the Rev. Sally Hamlin speaking

On Friday night, which was Halloween, I made the right turn onto my street after returning from a wedding rehearsal here, hoping to find some trick or treaters still out in my neighborhood. Greeting the little ones, seeing their costumes and handing out candy is something I look forward to all year, and I couldn’t wait to get home. The rehearsal had taken longer than I thought it would- there were over twenty in the bridal party – and it was late, about 7:45. I imagined I had likely missed the revelry. So you can imagine my surprise when I was greeted instead with houses ablaze from every bright porch light and costumed children still running about, from house to house, collecting their sweet treasures.

“Yes!” I said, as I made my way cautiously down the packed street.

I hurried inside and turned on my porch light and awaited the inevitable chant, and dispensed tooth decaying treats until I ran out half an hour later.

This was the kind of Halloween I recalled from my childhood, when hundreds of us would run freely through out neighborhoods until the sacks we carried could no longer be held by our fatigued little arms, and we had to return regretfully home.

In the fifties and early sixties, despite the occasional razor blade in the apple scare, we felt safe within our community and knew almost every inhabitant of each house and without even discussing it, which house to avoid. It was a type of freedom and care-freeness that is rare these days, when you know without a shadow of a doubt, that you are safe and loved by your community. I was reminded of this on Friday evening, and I am reminded of it when I meet with the Caring Committee of this congregation as well.

The Caring Committee of First Universalist is a group of very dedicated individuals who meet over lunch once a month to talk about and plan for how best to care for each of you, their beloved fellow congregants. The Caring Committee are the folks who send cards, deliver holiday flowers, visit you at home or in the hospital, provide you with a ride to church, or prepare food for a congregant’s memorial service. They are a small but mighty committee, and one which needs your help.

I know what you are saying to yourself right now. I can read minds you know! You are saying you are all too busy to join another committee. I hear you loud and clear!

But have I got a deal for you! But you will have to wait to hear about it!

First, back to Halloween for a minute. In planning meetings for worship services for the fall, I had hoped that Halloween would fall on a Sunday. I have an idea for a Halloween service I have been wanting to try for a long time now. I won’t reveal all the details I have planned, but when Halloween does fall on Sunday, we will come to church dressed as our favorite ancestor.

Halloween, however, gives us an opportunity to discuss the Wiccan Sabbat of samhain (sow-en), and its significance for those of us who claim earth-centered traditions as our core spiritual belief. Sunset on Samhain is the beginning of the Celtic New Year. The old year has passed, the harvest has been gathered, cattle and sheep have been brought in from the fields, and the leaves have fallen from the trees. The earth slowly falls towards winter slumber. Samhain is time to honor our ancestors, and if you’ve had a loved one die in the past year, this is the perfect night to celebrate their memory.

But today we are reminded of a holiday – or a holy day in the Christian calendar – that is almost as cool as Halloween: the Feast of All Souls. Let me provide a bit of the history of All Souls, for every holy day has a story that goes along with it.

Around the eighth century or so, the Catholic Church decided to use November 1st as All Saints Day. This was actually a pretty smart move on their part – the local pagans were already celebrating Samhain, so it made sense to claim it an official church holiday. All Saints’ became the festival to honor any saint who didn’t already have a day of his or her own. The mass which was said on All Saints’ was called All Hallowmas. The night before naturally became known as All Hallows Eve, and eventually morphed into what we call Halloween.¹

But since the Sabbat of Halloween, the night of the year when it is said that the veil between the living and dead is most permeable, allowing us to visit and celebrate with our ancestors, took place on Friday instead of Sunday, I took another look at the calendar.

And there it was! The feast of All Souls, also called Dia de los Muertos in Mexico….exactly what I was looking for.

All Souls is the day that the Church commemorates and prays for the holy souls in Purgatory who are undergoing purification of their sins before they can enter heaven. The theological beliefs underlying this holy day are that the faithful departed, defined by “those who die in God’s faith and friendship”, are not immediately ready for the reality and goodness of God and heaven, so they must be purged of their sins. The Catholic Church calls this purification of the elect purgatory.

Coincidently, not too long ago, on a UU minister’s chat, I happened upon a conversation about the names of our UU congregations. One minister posted some research she had done, which reviewed the names of over one thousand Unitarian Universalist congregations around the world.²

There are a few UU congregations with names that refer to historical or theological beliefs, such as King’s Chapel, the Church of the Restoration, Church of the Mediator, First Church of Christ, and our oldest Canadian Church, still legally named The Church of the Messiah in Montreal, known more commonly as the Unitarian Church of Montreal.

But here comes the most fascinating part. All Souls is the most common name of our oldest Universalist churches. I counted over twenty of our Unitarian Universalist congregations ‘All Souls’ in their name.

But the relevance of UU congregations named ‘All Souls’ differs greatly from that of our Roman Catholic friends.

For Universalists, the name ‘All Souls’ was chosen to indicate the fervent belief that ALL people would go to heaven, all were welcome there, not just the “saints”, not just the ‘elect’.

This was radical theology for our Universalist ancestors to claim; it was risky, it was bold. It represented the theology of a few individuals who had such great faith and hope that their lives still inspire us today. Their beliefs led them to leave behind their homes and homelands to search for a place where they could worship according to their beliefs, free from persecution or death. Their belief in a loving God who damned no one to hell was the motivation for such risk.

Let me tell you a story about two of our theological ancestors, John Murray and Thomas Potter.

John Murray, an Englishman and minister, was Universalist in his theology, meaning that there was no eternal damnation for any person, that all would go to heaven upon death. However, Murray’s early understanding about damnation still adhered to a Calvinist and Christocentric view of salvation, rather than the Arminian view of universal salvation. (Arminians are our theological ancestors also, but they are part another sermon). Many of Murray’s detractors, including other Universalists, saw Murray as “part of a chaotic and threatening group of rabble-rousers who simply preached an odd version of the emotional religion they opposed. On the other side, many evangelical and Calvinist groups saw the abandonment of doctrines of eternal punishment as invitations to moral degeneracy and possibly damnation.” ³

John Murray is often named as the ‘founder’ of American Universalism, and is named the link between English and American Universalism. According to David Robinson, the American Universalist church, distinctive in its institutional, although not its theological, origins, began when Universalist ideas, merged with a mood of local discontent over orthodox views of eternal damnation.”⁴

But Murray also believed in the doctrine of the elect, which says that only those who are appointed by God to be saved will be saved, that is until he encountered the teaching of James Relly, who in his paper Union, published in 1759, argued that the death of Christ atoned for all human sin, and, therefore, made “universal salvation not only possible, but a foregone fact”, according to Robinson.

While still in England, a series of tragedies beset poor John Murray, including the deaths of his wife and son. Then he was arrested for debt and served time in debtor’s prison. Upon his release, Murray decided to venture to America, but his cross ocean voyage was miserable. Tossed by a violent Atlantic storm, the ship he was on ran aground, and he was forced to land unplanned at Good-Luck Point, on the coast of New Jersey, at Cranberry Inlet.

There, right in that inlet, unbeknownst to Murray, was a farmer named Thomas Potter, who lived in that coastal town. Potter, a man of great hope and faith, held Universalist beliefs similar to Baptist sects in Rhode Island and New Jersey. But there was no minister to lead this small group of believers in a loving God. Potter, ever faithful, built a small church building and prayed to God to send him a preacher with a distinctive message.⁵

As fate would have it, Murray’s ship ran aground right in Potter’s inlet. Potter’s prayers were answered.

Potter and Murray struck upon an arrangement that had Murray promise to stay as long as there might be people to preach to. Of course, that is exactly what happened and Murray went on to preach extensively in the colonies, eventually heading to Gloucester Massachusetts where, after some years of struggle against the prevailing orthodox religious opinion and legal struggles to achieve the right to form a dissenting church, his message grew. He eventually moved to Boston, where he remarried and stayed until his death in 1815.⁶

All Souls in the Christian or Roman Catholic tradition is the day to remember, pray for, and offer requiem masses up for the faithful departed in the state of purification, in the hope that they may be delivered into heaven.

On the Wiccan Sabbat of Samhain, it is the day to honor those who came before us, and to begin the new year.

In the Unitarian Universalist tradition, it is a day to be reminded of our own theological ancestors, such as Thomas Potter, who prayed for someone who would preach a message other than the one of eternal damnation so prominent in early colonial America, the message of a God too loving to damn anyone to hell.

And it is the day to recall the story of John Murray who endured loss and suffering and was willing to travel to unknown shores to escape persecution for his religious beliefs, eventually answering the call of a farmer who had great faith.

The struggles Murray endured and the hope and faith demonstrated by Potter are models for us to emulate on this day called All Souls. It is an appropriate day to recall who it is we are to one another, in all the ways we strive to create the beloved community, in all the ways we strive to live our faith, in faith for what is possible to create in the world if we live as if we believe that all are worthy of Love.

As we remember others who have gone before us in this season when the veil between our worlds is thin, it behooves us to recall that it was our theological ancestors who professed the radical belief that all would be received into heaven upon death. And let us remember today that the belief in a loving God, so central to our early Universalist ancestors’ faith, is revealed in the name of many Unitarian Universalist congregations today who have chosen to retain ‘All Souls’ as part of their congregational identity.

For it is never too late to proclaim the message that all are loved.

And that brings me back to the deal I mentioned earlier. Guess what? You can participate in the holy work of our Caring Committee without coming to any meetings! Yes, it’s true! I am telling the truth! Let me say from this pulpit, that it is possible to be a member of a committee without having to attend any meetings! I have discussed this with the Caring Committee, and they concur, and on their behalf, today, I happily name you each an honorary member of the Caring Committee. Inside your order of service you find a small form upon which you can tell the committee how you can help support the work of caring for one another. If you can provide occasional support of the type mentioned on the insert, they want to know about it.

Now I ask you, where else can you make such a difference in this congregation without having to attend even one meeting! Such a deal! How can you pass this up?

As you leave the sanctuary today, after we have held hands and connected with one another at the end of our service, and after our lovely postlude, you can hand your filled out form to an actual member of the committee, who may call upon your help.

This is the work we are called to on the modern feast of All Souls, UU style. This is what it means to create and live out the 2008 version of salvation for all. This is what it means to have a community where we can wander about, safe and secure, among fellow congregants, distributing and receiving the sweet treasures of the gifts of our hearts ablaze, ones that will not require a visit to the dentist later on!

May it be so. Blessed Be. Amen.

©This sermon was written by Reverend Sally Hamlin for the congregation of the First Universalist Church of Rochester, New York and was delivered on October 19, 2008. No part of this sermon may be copied without permission of the author.