Dr. John Young 11/4/07
Unitarian Universalist Church of Jacksonville
Embracing Jesus and the Bible
The Old Testament Wisdom teacher, Ecclesiastes says in chapter 3 of his book in the Old Testament that: “there is a time to embrace, and a time to refrain from embracing.” My arguments today are that we need to be careful about what we embrace from any writing, prophet, or seer. But that we also need to outgrow our fears and aversions about Jesus and the Bible. Dare to embrace those portions of Jesus’ example and teachings that we find helpful, and treat ourselves to the enduring gifts residing in the Old and New Testaments of the Judeo-Christian scriptures.
Most of you grew up with those scriptures and with Jesus as the central model for your lives. All of us live in a Western culture that is still neck deep in Jewish and Christian symbolism, stories and concepts. We cannot be literate without knowing Biblical scriptures, and we cannot be understandably ethical to our neighbors and colleagues without relating what we believe to Jesus.
Since the beginnings of our Unitarian and Universalist movements, our spiritual ancestors have been critical readers of the Bible and revolutionaries about Jesus. Almost none of these ancestors stopped reading the Bible or gave up on Jesus. Well into the 20th century, most Unitarian Universalists considered themselves Christians and perceived the Bible as the center of their worship and spiritual practice. Thousands of contemporary Unitarian Universalists do so today. If we are to grow as a spiritual movement, we will need to relate where we are going to Jesus and the Bible. Even those of us who are pagans or secular humanists, Buddhists or scientists need to re-connect with Jesus and the Bible in order: 1. to come-to-terms with our ancestral and cultural ancestors, 2. to remain relevant to our neighbors, and 3. for our personal fulfillment.
There is, I believe, awful nonsense in the Bible, and chapters and chapters of irrelevance for contemporary life, but there is also nonsense in almost every other book and much irrelevance in even the most current media. Many who say ‘they stand on science alone’ stand simply on a few words or phrases that they repeat as mantras rather than a thorough knowledge of even their favorite theory. Some of us who say ‘we find nothing worthy in the Bible’ can still, if pressed, remember more Bible verses than we have yet memorized from our favorite author or poet. Some of us who say that we find no connections with Jesus still know more about him than we do our favorite prophet or seer. So, let’s be honest, use all of our experiences and wisdom and go back and look again at Jesus and the Bible to understand what is still at the center of our consciences and spirits, or what perhaps should be put there if it has been forgotten or not yet discovered.
I will not waste your time or mine sharing portions of the Bible that I do not find useful. Spending our precious lives focusing on what we do not believe is simply another way of being consumed by what we do not believe is important or relevant. Instead let me make an indicative survey of some of the stories, sayings and sections that I do continue to find meaningful and important.
The first story of creation in the book of Genesis, chapter one, is a poetic complement to our scientific understanding of cosmic and biological evolution. The unfolding tale of a formless void, light, water, progressive living things, and finally human beings, female and male created simultaneously in the image of God with responsibilities for nature and other living things. Creation, too, needs to rest, to have a Sabbath. I have met no scientist or secularist who does not live as if some such story is, in daily practice, the foundation of truth.
The story of Jacob with all its conflicts and family drama rings true; his wrestling with the angel for a blessing stands since childhood as a realistic assessment of what life still seems to entail. The story of Joseph, blessed son whose arrogance enslaves him and who matures into a loyal leader in a foreign land who can forgive his brothers for their envy and betrayal, and saves people through planning for hardships. Moses, stranger in strange lands, who learns his new Judaism from his in-laws and argues with God every step of the way as he saves his people and presents them, despite their inclinations, with their covenant with God. For a UU minister, trying to herd his amazing ‘cats,’ Exodus seems to be a case book in the realities of religious leadership.
The Jews of the Old Testament do present humanity with a still often tribal God, but, nevertheless, a God that is ultimately the God of all, beyond comprehension, but providing the natural and human foundations for lives of justice and of love, of shared humanity and peace. The wisdom traditions, particularly Job and Ecclesiastes, but also elements of Ruth and Esther, many phrases from the Psalms, and aspects of the books of the Prophets, speak to the highest aspirations of my mind and the deepest recesses of my heart. Think of the prophet Micah, chapter 6: 8: “What does the Lord require of you but to do justice, to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God.” At the end of Job, God blesses Job because he prayed for his friends, even though they had failed to understand Job or God. Ecclesiastes is sometimes too stark an existentialist for me, but I celebrate his wisdom about needing to find the rhythms of human maturity. There are “times to embrace and to refrain from embracing, a time to keep silent and a time to speak, a time to break down and a time to build up, a time to be born and a time to die.”
The New Testament, like most other scriptures, was written by followers rather than by the original leaders, followers who lived generations after Jesus was dead. Like Unitarians for centuries, I believe in a Jesus who modeled a personal relationship that every human being could and did have with Creation, and, like them, I believe that we need to use the best tools of human scholarship and the wisest and most loving methods of human friendship and love in order to put the best of Jesus’ teachings into practice. Like Universalists for centuries, I believe that every one can find meaning in life and will find peace in death. I am a Gospel of Matthew: 5 to 7, a Sermon on the Mount Christian like Gandhi, not a tribal, judgmental, condemning Christian like the worst of Paul or the Gospel of John, or the Halloween nightmares of the Book of Revelation. However, the John who wrote both his gospel and the letter we shared from our hymnal in the readings this morning, that writer who lived in what is now Turkey a century after Jesus died, clearly also had his liberated moments. “No one has ever seen God; if we love one another, God lives in us. There is no fear in love.” And the Apostle Paul, who had been a professional persecutor of Christians, and who I believe significantly perverted our understanding of Jesus and his message, Paul also had words of wisdom that we would be foolish to forget. “Love is patient; love is kind; love is not envious, boastful, arrogant or rude. Love does not insist on its own way….It bears all things, hopes all things, endure all things….faith, hope and love abide.” My favorite Epistle or letter is the Epistle of James. This little book is filled with wisdom about putting your faith into action.
God tempts no one. One is tempted by one’s own desire…. Let everyone be quick to listen, slow to speak, slow to anger.… the perfect law of liberty, persevere in that law and you will be blessed in its doing….mercy triumphs over judgment….faith without works is dead….God is one. Do not judge your neighbor….show endurance in your deeds, which are the true tests of faith.
James was a proto-UU saying that deeds are more important than creeds, that the test of any set of beliefs was how you put them into practical and useful actions with the people around you, with the world in ways that made it more loving and peaceful.
I am so grateful for our Unitarian Universalist tradition which has provided a spiritual home for me and my family since I was in college. It embraced my father, a happy agnostic intellectual who had not completed high school, and my mother, who was a nature mystic and instinctive activist and egalitarian. It embraced my first wife, a Hindu-Jain aristocrat who is a Buddhist old soul, my fervent atheist friends, my highly ethical scientist friends, my pagan friends, my Christian and Jewish and Muslim friends. It allows us to be ourselves and provokes us to gain the ethical and spiritual maturity of which we are capable. It closes no doors but challenges us to celebrate everything that is worthy of reverence and to stretch ourselves to be as effective and good and just and loving as we can be. For me, Unitarian Universalism, at its best, personifies the Jesus I believe in and lifts up and embraces the truths I have found in the Bible. We must learn to love our neighbor as we learn to love ourselves.
Readings
Leviticus 19: The Heart of the Torah
“When you reap the harvest of your land, you shall not reap to the very edges of your field nor gather the gleanings of your harvest. You shall not strip your vineyard bare. You need to leave sustenance for the poor and the foreign….You shall not steal, cheat or lie, or take a false oath. You shall not defraud, nor keep for yourself the wages of a laborer until the next morning. You must not curse the deaf or put obstacles in the way of the blind. Judge fairly, showing partiality to none. Do not be a talebearer against others. You shall not avenge yourself nor bear a grudge, but you must love your neighbor as you love yourself.”
First Epistle of John 4: Love One Another
“Whoever does not love God does not know God, for God is love. No one has ever seen God; if we love one another, God lives in us. God is love, and those who abide in love, abide in God, and God abides in them. There is nor fear in love; for perfect love casts out fear. Those who say ‘I love God’ and hate their brothers and sisters are liars, for those who do not love a brother or sister, whom they have seen, cannot love God, whom they have not seen. No one has ever seen God; if we love one another, God lives in us.”
Readings-concluded
Paul’s First Epistle to the Corinthians: 12: 4-11
“Now there are varieties of gifts, but the same Spirit; and there are varieties of services, but the same God; and there are varieties of activities, but it is the same Creation that activates all of them in everyone. To each is given the manifestation of the Spirit for the common good. To one is given the saying of wisdom, to another the sharing of knowledge, to another gifts of healing, to another creations from the unknown, or the discernment of mysteries, or the speaking of many languages, or the interpretation of the variety of emotions. All of these are activated by one and the same Spirit, who allots to each one individually just as the Spirit chooses.”
Prayer
Creation, we are so blessed in our liberated faiths, in our bountiful nation, in our fortunate age. Give us the courage to return to our own pasts and the pasts of our culture and to see and understand what is there in the Bible and in the image and teachings of Jesus that can still to be useful to us and is needed for a peaceful and sustainable future for the world. Help us to learn what is wise and valuable from Jesus and the Bible as avidly as we embrace the wonders of scientific discovery, technological innovation, and 21st century culture. Help us to distinguish what can be left as fossils of the past and what needs to be lifted up as catalysts to the future. As we proceed with these endeavors, help us to treat our Christian neighbors as we want them to treat us, to learn to love others as eagerly as we wish to be loved. Amen, Alleluia and Blessed Be!