white Appalachians or to wealthy Texans, to poor black people in the Bronx or to rich people in Manhasset…They are all quite wonderful and innocent when they are small. We soil them needlessly.”

I will vote for the men and women living in loving and committed relationships, who are demeaned and ridiculed because they are gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender. I will cast my vote in support of love over hate. I will vote to respect those moral and ethical teachings which inspire us to respond to confront the powers and structures of evil with justice, compassion and the transforming power of love.

As David Moats wrote in Civil Wars, “When love shows up it does not always obey arbitrary social conventions…if it is love, it will not be sinful, abusive or otherwise wrong.”

I will vote for seniors who must make the choice between buying food or medicine. I will vote against the death penalty and for the transforming power of restorative justice. I will vote to maintain my civil liberties as outlined in the Bill of Rights and I will vote against any attempt to lessen them. I will vote in keeping with my beliefs in justice, equity and compassion.

I will cast my vote in support of religious pluralism and in recognition of the wisdom to be learned from the world’s religions. I will vote for freedom of religion and freedom of religious expression. I will vote for the right to profess or not profess any religious creed or doctrine. I will vote for the right to live one’s life according to one’s own beliefs and for the right to believe and to say what one believes to be true.

I will vote for the protection of the interdependent web of all existence. Bill McKibben, the naturalist has called the world’s disregard for the environment “a crime against the future.”

Speaking at a gathering of religious persons concerned with the environment, the Rev. Fred Smalls who chairs a group called Religious Witness For the Earth put it this way: “Every religious tradition forbids theft, yet we are stealing from the earth’s resources with regard for our children and grandchildren and from the most vulnerable of the earth’s people.

Every religion forbids idolatry, but when we ignore the environment we make idols of cheap gasoline, compulsive consumption and corporate balance sheets. We must start to value the earth and each other more than the seductions of convenience, price and profit. We cannot stand by and watch our natural resources be consumed faster than they can be replenished. ‘There is nothing more tragic in all this world,” said the Rev.Martin Luther King, Jr. “Than to know right and not do it.”

And finally, I will vote for peace. When I consider the levels of violence and aggression in the world, I will cast my ballot in support of a world community characterized by peace, liberty and justice for all.

I will vote for a world community free from environmental toxins, genocide, nuclear weapons and the scourge of mass-produced weapons. And yet, I have to ask myself, “Is peace possible?”

I believe it is if nations are willing to take seriously the need to begin peace-making and if as individuals we are willing to take seriously the need for peace within our own personal lives. Let each of us begin that task today.

Is peace possible? It is if we commit ourselves to work for a world that is just and equitable for every single human being.

My colleague Ken Pipher has written, “In peace we are not frightened but enlightened by differences. In peace we assume that it is natural for human beings and the ethnic, religious and national groups to which they belong to develop a variety of ways of living; we take delight in and learn from these variations. In peace we do not presume that our ways are superior. In peace we rejoice in that which is common to all humanity even as we accept that which is unique to each person and to each group”

So this election day I will vote my conscience according to my understanding of our UU principles. I hope that we all can take Bill Sinkford’s encouragement to stand purposefully on the side of love; to spread the message that love is the antidote to fear and to remember what religion is, and in this remembering to be open to the possibilities of reconciliation and healing. Let us do what can to help this quieter message be heard.

Let us all do our part to bless and make whole a country wounded by partisan conflict and weary of division.