{"id":19,"date":"2011-07-03T11:00:00","date_gmt":"2011-07-03T11:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/sermons\/2011\/07\/03\/freely-humbly-honestly\/"},"modified":"2020-02-18T17:44:17","modified_gmt":"2020-02-18T22:44:17","slug":"freely-humbly-honestly","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/sermons\/2011\/07\/03\/freely-humbly-honestly\/","title":{"rendered":"Freely, Humbly, Honestly"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Click here to hear Sermon only<\/a><\/span><\/div>\n
Matthew 1:16-19, 25-30<\/a><\/span><\/div>\n

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It is good to begin in a spirit of gratitude, and so once again it is incumbent upon me to begin this sermon with a word of gratitude to Dean Hill for his gracious offering of a preaching series in the late spring and summer of 2011.\u00a0 Yes, whether you like it or not, you have managed to arrive in the nave of Marsh Chapel for the final installment of Br. Larry\u2019s 2011 Secular Holiday Preaching Series.\u00a0 Some of you may remember when we began, back in May, on Mother\u2019s Day, and then a few weeks later continued on Memorial Day.\u00a0 And now, here we are, once again, this time on Independence Day weekend, at the conclusion of the series.\u00a0 For those who, at the conclusion of this hour, will have withstood all three installments, you have my sincerest condolences.<\/span><\/div>\n

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The Lord be with you.<\/span><\/div>\n

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And also with you.<\/strong><\/span><\/div>\n

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Let us pray.<\/span><\/div>\n

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Holy God, Holy and mighty, Holy and eternal, have mercy on us this day, that we may come to live freely, humbly and honestly in the communion of you most Holy Spirit, in whose unity you dwell with Jesus Christ, our Lord.\u00a0 Amen.<\/span><\/div>\n
As parts of speech go, adverbs tend to fall at the, \u201cWell, okay, but only if we must,\u201d end of the spectrum.\u00a0 To be honest, the trendiest aspect of grammar these days is punctuation, as evidenced by the passionate debates on Twitter in the past few days about the use of the Oxford comma.\u00a0 The bedrock of grammar, of course, is the noun.\u00a0 Nouns have substance.\u00a0 We can see, hear, taste, touch and smell their referents.\u00a0 Verbs help us talk about what nouns do and adjectives help us distinguish the blue nouns from the red nouns.\u00a0 All adverbs do is to qualify the manner in which nouns do the things their attendant verbs indicate.\u00a0\u00a0 We even go out of our way to find ways of avoiding adverbs.\u00a0 After hearing a politician or a preacher we are likely to say, \u201cWell that was a stupid thing for him to say,\u201d as opposed to saying, \u201cshe spoke stupidly.\u201d <\/span><\/div>\n

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It is little wonder, then, that so many in our time struggle to find their spiritual voice, since religious and spiritual life dwells in the land of the adverb.\u00a0 To be religious or to be spiritual is to be concerned with the manner in which life is lived.\u00a0 Life is the noun, live is the verb, and the manner in which life is lived is expressed adverbially.\u00a0 The reality of the adverbial nature of religiosity and spirituality is found in our Gospel reading this morning.\u00a0 In the first half of the pericope, Jesus is frustrated by the lack of understanding of the ministries he and John the Baptist undertook.\u00a0 This lack of understanding is situated in the focus placed upon particular actions, or inactions, undertaken by Jesus and John, namely eating and drinking.\u00a0 Then, the members of the generation Jesus\u2019 critiques ascribes particular connotations to the states of being of Jesus and John, respectively, based on those actions or inactions.\u00a0 The members of the generation observe the verbs and then classify the nouns according to those observations.\u00a0 In the second half of the pericope, Jesus indicates that the generation has missed the point, and that what is really important is hidden from them.\u00a0 Later in the pericope Jesus says, \u201cCome to me, all you that are weary and are carrying heavy burdens, and I will give you rest.\u201d\u00a0 We may ask, what makes people weary?\u00a0 Too much activity.\u00a0 Too many verbs!\u00a0 And those carrying heavy burdens have too many nouns, or too much of a given noun.\u00a0 When we learn from Jesus, we come to understand that it is not about how many activities we can undertake or how much we can carry.\u00a0 It is not about nouns and verbs.\u00a0 It is about the manner in which we do whatever we undertake.\u00a0 To follow Jesus is to learn to live adverbially.\u00a0 Not that adverbs are easier than nouns and verbs, just lighter and less frantic.\u00a0 No, the challenge of living adverbially is garnering the focus of attention required.<\/span><\/div>\n

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There are many adverbs in religious and spiritual life.\u00a0 On this Independence Day weekend, we will consider three: freely, humbly, and honestly.\u00a0 First, and the adverb most closely keyed to the holiday, freely.<\/span><\/div>\n

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The notion of living freely as a spiritual manner of life flies directly in the face of how moderns, Westerns, and particularly we in the United States generally think about what it means to be free.\u00a0 Most often we speak of freedom, a noun, a substance.\u00a0 Freedom is something we have as a possession, and one of the reasons we celebrate Independence Day is to celebrate the substance of freedom that was won as a possession in the wake of the colonies declaring independence and fighting the Revolutionary War.\u00a0 It is a bit odd to think of freedom as a substance.\u00a0 After all, have you ever tried to put freedom in a bag and carry it down the street?\u00a0 Can you walk up to a street vendor and say, \u201cI\u2019ll have a large cup of freedom with sprinkles on top?\u201d\u00a0 Admittedly, for a time you could order Freedom Fries and Freedom Toast from restaurants and snack bars run by the U.S. House of Representatives, but that is a whole other story and a whole other sermon.<\/span><\/div>\n

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No, the modern western concept of freedom is not a noun like \u201cbook\u201d is a noun, namely something you could carry down the street with you.\u00a0 Instead, most often what we mean by freedom in the modern west is both the capacity to act as we choose or desire and the lack of impediment or constraint resulting from the actions of others.\u00a0 This double concept of freedom is epitomized in Isaiah Berlin\u2019s lecture, Two Concepts of Liberty<\/em>, in which he distinguishes freedom \u201cto\u201d and freedom \u201cfrom.\u201d\u00a0 Of course, the two may conflict.\u00a0 After all, every action I undertake may impede the actions of another or constrain them from acting at all.\u00a0 If I hold a large rock concert on Marsh Plaza in the middle of a Thursday afternoon, this will likely impede the ability of scholars in the College of Arts and Sciences, the Law School, and the School of Theology from being very productive, and will be a significant distraction to students studying there, to say nothing of the Chapel Choir rehearsing in the nave here in Marsh Chapel.\u00a0 My freedom to hold the concert runs counter to the freedom of others from distraction.\u00a0 The conflict between freedom from and freedom to, and various approaches to managing the conflict, is the source of much of political, social and legal controversies of our time.<\/span><\/div>\n

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Our religious and spiritual traditions, however, teach us that to be free is not to possess the substance freedom but rather to live freely.\u00a0 To live freely is to cultivate the capacity to behave in ways that avoid the turn to the frenetic and overburdened.\u00a0 As Saint Paul tells it in our reading from Romans, to live freely is to live in concert among head, heart and body.\u00a0 Of course, the way Paul tells it belies a rather unfortunate dualism between body and spirit, but that should not inhibit us from retelling it in a way the expresses the truth of our common desire with Paul to live integrated lives.\u00a0 Such integration is a prerequisite to living freely. <\/span><\/div>\n

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The Buddhist doctrine of non-attachment is a correlate to this living freely.\u00a0 It emphasizes that in moving beyond frantic activity and heavy burdens we are able to be more fully present in the present moment.\u00a0 In doing so we are able to bring our full attention to the reality of the here and now without needing to control for every possible future outcome.\u00a0 This is not to say that we should neglect future outcomes; that would be irresponsible.\u00a0 It is to say that living freely means freely receiving what comes and offering back the best synthesis of what we receive in gracious generosity.\u00a0 We should not become too attached to what we receive, or we will not be able to offer it back generously.\u00a0 We should also not become too attached to the outcomes we intend in making our offering, as we are never fully in control of those outcomes.\u00a0 We do our best with what we have, and when our best is not good enough, we offer what we have received and what we have offered up to God in penitence and thanksgiving.<\/span><\/div>\n

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When living freely, it is very possible that the conditions in which we live, some of which are brought about by other people, will resist our best intentions.\u00a0 In religious and spiritual life, as we work toward living freely, we should not be too concerned when our best intentions cannot be realized.\u00a0 The religious and spiritual traditions testify that freedom-from is an illusion at best, and a trap at worst.\u00a0 At the same time, they teach that freedom-to is never absolute and is always constrained by the conditions at hand.\u00a0 The generation that so frustrated Jesus frustrated him precisely because they thought that the Messiah would come to bring their freedom from the political, social and religious oppression of the Roman Empire.\u00a0 The Messiah Jesus, however, came to teach them instead how to live freely under the conditions in which they found themselves, which living he believed would eventually restore them out of oppression, as the prophet Zechariah had promised.<\/span><\/div>\n

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What does living freely look like?\u00a0 Perhaps we should take our cue from Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick, who said of the late Reverend Professor Peter Gomes of Harvard Memorial Church, \u201cHe was the freest man I ever knew.\u201d\u00a0 I have quoted Governor Patrick on this several times, and many people have looked at me quixotically.\u00a0 I think that what Governor Patrick meant is that Reverend Professor Gomes lived freely.\u00a0 He cultivated a way of being that allowed him to be fully present wherever he found himself.\u00a0 When he found himself faced with a crisis at Harvard over the status in the community of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender students, he calmly stood up, taking up the authority of his revered position, and announced that he was gay.\u00a0 Furthermore, he said that the secret to his ministry of over forty years at Harvard was \u201cubiquity, ubiquity, ubiquity.\u201d\u00a0 Reverend Professor Gomes lived freely, and that empowered him to be fully present in situations where he was wanted, challenging those who said they wanted him along the way, and fully present in situations where he was not wanted, opening up avenues of dialogue toward finding common ground amidst difference. <\/span><\/div>\n

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So too, those of us who seek to live religious and spiritual lives seek to live life humbly.\u00a0 Just as freely the adverb is a far cry from the noun freedom, so too the adverb humbly is a far cry from the adjective humble.\u00a0 In our gospel today Jesus says that he is \u201cgentle and humble in heart,\u201d but I would submit that the qualifier \u201cin heart\u201d would indicate that he means that he seeks to live his life adverbially humbly.\u00a0 After all, it would be hard to say the Jesus was entirely humble, riding into Jerusalem as he did on the back of a donkey in kingly fashion, fulfilling the words of the prophet Zechariah.\u00a0 This is not what we would associate with a humble person, which is to say one whose entire way of being, one whose life-substance is qualitatively humble through and through.\u00a0 To be humble is to be of small stature, to be one who refrains from entering the fray, to suppress the desire for the better, to say nothing of the best. <\/span><\/div>\n

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The problem with being humble is that it holds back the integration we already saw was a prerequisite for living freely, which is also a prerequisite for living humbly.\u00a0 This is precisely the problem with the dualism that Paul sets up by seeking to humble his body that his spirit might be free of sin.\u00a0 The humbled body can never be integrated with the spirit, which is to say cleansed or justified.\u00a0 More than simply being integrated as a prerequisite however, living humbly also requires recognizing and respecting the integrity of others. \u00a0Integrity requires deference.\u00a0 To live humbly is to live in such a way that our own pursuit of religiously and spiritually fulfilled lives comes about in concert with the pursuit of religiously and spiritually fulfilled lives by others.\u00a0 At the same time, living humbly recognizes that religious and spiritual fulfillment for any one person cannot come about at the expense of such fulfillment by any others.\u00a0 If my salvation can only come about by the damnation of others, it is not salvation, but also, if the salvation of others can only come about by my damnation, it is not salvation.\u00a0 If the salvation of the mob can only come about by arresting, trying and crucifying Jesus, it cannot be true salvation, but neither can the salvation of the world come through the killing of the mob, as one disciple set out to do by cutting off the ear of the slave of the high priest.\u00a0 Living life humbly recognizes the integrity of others and so empowers us to resist that which would oppress us, often as not by submitting to that very oppression.<\/span><\/div>\n

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The nonviolent activism of Mohandas Gandhi and Boston University\u2019s own alumnus the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., exemplifies what it means to live life humbly.\u00a0 It is in recognizing the integrity of others that Gandhi and King sought to organize those others to resist the attempts on the part of a wider society to oppress them, while at the same time teaching the others to recognize the integrity of the others who made up the wider society.\u00a0 What it means to live humbly is embodied in the three points of Gandhi\u2019s philosophy, summarized in E. Stanley Jones\u2019 biography of Gandhi, that inspired King to take up the practices of nonviolence:<\/span><\/div>\n

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1.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 that nonviolence is the method of the strong, not the method of the weak and the cowardly<\/span><\/div>\n
2.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 that it is better to fight than to take up nonviolence through fear or cowardice<\/span><\/div>\n
3.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 that by using the right means, the right result will follow<\/span><\/div>\n

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We should note that the last point is a summary of the principle that religious and spiritual life is concerned with the adverbial character of how life is lived, and that life lived adverbially is the good life, not life lived frantically and overburdened. <\/span><\/div>\n

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Now, what is this integrated self that we have been speaking of as a precondition for life lived freely and humbly?\u00a0\u00a0 It is life lived honestly.\u00a0 If we are to have any hope of the many parts of ourselves abiding together wholesomely, then they must first be acknowledged honestly.\u00a0 Just as life lived freely is to be distinguished, even opposed, to freedom, and just as life lived humbly is to be distinguished, even opposed, to being humble, so too life lived honestly is to be distinguished, and even opposed, to truth.\u00a0 Truth is something that is established and stable for all time.\u00a0 Life lived honestly recognizes that we ourselves are not established and stable, that the way we are now is not the way we always were and is not the way we always will be.\u00a0 Furthermore, the situation of our lives is not established and stable, is not the same now as it always has been, and will not be in ten days either what it is now or will be tomorrow.\u00a0 If truth is once and for all, then living life honestly is a way of being in constant discernment of who we were, who we are, who we will be, in light of ever changing circumstances. <\/span><\/div>\n

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Of course, it is the very instability of living honestly, the very continuous and ongoing cycles of change, that gives rise to the adverbial character of religious and spiritual life.\u00a0 All of those nouns and verbs that pervade our speech and our thought about what is most true and good risk making us participants in the very generation Jesus bemoans in our gospel reading today.\u00a0 Take, for example, the extraordinarily vitriolic language all too prevalent on the tips of the tongues of politicians and pundits, to say nothing of friends and family, aimed at Muslims and the Islamic world.\u00a0 Such vitriol can only arise from a clinging to a truth that claims an exceptional character for the United States and a demonic character for all Muslims based upon the actions of a few.\u00a0 Today, in the midst of Independence Day weekend, we would do well to seek to live more honestly.\u00a0 How quickly we forget that the modern western world of science and technology would not exist except for the rediscovery of Aristotle, transmitted through the Islamic world back into the west during the late Middle Ages.\u00a0 How quickly we forget that the Roman Empire once thought itself exceptional, and now it is dust. <\/span><\/div>\n

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Today, in the midst of Independence Day weekend, let us live according to the good news of life lived adverbially.\u00a0 Let us live according to the good news that we can live integrated and wholesome lives when we seek to live honestly with ourselves and each other.\u00a0 Let us live according to the good news that we can live humbly, recognizing the integrity of everyone and everything around us.\u00a0 Let us live according to the good news that we can live freely even in the midst of the constraints brought about by chance and by the free lives undertaken by integral others.\u00a0 And in living freely, humbly and honestly we experience salvation.\u00a0 Clinging to a substantial freedom will leave us conflicted socially.\u00a0 Clinging to a humble nature will leave us conflicted personally.\u00a0 And clinging to absolute truth will leave us ineptly groping about in a constantly changing and complex world.\u00a0 Nouns and verbs are the substance and motion of life, but they are not the fullness and fulfillment of life.\u00a0 For fullness and fulfillment, long live the adverb!\u00a0 Amen.<\/span><\/div>\n

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<\/span>~Br. Lawrence A. Whitney, LC+
\nUniversity Chaplain for Community Life<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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\"\"<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Click here to hear Sermon only Matthew 1:16-19, 25-30   It is good to begin in a spirit of gratitude, and so once again it is incumbent upon me to begin this sermon with a word of gratitude to Dean Hill for his gracious offering of a preaching series in the late spring and summer […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2679,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[3],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2679"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=19"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2694,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19\/revisions\/2694"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=19"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=19"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}