Scripture: Mark 10:46-52
I want to begin today by saying that I am feeling honored, honored on behalf of Sojourners that Barry Taylor has chosen to be baptized here. I hope this doesn’t sound like a kind of polite, formal statement—the way people begin speeches by saying “pleased to be here”, “honored to be invited”, etc.—because I don’t mean it that way. I am feeling what I will call the joyful weightiness of Barry Taylor’s decision to be baptized, the lifetime of experiences and the long spiritual journey that led to his presenting himself here among us this morning for baptism, and I’m feeling the deep meaning I believe the occasion has for him personally, and so in no way is this occasion just a formality, nor is it a formality for me to say that it is a privilege to be part of such an occasion. So on behalf of all of us, I am feeling honored in that way today.
I’m also feeling honored, in a different way but certainly a more than formal way, that TigerLily has agreed to be part of our worshiping community this morning. Gail Epps, of course, is part of our worshiping community on a regular basis, and it feels really good to have her partners in music here with her, who are such an important part of her life, and who as TigerLily have more than a few friends and followers and fellow-travelers among us. TigerLily would probably have been willing to come on other occasions too, but I know they were approached with the idea of coming to help us observe Women’s History Month, and at least some of the music they have chosen to bring us was chosen with that in mind. And so I’m feeling honored by their presence as well.
And both of these things, Barry being baptized and the presence of TigerLily in connection with Women’s History Month, have led me in the direction I want to go for the sermon this morning. A profound and joyful and somewhat mysterious occasion, such as baptism, always gives me cause to reflect. And one of the things I always run into and am caused to reflect upon is the poverty of our words, the inadequacy and imprecision of our words. How do we give voice to the significance of such an act, its significance in the life of the individual, or in the life of God—and its significance in the life of the community? Granted that baptism is not by its nature this kind of left brain activity that can be nailed down and perfectly explained by some well-chosen words, nevertheless some words are necessary to at least hint at what it means and does not mean. That it does not mean, for instance, that the baptized are headed for a life of eternal bliss and the unbaptized for a life of eternal torment. But how do we express those beliefs that have brought a person to baptism, and how do we express what lies at the heart of the community that embraces and is being embraced in baptism? What few words, sentences, or questions will even begin to get at what needs to be said? What few words, sentences, or questions can even begin to describe what ties an individual to God, or what ties us together as Christians or as human beings, as children of God?
Baptism always brings me face to face with such questions. So, in a different way, does Women’s History Month. Maybe the concerns one might think of as associated with Women’s History Month don’t give rise to exactly the same questions that baptism does, but maybe at the end of the day they are not all that different either.
One of the issues the women’s movement, broadly speaking, has brought to the life of the church is a concern for inclusive language, not just the need to be inclusive in the way we refer to human beings but also, and more controversially, a concern for the language we use in relation to God. Some women along the way over the last several decades have said forcefully that the use of exclusively male language in reference to God has made them feel excluded or disrespected or just that it introduces a difficulty and a distance in their relationship to God. And that, it seems to me, would be reason enough to expand our terminology and not to refer to God in exclusively male language. But in addition, in the process of raising the question about gender bias in our language about God, the women’s movement has helpfully expanded and brought to much wider attention the whole very large concern of how we speak about God…at all.
At least it has done that and continues to do that for me. For those of you who are relatively new to Sojourners, I should say that I understand us to have a commitment to inclusive language, including using inclusive language in reference to God, and as the main person who writes words for worship and who speaks more words in worship than anyone else, I believe that I in particular, more than anyone else, I need to have a commitment to inclusive language. But for me, fulfilling that commitment is not a mathematical matter or a matter of setting up certain rules that I expect myself to follow. It is not a matter of trying to censor out all masculine language in connection to God, or to make sure that the number of masculine references to God is matched by an equal number of feminine references to God. Not that I think it’s wrong to look for non-gender specific ways to talk about God or to try to balance masculine and feminine terminology. It’s not only not wrong; it’s necessary. If you’re going to be concerned about inclusive language you need to be aware of the language you’re using and be conscious of the need to do some of that self-censoring and balancing. But it is all done in the context of realizing the problematic nature of all our words about God, and anything which causes us to be uncertain of our language is a good thing.
There is a commitment, in my view of things, that goes along with the commitment to inclusive language. It is a commitment not to talk casually about God. It is a commitment not to talk easily about God. It is a commitment not to talk about God as though we knew how to talk about God. It is a commitment in this sense not to take the name of the Lord our God in vain. I believe we do take the name of the Lord in vain when we act somehow as though we know the right words, can somehow throw words about God around as though we know what we’re talking about. We have a commitment, and again this means to me that I have the first commitment, not to be glib about God, and to recognize the questionable nature of all our language about God, which we nevertheless of course go ahead and use every Sunday.
Some of the words Sharon read at the beginning of the service today tried to say this, I think. That’s why I chose them. “O God, we dare to speak your name at the threat of having our mouth stopped, for your name is holy…” Which is to say that God is holy, that God herself is holy, that we really don’t know how to talk about this holy God, and that we should think of it as an act of daring every time we do.
I get in moods sometimes. I get in moods where I feel like all our words are taking us further away from God, rather than closer to God. I get in moods where I think that the best thing for Christians to do would just be to stop with the words, to give up all the preaching and proclaiming and all the promises about all the good things that will happen to you if you have faith and to either let loving acts say all that really needs to be said or/and to fall silent before the unfathomable mystery that is God.
It must be the Quaker in me that sometimes sees silence as being more genuine and faithful than a faith that is made up of a lot of words. And when I’m in one of these moods, I get chagrined (can’t think of a better word at the moment) that outwardly we do in our worship exactly what I think we shouldn’t do. We bandy about God’s name and our words about God and our words to God like it was nothing. And again, since I am the one responsible for a great many of the words said in worship, I end up being chagrined mostly at myself.
I know there are many Sojourners who in no way take God, or our ways of talking about God, for granted. I know us here to be people who, many of us anyway, struggle with God, aren’t quite sure who God is or how we ought to talk about God, and who when we have relationships with God, therefore, have relationships with God that are not clichéd, not inherited, second hand, or decorative. I know myself to be someone who is very much aware of the way my words fail me as I try to speak, somehow, in an honest way, the language of faith. Yet there we are, there I am, using all those nice religious words that call upon God, praise God, give thanks to God, ask things of God, promise things on behalf of God, and otherwise engage in God-talk as though it were the most natural thing in the world. When I see us, and especially myself, through that lens, it’s not a comfortable feeling.
Yet what choice do we really have? We don’t come here to have an experience of God. Maybe some of us do, sometimes, a little bit. And sometimes maybe it even happens that we experience something of God directly present to us in the worship experience. But to tell the truth, I believe our experiences of God are not predictable, can occur anywhere, and cannot be summoned by our saying now let worship begin. We can experience God during worship as well as anywhere else to be sure, but when it happens it is sheer blessing, just as it is sheer blessing when we experience God anywhere in our lives. We come to worship more, as I see it, to share our experiences of God, to bring our longings for God, our searchings and struggles, our wonder, our deep belief and profound gratitude, to bring it all together for sharing, so that we do not journey alone, so that we may discover companions on the journey, and so that we may gain strength and yes, find the words, that enable to carry on on the journey. We try to find ways that we can be in touch with the places in ourselves and in one another where we have been touched by God. And we have no choice but to use the only things we have at our disposal, words of faith, no matter how imperfect or faltering they may be, and songs.
Which leads me to another quick story before I close. When I was studying for the ministry, I wasn’t sure I was studying for the ministry, if you know what I mean. During that time, I was employed for a short time at a church where the senior minister was a person I would have to describe as a silver-tongued orator. He had a beautiful speaking voice. He spoke without a single note in front of him, never stopping to search for a word, never losing a train of thought, words just rolling off his tongue. I never thought of him as glib, because he was not superficial, didn’t just string together a bunch of words that sounded nice but didn’t mean anything. I found out later that he actually wrote out his sermons every word but was blessed with a photographic memory so that he didn’t have to have the text in front of him. He was not only a skilled speaker, but a person who seemed to have no trouble at all translating his feelings of faith into words. He was eloquent about faith and his words made him seem very self-assured, and he was a terrible role model for me. If ministers were supposed to be like him, I must not have been meant for the ministry, so I thought.
Then one day I had a meeting with him and somehow one subject led to another and toward the end of the conversation he told me that there was little of the Christian faith, certainly very little of what was most important to him about the Christian faith, that he could put into words, and that there were some things that were important to him that he could sing but could not say. I’m not going to tell you that this was some major turning point in my life, but it was at least a minor one. It didn’t resolve all my doubts about being a minister but his confession made it seem possible in a way that it had not seemed possible before.
Which is to say that appearances can be deceptive. It could seem to an outsider visiting our worship, I suppose, that words about God and Jesus are spoken easily here, because after all this is what we do as Christians coming together on an ordinary Sunday morning, we speak our words about God and Jesus in a natural and comfortable manner. But you and I know it is not so, and may it be not so. May we never lose the sense behind our words of what a daring, audacious, absolutely crucial thing we are engaged in when we worship. May we know that although we try to refer to that holy mystery at the center of our being and at the center of being, may we know that although we may say God or Lord, that a skip of a heartbeat or a lump in the throat might be a more accurate expression. In fear and trembling may we know ourselves touched and blessed by a spirit whose holiness is beyond all words, but who is the One who gives us our words and our songs. Amen.
Jim Bundy
March 25, 2007