Our Living Tradition

April 7, 2002

The Rev. Gretchen Woods

READING

from “The Transient and Permanent in Christianity” by Theodore Parker, delivered at the Ordination of Rev. Charles C. Shackford in the Hawes Place Church, Boston on May 19, 1841 as published in Three Prophets of Religious Liberalism. Boston: Unitarian Universalist Association, Skinner House Books.

Looking at the Word of Jesus, at real Christianity, the pure religion he taught, nothing appears more fixed and certain. Its influence widens as light extends; it deepens as the nations grow more wise. But, looking at the history of what men call Christianity, nothing seems more uncertain and perishable. While true religion is always the same thing, in each century and every land, in each man that feels it, the Christianity of the Pulpit, which is the religion taught; the Christianity of the People, which is the religion that is accepted and lived out; has never been the same thing in any two centuries or lands, except only in name. The difference between what is called Christianity by the Unitarian in our times, and that of ages past, is greater than the difference between Mahomet and the Messiah. The difference at this day between the Christianity of some sects, and that of Christ himself; is deeper and more vital than that between Jesus and Plato, Pagan as we call him. . . (P. 117)

Such, then, is the Transient, and such the Permanent in Christianity. What is of absolute value never changes; we may cling round it and grow to it forever. No one can say his notions shall stand. But we may all say, the Truth, as it is in Jesus, shall never pass away. Yet there are always some even religious men, who do not see the permanent element, so they rely on the fleeting; and, what is also an evil, condemn others for not doing the same. They mistake a defense of the Truth for an attack upon the Holy of Holies; the removal of a theological error for the destruction of all religion. Already men of the same sect eye one another with suspicion, and lowering brows that indicate a storm, and, like children who have fallen out in their play, call hard names. Now, as always, there is a collision between these two elements. The question puts itself to each man, “Will you cling to what is perishing, or embrace what is eternal? This question each must answer for himself. (pp. 146-147)

SERMON: Our Living Tradition

During the spring of 1983, I sought a seasoned minister who was willing to take me on as a student intern in his or her congregation. I was willing to work without pay if I could receive the full benefit of internship through this experience. My first choice was the Rev. Dr. O. Dwight Brown, who was serving as senior minister at the First Unitarian Church of Cleveland in Shaker Heights, Ohio. Several folks told me that this was not a wise idea, as “He will eat you alive!” Not knowing any better and too much in need of his council, I went and interviewed. He accepted me. I interviewed no further.

As we came to know each other better, I know I could not have made a better choice. We shared intense interest in Process Theology and the interface between science and religion. His wisdom about the Unitarian Universalist Association, including his service in the headquarters at 25 Beacon Street in Boston, filled in huge gaps in my own understanding. He supported me and challenged me in the best way for me – and he liked my family. It also did not hurt that his wife, Marie, was, as he said, “a Druid.”

But one of the most powerful statements Dwight made to me, came in one of our meetings as we struggled with the growing movement on the “Religious Right.” I knew that Dwight did not consider himself exclusively Christian, but he said, rather heatedly, “I am not willing to leave Jesus in the ‘tender hands’ of the fundamentalists.” It was clear to me that Dwight was willing to use Jesus’ teachings to refute those who used Jesus to justify religion of divisiveness and hate. I have never forgotten his passion and the clarity of his thought. It reminds me regularly, not to let the Jesus I know from my own studies, who is considerably at odds with much of the religion that bears his name, become the only image offered as “Christian.”

It also reminds me that we often, in frustration with our experiences with fundamentalist and/or traditional Christianity, deny or overlook the richness of our heritage as an alternative voice for Jesus. So, just for a few minutes this morning, I should like to offer some of the conflicting experiences I have had around Christianity, a recognition that Unitarian Universalism truly springs from the well of Jesus, and a vision of how our history may lead us into a powerful and meaningful future as a religious movement.

Permit me to begin with some of the experiences that have caused me conflict over Christianity. First, one night while practicing the organ in the small Dutch Reformed Church I attended as a youth in New Jersey, I experienced an overwhelming sense of being empowered and loved, despite my deep sense of not being worthy of such grace. I equated this with “born-again experience of Jesus.” Not long after, however, my studies of eastern religions led me to believe that my experience was not unlike a step toward enlightenment in their context.

Then I married an atheist and wanted to find religious community that would help us raise our children under one religious roof. Unitarian Universalism was an obvious answer. I drifted away from Jesus in the congregation I attended in Michigan because his name was conspicuously avoided, and God was definitely in question as an experience.

When I began to study for ministry, I realized that the Jesus of the scholars in the Jesuit institution I attended was far closer to the intimations of my childhood than the one that divided people from one another, especially in humanist Unitarian Universalist Churches. I also learned that UU scholars had been at the cutting edge of biblical scholarship about Jesus since the 1840’s and the work of Joseph Stevens Buckminster, early purveyor of German higher criticism of the Bible on this continent.

When I actually began to “commit ministry,” as Dwight would say, I discovered from inside why some people had such a hard time with the words “Jesus” and “God.” While I had become a UU by evolution, they had come to the movement by revolution, in revolt against authority figures who had either literally or figuratively beaten or humiliated them using “Jesus” and “God” as justification. Their anger and fear had nothing to do with Jesus’ message of challenge to such authority figures, of trust in the process of life, and of celebration of the beauty and truth one might find.

In some ways, Jesus message hearkens as much to the Judaism from which he sprang, as it does to the Christianity which sprang from it. And it is the conflict over who Jesus was that caused our forebears to dissent from the accepted theology of their time. In 325 ACE, Arius refused the idea of the trinity and thus became the first unitarian. A century earlier, Origin voiced his belief that God, as love, would not deny anyone a place in heaven, thus becoming the first Christian universalist. Most of our antecedents were dissenters from the traditional view of who Jesus was.

Fast forward to the 19^th century, when Theodore Parker scandalized Boston with his sermon on the Transient and the Permanent in Christianity, asserting that what made Jesus’ message valuable was the truth it revealed, not his credentials as “Son of God.” Fellow Unitarian preachers would not exchange pulpits with him for fear he would repeat his message to their people. He became a pariah in Unitarian circles, but spoke to thousands in Boston every Sunday. Our heritage includes many such free-thinkers who responded from their own thoughtful search for meaning in Jesus message.

The history of Unitarian Universalism is one of people who challenge the accepted views of their time, respond to the scholarly discoveries of their era, and maintain freedom of thought throughout the process, not unlike Jesus. We had a long history of taking Jesus seriously until some of us decided to throw him out of many of our churches as irrelevant in the 20^th century. In the process, we turned him and the Christian Bible over to the fundamentalists. We, especially our children, became biblically illiterate – and thus lost our ability to communicate with most of western society which is still based in biblical literacy.

When my foster daughter came to live with us, she decided to take a class in the Bible as Literature because her Unitarian Universalist upbringing left her illiterate in this area. She was beginning to see how much she missed from references in most of western literature. We had lost our heritage of broadening and freeing Christianity to reflect Jesus’ message and became blind and deaf to it. We lost our ability to speak relevantly to our own culture.

Fortunately, not all of us did this. Many of us quietly continued to study contemporary biblical scholarship, to become associates in the Jesus Seminar, and to attend the “Jesus Seminar on the Road.” Why did we do this? Out of an understanding of a basic Unitarian Universalist value: that we need to be open to ideas that affect our culture so that we may be effectively critical as well as advocates for our own perspective. We need to be able to voice our awareness of the problems that exist in the practice of any given religion, whether it be the misogyny in Buddhism, the violence in some Native American practices, or the violence and abuse that stems from the Christian Theology of Atonement.

Whatever the religious institution, we can benefit from the best of it and challenge the worst of it, as Jesus so often did with the religion of his time and place. His thought was ground-breaking for the Jews he taught:

1) that God – or Source - is intimate to us, not far-removed; immanent, as well as transcendent;

2) that each of us is a precious spirit, able to choose a better way of being in the world, able to “repent (turn one’s life around) and sin no more;”

3) that choosing to live consciously will lead us to care for those around us who are less well off;

4) that we are meant to trust the life process and celebrate the beauty and truth we experience in life, rather than always focusing upon those things which bring our spirits low.

If we are true to our Unitarian Universalist heritage, we will become aware of religious teachings of truth and value, even if they come from those whose names have been used to hurt us. Ultimately, the Unitarian Universalist way is to honor that which helps us become the best we can be in our world, wherever we may find it. If Jesus’ message is not meaningful for you, of course you may still find a home in Unitarian Universalism, because we recognize that the first source of our religious understanding is “direct experience of that transcending mystery and wonder affirmed in all cultures, which moves us to a renewal of the spirit and an openness to the forces which create and uphold life.”

I, personally, feel well enough versed in Jesus to base my religion on my experience of science and the cycles of our planet, but I also believe I would be unable to speak effectively for our faith if I could not speak about Jesus. I am as at ease with Jesus, the strength and weaknesses of his message, as I am with the “Epiphany” of Pem Kremer:

Lynn Schmidt says

she once saw You as prairie grass,

Nebraska prairie grass;

she climbed out of her car on a hot highway,

leaned her butt on the nose of her car,

looked out over one great flowing field,

stretching beyond her sight until the horizon came:

vastness, she says,

responsive to the slightest shift of wind,

full of infinite change,

all One.

She says when she can’t pray

She calls up Prairie Grass.

Jesus – or Prairie Grass: either can be a source of inspiration and meaning for Unitarian Universalists, if it helps us connect more deeply with ourselves, other human beings, and the world around us and to live a meaningful life. Let us be open to inspiration from whence it may come, including Jesus, with respect, responsibility, and relish for the process.

So be it! Blessed Be!