“the old intelligence”

Here, on the unmarked occasion of my first anniversary among you, is my dilemma. If the pews don’t fill up, I can’t stay. However, if I concern myself with filling them there wouldn’t be any point in staying---even if, precisely by being concerned about it, I succeeded in filling them! I realize that this may sound like utter nonsense. Bear with me. In order for me to stay here, I am saying, the pews have to fill up all on their own---without my being concerned about it in the least, without any attention being diverted from the only proper concern of the pulpit: the mystery and majesty, tragedy and glory, unity and simplicity, humanity and divinity, of the soul.

Consider, analogously, preaching. Common sense would suggest that the preacher should concern him/herself with the art of preaching, and hence with effect. What could be more logical and appropriate, and more beneficial to the congregation. To think in this way, however, is to quite forget the blatant paradoxicality of biblical thought regarding this unique genre. Preaching that concerns itself with itself undermines itself. The better it is, aesthetically speaking (i.e., when aesthetic effect is the aim), the worse it is, theologically speaking. The concern of preaching lies not in itself but solely in that which calls it forth, in That Which is preached, or rather in That Which Preaches Itself. Preaching is effective only to the degree that it is self-negating and self-forgetful, only to the extent that, overwhelmed by “the unsearchable riches” with which it is concerned, it has no interest in itself, does not even notice itself, or, to borrow a verb from Meister Eckhart, “nothings” itself. Preaching does, of course, as all connoisseurs of the pulpit know, affect one aesthetically---but only ironically, as when, for example, St Paul waxes eloquent in the disavowal of eloquence! Paul, a poor orator by all accounts and his own admission, becomes eloquent in spite of himself, when, holding narrowly to his unpromising theme of “Jesus Christ, and him crucified”, his preaching, having lost itself in the subject, quite disappears from consciousness.

I first learned to disdain results from reading The Bhagavadgita (though I might just as well have learned it from Jesus, or Epictetus, or Lao Tzu, or even Immanuel Kant, and certainly from Meister Eckhart). There Krishna, the incarnation or avatara of Visnu, teaches Arjuna to focus his entire attention upon the task at hand, i.e., upon such “action” as the occasion demands, without regard for “the results”. “To action alone,” we are told in II.47-48, “hast thou a right and never at all to its fruits; let not the fruits of action be thy motive.” “Self-possessed, resolute,” the perfected soul “acts without any thought of results,” and, accordingly, without concern for either success or failure. “With no desire for success, no anxiety about failure, indifferent to results,” the wise man “burns up his actions in the fire of wisdom” (IV.19). S. Radhakrishnan, to whose commentary on the text I am indebted, defines this as “the principle of disinterestedness.” From the point of view of The Gita, he writes, “nothing matters except the good will, the willing fulfillment of the purpose of God.” By no means a posture easy to attain or, once attained, to maintain, when the world looks on askance, demands results, judges action almost entirely by and rewards only results. Though such judgment is, from the perspective of the Gita, avidya, ignorance, it is for our world the unchallenged standard, alas of all we do.

How, then, if we elect to be guided , by what Emerson called, in characterizing the Gita, this “old intelligence”, shall we, pastor and congregation, proceed? What we have been talking about is heresy from the perspective of the corporate values and utilitarian thinking with which the world---and the church---is rife. Can we, dare we, swim against the stream of conventional wisdom? Or shall we succumb to ecclesiastical expectation and cultural approbation? Shall I promise to fill the pews by means of the latest methods advanced by the church-growth gurus, thereby ensuring my further appointment to this office, or follow my experience, my heart, my idiosyncratic reading of the text, my intuition ultimately, come what may? Shall we by virtue of disinterestedness set ourselves free from what the Gita calls “the bondage of action”, or, aiming for results, become paralyzed by the anxiety of self-preservation? If, neglecting every counsel of worldly prudence, I elect to focus upon what the Gospel calls “the nearness of the Kingdom of God”, what then? It might be, there is no certainty, that the pews would fill up all on their own, the mysterious effect of that indescribable Nearness. It does happen, after all, though rarely, that a person’s motivation for worship derives entirely from what Eliade called “the ontological thirst”. Having discovered that That for which the heart longs corresponds to That which the Gospel proffers, one so fortunate finds himself in the place of worship without being persuaded, enticed or manipulated by any means whatsoever. He/she has not come to be entertained. I may be hopelessly quixotic in these matters, but shouldn’t that be the case? Shouldn’t we insist upon it? Shouldn’t we hold out for it? The numinous shadow of Jesus has fallen across our path! Slowly or suddenly it dawns upon us that the mystery of Jesus and the mystery of the soul are one and the same! To explore such a mystery! Is that not reason enough to be in the pew on Sunday morning?

Donald Morris