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A sermon by Donel McClellan Practice
Sacrament in a World of Technique A sermon by Donel
McClellan Practice
Sacrament in a World of Technique A sermon by Donel
McClellan Practice
Sacrament in a World of Technique A sermon by Donel
McClellan Practice
Sacrament in a World of Technique LET US PRAY Let the words of my mouth and the
meditations of our hearts be acceptable in your sight, O Lord, our strength and our
redeemer. Amen. Believe me, nobody forgot that dinner
party where Mary dumped a bottle of perfume on Jesus’ feet and wiped it up with her
hair. They couldn’t get it out of their minds: the surprise, the extravagance, the
waste, the erotic overtones and, above all, the scent in the air which lasted all evening
and followed them home clinging to their clothes for days. There really was no explanation. Judas was right. It was a monumental
waste, a sumptuous excess. The perfume could have been sold and any number of good things
could have been done. Jesus was right, Mary did the right thing
by following her heart instead of her head. Others showed consideration while Mary
demonstrated devotion. John and the other gospel writers were
right to include the story in their accounts of Jesus’ last days. Don’t try to understand this.
You’ll just make it worse. There is little logic to it. This act of abject dedication
broke through all rational thought. It became a story, an image, a moment which could best
be called sacramental. A sacrament is an outward and visible sign of an inward and
spiritual grace. Frederick Buechner calls sacrament transparent time. It is, he
says, time which you can see through to something deep inside time. A sacrament is
a window through which we can see the eternal from the temporal. Unfortunately, sacramental understanding
is endangered in our time. Paul Tillich asked, "Are we still able to understand what
a sacrament means?" And then, like a good theologian he answered himself, "The
more we are estranged from nature, the less we can answer affirmatively." Another way of putting that sentiment
might be: The more we think we know about nature, the less mystery it holds for us. The
less mystery the natural world holds, the more matter-of-fact and the less sacramental our
lives become. Familiarity breeds technique rather than insight. Mark Twain discovered this
as he completed his training and was certified as a steamboat pilot on the Mississippi
River. He reports: "Now when I had mastered the language
of this water, and had come to know every trifling feature that bordered the great river
as familiarly as I knew the letters of the alphabet, I had made a valuable acquisition.
But I had lost something too. I had lost something which could never be restored to me
while I lived. All the grace and beauty, the poetry had gone out of the majestic river! .
. . All the value any feature of it had for me now was the amount of usefulness it could
furnish toward compassing the safe piloting of a steamboat." Sometimes, our investment in learning how
to do something removes our need to ask why we are doing it. Our desire for knowledge can
eclipse the equally important search for mystery and meaning. Our very gift at technique
makes us oblivious to sacrament. I have watched in increasing fascination
and amusement the growing proliferation of a series of books called the Dummies Guides.
Naturally, they began as simplified instruction manuals for computers. I can understand
that. I not infrequently feel like a dummy when I match my wits with my impressively fast
and absolutely literal friend the computer. However the books began to sell like hotcakes.
People evidently loved them. Now you can find everything from Auto Repair and Family
Health to Time Management and Sex for Dummies. You will not, however, find a book
entitled The Dummies Guide to Sacramental Living. That is because the Dummies
Guides deal with technique. There is a technique to learning computer software. Technique
can lead to the possibility of cloning animals. Technique provides medical miracles. But
there is no technique which promises a full and fulfilling life. There is no technique
which sustains love. There is no technique which finds God. All of these precious goals
are approached in a way which is the opposite of technique. Our neighbor to the South, Bill Gates is
the master of technique. In fact, he has demonstrated how wealthy and how powerful the
mastery of technique in an emerging technology can make one. Bill, who attended University
Congregational Church as a boy was asked about the value of church attendance. He is
quoted as replying, "Just in terms of allocation of time resources, religion is not
very efficient. There’s a lot more I could be doing on a Sunday morning."
Bill’s wife Melinda is a practicing Catholic and wants to raise their daughter
Jennifer in a religious tradition. However, Mr. Gates is right-on about church attendance.
Worship is inherently wasteful. For example, this morning we were all
involved in wasting time in a sacrament called Baptism. For Molly and Andrew we repeated
familiar and comfortable actions: made promises, committed ourselves to the future,
prayed, used water to represent a complex world of meanings, repeated a time honored
formula – You are baptized in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the
Holy Spirit, presented a candle to remember this day and remind Molly and Andrew that
they are full of light and love to share. It is such a simple and brief act. Why do
we bother to do it. And why have so many members of Molly and Andrew’s family come to
share in this moment? We do it in part because Greg and Kelli
realize that technique is not a great enough gift to bequeath to their children.
Intelligence, love, competence in school and ability in sports or the arts are vitally
important, but they are not enough. A warm home, ample food, comfortable clothes are
essential but they are not enough. In addition to all of that, Mollie and Andrew will be
deprived if they are not also given a grounding in faith, an introduction to the love of
God, and a community of friends and adults who encourage them to exercise their spiritual
gifts as well as their physical and intellectual gifts. We also baptize because Jesus told us to.
And, over the centuries, in millions of baptisms, the Christian Church has discovered that
he was right. A little water and selected words don’t change the way in which God
loves Mollie and Andrew. But, God willing, it will eventually change the way in which we
and they look at the world. John Chrysostom, Patriarch of
Constantanople around 400 A.D. was known for his golden oratory and creative mind. He
wrote these poetic words about baptism: You did not see the Pharaoh and his armies
drowned, For those who have the dedication to waste
a little time in worship, there is an opportunity to see the world as it is, beneath what
we think we know about it and beyond what our most creative scientific minds can tell us.
Just watching the baptism of a child you might catch a glimmer of the almost unbearable
preciousness and mystery of life. Of course, church isn’t the only place where this
happens. Frederick Buechner reminds us that: Sacramental moments can occur at any
moment, any place, and to anybody. Watching somebody get born. Making love. A high-school
graduation. Somebody coming to see you when you’re sick. A meal with people you love.
Looking into a stranger’s eyes and finding out he’s not a stranger. If we weren’t as blind as bats, we
might see that life itself is sacramental. So here we are again, wasting time
worshiping God. Like Mary who was extravagant and thoughtless in her gift of love, we are
giving this hour and putting aside our thoughtful management of the universe to hear
ancient words and participate in ancient actions of devotion. We ought to consider
ourselves radicals, prodigals spending our time in this "worthless" way while
others are practicing their technique on the computer, on the golf course, at the mall.
How wonderfully strange we are – and how wise. We are practicing sacrament in a world of
technique. We are preparing ourselves to answer the deepest questions of time and
eternity. We are preparing ourselves to see eternity in a moment and the face of God in a
child’s eyes. Yesterday my four-year-old granddaughter
Allie was picking pieces off her foam swimming tubes. Her Daddy, Ron said, "If you don't
stop that I will take those away and you will never see them again." Allie: "Never, ever?" Ron: "Never ever!" Allie: "Even at the very end, when
the world is done and gone and it's time to make new people?" If you think about that enough, you are
liable to end up in the world of the sacramental. Mary broke through the polite conversation
of an evening meal with an impulsive dedication which revealed to everybody, the sacred in
their midst. The scent of her perfume remained with them as long as they lived. She
practiced sacrament in a world of technique. So may we. Amen.
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