THE ORIGINAL
SACRED TEXT: The Language “God” Really
Talks
Rev. Kit Ketcham,
April 19, 2015
Over the
past months, we’ve talked about the several sources of Unitarian Universalism, which make our faith
different from most other religious traditions.
Most of our wisdom sources are in writing or in stories of lives well
lived. But let’s talk a bit now about
sources of wisdom as a genre and what makes a source “sacred”.
Do you find
wisdom in the Bible or other traditional sacred texts? If not there, where do you find your
wisdom? What sources do you use? Things your Dad or Mom used to say? A favorite teacher or coach or other wise
person? Do you have favorite sayings
that contain wisdom? How about throwing
some of those sayings out there, something that encapsulates some of your
acquired wisdom? (cong. Resp)
We find wisdom
in a lot of places. Some of it comes out
of our experiences; sometimes it is visible on bumper stickers or
t-shirts. We find it in novels, in
non-fiction, in textbooks and memoirs, in a lot of different kinds of
writings: poetry, children’s books,
comics. We find it in art works, theater
productions, songs and symphonies. We
find it in the Bible, the Bhagavad Gita, the Tanakh, the Koran.
Some of
these sources of wisdom are said to be divinely inspired, right out of the
heart of God and written down by human beings.
Most of them are human creations; it’s a little hard to say for sure
about the ones attributed to God, since scholars have realized that ancient and
modern editors over the ages have altered texts here and there, either to
reflect their own views or by copying a mistake made by an earlier copier. And we’re not talking Xerox here.
Awhile
back, I came across a book entitled “The Language God Talks”, a memoir by the
author Herman Wouk, a treatise on his efforts to link science and
religion. I bought it and settled in to
enlighten myself. I was especially
interested in learning about the language God talks.
One
traditional take on the language God talks has been either the ancient
languages of the Hebrew Scriptures or the King James Version of the Christian
Bible. Other religions see it
differently: the Koran was the voice of
Allah spoken through the mouth of Mohammed; the Bhagavad Gita is the dialogue
between Krishna the god and Arjuna the human on the eve of a climactic battle,
laying down Hindu theology in this context.
Confucianism relies on the writings and teachings of Confucius, who set
forth a nontheistic moral and philosophical code for his followers.
But what
makes a text—or any object or teaching—sacred?
Since our rational minds can’t know for sure whether God actually spoke
to Moses, David, Jesu, Mohammed, and others, we have to make some assumptions
about texts and other items said to be sacred.
Somebody
clearly thought that the voice in his or head was divine. The voice offered wisdom, guidance, prophesy,
or warning. Sometimes the listener
argued with the voice, as so many of the Psalms seem to do, lamenting human
fate and helplessness before the chaos of human living.
So is it
the hearer of the voice, the transcriber of those words who decides if a text
is sacred? Or is it the reader of the
text, the receiver of the wisdom who decides?
In our faith, where reason is such an important part of our religious
practices, we want to know why something is considered sacred, not just take
others’ word for it.
I asked a
friend, Dr. Donald Cooper, retired linguistics scholar, my questions about
sacred texts and he answered in this way:
“The idea of a sacred text is uncertain. Some groups of readers consider some text
sacred; others approach them as historical documents or literary works…The idea
of the beauty of sacred texts is
also uncertain. They are effective, but
sometimes they are horrible. When a
text, for example, in the Psalms recommends the killing of the babies of one’s
enemies…that is not beauty, but it gets to the heart of anyone who has ever
loved a child.”
He goes on
to say that people are the ones who make texts sacred, whether they are the
scribes and accountants and priests of early human history or the readers who
welcomed the advent of the printing press, which made written texts available
to everyone who was literate or knew someone who could read.
Sacred
writings come out of human hearts. Were
they inspired by God? Not in a rational
way of thinking perhaps, but certainly they sprang from minds and hearts
overflowing with joy, with beauty, with contemplative wisdom, and also with
sorrow and anger.
According
to the Teaching Company, which offers a course entitled “Life Lessons from the
Great Books”, a great book is one whose focus is on great themes such as love,
courage, and true patriotism; it is composed in a noble language; it has the
ability to speak to readers across the ages; and it speaks to readers as
individuals, not as groups.
Categories
of great books, by their reckoning, are these:
the unconquerable human spirit, youth and old age, romance and love,
adventure and courage, laughter and irony, and the true meaning of patriotism
Books and
authors mentioned are such things as these:
the gospel of John, The Brothers Karamazov by Dostoevsky, works by
Albert Schweitzer, Shakespeare, Homer, even the journals of Lewis and Clark.
Here, in
humanly-produced texts, are some of the predominant lessons of human
living: where wisdom can be found in
life’s experiences, the meaning of evil, suffering, and death, reverence for
all life, the idea that great strength can contribute to great evil when pushed
too far, the ideas that undergird true patriotism and democracy, that war
brings devastation, yes, but also an opportunity for wisdom and redemption.
What is the
difference between these books and the body of texts that are generally
considered sacred today? I note that
traditional sacred texts focus on lessons learned from God , rather than human
experience. But we UUs are apt to name
texts which are human products, rather than so-called divinely inspired works.
I often ask
my UU colleagues for their thoughts when I’m preparing a sermon, and when I
threw my questions out to them, I got a variety of answers. Somebody mentioned Moby Dick and the
Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy.
Another mentioned Darwin’s Origin of Species and Emerson’s Essays.
And another
colleague warned me thus: “The caution that I would offer about our
approach (to naming our own sacred texts) is that there’s a danger of naming
“sacred” any text that seems to confirm our existin biases. A text that only reassures us that our
perspective is the “right” one is a dangerous thing.”
Remember when the Kansas State
Board of Education, several years ago, was deciding to include the Biblical
story of creation in the science curriculum of Kansas schools? This alarmed a lot of people, not just in Kansas,
as it seem to be the very antithesis of science education and there was a great
deal of outcry.
Among those
protesting this decision (which was eventually revoked) was Concerned Citizen
Bobby Henderson, who complained that if Creationism and Intelligent Design were
to become part of the Kansas school curriculum, he wanted his own Deity and
Creation story to be included as well.
Henderson
wrote an impassioned letter to the Kansas Board of Education, describing his
Deity, the Flying Spaghetti Monster, and the wonders of its creation, all
performed by the Monster with his Holy Noodly Appendages.
Since that
time, a cult of Flying Spaghetti Monster followers has sprung up and has issued
some sacred texts of its own, notably the “Eight Things I’d Really Rather You
Didn’t Do” statement. Many of the eight
things are in language not fit for the pulpit, but I will quote you one of them
so you can get the picture:
6.
I’d really rather you didn’t build Multimillion-dollar churches;
temples/mosques/shrines to my Noodly Goodness when the money could be better
spent (take your pick) A. Ending poverty; B. Curing disease; C. Living
in Peace, Loving with passion, and Lowering the Cost of Cable. I might be a Complex Carbohydrate Omniscient
Being but I enjoy the Simple Things in Life.
I ought to know, I AM the Creator.
So speaks
the Flying Spaghetti Monster. And his
Complex Carbohydrate Omniscient Being states ideas that have been lobbed at
religious extravagance for millennia:
don’t be holier-than-thou; don’t use religious language to subjugate and
oppress people; don’t judge others; treat women equally; don’t take advantage
of people sexually; get over yourself; and be careful when you do unto others
if you have odd urges.
If you’re
interested in the Flying Spaghetti Monster and think his Noodly Goodness might
be right up your alley, you can google him easily on your favorite device.
So are the
“”8 things I’d really rather you didn’t do” a sacred text? I guess I wouldn’t call them that, because
they are a deliberate spoof, but then you think of Jonathan Swift’s satirical
work “A Modest Proposal”, in which he suggested in 1729 that impoverished Irish
parents sell their children to rich folks for culinary purposes; this, he
claimed with tongue deep in cheek, would solve Ireland’s economic crisis and
give rich ladies and gentlemen a new gourmet delight.
His purpose
was to castigate British officialdom for their oppressive policies toward the
Irish citizenry. Not too different from the
proclamations issued by irate Hebrew prophets, railing against the cruelties of
Rome and other conquering nations as well as against the idolatry of the
Israelites. Only they weren’t using
satire and irony.
My friend
Don Cooper passed along a little more about sacred texts: that oral traditions passed along wisdom by
speaking it until written language developed, making it possible to inscribe
and preserve it; that in the case of the Bible, a set of texts has been
declared sacred, but that this designation has often come from the text’s
usefulness in upholding some theological idea; and that sacred texts are often
misused and taken out of context, including literal interpretation.
For my
conservative Christian friends and family, the Bible is a deeply sacred text,
yet their interpretation is usually literal and spelled out explicitly
in their publications. For me too, the
Bible is a sacred text and my interpretation tends to be metaphorical, not
literal. I think, too, that the Bible is
wrong in many ways for our time and culture, that, for us, revelation and
understanding are constantly evolving.
The meaning
of any sacred text is something that we the readers infer from the word and
tone the writer uses, making our own interpretations. We often don’t know the context from which
the text springs, but we do have the commonality of human experience from which
to extrapolate our own meanings.
So what is
the nature of a sacred text?
A
traditional sacred text, such as the Bible, comes from a divine source; it may
be written in a sacred or liturgical language like Sanskrit, and may be most
precious when inscribed in calligraphy, as are the Koran’s most holy
renditions.
A
non-traditional sacred text emerges from human experience and speaks wisdom to
those who wish to understand their own lives and challenges.
But all
this study and cogitating about sacred texts has led me inevitably to another
question, the one which for me lies beneath the lesser questions. And that is “is there any source of wisdom
which does not require human intervention, that is intrinsically sacred in the
sense of “ultimate value”, that is not handed down from fallible human to
fallible human, that is pure, truthful, perfect, and accessible to all
creatures, regardless of intellect?
If such a
text existed, would we not protect and revere it? Well, those who recognize it DO protect and
revere it. That perfect sacred text is
not written, its truths are not influenced by human touch, yet are discovered
and rediscovered every day by those who consult it. It is the source of all human knowledge, the
fount of insight that has fueled all human endeavor.
It is the
Earth, one book in the ever-expanding library of the universe. We humans and all other creatures have
learned all we know from our relationship with the Earth, how we might survive
most successfully, how we might use the resources of the planet most
effectively, how important it is not to overuse its resources but to keep our
greedy natures under control and be grateful for its bounty. It has given us beauty to love and to
cultivate, other species to nurture and to use respectfully, and challenges us
to grow, to evolve. That’s not to say
that we all do this faithfully!
As
physicists and other explorers are discovering as they decipher the secrets of
this unwritten text, its original source seems not to be the romantic scene on
the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel, whether you see in your mind’s eye a burly
Caucasian God figure or the Noodly Appendages of the Flying Spaghetti Monster. No, it’s much greater than that.
Isaac Newton
summed up his lifework in this way before he died: “I know
not what I seem to the world, but to myself I seem to have been only like a boy
playing on the seashore, and diverting myself in now and then finding a smoother
pebble or a prettier shell, whilst the great ocean of truth lay all
undiscovered before me.”
Newton, one
forerunner of today’s courageous explorers, was part of a long stream of human
beings who sensed that there was more to Truth than what was found in the
common sacred texts of the time.
That Truth
was accessible through study of the Earth and the Universe beyond the
Earth. That Truth embodied the divine,
expressed itself in unspeakable beauty and inconceivable starkness.
Its code of life and death was
inexorable, unfailing. Its lessons were
sweet and also harsh.
But it was
true and humans learned to cope with its truth, to bargain with its rigidity,
to soften its harshness with justice, mercy, and love, until eventually those
lessons became inscribed in human writing and the prophet Micah was moved to
write: “What does the Divine require of you but to do justice, to love mercy,
and to walk humbly on the earth?”
The Earth,
our original, unwritten sacred text, the one most accessible to us, will survive
the damage we do and will heal itself if we let it. It will heal us too, if we allow it to do so.
And the
language God talks, as I mentioned at the beginning of this sermon? If the Earth is a book in the library of the
Universe and we humans are discovering the way the Universe seems to work, the
language God talks must be calculus, the beautiful mathematics that outline the
vectors of space and time. That’s
“God’s” language and we earthly beings are invited to contribute our language
too---the poetry and prose and music and art of beauty, love, justice, and joy.
Let’s pause
for a time of silent reflection and prayer.
