(2007.01.07) Under These Beams: Who We Have Been

Readings

The first reading is taken from the last chapter of the book of Exodus, the chapter in which the building of the tabernacle is described. We’ve left out much of the detail, but you will get the idea:

Exodus 40: 1, 2, 16-19, 33

The Lord spoke to Moses: On the first day of the first month you shall set up the tabernacle of the tent of meeting.

Moses did everything just as the Lord had commanded him. In the first month in the second year, on the first day of the month, the tabernacle was set up. Moses set up the tabernacle; he laid its bases, and set up its frames, and put in its poles, and raised up its pillars; and he spread the tent over the tabernacle, and put the covering of the tent over it; as the Lord had commanded Moses.

He set up the court around the tabernacle and the altar, and put up the screen at the gate of the court. So Moses finished the work.

The second reading is drawn from the “Discourse” spoken on the occasion of the 200th anniversary of the opening of our Old Ship Meeting House for public worship, given January 8, 1882, by Edward Augustus Horton, our seventh minister:

Have you departed from the faith consigned to us by serious forefathers? No! Outwardly it might seem so. Truly, no! We must judge the Puritan and his meeting-house by the fruits. You are the Puritans’ children, and have tried to be faithful to the principles they represented. You have been! Could Hobart arise and be a living part of this last quarter of the nineteenth century, where do you think his fellowship would be? With you! Principles grow; they are not made. You have unfolded the original truths. I am not strenuous for names, and care not what we call the victories of religion in the next century; but of this you may be sure, - the face of this church fronts the light, it walks the sure path…

Sermon

How many of you recall the first time you walked into this Old Ship Meeting House?

It is without doubt an extraordinary building. Here for 325 years. Beams and posts hewn from ancient trees. Gothic arches in wood perhaps evoking our nautical nickname, though “Old Ship” did not enter common usage until the late 19th century.

And, as I’ve said many times, you can feel here the presence of so many who have gone before – worshipped here, married here, mourned here, been inspired here to lives of higher service. And it is, after all, all of this that matters far more than the posts and beams themselves, that matters far more than the age of the building, that matters far more than the architectural significance of this old house. It is everything that has gone on “under these beams” that matters most.

This said, we ought not take for granted that we are the oldest wood-framed place of worship in the nation in continuous use. No one else can begin a worship service with words quite like the words with which we began earlier this morning: affirming the start of the 326th year of worship in the same house.

Yes, there are older congregations – a few, not many. Our friends in Plymouth, for example, gathered there in 1620 and we gathered in Hingham in our first Meeting House in 1635.

But there are no older wood framed houses of worship in the nation in continuous use.

And, in spite of what I’ve just said about the relative importance of the old beams as compared with what has gone on under these beams… why might any of this architectural and historical record-setting matter? Well, in spite of the way in which we Americans love to reinvent ourselves, love to begin anew, even so we are inevitably shaped by who we have been. And though we forward-looking people might sometimes regard the past as a burden, or as a shackle, at its best the past, a rich legacy of heart and mind can give us solid ground to stand on, strong roots from which to grow.

And here in our Old Ship Meeting House we stand on solid ground indeed – ground of welcome and inclusion, ground of freedom of mind and heart, ground of caring and serving.


Of course the building has changed over the years. But at least metaphorically and somewhat more than metaphorically, the ground of tradition and history on which we stand has remained the same, and is indeed solid – and is well represented by this old house itself.

For example, we added these two wings during the eighteenth century, which far from changing the house in any essential way, simply enabled us to welcome in more people in a growing town. And in spite of the fact that during that same century we spawned two additional parishes (the churches now known as First Parish in Cohasset and Second Parish in Hingham), we maintained good relations with those offspring churches – so that even now you might say that though we are three congregations, we are still one parish.

Then, as some of you know, we almost tore down this old house in 1792, but we reconsidered in the nick of time and repaired it instead. Maybe only because that was the less expensive alternative – that would be a thrifty New Englander’s explanation. But whatever the reason, we chose to keep this meeting house with its broad hip roof suggesting that welcome, that desire to include rather than exclude, a desire that I like to think has been close to the heart of who we have been through all these centuries.

Have we ever faltered in this welcome? Yes. Just one example. Near the end of that same 18th century, members of this congregation chased a new little group of Baptists right out of town!

Yet then, in the next, 19th century, the inevitable happened: not only Baptists, Methodists, Universalists, Episcopalians, Congregationalists, and Catholics all formed their own churches here in Hingham; even before all that, in 1806 New North Church had been gathered by a group of our members who were profoundly dissatisfied with the choice of Joseph Richardson as our new minister. For this reason and perhaps others, relations were not always good between this old parish and some of the others during those years. But those times are long past, those disputes forgotten. And now, and for decades past, members of our varied faith communities get along well; indeed most of the religious communities in Hingham and Hull gather here, in this old meeting house, for a shared Thanksgiving worship service each year. Again, as if we are still (at least for one evening each year) one parish, though now many congregations. The welcome still broad and ever more inclusive.

And when a Jewish congregation was forming in Hingham back in the 1960s, where did they hold worship services until they built their own sanctuary? Where but here, in this old house, this simple house, with no religious iconography, no cross, no star, no symbols other than this broad roof and the many windows and doors open to the world, open to all.


Of course the Meeting House is only symbol of the welcome, of our intent to be inclusive. We can also point to formative events in the history of our parish that have over time woven these threads of welcome and inclusion that is so much a part of who we are. You’ve heard many of the stories before:

Our first minister, Peter Hobart, my ancestor as well as my predecessor, baptizing the baby Hannah Burton, even though her father was a member of the Church of England, not of this then Puritan congregation. It was a radical act of welcome and inclusion for the time and place.

And our third minister, Ebenezer Gay, preaching a message during his remarkable 69 years here that increasingly emphasized the potential of each person to rise to goodness and character, and that asserted the benevolence of the deity, rather than the cruelty of the Calvinists’ God who would only save an elect few.

And in our own time, the relative ease with which our congregation came to welcome fully into fellowship our gay, lesbian, and bisexual sisters and brothers – a welcome beautifully symbolized by the celebration of a marriage of two women of our parish on the first Sunday after this became legal in the Commonwealth… as we will help to keep it legal!

Or the simple yet powerful message of building a ramp and making our old house ever more accessible and open to all.

And this week, in re-reading Edward Augustus Horton’s discourse on the occasion of the 200th anniversary of our meeting house, I was struck by the way in which he noted that his predecessors as ministers under these beams were remembered not so much for their theology or their politics, though that has been part of each of their legacies too, but remembered for their warmth and caring presence as pastors in times of need – reminding us that whatever else goes on under these beams, this congregation has over the centuries been not only a place of welcome and inclusion, but of care and loving concern.


So… who have we been? To begin with, a congregation striving, no doubt not always with as much success as we might like, to be ever more welcoming and inclusive and caring – the many windows and doors and the broad, embracing roof representing all of this.


There is yet more to who we have been. We have also been a congregation of truth-seekers. May we always remember and treasure this as well. And though we may think ourselves to be far removed from the attitudes and beliefs of the Puritans, in this truth-seeking we might discover ourselves to be closer kindred to the Puritans than we may have thought. For in the spirit of the reading we heard earlier this morning, it may well be more accurate to say that we have grown from our Puritan roots more than rebelled against them.

For the Puritans were gathered by covenant, not by creed – just as we are. The Puritans affirmed that life mattered, and that it mattered how we lived – just as we do. And the Puritans, who after all founded Harvard College, believed in the life of the mind, believed that our faculty of reason was a gift meant to be used – just as we do.

Did they start from different premises, entirely rooted in the Christian faith? Yes, of course. And we do not, at least not all of us do. And did they assume the truth of the Christian salvation story? Yes, of course. And we do not, at least not all of us do.

But for all this, we might well be closer soul mates than ordinarily we would think, and not only in our truth-seeking. For putting aside particularities of belief, the Puritans purpose, our founders purpose, was just as our purpose is: to encourage one another in the leading of a meaningful and kind and generous life. They and most of the intervening generations since under these beams would surely have called their goal to be to live a good Christian life. We might simply call it a decent and morally good life. But it seems to me that it amounts to the same thing.

For I am with my predecessor Edward August Horton, when he said in that same discourse 125 years ago that he was “…not strenuous for names.” In other words, it matters less how you label yourself or how you name your belief system than how you live. And here, under these beams, we try to live – as best we can – out of a tradition which values deeds more than creeds, character more than doctrine, reason instead of dogma, doors and windows that welcome and include rather than solid walls that divide and exclude.

In our time we call all of this Unitarian Universalism. And our Unitarian Universalist Principles and Purposes are our generation’s expression of who we have grown to be from who we have been – in the language of our Principles affirming the inherent worth and dignity of every person, the use of reason in the free and responsible search for truth and meaning, the seeking together of a world more just, more free, more peaceful, more in harmony with the web of life.

Our own newly created and affirmed Old Ship covenant is also in this same spirit – affirming our promises to one another to support our individual spiritual growth and ethical commitment, to care for one another, and to serve the broader life of which we are a part.

It is all who we have been, as well as who we now are.


Now, I said at the outset that I recalled the first time I walked into this Old Ship Meeting House. It was a January evening twenty years ago. I had just met with the Search Committee, and they asked if I would like to see the Meeting House. Well, of course. So they brought me over.

I was impressed to be sure. But there was little depth to my first experience of this old house. I knew that I was inside an amazing building. It was beautiful. But it has only been with the years that this Old Ship Meeting House has become so deeply meaningful to me. Meaningful because of what I have learned about the history of what has gone on under these beams. Meaningful because of what I have, along with you, experienced under these beams: the joy of welcoming a new child or new members or as we celebrate a marriage; the grief beyond words as we remember a dear one; the shared learning and growing; the new ways in which we have learned to reach out and play our part in creating a kinder, more welcoming, more loving, more peaceful world.


The journey now continues… of course. And next week I will invite us to explore in more depth some of the “soul work” which goes on under these beams – both in relation to issues passionately championed by Martin Luther King, Jr., and in other ways as well.

Then, on January 21, as we prepare for our very special afternoon celebration of Old Ship’s 325th, I will invite us to look to the future, to who we yet can be.


325 years. Yes, with changes. Enlarged. Benches replaced by box pews, box pews replaced by bench pews, bench pews replaced by the box pews. No ceiling, and then from 1730 – 1930 a ceiling concealing these beams, and now, since 1930, the old beams again revealed to our view. Lining out the Psalms, singing together, joined by a church viol and eventually an organ.

Yes, with these and many other changes – just as we, the people of this congregation, have changed… and yet can embrace a tradition and history that still gives us life, that still inspires.

So, may we always remember that we are part of a stream of tradition and history that, for whatever ways in which we have faltered along the way, for whatever ways in which we have sometimes allowed natural differences to divide us, for whatever ways in which we have failed to reach our high ideals, has been nevertheless a stream of tradition and history growing towards ever wider welcome, ever greater inclusion, a tradition of caring for one another, a tradition and history of truth-seeking and of seeking together to make a better world, a tradition of serving the larger life of which we are a part.

I, for one, am so profoundly grateful to have become part of this living stream of life and love here at Old Ship, here, under these old beams, grateful to breath the air breathed by the generations who have preceded us, grateful to share this legacy with so many others in our generation.

I hope and expect you are grateful in these ways too.


May we continue in this spirit.


So may it be.



Updated Feb 04, 2007 Written by Rev. Kennneth Read-Brown