This morning is a gift from God, and the dawn’s new light is a summons to be greeted with gratitude and thanksgiving. We give thanks that we can:

See the forms of creation,

Hear the call of creation,

Smell the fragrances of creation,

Taste the sweetness of creation,

And touch the warmth of creation.

We give thanks for the life we’ve been given; for the love that graces our days; and for the chance to assist in creation’s unfolding.

We pledge to walk together in the ways of truth and affection,

As best we know them now,

Or may learn them in days to come;

That we and our children may be fulfilled,

And that we may speak to the world,

In words and actions of peace and goodwill.

You cannot have a good character today and at the same time have a small mind and a little heart. You cannot have a good character today and be merely a petty reformer. A good character today is shaped by greatness, greatness in vision, greatness in courage, greatness in insight, greatness in purpose and devotion. Without this greatness, all the lesser things will soon be swept away. Let, therefore, the winds of God blow through our lives and sweep away all littleness, all triviality, all mean and narrow aims. And in lives swept open to the true, the limitless, the universal may there be room at last for the courage and compassion of the infinite, for the joy and tenderness of life's lovelier, holier spirit, for the power and the wonder of God.

Children of the sun, children of the lakes and the valleys, children of the stars and the heavens as we are, we give thee thanks this morning, O Creator, for all thy bounty. And especially do we give thee thanks for those whose lives have nourished us, who have given that we might have life and have it more abundantly. For those who founded this great church, we give thanks. For heroes and heroines throughout the years who have kept faith with life, we give thanks, for those who have not given up on humanity but whose clear sight and forthright manner steered us through bleak and thunderous nights. For those great souls, known and unknown, who loved conscience more than convenience; for those who stood their ground in believing in the human prospect, rather than giving ground away to petty and narrow aims, we give thee thanks. Give us to breathe deeply of your breadth and by this gather understanding and strength, O Creator of all, and especially may we be aroused in courage to bring the civilizing word, the civilizing sentiment, the civilizing deed. To see your imprint and your image on the human heart. And devote ourselves and our resources to its glorious unfolding.

AMEN.

Greatness. This is what the writer of the morning reading would have us be shaped by. In the age of celebrity we would attach the word, "Greatness," to only a few, if any at all. Maybe the few who dazzle us with athletic feats. Maybe the few who rise from the lowly depths of poverty and want to the highest summit of human achievement, or to wealth and power. Maybe those whose clarity of purpose and devotion mark them off as special. In the age of celebrity we would attach the word, "Greatness," to only a few, if any at all, to those who are special.

And with good reason. Daily, on display throughout the earth, there are the dark and evil tendencies within the human heart. There are suicide bombers who wantonly take life as if to do so pleases their god. There is the greed of human accumulation wherein the sufferings of others become an opportunity to expand one’s capital. There are even oppressions and tyrannies brought about through the sincere effort to see goodness triumph. And just as assuredly there are those who proclaim darkness is the root of human nature, and greatness is only our ignorant illusion.

There are those today who underestimate humanity’s heart of darkness and plead an isolationist security as the path to peace. There is a debilitating introspection afoot that hides human malevolence beneath the veneer of an individual confronting and triumphing over his own private problems. There is a reticence to calculate the glee in humanity’s will to oppress and tyrannize its own through religious sexism, cultural racism, and general genocide in the neighborhood of one’s own country. There are those who turn a dear ear to the oppressions man fosters upon man, and wildly point to the brightest star even when it is the darkest night.

Out of this quagmire of time and culture religious communities and traditions step to stand firm on some analysis, and declare what each thinks is good news.

This church, All Souls Community Church, steps out and stands firm within our Unitarian Universalist faith tradition to offer this pronouncement of good news followed by an analysis that is all the product of this preacher’s narrow sight and encumbered intellect.

There is a unity of the spirit that freely draws the human family and all creation together (that what Unitarian means), a spirit that exists and is deepened by every creative effort of humanity to love all souls (that what Universalist means). This is a statement of faith because this spirit can only be felt and not seen. This spirit can be called God, or nothing at all, for names are not important on this matter. Because it is the feeling experience of this spirit by free persons that is evidence of its presence and power to shape human life. This spirit manifests itself most forcefully in human being as the individual mind and heart are liberated to their own cultivation towards knowledge and an ever-expanding love in spiritual communities devoted to freedom and fellowship for all. This is very, very good news.

But, again, it is a matter of faith because this spirit can only be felt and cannot be seen. My analysis of today: We live in a culture and at a time in history when this spirit is smothered and cannot be readily felt because of the preponderance of other things humanity feels and sees.

There is an old Hassidic explanation of the way existence is fabricated. God and humanity are playing hide and seek. God has hidden. We human beings have finished counting, but are not seeking. Imagine God’s distress. Imagine even more God’s distress because God is hiding in the greatness of the creation He calls his own!

Wrote 19^th century Unitarian William Ellery Channing: They who assert the greatness of human nature, see as much of guilt as the man of worldly wisdom.  But amidst the passions and selfishness of men they see another element—a Divine element—a spiritual principle. ("The Perfect Life")

In every culture and every age there are always thousands of reasons why greatness isn’t perceived. Today we simply forget it, like some dark spell that Harry Potter’s enemies would put upon Harry that would keep him from feeling this religious principle within and without. It is difficult to discern amidst all the evil evident, and so most dare not speculate upon it, like Hobbits in the Lord of the Rings who see all that threatens them and they are convinced must be dealt with by powers larger than themselves. And we fear it. We fear human greatness more than anything else, so we hide it under a debilitating humility, debase it as sinful, or disregard it as fabrication and fancy.

But the spirit persists and survives. And even in the face of the horror of human beings driving planes into buildings and destroying human life, there arises an impulse to save life from distortion and evil. And that is a religious impulse evidenced in the emotion elicited when contemplating the heroism of men and women that day. Even in the midst of the horror of human beings destroying themselves there persists this spirit, this religious impulse we have been created with.

We live in a time when a religious disease has taken hold of the human soul and seeks to destroy our memory of this religious impulse. It is not fanaticism, though our time is rife with it. Fanaticism is a disease of the narrow mind and hardened heart, and so it is idolatry not religion. It is not secularism, the absence of the spiritual, because what is void of spirituality just reveals the depth of the yearnings that are part of the spirit. We live in a time when we take stock of our debilitations, incapacities, errors, blunders, the ways we bungle and squander away our opportunities and our resources, and count the innumerable instances of how we have lost our way or that we are incapable of every finding it. We know these so well that we have become lost inside of them. We live inside of their borders. It is The Village we are willing to be imprisoned in. We do not and cannot imagine that woven into the fabric of our being, as sure as muscle, blood, and tendon, is an impulse responding to the spirit that moves through existence. Our hearts are hardened to the movement of this spirit amongst us, around us, and in us, because the events of our world have drawn us away from its glory and greatness

The spirit is hiding in plain sight but we do not pursue and cultivate it. It’s the best place for it to hide. We declare its death, dismiss it in favor of inner bliss, or say in our depraved condition we cannot respond to it and are at the mercy of it. Yet, it is around us and in us, and will always be.

Helen Keller was once asked, "Is there anything worse than not having your sight?" She responded immediately, "Oh yes, it would be much worse to have your sight but not to have vision." It is time for a larger vision. A vision that sees the evil we are capable of, and turns no deaf ear and no blind eye to what sufferings we are capable of bringing about. But a larger vision that sees something more to the human prospect. That sees the greatness in human nature, a likeness and affinity to the greatness we ascribe to God; and pledges and devotes itself to the promise of its fulfillment in human life.

This kind of vision will not come from the culture. This kind of vision will not come from the beliefs of a church, liberal or conservative. This kind of vision is not given to a few. This kind of vision founded this spiritual community, as a community for the free spirit. Not a church that worships the past. Not a church that worships doctrine as more important than living flesh. Not a faith that mistakes human pronouncement for divine will. Not a church that opens its fellowship to those who think and believe rightly, or those who are a certain social or economic class, or those of a certain racial pedigree, of who vote in the right way, or only those who make up old Grand Rapids or the way any things used to be. This spiritual community was founded on a larger vision than any of those. A spiritual community proclaiming a unique truth, that hadn’t been heard in Grand Rapids for over 60 years, what no other church in Grand Rapids can do because no other church proclaims this by its very existence: There is a unity beneath all that would divide and does divide humankind, a spirit. This spirit moves amongst all things and in all persons, liberating them towards a love for all souls. We have locked this spirit in a dungeon of our own making, out of sight, out of mind, and out of the human heart. It is hiding in plain sight, yet hiding none the less. But this spirit persists and is created anew in every new person who takes a first breath. That spiritual vision is what you have been bequeathed, to gain, understand, uphold, strengthen, and extend. And the generations that follow us will judge us by our spiritual sight and the courage of our faith.

And lest you think this larger vision does not exist among us already, let me assure you through the responses given to me by members of this church when I asked some of them what greatness means. Listen to your own voices, the manifestation of this religious impulse that is the great prospect slumbering in human nature:

It immediately brought to mind a poem that I treasure by Edwin Markham:

What All Souls Community Church can and will do is to urge the growth of the soul, the liberation and cultivation of the religious impulse towards greatness.  No other church in Grand Rapids can do that because it is not the mission of any other church to do that, and because no other church has a religious tradition like ours that mandates that we do it for the future of humanity. The mission of All Souls is to institutionalize religious freedom. The vision for All Souls is to become part of substance of Grand Rapids’ every day in order that its citizens might know the religious impulse with which they were born. The mission of All Souls is to help each and every person become a fully functioning, free person. The vision for All Souls is to help every citizen of this great land and beyond, be free to unfold unto that divine image in which we are created and are freely formed to fulfill. The mission of All Souls is to provide a community where each person can discern the dictates of individual conscience when making moral decisions. The vision for All Souls is to become the conscience of this community, this year and for years to come; to create explicitly and intentionally a community of liberty and justice for all souls. From this day forward, everything that All Souls Community Church does; from the religious education of our children and adults; from the social issues with which we wrestle and the acts of conscience we uphold; to the kinds of ministerial and lay leadership we embody and create; to the way we relate to religions not our own; from this day forward everything we do, we do not just for us or our children or Grand Rapids or Michigan, but we do in order to build all of existence. As a world that once again believes in the individual, believes in the human prospect, believes in the sanctity of conscience, believes in the strength of character, believes in the promise of tomorrow, believes in liberty and justice and mercy for all. In other words, a world that believes in itself and believes in what it was created for, for it has become a world for all creation, a world for all souls.

AMEN.