Chalice Lighting
by Ralph Millsap
We kindle this flame as a symbol of our welcoming spirit that draws upon our shared living traditions:
Experience that transcends mystery and wonder;
Words and deeds of prophetic men and women;
Wisdom from the world’s religions;
Jewish, Christian, Humanist and Earth-centered teachings.
We kindle this flame as a symbol
I Believe
by John Bohman
I was born into a strong Catholic family. Our common faith played a central role in almost every aspect of our lives. We went to parochial school, attended mass regularly, and dutifully followed the liturgical calendar. When I was a child, the life of Christ became very real to me, and the Christian teachings were constantly reinforced through ritual and devotional practices.
There were many members of the Catholic clergy in my family, including a great aunt who was the mother superior of the Sisters of Charity. While few in my generation followed a religious vocation, I still believe, as I was taught, that each of us has a calling in life that we are compelled to follow.
I received almost all of my formal education from Catholic schools, including a Jesuit university at which I majored in philosophy. There was strong emphasis on both faith and reason; and to this day, I remain convinced that honest faith and honest reason must be balanced together.
My family was part of the liberal wing of the Catholic Church, both theologically and politically. We were encouraged to live a life of service and to work for economic justice. My current work with organized labor has deep roots in my Catholic upbringing.
Despite the religious intensity of my childhood and adolescence, I did not remain Catholic. I was simply unable to come to terms with the hierarchy and dogma of the Church. I also found myself in major disagreement with the Church on some important social and theological issues. I slowly drifted away, but I never stopped identifying myself as a religious person. When I was later introduced to this congregation, I realized that I had been, in fact, a Unitarian Universalist for many years.
I have mixed feelings about Christianity. Historically, Christians have inflicted much suffering among themselves and upon others. Christian theology has even been rationalized to justify evils like slavery. On the other hand, the central principles of an authentic Christian faith involve love, compassion, and forgiveness. Historically, if the followers of Jesus had actually abided by these principles, the world would indeed have been saved. I do believe along with many Christians that through love a transformation of humankind can and will happen someday. Martin Luther King, Jr. was perhaps the most important Christian preacher of the twentieth century, and he once said that the arc of human history is long but it bends towards justice.
Spoken Prayer & Meditation
Lords Prayer, King James Version
Our Father which art in heaven
Hallowed by thy name.
Thy kingdom come.
Thy will be done in earth, as it is in heaven.
Give us this day our daily bread.
And forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors.
And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.
For thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, for ever.
Amen.
Lords Prayer, from the original Aramaic, Translation by Neil Douglas-Klotz in Prayers of the Cosmos
O Birther! Father- Mother of the Cosmos
Focus your light within us - make it useful.
Create your reign of unity now-
through our fiery hearts and willing hands
Help us love beyond our ideals
and sprout acts of compassion for all creatures.
Animate the earth within us: we then
feel the Wisdom underneath supporting all.
Untangle the knots within
so that we can mend our hearts' simple ties to each other.
Don't let surface things delude us,
But free us from what holds us back from our true purpose.
Out of you, the astonishing fire,
Returning light and sound to the cosmos.
Amen.
Sermon:
So here we are for the fourth part of the series on “The Challenges of Religious Pluralism.” We’ve explored Judaism’s big answer of creating covenants, Islam’s big answer of surrendering to the divine, and native religion’s big answer of being alive with spirit.
We are not only exploring these religions in our worship services but also in about 20 Big Answer covenant groups that involve over 200 of our members and friends. In these groups individuals share their thoughts and beliefs in a safe and welcoming environment.
Now we come to Christianity. Oh boy! Some of you might believe this will be the easiest of the bunch, but I don’t think so. Why? Because we’re like fish trying to figure out what this water is we’re swimming around in. Whether we like it or not, all of us are immersed in and greatly influenced by this Christian culture.
To look at Christianity also requires looking beneath some messy bandages. Most of our members are come-outers from Christian denominations, and that experience of leaving the church of our past often is a painful one.
The contemporary theologian, Karen Armstrong, tells of a painful experience she had at the age of 18 when she entered a religious order in her native England [from speech at Chautauqua Institution, Summer, 2002]. She was taking theology lessons, starting with apologetics, which means defending the faith in rational terms.
The topic for her essay was the resurrection, and she labored for a week, finally producing a cast iron argument showing the resurrection was as historically credible and well documented as the War of Independence.
When she turned in her essay the kindly nun who was her teacher complemented Armstrong for her excellent work. Then Karen looked at the nun and said shyly, “But mother, it isn’t true, is it?” Her teacher sighed and then confessed, “No sister, it’s not true. But please, don’t tell the others.”
As you can imagine, this was a shocking experience for Karen Armstrong. She had been struggling with her spiritual doubts and to have her worst fears confirmed sent her into a depression and even more denial. She spent years after that trying to convince herself that what she was being taught was reasonable B even though in her heart she knew it wasn’t. By the time she finally left the order, she had suffered traumatic emotional and spiritual damage, and it took her a long time to trust her own mind and feelings once again.
Since then Karen Armstrong has been trying to comprehend the essence of Christianity, as well as the other great religions of the world. And she has helped all of us in the process.
Does her experience sound familiar? Many of us sitting here this morning have gone through similar disappointments, and we may still be recovering from them. One way we may try to cope with our pain and disappointment is by attacking Christianity, but I believe a more spiritually healthy way is by searching for the big answer of Christianity.
What is the essence of this religion that encompasses two millennium of time and two billion people from around the world? What is it that this little man in the outback of civilization taught that has so captivated the world?
Phillip Brooks gives us a clue with these words:
“Here is a man who was born in an obscure village, the child of a peasant woman... He worked in a carpenter shop until he was thirty, and then for three years he was an itinerant preacher. He never wrote a book, He never held an office. He never owned a home. He never had a family. He never went to college. He never put his foot inside a big city. He never traveled two hundred miles from the place where he was born. He never did one of the things that usually accompany greatness. He had no credentials but himself. He had nothing to do with this world except the naked power of his divine humanity...
“Nineteen wide centuries have come and gone and today he is the centerpiece of the human race...
“I am far within the mark when I say that all the armies that ever marched, and all the navies that ever were built, and all the parliaments that ever sat, and all the kings that ever reigned, put together, have not affected the life of humanity upon this earth as powerfully as has that one solitary life.”
That's an incredible statement about the man Jesus, and it very well may be true. But why? Why has that one man been able to make such an impact on our world?
We are told by some that it is because Jesus brought salvation to humanity. We are told that if we will only have faith that Jesus was the Christ, the Son of God, the Savior who was born both God and Man, and who died to save humanity from sin, then and only then will we receive our eternal heavenly reward in the next life. And of course, if we do not have this faith, if we refuse to seek and accept salvation then we will be doomed to everlasting damnation and hellfire. I never liked that part.
Unitarian Universalism has protested against this definition of Christianity since its beginning during the Protestant Reformation. Our movement has been a gadfly to the Church, expressing our faith in the humanity of Jesus rather than his divinity and in his teachings rather than his resurrection.
When you read the New Testament, especially the actual words and parables of Jesus, excluding those that have been tacked on, then you cannot help but notice much of what the church teaches today was never mentioned or even conceived by Jesus. He would probably have a heart attack if he came back today and saw what the Christian Church has done in his name. “What do you mean you celebrate my birthday by selling billions of dollars worth of junk to people who don’t need it or want it while others stave to death?”
Don’t forget that Jesus was a Jewish boy B at least on his mother’s side B who never dreamed of anything called a Christian Church. His intent was simply to reform the outmoded Judaism of his day -- not to give birth to another religious movement.
There’s no doubt that the real Jesus has been largely lost in a maze of supernatural smokescreens and mystical manipulations. The Lord’s Prayer is an example of how his message has been distorted. Most of the English translations of the words of Jesus come from Greek, a language that differs greatly from Aramaic, which was the common spoken language throughout the Middle East at the time of Jesus. And Aramaic was the tongue in which Jesus expressed his teachings.
Did you hear the amazing difference in the two versions of the Lord’s Prayer? The King James version is beautiful and yet staid and sterile compared to the poetic Aramaic version that actually has many more layers taking us into a deeply mystical message. This is just a microcosm of the vast differences between the actual words of Jesus and what we see and hear about his life today.
For instance, did you know that in the New Testament Jesus never claims to be divine? The term Son of God was used to describe anyone who lived a sacred life. And yet Christianity is built upon his erroneous divinity.
There are some outstanding theologians who are diligently attempting to resurrect the true spirit of Jesus. The Jesus Seminar, for instance, is a group of mostly Christian theologians who have studiously researched the authenticity of the Christian scriptures, publishing a version that is color-coded to inform the reader as to what is thought to be truly bona fide, what they’re not certain of, and what is definitely bogus.
Others, like John Spong, the retired Episcopal bishop who has been adopted by many U.U.s as our biblical guru, have discovered a different kind of salvation than we hear from so many Christian pulpits. Spong writes in his book, Why Christianity Must Change Or Die, “I would choose to loathe rather than to worship a deity who required the sacrifice of his son... We humans do not live in sin. We are not born in sin. We do not need to have the stain of our original sin washed away in baptism. We are not fallen creatures who will lose salvation if we are not baptized.” I would say those are statements shared by most UUs.
But then we are challenged to move beyond negatives. Spong goes on to explain that the writers of the gospels experienced Jesus as a “spirit person.” To them, “He was alive. He gave life to others. His life was expansive. It was not bound by traditional limits. Thus those who were touched by his spirit also came alive and began the expanding process of entering the limitless dimensions of their own lives...”
Bishop Spong recognizes that “the Gospels are not in any literal sense holy, they are not accurate, and they are not to be confused with reality. They are rather beautiful portraits painted by first-century Jewish artists, designed to point the reader toward that which is in fact holy, accurate, and real.”
The experience of those early writers B or painters B was that they had met God in the person of Jesus. “They were trying to say that the qualities they had met in him were not within the capability of human begins by themselves to create. Therefore, he must be the product of God’s spirit. So these Gospel writers, reflecting their faith communities, mined both their sacred tradition and their vocabulary in order to speak rationally of what they had experienced.”
One way the Gospel writers described Jesus was brought up by Rev. Henry Brinton, our guest speaker for the Big Answer speaker series last Tuesday evening, and who is the senior minister at Fairfax Presbyterian Church as well as a guest columnist in the Washington Post. He told us that the essence of Christianity is the belief that God actually became incarnated in a man. God wrapped himself in the flesh of Jesus of Nazareth.
Jews believed that Yahweh had actually broken into the history of humanity to aid his people. But the Christians drastically intensified this intimacy. For Christians God not only cared enough to enter into history; he cared and loved humanity so much that God became a human being! God was born to a woman and given birth in a lowly stable. God came into this life as a baby, and then he grew into a man.
But most important of all, God suffered. This was revolutionary. Who had ever heard of a god suffering as a person suffered! This was a deity people could find hope in, a God who was so empathetic to human beings that he suffered along with them.
Jesus knew that the prerequisite for resurrection is crucifixion. Mahatma Gandhi said that “To make any progress we must not make speeches and organize mass meetings but be prepared for mountains of suffering.” What Gandhi and Jesus taught us is that we are saved not from pain but through pain. By facing the pain of being human, of being victims of crucifixion upon crucifixion, of being lonely and afraid, we are able to embrace our fears, enter into the darkness, and then awaken to the blessings of forgiveness and love.
With this amazing commitment to humanity came a radically new ethics. God's love became the focal point for Christianity and in the life of Jesus humanity even had a perfect model of goodness and Godness. In a world filled with first century versions of Osama bin Ladens and Sadam Husseins and Trent Lotts, suddenly there was a person who reminded his followers that they had the potential to be like God.
Jesus was the epitome of Jewishness in much of his teachings. The love of God for humanity has always been a paramount characteristic of the Jewish religion.
But Jesus took this love one step further. He thought of God as a life-giver rather than a law-giver. To him God could not be bound in by laws or doctrines or creeds. Much more important than laws was the love and the spirit of God. That's why Jesus made a point of breaking the Sabbath as well as other established Jewish laws and customs; in order to reveal that God did not simply want obedience; God wanted a relationship with humanity.
Jesus was considered the Son of God because he let the divine love flow through him and his actions, out into the world. In the same way each of us are sons and daughters of God when we express love in our lives. But he was also the Son of Man, or Humanity, for he dared to feel the suffering of others and he dared to try and heal those deep wounds that are a part of our humanness.
Jesus proclaimed that the greatest commandment was this: “You shall love the Lord your God by loving your neighbor as yourself.” Earlier this month I led a chapel service with the children on the subject of The Big Answer of Christianity. I told them the parable of The Good Samaritan, about a man who is robbed and left for dead by the side of the road. A Pharisee, or Jewish priest, walks by, ignoring the plight of the dying man. A Levite, a lesser Jewish religious leader, also scurries by without aiding the victim. But when a man from the lowly class of Samaritans sees the suffering man he instinctively goes to his aid, tends to his wounds and gives him life.
The parable is told by Jesus in answer to the question, “If we are to love God and to love our neighbor, then who is our neighbor?” The radical answer Jesus gives in this story is that EVERYONE is our neighbor, no matter the nationality, race, class, gender, religion or any other difference. Everyone is our neighbor!
And that my friends is the most radical of all religious and political proclamations. Nothing is more transforming for individuals and for a society than to believe that we should love our neighbors as ourselves and that everyone is our neighbor. This belief is the foundation for all that we do to make peace in our world and to bring about justice.
And this is the true meaning of salvation. The word salvation comes from the Latin salvas, meaning to heal and make whole. In this sense, we all seek salvation, healing each others wounds and moving towards wholeness.
Salvation is not a final state to be achieved, but instead an ever-present possibility. The power of salvation is not to lift us out of the world, out of life, but to plunge us more deeply into it. Salvation does not save us from pain but through pain. We cannot escape suffering without escaping life itself.
And we cannot save ourselves without reaching out to save others, without embracing all people as our neighbors, without putting love at the center of our hearts.
So this is the Big Answer of Christianity: to seek salvation by facing the pain of our humanity with forgiveness and compassion, by loving our neighbor as ourselves, and by living life with fullness and courage.
Let us welcome Christians into the life of this church and Christianity as a faith into our hearts.
Amen.
Questions to be considered by Covenant Groups:
