The sermon is informed by Henry Steele Commanger’s Theodore Parker: A Yankee Crusaider unless otherwise noted.
In February 1860, Reverend Theodore Parker was bundled up and carried onto a sailing ship headed for the West Indies, in a bid to save his life. Days later, as the ship crossed the Atlantic, he finally gathered enough strength to begin writing My Experiences as a Minister. Weak as he was, he wrote 40,000 words—hardly legible, but his wife, Lydia, and his friend, Hannah, recopied his work and mailed it back to his beloved congregation in Boston. He was dying, he knew. The doctors gave him a one-in-ten chance to live, and that was only if he took this sea journey, for rest and a change in climate. Although there was so much more he wanted to accomplish, he was tired, “incredibly tired.”
Parker is sometimes called the “Great American Preacher.” He is one of our renowned Unitarian forefathers, and he had good reason to be tired, although he was not yet 50. Even at 40 he’d said, “I look like I’m 70!”
All his life, in whatever he did, Parker demonstrated an unflagging energy he used to accomplish whatever his job might be
chores on his family’s farm
teaching his young students
studying for his Harvard exams
working with the poor in the city of Boston
defying the fugitive slave laws, or simply
pursuing his self-defined role of “scholar”
It was not uncommon for Parker to work all day and read and study all night.
Theodore means “gift from God,” and this 11th child of John and Hannah Parker of Lexington, Massachusetts, was truly a gift from God. He was born August 8, 1810, into an old New England family. It was Theodore’s grandfather, Captain John Parker, who family tradition credits with these words spoken on Bunker Hill, "If they mean to have a war, let it begin here." The family said it was their Grandfather who fired the shot heard ‘round the world on Concord Road.
Yes, Parker’s family was a family of farmers and mechanics who were farmers and mechanics all the way back to their ancestor Thomas Parker, a freeman who was admitted to the Massachusetts Bay Colony in 1635.
Theodore was the first “educated” Parker. Everyone thought he would become a lawyer, but his mother knew he would be a minister. She died when he was 13, long before he made the decision to enter the ministry, but her influence is seen in that decision. The lessons she taught him about God influenced him all of his life. He was a deeply pious boy who loved God.
Parker received an undergraduate degree from Harvard College, but he never attended classes—he couldn’t afford to. He took an afternoon off from farming when he was 20, walked into Cambridge and enrolled as a non-resident student. He studied and read on his own while teaching school and paying someone to farm his father’s land in his place. He passed all the undergraduate requirements and then entered Harvard Divinity School as a junior on scholarship at age 24, a few years older than the average student.
Parker graduated from Harvard Divinity School in 1836, and accepted his first call in early 1937, from the Spring Street Church in West Roxbury, a small village on the outskirts of Boston. He wrote to his betrothed, Lydia Cabot, "No situation can be more honorable, no task more pleasant, no prospect more celestial, than that of a virtuous, faithful clergyman."
After their marriage, he began a ministry which influenced many thousands in his own time and still influences us today. His biographer, Henry Steele Commanger, wrote, “it was his preaching that men wanted to hear.” They wanted to hear Parker because he came across as a real man, and they could see the callouses on his hands. He talked about his roots, his farm work, and his early experiences.
From the beginning of his ministry, he preached that “… religion was innate … The truths of Christianity are intuitive truths; they are not dependent for their authority upon the evidence of miracles or upon any other evidence … Christianity,” he asserted, “was merely one of many religions, and was subject to the same tests of its authority that we apply to the others … Christ himself, the highest type of religious leader, [was] not infinitely perfect; he did not exhaust God’s creative power, and … [he] was not sure that God, who created Christ, could not create even greater Christs.”
Theodore Parker preached that God is within each person. Our reason, our divinity, our capacity for love, all things come from within. Futhermore, he often prayed to God our Father, and to God our Mother.
Parker was minister in West Roxbury from 1837 to 1845, where he worked out his theology based on Transcendentalism. He was influenced by William Ellery Channing, who is called the Father of Unitarianism, and Ralph Waldo Emerson, whose "Divinity School Address" captured Parker’s imagination and gave him the impetus to explore all its possibilities. Scholars agree that Parker became the most articulate spokesman of the Transcendentalist movement.
Parker’s sermons echoed Emerson. Humankind needs to listen to the “oracle within” he said. “Human conscience and moral sense are what guide men.” The Bible was not to stand between man and God; we needed no mediator.
For his radical departure from "orthodox Unitarianism," Parker was ostracized by his colleagues. They refused to exchange pulpits with him, which was a custom in those days. They shunned him on the streets and in gatherings.
When Parker's turn to lecture at the "Thursday Lectures" was skipped, he appeared anyway and would not allow himself to be passed over. He lectured anyway. The only way his colleagues could exclude him from their fellowship was to call a halt to the longstanding tradition. Parker reminded his colleagues how the Calvinists treated Unitarians just 25 years earlier, and how ridiculous it was that they were treating him the same way.
In 1841, Parker preached "The Transient and the Permanent in Christianity" at the ordination of Charles Shackford in South Boston. He preached that creeds, churches, and revelations were transitory, and that only intuitive moral truths were permanent. If we found out that there was no historical Jesus and the New Testament was fiction, the truths of Christianity would still be valid and men could live by those truths. His biographer Henry Commager writes of Parker's words,
“Christianity rests neither on the Gospels nor on the teachings of the Church, nor does it derive added authority from the attestation of miracles; it rests on 'great truths which spring up spontaneous in the holy heart.'”
This was a seminal sermon for Unitarianism, and it marked the beginning of change in Parker's career. He traveled to Europe, where he became a household name.
Because the Thursday lectures were canceled, business and professional men invited Parker to give a series of lectures in Boston. By January 1845, these same men organized the Twenty Eighth Congregational Society, hired the old Melodeon Public Hall and called Parker to be their first minister.
This was the beginning of national prominence for Parker. It was there he became the "Great American Preacher," and was loved and hated for his theology. At the height of his career, he had over 7,000 members on the books of his congregation.
Parker became more and more involved with the affairs of Boston and developed not only a strong interest in social reform in the city, but a theology of social responsibility of the church. He wrote in his journals,
“I have lived long enough . . . to see the shame of things and to look them fairly in the face. The State is a bundle of shames. It is based on force, not love. It is still feudal. . . Our laws degrade, at the beginning, one half of the human race, and sacrifice them to the other and perhaps worser half.”
He became active in seeking solutions to the problems of the oppressed in Boston. He entered the abolitionist movement, and spoke for the women's rights movement, temperance and suffrage. The guiding motivation for all his efforts was adherence to the Higher Law, the moral and ethical law within humans, given to them by God.
One example of his work is his response to the "Fugitive Slave Bill" passed by Congress in 1850. He advocated for civil disobediance to the law in his October 6, 1850, sermon. He said,
“To law framed of such iniquity, I owe no allegiance. Humanity, Christianity, manhood revolts against it. . . For myself, I will shelter, and I will help the Fugitive with all my humble means and power. I will act with any body of serious and decent men, as the head, or the foot, or the hand, an any mode not involving the use of deadly weapons, to nullify and defeat the operation of this Law; and I feel confident that there is enough of manhood, and of true Christianity in Boston, to protect every Fugitive amongst us, without shedding of blood, or even the rending of a garment.” [Donald Szantho Harrington, Channing, Parker, Emerson and the Future of Unitarian Universalist.]
Parker was many things: minister, scholar, reformer, educator, poet, composer of hymns, author, loving husband and loyal friend. Yet he worked himself to an early grave. In 1857 he wrote, 'I am forty-seven by the reckoning of my mother, seventy-four by my own internal count. I am an old man.' He continued to burn his candle at both ends until 1858, when he could no longer work. The consumption which ran in his family took over his body, and his doctors gave him one-in-ten chance to recover. That's when his wife, doctors, and friends decided a trip to the West Indies and Europe might increase his chances of survival.
At 49, he wrote his Experience as a Minister, bundled on the ship’s deck, waiting for death on the way to the West Indies and Europe. What did he say that could make a difference in our lives today as Universalists? He shared with us his thoughts on becoming a minister, and what it means to be a person of God, called to share God’s love.
“Can you seek for what is eternally true, and not be blinded by the opinions of any sect, or of the Christian Church; and can you tell the truth you learn even when it is unpopular and hated? I answered, I can! Rash youth is ever confident.
“Can you seek the eternal right, and not be blinded by the statues and customs of men, ecclesiastical, political, and social; and can you declare that eternal right you discover, applying it to the actual life of man [and women], individual and associated, though it being you into painful relations … [with others]?
“Can you represent in your life that truth of the intellect and that right of the conscience, and so not disgrace with your character what you … [say with your lips and demonstrate with your lives]?”
Parker wrote, “I doubted of this more than the others; the temptation to personal wickedness seemed stronger than that to professional deceit--at least it was then better known; but I answered, I can try, and will!”
“Can we see the eternal right, and not be blinded by the statues and customs of society, culture, and politics, and when we discover what is right apply it to our own lives and our churches lives, even though it may bring censure from others, including [others in the congregation]…?”
Theodore Parker did see and was ostracized by his colleagues and denied their fellowship. His letters and his journals tell us of his loss and loneliness. Yet he continued to seek the truth and preach that truth at whatever cost.
Do we overlook challenges in our cultural, political and social lives? Are we blind to the needs of others? Do we ignore what are we called to do, for fear we will be ostracized by others? Don’t tell me there is no such fear. There are many things we intentionally ignore because we are afraid to get involved. I admit I am afraid; I cannot help but think we all have calls that we don’t answer.
Can we live what we believe, and not disgrace ourselves by believing one thing and living something else?
If we protest the evils of racial injustice, will we do all we can to eradicate racial injustice our lives and our church? The answer has to be "yes."
If we preach living the Kingdom of God, will we live the Kingdom of God? The answer has to be "yes."
When we preach the evils of consumerism, will we be the first in line to limit our shopping? Will we wear clothes which were bought at a consignment shop? The answer has to be "yes."
Yet, we are human. We are not perfect, nor can we live perfectly. The answer has to be "yes," but when we are unable, for whatever reason, to live up to that "yes," we have to know in our hearts that we have done the very best we could.
While writing My Experiences as a Minister, Parker said he, too, had made errors. He had made errors in his doctrine and his life, yet he had to be content with his service—he had always wanted to serve.
The ship took him to the West Indies and then to Europe. Parker lived less than a year, and died in Florence, where he is buried.
We can measure our efforts and our sevice by Parker’s questions. No other can judge our lives, only ourselves and our God.
OPENING WORDS
From President Elect Barack Obama’s Election Night Speech in Chicago, Illinois
In this country, we rise or fall as one nation, as one people. Let's resist the temptation to fall back on the same partisanship and pettiness and immaturity that has poisoned our politics for so long.
Let's remember that it was a man from this state who first carried the banner of the Republican Party to the White House, a party founded on the values of self-reliance and individual liberty and national unity.
Those are values that we all share. And while the Democratic Party has won a great victory tonight, we do so with a measure of humility and determination to heal the divides that have held back our progress.
As Lincoln said to a nation far more divided than ours, we are not enemies but friends. Though passion may have strained, it must not break our bonds of affection.
And to those Americans whose support I have yet to earn, I may not have won your vote tonight, but I hear your voices. I need your help. And I will be your president, too.
And to all those watching tonight from beyond our shores, from parliaments and palaces, to those who are huddled around radios in the forgotten corners of the world, our stories are singular, but our destiny is shared, and a new dawn of American leadership is at hand.
Readings
From the American Transcendental Website
Parker put his faith on a new foundation by developing his own theory of divine inspiration. He now held that God was "immanent in matter and man." The laws of the human spirit were analogous to the laws of matter; both were aspects of God and so eternal and immutable. Matter must obey its law, but God had given humans the freedom to disobey spiritual laws. Disobedience constituted sin. Obedience constituted divine inspiration. The more closely one obeyed spiritual laws, the more one took on the qualities of God—that is, the more one became True, Moral, Loving, and Faithful—and the more divinely inspired one became. Divine inspiration was natural and universal, and the human race, as it progressed from "savagery" to "civilization," grew ever more inspired.
From a sermon by Rev. Charles J. Stephens, Unitarian Universalist Church of Washington Crossing, Titusville, NJ
Parker was by far the most powerful abolitionist voice of his time. He directed his strongest words not to the south but to his friends and neighbors in the north. Henry Steele Commager wrote, “This was the work of a moral agitator, and Parker was on familiar ground. It was not as an economist that Parker made his special contribution to antislavery, nor as an organizer, but as a minister. When he hid Ellen Craft from the kidnappers, it was a minister, taking care of his parishioner. When he demanded the nullification of the Fugitive Slave Bill, it was as a minister preaching on the ‘Function of Conscience in Relation to the Laws of Men.’ When he advised jurors to ignore their oaths and follow their consciences, it was as a minister, comparing the Laws of God and the Statues of Men. He made Abolitionism a religious duty…”
Let us listen to the voices of pain and agony in our nation and in our world calling us to do what is right.
Let us focus our abilities and our strengths on concrete actions.
Let us seek out allies who share some if not all of our values & principles.
Let us respond right here, where we live, to timely community events.
Let us invest our lives as if our principles matter.
From a sermon by Rev. Susan Manker-Seale, Unitarian Universalist Congregation of Northwest Tucson, Arizona
One of Martin Luther King, Jr.’s, common quotes was given during a speech at the Fourth Continental Convention of the AFL-CIO in 1961: “I’m convinced,” he said, “that we shall overcome because the arc of the universe is long but it bends toward justice.” When he said that, he was quoting our Unitarian forebear, Theodore Parker, whose mid-nineteenth century ministry was ostracized within our own Unitarian movement. Many Unitarians at the time, including the ministry, couldn’t agree with Parker’s views on a theology that transcended the Bible, and a ministry that advocated fervently against war and slavery. I would love to know the circumstances that led King to read Parker and to hone Parker’s words into a vision for our society, for it was Parker who first said, “I do not pretend to understand the moral universe; the arc is a long one… And from what I see I am sure it bends toward justice.”