by Rev. Sean Amato
In preparing last week’s sermon, I reflected on the matter of honor – what it is to honor, what it is to be honored; what or who we humans consider to be honorable. And in reflecting, I began to pull up some of the notes I took during my days as an anthropology student, days in which I observed how we humans interact with ourselves and one another – how we humans make culture, in real time. And in searching these old notes to better reflect on honor, I made an interesting connection that I’d like to share with you.
As a student of anthropology, one of my focuses was on a topic called “semiotics.” Is anyone here familiar with the term “semiotics”? Semiotics, to put it real simply, is the study of symbols – and not just symbols, but all sorts of written or visual or spoken communication. It’s the study of how we humans often make meaning out of squiggles, or words, or gestures. I’ll give you an example. Watch this symbol. <Pastor Sean waves his hand at the congregation.> Waving to say ‘hello’ is an almost universal human symbol of greeting. So we understand that basis, right? But there’s another aspect to consider when it comes to symbols. Semiotics involves the study of not just any one symbol, but the meanings behind a symbol – the obvious meanings, and if we have access to the context or culture in which the symbol might be used, the secondary or ‘hidden’ meanings. This second part can be a little confusing, so I’ll provide another symbol – one that is similar to the first one, but different in important ways. Ready? <Pastor Sean dismissively waves at the congregation, “shooing” them away.> What was different about that symbol? It involved more than my hand – it involved additional context, like my face and body language.
Semiotics is a fascinating topic – one that touches on so much of human life, since so much of our life, our language, our society is dictated by symbols and attempts to communicate. But it’s not just linguists, and anthropologists, and your pastor who care about symbols – it’s science folks, too. And there’s one group of scientists that I’d like to tell you about, a group that really leaned into how to communicate important messages across time, space, and culture.
In 1993, a group of experts associated with the United States Department of Energy gathered at New Mexico’s Sandia National Laboratory, a site focused on the development, storage, and disposal of nuclear materials and nuclear waste. These experts had been assembled to work on a distant, but deeply important, symbolic effort: how we, as modern humans, could successfully communicate the dangers of nuclear materials and buried nuclear waste to humans in the far, far future.
If you weren’t aware, nuclear waste is a byproduct of almost all nuclear activity – nuclear power generation, nuclear medical development, nuclear mining, and so on. And this nuclear waste can remain radioactive for quite some time. Spent nuclear fuel rods, which we use in nuclear power plants, can and likely will emit harmful radiation for hundreds of thousands of years. Perhaps millions, depending upon what elements are utilized. And this waste, we can’t simply burn it or incinerate it; we can’t dump it in the ocean, or at least not anymore; it has to go somewhere. It goes to places like Sandia, who are responsible for storing nuclear waste in restricted facilities or deep underground. And there it will remain, through the rise and fall of governments and empires; through the emergence of new languages, new cultures, new people. There’s a good chance – we hope – that this properly-stored nuclear waste won’t cause damage to humanity or creation … if, and that’s a big if, it goes undisturbed by humanity.
The scientists at Sandia were thus given a monumental task: figure out how to communicate the dangers of radioactive waste to future humans, so that they might leave it alone. But these scientists at Sandia, they’re people; they’re curious people, too. And they know how curious humans can be – and how human curiosity can push us to explore new places, build roads, dig tunnels, explore caves -and, if you’re a student of archaeology, you know that humans have a tendency to flock to places that were important to ancient humans. And not just flock to them, but go into them; touch things; knock things over, and so on. And future people will probably be the same way. The scientists were aware of that, too.
After years of work, the people at Sandia developed what they believed to be an effective means by which to communicate the danger of radioactive waste across tens of thousands of years – and it’s a doozy. In their report, they suggest that the outdoor space above or near nuclear waste disposal sites be marked with hostile architecture – a “landscape” of giant metal thorns sticking out of the ground, paired with miles of black concrete to prevent the land beneath from being disturbed. They also suggested the extensive use of pictograms – that is, images and symbols that try to convey a message without words. They include examples: an angry or crying human face, a diagram of radiation escaping from disturbed ground and harming people above.
As a last resort, the Sandia scientists recommended raising a great many stone markers, all displaying the same message in as many modern languages as possible. The scientists hoped that, perhaps, the resourceful humans of the future might understand or be able to translate, might be able to understand the scientist’s main thrust: that because of how we handled this issue in our day, humans of the future are subject to our mess. Would you like to hear the beginning of this message? I’ll read it – in English, if you don’t mind.
“This place is a message, and part of a system of messages. Pay attention to it! Sending this message was important to us. We consider ourselves to be a powerful culture. This place is not a place of honor; no highly esteemed deed is commemorated here; nothing is valued here.”
Of all the lines in the report, which is three hundred and forty-nine pages long, it’s that line – “this place is not a place of honor” – that sticks with me. It sticks with me as I consider our scripture today, a passage that reads like Jesus trying to teach table manners. In today’s passage, our Savior advises good and humble people to never sit themselves in what they would regard as “a place of honor,” instead leaving it for whoever might come next, so that the host might offer it to a person of their choosing. Jesus goes on suggesting that a good and ethical host might offer that seat to someone who is less-honored, someone who cannot repay the host for such an honor. That the host, in honoring someone who is disregarded by the world, is starting a trend that might, in time, influence others to do the same. In the ancient world, humanity often failed to honor its lesser parts – the disadvantaged and disabled, the poor or indebted. And Jesus, knowing the danger of such a trend continuing, of humans being dishonored as a matter of fact, advised something new, instead leaving it for whoever might come next, so that the host might offer it to a person of their choosing. Jesus goes on, suggesting that a good and ethical host might offer that seat to someone who is less-honored, someone who cannot repay the host for such an honor. That the host, in honoring someone who is disregarded by the world, is starting a trend that might, in time, influence others to do the same. In the ancient world, humanity often failed to honor its lesser parts – the disadvantaged and disabled, the poor or indebted. And Jesus, knowing the danger of such a trend continuing, of humans being dishonored as a matter of fact, advised something new.
Friends, I can’t help but see Jesus’ words here as a parallel to the work of those scientists at Sandia National Laboratory – wise words, spoken about future vision and the well-being of future people. In thinking about Sandia’s messages to the future, attempts to warn them of danger, I can’t help but find myself fascinated with the signs and symbols left to us by Jesus – signs and symbols like the loaves of bread and fish, symbolizing His love and willingness to care for those lesshonored; signs and symbols like the Cross, the place upon which our Savior died for you and I – total strangers, living in the near future. Like the semiotics experts and scientists who warned of future danger, so too does Christ he advises against the practices of his day, knowing the danger if they continue.
For this reason, I look to the final symbol left us – one very much akin to those left by the folks at Sandia, who knew about the human condition and our tendency to repeat the past. That symbol is sitting in the pew in front of you: it’s the Bible, a summary symbol of God’s work in this world; a message, one that tells us: “Do it different, so your symbols won’t be the same as ours. Do it different, so that you won’t have to warn those yet to come, like we must do with you.”
Say we took the whole world in which Jesus lived – the Roman world, one built upon slavery and segregation – say we took that world as a symbol, a symbol communicated by scripture, one explored by Jesus and his partners in ministry. Fellow Christians, how have we treated this message? Have we heeded it? A message compiled over two thousand years ago, one that we can translate directly.
How are we doing with honoring the dishonored? Have we humbled ourselves before those our world has mistreated, so that our good hearts bear good fruit? Or has the world caused us to stumble? Caused us to have to rehash, relearn, rehearse the lessons that Jesus tried to teach us?
Jesus knew how we’d be doing. Jesus, who knew and spoke about the human condition: Jesus, who warned Judas that we humans will always have the poor amongst us – not because it’s destined that the poor will always exist, but because we humans can’t or won’t eliminate the scourge that is poverty. Time and time again, Jesus warns us, in word and deed: do something different, lest you end up forced to deal with this same cruelty, this same inhumanity, this same mess but worse.
Look at our world, friends, and think about honor. Do you feel honored, in today’s climate? Is today’s culture an honorable one, one that lifts people who are not esteemed? Is our world, a world in which we screw bolts into benches so those without homes can’t sleep there; is that treating the dishonored with honor? A world in which public transportation is slashed, isolating the rural poor, making it impossible for them to find a job or even travel – is that a world of honor? Take our world, my friends, and view it as a symbol. What might people ten thousand years from now think of us? Will they heed the implicit warnings of our world, a world in which Christianity was heard and seen but not followed? Would they heed this sign, this symbol, this message?
I’m not sure. I’m just not. And I’m a history guy – the kind of person who knows that history doesn’t necessarily repeat itself, but rhymes. I see a lot of rhyming right now. But I’m also a semiotics guy – I like symbols and signs, as you might have figured out. So here’s my question for you: what’s the sign, the message we’ll represent to whoever comes next? Will the message of our day be one of warning? One of hope? Let’s get our experts together, church. Amen.
Pastor Sean
