UNCOMMON GOSPELS, PART 1 OF 4: "The Gospel of Harry Potter"

First Unitarian Universalist Church of New Orleans

Proclaimed throughout the centuries as the watchword of liberal faith, the cry “Revelation is not sealed,” sets us apart from more orthodox religions. Unitarian Universalists believe that divine revelation, or the disclosure of enduring truths, is not something that happened long, long ago and far away, but is a continuous, on-going process in the present. While those in traditional faiths can insist that one book or set of books written in ages past hold all the knowledge that human beings might ever need for decision-making in an ethical life, we hold to the position that God, or the Ultimate, speaks to us in many ways, in many places, in every time.

This principle of our free faith is the inspiration for this 4-part sermon series, searching for gospels of truth and meaning in some pretty unusual places. We urge you to invite your UU-leaning friends to this provocative and, we hope, inspirational, series. Next week, August 10th, UU ministerial aspirant and former Board president Deanna Vandiver will lead us in an examination of the lessons from Winnie the Pooh. On August 17th, we will look at the unexpected messages to be found in the animated television satire, “The Simpsons.” And on August 24th, we will close out the series with the gospel of “Lord of the Rings.” We start the series with a wildly popular but controversial books on the world of the young wizard Harry Potter.
There have always been fads in American childhood, crazes that seem to sweep through an entire generation of youngsters, causing near-riots in certain stores, and a lot of headaches for parents and teachers and other adults. Looking back at my own childhood (and revealing my age!), I remember hula hoops, yo-yos, bongo boards, and roller skates (the kind that attached to your shoes with a skate key). In my son’s childhood, there were Transformers and Pac Man and Magic trading and game cards. And there have been Cabbage Patch dolls, Tickle-Me Elmo, and hysteria over the release of certain new video games. But I cannot remember there ever having been the level of excitement and passion for a mere book series – books that don’t even have pictures! – that we’ve experienced with Harry Potter.

Imagine – parents and children lining up at midnight, not to see a superstar, not to get tickets to a concert, but just to buy a new book! It’s amazing and wonderful that author J. K. Rowling has found a way to get kids excited about reading, and to unite parents and children (and even grandparents!) in sharing the adventures of Harry, Hermione, Ron, Hagrid, Dumbledore, and all the rest.

While some conservative Christians have not been happy to see their children interested in books that contain witchcraft and sorcery, many other parents and teachers have been delighted by the quality of Rowling’s writing, the utter believability of her characters (especially the children), and the intricate interconnected plots of the books. What’s more, Harry Potter fans are aware that much more than just mere entertainment is taking place in these books. Strong moral and ethical values are being subtly conveyed. Indeed, if you Google “Harry Potter sermon,” you will find close to 20,000 entries, from Jewish to Congregationalist to Baptist and Presbyterian and Methodist to Unitarian Universalist, and by no means are the majority of them negative.

Please note that I am taking care in this sermon not to give away any important plot twists or crucial endings. For those of you not yet addicted to the books, I hope this little taste of Harry Potter will get you reading, and I don’t want to spoil any of your fun.

One of the first things we find out is that while Harry is gifted in the magic department, he (and we) discover that even magic takes hard work. Young wizards with budding superpowers actually have to go off to strict boarding school and study diligently and take difficult exams and get graded on their progress in wizardry – and when they don’t work hard enough, they fail. Their brooms refuse to fly, their potions curdle, and all kinds of chaos ensues when they don’t do their homework. Who would’ve thought that a popular children’s series ostensibly about magic would be secretly promoting the good old Protestant work ethic?

Second, we learn that magic exists, not in a special kingdom far away, but very close at hand. The magic in Harry Potter is all around us, but we Muggles are too busy and preoccupied to see it, and fail to notice. And even when we do, we discount it or refuse to believe it. How true that is in our lives, when we let busyness veil our eyes from the beauty and magic all around us – if only we would open our eyes and see it.

Third, from the first book onwards, readers of Harry Potter make an important discovery that many adult shave failed to grasp. Discerning between good and evil, friend and foe, is not as easy as it might first seem. Over and over, Harry has to learn not to judge from his first, or even his second, impression. Some people who seem to have ill intent turn out to have Harry’s best interests at heart; some who appeared to be open and friendly are revealed in the end to be turncoats.

What is the right thing to do? Who is our ally, and who is against us? When will a good decision turn out to have bad consequences? These questions keep recurring in the Harry Potter series, and every book has something of a surprise ending, showing that Harry, and the reader, may have badly misjudged a situation. The ambiguity of right and wrong and good and evil in Harry Potter are a good reminder to the rest of us about snap judgments or being swayed by our own impressions and prejudices.

Other lessons from Harry Potter loom equally large. We are clearly meant to know that real love requires sacrifice and loyalty. Most notably, Harry’s parents give up their lives to save his. But in other, lesser, instances, we see teachers sacrificing for students, and friends giving up something to help a friend. Harry is always shown taking his friends’ side, even when others have turned against them. Love isn’t about feeling great and being comfortable with one another in the good times – in Harry Potter, love means surrender to the needs of another, giving that which is precious for the good of those you love, and sticking with them through thick and thin. This too is a message we all need to hear – far too many people have been seduced by an image of love in which nobody has to give up anything, and no one is ever uncomfortable.

An enduring value we see in the gospel of Harry Potter is tolerance. Harry learns it is important to accept people for who they are – no matter how weird. Hagrid is a mountain of a man, somewhat given to clumsiness; one professor is often seen creeping around like cat, that one is ashen-faced and scary; Hermione is something of a precocious know-it-all, and Ron is poor and unpolished. But they all have their place, they all have their gifts, and they are all valued parts of Harry’s world. In our world, which seems to value only the rich and the beautiful and the athletic, we need the reminder of Harry Potter’s world, where appearances are not only unimportant, they are many times only temporary.

In Harry Potter, we find that those we love who have died stay with us forever in the Mirror of Memory – but we also learn that it is dangerous to try to live looking backward, as we wish things still were. While Harry will always cherish the image of his parents he can see in the magic mirror, he painfully comes to know that staying in front of it means losing one’s grip on real life. It is hard lesson that all of us who grieve must relearn for ourselves with every new loss.

One of the most important things we can learn from the gospel of Harry Potter is one that challenges our country right now. Evil is tempting, and most tempting of all is the urge to return evil for evil. In the Order of the Phoenix, Harry is mightily tempted to kill an adversary, an ally of the evil Valdemort, but resists, realizing that a good person cannot resort to evil tactics and still be good, that acting in the same manner as an evil enemy makes us the same as they. Would that that lesson could be brought home to those in military and political power in our country today!

Finally, every book in the series fairly sings with a message of hope. No matter how bad things seem, all is not lost. There will be another day, another chance, another go-round. While there is evil in the world, while there will be those who betray you, and while bad things will happen, there is always the idea that things can and will get better, and that, surrounded by friends and family and mentors, one can go on and face the future unafraid.

Whatever objections the Religious Right may have to Harry Potter, we Unitarian Universalists find someone we can relate to, and values we have always treasured – the value of education and hard work, of honing your personal skills and talents, the knowledge of the fundamentally ambiguous nature of human life, the insight that familial love and true friendship call for both sacrifice and loyalty, the glowing memory of those we love who have died acting as a beacon and an inspiration, the healing power of community, the unquenchable hope that keeps us going when things get rough. That’s the gospel of Harry Potter, and it sure is good news. AMEN – ASHE – SHALOM – SALAAM – NAMASTE – BLESSED BE!