Was Jesus a Unitarian
Universalist?
By Rev. Lynn M. Acquafondata
UU Church of the South Hills “Sunnyhill”
April 8, 2007
Jesus
practiced Jeudaism and Unitarian Universalism didn’t exist back then. But
Unitarian Universalism had Christian roots. I wonder, “Does Unitarian
Universalism live up to the teachings of Jesus today?”
In
1841, when Unitarianism and Universalism were still exclusively Christian
faiths, Unitarian minister Theodore Parker said that there are only two
substantive and lasting parts of Christianity. He said Christianity is about
love of human beings and love of God. He went on to describe the “trappings”
which are not central and are subject change. In this category he included the origin and authority of the Bible, as
well as the nature and authority of Christ himself. Parker faced ostracism by all but the most
liberal ministers and congregations, but he stood by the truth as he saw it.
Moving
ahead a century and a half, I bring us to John Shelby Spong, a liberal
Episcopalean bishop who also focused on the theme of love. In his book Why Christianity Must Change or Die, he talked
about how love was used in the Gospel of John as another name for God. He said
that Jesus lived and taught a barrier breaking definition of love. We’re talking
here about neighborly love, not romantic love, about “unselfish loyal
and benevolent concern for the good of another. Even so people at the time
limited the definition of one’s neighbor to be only people of one’s family or
immediate social group.
For Jews in Jesus’ time association
with gentiles and with the enemy, the Samarians, would make the Jew unclean and
therefore separated from his or her community.
In
the teaching about the good Samaritan Jesus explains that acting as a good neighbor
is not just about giving a friendly hello to someone in your own social group, and
then going about your own business.
Jesus asks people to take risks to take care for one another, even those
we view as enemies or those we are afraid of, or those we are uncomfortable
with.
It’s
likely that both the priest and Levite were concerned about laws which taught
that impurity resulted if you touched a dead or half dead person. They may have
had legitimate fears about the possibility of catching disease from this
traveler. In this story, the Samaritan not only took his time to bandage the
Jewish man’s wounds, he went out of his way to bring the man to an inn and gave
his own money for the innkeeper to care for this man he did not know, despite
the mutual animosity between his group and the Jews.
With this story, Jesus taught that we
must move beyond laws that divide people and fears that hold us back. Good neighbors
must be willing give of our own time and money and even risk our own health and
sometimes our lives to reach out to others. It means moving into our fears and
confronting our prejudices.
Jesus
himself reached out to other people who were considered outcasts at the time. In
a scene from the book of Luke, Jesus came near a group of lepers. No one went
near lepers at the time. They lived in their own camps of exile because the
disease was contagious and uncurable. But Jesus went up to them and cured 10
leper. He didn’t take the credit though. As one leper bowed down to thank him,
Jesus said, “Get up and go on your way; you faith has made you well.” (Luke 17:11-19) It was both Jesus’ love for
this man and this man’s faith in God which cured him.
Let’s
think back to Parker and the two essential aspects of Christianity (love of man
and love of God) and then think ahead to Unitarian Universalists today. What do
we see here?
The good Samaritan story reminds me
of the UU Congregation of
As I heard their story and watched them interact with their son, I could tell that they were wonderful, loving and skilled parents who did something few would dare to do and did it very well. But even more importantly I watched this UU congregation embrace this couple and I saw the boy playing freely with our UU children. We truly welcomed this family and let their love and courage touch us. I knew this would not have happened in any mainstream congregation 15 years ago. This event melted away much of the rigid thinking on same sex couples and disease which I had grown up with.
Unitarian Universalists have broken the social rules of our society by openly welcoming gay, lesbian, bisexual and trangender people to our congregations including developing a year long process to become officially welcoming of GLBT people which more than half of our congregations including Sunnyhill have gone through.
Unitarian Universalism is one of the few religions that sanctions same sex unions and ordains openly Bisexual, Gay, Lesbian, and Transgender people. Unitarian Universalists have advocated across the country for same-sex marriage and civil and legal rights for GLBT people, sometimes putting themselves at risk to do this work.
This sounds much like the work that Jesus did reaching out beyond stereotype and prejudice to extend neighborly love to others.
In
the Gospel of Mark (5:1-13) Jesus went
to the tombs, the realm of the dead and of social outcasts. He entered the site
of the depths of despair of a mentally ill man ostracized by society. This man had broken multiple restraints then
ran among the tombs and up on the mountains hurting himself with stones and
howling. Jesus went to the tombs to find this man and heal him. Now it’s said
that he healed the man by sending the “unclean spirit” from the ill man into a
herd of pigs which led to unpleasant results for the pigs. Either the story is
a little off or maybe there is still more we can do to expand the concept and
application of love.
Also
in the Gospel of Mark (5:24-34) a woman approached Jesus. This woman suffered
from years of hemmoraging. Hemorrhages produced a state of ritual impurity
which called for social restriction and exclusion. This woman reached out and touch Jesus clothes, breaking
the barrier imposed on her. Instantly she was healed. In this case it was not
an act of Jesus that cured her, but her own ability to reach out and break the
taboos of her society.
Interestingly none of these stories refers to God in any direct way. There are vague references in the phrase “their faith cured them” and the reference of power going out of Jesus as the woman touches Jesus. In that sense you could say a God concept is not central to that aspect of the teachings. However, before the story of the good Samaritan starts, Jesus repeats the central commandment of Jeudism which Parker names as the core tenants of Christianity, to Love the Lord your God with all your heart and your neighbor as yourself. For some UUs this teaching rings true. Love of neighbors follows from love of God. Those of us who embrace both parts of this teaching likely resonate with these words of John Shelby Spong from Why Christianity Must Change or Die. He expresses a religious humanist perspective on the life of Jesus. This description could apply to other views of divinity or higher power besides a traditional God concept simply by substituting another concept for the word God.
Spong
wrote, “Beneath the God claims
made for this Jesus was a person who lived a message announcing that there was
no status defined by religion, by tribe, by culture, by cult, by ritual, or by
illness that could separate any person from the love of God. If love is a part
of what God is or who God is, then it can surely be said of this Jesus that he
lived the meaning of God. According to the Gospels, he lived it with a
consistent intensity. It was as if his
source of love lay beyond every human boundary. It was inexhaustible. It was
life giving. Finally, when it was noticed it was thought to be so deeply the
meaning of God that the assumption was made that the love present in the life
of this Jesus was the result of an external deity who had somehow entered into
him.”
Spong
uses a phrase which sums all of this up very well and expresses the essence of
Unitarian Universalism for us theists and spiritually oriented people. Spong
says that in Jesus “Humanity and divinity flow together”. By following Jesus’
example we strive to do the same with our lives, letting humanity and divinity
flow together.
Some
Unitarian Universalists are agnostic or non-theist, making the first part of
Jesus teaching connection to God, not applicable to their beliefs. Even
Parker’s simple two part statement on the permanent aspects of Christianity clearly
leaves non-theists outside this group. (Only UUs would even consider the
question of whether non-theists can be Christian.) It is for this reason that
both Unitarian in the early 1900s and eventually Universalism moved away from
being exclusively Christian traditions.
However
part two of Parker’s assessment, the concept of loving one’s neighbor in the
way of Jesus is much clearer for Unitarian Universalists. In the 1800s and
early 1900s women led the suffrage movement and gained the right to vote. This
included Unitarians like Susan B. Anthony and Universalits like Olympia Brown.
Now many women are prominent leaders in our congregations and in the local and
national politics and more than 50 percent of our UU ministers in active
service are female.
Most
of us long term UUs hardly think about it, but when we enter the doors of any
UU congregation we find no stigma based on marital status. People don’t judge
each other’s decision regarding divorce and marriage and cohabitation. We are
predominately pro-choice which doesn’t mean we encourage abortion. It means
that we let people make their own choices and we don’t judge those choices until we’ve walked in
another’s shoes. This openness and acceptance and love despite each other’s
imperfections is not the norm in religious institutions around the world. It’s
easy to forgot this when we surround ourselves with Unitarian Universalists.
It’s why many of us are here in the first place.
Unitarian
Universalists have gone beyond the confines of our social structure to reach
out to others in love over and over again. In fact our UU principles express
what it takes to live out love in our lives. To truly follow each one of those
principles isn’t easy.
Around
the world, UUs are doing this in various ways. In
What
about us here in this part of the world. How do we or can we live out this
teaching on the love of neighbor? How are we in this congregation challenged to
continue carrying out this work?
Jesus asked people to work through our fears and to reach beyond the limits that society imposes on us.
“In a world with so much hatred and violence,
We need a religion that proclaims the inherent worth and dignity of
every person.”[1]
What if we reached out to drug addicts and alcoholics, even those who have committed crimes? What if we treated people for their addictive illness instead jailing them and then releasing them unchanged back into our midst? What if we encouraged the general population to learn more about mental illness and to find ways of reaching out and including people who act outside what we see as the realm of normality?
“In a world with so much environmental degradation,
We
need a religion that advocates respect for the
interdependent web of all existence of which we are a part.”
What if we continued the work of many UUs in redefining our relationship to the nature world and the animals who inhabit this world with us?
“In a world with so much brutality and fear,
We need a religion that seeks justice, equity, and compassion in human
relations.
In a world with so many persons abused and neglected,
We need a religion that calls us to accept one
another and encourage one another to spiritual growth.”[2]
Who would be considered our enemy today as the Samaritans were considered the enemy in Jesus’s day. What would it look like if we reached out in some way to the most hated of all people in the today’s world? Terrorists. We are told to fear and avoid terrorists and above all not to interact and negotiate with them. Is there a way to express Jesus barrier breaking love in these situations? Hostile confrontation has exacerbated problems around the world today, whereas peaceful negotiation tends to have different results.
How far do we
go to reach out to enemies? Does it go more than one way? I don’t have easy
answers, but I do believe Jesus’ teaching calls us to stretch out thinking and
our actions in ways we have not yet imagined. Of course it’s dangerous work. It was in Jesus’ day too.
Even if we don’t go quite that far, what might this kind of love mean for you in your personal life? Who do you truly welcome in your life? Can you reach out in love your personal enemies? Or to those you disagree with? Can you strive to see the world from another’s perspective?
What
healthy limits can help us to live out the important values of our lives? What
lines of responsibility are necessary to balance our freedom with the freedom
of others? Allowing oneself to be subjected to abuse is not the barrier breaking love that Jesus encouraged. Instead walking
away from abuse might that kind of love, especially in cases in which society
expects a woman to stick by her husband or a child to honor his or her parents.
In
the last supper Jesus said he gave his blood for us. Blood is a symbol of
spirit. He gave his spirit and he gave his body for us. How do we give of our
bodies and our spirit for others?
We
can live out Jesus’ Easter message by letting go of any limiting concepts of love
and letting those barriers die. We can live out Jesus’ message by moving beyond
our comfort zones, by letting ourselves find and live out new affirming
patterns of understanding. We can live out his teaching by living out UU principles
as we reach out in love to others.