Dr. John Young 4/12/09

Unitarian Universalist Church of Jacksonville

Our Living Jesus, Easter

We, Unitarian Universalists, believe in a living Jesus not a dead Christ. We believe in this Jewish prophet who taught people to love instead of to judge, to heal instead of to wound, to have compassion with rather than to do violence to other people. Our Jesus is not the only child of God. Rather, he is the personification of the human realization that we are all children of God, participants in the interdependent web of all Creation. Our living Jesus is not a dying figure on a cross but the living spirit of fairness and love wherever it appears.

Now we know that there were many Unitarians in the early Christian Church, people who realized that God was a unity, not a trinity, that earth and heavens were not enemy camps but one reality, that people must find the sacred in the natural and human not in the supernatural or the inhuman. And there have been many of this truly Christian spirit ever since, and there are millions today who live in this truly Christian spirit, and are not imprisoned by the ancient laws of violation and revenge or the apocalyptic nightmares of fear and despair.

Now we know that there were many Universalists in the early Christian Church, people who realized that God was good rather than terrifying, and that Jesus was loving rather than vengeful. People who knew that everyone could find meaning and value in life and that everyone would find peace and rest in death. And ever since there have been many, Christian and non-Christian, who realized that each ideology and theology had part of the truth and that no group or faith had all of the truth. So, millions today know that we must learn from each other and grow together as a world-wide human family, flourishing or floundering on this beautiful but fragile Earth together. As Unitarian Universalists, we seek to find the worth and dignity in all people and groups, and we know that God’s work on earth must truly be our own, and that we must do that work as a single human family in whom all have some of the light of truth and the energies of love, and no person or group is in possession of all of that truth or has a corner on that love.

Now we know that for the first thousand years of Christian history the predominant images of Jesus were not the suffering and dying man on the cross but energetic and joyful portrayals of humanity in celebration. As Unitarian Universalists, we have never lost this focus. True spirituality is about celebrating life and the good Earth and respecting and lifting up humanity. True Christianity is about embracing life and this world and celebrating the immanence of God and the spiritually eternal in all people. Our Jesus is not the vengeful judge of John or the ephemeral Christ of Paul, not the suffering sacrifice on the cross nurtured by the Crusades’ Popes as a rationalization for knights abandoning their homes to fight holy wars against the infidels. Our Jesus is a living person practicing love, realizing that life and the Earth are sacred, not a dying god personifying cruel sacrifices as a magic escape from life and Earth to a pure but sterile heaven.

Our Unitarian Universalist faith is affirming and hopeful, rather than degrading or Pollyannaish. We do not put people down in order to lift up our perspectives on God, or degrade life and the good Earth in order to lift up a pure heaven or a perfect afterlife. We believe you were born ok the first time. We do not believe in original sin, inherited guilt, inappropriate cultural stereotypes, perfectionism or the equating of feelings or thoughts with deeds. We know children have to learn and earn their sin; they are not born with it, and our children do not inherit our sins, but they can certainly learn from them and outgrow them. We do not think there is a single right way to be a person. Different genders, life styles, cultures, and faiths are worthy of respect, affirmation, and power. We realize that everybody makes mistakes; we are all imperfect. Jesus was imperfect; he had a hard time embracing the rich or the powerful. He zapped the fig tree who did not give him breakfast because it was not its season to fruit. We do not make the mistake of confusing bad thoughts or angry feelings with sinful acts or violent deeds. We learn how to reframe our angry energies or savage, vengeful feelings into progressive policies and helpful service.

Unitarian Universalists realize that life is tragic, and that makes the Easter story relevant for us all. We each need to make real and lasting sacrifices for what we love and care about, for what we believe in and stand for. But fortunately the most effective sacrifices preserve life and sustain the Earth rather than destroying life or degrading the Earth. We can become spiritually mature people and live out the best of Jesus’ teachings and life by learning the daily sacrifices of love and the life-long sacrifices of sustainability.

You do not love effectively by trying to possess, control, manipulate, or dominate your beloved. If you are to live in Jesus’ spirit, if you are going to practice love effectively, you need to nurture rather than trying to possess, to empower rather than attempting to control, to negotiate rather than to manipulate, and to have compassion with those you care about rather than trying to dominate them. You cannot sustain the good Earth effectively by exploiting it, betraying it, destroying it, or trying to use it up. Instead to effectively sustain the Earth, you need to cooperate with nature rather than exploiting it, to nurture the good Earth instead of betraying it, to celebrate and empower nature’s own evolutionary rhythms instead of destroying them, and to find how to live and flourish in ways that are sustainable forever instead of using the Earth up.

This is the way that we Unitarian Universalists celebrate Jesus and Creation every day of our lives. For our faith is in life and humanity, in the goodness of Creation and the love of Jesus and other effective prophets and seers throughout history. There are needed sacrifices, and that is the wisdom of the spring and the power of Easter, but effective sacrifices are those that grow love and nurture sustainability not the dead-ends of spiritual pride or violent condemnation, nor the hatred and despair of saving yourself from humanity and life in order to gain entrance to a pure but sterile eternal life. We are Unitarian Universalists; we believe in the good Earth and in loving humanity. We believe in a living Jesus not a dead Christ, in the living spirit of fairness and love wherever it appears.