Subject:  A sermon based on the hymn we sang on Feb 11 |
Author:
Liberal
|
[
Next Thread |
Previous Thread |
Next Message |
Previous Message
]
Date Posted: 00:11:53 02/12/05 Sat
On Hong Kong Liberal Chrisitian Fellowship Feb 11 gathering, we sang a Unitarian Universalist hymn known as "It Sounds Along The Ages". The author of the hymn never revealed, in the hymn, what that "It" was. Its identity is mysterious and intriguing. The following sermon answered the quitz, with a very moving message.
Posted below is an excerpt:
=========================================================
The Oracles of Concord: Emerson, Thoreau, Alcot and George Melvin
Presented June 3, 1984, by John W. Brigham, D.D.
The Quincy Unitarian Church
(This sermon is based on the hymn, "It sounds along the ages", especially the second stanza:
From Sinai's cliffs it echoed,
It breathed from Buddha's tree,
It charmed in Athens' market,
It hallowed Galilee;
The hammer stroke of Luther,
The Pilgrim's seaside prayer,
The oracles of Concord
One holy word declare.)
The words with which we titled this morning's address you will immediately recognize as having been lifted out of the hymn we have just sung, "Oracles of Concord." The oracles of Concord were Emerson, Thoreau, Alcott and, I would suggest, George Melvin. I call to your attention that stanza in which the phrase "Oracles of Concord" is found and the context:
From Sinai's cliffs it echoed [Ten Commandments]
It breathed from Buddha's tree [Bo Tree and Wheel of Life]
It charmed in Athens' market [Socrates]
It hallowed Galilee [Jesus]
The hammer stroke of Luther [The Reformation]
The Pilgrim's seaside prayer [Mayflower Compact]
The Oracles of Concord [Emerson, Thoreau, Alcott -- and I would add, George Melvin]
One Sunday when this same hymn was used, one of our participants in the service raised the question: "What do you suppose 'IT' is?" "IT breathed, IT charmed, IT hallowed." You will note that the hymn writer never quite caught up with "IT" to give "IT" a clear referent. He left "IT" to the reader and the singer to fathom, to find a meaning, to give it some substance, whether solid or ephemeral.
The notes relating to this hymn tell us that the original title given by Gannett was "The Thought of God." Allowing the author his just due, "IT" is almost certainly a thought, and not just any old thought. It is the "thought of God," whether thought by Moses or Jesus or Luther or the Psalmist or those men of Concord or others whose names might come to mind, as John Hus, for instance, or Martin Luther King, Jr., or even you.
Today it is the several persons who made up the oracles of Concord , who lived for a time, the same time, in the town of Concord, Massachusetts, with whom we will consider that "IT".
...
It is of more than passing importance, I think, that Emerson and Thoreau and Alcott were deeply informed on the religions of the world, the Orient, of India and China as well as of western Christianity. They sought the universal elements rather than the narrow and confining practices of creeds in each.
Both Emerson and Thoreau, together with Alcott, come to accord in those thoughts which mark the opening passages of the Divinity School address, which Emerson puts in these lines:
. . . When the mind opens and reveals the laws which traverse the universe and make things what they are, then shrinks the great world at once into a mere illustration and fable of the mind. What am I? And what Is? Asks the human spirit with a curiosity new-kindled, but never to be quenched. . . . Behold, these infinite relations, so like, so unlike, many, yet one. I would study, I would know, I would admire forever.
When Thoreau came to deal with questions of religion in direct effort, he tended to become fussy and even uneasy with himself. He found it more comfortable to write god with a lower case "g" rather than with an upper case. He expresses his feeling underlying this when he wrote, "We are in a strange uncertainty about life, whether it is of the devil or of god, and somewhat hastily concluded that it is the chief end of men here to 'glorify God and enjoy him forever,'" suggesting that this may have been in error and it is really the devil we are glorifying, an uncomfortable thought, but not without some merit. And he left us a thought that should never be allowed to perish: "What is religion?" he asked; then he answered, "That which is never spoken."
In another place he added: "I see, hear, smell, taste, feel the Everlasting Something to which we are called, at once our maker, our abode, our destiny, our very Selves. . . "
So these several persons, different from each other in many ways, were singularly in concert on one thing, namely, that each and every person has his or her own immediate relationship to the universe, to whatever power or powers are present within nature; that each person is, indeed, a natural event, and has a harmony with the greater over-arching Nature. This conviction is stated by Emerson in one way, by Thoreau in another, by Alcott in his totality of being, and by George Melvin with his inarticulate devotion to the opportunities of every season. These were in tune with the "IT" of Gannett's hymn, in tune with Buddha, then, and with Moses, with Socrates, with Jesus, with Luther and the Pilgrims.
This is, I am convinced, a message of our [Unitarian Universalist] religious faith, a message that outranges the message of any other religious movement that I know. There is a universal note of authenticity that sounds a clear and beautiful sound above the confusions of theologies and labored rituals that identify the varied churches and religions.
It is high time that more of us, all of us, become well informed and articulate, that we may diffuse this faith. We should not be, as too much has been our custom, merely a number of ears sitting in pews waiting to hear some message. We ourselves must be the message and the message-givers, making our own discovery of the "IT" that secures our particular and personal life to the universe, that unites us in this persuasion with every other who is engaged in this search and discovery.
http://users.ksni.net/~uuquincy/talks/oracles.htm
[
Next Thread |
Previous Thread |
Next Message |
Previous Message
]
| |
Feedback: 
