Homily or Sermon

In recent months I have found myself wanting to substitute the word “homily” for “sermon” in our Sunday orders of worship. “This is curious,” I said to myself. “What is this about?” 

At first I suspected my desire to appear more southern than I have a right to claim to be. Homily. Hominy. Homily. Hominy. Homily. Hominy. This word association evokes all things truly southern. The very sound of it suggests a languid, non-pretentious, warm-morning southern repast. Perhaps I will even develop a drawl.

 “Hominy” derives from the Algonquin term for grain; it never occurs alone. What is its partner? “Grits.” True grits. Real Southerners spot us interlopers a mile away:

“What would you like for breakfast, sir?”

“I’ll have a grit.”

“A grit? I’m sorry, sir. They never come alone.”

I think a good sermon ought to be a little “gritty,” don’t you? Grits on your plate keep you humble. The best upscale sermons ever savored still have some down home common sense about them.

But I don’t think this is it. My Catholic friends point out that they “do” homilies while Protestants “do” sermons. So maybe there’s a wanna-be priest lurking in my robe. But while I confess to being an ecu-maniac, and believe with every fiber of my being that we should work that “all may be one,” I have no desire to exchange the riotous freedoms of our tradition for the particular restrictions of another.

I asked my erudite colleagues to tell me the difference between a homily and a sermon. No one seems to know. I asked you who sit through them. “Homilies are shorter,” you say. With all do respect, I think you beg the question. Certainly my homilies are not shorter. (“Pastor,” pleaded one member, “your words don’t have to be eternal in order for them to be immortal.”)

Finally I looked in the dictionary. “Homily” is rooted in the Greek homiletikos, meaning “conversation.” “Sermon” comes directly from medieval Latin for “speech”, and that probably derives from serere, “to link together or string together” like beads on a necklace. While both words carry the meaning of “a religious discourse before a congregation,” the nuance of homily is “an informal exposition usually of Scripture.” “Sermon” carries the additional shade of “an annoying harangue”.

I am allergic, by temperament, to harangues. I cherish dialogue. I like the thought that what I say from the pulpit is one piece of a much longer conversation that has been going on for centuries.

So as I prepare for our worship, perhaps I am asking myself this question: “What shall it be this Sunday? An informal exposition, or an annoying harangue? A speech, or a searching conversation?”

Beauty

I listened intently. An Orthodox nun was responding to a question about which I care deeply: how to nurture spirituality in children. As parent and pastor, I often ponder this question but Mother Rafaela’s answer took me by surprise. “The question really is,” she said, “how to put beauty into a child’s life.”

Both beauty and ugliness have the power to shape and transform our lives and our communities. Mother Rafaela’s point seems as relevant to stopping violence and curbing teen age pregnancy as to spiritual formation. How can we put beauty into a child’s life? Or, as Plato observed about the purpose of education, “How can we teach our children to take pleasure in the right things?”

Beauty occurs as readily in unadorned nature as in our most elegant gardens. It is not always “pretty.’ It is not merely decorative. It may be -- should be -- cultivated, but beauty must not to be confused with art. It is both less and more than art. The artistic function in our culture encompasses all manner of expressions, only some of which are beautiful.

When we experience beauty, we enter a dimension of life too deep for words, a dimension which transcends much of the ugliness, pain and fear that is our daily bread. We are touched by a gracious order. We are enabled to reach a new level of spiritual integration. We encounter a “lightness of being” (Tolstoy) that frees our spirit. Perspective, balance and catharsis are among the gifts that beauty bestows. The divine in us resonates with the divine in all creation.

The beauty I am able to perceive or create intimately shapes the meaning of my life. “Consider the lilies of the field,” said Jesus. The so-called “amenities” of our community (both natural and cultural) feed my spirit and shape my soul. The pursuit of beauty in worship, conversation and a life lived well is among my most important motivations. Why should it be otherwise for children?

The composer Ottorino Respighi surely was one of the great joy-bearers of the modern world. According to critic Geoffrey Crankshaw, “Beauty of expression was his perpetual aim. He hated ugliness, and eschewed any tendency toward the brutal.” One could do worse than leave such a legacy to the world.

It is said that, when Adonis arrived in the Underworld after his death, only one question was put to him by the shades: “What was the most beautiful thing you left behind?” If this were the standard to which all of us were held. I wonder how our children’s world would change.