Sermons

A Liberal View of Christianity

Unitarian Universalist Church of Greensboro
September 25, 2005
© 2005 Steven Reinhartsen

This is a story from the Judeo-Christian tradition.  A man is shipwrecked in an isolated area of the Atlantic.  He remains stranded there, on his own, for over a year.  When he is finally found, his rescuers are quite impressed with what he has accomplished.  Along with the signal tower that drew their attention to his plight he had created a small town by building a house, a school, a store, a bank, and two churches.   When asked why he had built two churches he pointed and explained that, “This is the church I attend” and “that is the church I don’t attend.”

For many of us UUs the Christian church is the one we don’t attend.  It’s the church that represents “religion gone wrong” and we have made the decision to withdraw from it.  Like the man who was shipwrecked, our religious identity is defined, at least to a certain extent, in negative terms.  To give you an example:  when I asked the very first Unitarian I encountered in Greensboro to tell me about his church he began by saying, “Well, we’re not Christian.”

I did not find that response very satisfying at the time and still don’t because it seemed as if some arbitrary line had been drawn between UUs and Christians.  By the way my, own response to the question of “who we are” is to describe us as ecumenical, not only in the Christian sense (not limited to any particular denomination), but ecumenical in that we are open to other religions and traditions in addition to Christianity.

In my own life I feel like I’ve outgrown the boundaries of Christianity and moved beyond them.  And I see both the Unitarians and Universalists having done the same.  Each of these traditions has its roots in Christianity but both have escaped the confines of a particular faith and spread in new directions.  [We’re out of the box, garden]  And for some of us the distance from between ourselves and Christianity is now considerable.

Well today, I’m taking you back.  I want you to take a walk with me to the church we don’t attend [not all Christian, but join us anyway].  Actually it’s a walk to the church I don’t attend.  You’ll really have to define the church you don’t attend yourself.  I’m not discussing the whole church.  I’m going to concentrate on three aspects of Jesus.

  1. Bibilical roots
  2. Historical figure
  3. Theology

Why take this walk? Why not just leave it alone?

Because there are aspects of Christianity I want to claim and integrate and because I’m seeking allies.

As a guide I have good credentials to lead us.

  1. Duke experience (6 ½ years at the academy…almost got tenure)
  2. Christians make up about ½ of my Twin Lake fellowship I guess you could say I’m a Christian sympathizer—but don’t worry about me being too biased.

Your guide is also proud to be liberal.

  1. Open-minded (n) liberated from conventional thinking
  2. Related to liberal arts (adj) broad education; clear thinking, good judgement
  3. Marked by generosity and open-handedness (adj)

Let’s take a walk.

Biblical Roots:

Being good, liberal arts people and looking at the research, what do we know about the Bible?  Probably we don’t actually know very much.

  • It is classic literature.
    1. common to most of the culture
    2. perennial best seller
    3. we want our kids in RE to know something about it
  • It was originally written in Greek and translated from the Greek to various vernaculars.  It was translated to Latin early on (by 400), but it wasn’t done in other languages until the Reformation (1500).  Jesus spoke Aramaic and did no writing that we know of so anything attributed to him is coming to us via spoken Aramaic, to written Greek to an English translation (King James circa 1610).
  • Most, if not all of the New Testament, is written by authors who were not personally acquainted with Jesus during his ministry.
    • Gospel writers were not apostles
    • The writings were prompted because those people who did have direct contact with Jesus were dying off (age, execution)

MARK (60-70): Most original source; probably written in Rome around the time Peter was executed.  Jesus and his kingdom are contrasted to the Kingdom of Rome.

LUKE (70-80): Non-Jewish physician.  Wrote to general Greco-Roman audience.  Emphasis on universal role of Jesus (not just for Jews) and Jesus’ reaching out to the poor and humble of society.

MATTHEW (80-100): Written for a Jewish audience.    Considered the best written.  Jesus as the fulfillment of Hebrew prophesy.  Jesus as teacher.  Offers mini-sermons.

JOHN (100+):  Jesus is a revealer of God.  Heavy Greek influence.  More philosophical; a lot of metaphors.

The earliest writings in the New Testament are actually attributed to Paul (30-40).  Paul was a Jew, a Roman citizen, a persecutor of Christians, and later, the most effective advocate of the Christian cause.

Although Paul did not meet Jesus during Jesus’ ministry, in the book of Acts an encounter with the risen Christ is recorded.

[summarize]  The information we have regarding Jesus…

There is only one definitive reference to the trinity in all of the New Testament [UUs noticed]

The divine origin of Jesus is absent from the two earliest writings (Paul, Mark).  I wasn’t until Luke and Matthew that a virgin birth is introduced.

Biblical research is an approach to the Bible that appeals to our reason.  It can give us some common ground for discussion with liberal Christians, but it doesn’t really touch the mystery of the writing.  As I go beyond the research I begin to reach my limits in balancing reason and mystery in my religion.  For instance, why would people adopt stories that give Jesus, God status?  They start to lose me here…but obviously something was going on within the Christian community of the time that was moving them in that direction.

Historical Figure of Jesus:

Marcus Borg, author of “Meeting Jesus Again For The First Time” [discussed at UUCG twice] draws a clear line of demarcation when it comes to how people understand Jesus, and that line is Easter.  The pre-Easter Jesus he characterizes as a great teacher, healer, and spirit-filled prophet [discuss].

  • Challenges conventional wisdom
  • Calls people to be more compassionate (MLK)

The post-Easter Jesus is the Jesus of Christian tradition and experience.  It is based on past and on-going experiences of the risen Christ [Paul, apostles, early Christian martyrs, communion etc]. 

This is part of the mystery that I don’t get.  I start to drift off, look the other way, and maybe roll my eyes.  I want to quickly come back to a more rational, practical side of religion.

My pre-Easter, human preference is articulated by Theodore Parker, a 19th century Unitarian Christian heretic who compared his approach to Jesus with his approach to Newton; saying it is irrelevant whether either person is divine.  The important thing to Parker was whether their teachings were useful.  Do they hold up?  Should we be using them?  ….These questions bring me to my 3rd point, i.e., theology.

Theology:

What is the theology around Jesus? I can tell you one thing for sure:  it’s not the theology being preached in the church I don’t attend.  It’s much more liberal.

The ministry of Jesus begins with his meeting with John the Baptist.  The good news that John is proclaiming, and that Jesus picks up and continues, is repentance (change of mind, heart, action) for the forgiveness of sins.  (missing the mark) [negative articulations, vs. positive]

Stories that offer insight into positive theology:

Luke 15 Prodigal so
Matthew 20 Paying of the day workers
Mat 18:21-22 How often do I forgive [Peter]
Mat 5:43-48 The rain falls on the just and unjust

Theology is characterized by:

Not punitive—no condemnation of past behavior

Just get on track—generous beyond reason

[Bishop John Shelby Spong, salvation related to wholeness, healing]

Review generosity.    Liberal….radical

Remind you that this was a tour of the church I don’t attend.  I don’t attend there but I keep exploring the general grounds.  I’m not abandoning the territory to others and letting them define it.  I’m open to what I can learn from Christianity and I’m open to finding friends and allies in that church.

I encourage you to think about the story of the church you don’t attend.

Please do your own exploration.

References

  • How To Interpret The Bible, Efird, James M., John Knox Press, Atlanta, 1984
  • Meeting Jesus Again For The First Time, Borg, Marcus, J., Harper, San Francisco, 1994
  • A New Christianity For A New World, Spong, John Shelby, Harper, San Francisco, 2001

Reading #1

I Corinthians 13
Phillips Translation of the New Testament, I Corinthians 13

If I speak with the eloquence of men and of angels, but have not love, I become no more than blaring brass or crashing cymbal.  If I have the gift of foretelling the future and hold in my mind all human knowledge and if I also have that absolute faith which can move mountains, but have not love, I amount to nothing…

This love of which I speak is slow to lose patience—it looks for a way of being constructive.  It is not possessive; it is neither anxious to impose nor does it cherish inflated ideas of its own importance.

Love has good manners and does not pursue selfish advantage.  It is not touchy.  It does not keep account of evil or gloat over the wickedness of other people.  On the contrary, it is glad when truth prevails.

Love knows no limit to its endurance, no end to its trust, no dashing of its hope; it can outlast anything.  It is, in fact, the one thing that still stands when all else has fallen.

Reading #2

“If one subjects everything to reason our religion will lose its mystery and its supernatural character.  If one offends the principles of reason our religion will be absurd and ridiculous….These are two equally dangerous extremes, to shut reason out and to let nothing else in.”

Pascal,Pensees

Spoken Meditation by George Kimmich Beach

Our Lives as Parables

Let the gift of this day suffice to fill our hearts with a steady and ever-renewed conviction: a sacred goodness and power lies at the heart of all being.

Let us be present to ourselves, conscious of this moment dropped into the stream of time.  Let us not be distracted by anxious thoughts of any other time, nor beside ourselves with longing for any other place.  Let the goodness of being here, of being now, of being itself, suffice.