The Jesus of Unitarian Universalism

Sermon by Stephen D. Edington, April 9, 1995

Ever since I came into the Unitarian Universalist ministry 17 years ago I have always found this to be my most challenging time of the year--theologically speaking, that is. For our Christian friends this is the beginning of Holy Week, a time for them to observe the events, as recorded in the New Testament, that took place from the time of Jesus' arrival in Jerusalem to celebrate Passover and his subsequent arrest, trial, and crucifixion--all culminating in the Resurrection, however variously interpreted. This year, as it occasionally does, the date for the Jewish celebration of Passover co-incides with the Holy Week observations. So our Jewish friends will be commemorating a very sacred time for them on their religious calendar in this upcoming week as well.

So what, if anything, is a Unitarian Universalist supposed to do? Does anything about this week have anything to do with us? Well yes, we do have our own version of the Seder which has been well attended since we began celebrating it here four years ago. In addition, when we consider that Christianity, in its many and varied forms and expressions, remains the predominant religion in our culture, then regardless of the degree to which any of us may or may not relate to it I think its shortsighted on our part to not give it some attention at this time of year. This is why I have come to use the occasion of the Christian Palm Sunday to offer some of my own views and observations on the person of Jesus as seen in the New Testament, as well as my own ever evolving ways of relating to this partly-historical and partly-mythological figure. But my reason for doing this is more than personal. The person or figure of Jesus was central, at one time, to both the Unitarians and Universalists; and while this is no longer the case for most UUs today, I believe an understanding of what the centrality of Jesus actually meant to our Unitarian and Universalist forebears gives us a deeper and, I would hope, an even more appreciative understanding of the religious tradition that has evolved into the liberal faith which we now share and enjoy.

We, each and all, have come by many paths to this liberal faith today. One of the more poetic ways of describing the journeys of the spirit which bring people to a UU community was stated by the late Kenneth Patton who said, "We arrive out of many singular rooms, walking over the branching streets." For some, like myself, those branching streets included Christianity in one form or another; for others it could have been Judaism; for others a more eastern oriented faith; for yet others it was a philosophical agnosticism or atheism; for still others its been UUism all along. We each bring some kind of religious or philosophical history with us as we arrive here and begin to participate in the life of this community. Some of that history we may wish to still embrace, and other parts we choose cast aside; some parts of that history we may continue to appreciate and value, while other parts of it may well evoke feelings of anger and alienation within us. I feel its important for us to realize that the community and the tradition at which we arrive has also traveled a path of it own for over 400 years, with its own share of branching streets. I'll be passing along on some of those streets today; but before that I want to do a quick back-up of some 2000, rather than just 400, years.

For as long as I retain my capacity for fascination, I know I will continue to be fascinated by the way in which the person of Jesus came to be such a dominant figure in Western consciousness. It is a figure that was initially shaped by a relatively small cult within first century--by our way of now marking time--Judaism, and by an very enigmatic and mysterious Jewish individual named Saul, then later Paul, of Tarsus. This was a religious cult or community that was seeking to preserve and continue the teachings, the ministry, and in some sense the very life, of an even more enigmatic and mysterious Jewish individual known as Jesus of Nazareth.

I do not believe, as some New Testament critics suggest, that the first century Church created Jesus out of whole cloth; or that he is a complete fabrication. It makes more sense to believe they were basing their writings on someone, but who it actually was is forever lost to history. Reading through the Church's theologizing about him, Jesus appears to have been an itinerant teacher or rabbi of an enlightened form of the Judaism of his day. He apparently attracted a large peasant following during a time of great indigenous unrest toward the Roman imperial authorities. These authorities became sufficiently frightened by his mysterious talk about being the bearer of a "Kingdom of God" and figured it best to get rid of him. More than one populist preacher met such a fate in those days.

Then, in the hands of the first century church that chunk of historical clay, if you will, became moulded into not just Jesus of Nazareth but also Jesus the Christ, the Son of God. His death by crucifixion became not just the price this Jesus paid for trying to bring some hope and redemption to a portion of the Jewish peasantry oppressed by Rome; it became also the price God himself paid through his Son to redeem the sins of humanity. The human Jesus did not just die on a cross, he was also moulded into the resurrected Christ whose redeeming ways remain available to fallen humanity. [And there has been debate among Christians from their earliest days as to whether this resurrection was a physical or spiritual one.] There was nothing consciously malicious, or deliberately devious, on the part of the New Testament writers in this process by the way. They were not historians or historical researchers in the sense that we understand that term here in the 20th century. They were first and second century theologians, whose task was to create a theologized version of the life, ministry, death, and resurrection of this mysterious person called Jesus; which is what they did.

Very quickly, a parallel process can be seen with regard to how the accounts surrounding Passover came to be written. Some of the more recent Old Testament research of which I'm aware suggests that the Exodus accounts were probably written by King David's court scribes around 1000 BC. At that time David was attempting to consolidate his power among what was actually a loose confederation of Near Eastern Semitic tribes. The time honored way for a ruler to consolidate power is to identify a common enemy, like for instance, that Egyptian empire down on the southwest flank. So David's court priests and scribes moulded a theologized account out of the clay of old tribal stories about how our ancestors of 200-300 years ago were once slaves in Egypt; and God helped them to make a dramatic get-away--even parted the Red Sea--so they could escape Egyptian oppression and come to this land that our God, Yahweh, had always intended for us. The clear implication being that we have to stay together and be strong and follow our King because those Egyptians, who remember all this too, could always come back after us. Again, I do not believe David's court scribes simply made up the book of Exodus--or its equivalent in Jewish scripture--out of whole cloth. They took an oral tradition and gave it a theological "spin", if you will, that suited the political purposes of their King; just as those1st and 2nd century theologians interpreted the life of Jesus in a way that suited the purpose and message of the Church.

I make these points not in any attempt to denigrate either the Christian or the Jewish faith. To the contrary, I make them as a religious humanist who seeks to be informed and inspired by what these and other religious traditions have to teach us all about what it means to be human on this planet which we all share. We do that, I feel, by first examining the origins of a religion, and then asking ourselves why the stories and the teachings of such a religion have enduring value; and to see how they may speak to us even if we are not adherents of the faith from which they arise. In this spirit I'll pick up the Christian story again and the role that the Unitarians and the Universalists have played in it.

In the three hundred years that went by after the time of Jesus' ministry, what eventually came to be called Christianity went from being a small sect within Judaism to becoming the official religion of the Roman Empire following the conversion of the Emperor Constantine in the year 312 and his consolidation of power in the years that followed leading up to the Council of Nicea in 325. Jesus, then, become the Head of the Church--with the Pope as His representative on Earth--and the second component, or person, in a very complex theological formula known as the Trinity. Belief in this Doctrine of the Trinity then became the Church's litmus test in determining who was a "true Christian" and who was an infidel.

Unitarianism initially arose, modestly enough, as a challenge this litmus test. All Michael Servetus, the founder of Unitarianism during the Protestant Reformation, was proposing in his essay "On the Errors of the Trintiy" was that one ought to be able to claim Christianity for him or herself without having to equate Jesus with God. I say it was a modest proposal--it cost the poor man his life at the hands of another "reformer", John Calvin. For the early Universalists in this country Jesus was seen as a savior from one's sin or wrongdoings, but not in the Calvinistic sense as someone who delivers you from an inherently sinful state. Rather, for the early Universalists, Jesus was indeed the Son of God who delivered us from our shadow side, as it were, by showing us by the example of his life the way to what the early Universalists called "holiness and happiness."

For both the Unitarians and the Universalists of early 19th century America Jesus was someone sent by God to call us to our better or more "Godly" selves. His divinity was accepted, but interpreted in different ways. A more radical Unitarian for his day, Thomas Jefferson, rejected any idea of Jesus' divinity and even wrote his own version of the New Testament Gospels--which came to be known as the "Jefferson Bible"--which contained the core of Jesus' teachings but omitted all references to such things as his miracles, the physical resurrection, and the like. As I say, Jefferson was a radical Unitarian for his day; only a few his fellow Unitarians, and probably none the Universalists, were prepared to go that far then. But even for Jefferson, it was important to him that he be able to call himself a Christian; so he referred to himself as a "practical Christian," i.e. one who practices--or attempts to practice--the moral and ethical teachings of Jesus. And that term, "practical Christianity" did gain currency among the 19th century Unitarians and Universalists.

Even Ralph Waldo Emerson, who left the Unitarian ministry in the early 1830's and rejected any kind of doctrinal interpretation of Jesus, still retained a special place for him in his philosophical writings. Emerson, as many of you know, held that we each have within us what he called the "spark of the divine", and he saw in Jesus someone who was more in touch with that universal divine spark and who lived in out in a more thorough way than do most human beings.

Throughout the 19th and into the early-to-mid 20th century the person of Jesus, as described in the New Testament gospels, remained central for most Unitarians and Universalists while theological questions about his divinity, his "sonship" with God, and what that might even mean became less and less germane. It was a Unitarian minister, Rev. James Freeman Clarke who formulated, in the late 19th century, what he called the "Five Points of Unitarianism", which were his reply to the five points of Calvinism. Among them were the "Leadership of Jesus" and "Salvation by Character." That latter point meant that one could achieve salvation on the strength of one's character, using Jesus as a moral guide.

As the 20th century progressed and the two denominations merged in 1961 this centrality of even a humanized Jesus--or of a Jesus who calls us to our more "Godly" selves--became less and less pronounced. As the affirmation of individual freedom of belief gained more and more ascendancy along with our attempt at an ever expanding theological inclusivity, the need to find a unique place for the person Jesus continued to diminish. At the same time, a small but vital percentage of our UU congregations have chosen to retain that liberal, humanistic Christian identity which characterized the great majority of Unitarian and Universalist congregations at one time. The stories of Jesus' life, his teachings, and his death and resurrection--symbolically or allegorically interpreted--continue to constitute the core around which their style of liberal religion is based. Personally it would be very difficult, if not impossible, for me to serve such a UU congregation; but I can say most emphatically that I value and honor their presence in our larger UU movement. They provide a link to an earlier part of our heritage; and, in a more practical vein, they offer a home for religious liberals who feel some affinity for Christianity, but do not find it addressed in a way suitable for them in even some of the more liberal mainline Protestant churches.

While I just said I would not be a suitable minister for a UU Christian congregation that does not mean that I have ceased to relate at all to the portrait of Jesus offered in the New Testament--only that that portrait and person is no longer central to my religious and spiritual life. I said earlier that this is a challenging time of year for me. I find that to be true not simply in my capacity as a UU minister, but also in a much more personal sense: What, if anything, do I still take from this New Testament portrait? As most of you know, my own religious journey has gone from near-fundamentalist Christianity to liberal mainline Protestantism to the free faith of Unitarian Universalism. There has been a lot of casting off in the course of that journey, but its also important that I be conscious of what it is I have retained. I'll bring this to a close by speaking to that point.

I just used the word "portrait" to refer to the Jesus of the New Testament. While I said earlier that the gospel writers were the theologians of the first century church, they were also, in a way, artists. They were painting a picture of a hidden subject. Like all artists they painted him the way they wanted him painted, in accordance with their own interpretations of the subject. I accept the painting as such. Their picture is no longer central to my current religious perspective. It doesn't hang on my wall, so to speak, but I haven't thrown it away either. I take it out and look at it now and then--particularly at this time of year. Here's how it looks to me now:

What I see in the painting is not someone who will save me from my sins. No, I am the one who has to take responsibility for my many shortcomings; I can't foist them off on an alleged "Son of God." The portrait those first century theologians painted instead acts like something of a mirror for me. I see in it a reflection of and an encounter with my own humanity--at its best, at its worst, and at a lot of places in between. I see a lot of my own human contradictions. I see someone who counsels patience, love, turning the other cheek, being slow to judge, and the like. But then I see a human being who loses it now and then--who gets angry and throws at fit; who even does irrational things--cursing at a fig tree because it had no fruit, even though it was out of season, for heavens sake. I see someone who weeps over the loss of a friend. I see someone who wants to be comforted, soothed, even pampered at times, who likes that foot-rub Mary gave him with the oil. I see a human being who speaks loudly and decisively for human justice and who shows great compassion and love for people. But at other times he gets very impatient with those some people--and even his closest of companions--and doesn't want to see anybody or have anything to do with anyone, preferring to go off and be alone with himself in the desert. I see someone who savors the world of nature, who loves and revels in life, who can tell a good story, and who loves a good party to the point of producing a few more rounds of wine when the usual supply runs out. But then, at other times, he is someone who is sweighed down by life to the point of feeling Godforsaken--which is to say, cut off from all meaning and hope. What I see in this enigmatic portrait of Jesus is a human being calling on others to recognize and affirm their humanity as well; not a perfect human being (just what is a "perfect" human being anyway?) but someone who in both his wholeness and in his imperfections, acknowledges and validates our own.

I believe this portrait of Jesus, which those 2000 year old theologians created, has retained its power over the centuries because it reflects back to us so much of our own humanity. To be sure, there are many other portraits, and many other places, where one can see and experience the same thing. This is why, for all of its acknowledged power the picture is not central to me. I need other sources or founts of inspiration and insight as well. So, I take what the picture offers, and then move on.

Finally I see in the story of Jesus, with all of the theological filters through which it has been told, a piece of a much larger story that has been going on and will continue to go on over the course of human history itself. Throughout human history there have arisen certain individuals who have called men and women to higher levels of awareness, of enlightenment, of being; who have demonstrated to us anew what this thing called Life is all about--or can be about. These people, (or sometimes its an event event), are really particular expressions of a continuing Spirit of Life, a Spirit of Hope, and a Spirit of Human Possibility. And it was a 19th century Unitarian minister named William Channing Gannett who, in a very farsighted manner for his time addressed that spirit when, over a hundred years ago, he wrote the words of a song called "It Sounds Along The Ages." It is still current enough to have made it into our new hymnal. While the Jesus of 19th century Unitarianism and Universalism does not occupy the unique place he once did in our liberal religious movement, he still does occupy a place in the larger story of the strength of the human spirit--a spirit we continue to affirm to this day.

Unitarian Universalist Church of Nashua

The Jesus of Unitarian Universalism