Lighting of peace candle
Intimations
Offertory
Hymn Hymns for Living 202 Children of a bright tomorrow
Prayer
Reading1: (chosen and read by John Clifford)
From The Prophet by Khalil Gibran, some passages on your larger self, which he describes in various ways:
“Like the Ocean is your god-self;
It remains for ever undefiled.
And like the ether it lifts but the winged.
Even like the sun is your god-self;
It knows not the ways of the mole nor seeks it the holes of the serpent.
But your god-self dwells not alone in your being.
…. The erect and the fallen are but one man standing in the twilight between the night of his pigmy-self and the day of his god-self. (Crime & Punishment)
“In your longing for your giant self lies your goodness; and that longing is in all of you. But in some of you that longing is a torrent rushing with might to the sea, carrying the secrets of the hillsides and the songs of the forest. And in others it is a flat stream that loses itself in angles and bends and lingers before it reaches the shore. (Good & Evil)
“It is in the vast man that you are vast. And in beholding him that I beheld you and loved you. Like a giant oak tree covered with apple blossoms is the vast man in you. His might binds you to the earth, his fragrance lifts you into space, and in his durability you are deathless.” (Farewell speech)
Reading2: (chosen and read by John Clifford)
One of my favourite books is Studies in Classic American Literature by D H Lawrence: first published in 1924, I became aware of it during English literature class at university in the early 1960s. The book is an analysis of American self identity as portrayed in the classical authors, including Benjamin Franklin and finishing with Walt Whitman. Over half of these authors have been identified as Unitarians and in the course of a brilliant, sharp analysis of less than 200 pages, Lawrence expounds his mystical vision of human identity. I share some passages from this book to give its flavour, not removing the sexist language in the original:
“Men are free when they are obeying some deep, inward voice of religious belief. Obeying from within. Men are free when they belong to a living, organic, believing community, active in fulfilling some unfulfilled, perhaps unrealized purpose. Not when they are escaping to some wild west. The most unfree souls go west, and shout of freedom. Men are freest when they are most unconscious of freedom. The shout is a rattling of chains, always was.
“Men are not free when they are doing just what they like. The moment you can do just what you like, there is nothing you care about doing. Men are only free when they are doing what the deepest self likes.
“And there is getting down to the deepest self! It takes some diving.
“Because the deepest self is way down, and the conscious self is an obstinate monkey. But of one thing we may be sure. If one wants to be free, one has to give up the illusion of doing what one likes, and seek what IT wishes done. …. IT being the deepest whole self of man, the self in its wholeness, not idealistic halfness.” (chapter on spirit of place)
“Here is my creed:
‘That I am I.’
‘That my soul is a dark forest.’
‘That my known self will never be more that a little clearing in the forest.’
‘That gods, strange gods, come forth from the forest into the clearing of my known self, and then go back.’
‘That I will never let mankind put anything over me, but that I will try always to recognize and submit to the gods in me and the gods in other men and women.’”
(chapter on Ben Franklin)
“The Holy Ghost is within us. It is the thing that prompts us to be real, not to push our own cravings too far, not to submit to stunts and high-falutin, above all, not to be too egoistic and wilful in our conscious self, but to change as the spirit inside us bids us change, and leave off when it bids us leave off, and laugh when we must laugh, particularly at ourselves, for in deadly earnestness there is always something a bit ridiculous. The Holy Ghost bids us never be too deadly in our earnestness, always to laugh in time, at ourselves and everything. Particularly at our sblimities. Everything has its hour of ridicule – everything.” (chapter on Edgar Allan Poe)
“The Father forgives: the Son forgives: but the Holy Ghost does not forgive. So take that.
“The Holy Ghost doesn’t forgive because the Holy Ghost is within you. The Holy Ghost is you: your very You. So if, in your conceit of your ego, you make a break in your own YOU, in your own integrity, how can you be forgiven? You might as well make a rip in your own bowels. You know if you rip your own bowels they will go rotten and you will go rotten. And there’s an end of you, in the body.
“The same if you make a breach with your own Holy Ghost. You go soul-rotten.”
(chapter on Nathaniel Hawthorne)
Hymn Let Us Sing 38 One More Step
Sermon "Thoughts on demitting office as Associate Minister”
When my family returned to Scotland following four years in Germany where I was working with the International Association for Religious Freedom, it was to Edinburgh rather than Glasgow that we came. That was in early 1989. I was quite content that the shape of my ministry had shifted from a pastoral base to an administrative base, but In my mind religious community is crucial to individual spiritual life and one of the first things I did was start attending St Mark’s as regularly as I could; I was splitting my life between working at our London HQ four days each week and coming home the other three. St Mark’s had recently purchased a new Membership Book and my signature is there in typical green ink. My daughter, Naomi’s, signature is on the same page. In my personal scrapbook is a local newspaper cutting about someone who travelled 800 miles a week to attend worship at St Mark’s, and it is true that while keeping contact with family was important, so was participation in my chosen religious community.
While I have never lived full-time in Edinburgh (my flat in Portobello being empty more than it was occupied), this city and this congregation have been at the core of my sense of place for almost all of the intervening 18 years. Its ministry and its minister have been crucial to me during times of challenge and times of growth. Just over a week ago Barbara and I celebrated five years (60 months!) since we exchanged our wedding vows here in the presence of members and our family and friends.
I start with these memories to provide context for today. For it was a total surprise to me when, in 1992, I was asked if I would be willing to be called as Honorary Associate Minister of St Mark’s. And Honour it has been. It is an honour that was based on my active membership of St Mark’s and my close association and support of Andrew’s ministry. It has enhanced my involvement and interactions with members and newcomers; it has seen me lead services of weekly worship; take special services of annual import; perform weddings; funerals and even a christening. It has also occasionally involved participation in the church structure, in district, and community affairs; and finally, it enabled our minister, Andrew, to put forth a new quiz question on British Unitariana Trivia: what church in Britain has both of its ministers cycling to church on Sunday?!
So we come to the end of my sermon introduction and my first serious point as I demit office as your Associate Minister after 15 years. The consistent message of this congregation under Andrew’s ministry, totally supported by me, is the vision that the ministry of the church is the task of the whole church, not just the person (or people) called ministers. In this context I affirm for you that while there is some real value in personal strengths and training being recognised by having a denominational list of ministers, essentially our vision is that EVERY MEMBER of this congregation becomes an associate in its ministry upon assuming membership.
Sometimes the course of life is likened to a book with chapters. Of course, reality is much messier than that – phases might be a better image since these can overlap and influence each other in a back-and-forth manner. But there is no doubt that today marks a definite phase-change, or chapter-change, in that part of my life connected with St Mark’s and in St Mark’s connection with me. I will remain a member of St Mark’s for the foreseeable future because that is the ground of my relationship with this community. But, of necessity, I will now have to be circumspect about my level of involvement.
As Andrew joins me in the ranks of the retired next month, an even bigger change is coming to St Mark’s, but I leave that contemplation until then.
In this, my last sermon as Associate Minister, I’d like to leave you with two images. The first is theoretical/ even theological; the second is practical.
We don’t have creeds, i.e. fixed beliefs to which we all assent, but we do have principles and agreed processes for approaching better understanding. There are those who would turn principles into creeds and I speak briefly to this important debate within our movement, for our new Objects are not in fact all that new any more and there will soon be well-justified calls for review, particularly from those who feel that the content doesn’t match the stated process of openness.
My favourite theological understanding is usually described as process theology, and the writer who speaks most meaningfully to me from this perspective is Rev Henry Nelson Wieman. He, along with classical theologians, has pointed out that what we call God, that which is deserving of our ultimate loyalty and will nurture our growth most truly, is too complex, too rich, too mysterious, too creative to be encapsulated in any image we could have. But he then goes on to point out that intelligent beings can not profitably just worship mystery – we have to have some sense, some working definition of God to direct our devotions, our loyalty, our sense of right and wrong. Classical Christian theology answers this with the person of Jesus, the human face of God that people can relate to. Wieman and the process theologians say that while we can see something of the creative spirit in Jesus’ life, this is not good enough. But more to the point, Wieman makes clear the inherent idolatry of giving ultimate loyalty to the partial, even the partial evidenced in Jesus life and example. At one level this is merely a restatement of the Christian dilemma that leads to the incorporation of Jesus Christ into the Godhead to avoid the charge of idolatry and the identification of Christ with the Father to avoid the charge of polytheism.
But process theologians resolve this dilemma differently. Wieman writes of the need for dual, two level commitment and devotion. Ultimate devotion must be reserved for the creative process that we can only partially understand but loyalty to which is necessary to judge our best understandings and which may lay waste our deepest and most precious constructs. However, we must also have a second loyalty, second only to the first, which is to our best understandings and insights about God. In short, we must be dualists, operating at two levels. Pure process will not do by itself; we need some content even if the content changes.
We all know that change is built into life – well, actually, into existence as we know it. So how to keep our changing content in balance with an unfolding process whose workings we can never fully apprehend? This is part of the reason for religious communities – the sharings of insights and the exercise of creative love to hand in hand to enhance individual efforts. Those who say Unitarians have principles but not beliefs are in my mind trying to operate at only one level and absolute-ism can lead seriously astray. In fact progress in human values can only be based on a recognition of the reality of non-absolutes; if you reject change, you reject progress.
Perhaps an image would help here. I know that everything is going digital now, but let’s move back 10 years to imagine going into a Unitarian cinema to watch a film called Reality – the Real Thing!
We can sometimes be trapped in a never-ending process with no staging posts along the blurred landscape. This is our particular Unitarian danger. Process without content, like a cine film that doesn’t stop momentarialy 30 times a second but the large screen just shows an exciting whiz of colour and a feeling of motion.
Classical, belief-oriented religion, to which many reformers react strongly, has a different problem at their creedal cinema showing the same film, Reality – the Real Thing! Their cine film only moves at one frame every 10 minutes – which provides a lasting image and feeling of rock-like stability with lots of time for theologians to explore minute details with philosophical microscopes but no essential progress during an ordinary person’s life experience.
We choose our danger over that of the creedalists, but let us not feel too superior, for unless we are able to avoid our particular danger, our cinema presents no more effective a picture of Reality than a creedalst cinema that gets stuck in their danger area.
Barbara and I collect fridge magnets when we travel. If we collected all the clever and cute ones we see, we wouldn’t be able to open our fridge door. One that I’ve seen recently but not bought said: If you can’t be a good example you’ll have to be a terrible warning!
So I close with a reading that answers the question about being a good example when you wonder to whom you are being the example:
Why be good? Why live up to our ideals when the powers in the world crush idealism and suborn good intentions, rewarding those who live by the lowest possible standards rather than the highest possible? One answer, of course is personal integrity and the soul-sickness that comes from broken integrity. But there is another answer.
This comes from The website of a British Muslim charity in London reflecting on the terrorist attacks in London (July 2005). This website encourages Muslims to be engaged in British society and includes a call to Muslims to learn from the example of Unitarians in seeking reform in society:
Quote: “Thus it is imperative that Muslims in Britain do their utmost to cooperate with responsible bodies in the UK to uproot terrorism and especially such as from those who seek to connect it to Islam.
“Our history also records the contributions of the Unitarians who believed that social evils were humanly created, not God inflicted, and therefore could be remedied by human efforts.
“In the late 18th and early 19th century, Unitarians were closely identified with the campaign for social and political reform. Unitarians such as Joseph Priestley, Jeremy Bentham, Harriet Martineau, James Martineau and John Stuart Mill were all advocates of universal suffrage. Other leading radicals of the period such as Tom Paine and Thomas Muir were described by their critics as Unitarians. After the publication of Paine's Rights of Man, religious radicals in London formed the Unitarian Society to promote the cause of parliamentary reform.
“In the 19th century Unitarians were very active in the movements for factory reform, public health, prison reform, temperance, women's rights and the abolition of slavery. Every single aspect mentioned should naturally appeal to a true Muslim who seeks virtue in life and not vice because of the clear prescriptions of Islam. Unitarian reformers included Edwin Chadwick, Florence Nightingale, Jenkin Lloyd Jones and Charles Booth.
“Islam stands for uncompromising pure monotheism. If the Unitarians of our country can rightfully boast of such achievements and contributions how much more Muslims should aim to excel in similar endeavours. It is extremely easy to be rightly motivated if one draws on the unadulterated teachings of the noble Quran and the way of the Prophet Muhammad (may the peace & blessings of God be upon him). Evidence abounds regarding monotheistic persons before the advent of Muhammad (may the peace & blessings of God be upon him) who stood up for social justice and against malpractice in society. Muslims need to reflect on the monsters within and how we intend to contribute to our country and society better than our unitarian forbears in the UK.” End of Quote.
Who would have thought 200 years ago that our small movement could be an inspiration to modern Muslims in Britain?
Amen.
Music & Silence & words to end silence
Hymn Let Us Sing 5 Weaver God
Benediction: As we leave the peace and fellowship of this gathering to go into a suffering world, may the Spirit of Love inflame our hearts, may the Spirit of Truth inform our thinking, and may the Spirit of Beauty open our eyes, our ears, and our feelings.
Amen+ 3-fold Amen
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