"If Nothing is Sacred "

READING
"The Acolyte," by Denise Levertov

The large kitchen is almost dark.
Across the plain of even, diffused light,
copper pans on the wall and the window geranium
tend separate campfires.
Herbs dangle their Spanish moss from rafters.

At the table, floury hands
kneading dough, feet planted
steady on flagstones,
a woman ponders the loaves-to-be.
Yeast and flour, water and salt,
have met in the huge bowl.

It's not
the baked and cooled and cut
bread she's thinking of,
but the way
the dough rises and has a life of its own,

not the oven she's thinking of
but the way
the sour smell changes
to fragrance.
She wants to put
a silver rose or a bell of diamonds
into each loaf;
she wants

to bake a curse into one loaf,
into another, the words that break
evil spells and release
transformed heroes into their selves;
she wants to make bread that is more than bread.

SERMON

This past Thursday an uncommon quiet calmed our city, as traffic moved unhindered by rush hour, and children played outdoors all day. I walked my dog up Ocean Park Boulevard early in the morning, lost in meandering pre-coffee thoughts, and wondered what accounted for the odd sense of peace. Then I remembered - as I should - that it was a religious holiday. The Jewish High Holy Days had just begun with Rosh Hashanah, and many schools and offices were closed, as they are every year.

This year, however, more than one religious observance was taking place. The month-long Muslim ritual of Ramadan also began this week. Muslims everywhere observe Ramadan - a time of fasting and reflection that is personal - in that it requires considerable discipline to accomplish; and social - as both the austerities and the celebrations are powerful social bonds. Both holidays are central to their traditions, requiring attention to the rhythm of the day and a break from business as usual. There are many differences between these two observances. But when they occur together, as they do this year, you can't help but see how similar they are too.

Each sets aside sacred time. Each designates special activities - fasting, repentance, charity, and raised social consciousness - to practice in that sacred time. And each brings renewal to those who do what their tradition expects of them.

Those of us who do not enter into these sacred times as Jews or Muslims can not appreciate what we are missing. Neither trained in these practices nor educated in their meaning, we see only the aspects that confuse or even repel us. Who can blame us if we are skeptical about the value of religion? Isn't it to blame for many of today's troubles? Look at Jerusalem: that ancient sacred space, claimed by and fought over by Jews, Christians, and Muslims alike. "So loved it has seventy names. . . . Seventeen times torn apart and rebuilt."[i] What about the endless war, with its sideshow of religious and political fanaticism?

The world's evils may be both sacred and profane, but it is tempting to think that half of them would vanish if people just examined their beliefs a little more critically. I am tempted to think that. So today I ask, what does it mean to hold something - or nothing - as sacred?

In his classic work "The Sacred and the Profane," religion historian Mircea Eliade claims that the human yearning for the sacred is a yearning for a heightened sense of reality.[ii] Observing that ancient cultures were embedded in sacred meanings, stories, and places, Eliade sees modern society as unhinged, lacking in connection to cosmic power, fundamentally "desacralized," or profane.

Modern people - "nonreligious," as Eliade sees us, whatever our political rhetoric or call to arms may be - are cut off from the reality we seek. "Life is not possible," Eliade writes, "without an opening toward the transcendent: in other words, human beings cannot live in chaos."[iii] He was speaking about ancient peoples when he wrote that, but it is clear that he was also speaking about us.

He goes on to explain that the human instinct to set apart certain spaces, times, and rituals as sacred is still alive, whether we are conscious of it or not. "There are . . . privileged places," as Eliade describes them, "qualitatively different from all others - [one's] birthplace, or certain places in the first foreign city . . . visited in youth. Even for the most frankly nonreligious [person], all these places still retain an exceptional, a unique quality; they are the 'holy places' of [our] private universe, as if in such spots . . . [we] had received the revelation of a reality other than that in which [we participate] in ordinary daily life.[iv]

My younger brother lives in Minneapolis, but work often brings him to Los Angeles. He called to let me know he would be passing through last Sunday, too late to come to church, but definitely in time for dinner. "There's just one thing I want to do," he said. "Can we please go to Warszawa?"

Warszawa is the Polish restaurant on Lincoln Boulevard. We've taken my brother there several times over the years, but I didn't realize that it had achieved iconic status in his mind. My brother is a superb cook, interested in everything to do with food. He refers to the book "The Omnivore's Dilemma"[v] as "my bible." He's a tough critic. I'm always looking for new places to take him. But in the case of Warszawa, as good a restaurant as it is, what draws him there is not the quality of the food, but the fact that it tastes like our grandmother's. Yes, dumplings and stuffed cabbage leaves are our childhood cuisine, once served up in staggeringly hearty proportions by our German-Hungarian, Lawrence Welk-loving Nana. I could tell - the way siblings can always tell - that this restaurant had become my blithely non-religious brother's sacred place.

The world is filled with such personal, sacred destinations. We all have them: a certain beach or hiking trail, a sailboat, a therapist's office, a wall of photographs or a piece of furniture. Whatever they are, we may not realize they are our holy places, but we set them apart, tend them, and need them to be part of our lives, even if only in memory. If we did not have them, individual and idiosyncratic as they are, the world would be somehow less alive and real. As Mircea Eliade points out, "life is not possible without an opening to the transcendent." Our yearning to be connected to creation, to a sense of ultimate reality, keeps us searching for them.

Denise Levertov's lovely poem "The Acolyte" takes a look at a woman baking bread. "It's not the baked and cooled and cut bread she's thinking of," Levertov writes, "but the way the dough rises and has a life of its own." The way bread transforms while it bakes. The power she can give it: "put a silver rose or a bell of diamonds" or "bake a curse into one loaf, into another, the words that break evil spells." Bread that is more than food. "She wants to make bread that is more than bread."

My brother wants a restaurant that is more than a restaurant. We all want something - some place, or time, or ritual - to connect us deeply to our origins, to the mystery of life itself; to be more than it is on its own. And we all find it, one way or another. Whether we call it sacred or not, we approach it with reverence.

I could go on about how something gets lost when sacred stories and places are handed down - and handled - for so long that they bear no resemblance to the original vision. Together we could create a long list of ways in which sacred teachings have turned into their opposite. We skeptics have a hard time with such realities. We are torn between the impulse to discard everything that has ever been called "religion" and the responsibility to educate ourselves sufficiently to understand it. It would be easy to say, "Nothing is sacred," but it also would be uninformed.

One of the virtues of our Religious Exploration program is our emphasis on teaching our children about other religious traditions. They will understand that the human yearning for reality takes many forms, familiar and alien. They will appreciate how fragile yet how essential religious freedom and tolerance can be. And most important, they will acquire a sense of the sacred, not just as they experience it here or on their own, but as a universal human instinct, with power for good and for bad.

If nothing is sacred, then we humans have managed to squelch that very human yearning, and in doing so, have lost the capacity for reverence. There are times when I think we have come very close. But then I realize I may be looking in the wrong place. Because anything can be sacred, if it gives us a sense of the larger reality in which we live.

The earth, wilderness, all living things: these are all sacred. The bonds of love that allow us to grow beyond our expectations. The pleasures of art and music that lift our spirits. The things that help us remember: childhood food, and religious rituals. High Holy Days. Ramadan. The gathering we create together here. Call it sacred or not; but give yourself something to approach with reverence. It is as worthy - and as precious - as you are. As it is for all of us. Let there be that space, that time, to connect us to the larger life that holds us all.

[i] Mark Podwall, "Jerusalem Sky: Stars, Crosses, and Crescents" (New York: Doubleday, 2005).
[ii] Mircea Eliade, "The Sacred and the Profane: The Nature of Religion" (New York: Harcourt, Brace & World, Inc. 1959), p. 13.
[iii] Ibid., p. 34.
[iv] Ibid., p. 24. Language adapted by JM to be gender-inclusive for worship.
[v] Michael Pollan’s critique of modern agricultural practices and their impact on the quality of food and of life.