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Proverbs 9:
1-6
January 31, 2010
OUR MEETINGHOUSE AND THE STORIES OF JESUS: With this being the 100th anniversary of this Meetinghouse, each week in this series of sermons, we are exploring various details of this building and we’re trying to make a connection between them and the life and teachings of Jesus. Over in Jordan, out in the desert, in a place called Wadi Rum, there’s a magnificent rock formation called, the “Seven Pillars of Wisdom”. It’s a place that was named by T. E. Lawrence, also known as Lawrence of Arabia, who took the name from the Book of Proverbs where it says, Wisdom has built her house, She has set up her seven pillars. And so this morning I would have us
concentrate on the 6 Greek ionic columns or pillars here in this room, plus one
more to bring the total up to 7. But first of all, I want to say a few words about the enormous Greek influence that is so evident in the design of this building. In the history of the Christian church, one of the things we should not forget is how the Christian church is indebted not only to the great tradition of Judaism, and especially the prophets of Israel, but also the great tradition of the ancient Greeks, their architecture and philosophy. Christianity started off as a small branch on the great tree of Judaism, but when St. Paul took it upon himself to take the life and teachings of Christ to the Gentiles, to the non-Jewish population, embarking on missionary journeys that would take him to such places as Macedonia, the island of Malta, Asia Minor, Rome, and several places in Greece -- Athens, Corinth and Thessalonica -- this universalized the message of Christ, and so Christianity as we know it today has been influenced by all the cultures in which it has lived. In “Ulysses”, one of his better known poems, Alfred Lord Tennyson says, “I am a part of all that I have met,” meaning not only that in our travels, we leave something of ourselves with those with whom we meet, but also meaning that we are influenced and our identities are shaped by the people and the cultures with which we meet. That could be said of Christianity as well. Wherever Christianity has gone, it has not only imparted its wisdom (and sometimes its foolishness), but also it has been shaped and reshaped, formed and reformed by those cultures in which it has lived. This Meetinghouse is a testament to the influence of Greek philosophy on the Christian faith, and by worshipping here, week after week, we also are being shaped – just by being here in this heavily laden Greek environment -- by the great intellectual and spiritual tradition of the Greeks, and so if you don’t want Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, and Archimedes to be a part of your “cloud of witnesses”, your “Facebook” spiritual friends, then you may be in the wrong place. Those of you who are students of architecture know this better than I, but we are surrounded by many elements of that tradition. The sheer beauty of this place should remind us of how for the Greeks, beauty and truth are always closely intertwined, their belief that “the good” “the true” and the “the beautiful” are not separate and distinct qualities, but qualities that are deeply interconnected. The gold leaf behind this pulpit is called the Greek key design and is a symbol of harmony. The shape and the proportion of this building should remind us of the glorious Parthenon and the other great buildings in Athens and Delphi, and the fluted columns both inside and outside of this building are called “ionic” columns, being neither as ornate as the Corinthian columns, nor as austere as the Doric columns. You’ll find these ionic columns throughout our Meetinghouse – outside on the front portico of this building and also, you’ll see them incorporated into the design of this pulpit, but for this morning, I would have us concentrate on the 6 columns that support the balcony, a fairly important part of the structure of this building, both for those of you who sing in the choir but also for those who sit beneath them. Now, when our spiritual ancestors built this building they could have been a lot more practical and penny-pinching than they were. Instead of our magnificent spire, they could have opted for no spire at all or maybe just a perfunctory upside down ice cream cone, and instead of these beautiful ionic columns that remind us of Greek philosophy, they could have opted for 6 concrete columns or pieces of steel, nowadays called, “lally columns”, which, if you have one in your basement, you know how practical but also how ugly they are, and as for me, I give thanks for our ancestors and this, their deliberate and quite intentional illustration of how closely intertwined beauty and truth are. Be that as it may, I would have us contemplate these 6 columns, and for each of them I would have us celebrate some particular aspect of Greek philosophy and its influence on our Christian faith. There are only 6 of them, and we could certainly identify more, many more epiphanies from the Greek tradition, but these are the 6 I’ve selected for today, 6 that might be suggestive for you, as I hope you might make your own list. Now, in the sermon title, you’ll see that I’ve followed the lead of T. E. Lawrence and the Book of Proverbs in speaking of the “7 Pillars of Wisdom”, and between now and the end of this sermon you can be thinking about what and where that 7th pillar might be. And so let’s begin, and let’s call this first pillar to my left, “Pillar Number 1.” Let this one remind us of the wisdom of Aristotle who said that: Excellence is an art won by training and habituation. We do not act rightly because we have virtue or excellence, but we rather have those because we have acted rightly. We are what we repeatedly do. Now, I don’t know how or even if the wisdom of Aristotle found it’s way all the way over to Nazareth in the Holy Land, but it was really not that far away, and as for me, I see a great deal of similarity between the wisdom of Aristotle and the wisdom of Jesus in our scripture lesson for this morning from the Gospel of Matthew. Like all great wisdom teachers, Jesus would sit down, and surrounded by his students, he would challenge them to think in a radically new and different way. He would tell them that they would need to practice their spirituality and keep on practicing until they finally reached perfection, saying to them, You must be perfect, as your heavenly father is perfect. As a wisdom teacher, Jesus was never easy on his students; he was always challenging them to expand the circumference of their consciousness, to become better and better human beings, to learn to love not only their neighbors but also the stranger and even the enemy as well, to never be complacent or spiritually or ethically lazy, to go the “extra mile”, to sacrifice more and more, to perfect their God-given capabilities. Our UConn women’s basketball team has reached an extraordinary level of excellence, and I very much appreciate how one of them said that their coach tells them that if they strive for perfection, they’ll never attain it, but what they will attain is excellence. I’d like to suggest that this is very much in keeping with Greek philosophy, this notion of the perfectibility of the human spirit and it is evident in their architecture, their early experiments in democracy and of course the Olympic games. The Greek word for excellence is the word, “Arete”, and you’ll find this word in our word “Aristocracy”, and the true aristocrat is not one who has more power or more money or more social credentials than anyone else, but rather one who strives for excellence, one who endeavors to use all the gifts and talent with which he or she has been divinely endowed, one who never says, “I am just this or I am just that” but one who is forever striving for that elusive state of perfection. You can see this in the words of Brother Lawrence, the Christian mystic, who spoke of “practicing the presence of God”. The presence of God for all of us is not a static state of being; it’s not something that we have or do not have, but something we can attain, if we would only practice it, in the same way that Maya Moore practices her jump shot. I grew up in the Methodist Church and I very much appreciate how they speak of “going on to perfection.” Through the discipline of daily work and daily prayer, we may never reach perfection, but if we work at it, we can become spiritual “aristocrats.” So, on Sunday morning, may this ionic column remind you of the wisdom of Jesus and the wisdom of Aristotle, that we can become better human beings tomorrow than what we are today, that we should never write ourselves off, that we can strive for perfection in all that we do, and of course, a corollary to this is that in striving for perfection, we will inevitably fall short, and so the knowledge of God’s love and forgiveness is absolutely indispensable. Moving now to the second Ionic column, I would have us remember how Socrates said, “The Unexamined life is not worth living… Wisdom begins in Wonder.” If you think about Jesus as a teacher, as a teacher of wisdom perhaps you can see how he employed what has come to be called, “the Socratic method”; he didn’t just tell people what they should and should not do; he didn’t always give them the right answer to their questions, but frequently, like every great teacher we have ever had, he could be a royal pain in the neck, not answering questions, but rather returning one question with yet another question, always trying to get his students, his disciples to question their assumptions and to expand their consciousness. The parables themselves are deeply rooted or at least in sympathy or in agreement with this Socratic Method; they were not just simple morality tales, but brain teasers or soul teasers. And so as you ponder this second ionic pillar, remember how Socrates said, “the unexamined life is not worth living… wisdom begins in wonder” and when you’re here on a Sunday morning, say to yourself, “I wonder what the difference is between “my will” and “God’s will”; I wonder if I might be able to look at this issue or that issue from a different perspective; I wonder if there might be a different lens by which I can look at reality. I wonder what God’s perspective might be.” Now, for the 3rd pillar, being so close to where the choir and the organ is, I would have us remember how the philosopher Plato said that, Music is a moral law. It
gives soul to the universe, wings A week or so ago, we watched the “Hope for Haiti” benefit concert where I was introduced to number of singers and musicians with whom I was not very familiar, and I was inspired by both their music and their compassion. Their music helped to inspire about $56 million dollars for Haitian Relief. Music has a way of touching the “better angels of our nature.” It has a way of eliciting the innate goodness of the human soul, and as Plato says, “it gives wings to the mind.” We listen to music and suddenly we are transported to places we have never been before. I’m also reminded of how astounding it was, after the earthquake, to see how the Haitian people were seen outside in the rubble singing their hymns with the kind of fervor and conviction that we would do well to emulate. Their music is a testament to the power that it has to help us transcend whatever tragedy or challenge we may encounter. If music is the language of the soul, it is that which inspires us to rise above whatever our troubles and tragedies might be. During the darkest days of apartheid, the music that came out of the townships of South Africa was second only to the angels themselves, and here in this community, I have seen how the power of music from our choirs, our soloists, our instrumentalists has brought comfort to those in grief and the reassurance of God’s love to those in despair. So, as you ponder this 3rd pillar, offer a prayer of thanksgiving for the role that music plays in our spiritual life. For our 4th pillar of wisdom, I would have us remember a strange Greek philosopher who lived the life of a homeless person, a man by the name of “Diogenes the Cynic.” He was known as a cynic because he was forever questioning everything and everyone. He lived in about 400 BC in what is now Turkey, and he died in Corinth, the same place where St. Paul preached one of his most famous sermons. “When I was a child I spoke like a child; I understood like a child, I thought like a child but when I became a man (or a woman) I put away childish things.” I mention this because Diogenes the Cynic was forever talking about the importance of education, saying, as he did: The foundation of every
state is the education of its If that’s what it means to be a “cynic” I would say that the world could use a few more “cynics.” But of course, this isn’t cynicism at all; the true cynics are those who devalue and underestimate the importance of education. The true cynics are those who say that the world is going to hell in a hand basket, and so who cares what happens to our youth. The true cynics are those who minimize the importance of education, and in our congregational tradition, we should be very proud of the role that our spiritual ancestors played in establishing so many of our educational institutions. Yale and Harvard were both established by our ancestors, and if you look at how and when our public schools were started here in this community, you will see that our congregational ancestors played and continue to play a leadership role. I like to think that while St. Paul was in Corinth, being the great student of cultures that he was, perhaps he was thinking of that strange and prophetic, homeless man by the name of Diogenes who lived about 400 years before him. I like to think that perhaps St. Paul was thinking of the wisdom of Diogenes when he spoke of giving up our “childish ways”, saying “our knowledge is imperfect… but when the perfect comes, the imperfect will pass away.” You will hear in this the consonance between pillar #1 and pillar #4. There’s far too much “childishness” in this world, far too much ignorance and far too much intellectual laziness. We all need to do a better job of “loving God with all of our minds.” It’s never too late to give up our “childish ways.” It’s never too late to be a student of the truth, to be a seeker of enlightenment, and so this 4th pillar of wisdom should be a reminder that we, like our ancestors, need to put a high priority on education. For our 5th pillar of wisdom, I would have us remember a distinguished Greek mathematician, a man who lived in about 200 BC – about 200 years after Diogenes and about 200 years before the birth of Jesus. His name was Archimedes and he lived in Syracuse – not the one in upstate New York, but rather the one in Sicily. Remember it was Archimedes who said, “Give me a lever and a place to stand and I will move the world.” For me, this is a reminder that we are a “congregational” church not an “individual church” that there is so much more that we can do together than what we can do in isolation. We need each other as leverage and we need this place as a place to stand in order to get things done. Individually, the tragedy in Haiti is of such a magnitude that it would seem to render as absolutely futile and pathetic whatever I might do, but when our efforts are combined, there is nothing we cannot do. Working together with others, we can rebuild the houses of those who have lost so much, and relying upon the partnership of others, both inside Haiti and around the world, we can build houses that are environmentally responsible and earthquake resistant. At the same time, there are other “levers” that need to be employed in order to build there a civilization that is sustainable, and in this regard, I am ever so grateful for the work of Ted and Becky Crosby and the educational scholarship program they have establish in Haiti. This is a lever that does Archimedes proud. “Give me a scholarship program and I can change a community. Give me an educated community and I can change a nation. Give me a lever and I can change the world.” Moving around now to our 6th pillar of wisdom, there was a somewhat lesser known Greek philosopher by the name of Zeno of Citium. Zeno was from Cyprus but he did most of his teaching in Athens and he lived about 300 years before the birth of Jesus, but when Jesus said, “consider the lilies of the field” even Jesus himself was part of an intellectual tradition of which Zeno was very much a part. Or, in other words, Jesus would have found in Zeno a kindred spirit, and we all would do well to remember how this Greek philosopher said this: All things are parts of one single system, which is called Nature; the individual life is good when it is in harmony with nature. When I was in college there was a wall in which students were invited to put whatever they wanted, and most of the time it was filled with posters about this or that event, bumper stickers, inanities and more than a few profanities, but I remember going there once and seeing that someone had written in very good calligraphy the words, “everything is a part of everything is a part of everything…” I don’t know who wrote those words, but it might very well have been inspired by this Cypriot by the name of Zeno, and when we look at the Greek Key design and how it symbolizes harmony, we would do well to remember that part of our reason for being here is to reconnect, to bring back together that which we too often “render asunder”, to be reminded of how wonderfully and sometimes fearfully everything in connected to everything else. Nature itself is one of our great wisdom teachers in that it shows us how extraordinarily interconnected everything is. If “sin” is a state of separation, then many of us live in a state of sin. We compartmentalize ourselves. We think that what we do and what we do not do does not affect anyone else. We forget that in God’s design of the universe, nothing is isolated, and the great human enterprise is to do all that we can to restore the integrity and the harmony of God’s Creation. And so as we ponder this 6th Pillar of Wisdom, may it remind us of how interconnected all of Nature is, and we are here on a Sunday morning to allow ourselves to be reconnected with the “world that God so much loved”, and to remember that our joy and our serenity and our sense of meaning and purpose are dependent upon the extent to which we are living our lives in harmony with nature. And so there are the 6 Pillars of Wisdom, and so Aristotle, Socrates, Plato, Diogenes, Archimedes, Zeno, thank you for being a part of our cloud of witnesses. Thank you for your words of wisdom. Thank you for being Pillars of Truth. Thank you for helping to under gird and support what we do as a church. But now, what about that 7th Pillar of Wisdom? Well, by now, I hope you have surmised that you need to look no further than yourself to know where that 7th Pillar is. As beautiful as these 6 Ionic columns are, and as beautiful as the wisdom is of those I have mentioned this morning, I am quite sure that Aristotle, Socrates, Plato, Diogenes, Archimedes and Zeno would agree with me that the 7th Pillar of Wisdom is the most important of all. So, using the Socratic Method, without you, where and what would this church be? Amen.
David W. Good Old Lyme, Connecticut
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