“Ecclesiology, Doctrine and You”

A Sermon by The Reverend John E. Gibbons

delivered on Sunday, February 22, 2004

at The First Parish in Bedford

Bedford, Massachusetts

 

 

I am told that once there was a man who played the cello, and he practiced his playing morning, noon and night such that his neighbors heard his cello-playing at all hours of the day. He was a dedicated musician! There was, however, something unusual and distinctive about his musicianship for he played but a single – that is but one, only one – note. He pulled his bow and produced but one and the same note always. Now after a while, the man’s neighbors became curious about this and they went to the cello player saying, “You know, we’ve heard other cello players and they play a variety of notes while you play only one. Why is this?” “Ah!” said the man, “those other players are looking for the right note but I – I have found it!”

 

I am, this morning, looking for the right note to play regarding the very thing we are in the midst of doing right now, that is worshiping – which, as is noted on the cover of our order of service, is a word that derives from an Old English root meaning, “to shape that which is of worth.” These are my thoughts about worship, about what it is we are attempting to do here. And though I do not wish to excessively draw your attention to the matter of whether or not we will have spoken joys, sorrows and concerns I must admit that that matter is at least in the back of my mind.

 

We are, you know, experimenting with that tradition and, at least for a while, taking a break to re-consider just how and what it is we want to do. And while we’re at it, you know, I think it might be a good idea to take a break from other things too: spoken announcements have gone, and now joys and concerns, and next let’s take a break from readings and sermons, too – absolutely sermons should go – and music too…all of it! And I’m only half-kidding because once in a while I truly believe we should step back and away and reconsider the how and what of that which we’re in the midst of right now, this worship thing, this church thing, this religion thing. What is it we are about?

 

Somehow I’d like to take us deeper than opinions – god knows we’ve got plenty of those – and get down to convictions and purposes and principles. A poem titled, “Opinion” by someone named Baron Wormser recently crossed my desk:

 

Halfway to work and Merriman already has told me

What he thinks about the balanced budget, the Mets’

Lack of starting pitching, the dangers of displaced

Soviet nuclear engineers, soy products, and diesel cars.

I look out the window and hope I'll see a swan.

I hear they’re bad-tempered but I love their necks

And how they glide along so sovereignly.

I never take the time to drive to a pond

And spend an hour watching swans. What

Would happen if I heeded the admonitions of beauty?

When I look over at Merriman, he's telling Driscoll

That the President doesn't know what he's doing

With China. "China," I say out loud but softly.

I go back to the window. It's started snowing.

 

What would happen, I ask, if instead of uttering our many opinions we actually were to heed the admonitions of beauty, of justice, of compassion? What if?

 

And so for this sermon, you see, I found us a ten-dollar word, and that word is ecclesiology. There are a bunch of ten-dollar theological words and maybe someday I’ll regale you with tales of soteriology (which is the study of salvation) or eschatology (the study of ultimate or last things) but today the topic is ecclesiology which is the study of the ecclesia – the Greek word meaning those who are called, summoned, assembled – that is, the assembly, the congregation, the church. Ecclesiology is the branch of theology that studies the church; and like every branch of study there are competing theories: the church is the body of Christ; the church is the communion of saints (that’s what our forbears the Puritans thought); the church is composed of pilgrims on a faith journey; the church is the model of perfect human community – that’s a good one!

 

There’s an evangelical minister I know who welcomes his congregation every Sunday, “Good morning, Saints!” And most of the people respond by saying, “Good morning!” And then he says, “Good morning, Sinners!” And the same people and a few others respond “Good morning!” That’s one sort of ecclesiology.

 

What is our ecclesiology? I think of Wendell Berry’s novel Jayber Crow where he says, “What I saw now was the community imperfect and irresolute but held together by the frayed and always fraying, incomplete and yet ever-holding bonds of the various sorts of affection…. It was a community always disappointed in itself, disappointing its members, always trying to contain its divisions and gentle its meanness, always failing and yet always preserving a sort of will toward goodwill. I knew that, in the midst of all the ignorance and error, this was a membership; it was the membership of Port William (or Bedford…) and of no other place on earth. My vision gathered the community as it never has been and never will be gathered in this world of time, for the community must always be marred by members who are indifferent to it or against it, who are nonetheless its members and maybe nonetheless essential to it. And yet I saw them all as somehow perfected, beyond time, by one another’s love, compassion, and forgiveness, as it is said we may be perfected by grace.” That’s an ecclesiology!

 

I think of Alice Walker in The Color Purple where she says, “Tell the truth: did you ever find God in church? I never did. I just found a whole bunch of folks hoping for God to show. Any God I ever felt in church, I brought with me. And I think other folks did, too. They come to church to share God, not to find (God).” That’s an ecclesiology!

 

But there are other ecclesiologies that can be destructive or dumb, some seductively attractive even to us. Some ecclesiologies emphasize human weakness and subservience to God. That’s an ecclesiology that hasn’t much hold on us but I’m sure you’ve encountered it. And then there are ecclesiologies that are so cock-sure of their own saintliness, salvation, grace and self-righteousness. “All the thinking people come to First Parish!” Have you heard that one? I have, alas.

 

And there also are ecclesiologies that so single-notedly celebrate themselves that they are incestuous. Last week I was told a story by one of our newer members about her previous church in Ontario, Canada. It was an ultra-rational, “only thinking people allowed” sort of place, and they renovated or built an addition to the building such that the sanctuary was on the ground floor and apartments were built above. And many of the church members moved into the apartments and – this is the best part – on Sunday morning some of the members could be seen coming into the sanctuary wearing their bedroom slippers! That too is an ecclesiology! And, yes, our new member thinks that her old church has dwindled to nothing and now closed.

 

I don’t think I’ve seen any of us come here wearing bedroom slippers and yet there is something about that example that is a little too close to home. People come to First Parish seeking community. It’s a huge need and yearning for nearly all of us. We are better at providing community than almost anything else. Of this we can be (humbly) proud. Other UU ministers say – and I know it to be true too – that we could spend nearly all our time preaching about community – its strengths, weaknesses, benefits, terrors, and glories – and the people would still be hungry for more.

 

And yet too often we mistake our community for the people who happen to gather within these walls. We are not our community. Our community is the human community.

 

When some day/some way/some how we re-introduce spoken joys and sorrows and concerns…and I don’t know just when that day will come – a month or two from now, I don’t know – and I don’t know quite what form or frequency it will take…these are things I’ll ponder with the Religious Services and Lay Pastoral Visitors Committees…but I certainly think it’s likely and desirable that that day will come. I think it good that we’re taking a break because it gives us the opportunity to think and reflect about what we do, what about our tradition is important to us, what we might in some way change, what is transient and what is permanent; but I know that we absolutely need some way or ways of knowing one another more deeply. But…when that day comes when we reintroduce spoken sharings, I want there always to be words spoken…

 

for the ones whose voices we do not hear but whose voices cry and shout nonetheless,

for the unentitled,

for the people in this world who are hungry,

for those who live in poverty and misery,

for those who endure war,

for those who persevere amidst oppressions, privations and abuses that few of us will ever know. Our community is the human community.

 

Once upon a time there were two theological things going on here: an ecclesiology and a doctrine. You know now what ecclesiology is. A doctrine is something that is taught and something that is believed. We used to, and to some extent still do, teach and believe things here. What has tended to happen, however, is that our ecclesiology and our doctrine have become one thing: We teach and believe in…ourselves! I hasten to say that this is not an altogether bad thing, so long as we do not fall into error by mistaking ourselves or our community for the people who happen to be in this room. Our community is the human community.

 

I call, however, for a revival of our good doctrine. What is our good doctrine? Unitarians originally believed that Jesus – who I see is again in the news – Unitarians saw Jesus as an example, a model of what human beings could become – humane, righteous, compassionate, merciful, self-sacrificing, just. And for their part, Universalists believed that there is no such place or condition as hell, no one is cast unto eternal damnation; and there is no such thing as individual salvation but that humanity does share a single common destiny.

 

Put these doctrines together and mix in some ecclesiology and what have you got? We say “Come to this religious community just as you are, with all your warts and failings and streaky genius and usually-good hearts. Come as you are but, you know, we’re not going to leave you where you are. Because if you come to this community we’re going to summon you to look up to some of the exemplars of human kind, be they Jesus or Buddha or Dorothy Day or Jane Addams or Nelson Mandela or who knows who. In your own experience you have surely known luminous persons, famous or known only to you. You are made of the same stuff as any of them and you too can live a little more of your own ideals than you are living today.

 

And if you come to this community we will also help you to re-member that your individual lucky-you salvation just isn’t going to happen, no matter how hard you work or pray or polish the teacher’s or God’s apple. What happens to you – I’m talking to you – is not to be separated from what happens to the person sitting next to you or what happens to the American or the Iraqi or to whomever is in harm’s way anywhere in this world. What is done unto the least of our sisters and brothers is done unto thee. We, not some politician, are responsible for the world’s wars and for the making of its peace.

 

And, though we don’t practice it as much as we ought, if you come to this community we all ought to be prepared for some occasional, well, confession. Garrison Keillor said some things recently about confession that ring true. He was talking about poets but it applies to all of us. He said, “True confession is extremely rare in poetry, as in life. When a poet pretends to confess, usually he does it in a pretty heroic manner: Forgive me, Lord, that I have foolishly bestowed love on these raving idiots.” (We’ve all prayed that one, right?) Keillor goes on to say, “You seldom hear someone cop to the real basic stuff: Forgive me, Lord, for being this self-righteous prick and walking around with a mirror held up in front of my face. Relieve me, Lord, of this stupid self-consciousness, this absolutely insufferable ego. God, it is making me miserable. I lust after recognition. I am desperate to win all the little merit badges and trinkets of my profession, and I am of less real use in this world than any good cleaning lady. I have written reams of high-falutin nonsense and it is nothing but fishwrap and a dog’s biffy. You don’t get this kind of honesty often from writers (or preachers or any of us), and of course it ought to be encouraged.”

 

Come as you are, we say, that’s great. But let’s not leave one another in the same place or condition as that where and in which we arrived. We confess that we are less than we yet may be and we have endured ourselves unchanged too long. We are here summoned to be more and different than we once were. This is, as the poet Philip Larkin has said, “A serious house on a serious earth.”

 

I had intended to tell you some more about doctrine – about freedom and reason and tolerance – but it’s getting to be time for some eschatology, last things and wrapping this fish up. Suffice to say, however, that institutions often fail, Lord Acton reminded us, of an excess of their primary values. Freedom is not a terminal value, we should remember; an open mind is no better than an open window and everything depends on the use we make of it. Reason, in UU churches, is over praised and under-utilized. And tolerance, well, there really are things up with which we ought not put. Think on these things.

 

I am concerned about our ecclesiology and our doctrine. We have a certain tendency to be a weak association of individuals instead of a strong ecclesia that is summoned to higher purposes. We make our ecclesiology our doctrine when, in truth, our doctrine is indeed powerful and transforming. We know and teach our doctrine too little. You look around this building and you see all sorts of implicit expressions of our doctrine: efforts to end violence against women; efforts to make common cause with oppressed people in Transylvania; efforts to foster peace, defend civil liberties; end racism, sexism and homophobia; efforts to encourage youth…a whole lot goes on here. We need to get better at making explicit and articulating the ways in which all these activities are expressions of our doctrine.

 

This sermon was inspired and set in motion a month ago by some things said by one of my mentors in ministry, Gordon McKeeman. I had a homiletic consultation with him by phone on Friday, and he gave me the words with which I will close. They are actually words spoken in 1941 by Frederick May Eliot who was then president of what was called the American Unitarian Association. He said,

 

“The day has come for the Unitarian Church of America to cease being merely an aggregation of separate and highly individualist units, with no clear and definite sense of unity, no central purpose that compels obedience and loyalty, no common faith that creates a living fellowship of believers, no discipline that makes common action possible, no sense of holy vocation so that God’s own purposes and grace may become incarnate once again in human lives and transform the face of the earth.

 

We must be done with all that theorizing and temporizing which, in the name of freedom, will leave open the gates of the citadel to the church’s bitterest enemies. The time has come to create the Unitarian Church as a close-knit working and fighting fellowship of men and women who would serve God in the present world at any cost to themselves, and who are not afraid to speak and act as though they knew themselves to be servants of the Most High.”

 

If we are to proudly play but one note on our humble instrument, would it be that the highest purposes and grace become incarnate once again in our lives, thus transforming the face of the earth, and may we be unafraid to speak and act as though we know ourselves to be servants of the Most High.