Honest Religion-part 2

Tom Spencer

August 23, 2009

Thank you for having me back. Today, I am going to present the second part of a sermon on the topic of Honest Religion. More specifically, what does it mean to live honestly as progressive, reasonable, and religious people in the 21st century?

For those of you who were not here – my last sermon started out with a long vamp on why religion makes so many of us nervous and then detoured into speculation about why it really still matters.

I won’t recount the reasons why it makes us nervous – I think it is safe to say that there is plenty of evidence that religion is indeed a very slippery slope… a quick glance through any newspaper usually provides reasonable proof of the abyss that religion can lead to – right?

But, I do want to briefly revisit why I think religion still matters and, more importantly, why I believe an honest religion may actually be our salvation. Now, I know that the word salvation probably makes you nervous too… but let’s all take a few deep breaths and consider the world around us, and what we might need to be saved from…

Let me begin with a brief confession… I am a worrier. I think we live in extraordinarily vulnerable times… I remember watching President Obama step from his limousine on his inauguration day and frankly, I could not catch my breath. At that moment in our history – with an economy in free fall – two wars under way – and a nation deeply divided – I felt as if the world was standing on one foot on top of a steep precipice… all that it would take was one slight shove and the whole edifice of our modern democratic lives could come tumbling down.

Turns out – I am not the only worrier out there… I’m not the only one who frets about what would happen if the “center cannot hold.”

Here are a few verses from a poem that I am sure most of you know… The Second Coming, by William Butler Yeats was written in the gloomy aftermath of the First World War:

Turning and turning in the widening gyre The falcon cannot hear the falconer; Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold; Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world, The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere the ceremony of innocence is drowned; The best lack all conviction, while the worst are full of passionate intensity.

Yeats goes on to describe an ominous apocalyptic spirit waking and walking in the world and concludes:

The darkness drops again; but now I know that twenty centuries of stony sleep were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle, And what rough beast, its hour come round at last, Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?

The best lack all conviction, while the worst are full of passionate intensity.

Kind of sounds like a health care town meeting, doesn’t it?

All joking aside…

We live in very fragile times – that bond between falcon and falconer has seemed over-taut for a century… things snap, the center cannot hold… wars, economic calamities, climate change, fundamentalism, terrorism, and assassination all threaten our little island of progress and liberalism and relative civility.

Salvation? Yes, I think we need salvation…

Let’s dig a little deeper into Yeat’s poem. In his book, Reverence, Austin professor Paul Woodruff, uses this poem to illustrate the consequences of a lack of reverence in the world – “mere anarchy,” a cacophony of irreverent voices has disrupted the link between falcon and falconer and the center cannot hold.

We’re not talking about talk show and political cartoon irreverence – which, in Woodruff’s view, can often express a very real of reverence for life, reason and truth. No, we are talking about a nihilistic lack of concern for anything – much less life, reason and truth.

The result of this kind of irreverence in our world is indeed a rising tide where “the ceremony of innocence is drowned.” Not innocence itself, though that is sure to follow – but the ceremony of innocence – the reverent ritual of innocence. To my ears, that is beginning to sound like the practice of honest religion.

I do not believe that Yeats is talking about the collapse of religious authority in the way that most people think of it… the kind of authority that issues from literal interpretations of sacred books and religious institutions… No, he is talking about something much deeper and more profound.

The ceremony of innocence is the practice of basic goodness which is informed by and infused with reverence. This reverence may be inspired by ancient texts and religious institutions but it goes well beyond strictures and creeds.

If you were here for my last sermon you will recall that I mentioned that there are two competing theories about the origin of the word religion – one being te Latin “religio” or reverence – the other is “religare” which means to bind together.

Both are essential to the honest religion that I hope for – and that is so beautifully expressed in Yeat’s poem – a reverence that binds and holds us together.

Let’s listen to Yeats again – “the best lack all conviction.”

Where is our conviction? What should we hold in reverence?

In our search is for honest religion – don’t we mean a religion of conviction that we feel in our bones, that makes sense to our heads, and speaks to our hearts?

I certainly think so.

But, even more importantly, and the focus of my sermon today – is that an honest religion needs to move beyond the house of our individual bones, heads and hearts. It needs to live in the world that we share if it is to be our salvation from Yeat’s “blood dimmed tide.”

When I was here last I said that an honest religion must make demands of us – And I believe we must answer those demands with conviction. The ceremonies of innocence those circles of goodness around us, must be widened and become an example to the world.

In my view, there is no certainty in this honest faith except that belief that goodness enacted is God enacted – it means salvation in the here and now – not in some world to come. Though we must act as if that world depends on our every act and breathe, for surely the world of our children and our grandchildren depends on what we do today.

So, here we go – this is the heart of the matter – what does Honest Religion look like when it is enacted? If the ceremonies of innocence are a command performance – how do we perform them?

Here are my ideas- inspired largely by experiences I have had and the deep hunger within me to see the center hold…

First reverence is its essential glue – no ceremony, no belief, no creed, or any other of the human products of honest religion should be our first concern – but cultivating an attitude of reverence should be – only reverence will hold our raging egos and dogmas in check.

Professor Woodruff says it better than I can, “No one owns reverence. It is not cruel or repressive in itself. It does not put down mockery or protect pompous fools. And most important, it cherishes freedom of inquiry. Reverence sets a higher value on truth than on any human product that is supposed to have captured the truth.”

And so reverence also provides that sense of humility that is essential to an honest religion – as I said last time – no certainty that we concoct will ever provide all of the answers – no matter the beauty of our equations or the power of our telescopes, mystery will always – always be with us and so we must be humble – we should never stop inquiring but we should also admit to the limits of our inquiries.

So reverence keeps us humble. But it is also the key to all of the other virtues towards which any honest religion should try to steer us.

Listen to these words from the Analects of Confucious… “Without reverence, courtesy is tiresome; without reverence, prudence is timid; without reverence, bravery is quarrelsome; without reverence, frankness is hurtful.”

Courtesy, prudence, bravery, frankness… to that list let us add compassion, forgiveness, gratitude, humility and dozens more. These virtues are the measure of an honest religion and of human goodness. But only true reverence can counterbalance these human potentials and save us from turning into annoying virtue potentates.

So, honest religion is reverent and humble – it loves inquiry and yet values the limits of what can be known – it sounds like a religion that really values questions and questioning – and yet it demands we move beyond questioning to action – that we embody goodness that we practice the virtues that make goodness and, I would add, God possible.

Because it must be brought off of our book shelves and into the world – an honest religion must also be a communal activity – it is in community that our goodness must be honed, taught, shared, and lived. There is a very real experience of salvation in connection and the bonds of community. That sense of Religare…

Yes, we grow from listening to and learning from one another as well as holding each other accountable, helping each other towards being better people. But perhaps more importantly, and more practically, we need community for survival.

Here is my worrying side again – these are threatening times – terrible things can happen – we need to be bound together in a practical way to support one another through tough times. Think of how quickly things would become uncivilized if, for example, the power went out… after 48 hours without air conditioning I don’t think Texas would be a very civil place.

I often think about the early days of the great religious traditions – the beginnings of both Christianity and Islam. The persecuted Christians of the Roman Empire won many of their converts because of the extraordinary way that they took care of one another in the face of terrible persecution. People learned to admire their charity and their compassion long before they bought into their theology. In the early days of Islam – during Mohammed’s exile in Medina, it was the power of the Islamic community which first attracted the admiration of others, not necessarily the utterances of the prophet.

Today, sadly, there are many Christians, Muslims and others who seem to actively advancing a truly irreverent “end times” theology.

Sad to say it, but I think an honest religion should take them at their word. We should be countering them with our convictions – we need a beginning times mentality that looks at every action as an opportunity to widen the circle of virtue and reverence – Yeat’s ceremonies of innocence.

I think that if we took it seriously – an honest religion born today amid a small group of exiles – could inspire thousands if not millions more to work feverishly for a world that is busy being born – not busy dying.

This can happen by bringing reverence and ritual to the small everyday occurrences of our lives – ritual doesn’t imply spectacle – the earliest ceremony of the new born Christian church was the simple practice of sharing a meal.

You’ve heard me say that an honest religion should make demands of us – well, what if it demanded that we share our meals – not retreat to our separate entertainments. What if is asked that we say grace – or simply give thanks before our meals. Could we bring ourselves to do just that?

I made a new friend recently – a really extraordinary young man. Our conversation was intense and went deep faster than most conversations do – as dinner time approached we went out to a stylish local restaurant, and just as I was about to dig into my genuine interior Mexican tacos, he stopped me and asked if we shouldn’t give thanks.

Shouldn’t we give thanks? In that moment he was doing everything I would hope for from another practitioner of honest religion. He was bringing reverence to our table, he was reminding me that we can be better people through the humblest of acts. Wow… it was so refreshing. A breathe of honest religion between sips of Mexican martini! Talk about your ceremonies of innocence!

Finally, I want to pick up a theme I mentioned in my last sermon. In the year 2009, an honest religion must make sense – common sense. I admit that this boundless universe and the universes beyond are beyond my comprehension – that it is filled with mystery – and unanswered questions. Bu my inability to answer all of the questions shouldn’t empower me to leap to super natural and superstitious conclusions.

When our little corner of our universe is imperiled by our own actions – we do not need to beseech or invoke the supernatural – we need to roll up our sleeves and start doing good.

The only miracle we need to believe in is the one that proclaims that we make God happens when we are kind, when we are patient, when we tell the truth – because anything that lifts up life and virtue and quiets the din of anarchy and nihilism allows the falconers voice to be heard and the ceremonies of innocence to continue.

This is not the God of our fathers. We offer this up as an alternative for a God hungry world whose salvation can only be delivered though one simple act of human goodness at a time.

So, when we stop to give thanks – think of all of those who have preceded us stretching back over the millennia. Be thankful for those who brought reverence and goodness to their work, to their tables, their communities, families, and friends.

Be grateful to those who somehow managed to steer us to this moment in time when we have gathered here to ask questions, to search for honesty, to widen the circles of love and beauty.

When William Butler Yeats wrote the Second Coming, he too sensed a kind of end times. But here we are, ninety years later, having survived so much horror since that time, and we are still heeding the falconers call, still longing for the ceremonies of innocence.

Let us move forward confident in a new beginning – a beginning times illuminated by reverence, humility, community, ritual, and common sense.

May our grandchildren read our words and remember our actions and be thankful that through our conviction we did not surrender to the blood dimmed tide.