The Great Assurance

February 10, 1963
Rochester

Sermon Series: Our Judeo-Christian Heritage
20. The Great Assurance

Religion provides the great assurance of existence when one is willing to embrace a faith which grasps the entire life of man – his emotions, his reasons, his actions.

This assurance is not acquired easily or bought cheaply. The Christian book of Acts records the episode of Simon Magus, the Samarian sorcerer who tried to purchase Christian faith after being impressed by “signs and miracles” in Philip's company. When Peter and John came to Samaria from Jerusalem and conducted a service in which the “Holy Spirit” was received, Simon Magus was so impressed that he tried to buy the power of religion. The legend goes on that Peter scorned the offer, saying, “Your silver perish with you because you thought you could obtain the gift of God with money.” (Acts 8-9 ff.) Religious assurance is not obtained by trade or barter.

We have considered many aspects of our Judeo-Christian heritage:

Diversity and unity
Weakness and strength
Confusion and clarity
Organization and individuality
Ambivalence and single-mindedness
Creed and conscience
Selfishness and sacrifice
Injustice and justice
Hate and love

Most of us will not make the mistake of Simon Magus and try and buy our way to assurance. But there are other errors. An agricultural experiment reported by the “Unesco Courier” may help to illustrate. Scientists from the University of Arizona plan to experiment with a new method of sowing grass seed by airplane. Small pellets have been prepared composed of grass seed, clay, fertilizers and insect repellents. Just before the heavy seasonal rains begin, the pellets would be dropped – everything in one package – seed, fertilizer, insecticide.

The agricultural experiment may work, but religion is not like that for us, as we understand our heritage. There is no neat little package which contains the seed of faith, with the nurture of faith while at the same time providing resistance to forces which might weaken or destroy. An authoritarian religion provides this package; but most of us, for better or worse, know that the questions and answers come home to each one of us individually.

In Henry V (Act 1, Sc. 2), Canterbury, urging conflict with France, says to the king,

“As many arrows are loosed several ways
Come to one mark; as many ways meet in one town;
As many fresh streams meet on one salt sea;
As many lines close in the dial’s center -
So may a thousand actions, once afoot,
End in one purpose, and be all well borne
Without defeat.”

In accepting our heritage, many influences come to one mark for us, too, if we would have the great assurance of religion. If we were satisfied with creedal formula, that would be the mark. But we must look to the heritage in the light of our experience to find the individual faith which for us will be the dial’s center of a thousand actions,” and enable us to “end in one purpose.”

This inward assurance, for which we fumble by day and cry in the night, is grown more by what we are than by easy sayings which comfort our doubts. Spiritual security is a product of the moral life our convictions have inspired us to adopt. In judging the effect of a religion on our moral living, we are not left without guidance.

First, your religion deserves the right to measure your problems. One of our common failings is to measure our problems by what society may pronounce. When debating decisions or planning actions, our human radar records the compass points of the blips of public opinion, to used David Riesman’s well-known analogy. If the direction is contrary to individual conviction, then we may change in the direction of public opinion, stifling conscience. When we do, we shake the foundation of assurance.

In our world, a person faces a forest of problems, thickly entangled with an underbrush of difficult choices. Should I urge a person to buy an inferior product? Should I ignore trickery which I could expose? Should I jeopardize the economic welfare of my family for the sake of ethical principles I have been taught were of first importance? Anyone who professes that it is easy to choose the solitary way of opinions and actions that contemporary culture does not accept, just has not come up against the hostile face of disapproval and rejection.

In Britain in the first century, when the Roman Legions, led by Agricola, were preparing to invade Scotland, one of the Scots, a Caledonian general, taunted the Romans, “They create desolation and call it peace.” (THE GREAT INVASION, Leonard Cottrell, p. 195). The historic Roman peace was more prized by the Romans than by the countries they fought regularly and invaded frequently during the so-called “Pax Romana.” For a Caledonian enemy to fling the insult was far easier than for those soldiers in the Roman Legions who became Christian converts, discarded their weapons and refused to fight. They measured their problems by their religion and decided not to aid the creation of desolation, which the controlling military opinions called “peace.”

Both the Caledonian warrior-chief, who was not a pacifist, and the Christian ex-legionnaire who was, had this in common: they were measuring problems by the strong values they believed. Their individual destinies may have been difficult, even agonizing, but it was likely that they knew the great assurance that comes as surely as tides come to every ocean shore when the problems are measured by the religion one believes.

One of the greatest dramatists of Western Culture, Euripides of ancient Greece, was extremely unpopular in his lifetime. He was defamed and indicted while he lives; his popularity came only after his death. Rather than catering to current taste, Euripides stung the Athenians to “think, to see, to understand and question everything.” (Edith Hamilton).

He was measuring problems by his beliefs. This is a way to generate within oneself the assurance that life has meaning and that living is worthwhile.

Not all our problems are in the sphere of public affairs or convictions about controversial public questions. There are maneuverings in occupational life to be the one who will get foot on the next rung of the ladder leading upward. There are many who are disturbed by the methods by which the one with the foothold must tramp sometimes on someone else.

There are problems of selfishness and vanity in public affairs. There are feelings of injured pride and loss of face when one’s child fails to be out in front for marks and honors. There are times when it seems all-important to win a petty argument, even though something precious may fade a little forever. Sometimes the more wrong we are, the louder we shout and the more pain we inflict.

It is easy to measure situations on the erroneous scale of hot pride or bubbling anger. But surely as we do, just as surely, we are dissipating our own inner strength.

When the religion we believe measures our problems, when we see as a person, the public official we believe so wrong, we may make a more dispassionate appraisal of his position. This does not mean either escape from or vacillation with issues of grave importance. It does not mean that we will measure as we would be measured by. When we believe that the person is of supreme worth – that it is ideas or faulty facts that are wrong – we will be more inclined to attack problems, not persons. Then we will be giving religion its deserved right to measure our problems.

When we realize that our inner security is as dependent on our family attitudes as our public pronouncements, then we ought to concede religion the right to measure problems within the walls of home, too. The person who vents on family the bad feelings he hides in public has made a large deduction from his real inner resources. Even when brooding in frustration at one’s spouse, in fury at one’s child or envy at one’s neighbor, the religion one professes to believe has a prior claim for the right to measure the problem.

This goes beyond the harmonious situations that may be created by living what one professes to believe about good-will and kindness. When this religious priority is given its rightful place, an inevitable by-product is the increased assurance that adds new strength and joy to living and letting live.

Secondly, religion deserves the right to weigh your anxieties.

Again and again, no matter where you pick out the thread of religion from the fabric of human affairs, whether long ages ago or this very hour, you will find that thread tied to the struggle against personal anxieties. No person ever lived, who had any normal share or mind of emotion, free of anxiety. To be human is to be anxious.

We fret about our appearance. We worry about the consequences of mistakes we know we have made. Did I lock the door of the house, car, safe? Is the parking meter running out? Did I leave the gas burners on? Did I make the deposit before the check cleared? Will the new boss recognize my talents? How sick is my child? Can the plane land safely in such turbulence? Is the growth malignant? Will I die tonight? - We are anxious about many things.

In the verses included in the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus said, “Therefore I tell you, do not be anxious about your life, what you shall eat or what you shall drink, nor about your body, what you shall put on. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing? Look at the birds of the air: they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they? And which of you by being anxious can add one cubit to his span of life? And why be anxious about clothing? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow: they neither toil nor spin; yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. But if God so clothes the grass of the field, which today is alive and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will he not much more clothe you, O men of little faith? Therefore do not be anxious, saying, ‘what shall we eat?’ or ‘what shall we drink?’ or ‘what shall we wear?’ For the Gentiles seek all these things; and your heavenly Father knows that you need them all. But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness and all these things shall be yours as well.”

This attitude stood up under stress. In the Garden of Gethsemane, the gospels indicate that Jesus was no blithe spirit as he confronted the cruel realities of the experience that he was to endure. He was anxious; prayed that the cup would pass from him. But he was willing to give his religion the right to weigh his anxieties, “My Father, if this cannot pass unless I drink it, thy will be done.”

Joan of Arc conquered her hears of a horrible death because the sound of her “voices” outweighed human anxieties about pain, death, and error.

John Bunyan in Bedford jail, wrote his allegorical masterpiece of the triumph of persisting faith, immortalized his own decision to weigh his anxieties against his fervent convictions – and great assurance came.

The pilgrim feeling the cold, biting spray of the wild North Atlantic in November 1620, needed to weigh his anxieties in the scale of faith or utter despair could have overcome him.

There are numerous instances where anxiety loses its heavy weight when placed on the scale with religious faith. We will not find that it is of any one variety of creed, scripture or prayer which identifies those who had the great experience of inner assurance in spite of anxieties. This is a spirit to which all may aspire – a conviction that overpowers fears that we shall cease to be. It is the spirit of Byron’s “Prisoner of Chillon,”

“Eternal Spirit of the Chainless Mind!
Brightest in dungeons, Liberty thou art
For there thy habitation is the heart.”

Third, great assurance can be ours if we give our religious faith the power to distribute the efforts of our lives.

There has been a famous lady visiting Washington, DaVinci’s creation, the “Mona Lisa.” Perhaps more desirable conditions may prevail in the New York showing, but in Washington the crowds were so great that each spectator had approximately eight seconds to view one of the artistic masterpieces of human history. How much can one learn of that smile and those hands in eight seconds?

Many times we lack the great assurance that meaning can provide because we take about eight seconds to distribute the fruits of our religion among the days of our lives. Now I am not speaking of the desirability of full-time professional religious vocation or service, for we face the same difficult qualifications as anybody else. I’m not speaking of reacting with pretended pious shock to colorful profanity or off-color stories. Neither do I refer to regular church attendance or affable acceptance of religious institutions and campaigns.

There is a spiritual dynamism generated when one allocates his powers in harmony with his inner beliefs. Jesus believed this was the secret of eternal life – see Luke 10, 25-37. For example if you belief that freedom is a religious quality, then you will put your weight on the side of freedom. You will not be deterred by easy avoidance of hard problems because of pressure from those who would yield freedom of speech, religion, press, assembly for reasons of expediency or power. But if you believe in freedom, and you are there, or your voice is heard when man’s freedom is threatened, then, as a by-product, you will find your assurance more firmly rooted.

If you believe in reason; state propositions sensibly; stand by reasonable conclusions, even when irrationality is poured on your like flood waters, then you will know yourself a stronger person inside.

If you believe in truth – not as any state announces the truth; not as any one religion proclaims the truth; not as any self-seeking institution might insist is the truth – but as you discover truth with the reason of your mind and the liberty of your soul – then you will stand by that truth as you know it; and will be moved only by new truth, not by principalities and powers. When you do, you will learn that your inner strength has grown to be equal to whatever storms may buffet you outwardly.

If you believe in human dignity as the inalienable right deserved by all people because of the nature of your belief about God or the universe, then your inner self is strengthened or weakened by your faithfulness in daily living to the principles you affirm. If you profess belief in human worth and then discredit that belief by denial of the dignity of any person, or withholding your support when your heart tells you to, then there will be a lessening of the inner assurance you need to live well in a confused and angry world.

When your religion has the power to distribute your life, you will find this is a glad or sorry experience depending on the warmth you feel inside for people in the causes you support. Early Thursday morning, the drizzling rain froze immediately on the windshield as I drove down the street. Vision was obscured for a few minutes until the warm air heated by the engine was directed by the defrosters to the glass, warming it. Then the wipers moved the ice; clear vision was re-established.

So it is with many obscure issues of life that cause collisions between people – even people who are trying to distribute their powers religiously. The warmth created within ourselves must be brought to bear on the ice of human misunderstanding so that we may see clearly and proceed safely.

If we would build the great inner assurance that life has meaning, that all our efforts are worthwhile, whether outwardly crowned with victory or tagged with defeat, we will permit religion the right to measure our problems, weigh our anxieties and distribute our lives.

One thing more – how live is your real enthusiasm for what you believe? Do not expect a full charge of inner vitality from what you believe casually and practice trivially.

The unknown visionary who composed the vivid images of the Christian New Testament book of Revelation had some blunt words to describe the half-hearted in religion: “I know your works: you are neither cold nor hot. Would that you were cold or hot! So because you are lukewarm, I will spew you out of my mouth.” We are more sophisticated and outwardly polite these days; we would not say that half-hearted religion is nauseating.

Nevertheless, when looking back on our heritage, we need to be most grateful to those who were not half-hearted or lukewarm. Their enthusiasm and commitment created and preserved the truest and most honorable traditions which can still guide and comfort those who seek religion in spirit and in truth.

None of us is given to know how this heritage will be amended and altered in our time and the ages to come. But of this we may be sure – great changes will be recorded and new heroes of mankind’s pilgrimage will contribute their lives and leadership. Of this we may be certain – we will be false neither to any man nor any faith if we live the words attributed to a Muslim who sought friendship and understanding with a Christian Crusader, seven hundred years ago, “It is certain, even if our beliefs are different, that we have the same Creator and Father, and that we must be brothers, not according to our confession, but as men.” (quoted by Heer, THE MEDIEVAL WORLD, p. 112).