First Unitarian Society of Minneapolis

Rev. Kendyl Gibbons
First Unitarian Society of Minneapolis
April 27, 2003

"The moving finger writes, and having writ, moves on. Nor all your piety nor wit can call it back to cancel half a line, nor all your tears wash out a word of it," so says the poet. And so the exploits of our nation are now written in blood upon the sands Iraq and the streets of Baghdad, and not all your piety nor wit, nor mine, can cancel half a line, nor all our tears wash out a word, so we must pick up our lives and the life of this beleaguered planet, and move forward from where we find ourselves. Thus it is that I find myself drawn to take a step backwards from the drama of immediate events this morning, to consider from a longer view the tides of history upon whose breakers we find ourselves tossed, and to look with a wider lens at the trends around the globe, as Philip Jenkins has so provocatively presented them.

Once upon a time, and not so very long ago at that, a story was told to me. Never really all at once; I learned it in bits and pieces, but it was offered to me as the most true and glorious of all stories, and I came to love it. Just to be clear, I still love it; whether I still believe every part of it is another question. But let me tell it to you as it has been given to me, and as I suspect that you, too, have probably heard it; then we can talk about what it means to us now, and for the future.

It begins with a universe of physical matter, mindless but lawful, moving through infinite space. An accident of chemistry brings together the ingredients of self-replicating entities, and life comes into being. Evolutionary pressures produce multi-celled creatures, consciousness, and eventually the human race. These primitive ancestors are ignorant and savage, but they find it to their advantage to cooperate with one another to defend against natural calamities, predators, and aggression by their own kind. The arbitrariness of their world makes them superstitious and fearful; they are full of both awe and curiosity about all that they do not understand. Together they discover how to control fire, till the soil, smelt iron, cross bodies of water in boats, and they devise techniques for passing accumulated knowledge to succeeding generations. Differentiations of strength and status appear among them, and they invent notions of powerful, unseen beings who control the overwhelming forces of the world they know. They ascribe to these invisible beings many of their own characteristics, as well as qualities they wished to have. Some among them claim special knowledge of those beings; are said to be in communication with them, or descended from them. People in general are motivated by greed and desire for power, or by sympathy and attachment to their own kin and offspring, or else by a kind of elementary social reciprocity; thus community is born. Once in a while, individuals arise who suggest a connection between that reciprocity, the desires of the unseen beings, and the distribution of status and power within the community. Rules are created to maintain the existence of the tribe, and to protect the status of those in authority. The strong used these rules to take advantage of the weak, and stories began to be made up about how the world with its inhabitants and its rules had come into being.

As societies grew more complex, the use of symbols became increasingly significant. Language, writing, money and ritual all had their roots in the capacity of human community to create and manipulate collective symbols. Eventually, out of superstition and the attempt to placate the unseen beings who controlled the great forces of the world, emerged the idea of religion, as a way of finding pleasure or reassurance by relating to those beings even apart from the effort to control them. Along side this idea arose the notion of moral accountability and duty. This idea said that there is more at stake in an individual's behavior than the immediate feedback of status in the community. Certain behaviors came to have symbolic meaning, and to be classified as good or evil. Meanwhile, collective aggression became a symbolic and political act, and the concept of war was born. Successful leaders, seeking to inspire others to follow them, found that this could be done through stories and symbolic appeals to the unseen being who controlled the awesome forces that still dominated human experience. Religious institutions arose in response to the need for ways that people could understand and influence the actions of those beings. Sacrifice and taboo became methods for achieving the kind of ecstatic experiences that seemed to validate this type of knowledge.

After many millennia of superstition and terror, some cultures arrived at the insight that all the great forces in the universe might be united in a single, self-aware god being, whose purposes would explain both the existence of the world and the significance of human life. This turn toward monotheism represented a great intellectual and moral advancement in human society, and set the stage for a subsequent unfolding of enormous progress. Out of this concept arose all the religious traditions of western civilization - Judaism, Christianity, and eventually Islam as well. Christianity, which began as a moral and personal protest against the corruptions of Judaism under Roman oppression, soon lost its original vision of a loving community of justice, equality and peace, and became instead a locus of political and intellectual power which dominated the history of the known world for a thousand years. During this time, the institutional church demanded that its doctrines and practices be accepted without variation, and harshly punished those who voiced disagreement with them. Nevertheless, neither intellectual curiosity nor moral protest could be entirely squelched, and eventually individuals arose whose better ways of understanding the world and conducting society could not be ignored.

This revolt against the domination of the church had numerous contributing impulses, and it can be said to have begun at any one of a number of dates between 1440, when Johannes Gutenberg first printed with movable type, to seventy years later, when it was sealed by Martin Luther nailing his 95 Theses to the door of the Wittenberg Cathedral in 1517. The forces at work included political unrest and economic change, the discovery of the new world, the translation of the Bible into the vernacular languages of Europe, a renewed intellectual interest in philosophy, and like a beacon feeding all of these, the emergence of the scientific method as an authoritative source of knowledge about the world. As the orthodox church lost its stranglehold on both political power and academic freedom, a more rational approach to all human endeavors gave rise to capitalism and the industrial revolution, and to the concepts of inalienable human rights and democratic government.

These latter, of course, were the premise for the noble experiment of American independence, and have been the foundation of our national rise to the status of world superpower. This country's combination of liberty, opportunity, and optimism have both inspired other nations, and drawn to our shores hopeful immigrants from all over the world, who have melded together to create a unique culture of human well-being and advancing knowledge summed up in the word Progress. Although we have encountered certain challenges along the way, most notably a divisive struggle over slavery and lately second thoughts about the early settlers' attitude toward the indigenous peoples whom they largely displaced, the history of the United States has demonstrated a steady widening of recognition and protection for individual rights in the context of diversity. The separation of church and state has made for both a dynamic secular culture and a vast array of religious options in which any spiritual identity may find its home. If America was not the first to recognize the political citizenship of women, and grant them economic self determination, neither have we held back their opportunities in the present day. We continue to wrestle with the legacy of racial oppression, but the question is how best, not whether, true equality is to be achieved.

The story continues: those of us who lead lives of privilege here in the opening years of the 21^st century naturally have a moral obligation to make the benefits of our achievements available to others less fortunate than ourselves. We look forward to the day when the political liberties, the literacy and educational opportunities, the social and economic infrastructures, and the life expectancy that we enjoy will be realized for everyone around the globe. It is only a matter of showing how it is done, and helping people in other circumstances find the resources which used correctly will enable them to emulate our way of life. Freedom, rationality, and well-being are inseparable from one another, and together constitute the happier state at which we have more or less already arrived, and toward which the history of the world is constantly, if not always smoothly, tending. And then we shall all live happily ever after.

It is a familiar story, is it not? As I said, I love this story; I suppose there is probably a lot of truth in it. But it is, of course, not the only story going, and that's what I want to think about together this morning. Because you see, this story was presented to me, and still is presented, as the Story, as The True Story for Understanding the World, and I want to use a big word to talk about that kind of story; it is called a meta-narrative. A meta-narrative is not so much a story that you deliberately tell; it is the story that you think you are in. And this particular story, to which I give the title of The Enlightenment Narrative, was the meta-narrative of my Unitarian Universalist, humanist upbringing. Through it, I was taught to regard other stories about understanding the world as aesthetically interesting, but essentially mistaken. Like ancient pottery, these other stories were to be gently handled and respectfully examined, but not actually used for anything. They included many stories, as the great religious educator Sophia Fahs called them, From Long Ago and Many Lands, as well as stories from closer to hand, like the one about Adam and Eve making a big mistake in the garden of paradise, and Jesus dying on the cross to save humanity from the consequences of their gaffe, so that we can live happily ever after in heaven when we are dead. Needless to say, the world looks like a very different place when that story is your meta-narrative, the story that you understand yourself and everyone else to be taking part in.

From within the Enlightenment meta-narrative, both the words Modern and Progress represent the positive direction of human history. A great sea of ink has been spilt by those who have sought to describe a position called Post-modernism, but I am inclined to think that its most intelligent insight can be summed up as the attempt to get out of the Enlightenment story as a meta-narrative, and to examine it as a story in itself, rather than as the True Story for Understanding the World. Post-modernism invites us to experiment with the perspective that all stories are in some sense arbitrary, and that we bring our implicit meta-narratives to our own experience and to our study of history, so that the structures of those stories serve to determine what we will see and not see, or regard as significant or irrelevant. Meta-narratives are seductive, especially so when we don't know that we have them, and when we make the assumption that everyone else is participating in the same story we are. Immensely frustrating conflict can result when two people who are acting out different stories confront the same difficulty or decision. I rather suppose that what George Bush and his administration have done in Iraq makes perfect sense, if one sees the world from within the meta-narrative he is telling whether he knows it or not. There may in fact be some people so venal that they would pursue a course of action solely for personal benefit even when it represented large-scale tragedy within their understanding of the world, but I tend to think that there are a great many more who are watching a different story unfold than the one I have learned to tell, for whom the same events have very different meanings. This makes it extremely difficult for me to have a sensible argument with them.

What I find both fascinating and somewhat startling about Philip Jenkin's essay in the Atlantic is the way in which he challenges my security in the Enlightenment story as a meta-narrative. It is not necessarily the case that you and I have only to be patiently and persistently instructive in order to have everyone eventually adopt our same values of freedom, rationality and well-being, so that we can all live happily ever after. The Enlightenment narrative is neither the only story going, nor necessarily the dominant one, and most surprising, it may not even be increasing in influence. From the point of view of 21^st century American culture, this is hard to fathom. Our own liberal institutional heritage remains at the margins, it sometimes seems to me, because our unique insights in one generation become the commonplaces of mainline religion and culture in the next. If any of you read the Seeker's Diary in yesterday's Faith and Values section in the Star Tribune, you may remember that it gave an account of a Methodist church that emphasizes diversity and openly draws from many faiths, including reading meditations from the Tao Teh Ching. Can't we get them on trademark infringement, or something?

But see what I mean? Both they and we would agree in regarding this shift as an indication of growth, of increasing wisdom and of progress - because, of course, both they and we are reading our experience of the world through the Enlightenment story as meta-narrative. But if Philip Jenkins is right - and his statistical data are compelling - there are more Christians in the world who would see this as a falling away from what Christianity is and ought to be about, than there are those who would recognize it as the fulfillment of the essence of that tradition. And demographically, the holders of the Enlightenment meta-narrative are losing ground to what Jenkins calls "Southern Christianity," or "the Third Church," whose meta-narrative deals with the divine power which overcomes the evil forces that inflict suffering and sickness upon the human race.

I want to suggest that the awareness of this shift of cultural balance in the world should give us to reflect, but not to panic. It has been claimed that post-modernism suggests because our selection of meta-narrative is in some sense arbitrary, that all narratives are equal, and it doesn't matter which one we choose - but I don't think that implication necessarily follows. Instead, I think that intelligent faith is the precisely the process of taking our meta-narratives as objects of reflection, and considering their implications. I love the Enlightenment story because of what it proposes that human beings are, and what we might be capable of. I love it because of the ideals that it sets before us, and for the ways I perceive the world as having become more humane and beautiful as people have lived from within that narrative. I elect it, as an act of faith; I make it my story, in a conscious, intentional choice, though I know that the world is often times darker and more ambiguous than this meta-narrative of mine would imply. I seek to hold it a little lightly, with a degree of modesty and an awareness of its errors and difficulties, for every meta-narrative contains some insoluable conflicts. Yet I give it my loyalty, as the story from within which I have chosen to live, knowing that it is not everyone's story, and that my perception of the events and imperatives of history will not always be shared by all others. I give it my loyalty in spite of the fact that this story has been so dominant for so long in this culture that many of us have forgotten how it can be challenged; have forgotten, in fact, that it is a narrative, and that the world may look very different to other people. For so long, for centuries now, the tides of history have been flooding in favor of the Enlightenment narrative as the most intelligent, sophisticated, powerful way of understanding the universe, so that we may not remember our faith as a call to bear witness to this perspective even when it is under assault, even when it is perhaps no longer dominant in the popular imagination. But truly, there is little virtue or integrity merely in holding the common opinion; where faith becomes a practice is where one must stand for it when it is out of fashion, when the tide of approval is ebbing out.

And so I want to suggest that we have a promise to keep, here in this institution which is dedicated to humanism, the child of the Enlightenment story. I believe that we need to understand that story, and to practice telling it persuasively, and with conviction. We need to celebrate its ideals and measure our conduct by its standards. We need to acknowledge our love for it, and for its heroes, and the triumphs of the human spirit that it lifts up. But we must also keep before us an awareness that the tides of history are not a function of this narrative; rather, our story, like the others before it and those that will follow, is itself afloat upon the tides of history, and subject to their ebb and flow. We give our loyalty in hope, but not with assurance, for the infinities of space and time have no assurance to give, and there is probably no happily ever after in our foreseeable future.

There is a complex aspect of the Enlightenment narrative that has to do with control of the world, with self-control, and with the problems of controlling each other, which I would like to explore another time. For the present, I content myself with the suggestion that it is worth considering to what extent you may be living your own life, consciously or unconsciously, from within this story as a meta-narrative, and how your loyalty to that narrative is expressed. It may be in your political opinions, in your work and creative endeavors, in your personal relationships, or in your service to the community. Is there some reasoned pursuit of human freedom and well-being manifest in your life choices? Is this, in fact, your faith, or is there another story that your life and the world are telling together? It is by these stories that we make our choices and shape the meaning of our days; it is the work of faith to know, with conviction and clarity, the stories that make us who we are.

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Opening Words:

At last! The green fringe is in the treetops;

The air begs to touch our skin, and the light begins to linger.

Precious days; precious earth!

Surely there is more to this life than wanton destruction;

In such a moment of the year, surely the human spirit must turn from arrogance

To gratitude and praise.

Welcome, to this community of memory and promise;

Welcome, spring, and the celebration of earth.

As we come together to seek wisdom for the living of our days,

Our path of the spirit is glad to borrow from every chapter of the human heritage.

On this day of honoring the earth, we turn to our elder brothers and sisters of this continent,

The first Americans, whose faiths were of and in the earth;

Whose spirits sought to live in beauty and harmony with the sacred world of nature,

And make their prayers our own.

The Ute Indians sought guidance and wholeness in these words:

Earth, teach us stillness, as the grasses are stilled with light.

Earth, teach us to bear suffering, as the old stones suffer with memory.

Earth, teach us to be caring, as parents who secure their young.

Earth, teach us courage, as the tree which stands all alone.

Earth, teach us limits, as the ant which crawls on the ground.

Earth, teach us freedom, as the eagle which soars in the sky.

Earth, teach us resignation, as the leaves which fall in autumn.

Earth, teach us resurrection, as the seed which rises in the spring.

Earth, teach us to forget ourselves, as melting snow forgets its life.

Earth teach us to remember kindness, as dry fields weep in the rain.

And who does not acknowledge, still and always, the testimony of Chief Seathle?

This we know; the earth does not belong to us, we belong to the earth.

This we know; all things are connected like the blood which unites one family.

All things are connected; whatever befalls the earth

Befalls the sons and daughters of the earth.

We did not weave the web of life; we are merely a strand in it.

Whatever we do to the web, we do to ourselves.

In remembrance and affirmation of this wisdom,

In celebration of the wonder of the world,

We kindle once more the chalice of our faith;

May its flame illuminate our lives and the interdependent web of all existence of which we are a part

Those who would cherish the earth must reclaim the connection

between body and spirit,

learning again to honor our physical being in the world,

and to know matter and energy as ways of the spirit,

and as paths to wholeness for the planet and for our own healing.

I invite Terri Stark to lead us in a movement meditation.

Our closing hymn contains one line that I find distracting;

it is possible, I think, to translate "our need to pray" into a humanist understanding of

our need to praise, to celebrate, to be grateful for the earth and our lives,

but still the term does bring me up short sometimes.

Yet I love the way in which these words lift up knowledge, reason, and understanding

as a human impulse that is part of, not opposed to, the larger life of the spirit.

Let's sing together number 158