Jesus instructed us to love our neighbors. He also told us to love our enemies. I think he knew that they were the same people.
Many people are concerned about Christian nationalism finding its way into US policy especially in the military. Recently claims went viral that U.S. military commanders were telling troops the war fulfilled biblical prophecies around Armageddon and the return of Christ.
Well I heard something I find reassuring. I heard that every time someone predicts the date of the end of the world, God pushes the date back a little, just to be funny. ” I can’t reveal my sources on that one.
A friend was in front of me coming out of church one day, and the preacher was standing at the door shaking people’s hands. He grabbed my friend by the hand and pulled him aside.
The Pastor said to him, “You need to join the Army of the Lord!”
My friend replied, “I’m already in the Army of the Lord, Pastor.”
Pastor questioned, “How come I don’t see you except at Christmas and Easter?”
He whispered back, “I’m in the secret service.”
A minister’s young son sat on the floor of his father’s office watching him write a sermon.
“How do you know what to say?” the boy asked.
“God tells me.” his father replied.
“Well, then why do you keep crossing things out?”
That one hits close to home. In my mind I’ve started 5 different sermons for Easter. Easter is a challenge for me and, I think for our denomination.
On an average Sunday, I think we have an advantage with our pluralism and celebration of diversity and tendency to find treasure in many different religious sources. Being religious liberals means that we tend to view the world’s many flavors of holy books as poetry. We can be influenced by the metaphors. We try to be generous in our interpretations, assuming that although often not literally true or historically accurate, the sacred stories try and to some extent succeed in expressing universal truths, mysteries, values and qualities that bring people a sense of meaning and purpose in living.
We usually find this eclectic tradition very satisfying. However, on Easter there are many of us who remember and miss what it was like to be fully immersed in the flow, the cultural and artistic power, language that grows out of the Easter story, the story that Christians tell about Jesus on this holiday. It probably helped to be able to believe most things said on Easter. But if we didn’t experience too much cognitive dissonance, we were able to celebrate and enjoy the celebration, the pageantry, the food and the love that made the good stuff accessible. C’mon let’s admit it we are not going to have that here today.
In the past 40 years I’ve seen a lot of liberal Christians come and go. I’ve mourned how many we’ve lost. In general, they didn’t leave because they believed differently than us or that they were offended by what they heard. Okay sometimes we can get offensive. Without meaning to offend, we might get irreverent regarding things that others hold as sacred. The joke I first wrote down didn’t stay in the sermon very long.
However, mostly it’s not that we get offensive. It’s that it’s easier to discard a mythology than find something else that gives the sense that we are standing on holy ground. It’s easier to criticize old systems that it is to construct new ones that do everything the old ones did.
I have several times spoken fondly and affectionately about Jesus and about how IMO our denomination is continuing his prophetic ministry. I feel compelled to tell some of that today. But it doesn’t get us swimming in the same uplifting waters that rise high on this holiday. Let’s admit, all over the world, Christians are enjoying a natural high today. Many experience a sense of elation. Fears are gone. People rest assured that the chaos that’s all about us, does not get the final world, that God, the creator loves us and has a plan for us.
I hope that many of us were fortunate to have grown up in a loving family with conditions that enabled us to develop trust and security. Forgive me if I’m being a bummer, but before I launch into a much-practiced rap about Jesus being liberal, one of us (not them), before I look down and condemn racist right wing evangelicals for how far away they are from the life example and most basic instructions given by Jesus… I’d like to acknowledge that in general we can’t reproduce all the good stuff offered up by Christian churches today. And there are really wonderful things happening as part of Easter celebrations far and wide.
If this is hitting home, and you are one of a significant minority here that holds some kind of liberal Christian identity, even if its had holes blown through in, I want to remind you that we love you. You have a home here. I want to tell you that it’s okay to play hooky from this joint and go full Easter somewhere anywhere, that’s fine. Some of us are solidly UU, and we happily go imbibe in goodies elsewhere, especially when they’re throwing their best celebrations.
For that matter, if you decide that its great here but that we come up short in the Jesus or Christian scorecard, ..if you choose to join a Presbyterians or Methodist church, we will still love you. In fact, we will keep a spot right here for you- always.
What kind of Christians are we anyway? Again, the truth that most of us avoid is that at one time most if not all Unitarians and Universalists identified as Christians. I like to say that we are not exclusively Christian. Truth is that most of us probably don’t identify as Christian. Some do, and what’s most important- is that whether you do or you don’t, whatever you believe about Jesus if you are inspired and ready to enter in covenant with us, if you are willing to journey with us, if you decide to grow with us, than you are welcome to be UU.
That is a slice of the love that we have and maybe we got it from Jesus. In any event, Jesus remains a prophet meaning that he has a divine message that more love is possible.
This is where talking the talk gets easy (and fun) and walking the walk is challenging. I almost said challenging as hell, but I don’t believe in hell. I believe that people suffer right here on Earth. I believe that conditions here sometimes get horrific. I don’t believe that the source of all creates humans and then sentences us to an eternity of punishment.
I personally don’t believe that G*d needs a burned offering, a slaughtered lamb and certainly not a crucified Jew to make hir creation acceptable to hir. And if you are someone who can do without god talk my question for you is the same – Is this existence acceptable to you? And because I have never met anyone who had no issues with existence, my next question is how do we make it better? How can we help you alleviate suffering? Your suffering and the suffering of our fellow humans? BTW I think Jesus has something priceless to offer in this regard. If we can find enough agreement to move together in a healing direction, whether or not Jesus is part of your medicine, we are one in the spirit as far as I’m concerned.
Some say G*d is love. It follows then that love is god. Was Jesus a manifestations of divine love? If yes, wouldn’t the same be true of all of us? I guess trinitarians hold that Jesus was purely divine. If we are not purely divine, what else are we?
Of these my favorite question is “what is love, anyway?” Whatever questions we ask, there does our mind and our lives go.
Ralph Waldo Emerson wrote is “Two facts, then, are philosophically and historically true: First—-Man is a religious animal, and will worship something, as a superior being. Second-—By worshipping he becomes assimilated to the moral character of the object which he worships.”
One definition of god might then be “whatever you value most or place highest. It has occurred to that the god UU tradition worships is truth, but we seem equally oriented to reaching “the beloved community” which we previously called the kingdom of heaven, Jesus’ term.
As much as some of us might like to avoid mention of G*d, it seems to me that any attempts to characterize Jesus life or teaching without consideration of G*d, skews it significantly. Asked to summarize Torah, Jesus said “love God with all your heart, mind and soul, and love your neighbor as yourself.” It would seem to me then, that as UUs are choices are either to discard Jesus or to try to grasp his worship, his orientation, and the sacredness that he directed followers toward.
As a youth I would have summarized Jesus message as “people focus on the letter of the law, but need to think more deeply and respond more humanly. The purpose of the law is to guide toward moral behavior. The purpose of moral behavior is righteousness, right relations with the source of creation, with self and neighbor, appreciation of the value of life, trusting and knowing the sacred at all times, in all situations.
Perhaps Jesus had a different attitude, relationship and behavior towards people than what was normal then or now. The stories known as the gospels show Jesus as consistently advocating for those that society had devalued. Rather than worshipping power or status, he instructed followers how to liberate themselves from fear by choosing love, by having faith in an order where supreme love would be known. How differently would any of us live if we knew absolutely that we were treasured, loved? How differently would we live if we believed in the power of love?
How differently would we experience our existence if we could lose our fear of death? If we knew we had eternal life, that we could not be destroyed? Obviously we know that the body can be destroyed. To what extent do we identify with the body? We look in the mirror and see a body, and it looks different than it did in the past. The body is mortal. Is this who we are?
Who are we? Who or what is it that I call I? Religion tends to provide answers to these.
This the fourth day of Passover which tells a story of a man Moshe who had a vision and heard a voice that instructed him to lead an enslaved people out of captivity. When Moshe asks the voice identifies as “I am who am and I am who I am becoming.”
Was Jesus murder the end of him? What is resurrection? UUs look to nature, to spring and see a partial answer. And we have faith that more will be revealed.
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