Unitarian Universalist Fellowship of Corvallis, Oregon

“Jesus: the Man, the Message, and the Myth”
Sunday, December 7, 2008
by Rev. Dr. Gretchen Woods

When I was growing up, a baptized and confirmed member of the Dutch Reformed Church, I would proudly call myself a Christian, though my minister, the Right Rev. Arnold John VanLummel (who delighted in reminding everyone that his name means “village idiot”), called me his “honest heretic.” At the time, I had no idea that the word “heretic” means “one who chooses in Greek. I might have been even more honored. I should have seen the writing on the wall when it was almost impossible for me to memorize the catechism. I still can’t remember a word of it.

Because I really wanted to be a good person, I read the Bible through three times before graduating from high school and had what I thought was a “born again experience” while practicing organ alone in the sanctuary. I was flooded with a sense of loving energy that sent me to my knees. I felt an energetic presence that I assumed, given my cultural experience, was “of Jesus.” It was only a few years later that I realized that people the world over had similar experiences, though their cultural backgrounds led them to give the presence other names than the one I chose.

My sense of Jesus, both before and after that experience, was that he had been a person who was strong and loving, gentle and kind, challenging and accepting, a true healer. My problem was: the more I experienced Jesus’ followers, the less loving I saw in them - especially in their statements of belief. I experienced this again when “so-called Christians” screamed angry words at those attending “God at 2000.” Don’t tell me they believe in an accepting God of Love. That is a Universalist understanding, not theirs.

Anyway, disillusioned, I left the Christian church. I married an avowed atheist, but I still wanted a religious community in which we could raise our children together. Unitarian Universalism filled the bill for both of us, with its loving acceptance of all sorts of religious experiences. I found a spiritual home beyond Christianity because I felt Christians did not understand Jesus. I embraced Unitarian Universalism by evolution, not revolution.

Thirteen years later, I went to John Carroll University, a Jesuit institution, to study for the Unitarian Universalist ministry. I was required to study the New Testament. I found to my astonishment that the materials we were learning affirmed what I had felt as a child, rather than the narrow view offered in most traditional churches. I cannot call myself a Christian anymore, because I know most people would not understand what I mean when I say that. Ironically, through scholarly study, I deepened my earliest interpretation of Jesus, even though I left the institutions that claim him.

This morning, at the beginning of Advent, a time of preparation for understanding Jesus in our lives, I should like to look at the Universalist, Unitarian, and Unitarian Universalist understandings of Jesus, compare them with contemporary biblical scholarship, and then offer a sense of the gifts of Jesus’ life. I hope this leads to a deeper understanding of Jesus for all of us.

Henry Nelson Wieman, a Unitarian Process theologian, suggests the one question all faiths must answer is “How am I saved?” Let us see what our history tells us. Universalism had its beginning about 225 ACE, when Origen, a Greek Bishop in Alexandria, asserted that Jesus represented a G-d of Love and died to bring deeper connection to G-d for all persons, not just a pre-selected few (The alternative understanding is known as the “doctrine of the elect,” in which some are saved and others are not). Origen preached universal salvation. This became heresy as the Christian church organized a century later, but the idea never died. It resurfaced through the centuries in the thought of Jan Hus, the Anabaptists, and many others, including the English movement which called itself Universalism. Universalism came to the United States with George deBenneville (a physician and signer of the Declaration of Independence), Thomas Potter (a humble farmer), and John Murray ( a valiant preacher) – to name just a few of our early leaders.

Universalists asserted that Jesus was a great teacher of the ethics of love: a person who was inclusive and invited all to join in communion. As a lover of all of life, Jesus worked for social justice, caring for the poor the widows, and the immigrants. The Universalist understanding is that this must continue in our lives as well, so that we become loving, inclusive, and work for justice. As several great Universalists noted, “We shall all be together in heaven, so we had best learn how to be together here and now with love.”

Unitarianism was first expressed in 325 ACE by Arius, a Greek Bishop in Alexandria. (I sometimes wonder if UUs realize that both of our greatest theological ideas originated in Africa. We can be so Euro-centered!) Arius insisted that, whoever Jesus was, he was not G-d; that G-d was one and indivisible and existed long before Jesus. Later, in fifteenth century Poland, Faustus Socinus, asserted that Jesus was a “created being,” a man, and even more “not G-d” than Arius was willing to risk. Unitarians have consistently believed in that perspective, even after some of us became such adamant humanists that we didn’t consider the notion of God useful at all. One can find value in Jesus’ teachings, without believing in G-d.

Unitarians have always valued the use of the mind in reading scripture, and, more important, that rationality can and must be part of our faith stance. We don’t leave our brains at the door of the church. Joseph Buckminster, a brilliant young minister in New England in the early1800’s, introduced German higher biblical criticism to this continent and encouraged scholarly exploration of scripture. This led to Unitarians being in the forefront of those questioning biblical perspective - which continues to this day.

We realized that, from a scholarly perspective, most of the Jesus story was more myth than history: it told truth through story, but was not provable as fact. In like manner, Albert Schweitzer asserted from his study of scholarly records, especially those that do not come directly from the Christian church nor verify Jesus’ existence, that one could not with good scholarly honesty declare that Jesus ever existed. That was the end of his search for the historical Jesus. That was why he became a medical missionary, not a religious one. The Lutheran Church was furious with him.

What does contemporary biblical scholarship have to say about all this? When I entered John Carroll University in 1984, I studied the work of Norman Perrin to understand the contemporary scholarly view of Jesus. Perrin, late of the University of Chicago, did believe there had been a “Jesus event,” some person who came to be known through Christianity as Jesus. Of course, he had 40% more new material (the Nag Hammadi library found in the late 20^th century). In expressing Jesus’ message, Perrin also foreshadowed the current findings of the Jesus Seminar, though he did not acknowledge its existence in his writing. Perrin believed that what one could say about Jesus’ message, from a scholarly perspective, was limited to his radical proverbial sayings, a few parables, his perspective on the Kingdom of G-d, and his sense of intimacy with his Source, G-d. He was also probably a great healer. That’s all.

Ten years ago, the “Jesus Seminar on the Road” came to the Unitarian Universalist Church in Reston and offered “up to the minute” scholarly perspectives on Jesus. Robert Funk and Lane McGaughey, among the leading lights of the Jesus Seminar, told us their view of Jesus from the scholarly work they have been doing over the last several decades. They, in Unitarian fashion though they are not UU, are adamant about who Jesus wasn’t and what the Kingdom of G-d isn’t: No cosmic end days (Would that his followers believed that now!), no belief that Jesus thought he was the Messiah, a strong affirmation of Jesus’ homelessness, no virgin birth - Jesus probably wasn’t born in Bethlehem (rather, likely, he was born in Nazareth), no cult rituals, no interest in purity codes and food rules. In fact, if “there were shepherds abiding in the fields around the time of Jesus’ birth, it was probably April, not December. Further, they do not see Jesus’ death as a blood sacrifice, nor do they affirm his resurrection. Christian scripture is not infallible, no organized church, no celibacy, no predicted return, and, finally, Jesus did not see himself as the first Christian. He lived and died a Jew. This perspective coincides significantly with the Unitarian Universalist picture of Jesus, now and through history.

On the positive side of Funk and McGaughey’s perspective of Jesus life and message, they decided that the two strongest characteristics of Jesus’ teachings are a “trust ethic” (“Consider the lilies of the field . . .”) and belief that life is to be celebrated always. Further, the kingdom of G-d is inclusive, lacking social boundaries, and, in G-d’s domain, there is no need for brokers between an individual and one’s God. Jesus challenged all the elaborate Jewish and Greek beliefs of his time and asked people to turn their expectations and cultural norms upside down. He invited people to trust the life process, rather than hoarding things. Jesus believed that we were to study life, to serve life, and to celebrate life, as my friend Bob Marshall used to say of Unitarian Universalists. Jesus’ message was offered for people who wished to engage and challenge life while feeling deeply connected with Life’s Source. Life was not work, but a work of art.

I am reminded of the story of the Bishop who led a particularly exemplary life and went straight to heaven. St. Peter told him that, because he was so virtuous, he would be allowed to enter and read from the most esoteric stacks in the library of heaven to truly understand Jesus’ message. Being a scholar as well as a mystic, the Bishop was thrilled and disappeared into the stacks for what we might conceive to be years. One day the Bishop was heard screaming, caterwauling, hysterical with rage. St. Peter ran into the stacks and found him in a fetal position, sobbing on top of the books he had been studying. When St. Peter could get him calmed enough to speak, he heard the Bishop say, “It was celebrate, not celibate!” I believe that was what Jesus meant all along!

As we begin this winter holiday season, let us look at the gifts of Christmas day, whether through Jesus or some other perspective. While Christmas is certainly named after the concept of Jesus as “the anointed one,” the Christ, we recognize that our celebration is also earth-based with its pagan tree of life, Yule log, greens to deck the halls, and celebration of the sun’s return. What we celebrate is birth, rebirth, ongoing life, and our need to trust that process in the face of death. “I am come that you might have life and have it abundantly,” a saying attributed to Jesus.

We are invited to accept the pain, sorrow, and loss that occurs in life, and still to recognize that life does go on, and it goes on best when we trust the larger process and focus upon the gifts of beauty, truth, and justice that we may yet find and bring to the world. That’s Jesus’ message: radical responsibility that gives us responsibility for ourselves and for co-creation, so each of us becomes a precious gift to all of life.

I close with words from Lucille Clifton, who reminds us most of all, that Jesus was of the earth, a child who came like each of us, and lived a life that was close to his Source:

“how he is coming then”

like a pot turned on the straw

nuzzled by cows and an old man

dressed like a father. Like a loaf

a poor baker set in the haystack to cool.

Like a shepherd who hears in his herding

His mother whisper my son my son.

We Unitarian Universalists could do with a little more of that simple, yet glorious, sensual celebration: something Jesus would have loved. After all, his first miracle is purported to be the changing of water to wine at a wedding! Let us learn, whether Christian or not, to study life, to serve life, to celebrate life! So Be It. Blessed Be!

“Jesus: the Man, the Message, and the Myth”

Order of Service

Sunday, December 7, 2008

9:30 a.m. & 11 a.m.

Children spend the morning in the Religious Education wing.

Welcome and Announcements

Choral Introit: “O Come, O Come, Emmanuel”

Chalice Lighting

Opening Words

Opening Song: #226 “People, Look East”

Reading: “I Call Myself a Christian Because. . .”

By Russ Savage, President, UU Christian Fellowship;

parish minister, Barnstable, MA

Celebrating with Music: “Oh, Baby, What You Donna Be?

Sermon: “Jesus: the Man, the Message, and the Myth”

Sung Response: #246 “O Little Town of Bethlehem”

Spoken Response

Candles: Milestones of Joy and Sorrow/Offering

Meditation

Closing Song: #244 “It Came Upon a Midnight Clear”

(verses 1 & 2)

Closing Words

Closing Song: #244 “It Came Upon a Midnight Clear”

Celebrants: Don Allen Hall and the Rev. Dr. Gretchen Woods

Etc.

READING: “I Call Myself a Christian Because. . .”

By Russ Savage, President, UU Christian Fellowship;

parish minister, Barnstable, MA (addressing Transylvanian Unitarianism)

From discussions during my earlier visit (to Transylvania) several years ago, I know that the Transylvanians are very fixed in their belief in the oneness of God. In performing baptisms, they do not use the scriptural formula, “I baptize you in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.” [Matthew 28:19] Instead, they use the formula, “I baptize you in the name of the one God.” Several ministers and students I spoke with about this were very surprised to learn that Unitarians would use the “Father, Son, and Holy Spirit” formula.

Their catechism reflects a very rational, modern understanding of Christianity. Jesus is characterized very much as a human being, no more divine than you or me.

How many of the Christians you know answer the question, “How does Jesus deliver us from sin?” The Transylvanian catechism offers this answer: “Jesus delivers us from sin by revealing what sin is, and how one can avoid it. With the example of his life set before us, which we endeavor to follow, we escape more and more from sin.”

The question of what happened after Jesus’ death is answered by the Transylvanians thus: “After Jesus’ death, his loyal disciples and followers took his body down from the cross and buried it in the tomb of Joseph of Arimethea. His disciples and followers loyally kept the memory of their master and teacher, and proclaimed his teachings.”

That’s it. There is no death on the cross to save us from our sins, and no resurrection to earthly life. Easter is defined in the catechism as celebrating ‘the victory of his ideas.” How different from the Christian theology and understanding which we are used to encountering in our churches here. Perhaps it is too rational, too devoid of miracles even for many of us Unitarian Universalist Christians. (GoodNews , January/February 1999 p.2.)