“We encounter each other in words,
words spiny or smooth,
whispered or declaimed,
words to consider, reconsider….”
This week, Barack Obama has sworn to faithfully execute the office of President of the United States, and will to the best of his ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States. As he has given his word, let us consider and reconsider words: their power and potential to name the world, to strengthen community, and to create the future.
Writers, especially poets, ancient and modern, understand the power words have to create worlds of imagination and to bring the ordinary, broken and blessed world into view, into focus, by naming it.
“In the beginning was the Word.”
This is the first phrase in the Book of John in the Christian New Testament. It is prologue to all that will come in the story of the life and work of Jesus of Nazareth.
The Greek word for “word” is logos. It means logic, reason, volitional, first cause, bearer of ideas, thinking, perceiving, an act of the soul. It is a word of creativity, of process.
As first cause, Logos is generative. As the bearer of ideas, Logos is equated with light and enlightenment. Through Logos as an act of the soul, something new is born into the world. In the words of John:
“All things came into being through [the Word], and without [the Word] not one thing came into being. What has come into being…was life, and the life was the light of all people. The light shines in the darkness and the darkness did not overcome it…”
We all have some experience with giving our word. What I want to consider this morning is how giving our word is a creative act—a way in which we have some hand in generating a future we believe in. We all very likely also have experience with going back on our word, or not living up to our word. So I hope to also consider the importance and necessity of being willing—not only to give our word to a future we want to commit to—but to stand by it and sacrifice for it—as far as grace will allow.
In the beginning was the Word.
When I perform a wedding ceremony, before I invite the couple to “repeat after me,” I read a few words by the farmer-poet-philosopher Wendell Berry. He writes:
“The meaning of marriage begins in the giving of words. We cannot join ourselves to one another without giving our word. And this must be an unconditional giving, for in joining ourselves to one another we join ourselves to the unknown.” (Standing by Words, Wendell Berry, 1983, p. 92)
Thus, with your word, I explain, you commit to standing with one another in that unknown future—with all its twists and turns, its sorrows as well as its joys.
For a couple stepping forward into married life, that promise is made “On the brink, on the brim, on the cusp…” in the words of inaugural poet Elizabeth Alexander. It is a radically creative act to imagine something that has not yet happened. To imagine a possible future that is enlivened and enlightened by all that would rise and flow from the love of two people—ah, this is an act of the soul!
Each time I perform a wedding, I am inspired and full of hope that a good and strong future is ahead for the happy couple. (Yet I’ve heard that the reason why so many guests cry at weddings is because they know just what the couple is heading for…) It will take beginning again and again to strengthen, renew or remake the bonds they forged by giving of their word in marriage.
Still, is not always easy to keep our word. When we make promises, we are “walking into that which we cannot yet see.” We step into unknown futures believing “there’s something better down the road…a place where we are safe.” But as often as not, there will be obstacles on the road, something that calls for sacrifice. That is why, whether presidential oath or marriage vow, we call in a circle of supporters to bear witness to the promises we make.
During a wedding service, I also ask those gathered—the witnesses, parents, in-laws and friends—to take a vow. Will you, I ask, do all in your power to uphold these two in the promises they make today? If so, I direct, please say: “We will!” This expression of support resounds in the ritual space. Although it cannot protect every couple from broken bonds, the intention expressed is significant. It calls us to mutual responsibility for success in honoring our promise. And it calls us to mutual support in dark times…
These are dark times. But never forget that there is always a light shining in the darkness. And it seems to be just a little brighter this week!
It seemed to me to be shining in the vibrating wave of humanity on the National Mall in Washington, D.C. There, millions of people stood and cheered and cried on Tuesday as they heard the call to restore the communal bonds which have been weakened by the breaks and betrayals of recent years. We are called to a mutual promise to uphold the truths we declare to be self-evident. We are called, in the words of our new president, to “pick ourselves up, dust ourselves off, and begin again the work of remaking America.”
Mr. Obama’s inaugural call is an echo from our ancestors.
Which president could have been more challenged by weakening communal bonds than Abraham Lincoln? Lincoln took an oath he said was “registered in heaven” to preserve, protect and defend the government established by the Constitution. In 1861, that Constitution was threatened by states calling for secession. Undeterred, Lincoln uttered the oath and then spoke into a possible yet unknown future, calling for unity:
“We must not be enemies. Though passion may have strained (,) it must not break our bonds of affection. The mystic chords of memory, stretching from every battlefield and patriot grave to every living heart and hearthstone all over this broad land, will yet swell the chorus of the Union, when again touched, as surely they will be, by the better angels of our nature.”
Four years later, bloodied by the horror and loss of the Civil War, the bonds of the United States stretched to breaking, Lincoln would be called to begin again. He would promise again. And call out in turn to the people--his witnesses--for a new future of restoration:
“With malice toward none, with charity for all, with firmness in the right as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in, to bind up the nation’s wounds, to care for him who shall have borne the battle and for his widow and his orphan, to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace among ourselves and with all nations.”
In the beginning was the word. Logos. Volitional, first cause, bearer of ideas, an act of the soul…
John the evangelist wrote: “And the Word was with God and the Word was God. All things came into being through it…and what has come into being was life…and the life was the light of all people…. The true light, which enlightens all people was coming into the world…”
I’m not implying we are gods. I am, however, saying we are creative. We create new possibility with our words. We name our children. We say what is going to be for dinner. We pledge our treasure to causes we believe in. We promise to be there when we’re needed. We declare that all persons have inherent worth and dignity. We affirm our interdependence.
Franklin D. Roosevelt, in the second of four inaugural addresses, did not shrink from naming the world as he saw it:
“I see millions of families trying to live on incomes so meager that the pall of …disaster hangs over them day by day.
I see millions whose daily lives in city and on farm continue under conditions labeled indecent … half a century ago…
I see one-third of a nation ill-housed, ill-clad, ill-nourished.”
Staring that reality in the face, FDR called for new future and the restoration of communal bonds grounded in the truth of our interdependence:
“It is not in despair that I paint you that picture. I paint it for you in hope—because the Nation, seeing and understanding the injustice in it, proposes to paint it out. We are determined to make every American citizen the subject of his country’s interest and concern;…. The test of our progress is not whether we add more to the abundance of those who have much; it is whether we provide enough for those who have too little.”
(Franklin D. Roosevelt, Second Inaugural Address, Wednesday, January 20, 1937)
On Tuesday, President Barack Obama echoed this sense of mutuality, of duty to one another as required by our interdependence and our principles.
“What is required of us now is a new era of responsibility—a recognition, on the part of every American, that we have duties to ourselves, our nation, and the world, duties that we do not grudgingly accept but rather seize gladly, firm in the knowledge that there is nothing so satisfying to the spirit, so defining of our character, than giving our all to a difficult task.
This is the price and the promise of citizenship.
This is the source of our confidence—the knowledge that God calls on us to shape an uncertain destiny.”
“The beginning of marriage begins with the giving of our word.” We give our word and it must be unconditional, for as we join our lives we face the unknown together.
George Washington, in the midst of battle with an uncertain outcome, continued to speak the hope of a new nation into being. With his word, Washington created possibility in the midst of darkness:
“Let it be told to the future world that in the depth of winter, when nothing but hope and virtue could survive, that the city and the country, alarmed at one common danger, came forth to meet it.”
Hearkening to the words of our first president, President Obama concluded his inaugural address:
“America! In the face of our common dangers, in this winter of our hardship, let us … With hope and virtue, … brave once more the icy currents, and endure what storms may come. Let it be said by our children’s children that when we were tested …we did not turn back nor did we falter; and with eyes fixed on the horizon and God’s grace upon us, we carried forth that great gift of freedom and delivered it safely to future generations.”
(Barack Obama, Inaugural Address, Tuesday, January 20, 2009)
In the beginning was the Word. Logos. First cause, bearer of ideas, an act of the soul…
There is nothing empty and meaningless in giving our word. But our word is only potential until they are brought forth into material reality by our work. Words honor the past, name the present and create the future. But that future cannot be manifested until we choose to walk forward into the light of that future in these bodies—with flesh and bone and sweat and blood, with laughter and sacrifice. With words we skip like stones across the water from memory to imagination. With words we build the frame, the form for fulfillment of our dreams. With our perseverance, our courage, our strength, our gifts, we build the world of our words. Our words—the bearers of our ideas-- are born like true light to enlighten the world.
“In today’s sharp sparkle, the winter air,
anything can be made, any sentence begun.
On the brink, on the brim, on the cusp
praise song for walking forward in that light.”
What word will you give? What will you sacrifice to stand by your word?
By our mutual word, may we live ever to strengthen--and when necessary, restore--the bonds of community. May we walk together in all our ways, forward in that light—that it may shine in the darkness and the darkness shall not overcome it.
May it be so. Amen.
