First Parish Unitarian UniversalistThe Virtue of Reverence
Homily given by the Reverend Diane Teichert
First Parish Unitarian Universalist - Canton, MA
October 23, 2005
Please note: the bracketed section was omitted due to time constraints. I plan to use it on November 13th.
[A few years ago, in 2003, the Reverend William Sinkford, President of the Unitarian Universalist Association of Congregations, caused a stir among UU’s by advocating that we use what he called a “language of reverence.” The controversy began when he was misquoted in a Fort Worth, Texas newspaper article after a sermon he gave to our congregation there. The article began, "A former atheist who is now president of the Unitarian Universalist Association will push to put the word 'God' into a new statement of principles."
By way of correction, he explained, and I quote,
“Our Principles serve us well as a covenant, presenting a vision of a more just world on which we agree and our promise to walk together toward that vision, whatever our theology. But I wonder whether the language of the Principles is sufficient to capture our individual searches for truth and meaning.” For that, he thinks we need a “language of reverence.” (UUWorld, March/April 2003, p. 9)
Being a former atheist, Bill himself does use “God talk.” But, he’s not saying the rest of us must also. He’s just saying to those of us who are atheists, agnostics, or humanists: let’s acknowledge (and these are my words, not his) that there is a spiritual dimension to life in which we can participate that grounds us and gives us energy and hope, opens us to beauty, and connects us with each other in love. And, let’s use that language in public, or else the religious right will be the only religious voice out there.
So, this past summer, this controversy about the “language of reverence” came to mind when I saw this small volume for sale called Reverence: Renewing a Forgotten Virtue. I bought the book on a whim, also attracted by the lovely peaceful photo on the front, taken by the author and looking much like the New England shore scenes I love, even though the back of the book jacket says Paul Woodruff is a philosophy professor of the University of Texas in Austin.
Inside I found a philosopher’s discourse on reverence as a virtue. One thing about philosophers—they tend to be clear about definitions. He defines “virtue” as “a capacity, cultivated by experience and training, to have the right feelings at the right time that incline one to do the right thing.” (p. 62).
Take courage as a virtue. Courage, he says, is a “well-developed capacity for feeling confidence and fear in the right places, at the right times, and in the right degrees of intensity; that is, courage lies somewhere between fearlessness (which often looks like courage) and timidity (which no one would mistake for courage).” This definition “points to a distinction between courage and fearlessness, but it does not spell out the difference between them—aside from the obvious point that one (courage)is always good while the other (fearlessness) can go too far.” (p. 8).
He similarly defines the virtue of reverence as “the well-developed capacity to have the feelings of awe, respect, and shame when these are the right feelings to have.” (pp. 8-9)
Furthermore, Woodruff says that each of these reverence-feelings that can motivate right actions—awe, respect and shame—have a different kind of object. Respect is for other people, shame is over one’s own shortcomings, and awe is usually felt for something that satisfies at least one of these conditions:
-it cannot be changed or controlled by human means
-it is not fully understood by human experts
-it was not created by human beings
-it is transcendent. (pp. 117-118)
Each of these objects of reverence serve to remind us of our human limitations, either in relation to other people, in relation to our own ideals, or in relation to all that is not understood, created or controlled by humans. Such humility is a good thing for most of us, deterring the fall that pride cometh before!
Contrary to a lot of traditional religious beliefs, Paul Woodruff says, the object of reverence need NOT be God, a god or gods, fearsome or perfect. (pp. 125-128). So, the object of our awe could be a starry sky or a raging hurricane, a stately autumn tree, or a delicate Praying Mantis (did you know that almost every year someone sees a Praying Mantis here at First Parish in the vicinity of the door by the wheelchair ramp? Did you know that they are the only insect fast enough to eat mosquitoes? Did you know that they aren’t and never were listed as Endangered, but maybe people think they ought to be protected because they appear to be praying?)
If the object of our reverence is God, he says, that God “is not supposed to serve special interests.” (p. 166). To be an object for true reverence, it’s not a God that’s on anybody’s side.
I think that hubris, arrogance, is the vice that contrasts with the virtue, reverence. I think we see hubris in many levels of government and commerce today.
If a leader is portrayed as a man of faith, but we observe that the leader’s values and actions exhibit hubris, we must conclude the leader is merely feigning, faking reverence. The dictionary definition of hubris is “overbearing pride or presumption; arrogance,” but interestingly it comes from a Greek compound word having to do with “violence, outrage, insolence.”
“War is nothing new, and neither are killer strains of religion,” writes Paul Woodruff, “pathogens that take hold of a people and send them into paroxysms of violence. War and religion will always be with us; we can’t expect to shake them off. But we can ask what it is in religion that might keep the dogs of war on leash, and what it is that whips them into a frenzy and lets them loose. It is reverence that moderates war in all times and cultures, irreverence that urges it on to brutality.”(p.13-14). ]
As we heard in the concert last night and are hearing this morning as well, music can both be a creation of reverence and it can create reverence. It can be a quiet awe or an exuberant one.
In a recent interview of Emily Saliers, one of the musicians in the peace and justice oriented folk-rolk duo The Indigo Girls, and her father Don Saliers, a professor of Christian theology and worship at Emory University in Georgia, they were bemoaning the lack of music in so many Americans’ lives.
Don said, “We’ve got to overcome, somehow, this idea that unless you’re trained in music you are not musical. There are musical themes that are intrinsic to being alive. Breathing, walking, dancing, skipping, or just nodding your head all involve tempo, intensity, rhythm. For me, that’s all musical.”
And Emily said, “That’s why it’s a joy to see so many people singing and dancing at our concerts. (I’ve been to one, it was indeed a wonderfully huge sing-along). Music releases something that nothing else does.”
“Yes,” her father added, “I’ve seen that too, both at your concerts and even in church. The act of singing together, or playing the instruments together, or gathering in a circle and listening to someone else sing or play, is such a profound, intrinsic human good. It show us what we’re meant for: for each other, for relationship.” (Christian Century, November 20, 2002; p. 29).
“It’s a paradox,” he noted. “Our country is saturated with music—it’s used to sell things, and you hear it in elevators. But the one and only place where many people regularly participate in some modest music-making is in [worship].”
That’s one of the gifts here at First Parish, isn’t it?
We’re in need of more music-making in our country right now, more reverence and less hubris, more humility, more joy and hope. These are among the spiritual dimensions of life, and we need them, perhaps especially now.
We need not just the language of reverence, but other religious language as well. The languages of praise and lamentations, the languages of wrath, gratitude and atonement. Music can speak in any of these tongues—think of the blues, jazz, hard rock, folk, western classical, country—and the dimensions of human experience each can express.
If we are open to these spiritual dimensions and the languages that express them, if we participate in them, they will open us to beauty, connect us with each other in love, ground us and give us energy and hope, and even faith, to face the future unafraid.
Amen.