"Quest for the Holy Grail"

A sermon by Dave Weissbard

delivered at

The Unitarian Universalist Church

Rockford, Illinois

11/27/05

The session of the Prairie Group, the annual study group of Unitarian Universalist ministers which I attended this month, had as its theme the myth of the Quest for the Holy Grail, which was addressed by five papers. I am not going to share with you much of anything from those papers, which I did not find terribly relevant, but the myth of the quest is the point of departure for this morning’s sermon.

I want to begin with the myth itself. The most ancient version we have of it, which may not be the first, was written by someone calling himself Chretien des Troyes around 1180. My colleague, Bill Haney, excerpted from Chretien’s version of the myth for his paper. I am going to excerpt from Bill’s excerpt as an introduction.

Chretien’s story begins with a protective mother who has lost 11 sons to the pursuit of knightly honor and glory. She shields her youngest, Perceval, from all that, but one day he encounters knights in the woods and is drawn to their image. He bids his mother farewell and heads out to find King Arthur so he can become one, too.

Shortly after his arrival at the court, he is sent out to catch an evil knight who has stolen the queen’s cup in a taunt to the round table. Perceval finds and kills the knight. Before returning to Arthur, Perceval meets an older knight, Gorneman, who instructs him in weapon handling and knightly protocol. That protocol includes knowing when to keep your mouth shut.

Perceval comes to an impassable river and is sent by two fishermen to find lodging. He spots a castle, the drawbridge of which is lowered as he approaches. Four boys greet him, disarm him, clothe him in scarlet cloth, and take him to a great hall where he is presented to the Fisher King, the Lord of the castle, who is reclining on a bed. [The king was wounded and de-sexed in a battle, and is unable to walk because of his wounds.]

When they were talking of one thing and another, a boy came from a chamber clutching a white lance by the middle of the shaft . . . Just then two other boys appeared, and in their hands they held candlesticks of the finest gold, inlaid with black enamel . . . In each candlestick burned ten candles at the very least. A girl who came in with the boys, fair and comely and beautifully adorned, was holding a grail between her hands. When she entered holding the grail, so brilliant a light appeared that the candles lost their brightness like the stars or the moon when the sun rises. . . . The grail . . . was made of fine, pure gold; and in it were set precious stones of many kinds, the richest and most precious in the earth or the sea: those in the grail surpassed all other jewels without a doubt. . . . The lord’s guest gazed at this marvel that had appeared there, but restrained himself from asking how it came to be, because he remembered the advice of the nobleman . . . who instructed him to beware of talking too much.

The table was set and a meal was served. With each course, the girl with the grail reappeared and Perceval, remembering Gorneman’s instructions, never once asked who was being served with it, even though he longed to know. After the meal, the king is carried out and Perceval slept. In the morning, the castle was empty and he departed.

Subsequently, Perceval is told that he had could have saved the king and his miserable people if only he had asked “Who does the grail serve?” or “What ails thee?” – that is, if he had had the courage to ask the questions that came to his mind.

Perceval spent the next five years on a quest trying to get back to the castle, to the grail and the Fisher King, but he could not find it since it did not exist in this reality, but another. In Chretien’s story, Perceval met up with Sir Gawain and they both continued the quest for the grail separately.

Chretien died before completing his story, but a number of other authors in a variety of countries did, in a variety of ways. Some had Perceval, or Parsifal or Parzival, or Peredur, as he was known in various tellings, finally locate the grail and ask the questions. Others had King Arthur or his knights Sir Gawain or Sir Gallahad or Sir Lancelot finally discover it, but that’s more story than we have time for today. It is the search for the grail and not its possession that is at the heart of the myth.

The story of the quest for the Holy Grail is an ancient myth. As we learned from Joseph Campbell, myths are not just stories, they are stories that are laden with layers and layers of meaning. They are not “history.” Campbell wrote:

When these stories are interpreted, though, not as reports of historic fact, but as merely imagined episodes projected unto history, and when they are recognized, then, as analogous to like projections produced elsewhere, in China, India, and Yucatan, the import becomes obvious; namely, that although false and to be rejected as accounts of physical history, such universally cherished figures of the mythic imagination must represent facts of the mind . . . [It is] the task of the psychologist and comparative mythologist not only to identify, analyze, and interpret the symbolized “facts of the mind,” but also to . . . assist [humankind] to a knowledge and appreciation of our own inward, as well as the world’s outward, orders of fact.

are telling us in picture language of powers of the psyche to be recognized and integrated in our lives, powers that have been common to the human spirit forever, and which represent the wisdom of the species by which [humanity] has weathered the millenniums.

The story of the Holy Grail is such a myth. It has, as I said, been told in a variety of lands with a variety of details. What is the grail? Some stories say it was the goblet that held the wine at the last supper. Others say that it was the platter on the table at that gathering. Still others insist it was a bowl with which Joseph of Arimathea caught the blood of Jesus when his side was pierced on the cross – and there are others too. Some of the most ancient roots of the myth are strictly pagan and do not link it with the Christian myth at all. Chretien made no such link, but again, he never finished the story and many speculate that he would have.

A common thread to many of the legends is the need for the Hero to become perfect enough to deserve the grail – the quest is a process. Central to that process is the asking of questions. Central also in many versions is that the asking of questions is a reaching out to be concerned about the other – what happened to the Fisher King? Who is served by the grail? The initial failure of the hero is the failure to get beyond his own discomfort or fear and ask the needed questions that would demonstrate his readiness to possess the grail.

The quest is as varied as the vessel sought. It is seen as a search for the Ultimate Source, a search for the Cauldron of Rebirth, the Fountain of Everlasting Youth, Direct Communion with God through the body of Christ, Enlightenment, Individuality, God, or simply the avenging of a blood feud.

The quest motif is not, of course, limited to the grail legend. There is the pre-Christian story of the Buddha’s quest for enlightenment, of the 40-year journey through the desert of the Hebrew people following Moses to a Promised Land, or of Jesus’ 40 day sojourn in the desert during which he was tempted by Satan.

The quest myth implies that the grail exists – that the ultimate truth is out there, waiting to be possessed, but I am curious about the role of the question in the myth. Most people do not find questioning to be central to the religious endeavor. Most religion is about believing and not questioning: it is heroic to question and most people do not even aspire to being heroic.

The psychologist, Carol Pearson, identifies a number of personality archetypes. One common one is that of the Orphan. In a paper on paradigms in Unitarian Universalism to which I have often referred, my classmate Rolfe Gerhardt described Pearson’s Orphan archetype as:

energized by feelings of pain, disillusionment, loss of faith, abandonment, failure of hopes and dreams, and powerlessness – common feelings in our impersonal world with shifting structures and values, The Orphan copes with these feelings by acknowledging them and then seeking to be rescued. The Orphan seeks out persons, groups, and structures that will help the Orphan feel safe again. From there, the Orphan can grow into finding shared strength in an interdependent group .

The seeker feels less pain than alienation, dissatisfaction and emptiness. And markedly different is that the Seeker uses feelings of uneasiness as motivation to explore and wander, to take risks and search for the new. The Seeker is always reaching for something better, ultimately for spiritual transformation.

Religion, as commonly experienced is much more about people in pain, in alienation, seeking certainty through discovering “capital T” The Truth that assures them of meaning, than it is about seekers who explore and wander, always reaching for something better. For most people, the uncertainty of the quest is not comfortable and they want to get it over as soon as possible, if they even engage in it. Better still, for most, is acceptance of what the old hymn called the “Faith of Our Fathers.” It works fine if you don’t raise questions.

The reality is that there are always some seekers out there who are the ones who ask troubling questions. They do not fit in well with those who are clinging to what another hymn referred to as “That Old Time Religion.” As the Register Star interview with Colleen McDonald pointed out, the seats in Unitarian Universalist churches tend to be filled with people who were kicked out of Sunday Schools in other churches for asking troubling questions.

Historically, Unitarian Universalists have been attracted by the image of the quest. I have often shared the old story about the young woman who goes to the yard goods store and asks for 12 yards of a filmy material. When the sales person inquires about what she is going to do with it, the young woman replies, “It’s for my wedding night. My fiancé is a Unitarian Universalist and they hold the quest about the goal.” That story is, of course, hopelessly dated, but you get the point.

The Unitarian side of our religious ancestry traces itself back to those who felt compelled to question, even at the risk of death, the church’s teaching of a three-personed God. The Universalist side of our religious ancestry traces itself back to those who questioned how a loving Father-God could ever condemn his children to eternal punishment. Both sides were composed of people who insisted on questioning, of seeking a greater truth than the authorities told them they should.

It is true, we must admit, that along the way some found what was to them sufficient truth and decided that there was no need to continue questioning. There have been tensions within our religious family over the years when people like Ralph Waldo Emerson and Theodore Parker and Charles Frances Potter questioned what was deemed an adequate faith by some who had tired of the quest and were seeking security, a resting-place. The quest is always in jeopardy. One of the characteristics of the hero, the seeker, is that she or he keeps on pushing the envelope.

Dr. Brandon Lael Miller, in his doctoral dissertation for Oxford University, did a study of Unitarian Universalists in which he found that we score higher on six measures of openness to novelty than do the general public.

Persons of such a temperament find it easier to live with ambiguity and are not as likely to yearn for certainties in their religious perspective. They would be more at ease in community with others who see things differently from themselves . . .

On a measure of risk-taking, UU groups tested very highly. This suggests that while many people may be discontented with their religion of origin, those who break away to try a different faith may do so because they find change more intriguing than threatening and because they are temperamentally more open to taking this kind of risk.

Miller also found Unitarian Universalists to rank higher on creativity, which he considered to be linked to openness and risk-taking.

I took that report on Miller’s dissertation from a report issued by the Unitarian Universalist Association’s Commission on Appraisal called, “Engaging our Theological Diversity.” This is a committee which is charged by our association of congregations with an ongoing process of reviewing “any function or activity of the Association which in its judgment will benefit from an independent review. . .”

This most recent report wrestles with the tension among Unitarian Universalists between those who seek some clarity and security and those who fear any limits being placed on their religious quests. On the one hand, it affirms the centrality of the quest and individual freedom to seek the truth; and on the other hand, it reflects the desire to articulate some clear limits, some boundaries, some definition of whom we are and where we are and what we are about. As with any report developed by a committee, both the elements of freedom and stasis are present.

The study was motivated, as such studies are, by a sense of dis-ease with our lack of clear focus. It is often asserted these days that the thing that keeps us from growing as we should is that we are not clear enough about whom we are and what we believe, and/or that we are so afraid of tradition that we fail to satisfy those who are looking for a Christianity-lite. [That label is mine, not the commission’s and it clearly reveals my perspective on the matter.]

The reality is that we, like those kids Colleen mentioned who were kicked out of Sunday School, live on the margins of religion – we are continually subjected to the question, “Is it really a religion?” The Commission quotes a recent book, Common Fire: Leading Lives of Commitment in a Complex World, which found a common thread in the lives of one hundred world-changing people the authors interviewed, and that is “the experience of marginality.” They suggest:

Even when it carries a price, marginality can also bear certain gifts: greater self-knowledge, greater awareness of others, and a kind of comfort with life at the edge. The central gift of marginality, however, is its power to promote both empathy with the other and a critical perspective on one’s own tribe. . . . Marginality makes it possible to hold several different perspectives and so gain a more complex and sensitive way of seeing, unavailable to those with only one point of view. Held thus in a network of interconnected perspectives – including how one is seen by others– one can develop a deeper, more critical and informed understanding both of the other and of one’s own self and tribe.

I grew up with a sense that my religion was one of the things that made me unique, which is a positive take on the concept of marginalized. There was never another Unitarian Universalist kid in any of my classes, and I knew that my family’s values were not in synch with most of the community, although we were very much at home in our church community. I viewed the differences as positive. The Commission’s report, however, seems also to despair of being at the margins and to seek the kind of acceptability that clearer definition within the margins might provide and the growth that it hopes would ensue. As I said, I find a tension within the report which replicates a tension within our congregations and within the Association. Some feel we are not traditional enough, and some feel we are too traditional; some would like clearer boundaries and some already feel constrained. There is no simple solution; there can be none.

Back in the 1860's, The Rev. Henry Whitney Bellows believed that the Unitarianism of his time was too loose, and instigated a new level of organization that had a statement of purpose that leaders on the theological cutting edge, like Emerson, felt excluded them. The Unitarian family was split for thirty years between those who insisted upon a Christian orientation, and those who wanted to go beyond that boundary. Bellows achieved his goal of strengthening the institution, but it was at a significant cost that was only resolved when the walls were taken back down in the 1890's with a more inclusive statement of purpose. There are some who fear that the commission’s report suggests we are at that point once again. I am not afraid, but wary.

The Commission’s report contains a list of eleven points of our common ground which I believe is a useful summary of Unitarian Universalism today. I want to share them with you but I’m going to change the order and where the report says “We are a free faith,” I’m going to say “Ours is a free faith,” because I don’t see faith as something we are, but something we have.

Ours is a free faith. While the Commission did not find this to be near the top of its survey of the most compelling values among us, I would certainly place it high. We recognize that no creed can ever bind our consciences and we trust the individual’s ability to search out what seems most true to her or him. It is not that it does not matter what one believes, it is that it matters too much to surrender its determination to the authority of others.

Ours is a reasonable faith. One of the significant distinguishing characteristics of Unitarian Universalism is our insistence upon the use of reason. We do not buy into the suggestion that the irrational is just “a test of our faith.”As the commission says, “We encourage the practice of disciplined inquiry toward personal and societal assumptions.” That does not say, as some once insisted, that we cannot benefit from poetic or mythic expression. The use of reason, however, is a check on that freedom I mentioned first.

Ours is a grounded faith. I believe it matters that our religious quest is rooted in a tradition that goes back at least two thousand years. While some people act as if it was just now created for them, since they discovered it, there is a legitimacy which comes with antiquity – which is not to say that what we believe today was believed two thousand years ago, but that is our an evolutionary development on a solid base.

Ours is a curious faith. We are people who ask questions, who do not settle for assumptions than cannot be challenged. We know how people have believed preposterous things in the past, and we wonder if we are subject to such errors today. What we believe, we believe tentatively until proven wrong, and we believe we can be proven wrong.

Ours is an experiential faith. One of the exercises we often do with our Fireside classes for people considering membership in our church is one which asks them to consider the sources of authority for their beliefs. For Unitarian Universalists, personal experience ranks high on that list. It is not supernatural revelation, nor a single authoritative book, nor authoritative people, nor tradition, but our own experience of the world that serves as the highest authority, although we try to learn from the experience of history and of others past and present.

Ours is a profoundly human faith. The Commission elaborates: Whether we see our charge as loving our neighbor or ending the suffering of all sentient beings, whether a transcendent dimension is part of our worldview or not, our primary focus for religious action is the well-being of this world. I would add, even for those Unitarian Universalists to whom a concept of God speaks powerfully, our religion is not about manipulating a supernatural being to earn rewards in some future life: the center is the life of human beings on this planet at this time and in the future.

Ours is a responsible faith. We do not believe that we are mere pawns on a gameboard, or actors playing out a script that is already determined. We believe that we are responsible for doing what we can to make this world a better place. We look to those people who have changed the world for the better as sources of inspiration. We believe that religion is about more than a search for interior harmony and that what we believe should be reflected in our actions.

Ours is an imaginative faith. We seek to go beyond just that which is or has been to imagine how the world could be a better place, how we could be better people. We value the gift of imagination to supplement our experience.

Ours is a relational faith. One of the traps into which we have fallen over the years has been the over-emphasis on individualism. We have acknowledged that one can be a Unitarian Universalist on one’s own. That is both true and untrue. One of the things on which our religion is built is the concept of “creative interchange” in which we are challenged and can in turn challenge the ideas of our brothers and sisters. Solitude can lead us into solipsistic traps. The give and take of community are critical to the richness of the Unitarian Universalist faith.

Ours is an ecological faith. We do not share the perspective of many religions that teach that humans are the apex of creation and that it has all been laid out for us for our benefit. We see life on our planet as an interdependent web in which we are responsible for stewardship rather than exploitation. Everything we do has an impact on our world.

Finally, Ours is a hopeful faith. We do not believe that all the best times lie behind us and that we should try to rebuild a primitive society. We have a concept of progress, although we have given up on the simplistic belief our predecessors cherished in “The Progress of Humanity Onward and Upward Forever.” Progress is never a straight line and we do not believe it is inevitable, but we do believe we can advance the cause of humanity if we live up to our potential.

I believe that the Commission on Appraisal has done a valuable service in focusing our attention on this pulse- taking, this look at where we are. Whether we use it as a way of grasping onto a particular set of values to truncate our quest, or whether we use it as a way of checking our direction remains to be seen. It depends on how we use it.

One of the things I have frequently said to Fireside groups over the years is, “Given our freedom, I cannot tell you what the Unitarian Universalist Church in Rockford will be like five or ten years from now. There are no guarantees.” That is even more true given my announced retirement at the end of this church year.

The way I have described our movement has within it biases based on my experience and my perceptions and my vision. The experience and perceptions and vision of a minister have an impact on the institution. That is going to be changing with a new minister. It is instructive to note that the Commission discovered a significant gap between the theology of many of our younger ministers and the theology of many of our congregations. It reports “These observations raise the possibility that, in the future, there may be an increasing disparity between the theological views of UU ministers and of the congregations looking to call them.”

C. Achieving the growth goals to which some aspire would require a theological reorientation to broaden the church’s appeal.

D. You are in charge. This is your church. You will eventually be electing a search committee which will search for the minister it believes will best serve this church’s needs in the future. The choice of the members of this committee is a critical one. It needs to be composed of those whom you trust with a major responsibility for the future of this church.

It is the concept of the religious quest that has made for the very dynamic nature of Unitarian Universalism. It is not a religion for the faint of heart who want to cling to things as they were. Helen Keller said, “Life is either a daring adventure, or it is nothing. To keep our faces toward change, and behave like free spirits in the presence of fate, is strength undefeatable.” That is our quest.