Sermon of the layman Jan. 26, 2025

Ladies and gentlemen,

It is a very special honor for me to preach the layman's sermon here today in this very charming church. Special for this Roman Catholic baptized, staunchly secular atheist, topped with a hearty dose of Calvinism. So you need not expect any exegesis of psalms, kadish orsamhitasfrom me today. I have been asked in advance to take you into my motives today. In other words, a personal story. That is nice, of course, but I have also been asked to preach a sermon. And, of course, a sermon has more substance and is not about the person preaching it. More importantly, a sermon contains a message. And that's a tricky point. Because I'm not one for wagging the finger, so that will be something. So here we go!

First, let me address the term "layman. Well, a layman. A fascinating concept. In the vernacular, a layman is someone who has no understanding of a particular field. But ecclesiastically speaking, a layman is a believer who has not received ordination or appointment to a church office. In essence, of course, as an atheist, I do not quite fit this definition, but I am nevertheless a product of one of the unsurpassed features of the Dutch local political system: lay governance. As far as I am concerned, lay governance is the essence of the special nature of our democratic government: the only requirement for the right to stand for election that all citizens can exercise, the right to be elected, is merely the possession of that citizenship. In other words, council members, as I began, are not professionals. They are, as it were, "unordained" administrators. And as far as I am concerned, that is a great strength of our local politics, because the roots in society of our local politicians are very strong. And that's how I started when I became a city councilor at 28'th. But my commitment began much earlier. Actually when I became active in the Pupil Council in high school and then, during my studies, in a study association. Note: I deliberately say study association and not student association. Yet much sociability I did not find appropriate. By the way, I did not study full-time, but did so in addition to a job. Full-time felt like idleness then anyway. That Calvinism was really in it even then I can tell you."Du kannst, denn du sollst," as the German philosopher Kant once said, an attitude I inherited from home. 

After graduation I became a council member, which I was for over 6 years, after which I became Alderman in 2018 and now, therefore, for over six months now, Mayor in this beautiful municipality. But where did my commitment and drive to change something in the world come from? To understand that, I will go back to my youngest years. In my early childhood I was really a misfit, nowadays I guess they would call it a bit of a "misfit. A boy who loved to nose in encyclopedias and atlases and who at age three, when he was allowed to say something to St. Nicholas, chose to say: Maastricht is the capital of Limburg. A boy who loved Lego and who loved chess. And what happens tosucha child who actually falls outside the group? That gets bullied. So I knew pretty early on in my life what it's like to be alone and not belong, an experience that is very useful in my current job, by the way. A lot of people are lonely and vulnerable. And many kids who are bullied get the tendency to want to blend in with the scenery as much as possible. Not to stand out, because then you are vulnerable. The turning point for me came in the 3rd grade of high school. There I joined the class of Frank Müller, a very erudite classical languages teacher. Ostensibly Mr. Müller was a teacher of the old school, who made you recite verbdiagramsfor the class: row 7 from the verb form of "vocare" and there you went. "Math with words," he called Latin, and we had to work hard for that. But soon, in a class where for the first time I felt surrounded by like-minded people who accepted me as a human being as I was, I was immersed in classical antiquity. And the mythology, the culture and the philosophy that I was taught there has shaped my thinking enormously. And that has to do with a number of things. First of all, the classical philosophers show you that thinking and reasoning is anything but one-dimensional. The existence or non-existence of gods, virtue, honor, commitment, attraction between people: all came into play. And made me and my classmates think. And we were also encouraged to question. Be critical, don't take anything for granted, but think critically for yourself. And in that atmosphere dogmatism disappears and you are inspired by the great philosophers and writers of classical antiquity to think about the world around us. A shining example of this is Cicero. In his work De Natura Deorum, the Roman writer, statesman, orator and philosopher explores the existence of gods and their influence on human life. Using various philosophical schools, Cicero shines his light on the matter. Epicureanism comes along, a movement that, through Velleius, argues that the gods are not too concerned about humanity and that people are therefore best off striving for "Voluptas," pleasure, in a small circle of like-minded people. Or the Stoics, who, through Stoic Balbus, demonstrate the existence of active gods, for example, by the fact that people have been able to foresee certain events in history (and by which coincidence therefore does not exist), which is subsequently refuted by the academic Cotta. Although in the end Cicero was able to move most along the lines of the Stoa, he was nevertheless enormously attracted to the utterly non-dogmatic attitude of the Academy, the school of Plato. How fascinating after all, how rich, complex and comprehensive the life of thought and philosophy were more than 2,100 years ago!!!? This profound dialogue and critical analysis of the so fascinating subject of Gods and Men, entered into with an open mind, was for me the final push towards atheism.

Classical antiquity turned out to be a broader source of inspiration. For antiquity also turned out to include a very knowing morality. I would like to illustrate this with a very meaningful statement. Above the temple of Apollo at Delphi, is the statement "γνῶθι σαυτόν," an aphorism best left as "know thyself." And initially, this aphorism was applied primarily to the relationship between humans and the world around them. Know where you stand in the world and don't overmatch yourself. Know, in other words, your own limits. And if you go beyond those limits, then you are guilty of what the Greeks so beautifully called "ὕβρις" ("hubris"), freely translated a combination of pride and hubris. And classical mythology often aptly illustrates the fate of people who indulge in hubris. Legendary in this context is the story of Pentheus, the king of Thebes. At the time of Pentheus, Thebes was heavily influenced by the cult of the god Dionysus, the god of wine and other forms of debauchery. In his tragedy Bakchai and the Bakchants, the Greek writer Euripides describes Pentheus' desire to distance himself from Dionysos. Whereby Pentheus inadvertently turns out to be an early protagonist of a healthy body style and the slogan "drink destroys more than you love." Dionysos, however, is not at all enamored with this attitude and, disguised as a woman, entices Pentheus to make his way to the flanks of Mount Kithairon, where, in Dionysian ecstasy, he is torn apart by his very mother. But hubris is of all times. Saddam Hussein, Sebastian Kurz, Bashar Al Assad: all of these men indulged in hubris, and often with very serious consequences. 

At a later stage, the philosopher Plato came up with a much more delicate approach to γνῶθι σαυτόν". For him, this meant "know your soul." Plato was a student of the great Greek philosopher Socrates and highly influenced by his thinking. Plato is almost never himself speaking in his works, but always marks his thoughts through Socrates. So it is always a question of who is really speaking. And Socrates was a very particular philosopher. Through a dialogue of questions, answers and new questions, Socrates "redeems" knowledge."Maieutike techn" he called it, literally the art of redemption, not coincidentally, by the way, Socrates' mother was a midwife. Socrates was a man who, with his contrary ideas and his constant presence in the Agora, the Athenian marketplace where politics was also practiced, was seen as a danger by the young, Athenian democracy that had only recently been preceded by tyranny. Ideas that sway a democracy, one might almost question whether we have advanced much in 2,500 years. And whether it is Socrates, Plato or both, "know thyself" for them means a deep search within. Through Socrates, Plato says that he cannot know things in the world around him because he does not yet know himself. And that angle has become increasingly important to me. For how easy is it, to judge another person's behavior, when you don't know about yourself or you would never exhibit that behavior yourself? How easy is it to highlight another person's mistakes when you yourself make those mistakes? And how easy is it to condemn the life path of another if you do not know that life path and all its obstacles? First and foremost, know yourself before you venture to make judgments about another.

During this time in high school, all this philosophy, political history and rhetoric firmly fueled my commitment. This was reinforced by the literary history I was taught in the German subject. It was there that I first came into contact with "DieAufklärung," the Enlightenment. Philosophers like Kant and Locke detached themselves from religion after centuries of mental suppression in thought. Ratio took center stage. "Sapere Aude" was the new adage: dare to think (yourself)! That movement led to a wave of new ideas in Europe. Rule oflaw, individual liberty, separation of church and state and, as the pillars of Montesquieu still stand, separation of powers became new principles. And all these ideas had great political consequences, with the French Revolution and the American War of Independence as striking examples. I felt tremendously at home with these principles, which are the foundations of the liberal rule of law. But along the way, I found that mere reason might be a bit unloving. This is really something of recent years, by the way; possibly fatherhood has influenced this. For however great the good of unalienablerights, inalienable individual rights and freedoms, a society also needs a form of inspiration. And I find that inspiration in humanism. Humanism is close to the ideals of the Enlightenment: a non-dogmatic attitude, rationalism and critical thinking are central. But most importantly, man is the measure of all things. It is about humanity. And how beautiful and extraordinary it is, that the Latin word for this, 'humanitas ' was first coined by the same Marcus Tullius Cicero. And so humanism itself has its roots in classical antiquity. And it is extraordinary, to say the least, that humanism was spurred on by a priest (not a layman, that is!) and Augustinian canon, no less: Desiderius Erasmus. Certainly, Erasmus was not a secularist, but in his most famous work, The Praise of Folly, he mocked people who pursued their own interests and passed judgment on each other. Erasmus tried to educate as well asreconcile the teachings of Jesus Christ with the thinkers of antiquity. And that, ladies and gentlemen, is a very essential point. A point from which we can learn a lot. For is it not truly a sign of great spiritual freedom when you can draw your inspiration from any source undogmatically and without limit? Can you not value the charity of Christianity on an equal footing with the wisdom of the Talmud? Can you not contemplate the individual freedoms of the enlightenment with the same love as the charity preached by Jesus Christ? Can you not regard Buddha's immaterialism as equal inspiration to John Stuart Mill's principles of freedom? Of course you can. When you truly dare to see the world and history as onegreat source of inspiration, you lead a happier and more peaceful life. A life that begins with knowing yourself. And so I ask you: how well do you know yourself? And how honest are you to yourself? Do you know all your imperfections and dare to embrace them, according to the Japanese Buddhist teaching of Wabi Sabi, the beauty of imperfection? Are you quick to make judgments about someone else? Or do you limit your judgments to yourself? The choice is yours. It is in your control. William Shakespeare said it in Julius Caesar: "The fault, is not in our stars, but in ourselves." I wish you a beautiful Sunday. Thank you.