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Sacramental Truths A Worship Service by The Reverends Mark W. Christian & Jonalu Johnstone Presented to the First Unitarian Church of Oklahoma City Sunday February 13, 2005
Reading “Freedom” From the writings of John Milton (SLT 671) Our faith and knowledge thrive by exercise, as well as our limbs and complexion. If the waters of truth flow not in a perpetual progression, they sicken into a muddy pool of conformity and tradition. The light which we have gained was given us not to be ever staring on, but by it to discover onward things more remote from our knowledge. Where there is much desire to learn, there of necessity will be much arguing, much writing, many opinions. Give me liberty to know, to utter, and to argue freely according to conscience, above all liberties. And though all the winds of doctrine were let loose to play upon the earth, so truth be in the field, we do injuriously to misdoubt her strength. For who knows not that truth is strong, next to the Almighty; she needs no policies, no stratagems, to make her victorious. Let her and falsehood grapple; whoever knew truth put to the worse in a free and open encounter.
Prayer and Meditation The Great Fool Ryokan In all ten directions of the universe, there is only one truth. When we see clearly, the great teachings are the same. What can ever be lost? What can be attained? If we attain something, it was there from the beginning of time. If we lose something, it is hiding somewhere near us. Look: this ball in my pocket: can you see how priceless it is? The Zen master confuses and compels us with his words. That is his method. Mine is to offer a simple blessing: May our eyes be clear enough to recognize truth when it presents itself, even though the source surprise us. May our ears be true enough to know falsehood when we hear it, even when disguised by beautifully crafted words and turns of phrase. May our hearts be compassionate enough and our spirits brave enough to speak the truth in love, if we are to speak at all. May we find and embrace the truth that dwells in metaphor, mystery, and silence. So may it be. Amen
Sacramental Truths Second in a Series of Seven Sermons on Our Affirmation by The Reverend Mark W. Christian Delivered to the First Unitarian Church of Oklahoma City Sunday February 13, 2005 The first thing I do when I sit down to write a sermon is to type my sermon title at the top of the page. When I enacted this ritual this week I looked at my title—“Sacramental Truths”—and laughed. Suddenly instead of thinking theology, I thought baseball. “Now playing Second Base for the Sacramento Truths…” Today’s sermon, though, is not about a mythical minor league ball club. It is about Sacramental Truths. Specifically this is the second in a series of sermons about the affirmation we share each week. This week we focus on the phrase “The Quest for Truth is its Sacrament.” A couple of questions surface right off the bat. Is there a relationship between sacrament and truth? Is a Quest for Truth really the sacrament of this church? Off hand I tend to say yes on both counts if for no other reason than Quest and Truth are words I tend to capitalize to the dismay of my spell checker. Before I settle the matter, though, perhaps it is wise to consider what this all means. What is a sacrament? Basically, a sacrament is a sacred rite. In Latin, sacrament means, “to take an oath.” One of the essential aspects to the word “sacrament” implies action. A sacrament implies some kind of action. Theologically, a Sacrament is “an outward sign of inward grace.” A sacrament is an outward sign of an inner reality. Catholic theology maintains that there are seven sacraments—Baptism, Confirmation, Communion, Confession, Holy Orders, Marriage and Holy Unction. Protestantism trimmed that list to just Baptism and Communion—and in our church we have condensed them into the notion of “The Quest for Truth” if L. Griswold Williams is to be followed. Actually Unitarian Ethicist James Luther Adams maintains that in the Free Church that the Offertory is our only real sacrament. The offering, Adams maintained, is an outward action reflecting the inward reality that our members are the ultimate source of our institutional leadership and financial well being. I could spend all our time together defining these various kinds of sacraments—particularly the seven as advanced in Catholic doctrine and dogma. For our purposes, let’s pretend that Baptism, Confirmation, Communion, Confession and Marriage are understandable on a prima facia basis. Holy Unction is “Last Rites”—not a funeral or memorial service but the rites performed on the dying by a priest. “Holy Orders” is perhaps the least understandable item on that menu on First Face. In a strict sense it means ordination of priests. I will endeavor to end the technical portion of today’s sermon here. Despite James Luther Adams’ (and Griswold Williams’) assertion, Sacrament is largely a foreign concept in this tradition. We have all heard the word for some of us that’s about it. A few of us may have been able to reel off the list of sacraments without having to look them up. The majority of us though are probably on unsure footing when it comes to Sacraments. Even for those of us who remember something about the sacraments from our previous religious life, there is something in this that is very foreign to what we know about the world. A Sacrament is the Outward sign of an Inward Reality. Some theologians and philosophers maintain that the modern world, with its focus on empiricism, renders us incapable of living in a sacramentally. What they mean by that is that we aren’t able to separate the world we know from the world we don’t know in the same way that people did in previous generations. In this tradition we likely follow Emerson’s observation that “…there is no screen or ceiling between our heads and infinite heavens, so there is no bar or wall in the soul where we, the effect, cease, and God, the cause, begins” than we are to understand a world of outer actions and inner truths. Much of what the transcendentalists did was to eliminate an indelible division between the inner and outer worlds. What is important here is that this is exactly the opposite idea of a sacrament and yet we affirm a common sacrament each week. A sacramental world relies on a separation of the inner and outer world. Our difficulty in seeing the world sacramentally is also derived from science and some of the Eastern Religions. The thing I am reaching for is that modern people don’t understand our inner workings as inherently separate from the world of observable things. I believe we are incapable of living in that kind of bifurcated world. That makes our understanding of Sacrament very different from the beliefs of those who have gone before us. The Quest for Truth is our sacrament—I think we need to struggle with a few things if we are to make any real sense of that affirmation. I think the key to solving this puzzle will involve understanding what it is that exists in our hearts and minds and souls that causes us to affix religious value to the quest for truth. When we understand that, perhaps we will rightly embody Sacramental Truths. Our lack of a sacramental worldview doesn’t mean that we have no comprehension of an inner world, an inner life, a soul. We do. We all have things that make us tick and things that tick us off—it’s just that we tend toward a seamless worldview. I suppose that part of what I struggle with here is the assumption that the inward Grace part of Sacrament precedes the action and is dominant over observable fact. As moderns, what we believe, what we find compelling, profoundly shapes how we behave and concomitantly how we behave shapes our inward reality. This reciprocity, I believe, makes significant ethical demands on us that were unknown to our ancestors. I think for a modern person the notion of a sacrament that we can affirm existentially includes the notion that what we believe shapes our actions and our actions shape our beliefs. I am not sure if that is true across the modern world—but I do believe that this reciprocity of inner and outer worlds part of the core of this religious tradition. How many of you left other traditions because they expected you to outwardly affirm something you couldn’t inwardly embrace? How many of you started attending this church because you felt a need to make your outward actions more closely align with your inward callings? Our transmutation of Sacrament is, I believe, to be found somewhere in that fusion and profusion of inner and outer worlds. We seek a world where our outward actions align with our inward graces and where our inward graces are fed by our outward actions. Liberation theology calls this cycle of action and reflection and action Praxis. I suspect that Praxis is deeply ingrained into any notion of Sacramental Truth we can affirm and hold for very long. I would be remiss today if I were to consider Sacramental Truths without acknowledging the Gospel command that “You shall know the truth and the truth shall make you free” (John 8:32). The problem here is that there are truths that I don’t want to know and there are truths that feel more like a curse than freedom. I don’t want to known about the pain and dehumanization that war foists on soldier and civilian alike—but I do. I don’t want to know that my actions often have irreversible consequences—for others and for me—but they do. I don’t want to know the things I have done that hurt instead of heal, that put down rather than lift up, that degrade rather than refine human nature—yet somehow my wholeness and salvation seem inextricable entwined with a Quest for Truth—even these truths. A quest for truth as a sacrament demands that injunction that we shall know the truth and the truth shall set us free. How can this be? How can knowing these things I’d rather not know set me free? How can knowing the Truth—the whole truth and nothing but the truth—be a sacrament of an indwelling Grace? I guess that the answer is that Indwelling Grace demands nothing less than Truth and ultimately nothing short of Truth can set us free. Nothing short of Truth can be ultimately turned to Freedom’s use and nothing short of Truth can ever be a honest response to the beating of God in our hearts and in our world. Perhaps this is why the “Quest for Truth” is our Sacrament. If the Quest for Truth is our sacrament—then that Quest is the outward and observable part of something inward. I guess today’s question is really what resides within? What prompts the Quest? What are the pieces of Life, Living, God and Ethic that we cannot help but bring together that become manifest in our Quest for Truth? We Quest for Truth because we believe the world is knowable and that among our highest callings is the instinct to touch and taste, see, feel and hear the world in which we live. We Quest for Truth because anything short of truth deludes us from the most direct understanding and participation in the world of which we are capable. We Quest for Truth because we believe that at their core, life and living are good—that life’s goodness can be shaded like a foggy mountain or a valley mist—but truth represents the only light that can penetrate the gray mire. We Quest for Truth because we seek the direct experience of things. Something in us will not abide a second hand accounting of life’s deepest mysteries and most profound moments. We Quest for Truth because we fear the evil which humans perpetuate, that we may perpetuate, in the world under the guise of ignorance and arrogance. We Quest for Truth because it is one of the ways we can most closely sharpen the image of the divine that resides in, among and around us. We Quest for Truth because we know that truth is neither static nor scarce. No matter how much truth we have known we believe that more truth is being born in the world. No matter how clear our perceptions we know we must re-experience Truth to be truly free. Our Quest for Truth is the outward and observable part of these indwelling Graces. Our Quest for Truth is the response to these things that we have not, and cannot, earn but which all of creation deserves and demands. Our Quest for Truth is ultimately born of the indwelling spirit of Life and God. May the actions of our hearts and hands and minds always hold true to these principles. May we acknowledge the Quest for Truth as our Sacrament. May we be inspired by Sacramental Truths as made known to us today and always. AMEN
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