Sermons by Reverend Don Beaudreault
The Naked Truth – and That’s the Truth!
Rev. Don Beaudreault
Unitarian Universalist Church of Sarasota, FL
November 6, 2005
OPENING READING: “The greatest homage…” and “The finest and noblest…”
The greatest homage we can pay to truth is to use it.
The finest and noblest ground on which people can live is truth; the real with the real; a ground on which nothing is assumed.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
MEDITATION READING: “Verify” from Everyday Tao
Life is very short. We all want to live it well. We study spiritual systems in search of techniques and traditions to help us live our lives better.
While there is no shortage of people purporting to be sages, there is certainly ongoing confusion about which system to follow. Why? After you subtract all the false masters interested only in their own veneration and support; after you subtract all the religions paralyzed by dogma, ritual, and politics; after you subtract the systems where secrets are not readily shared; after you subtract the traditions ruined by supposed reform; and after you subtract the teachings subverted by people who never learned how to put theory into action – after you subtract all these things, there is very little left. To find the kernels of truth is hard indeed.
That is why you must look beyond mere fame. Do the teachings work or not? If the masters say practice this and the gods will appear before you in a hundred days, see if it happens. If they tell you to practice ten years to attain enlightenment, then wait the ten years. The point is however, that the teachings must work for you in your life and your time. It is absolutely worthless to accept a teaching on mere faith, or because a book says to, or because everyone is doing it. None of that matters. All that matters is that the teachings work for you. And if they do, then faith is never a difficult matter.
Deng Ming-Dao
SERMON: “The Naked Truth – and That’s the Truth!”
John Collier's 19th century depiction of Godiva's ride
As with most legends, it's what we want to believe that counts.
Lady Godiva lived in Coventry, England in the 11th Century. She was the wife of Leofric, Earl of Mercia, one of the most powerful noblemen in the land.
She became a patron of the arts, hoping in this way to help people. But her plan failed – and understandably, given the reality that the peasantry was more concerned about staying alive, than about appreciating things of beauty.
So Godiva tried another way of being a do-gooder, persuading her reluctant husband to reduce the tax burden. He agreed to do so – but at a price.
He pointed out that the ancient Greeks and Romans appreciated a nude human body as a high expression of nature’s perfection. Therefore, could his wife do any less, given her artistic penchant? Why not set an example of such high art for the common folk - and ride naked through the town’s marketplace in the middle of the day thereby celebrating the perfection of God’s work?
He then would get rid of all local taxes – except those levied on horses.
Is this history – or is it legend? Nothing is recorded as to whether or not old Leofric (who was much older than the presumably lithesome Godiva) was speaking with tongue in cheek, but lo and behold, his lady accepted his offer – much to his astonishment if not dismay (but then again, we are presumptuous about his reactions).
At any rate, on that fateful day, accompanied by two fully clothed horsewomen, Lady Godiva of today’s chocolate fame rode naked through the market, bolt upright in her saddle, with a beatific expression, and quite at home in her revealed state of being.
She had called the old man’s bluff, and to save face, he removed all but the horsey tax.
But wouldn’t you know it, the whole story is a hoax! Naked or not! It is not a true story. It is not the naked or clothed truth!
How many of you knew this?
The earliest written record of the story comes from one Roger of Wendover more than a hundred years after the lady’s demise. This scribe was a notorious embellisher, not historian.
Coventry's municipal logo depicts Lady Godiva's ride
But Roger was the one who unleashed centuries of exaggerated tales about the good woman.
The 14th Century writer, one Matthew of Westminster, explains that a miracle took place because despite her nudity, Lady Godiva was not seen by anyone.
Three centuries later, someone did see her – a local boy by the name of Tom who took a peek at her in all her au naturel state of being. From this we get the term “Peeping Tom.”
All said and done, it is thought by scholars that someone started the Godiva legend by adapting aspects of pagan practices having to do with fertility rites that often featured women on horseback.
In a way, you can say that Godiva’s attempt to help the townsfolk has continued throughout history, since pageants in her honor have been held for centuries as a way of enticing tourists and thereby beefing up the local economy.
Of course, there is that high-priced candy that pays the bills for a number of people in Coventry and around the world. And you do not have to be nude to enjoy it!
Truly, in regard to the fabrications surrounding the story of Lady Godiva:
As with most legends, it's what we want to believe that counts. (Quote and above information gleaned from http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/in_depth/uk/2000/newsmakers/1507606.stm)
In the grand scheme of things the story of Lady Godiva (“Godgyfu” or “Godgifu” in its original spelling) is a fascinating story, whether or not it is true. But it is not an earthshaking, seminal event in human history; it did not start revolutions; it did not cause societal collapse; it did not bring about major philosophical or theological changes.
What is crucial about the story is that it is an example of fiction or fancy evolving from a simple, local event at a certain period in time to a complex, world-reknown, and timeless truth – or at least one thought of as an actual historical event by many. In effect, the Godiva ride represents weighter assumptions of “truth” (like the establishment of religions) which also transmogrified from simple, localized, legendary, Godiva-like circumstances. What should be of major concern to any of us who are thinking individuals – the philosopher Blaise Pascal’s phrase comes to mind: “Man is but a reed, the most feeble thing in nature; but he is a thinking reed” – is that we be constantly in the process of discovering what can be true or false for us about EVERYTHING! Our Unitarian Universalist tradition demands no less of us.
To rephrase that patriot Patrick Henry’s line: “Give me the naked truth, or give me death!”
Let us explore what this can mean for us as a “thinking reed.”
* IN SEEKING TRUTH, WE MUST ASK WHO? WE MUST ASK OF OTHERS WHO SAY THEY HAVE THE TRUTH: “DO YOU HAVE SOMETHING TO TELL ME?”
Consider our meditaiton reading, when Deng Ming-Dao tells us:
To find the kernels of truth is hard indeed…
It is absolutely worthless to accept a teaching on mere faith, or because a book says to, or because everyone is doing it. None of that matters. All that matters is that the teachings work for you. And if they do, then faith is never a difficult matter.
Certainly this is the position of one who understands that “truth” is a relative not an absolute matter – certainly in the larger scheme of existence.
Years ago, when I was in an intern minister, I was met at the coffee hour after the service, by a very wise man who merely said: “Don, you used the word “truth” in your sermon today. Is there only one truth? And do you have knowledge of it?”
That’s all he said - a matter-of-fact statement from a complete stranger, but a question that I struggle with EVERYTIME I sit down to write a sermon. I might have my own version of what is truthful for me (at the moment) – in other words, such a perception works for me - but I am humbled by the magnitude of speaking a truth for others.
A consequence of such an attitude is that once one has been so humbled, one casts an inquisitive eye upon anyone else who proclaims the truth for others.
Shakespeare knew this: This above all, to thine own self be true, and it shall follow as the night unto the day, thou can’st be false to any man.
Emerson knew this, too: Nothing is at last sacred but the integrity of your own mind.
* IN SEEKING TRUTH, WE MUST ASK WHAT AND WHEN? UNDER WHAT CIRCUMSTANCES WAS SUCH A TRUTH CREATED AND WHEN DID THIS OCCUR?
Let us consider the establishment of the key aspect of Christian religion: the divinity of Christ. Now, this is something that we Unitarian Universalists do not accept in the traditional sense of the word – meaning that we might accept Jesus’ divine status as one being on par with each human beings’ divine status. Or not!
For those Unitarian Universalists who do accept this idea or might be considering accepting it, know that generally we say we have a “divine spark” meaning that we are an aspect of nature’s creative impulse, of the divine mystery of the universe, of the “ineffable,” of the “Mysterium Tremendum,” of an “I-Thou” connection – you know, nicely poetic metaphors that are appropriately abstract enough not to upset most Unitarian Universalists, except possibly the Atheists or those who haven’t a clue as to what I am saying in the first place!
Now, as “thinking reed” Unitarian Universalists, we have the joy of exploring history in order to understand what the circumstances were that created the doctrine of the divinity of Christ as the keystone holding the entire faith together.
In our process, we go back 1,680 years ago to the First Ecumenical Council of the Catholic Church, held in 325 AD on the occasion of the heresy of Bishop Arius (Arianism) which denied the “divinity” of Christ.
Arius and his followers refuted the Catholic Church position that held (and still holds) that:
Christ was truly the Son, and truly God. They worshipped Him with divine honours; they would never consent to separate Him, in idea or reality, from the Father, Whose Word, Reason, Mind, He was, and in Whose Heart He abode from eternity. (From “Arianism,” Catholic Encyclopedia)
So a vote was taken on the divinity of Christ. Arius and his cohorts lost, and we are the heirs to that particular set of “losers.” Welcome to the faith! Thank you, Jesus!
* IN SEEKING TRUTH WE MUST ASK: HOW AND WHY? HOW DID A TRUTH COME INTO BEING AND WHY DID IT?
I think these are the most interesting questions about discovering the establishment of a truth, because the answers are multitudinous.
First the “how.” “Truth” or more properly for our relativistic purposes “truths” come into being in a variety of ways: through factual verification (the “scientific way”); through feeling or intuition (the mystical way, although some might view this as a matter of chemical changes in the brain and the rest of the body); through our experiences and what we make of them.
Since I spoke of Christian matters before, let me continue in this vein. Consider the “truths” of conversion and its various reasons why or its “how” conversion might come about. Remember the New Testament story of “Saul on the Road to Damascus”? Now here is a horse story of a different color! Remember how he was on his steed on the way to persecute Christians, and how he was blinded by a bright light, fell off his horse, heard the voice of God “Saul, Saul, why have you persecuted me so?” and had this conversion to a belief in Christ as the Savior, and went on to become the most significant purveyor of the Christian gospel of anyone who ever lived?
How might we explain the “truths” of this story? Factually, physiologists could say that what Saul, later St. Paul, experienced was an epileptic attack – or at the very least, a migraine or a fall from his horse with a resultant concussion that caused him to hear voices! Mystical truths would say that Paul was touched by the hand of God breaking through human history – what the Greeks would call a “kairotic” moment (a time beyond time, beyond chronology – or what they called “chronos.” Others might explain the incident as Paul’s psychological experience – that his shadow side (the opposite of who he appeared to be) came to the fore because of all the pressure he was under.
But what about the “why” of this famous biblical story? Certainly, it would uphold the Christian theological belief in a deity who takes a personal interest in “his” creation – after all, God personally spoke to Saul/Paul and sent him on an incredible mission. Paul, therefore, symbolizes the potentiality within all Christians to take on a similar journey – to spread the good news of the message.
The “why” also could be used as a universal symbol – as a situation that calls humanity toward discovery of a raison d’etre – a reason, a passion - for one’s existence.
In other words, “the truths” of this biblical message are many – like the “truths” of the Godiva message. Both can be sought and discovered through literal or symbolic ways, and can be useful in various situations.
Therefore, we can see that as Unitarian Universalists who are called by our faith “system” – one based on historical precedent and current reality, we have the opportunity to seek the “truths” as we might want to do so, keeping in mind that it really can be a process that would include the following:
* IN SEEKING TRUTH, WE MUST ASK WHO? WE MUST ASK OF OTHERS WHO SAY THEY HAVE THE TRUTH: “DO YOU HAVE SOMETHING TO TELL ME?”
* IN SEEKING TRUTH, WE MUST ASK WHAT AND WHEN? UNDER WHAT CIRCUMSTANCES WAS SUCH A TRUTH CREATED AND WHEN DID THIS OCCUR?
* IN SEEKING TRUTH WE MUST ASK: HOW AND WHY? HOW DID SUCH A TRUTH COME INTO BEING AND WHY DID IT?
Try doing this with any “truth” you might hold to be self-evident for you. Attempt to verify its reality as a truth.
Again, whatever that truth might be: one about love, politics, social causes, money, ethics, human relationships – whatever that truth might be, attempt to verify it by asking who, what, when, how, and why?
One more thing, do not be dismayed as are so many in the world, if what appears to be “truth” proves itself later on, not to be “true” at all: whether it be a failure of your particular guru to continue “guru-ing” you; or the proof that a deeply cherished value or belief shows its less than noble side; or the sorrow of losing a beloved friend because of time or circumstance; or the reality that you fail yourself in the goals and objectives you have set out for yourself.
Do not settle for less than the truths – if indeed, you want to be set free from prejudice, ignorance, and injustice. But do not be overly mournful – or mournful at all – in discovering the shifting nature of truth.
Keep seeking, despite your frustrations, for not to seek the truth at all, is to lead a life decided for you by others. Just remember the words of that great physicist and mathematician, Sir Isaac Newton, who sought the truths of science throughout his life. Recall how frustrated he was in this regard, when he supposedly said on his deathbed (but then this is probably more legend than fact, but let’s go with it, the way we have gone with the stories about the lady from Coventry and the saint from Tarsus):
I do not know what I may appear to the world. But to myself, I seem to have been only like a boy playing on the seashore, diverting myself in now and then finding a smoother pebble or a prettier shell than ordinary, whilst the great ocean of truth lay all undiscovered before me.
So dear friends, despite our frustrations encountered during our life-long search, may we continue to seek the truths, glorying in discovering any along the way, but accepting the final truth that the final truth for any of us might forever be unknowable. Then again, in attempting to discover such, may we be renewed to discover again and yet again the miracle of being alive in the very first place!
And in saying that, I do believe have uttered a truth – as I see it!
CLOSING WORDS: “I never give them hell…”
I never give them hell. I just tell the truth and they think it’s hell.
Harry S. Truman
“Let us begin by committing ourselves…”
Let us begin by committing ourselves to the truth – to see it like it is, and tell it like it is – to find the truth, to speak the truth, and to live the truth.
Richard M. Nixon
(Accepting the GOP presidential nomination in 1968)