Crossways - The Shape of the Church (version 2)

December 8, 1963
Rochester

Sermon Series: The Free Church in the Changing World
IV Religion and the Arts
10. Crossways - The Shape of the Church

What represents religion for you? What symbol gathers up the varieties of meanings and leaps of faith, which, taken together, comprise your religion? In speaking of "Crossways – The Shape of the Church," my intention is to stimulate thought about symbols and the authentic content of your personal religion. If there is a difference of opinion among us between those who are fervent in the maintenance of long-standing custom and those who respond to an emphasis on innovation, then this difference should be based on substantial points of view, not trifling irritations. Therefore, will you consider with me, first, what a symbol is; second, crossways, the shape of this church and the merit of the cross as a symbol for our faith in this age; third, what a symbol should do for us; fourth, the limitations and difficulties of religious symbols for liberal religion; and lastly, how faith is best expressed.

A symbol is an attempt to express something completely in a way that communicates rapidly. An American flag is a symbol of our fifty states which immediately conveys in its red and white stripes, blue field and white stars what it would take thousands of words to explain. The National Anthem is an audible and the Great Seal of the United States is a visible agent, each conveying comprehensive culture and united purposes with instantaneous understanding. The symbol employs simplicity to make intelligible a great number of complex arid related meanings.

Religion has always been symbolized. Crossways – the shape of this Church is a religious symbol. I have no way of knowing what Claude Bragdon, the architect intended to convey by his symbolic design. Probably he was concerned to create the space requirements in an architecturally harmonious building, on the given dimensions of the building site, and selected the style he believed would accomplish those goals. Anyway, the shape of the Church is a Greek cross, a building style that came to be associated historically with the Eastern, or Byzantium church, rather than the Western or Latin Church.

The equilateral arms of the Greek cross, radiating out from the center represent a form so simple and natural that it is found everywhere: intersecting streets, the four compass directions, rays of light or sun, the "plus" sign — to name just a few examples. In the long history of the human families in their various times and places on earth, the equilateral cross has symbolized innumerable objects and many abstractions. It has stood for birds flying, man standing with outstretched arms; a double-headed hammer, a bow and fire-drill device, the four winds, the directions of the four corners of the earth.

Hundreds of varieties of crosses have been noted in a large number of cultures. The cross has been found on the pottery of the ancient Indian tribes of North and South America; and of course it is far older than the dawn of Christianity. The cross was part of ancient Egyptian and Celtic cultures, and the old civilizations of India as well.

The Byzantium religious influence evolved from ancient roots in basilicas and temples, older than Christianity, where the equilateral arms of the cross radiate out from a center octagon, as with this building. The temple space of the octagon with its overhead dome came to symbolize the world and its place in the cosmic order.

Not only is our building shaped crossways, but the cross is found in several other places here. Crowning the cupola is a Celtic cross. The Celtic cross, again a symbol older than recorded history, is a symbol of the sun, with the round solar disc in the center, and the rays of the sun represented by the perpendicular and horizontal extensions of the cross. There are Greek crosses embossed on our leather platform chairs. The pulpit is emblazoned with still another variety of cross with its origins also in the idea of the solar disc.

In addition, as a movable symbol, the brass Latin cross, is brought in occasionally as a religious symbol. Some people among us regret that this brass Latin cross ever appears; some feel equally sorry that it is not always used. Let us then consider this matter of the cross as an effective symbol for our religion in this seventh decade of the twentieth century.

Why do some people want it? Some believe it has been a part of the Church for some years and this habit should not be interrupted. Others attach religious meaning, feeling that the Cross represents our origins in the Christian faith,that we need this visible reminder of our heritage constantly. Still others are impatient with seeking justification, either for using it or not using it, but like it because the shine of polished brass against the chancel woodwork is pleasing to the eye and counteracts a barren background for the pulpit. Others, who are here because of a thought-out departure from the doctrines of Christianity just cannot understand why the portable brass cross is ever here. The cross on top, and other less movable crosses, are enough to show our origins, they say.

If the cross was just a universal symbol of the cosmic order or the human condition, which Christianity shared with all ancient peoples, it would be quite easy to consider it as one of the best symbols of the universal religious feeling shared by all people, even though interpretation and expression vary so widely. But much other feeling has become invested in the cross too.

The cross has been a symbol of Christian intolerance and Christian claim for recognition as the only true religion. In some ages, the arrogance of Christian belief that only Christians had the benefit of God's will and revealed truth has had the consequence of the cross becoming the sign of cruel exploitation for other groups within the total human family.

The cross is a symbol of trinitarian Christianity, whereas most of us have never been, or no longer are, trinitarians, nor have our forbears in liberal religion. To the believing Christian, the empty cross signifies that God, the Son, has conquered death by his physical resurrection from the tomb. By this supernatural atonement, corrupt man has been given a way of salvation, or so it is witnessed by the Christian.

In medieval times, to "take the Cross" meant to fight infidels—infidels referring to members of the Muslim faith, or Christians in the Near East who happened to be in the way of the Crusaders' search for blood, gold and glory, under the banner of a pledge to recapture the Holy City, Jerusalem. Taking the cross to fight infidels in Asia Minor also incited Europeans, who didn't go on the Crusades, to persecute Jews in cruel, vile and bloody ways. It is asking quite a lot of the non-Christian to forget what terrible things the cross has meant to his ancestors.

An incident in the great age of explorations and colonization compresses a good deal of the attitude which has created in many of us the desire to search for better symbols of our religion of a free church in a changing world. In the history of the Virginia Colonists, BEHOLD VIRGINIA, by Willison, (p.25/26) "Captain Newport had his men fashion a large cross, which was set up here at the Falls, in what is now Richmond. With elaborate ceremony, Newport renamed the river, christening it the James, and formally took possession of all the surrounding territory in the name of the King, proclaiming 'with a greate showte'; that he had the 'most right unto it.' Standing nearby and frankly puzzled, an Indian from Powhatan's Tower inquired the meaning of all this.

"'Your countriemen will lie much,' Pocahontas once remarked to Captain John Smith after much experience with the English and Newport was as glib and plausible as any. The two arms of the cross, he said, 'signified King Powhatan and himself; the fastening of it in the myddest was their united league; and the showte, the reverence he did to Powhatan' which 'did exceedingly rejoice' the chief and all his people...."

Thus when the cross has meant exploitation, cruelty and deceit, why should we display it as a symbol of a religion which professes equality, kindness and truth? When the cross represents a Trinitarian, atoning, particularistic, individualistic salvation, how extensive can be the common ground we share with such a narrow theology that emphasizes man's hopelessness, when we believe that man, greatly imperfect man, has the potential to grow in his ability to find ways to make the human situation better here on this earth?

But it would be unfair to omit the positive meanings of the cross. Quite apart from theology, it has come to represent the sacrificial love that man can offer for man: "For whosoever would save his life shall lose it; but whosoever shall lose his life shall save it." The cross is a symbol that to some represents the intersection of time and space, creating the self-consciousness and social consciousness we designate as human experience. The cross recalls treasured memories to many, a visible reminder of profound personal experience.

As I see it, our brass Latin cross deserves placement as a symbol on the traditional great days of Christianity, and on other occasions when the worship theme relates to certain great particularities of our Christian tradition. On other occasions, we best serve our experience of worship in our day, by other symbols, flowers, plants light and certain artistic creations which may be a unifying bond on the occasions of our varying moods, backgrounds and themes, to the end that our worship will enrich all our lives with deeper meanings. This is how I view the cross in our faith.

There is this rather sobering reality about religious life today: Neither the cross, nor any other single symbol has the power now to pull us together in a cohesive whole—"all one body we" in the words of the old hymn. Some of us are people who do not believe the doctrines of Christianity, but have a fond feeling for Christian anthems, hymns, crosses and traditional prayers. Some of us believe that we best express the Universalist Unitarian faith by a fresh, creative approach to the symbols of brass, the sounds of music or the practice of worship. Some of us want to embrace more fully the differing traditions of persons who now are attracted to the liberal faith — the persons whose roots are in Judaism and to whom constant use of the symbols of Christianity are an affront, emotionally at least, and in addition, persons whose roots may be in Hinduism, Buddhism or the deep-rooted secularism of America who find their religious foundations in the writings of Paine, Jefferson, Ingersoll and other passionate and ethically inspiring dissenters from Christianity's ways and symbols.

To accept the condition that no one symbol of any religion now has the power to make us one emotionally, is also to embrace the noble thought that our hope is understand and live in a world wider than Judeo-Christian, Hindu, Moslem, Buddhist or any other one culture, he can not accept without dissent anyone's claim to all the truth of religion, history, economics or government. The varying patterns differ; the several religions are not exactly equal; but they do exist. We must live in a world which directly and indirectly is testing all peoples about the merits of their boasts, whether religious or what.

No one can know if symbols will emerge out of our experiments which will be comprehensive enough to enfold all the varieties of our Universalist Unitarian ways. One of the realities of symbolism seems to be that one cannot contrive it successfully, as an automobile manufacturer might design and exploit a trademark. We will experiment, some of our churches more creatively than others, but there can be no assurance that an effective symbol will capture all our best feelings of spiritual tension and ethical involvement. But we may be sure that the proper symbols for us must break all the old, rusty bonds of sect, clan, nation and class.

If the symbol of brass, clay or wood is a puzzle at present, we do have the tools to fashion the content of our faith. John LaFarge, S.J., (RELIGIOUS SYMBOLISM, p.222), pointed to a task for us which has priority in this matter: "symbolism without language becomes stale [superstition]; language without symbolism is devoid of emotional appeal and. deprives man of one of his noblest sources of religious intuition. Contrary to some views, I hold that genuine religious symbolism can be interpreted in terms of language."

Words we need and deeds we owe. I am not concerned that on many Sundays there is no shining brass or gleaming symbol to move our emotions. We need words to express the principles we follow, the facts we accept and the goals we seek. The question that each individual needs to be able to answer well is, "What do you believe?" You are not expected to point to a cross or candle, but to utter the words which represent a faith that man can cherish and find to be a support in this modern world. We live in a world where there is contest for the allegiance of man and the contest centers on the capturing of the mind of men. There was a time in religious history when the primary need for symbols arose because illiteracy was wide-spread and the average persons could not learn the teaching of the Church by reading scripture or catechism. He could not read. Therefore, symbols were ancient teaching machines. In the 8th Century, Emperor Charlemagne called religious symbols, "books for the illiterate."

But in our day when the reach of science is opening up fantastic frontiers of knowledge about, the cosmos and man, we need words which affirm a faith able to help a man in the laboratory, a woman in the home, a legislator in Congress, an executive in commerce, a plumber in his shop or a carpenter at his trade. We need language which will be an expression of the way thoughtful persons may find their spiritual way in our universe and their ethical way among mankind.

Deeds we owe, because one can be unresponsive to symbols and inarticulate in words, but still be able to exert some effort in the world on behalf of the faith he holds. Paul Tillich once defined ''religion as the state of being grasped by an ultimate concern, a concern which qualifies all other concerns as preliminary and which itself contains the answer to the questions of the meaning of our life." (CHRISTIANITY AND THE ENCOUNTER OF WORLD RELIGIONS, p.4).

When one is grasped by that which is of "ultimate concern," to which all other concerns are but tangential, one finds his way with or without supporting symbols, but with a determination to so live in the world that the highest values receive prime and constant attention. Thus will beliefs become more deeply-rooted and one's actions a specific consequence of the faith that is held.