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Davidson Loehr
Jonobie Ford, Worship Associate
12 June 2005
First UU Church of Austin
4700 Grover Ave., Austin, TX 78756
www.austinuu.org
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AFFIRMATION OF FAITH:
Jonobie Ford
People have used the phrase “priesthood of all believers” to represent several different ideas. Martin Luther originally used it to express the idea that the common people were as close to God as the priests were. How is it used today? I went to the true source of knowledge, Google, and found many internet explanations, almost all firmly in one of two camps: Unitarian Universalist sites say there is no chosen class of people to tell us what to believe, but that we can believe whatever we we want. Christian sites disagree on the details, but they do agree on one thing: People can’t just “believe whatever they want”!
I originally heard the phrase “priesthood of all believers” in my exploration of modern Pagan religion, where many use it to mean that anyone can perform the rituals necessary to communicate with their Gods. Even before I ever heard the phrase, the word “priesthood” was a positive one for me. I’ve always thought of priests as a very special sort of people, ones who are confident and wise in their faith, live their faith fully, and spend much of their lives in service to others. The idea of all believers being called to be priests appealed to me, because it meant I was expected to be all of those things — confident and wise in my faith, living it fully, and spending time in service to others. The importance of having a priesthood of all believers isn’t about what we can or can’t believe, but about living our lives with these priestly attributes.
In thinking about incorporating those attributes into my life, I realized that although I am growing more confident in my faith, and I hope at least some of the time I am wise, I am definitely lagging behind in service to others. It’s not that I haven’t given my money to charities that serve others, but that I’ve never given my time. And I think without giving time there are many people’s stories I want to hear and need to hear that I haven’t heard yet.
In my life, I’ve been successful partly because I have such a strong network of friends. When one of us is having problems, we give each other advice and support. Now we’re trying to give that same suppport to others who need it. Several of us recently committed to a year-long volunteer effort through an organization called Family Pathfinders. We are paired with a single mother on public assistance. She is in her early 20s, has two kids, and is without a car. Without a car, even the smallest things like getting the kids to school or daycare can be surprisingly difficult. Our job is to help her and her family become self-sufficient by using our communal knowledge and networks; to give them the advice and support we give each other. This past Thursday, we met them for the first time, and I think all of us are excited and nervous about the coming year.
Even though the phrase is quite old, I wanted to tell you a recent story about my part in the priesthood of all believers. So far I have only a beginning, but I’m looking forward to the year ahead. I’m looking forward to learning new stories, and I’m looking forward to continuing my path among the priesthood.
PRAYER:
We daily pray, and daily fear that for which we daily pray.
We daily pray that we will finally be called by our true name, recognized for our best qualities rather than the other ones. For the world seldom acknowledges us as much more than a little piece in a puzzle we are to serve but not question.
That’s what keeps the majority serving the minority – people who are convinced they are powerless, serving those who have convinced them they alone are right.
It may be demeaning and disempowering, but it is also so common it seems to be the way of the world.
And so we daily pray that something in the wind will call us by our true name – as children of God, the sons and daughters of Life’s longing for itself. And we daily fear that it might happen, and that we will then feel compelled to act as though our highest name were also our highest calling, calling us to action.
Let us welcome the prayer, but not the fear.
Amen.
SERMON: The Priesthood of All Believers
I attended a Sierra Club benefit Wednesday night down in the warehouse district, at Antone’s. Arlo Guthrie was there, looking a whole lot older than I remembered him from 35 years ago, and his daughter was performing with her band. She told a story about Arlo that has stuck with me, as I was focusing on this sermon topic.
Arlo’s one big hit was the recording of “Alice’s Restaurant.” Later, he bought a church in the town where Alice’s Restaurant was. He was sweeping the floor, when a minister from town came in. He asked what Arlo was doing there, and Arlo said “Sweeping the floor.” The minister was upset by the idea that he had bought the church, and said “What kind of a church is this?” Arlo hadn’t been prepared for that question, so he answered “It’s a bring-your-own-God church!”
That sounds kind of irreverent, but the truth is, every person brings their own gods with them, to church and wherever else we go. And that includes the priests. If a million people say they believe in God, you can bet that the more you talk to them, the more you’ll realize that they believe in about a million different gods. Many, of course, aren’t worth serving at all. Yet we serve as Shakespeare said we love: not wisely, but too well.
The idea behind Martin Luther’s notion of the priesthood of all believers was that the responsibility to find gods worth serving is the personal responsibility of each of us. The fact that priests wear fancy costumes doesn’t mean they are any closer to God than we are. Luther also defined our gods as whatever it was that we were serving with our lives, which sounds very modern, very psychological and existential.
So the challenge in this god-hunting business is identifying gods worth serving, and then serving those gods, those ideals and centers of value, rather than something less. And I want to say, with Luther, that people shouldn’t put so much trust in churches to provide them with the right gods. What you get in church are other people’s gods. People tend to assume that – perhaps since priests wear dazzling costumes or at least hold the microphone – the gods they are offering will serve you rather than them. And sometimes this is true. But not always. The history of both religion and politics – which have now been married in an unholy union again – shows that those who control the big words and wear the dazzling costumes or travel with aides and attendants too often use their costumes and entourage to dazzle us so we will serve them.
The Protestant Reformation would probably not have happened when it did, had not the pope at the time, Pope Leo X, been one of the worst popes in history. Two quotations have been associated with him. In a letter to his brother, he wrote, “Since God has given us the papacy, let us enjoy it.” The other quote attributed to him is one I first read in graduate school 25 years ago, where he wrote, “It has served us well, this myth of Christ.”
Pope Leo X still stands as a prime example of a high office filled by a person of low character, using the title and a costume to deceive and bilk the masses. He wanted to raise a lot of money to built St. Peter’s in Rome, so he sold what were called “indulgences” to his masses. This meant that, for a fee, they could buy some pre-forgiveness for their many sins, so their punishment in purgatory might be shorter and less horrendous. So it was like an insurance policy: pay now, fly later.
But it was a good racket, because fear works well with disempowered people, and helps to keep them disempowered. So Pope Leo got more creative, and began selling indulgences for their dead relatives. You don’t want your mother or grandmother being tormented beyond belief in purgatory, do you? Well, even though they’re already dead, for a fee you can save them some suffering; it’s the least you can do for them. Didn’t they love you? How can you let them down now that they’re dead and suffering and need you?
This was the practice of “selling indulgences” that angered Martin Luther, and led to the Protestant Reformation and the splitting of Christianity into over a thousand pieces now. Luther’s primary message was that we are “justified by faith, not by works.” This was a 16th century way of saying that God didn’t make junk, including us, and that schemes like the Pope’s to convince us that he knows who is saved and who is damned are the schemes of a charlatan, which we are called to expose.
So the priesthood of all believers is really one of the boldest ideas in history. It says, Don’t be dazzled by costumes and titles because they carry no religious authority at all. None at all. Many who hold those titles and wear those impressive costumes know this, as Pope Leo X did. And they use the gullibility of the masses to mislead them, to rob them, and assign them a second-class status they don’t deserve.
Such false gods are almost always served by those in costumes, official positions and power. Why? Because if you can control a society’s most powerful symbols, you can control the majority of people in the society. If your side can claim to represent God, America, Truth, Justice and Love, you will win every election – even the fair ones.
Pope Leo X provides a religious example of someone in power abusing and betraying both the people and the high ideals he is charged with serving. But it happens at least as often in politics. And three days ago (June 9, 2005) was the anniversary of one of the most dramatic and inspiring examples of an American citizen exposing a political charlatan.
On June 9, 1954, Army counsel Joseph N. Welch confronted Sen. Joseph R. McCarthy during the Senate-Army Hearings. McCarthy had just shot out a cheap personal attack on a young member of Welch’s law firm, Frederick G. Fisher as a way of getting even with Welch for questioning him. It was more than Welch was willing to abide. In one of the most famous and high moral statements in the history of American politics, Welch said, “Have you no sense of decency, sir? At long last, have you left no sense of decency?” The audience broke into spontaneous applause, and that statement by Welch broke the spell of McCarthyism. Months later, the Senate censured McCarthy. With no chance of demanding a presidential nomination, he sank much deeper into his alcoholism, and died of alcohol-related illnesses three years later, at the age of 49.
I saw that confrontation on live television as a 12-year-old boy, and without understanding the full meaning of the proceedings, I knew that Welch was a heroic figure and McCarthy was an evil man.
Senator McCarthy was one of the most powerful and most vicious men in American politics. He had terrorized the country and intimidated other senators for over three years with his self-serving hunt for Communists. It was self-serving rather than patriotic, because he manipulated facts, people, and the media not to serve America, but to draw attention to himself – and, he hoped, to get a presidential nomination. The god he served was a selfish and brutal god that sanctioned any means necessary for him to pursue his own ends.
Do you see that what Joseph Welch did shows the same kind of individual moral authority that Luther had championed as the priesthood of all believers, over four centuries earlier? In both cases, a figure with position and title had betrayed the high calling of his office, degraded high ideals and turned people into things to be used like pawns. And in both cases, a person without any comparable authority or costume exposed them as frauds and charlatans.
Connecting these two stories with current events is almost too easy, isn’t it? But we must try to see the actual standards being practiced in our world contrasted with the highest standards, so that we can find ourselves in this ongoing drama, and wonder if we are called to do anything.
Last Sunday (5 June 2005), with one media-seeking flourish of his pen, Texas governor Rick Perry took a pen and lured a television crew to the Cavalry Christian Academy in Ft. Worth, where he signed a bill prohibiting gays from marrying, and prohibiting Texas from recognizing the marriage of gays in other states. So in one immensely childish and vicious act, Rick Perry and the Cavalry Christian Academy of Ft. Worth christened the new religion of Texas Christianity.
It is so bigoted, so hateful, and so much the antithesis of everything Jesus taught, that it could be called the cult of the anti-Christ. Not only are gays vilified, but Gov. Perry even suggested that gay soldiers returning from Iraq might want to move to another state. Jesus said “Whatever you do to the least of these, you do also to me.” Rick Perry hopes whatever he can get away with doing to the least of these will advance his political career.
Then the next day, the Pope came out against what he called “trivialization of the human body.” Oddly, he did not mean the sexual abuse of children by his church’s priests, but gay marriage between two adults who love each other.
When we look back in history, we have no trouble recognizing Joseph McCarthy and Pope Leo X as men of low character who betrayed the high calling of their office. Let’s not pretend it’s any harder here. Governor Perry behaved like a cheap and sleazy politician, dragging both Christianity and the highest aspirations of Texans down to the gutter because he hopes those who live in the gutter will bring him personal gain.
And Joseph Ratzinger, now known by the title Pope Benedictus XVI, has shown the quality of his low character all his life – from his days as an eager Hitler Youth to his days as an eager Grand Inquisitor. And last Monday he reduced a religion supposedly centered on Jesus to a level so bigoted and hateful he has disgraced every Christian on earth, and all people who believe in goodness, truth and love. The rigid, brutal and top-down style that is Ratzinger’s soul was the same style of the Grand Inquisitor and the same style as Hitler’s fascism.
Both these small men were traitors to any high calling, using their office to serve personal political ambition and a repressive and vicious form of authoritarian religion designed to subjugate people rather than empower them. Where is today’s incarnation of Joseph Welch, to look them both in the eyes and say, “Have you no sense of decency, sir? At long last, have you left no sense of decency?” Where are all the citizens who need to rise up and say those words?
The priesthood of all believers says that the common people without titles or dazzling costumes are as close to God as any governor or Pope. This week, we are considerably closer.
