CENTERING
Giving thanks for the bounty of Providence is a practice as "old as mankind" and as widespread as the human race. People across the world had many different ways of celebrating Harvest time:
One curious association in our civic life is Thanksgiving with the Pilgrims. As you heard in the centering, Thanksgiving is a common holiday around the world. Thanksgiving didn't start in 1621 and get celebrated every year until the present. The celebration was not officially repeated until 1676, when Governor Bradford proclaimed another day of thanks. There was no mention of the Pilgrims in the proclamation by President Lincoln which began the national recognition of the day in 1863 during the Civil War.
The first Pilgrim Thanksgiving with the Wampanoags was a feast that lasted three days. They didn't eat what we traditionally eat though they may have had turkey. With the Wampanoags help, they feasted on venison, roast duck, roast goose, clams and other shellfish, succulent eels, white and corn bread, leeks and watercress and other salad herbs, topped with wild plums and dried berries for dessert--all washed down with both white and red wine[1]
The Pilgrims, or Separatists as they were originally called, were a tiny group compared with the many other waves of immigration to our shores. Their initial settlement at Plymouth Plantation predated the English Puritan migration by about eight years. They were hardly the first settlers since the Spanish had set up towns on the Gulf Coast 100 years earlier. Yet there is something about this little band of settlers that captures our national imagination.
Let me first point out that the Pilgrims were not the Puritans. They had distinct ideas that set them apart. While both dissented from the Church of England, the Pilgrims wished to separate themselves entirely from the church whereas the Puritans wished to reform it from within. The Pilgrims viewed the Church of England as an impure church. They believed further association with this tainted church would jeopardize their souls, and therefore it was the duty of the Christian to withdraw from this corrupt institution.[2]
The Pilgrims wanted to recreate the early church they saw described in the Bible. Their model was the early Christian communities written about in the Book of Acts. Thus their separation took on a sense of isolationism when they came to the new world. Being followers of Calvin, they distinguished the saints or the elect from the strangers or the fallen.
You may be wondering at this point why followers of Calvin, the arch enemy of Unitarianism and Universalism, might inspire Pilgrim pride in me. Indeed we are not Biblical literalists as the Pilgrims were nor do we believe in the elect. Still they brought other ideas with them to this continent that are integral parts of our religious tradition.
The Separatist movement got its start at Cambridge. Their leaders listened to and debated with the dons at Cambridge where the Protestant reformation on the Continent was stirring the students and faculty from the drunken, lazy stupor of medieval academic life. The Puritan call for an educated clergy was breathing new mental fire into the institution. Scholars exiled abroad during the reign of terror by Bloody Mary, who returned during King James' more friendly rule, were bringing back Calvinist ideas which challenged the Church status quo. One of those importers of Continental ideas was a fellow named Robert Browne. Some have labeled Browne as one of the earliest expounders of the ideas which would later evolve into American Democracy via Congregationalism. Unitarianism and Universalism were born out of the Congregational Way advocated by Robert Browne.
While Robert Browne was by no means a great theologian, and there is some evidence to suggest he was mentally unbalanced, he was a great creative thinker who synthesized the ferment of the times in a catalytic way[3]. Influenced by the ideas of the Dutch Mennonites and the Anabaptists, a European movement practicing a radically egalitarian form of Christianity, he realized that the institutional church couldn't be reformed. The only way to recover the Christian tradition was for the worthiest of the community to secede, to separate, as Paul had instructed, and form a congregation centered on a free, mutual covenant among the worthy and God.
This freely formed congregation would select its own pastor and officers in a democratic manner with each member having one vote. There would be no bishops, no archbishops, no rectors, no vicars, no chancellors, no central organization. Each congregation would be independent. The Bible had no bishops. The Bible had no Pope. If these human inventions weren't in the good book, get rid of them!
Not everyone would be recognized as a member of this gathered community. Browne rejected Calvin's doctrine of the "true" church embracing the entire baptized population. Character mattered. Browne envisioned a "priesthood of believers," a church of saints, from which the irreligious were to be excluded, whether baptized or not![4] Since character was to be the gravitational center of the group, all the sanctified members would need to constantly scrutinize themselves and criticize the behavior of the other saints seeking to improve their character. This later turned out to be practically the undoing of all the separatist congregations since human nature can only stand so much prying into the most intimate details of one's thoughts and behavior.
It was the young William Brewster who arrived in Cambridge in the midst of the short lived Brownist influence which likely formed this youth's path which would eventually lead the Pilgrims to the New World. Brewster came from the little town of Scrooby in the center of England on the historic Great North Road between Scotland and London in Nottinghamshire not far from Sherwood Forest. The little village wasn't much more than a rest stop and the road much more elaborate than a cow path. Brewster's father was the Postmaster which allowed him to service a large, dilapidated manor and take in a handsome salary while maintaining several stables, a tavern and inn. When his father died, William was able to take over for his father after a stint of employment in London which allowed him to mix with the high and mighty in the Elizabethan court. Returning to the simple life must not have been easy for him but he returned with new ideas and a will to put them into practice. He began a separated congregation that met in the manor and soon felt the wrath of his countrymen and king which had outlawed the Separatist meetings.
Unlike the educated, influential and well heeled Puritans, the flock who gathered with Brewster were mostly the common folk without title. They came together not seeking social advantage or intellectual satisfaction but rather because there was a spirit in this little group which engaged them and drew them in. The sermons stirred the religious impulse in them that the Church of England could not. Rather than having to subject themselves to temporal authority, the only authority they needed to recognize was Christ as revealed in the Bible and their hearts.
The newly available printing press versions of the Bible in English for the first time were available for the ordinary person to read. And read they did. People would get together just to hear the Bible read aloud. The Biblical text revealed a different understanding of Christianity than was taught from the Church of England pulpit as preached by the often unlearned clergy following the book of Common Prayer. The educated Pilgrim leaders reading Hebrew, Greek, and Latin, found great meaning for their lives from the Bible by applying their reason to the revelation. They didn't accept any official version from on high, they read and interpreted the text for themselves. Over 200 years later, It was that continuing tradition of combining scholarship with individual interpretation that provided the platform for the Unitarian critique of Trinitarianism and Calvinism.
This kind of radical behavior was very disturbing to the ecclesiastical system also threatening the power, prestige and income of the king. The royalty could barely tolerate the Puritans but had no truck with the Separatists. Rather than abandon their religion which moved their hearts, the Pilgrims chose exile.
If the way was preordained for these Pilgrims, the way was made anything but smooth for them. Several abortive attempts to escape England thinned their ranks of those weak of will. A year in Amsterdam in the fractional exiled Separatist community convinced the Pilgrims they needed a more removed setting which for them became Leyden. Life was very hard for the group because they had few skills beyond the ones they learned on the farm and were forced into low wage work which barely brought in enough to survive. The prospect of grinding poverty and the gradual assimilation of their children into Dutch culture convinced them they had to leave for the New World.
The community they formed, Plymouth Plantation, was remarkable in a number of ways. They did not displace a native population as the tribe living on that bay had been wiped out by disease. They met and developed a partnership of mutual support with their nearest neighbors, the Wampanoag that lasted many years.
Unlike their Puritan cousins, the pilgrims were remarkably tolerant of differences. No witches burned at the stake in Plymouth. Perhaps it was because of their persecution before leaving British soil that loosened them up. John Robinson, Pilgrim leader who never made it to New England wrote,
Men are for the most part minded for or against toleration of diversity of religion, according to the conformity which they themselves hold, or hold not with th country or kingdom where they live. Protestants living in the countries of Papists commonly plead for toleration of religion; so do Papists that live where Protestants bear sway; though few of either, specially of the clergy, as they are called, would have the other tolerated, where the world goes on their side. The very same is to be observed in the ancient Fathers, in their times: of whom, such as lived in the first three hundred years after Christ, and suffered with the churches, under heathen persecutions, pleaded against all violence for religion, true or false: affirming that it is of human right and natural liberty, for every man to worship what he thinketh God: and that it is no property of religion to compel to religion, which ought to be taken up freely; that no man is forced by the Christians against their will, seeing that he that wants faith, and devotion is unserviceable to God: and that God not being contentious would not be worshipped by the unwilling.[5]
Source of religious tolerance, an anti-authoritarian approach to religion, encouraging the development of character, embracing the use of reason in religion, and source of our democratic method of congregational governance, there is much in this heritage to be thankful. Yet there is a problem claiming the pilgrim heritage as part of our own. It doesn't appear to come directly to us as I was distressed to find out as I researched this sermon.
Many more Puritans came and settled in Massachusetts overwhelming any Pilgrim influence. By the time the Salem and Plymouth Colonies were combined by England, they were practically indistinguishable, sharing much in common with each other. While it is very romantic to claim a Pilgrim heritage. history may deviate from the claim. Such, by the way, is true for a number of the famous people we like to claim as Unitarian Universalists even though they were never members of one of our congregations.
Because we are a fairly new religious tradition, there is the pull to demonstrate, by association, a long and illustrious past leading to the present. We want our religious tradition to stand out and be a source of pride. My pilgrim pride comes from the seed of religious ideas they brought to this land that helped build a nation and Unitarianism and Universalism. Our thinking grew partially from their roots. Here's how.
While historians continue the debate which perhaps can never be resolved, I leave you with one suggestive story of Pilgrim Dr. Samuel Fuller:
John Endicott was sent to Salem as what amounted to deputy Governor, arriving in June, 1628 with a number of settlers. These new arrivals along with other earlier Puritan settlers suffered terribly from illness that winter.
Endicott had heard of the healing prowess of Dr. Samuel Fuller, a Deacon of the Plymouth Church and wrote Governor Bradford entreating him to send "the good physician" to Salem. Bradford sent Fuller who spent three of four months in Salem. Not only did he succeed in treating the sick, but he also was able to teach congregationalism to Endicott and other of his settlers. Fuller was so effective in doing so that Endicott conveyed his change in belief to Bradford in a letter expressing his thanks for Fuller's services.
In June, 1629 three ministers and a large group of settlers arrived in Salem. The three Anglican ministers sent by the London sponsors of the colony were no doubt greatly surprised when two were actually elected by the congregation as pastor and teacher and then re-ordained. The third refused to break with his Anglican views and ended up going back to England[6]
Ideas are very powerful.
They don't stay put.
They change the world.
BENEDICTION
Whether our ancestors arrived on the Mayflower
Or arrived with little distinction in steerage,
Or perhaps followed a land bridge to get here from Russia,
Let us be thankful today for the powerful ideas we inherit. Let us be thankful
they were championed by people like the Pilgrims who risked everything to
follow them.
Let us be thankful for the ideas we discover.
May we give them the energy they deserve.
[1] Willison, George F., The Pilgrim Reader,
Doubleday, New York, 1953, p.153
[2] Puritanism in America
http://www.wfu.edu/~matthetl/perspectives/three.html
[3] Willison, George F., Saints and
Strangers: Being the Lives of the Pilgrim Fathers & Their Families, with
Their Friends & Foe, & an Account of Their Posthumous Wanderings in
Limbo, Their Final Resurrection & Rise to Glory, & the Strange
Pilgrimages of Plymouth Rock, 1945 (1983 ed), Parnassus Imprints, Inc. Orleans,
Massachusetts 02653 pp 30-33
[4] Williston, p 33
[5] Bartlett, Robert M., The Faith of the
Pilgrims: An American Heritage, United Church Press, , NY, 1978, p. 60
[6] quoted from email message to discussion
list: uuhs-chat@uua.org on Tue, 13 Oct 1998 12:43:43 by historian Walter P
Herz < heart46@juno.com>