Sacred Language

Dale Hathaway

hathawayd@winthrop.edu

Sept. 18, 2017

Winthrop University

Religious language

Most often poetic in the sense that, like poetry, it seeks to use ordinary words to convey extraordinary meanings.

The nature of the sacred as being set apart can be expressed in paradoxical like language. Examples of

  • John of the cross
  • Hindu Mystics
  • Thomas Aquinas.
  • Other sorts of language like father mother Lord King are more like poetry than they are say a grocery list.

Religious Myth:

  • A story that sets up a world by describing ultimate reality and its relationship to humanity. Myths seek to explain the ultimate meaning of the universe (cosmos) and our existence, its ultimate origins, destiny, order (or disorder) and relationships.
  • Purpose = revelation of the nature of the sacred, the universe, and human nature. In short, “How does reality makes sense in light of the sacred?"

Religious Myth (cont)

  • Myths seek to narrate or reveal a transcendent reality and its relation to ordinary reality. Mythic time transcends ordinary time. Mythic events transcend “empirically observable" events.
  • They do not seek to record simply what happened in ordinary reality. They do not aim at empirical or scientific truth (that can be tested via experiments).

Examples of contemporary myths:

  • The Matrix,
  • Star Wars,
  • Western Movies,
  • Rags to Riches stories,
  • Joe Millionaire (or the one for Mary Millionaire),
  • Extreme Makeover,
  • Desperate Housewives,
  • Car commercials—if you drive this car you will have friends, lovers, wealth, etc …

Parable:

  • A story that upsets an existing world or turns it upside down; makes a point by violating our expectations and calling into questions our assumptions.
  • It seeks to shock the hearer into seeing ordinary things in a new way, i.e., in light of the sacred reality which is totally “other" than the ordinary and customary.
  • A parable seeks to move people into a deeper engagement with sacred reality.
  • Sacred figures often perform “parabolic actions" or actions that upset the way things are and open our eyes to a new reality.

Examples of Parables/Parabolic Actions

  • Zen koan: "What is the sound of one hand clapping?"
  • A seeker to the Buddha "Are you a god or a magician?"
  • Buddha: "I am not a god or a magician. I am awake."
  • Awake seems ordinary but it is not. Greatness can't lie in it.

New Testament Parables

  • Good Samaritan = like the good Al Qaeda (or ISIS) terrorist. Our social status does not determine our holiness; but our compassion—even a compassion that violates social customs re: ritual purity. That is what God wants.
  • Matthew 25: Whenever you did it to the least of my brothers and sisters you did it to me—Christ is encountered in the needy.
  • Prodigal Son (Who is lost, the younger or the older son?) or Workers in the Vineyard—those who worked a little get paid the same as those who worked a lot; or Unforgiving debtor. (Luke 15-16)

Canon:

A measuring reed or stick, ruler, standard; list of authoritative texts/scriptures in a tradition

Scriptures:

Literally "writings" (scripture – "that which is written"), writings considered sacred and authoritative in a particular community.

  • Serve as yardstick
  • Evoke the presence of the sacred
  • Defines a community
  • Preserves the identity of the community

4 functions of Sacred Stories (including scriptures):

  • Connect with the sacred dimension of existence
  • Order the cosmos, provide coherence for the believer
  • Give shape to memory and sustains a tradition
  • Believers measure behavior style of life Etc

Created by Dale Hathaway.