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The Rev. Suzelle Lynch READINGS … [Jesus’] words and example passed into the world, and can no more perish than the stars be wiped out of the sky. The truths he taught; his doctrines respecting the human and God; the relation between human and human, and human and God; with the duties that grow out of that relation, are always the same, and can never change till humans cease to be humans, and creation vanishes into nothing. SERMON What does Jesus have to say to us Unitarian Universalists, given the times in which we live? This is how I have interpreted the sermon topic that Lynn Broaddus has assigned me. At our Church auction last November, she purchased the opportunity to have me preach on a topic of her choice. And it's a great topic! Jesus. Does he speak to Unitarian Universalists? I know I was never asked to believe in him when I was growing up as a UU. I learned only a little about him in the Sunday School I attended; learnings augmented by the vividly illustrated book of children’s bible stories I read nervously in the waiting room at the dentist’s office. Jesus was the carpenter’s son, a good man, an example to follow. In seminary I learned that there were many different images of Jesus being promoted by different scholars in search of the “historical Jesus.” John Dominic Crossan is one of those scholars who presents the image of Jesus as a cynic sage. Like the cynic philosophers, Crossan’s Jesus lives with few possessions and separate from kinship bonds. He lives outside society, so as to critique society. Other scholars described Jesus as “a political revolutionary … as a magician, … as a Galilean charismatic …, as a Galilean rabbi …, as a … proto-Pharisee …, as an Essene …, [and] as an eschatological prophet …” (The Historical Jesus, p. xxvii – xxviii) Marcus Borg, another prominent scholar, and, like Crossan, part of a group called the Jesus Seminar, says that Jesus was, primarily, a "spirit person": one who has a direct and personal experience of God. Like any powerful religious symbol, Jesus and his actions are subject to interpretation. People of faith look at him through the lens of their particular belief system, and find that he fits in; indeed, he fits so well that he might be said to be "on their side." They look for Jesus, and find that they are looking in the mirror. And as a result, Jesus may very well be one of the most cherished and most misinterpreted figures in human history. Centuries of theological debate over what his life and death meant has covered over the human lessons he taught his first followers. The Christian church in all its many manifestations has built systems of doctrine and dogma and ritual around him, creating what might be called "a religion about Jesus," as opposed to the "religion of Jesus," the lessons he sought to impart. But if we have any hope of figuring out what Jesus might have to say to Unitarian Universalists today, we have to be presumptuous enough to try to know who he truly was, and what he meant to teach. And more contemporary Biblical scholarship can help us. In Jesus’ time and place, first-century Galilee, chaos ruled.
The Greek and Roman armies had destroyed the culture of the Hebrew
people, which had centered on the Temple, and no strong common center
had replaced it. This was about a hundred years after Rome had spread
the Pax Romana into Palestine. The Roman Empire was truly an empire
in every sense of the word. Most of the people were terribly poor,
and their labor supported the social strata made up of merchants
and traders, whose work supported the advisers and retainers who
served the emperor, who was, of course, at the top of the heap.
The average person was completely disenfranchised and entirely dispensable.
It was a brutal time, and thus to some people, the world looked hopeless. Many competing ideologies and groups arose, and an apocalyptic theology was proclaimed by people like John the Baptizer – who, according to the Roman historian Josephus, was a good man who exhorted the Jews to lead righteous lives, to practice justice toward their fellows and piety toward God. John's message, "repent, for the kingdom of God is at hand," encouraged people to be reconciled with God, for God, as the only true ruler of the world, would surely not allow Caesar to continue to murder and enslave the people. God would end the world, rather than let it go on in such blasphemy. Jesus’ ministry began not long after John the Baptizer was murdered by the Roman authorities. Jesus abandoned the apocalyptic theology of his mentor and began to preach something dramatically new: the end of groups and distinctions, and the radical inclusion of all persons – Jewish or not, rich or poor, criminal or citizen, slave or free, woman or man – in the Kingdom of God. Now at this historical time, proclaiming the kingdom of god was not just a theological stance – it had huge appeal to the suffering masses. But the kingdom Jesus preached was a very different Kingdom, not something to come in the future, after the end of the world, but something that was here, right now, within us and among us. This is the basis for the story of the Good Samaritan, that real love, real caring, was shown to the man left for dead by robbers not by those of his own status or community, but by a person from whom such kindness would never have been expected: a dirty, stinking, mean-spirited Samaritan – for indeed, that was the reputation of the Samaritans of the time. The story was meant to shock his hearers, to shake up their worldview. If a Samaritan could be part of the kingdom of god, (for surely such compassion marked him as part of that kingdom) then why not them? Jesus taught a radical new vision of God and the ways human beings ought to live. Not by rules, which dominated and sustained Jewish life at the time; not to gain power, which was the mode of the Romans. He called God "Abba" which is the Aramaic equivalent of "daddy." This intimate form of address was meant to indicate God’s nearness to humanity and I can't help but thinking that perhaps Jesus also meant by it a relationship of interdependence. For after all, one cannot be “daddy” without the child. Our children make us parents, even as we bring them into the world. He taught that God was among us; that God was with us: each of us and all of us. He taught that God loved us, and that our task is to love one another as we are loved by God. The whole idea of god as father is threaded through our American culture. I am sure that some of you have read George Lakoff's book, Don't Think of an Elephant, which is subtitled, "know your values and frame the debate." Lakoff, a linguistics professor at the University of California at Berkeley specializes in the framing of social issues. His genius is in finding the metaphor or model through which issues are understood, the basic metaphor that underlies the way conservatives or progressives present or process information. In his book, he says that “family” is a guiding metaphor these days, particularly family values. But he then speaks of two very different metaphors for family – one that guides the progressive side, and one that guides the conservative side. On the progressive side, “god the father” has become “god the nurturing parent,” the parent who is responsible for their child, but also has empathy for the child. Freedom is a core value, as are communication and honesty; cooperation and trust. Community-building is seen as a benefit to all, both within and outside the family. This is a system of values that may sound familiar to us. On the conservative side, "family values" are based in a system that features a strong, strict father as the point of control. Lakoff says this model begins with the assumptions that the world is dangerous because evil is out there in the world, that the world is difficult because competition means there are always winners and losers, that wrong and right are absolutes, and that children are born bad and must be trained to be good. The father's job is to protect the family in the dangerous world, to support the family in the difficult world, and to teach his children right from wrong. In this system, children and women are to be obedient. The father is the moral authority. Punishment – especially physical punishment -- builds internal discipline in the child, so that he or she will act morally. And moral action plus internal discipline are what's needed for success in the competitive world. A good person, a moral person, is someone who is disciplined enough to be obedient, to learn what is right, to do what is right, and therefore will prosper when pursuing his or her self-interest. Self-interest is the key link here, based in an understanding of free market capitalism drawn from (a partial reading of) the work of Adam Smith, who said that in a capitalist system, if everyone pursues their own self-interest, then the profit of all will be maximized. Thus, self-interest is ultimately moral, and doing for others is immoral. Here's an example of how this line of thinking plays out in the area of economics (and socioeconomics). "The wealthy people tend to be the good people, a natural elite. The poor remain poor because they lack the discipline needed to prosper. The poor, therefore, deserve to be poor and serve the wealthy. The wealthy need and deserve poor people to serve them. The vast and increasing gap between right and poor is thus seen to be both natural and good…. (among those who can participate in the free markets) Competition is good; it produces optimal use of resources and disciplined people, and hence serves morality. Regulation is bad; it gets in the way of the free pursuit of profit. Wealthy people serve society by investing and giving jobs to poorer people. Such a division of wealth ultimately serves the public good, which is to reward the disciplined and to let the undisciplined be forced to learn discipline or struggle." (Lakoff p. 82-3) It is easy to see that in this system, where morality is linked to power, God is the ultimate strict, strong, father. God is good, god is all-powerful; God makes laws which must be followed. Therefore it is moral to wield oppressive/coercive power, if it has been “naturally” acquired. Jesus, as Christ the savior, while frequently named, is actually secondary to the all-powerful father. His role is to give sinners a second chance – a chance to be born again and thus try again to be obedient to God's commandments (and therefore grow successful and wealthy). I have a hard time even saying those words, let alone understanding how they can be believed. And what happens when we compare this system with the teachings of Jesus in the "Sermon on the plain" from Luke 6. Listen: “Blessed are you poor, for yours is the Kingdom
of God. For Jesus, compassion was a central quality of God and the central moral quality of a life centered in God. So says Jesus scholar Marcus Borg, in his book "Meeting Jesus Again for the First Time." (Borg p. 46-47 ) Compassion means to feel the feelings of someone else in a visceral way, not in our heads; it means feeling the suffering of another, and being moved by that suffering to do something. It’s not the same as mercy, which implies that the one being merciful is superior, and has power over the other, power to be unmerciful. The Hebrew word for "compassion," in its singular form also means "womb," and is often used in the Hebrew scriptures to characterize God (Borg p. 48). God is compassionate, God is like a womb. God is the place within, in which new life is nurtured, in which the vulnerable and unformed are cherished and supported – embraced, until they are ready to breathe on their own. Jesus said, “Be compassionate as God is compassionate;” be like a womb as God is like a womb. Feel as God feels and act as God acts; in a life-giving and nurturing way. But being compassionate also meant a willingness to speak truth to one another, and to power. Love is not mush. Compassion is not idle or passive – it is action. And therefore, just as the story of the Good Samaritan contains a surprise, a reversal of expectations, so the sermon on the plain contains a series of these. Jesus says that the poor are blessed, the hungry shall be filled, and that those who weep shall laugh. The rich, the full, and those who now laugh shall suffer. Does he mean that the kingdom of god is a kingdom of equals, and all shall experience the other's portion, hence, the last shall be first and the first shall be last? He also exhorts his hearers to do two things that have forever been interpreted in such as way as to make Jesus look like a model of perfect goodness and patience, He says, "to those who smite you on the one cheek offer also the other; And those that take away your cloak forbid not to take your coat also." But contained within these humble sentences is something far more radical than goodness or patience – a recognition that we love our enemies not only by making them our friends, but also by helping them understand when they do wrong. Where do I see this in the sermon on the plain? When Jesus says that famous phrase, "turn the other cheek," he is not being humble, as is the usual interpretation. In fact, according to recent scholarship, he is being defiant. In the ancient world, those who smote others were usually superiors, who would give the inferior a right-handed slap across the left cheek. The left hand was considered dirty and profane, and not to be used for much beyond toileting. Therefore, to turn the other cheek meant to invite one's oppressor to profane himself by having to smite us with his left hand. It sounds small to us, but it was a radical, eye-opening act – an act of love for our enemy designed to wake him up to his own sin. Similarly, in the ancient world, one's clothing was a basic unit of security. A cloak doubled as a blanket, as shelter from fierce cold and heat. To take a man's cloak was to rob him of his dignity, perhaps even his life. It was indecent. Thus, the act of inviting one's oppressor to take not only our cloak, but also the coat beneath it, invites him to see the profanity of his act, and therefore gives him the opportunity to change. (These insights are, to the best of my memory, from L. William Countryman’s Dirt, Greed and Sex: Sexual Ethics in the New Testament and Their Implications for Today and conversations with Darryl Schmidt, the Jesus Seminar scholar who was my “New Testament” professor in seminary.) Jesus was about a politics of compassion, as opposed to a politics of power and wealth. A politics of inclusion, not exclusivity. He was as expert as George Lakoff at sensing and using the metaphors of his time to frame social, political and religious issues. He taught primarily an inner spirituality and a personal ethic, but also sought a renewal of the religion of his day, which could not help but have political repercussions that threatened the Roman establishment. I believe we Unitarian Universalists can take much from what Jesus taught. He has much to say to us. His gospel of radical inclusion can inspire us to unbar the doors of our own hearts and lives. His willingness to risk persecution and death can remind us to be less afraid for our own hides as we seek to do justice in the world – especially justice for the poor and disenfranchised. Indeed, if he walked in this room right now, he would take us to task as well-off, comfortable people who have done little to end the systemic oppression of the poor. He would especially find me guilty of preaching a false gospel, and command that I get off my duff and get to work! His insistence that we love our neighbor as ourselves, and to do unto others only that which we would have them do unto us, can help us remember that our compassion must also be for ourselves. But most of all, I think Jesus would teach us not to claim him for our side, no matter how clearly we see our own longing to help make the world a better place reflected in his human teachings. He would remind us to be as wise as serpents and as gentle as doves in our dealings with the powerful, including our government, but to never give up on our values, and never stop working for the common good as we understand it. People today often quote the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
with the expression that the moral arc of the universe is long but
it bends towards justice, but those words were first heard from
the pulpit of the Rev. Theodore Parker, a 19th century Unitarian
minister who fought against the Fugitive Slave Act in Boston during
the Civil War; the same transcendentalist Theodore Parker who said
in our readings that the truths Jesus taught; his doctrines respecting
… the relation between human and human, and human and God;
with the duties that grow out of that relation, are always the same,
and can never change till humans cease to be humans, and creation
vanishes into nothing. It’s as Dr. Charlie Clements, the new Executive Director of the Unitarian Universalist Service Committee, wrote recently, "We are part of a historical process. Politicians come and go - parties win and lose - but life abides - in birth, suffering, joy and death. The ultimate human issues persist even as public issues swirl about our heads. Not all human problems are ‘solved’ by politics and the church not only grapples with proximate political issues, but also helps us confront the ultimate issues of human existence.” (From “What Would Julia Do?” a sermon from November 7, 2004.) And therefore we know that as a church, our work is not only out in the world, but also here inside our walls. It is important that we love one another, that we build community here and have spiritual sustenance and friendship in life, so that the struggle for justice is not only struggle, but also joy. “And so let us celebrate life, take strength from the connections made, the hard work undertaken, and the power of our convictions.” (from C. Clements) Tomorrow, like today, will bring a new challenge, a new opportunity, a new understanding, a new hope, a new dream. Amen. RESOURCES The Gospel According to Jesus: A New Translation and Guide
to His Essential Teachings for Believers and Unbelievers, by
Stephen Mitchell Dirt, Greed, and Sex: Sexual Ethics in the New Testament and Their Implications for Today, by L. William Countryman
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