What Remains
Sermon preached by Reverend Carolyn Patierno
January 22, 2006

"The Transient and the Permanent in Christianity" (Excerpt from the sermon preached by Theodore Parker on May 19, 1841)

Real Christianity gives men new life.
It is the growth and perfect action of the Holy Spirit God puts into the sons of men.
It makes us outgrow any form, or any system of doctrines we have devised, and approach still closer to the truth.
It would lead us to take what help we can find.
It would make the Bible our servant, not our master.
It would teach us to profit by the wisdom and piety of David and Solomon; but not to sin their sins, nor bow to their idols.
It would make us revere the holy words spoken by "godly men of old," but revere still more the word of God spoken through Conscience, Reason, and Faith, as the holiest of all.
It would not make Christ the despot of the soul, but the brother of all men. …
It would have us make the kingdom of God on earth, and enter more fittingly the kingdom on high. … For it is not so much by the Christ who lived so blameless and beautiful eighteen centuries ago that we are saved directly, but by the Christ we form in our hearts and live out in our daily life that we save ourselves….
Such, then, is the Transient, and such the Permanent in Christianity.
What is of absolute value never changes; we may cling round it and grow to it forever. No one can say his notions shall stand. But we may all say [that] the Truth, as it is in Jesus, shall never pass away.
Yet there are … some … religious men who do not see the permanent element, so they rely on the fleeting and what is also an evil and condemn others for not doing the same. They mistake a defense of the Truth for an attack upon the Holy of Holiest; the removal of a theological error for the destruction of all religion. Already men of the same sect eye one another with suspicion, and lowering brows that indicate a storm. Like children who have fallen out in their play, call hard names. Now, as always, there is a collision between these two elements.
The question puts itself to each man, "Will you cling to what is perishing, or embrace what is eternal?" This question each must answer for himself.

Last December I found myself consistently contemplating Truth as in, what is truth? Whose truth? Can truth change? Can two truths that seemingly contradict each other be equally true? And then Mystery intervened.
Two students at Connecticut College each taking the same religious studies class asked if I would be willing to be interviewed on the matter of truth from a Unitarian Universalist perspective. As well, I was in the midst of my research for the Tolstoy and Gandhi sermon I preached in early December and finding that much of it centered on the life-long pursuit of Truth.
As a Unitarian Universalist I naturally kept circling back to Theodore Parker’s sermon that is today the focus of my message. What a fascinating question: what is True for all time and conversely what changes?
Parker was, of course, speaking specifically about Christianity’s permanent and transient. To understand his perspective is to learn more about a crucial aspect of our history. My understanding of Parker tells me that he would be pleased that 165 years after he preached that sermon, a Unitarian Universalist discussion of its meaning is being considered in a broader theological context.
But in 1841, the theological climate was tough. There was infighting within sects and bickering among them. Interfaith sensibility had taken little hold – proven by a number of instances in Parker’s sermon that by today’s standards would certainly be rightly charged with anti-Semitism. Any religious leader who took on traditional, Calvinist sensibility was subject to charges of heresy. Theodore Parker was not naive. Indeed, he was confrontational; his sermons, blunt.
Take the start of this particular sermon preached at an ordination. To start he quotes scripture. Luke 21:33: “Heaven and earth shall pass away: but my word shall not pass away.” And the sermon begins:

In this sentence we have a very clear indication that Jesus of Nazareth believed the religion he taught would be eternal that the substance of it would last forever. Yet there are some who are affrighted by the faintest rustle … a heretic makes among the dry leaves of theology. They tremble lest Christianity itself should perish without hope. Ever and anon the cry is raised, ‘The Philistines be upon us and Christianity is in danger.’ The least doubt respecting the popular theology or the existing machinery of the church; the least sign of distrust in the Religion of the Pulpit, or the Religion of the Street, is by some good men supposed to be an enmity with faith in Christ, and capable of shaking Christianity itself.

And, he’s off. Why consider a 19th century theologian and social reformer at all? Because even though I understand why it’s helpful to be able to describe our faith tradition in succinct measure, it’s more complicated than the time we share with strangers in an elevator. Besides, in all the years I rode an elevator up to my office on the 25th floor and back down again, not a single person ever asked me about my religion. Which is all to say that typically, we have more time to explain. And when we take that time to talk about our faith tradition (and without the use of a bookmark) it is helpful to feel grounded upon a firm understanding of our history because the modern apple hasn’t fallen too far from our forbears’ tree of sensibility.

And because, well, doesn’t all of this history sound eerily familiar? What Parker describes as transient – doctrine, popular religion having little to do with the roots of its source, accusations of heresy in the face of questions based in reason and conscience – all of these could have been my own sermon topic this morning from this very pulpit and none of you would have blinked. It may as well be 1841.

How’s that for optimism for the evolution of the human condition? We of the 21st century have much to learn from Parker’s 19th century view of humankind and the nature of the religious life.

And so, let’s begin with what Parker names as transient – those things that change over time.

Parker articulates these with ferocity and poetry both. He says,

It must be confessed, though with sorrow, that transient things form a great part of what is commonly taught as Religion. An undue place has often been assigned to forms and doctrines, while too little stress has been laid on the divine life of the soul, love to God, and love to man. Religious forms may be useful and beautiful. They are so whenever they speak to the soul and answer a want thereof. …

Again, the doctrines that have been connected with Christianity and taught in its name are quite as changeable as the form.

So, the Christianity of Jesus is permanent, though what passes for Christianity with Popes and catechisms, with sects and churches in the first century or in the 19th prove transient also. … What another has said of false systems of science, will apply equally to the popular theology: “It is barren in effects, fruitful in questions, slow and languid in its improvement …”

On doctrine that is changeable from age to age we most recently observe the Catholic doctrine of limbo falling from favor. There have been others over the course of history. For example, the Unitarian part of our tradition was named so because of the doubt our ancestors expressed in the existence of the Trinity. This doctrine is so convoluted that in every age, we witness its twists and turns through every imaginable nuance. So convoluted is Trinitarian doctrine that my Christian history professor got tangled up enough that she ended the Trinitarian history lecture with a pathetic, little, “Oh, forget it.” And for this our ancestors burned at the stake.

Religious sects’ insistence on battling out the meaning, function, and origin of the trinity or any other of what may be rightly considered “doctrinal minutiae” while ignoring the heart and soul of the faith - this transgression remains. This misguided focus sadly remains.

But before we go feeling all high and mighty let us not forget that Unitarians and Universalists separately and then together after consolidation have had our share of doctrinal distraction as well, some lasting decades. Whether it was the battle between the Transcendentalists and the professed Christians; the theists and humanists, we have been similarly split apart. When Parker said in the sermon, “Already men of the same sect eye one another with suspicion, and lowering brows that indicate a storm.” He was in the middle of one such storm – which, with this sermon, was about to get worse.

Unitarian Universalism has a commitment to change. As ours is a creedless faith, we understand that what is true for one time may not be true for another. We don’t stand – we move, as the saying goes. After all, our seven principles were embraced in 1985, yet were inspired by principles culled through generations of history. But we hold to a commitment to return to these principles time and time again as the realities of our lives change.

So, what is permanent? What remains? Said Parker:

What is of absolute value never changes; we may cling round it and grow to it forever. ………..

… the truths Jesus taught, his doctrines respecting man and God, the relation between man and man, and man and God with the duties that grow out of that relation are always the same and can never change till man ceases to be man and creation vanishes into nothing.
I’m sure at least some of you have had this experience. I know my daughter has. It’s the experience of being confronted – because there is no better word for it – by those who say, “Yours is not really a religion.” This confrontation is typically based in the presumption that without a creed, without form or obvious doctrine, there is no religion. However, what we know deeply is that these matters of transience do not a religion make. At the entry of the Krag wing there is a wall sculpture with three words inscribed under the kindled flame. Those three words are: love, truth, & beauty. The quest for these three creates and sustains our religious community, historically grounded in Jesus’ teachings, expanded to embrace the truths other religious traditions offer, as well as that of scientific learning, we set out to do good. These remain.

And that’s my elevator speech for you.

Today we are on the brink of (yet another) historical vote. If all goes as it seems it will, this congregation will be expand our home in order to do the work we are meant to do, worship in surroundings that reflect our religious culture. But our churches … our seven principles … today’s liturgy … ministers – all will pass away and make way for new forms. What will remain is our commitment to the truth as we understand it … the loving cultivation of our relationships … what we inspire in each other’s hearts and souls … the way in which we live our lives as prayers …how we set out to create a heaven here on this earth, in this life. These will remain.

My final question to you by way of Theodore Parker is this one: “Will you cling to what is perishing or embrace what is eternal? This [you] must answer for [yourself].

Answer carefully, thoughtfully as you stand upon this tradition of reason, faith, and conscious.

Amen.

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