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Everyday Prophets A Worship Service by the Reverend Mark W. Christian First Unitarian Church of Oklahoma City Sunday January 26, 2003
Reading Prophets Clinton Lee Scott (SLT 565) Always it is easier to pay homage to prophets than to heed the direction of their vision. It is easier blindly to venerate the saints than to learn the human quality of their sainthood. It is easier to glorify the heroes of the race than to give weight to their examples. To worship the wise is much easier than to profit by their wisdom. Great leaders are honored, not by adulation, but by sharing their insights and values. Grandchildren of those who stoned the prophet sometimes gather up the stones to build the prophet's monument. Always it is easier to pay homage to prophets than to heed the direction of their vision.
Everyday Prophets A Sermon on the Second Source of Our Living Tradition by the Reverend Mark W. Christian Delivered to the First Unitarian Church of Oklahoma City Sunday January 26, 2003 “Always it is easier to pay homage to prophets than to heed the direction of their vision.” Those words from this morning’s reading constitute a reasonable jumping off spot for a sermon about the Prophetic Source of our Living Tradition. My intention in this series of sermons is to point us toward things that are foundational to our Unitarian Universalist faith. My hope is that, in seeking our sources, each of us can begin to identify what makes our faith both important and distinctive. I want to discern what makes us, us. The second stated source of our living tradition calls us to consider Prophets. Specifically, it affirms that our living tradition is drawn from “Words and deeds of prophetic women and men which challenge us to confront powers and structures of evil with justice, compassion, and the transforming power of love.” This is the second of a series—and eventually we will consider all six of our stated sources and perhaps in the gestalt of all that we will see ourselves arise as a living and vital institution. Perhaps. Today it’s prophets, or more specifically, “Words and deeds of prophetic women and men…” I’ll be honest—I am simultaneously attracted and repelled to the notion of the prophet. If asked to visualize a prophet, my mind’s-eye goes to part of the introductory footage of the old Monty Python’s Flying Circus series. That introduction shows a shaggy, wild-eyed creature dressed in animal skins, hopping around with flailing arms and loud incoherent speech. I expect to find out that he lives on locusts and honey. Perchance it reminds me a little too much of someone I know—specifically someone I see in the mirror in the morning! “Thus sayeth the Lord!” Perhaps the most important student of religion from the 20th century in our tradition was James Luther Adams. Adams writes of the tradition of oral examinations that he and his peers at Harvard Divinity School faced. 12 or 13 professors would grill the soon-to-be graduate and one of the demands was always to define a prophet. Adams maintained that “According to oral tradition you could get away with it if you said, ‘A prophet is one who proclaims doom’.” Doom. DOOM. Doom, I tell you. I am reminded that my favorite definition of the modern prophet as “One who speaks the truth and then runs like hell.” Adams, though, goes on to clarify what he means by a prophet in a way that adds clarity to our consideration of Prophetic Words and Deeds as a definitive element in the Free Church. An authentic prophet is one who prophesies in fashion that does not comfort the people, but actually calls them to make some new sacrifices. That’s an authentic prophet, whether one speaks in the name of God or whatever. A great deal of authentic prophetism in the modern world is to be found in nonreligious terms and in nonchurch configurations, often even hostile to the church. The churches themselves have broadly failed in the prophetic function. Therefore a good deal of co-called atheism is itself, from my point of view, theologically significant. It is the working of God in history and judgement upon the pious. An authentic prophet can and should be a radical critic of spurious piety… (JLA—Prophetic Judgement and Grace in The Prophethood of All Believers, pg. 57.) In this I think we can begin to discern our prophetic roots a bit more clearly. Certainly, a great many of us come through these doors, as opposed to all the other churches that are much closer to home, because of our aversion to and our protest of what Adams called “sham spirituality.” The history of this pulpit has been to sift the cultural and religious sands in search of substance. I take this legacy quite seriously. For nearly 75 years your called ministers have, each in our own way, stood in this very place and in our own particular voices proclaimed “Doom.” Johnson and Allen and Jones and Clary and Holmes and Von Stilli and Fisher (and others I can’t recall right now) from this place, to their various times proclaimed a faith that pushes us beyond shallow spirituality and public piety. Now it is my time, and frankly it scares me sometimes. It scares me in part because of another of the informal definitions of a prophet is, “One whose proclamation of Doom goes unheeded.” Clinton Lee Scott reminds us that “Always it is easier to pay homage to prophets than to heed the direction of their vision.” We probably wouldn’t even notice a prophet whose words and actions were taken immediately to heart. “People, I tell you tragedy and suffering confront us. Repent!” “OK.” I think not! Someone can proclaim “Doom” in a thousand settings—bad things will happen if you drive drunk or too fast. Relying on balance transfers of plastic money will ruin you. There is a direct correlation between eating the whole pie and a heart attack. These things are all true but proclaiming them is not necessarily prophetic. So what, if not speaking the plain-and-unveiled-truth, is at the core of real prophetism? How does is its history and heritage manifest in us today? Consider where one of the phrases of our second source intersects my quip about “Speaking the truth and running like hell.” Authentic prophets speak the truth to power—and frequently pay a price for it. Remember that our second source puts it this way, “Words and deeds of prophetic women and men which challenge us to confront powers and structures of evil…” It is not enough to speak the truth and disappear into the woodwork—that’s just a variation of the childhood prank of ring and run. That kind of Guerilla Prophetism may be easier on the prophet but it lacks the authenticity to base real cultural change or a real religion upon. It may not be prophetic to take someone’s keys when they have too much to drink at a party—but it is prophetic to push a congressman to stand at odds with the distilled spirits industry or the auto-makers in order to increase law enforcement efforts against drunk driving or to stand for automobile safety over cost efficiency. Saying that there is a looming economic crisis because of credit card debt is not the same as acknowledging and engaging against an economy that seems to benefit only when we buy more and more things when in reality we need less and less. Even then it is not enough to stand on the sidelines and take sniper-shots at capitalism and consumption. The real prophet finds ways to challenge and confront those structures and powers of evil. This week, we paused to remember Martin Luther King. But we didn’t pause because King had a dream that showed him the truth and the way. Lots of people have dreams. We honor Dr. King because he was willing to lead. He chose to become visible and vulnerable in the struggle against the pernicious evil of racism—a power and structure that is sadly still alive today. Jonalu shared the story of Olympia Brown with the kids a little earlier. Olympia Brown is not an important figure to us religiously because she wanted her “say” in church. I suspect a great many of you might want to offer a rebuttal or counter-point to the sermons I preach. What made Olympia Brown prophetic was her willingness to speak truth to power and accept personal risk by following thoughts with actions—by supporting words with deeds. The result of her prophetic presence is the reality that today over 50% of UU ministers are women. One of the books that all UU ministers are supposed to read is a collection of three lengthy sermons from the 19th century called “Three Prophets of Religious Liberalism.” This book is required reading about William Ellery Channing, Ralph Waldo Emerson and Theodore Parker. The editor chose to call these three “Prophets” largely out of respect, I suppose, since in all three cases the most prophetic aspect of that personage is not dead center of their seminal sermon. Let’s take a moment, though, to consider—Theodore Parker. Parker’s sermon “The Transient and Permanent in Christianity” is one of the most radical and transforming statements of reasoned religion that I have read. I recommend it highly. As much as I love his theology, I think Parker’s prophetic nature is visible not so much in his theology as in his life story. Parker’s theology, while center-stream for us now, was exceedingly radical even to his Unitarian colleagues in 1841. What got him excluded from the tradition of pulpit exchanges among the Unitarian ministers of Boston, though, were his stands and his actions against slavery. Frankly, ours was not the most powerful force against slavery in the years before the Civil war—I should probably qualify that and say that the Unitarian’s weren’t the most courageous, since our Universalist ancestors more solidly opposed slavery. It is in that distinction that I think we can find Parker’s real radicalism and his true prophetic spirit. An excerpt from William Lloyd Garrison’s abolitionist paper—The Liberator—may illumine this gulf between word and deed. Garrison observed that on the occasion of an escaped slave making it to safety the bells of the Methodist and Universalist churches rang out the clarion call of freedom. The Unitarian’s bells, he observed, being clogged with cotton stood in silence. I suspect that, for the most part, our antebellum Unitarian ancestors disapproved of slavery—they probably spoke of it as an evil trade and an abomination to all that is holy. The problem was that they were economically dependent upon the fruits of slavery—namely cotton. You could see the textile mill owners and shipping company owners sitting in Unitarian pews. This stunted their actions to end slavery. There were, of course, exceptions and Theodore Parker was one. Parker publicly supported, and funded, John Brown—a man who was not beyond the use of violence against the institution of slavery. Parker actively housed and defended slaves when passing through Boston on the Underground Railroad. He is rumored to have written his insightful transcendentalist expositions with a loaded pistol at his side to protect the fugitive slaves he housed. It was for this, and not for the Transient and Permanent, that Parker earns the title “”Prophet” in my book. It is that willingness to risk that really defines the prophet. Since I shared one of our less prophetic moments, perhaps I should shed some light on some of our more prophetic strands. I think that when it comes to the issue of rights in the Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual and Transgendered community we speak and act with as clearer a sense of prophetic authority than just about any religious tradition. I don’t claim that we’re perfect, but I do maintain that our willingness to perform Services of Holy Unions, to Ordain and to elect people from the GLBT community to leadership positions in our congregations are signs of our prophetic authenticity. Let me contrast our approach with an experience I had in when I ministered in Las Cruces. In that community there is a liberal Lutheran congregation who had an arrangement with a small Gay/Lesbian church similar to the arrangement we have here with the Cathedral of Hope. For those of you who may not know, we rent out this sanctuary Sunday afternoons to a gay/Lesbian church for their worship service. The difference is that in Las Cruces, the Lutheran Church, while affirming the GLBT community by renting to the church—would not allow that group to perform Holy Union services in their sanctuary. When members of that community wished to exchange vows in a public setting, they came to the Unitarian Church. Here at First Church, I can say with very little hesitation that we hosted more Services of Union for the Cathedral last year than we hosted weddings for our members. There are other local incarnations of our prophetic roots. Last year Dave Pasto asked our church for permission to allow his OCU drama students to stage The Vagina Monologues here since the powers-that-be at the United Methodist run OCU had cold feet when it came to a topic that so directly engaged feminine sexuality. It was a proud night when our Board voted to uphold a commitment to the Arts and to Free Speech. Even prouder were the evenings that this sanctuary was filled with people taking in a play that had never before been performed publicly in Oklahoma. A few years ago we took similar prophetic action when city leaders determined that the movie “The Last Temptation of Christ” was unfit for our community standards. We screened the movie—affirming our rootedness in “Words and deeds of prophetic women and men which challenge us to confront powers and structures of evil with justice, compassion, and the transforming power of love.” Back in the 1930’s the Reverend Alfred Von Stilli—engaged in prophetic action around testing for Syphilis. That brings me to another example of our prophetic core. It’s hanging on the wall of Daniel Hall right now. We should be proud that the local chapter of Planned Parenthood secured their travelling exhibit of political cartoons, “So What If They Can’t Take Joke,” for the 30th anniversary of Roe v. Wade. I am prouder-still that they came to us to house the display. In this time when rights to reproductive freedom seem so very vulnerable, it is a testament to our prophetic heritage that Planned Parenthood knew that we would welcome the exhibit. There are other venues they could have sought out—perhaps they did, I don’t know—but we are the institution that said “Yes.” I hadn’t considered it particularly risky until I arrived Wednesday and saw the Police Car in the parking lot and talked to the officer about a couple of suspicious vehicles he had seem circling the church. “Probably just looking for a parking space,” I tried to assure him and myself. Our prophetic source places us now, and has consistently placed us, directly in the stream of history and controversy. This is one of the places from which we draw our lifeblood. The prophet lives on the cusp between the almost and the not yet—sometimes more on the almost side and sometime more on the not yet. You and I, each in our own ways, are called to extend and to inherit our prophetic heritage. James Luther Adams observed that Protestantism articulates “the Priesthood of all believers”—that’s the idea that clergy are no holier or closer to God than those who sit in the pews. For the Protestant the rite of ordination is a sign of vocation not of holiness. Adams, though, goes on to assert that an even more radical notion is at our core—“The Prophethood of All Believers.” The prophetic liberal church is not a church in which the prophetic function is assigned merely to the few. The prophetic liberal church is the church in which persons think and work together to interpret the signs of the times in the light of their faith…The prophetic liberal church is the church in which all members share the common responsibility to attempt to forsee the consequences of human behavior, with the intention of making history in place of merely being pushed around by it. Only through the prophetism of all believers can we together forsee doom and mend our common ways. (The Prophethood of All Believers in The Prophethood of All Believers, pg. 102-3) He goes on to say, and this I affirm, that the Hope we seek as a church is only real if it is grounded in the reality of living amid history-in-the-making and in the notion that our awareness must turn us toward new horizons. On this day we gather as seekers and pilgrims on an odyssey of life. May we grow in awareness and commitment to the larger truths and powers that point us toward justice. Let us deepen our resolve to stand against the powers and structures of evil that lure us to lesser goods. Let us be assured that others have stood before us, that others stand next to us now and that others will later stand in our stead—each in our own way seeking to harness compassion and the transforming power of love. We are each prophets—or at least Prophethood is in us. Let us know and grow in that cloud of witness. May we grow ever aware of the words and deeds of prophetic women and men that challenge us to confront that which diminishes true personhood and depletes the restorative power of community. On this day let the lives of our own prophets—what they said and what they did—be with us and in us and through us in the world. In so doing we will have become Everyday Prophets. AMEN
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