THE AUTHORITY OF PROPHETIC PEOPLE Is the Proof of the Pudding in the Eating? Sermon by Rev. Jack Donovan, October 9, 2016 Unitarian Universalist Church of St Petersburg READINGS (see at end of sermon) Prophetic Women and Men, UUA Covenant Sources The greatest personalities by John Lovejoy Elliott And Then, Hymnal Reading #464 A Litany of Atonement, Hymnal Reading #637 Lost in Stories from God in Concord by Jane Langton SERMON In the beginning, in the Garden of Eden, Eve had no experience with life before she met the snake. Before the snake, she had only seen Adam, who clearly knew nothing, and had seen Yehovah who was simply Being what is, and, oh yes, a parade of critters who lacked names. But the snake was the first creature she communicated with and since it didn t want a name, maybe it wasn t a creature but just a part of Being what is. At that point, Eve could not tell a prophet from a snake-oil salesman. And she had no idea that there was a difference between good and bad behavior. So to her, the snake was pure prophet, speaking with the absolute authority of, well, Being Itself and being of her self. So, wanting to be clueless no more and not yet having any discernment regarding actions and consequences, Eve and Adam ate the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. And, wham! suddenly they were outside the gates of Eden with this tiny angel with a tiny flaming sword watching them. Wow, what was that all about? they asked the little angel. Damned if I know, said the angel, waving its flaming sword to cut through the misty air. But if I were you, I d think twice before I believed a snake again. Very discerning, said Eve. And that s when the struggle began between humankind s reptilian brainstem, required for surviving as an individual, and its angelic neocortex brain, required for thriving in and as a group. It s very important, that little angelic flaming sword of discernment. It is why tradition has us remember the perfection of Rosh Hashanah s Day of Creation throughout the ten days of Awe as we struggle to realign ourselves with perfect goodness on Yom Kippur s Day of Atonement to once again be at one with the Holy One. 1
So I ask you, Who are your prophets, and why? That s what I would really like to know this morning. Who are the people you have taken as guides to enhance the effectiveness of the beliefs you live by to survive and thrive? How did you decide whether, and whither, to trust them and allow them influence? I read somewhere in my seminary days that there was once, I think at Harvard Divinity School, a lot of brouhaha over a new moral argument for good and rightful conduct. And a saying came to prevail among the students in response to contrarians The proof of the pudding is in the eating. Pretty much the same meaning as Don t knock it until you ve tried it. But do you have to actually taste something before you can judge whether it s good and right? As your mother used to say, If your so-called best friend forever says, Let s jump off this 100 foot cliff into the roiling ocean like they do in Acapulco, would you do it? How do you discern the wise guidance of true prophets from harmful foolishness of scoffers at the laws of life? By prophetic people, I m not talking about the old prophets of scripture this morning. Yes, they are an important source and we ll consider them when we consider Scripture as a source of beliefs in a couple of months. But for now, let s just consider the people in our lives day to day to be the prophetic source from which we draw understanding to add to our own direct experience - folks whose beliefs or claims or guesses are proposed to us as being based on correct understandings of Reality and correct understandings of the best way to live given that Reality folks who you think might have something compelling to teach you about what life is and how to live it parents, siblings, peers, friends, teachers, celebrities, leaders, strangers. Who were the particular people at points in your life from whom you received guidance for living and whose guidance you added to or substituted for whatever your understanding was at the time? You might say, with science, reason, and intuition, that everything in existence influences everything else. Take away or add one part and a rearrangement begins to radiate out. But the words and deeds of some particular people at some particular points in your life seem to call to be internalized and lived as a part of your understanding, your conduct, your success or your failing. Those who pay attention and assess the effectiveness of the guidance they might act upon seem to develop the most trustworthy, life-saving, life-blessing understanding of how to live. The reflection and realizations of the High Holy Days reveal why it is important 2
to be discerning about who we authorize to be our guides and what we authorize as guidance. Who are your prophets and why? Who speaks directly to you, as a person or as a people? Who knows your situation and your behavior? Who speaks from tested and accepted beliefs about the means and meaning of life? Who offers a prediction of your future if you continue on your current path and offers a better, a saving, alternative? You heard the reading from Jane Langton s mystery story God in Concord. You may have noticed that I consider anything written about Concord as scripture. Ignore that. But I think the description of how the character Ananda Singh came to Concord tells us a helpful bit about how we choose our prophets and prophetic insights. Who was prophetic in Ananda s life, and why? Of first note was his grandmother. At the point when he could make choices about who to pay attention to, his grandmother started telling him the sacred myths of his culture that pointed to the meaning and means of life. She was his first prophet, with his trust based on personal closeness and enough archetypal appeal to resonate in his young seeking soul. Second, I d say, were the voices in the stories themselves, enough to make a young child s heroic imagination sigh with wonder and with hope. Third came the scriptures and stories of other cultures that opened the doors of wonder more widely and called him outward and inward simultaneously. Fourth, in contradistinction to these calls, were the expectations of his class and society as prophetically represented by his mother. If you follow tradition, you will be happy and so will your father and I. Fifth, and finally, Henry David Thoreau the great Transcendentalist Unitarian philosopher who was in contradistinction with everything, except the spirit of life that Ananda had found in all his classic readings of poets, artists, philosophers, and mystics Thoreau who had absorbed the stories of his own Western culture, then the stories of Ananda s culture, then the teachings of the great prophet of Concord and America and Nature and Nature s God, Ralph Waldo Emerson, and then to the woods and waters of Walden to study directly under the guidance of both Nature and Nature s God. Thoreau was Ananda s tipping point prophet espousing a call that Ananda had prepared himself to hear. Thoreau, saying, March to the beat of your own drummer as later mythologists said, Follow your bliss and in Sanskrit, the word for bliss is ananda. And here was Ananda, coming to a place in the world at a time when the sacred temple of Walden s waters and woods were about to be desecrated by the compulsive spirit of entrepreneurial development and 3
greed and arrogance that was willing to commit murder to achieve its purposes. Ah, the differences possible in both the development of land and in the development of the values of belief. What you shape in your mind as worthy is what you worship. Ananda listened to the call of the prophet with a reverent mysticism based on the natural world, amazingly united with political idealism. When this spirit called, his spirit answered, I am here. When I was a young Roman Catholic boy, at a time when the priests and nuns were telling us stories about how some would be saved and some damned according to their relationship with the One True Church, one day my mother told me a story. She said, One day when I was a girl, my friends and I were riding the trolley home from school, and some of the girls from my church told our Jewish friend that all her family was damned to hell because they did not believe in Jesus and the True Church. My mother would have tears in her eyes at this point in her story. But she continued, saying, And I turned to look at my Jewish friend and she was crying and I said, Don t worry. How could such a stupid idea be true? God loves everybody the same, no matter what we believe. That was my first step away from the One True Church and I think my devout mother knew it might be and that it was fine with her prophetic self. One day when my daughter was about four, I took her to a folk musician s concert at a little local theater in Gainesville. The performer was an esteemed professor of anthropology at the University of Florida and a social justice activist. He sang some neat songs while playing the guitar and I was sure that Brigitte would be enjoying the experience. Then she tugged on my shirt and asked, Why is he wearing a hat with feathers and why is his hair so long. Is he a woman? I said, No, sweetheart, he s Native American, Indian. A moment later Brigitte crawled onto my lap. I m afraid, she said. How come? I asked. Because he s an Indian. He ll hurt us. Brigitte was in a preschool where we parents regularly volunteered. I knew the kids would race around the playground endlessly playing wild games of cowboys and cavalry and Indians. And I suddenly realized the meaning Brigitte had drawn from it. No, sweetie. That s not true. Indians are good people. He would never hurt us. If he might hurt us, then I d never bring you here. I spoke the prophetic words of If and Then. If such and such is the nature of reality, then behaving in such and such a way will have such and such a consequence. My prophetic statement about what is true and what is good seemed to suffice and she returned to her seat and reported enjoying the rest of the concert. I was her trusted prophet, or at least one of them. 4
The story didn t quite end there. A short while later, when I knew she could absorb it, I told her two new things: one, it was the cowboys and cavalry who had made war on the Indians, not the other way around. And second, that her great great grandmother was a Cherokee Indian and that meant her family history went back over ten thousand years. Though she had no clue what ten thousand years meant, she liked it. Recently, one of her uncles has told her there is no evidence that their ancestor was Cherokee, despite some family physical resemblances. But, realizing that her uncle has inherited some of the Ku Klux Klan attitudes of his deceased father (Brigitte s grandfather), she has decided to do the genealogical research herself. She has added herself to her list of prophets. In the end, perhaps we all should do that. How about you? Who do you trust to take you deep and how deep will you take it? You have many stories to examine. Some of them will have to do with inner powers and structures that are not evil, but simply human, and which must be nurtured and guided by paying attention to prophets who make inner powers and structures serve the blessing of life. Some of your stories will have to do with outer powers and structures that can work for great good or great harm and your prophets will prove to be those who call you to make those powers and structures serve the common good. Who have you encountered whose call seemed to claim additional insight into the true nature of Being and the most effective character of Behaving? In the end, how do you decide what guides and guidance to heed? To whom have you granted authority? What has been the consequence for your life? Ask each other, who have been the prophets in your life and how have their understandings helped shape your life. It can be a twisting trail. I believe sharing helps to clarify and make straight the way. We have a church town meeting in this Sanctuary at noon. If you come back in a bit early, I d love to hear who some of your prophets have been and why. THOUGHTS FOR GATHERING Prophetic Women and Men READINGS Another thing we agree on as a source of our understanding is the words and deeds of prophetic women and men which challenge us to confront powers and 5
structures of evil with justice, compassion, and the transforming power of love. from The Covenant of UUA Congregations The Greatest Personalities The greatest personalities that ever existed have been those who united human beings and put them on the road toward cooperation and effectiveness and peace. Those whom the world has held highest have helped to unite and not sever interconnectedness. They have not been the destroyer of differences, but the harmonizer of differences. John Lovejoy Elliott INVOCATION And Then - UUA Hymnal Reading #464 PRAYER FOR HIGH HOLY DAYS A Litany of Atonement Hymnal, #637 READING BEFORE THE SERMON Lost in Stories from God in Concord by Jane Langton Ananda Singh s compulsive flight to America had not had his parents blessing. His mother had been especially disappointed. Her bright handsome eldest son was the apple of her eye, and she had in mind a list of clever Brahman girls of good family for him to choose among. They were all university women a practicing physician in white coat and running shoes, a dietitian in sari and sandals, a social worker in gold bangles and salwar-kameez. There would be a beautiful traditional wedding, with Ananda and his bride sitting together under the bridal canopy. Instead her austere young son had set aside such things. He had never joined the others of his set at the Green Room in Simla, he had not strolled with the crowd at Scandal Point. He has his nose in those books of his, his mother complained to his father. It was true. From the very beginning when Ananda had been captivated by his grandmother s stories of Krishna and the milkmaids, he had been lost in stories. Slowly he had spread the net of his interest farther and farther, from the Hindu sages of the Mahabharata (MA-ha bah-ra-ta) to the novels of Narayan and Naipaul, from the works of Chaucer and Shakespeare to those of Jane Austen and Melville and Faulkner. At the University of London he had taken a fancy to the mystics, from Tagore and Vivekananda to Thomas a Kempis and St. Francis of Assisi. And then one day his tutor introduced him to the writings of Henry Thoreau, and Ananda was stunned. It was the pinnacle of all that had been gathering in his mind. Here was a reverent mysticism based on the natural world, amazingly united with political idealism. 6