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Jesus and the Christ
A Sermon for Prairie Crossing Unitarian Universalist Congregation
Sunday, March 18, 2007
Rev. Clare Butterfield

Call to worship:
From the gospel of our brother Matthew, book five:

When Jesus saw the crowds, he went up the mountain; and after he sat down, his disciples came to him. Then he began to speak, and taught them, saying:
Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted.
Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth.
Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled.
Blessed are the merciful, for they will receive mercy.
Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God.
Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God.

May we be gathered for worship this morning.

Prayer - the Lord's prayer in the New Zealand prayer book version
Eternal Spirit
Earth-Maker, Pain-bearer, Life-giver,
Source of all that is and that shall be,
Father and Mother of us all,
Loving God in whom is heaven;
The hallowing of your name echo through the universe!
The way of your justice be followed by the peoples of the world!
Your heavenly will be done by all created beings!
Your commonwealth of peace and freedom sustain our hope and come on earth.

With the bread we need for today feed us.
In the hurts we absorb from one another, forgive us.
In times of temptation and test, strengthen us.
From trials to great to endure, spare us.
From the grip of all that is evil, free us.
For you reign in the glory of the power that is love,
Now and forever, Amen.

Reading: From Jesus A New Vision by Marcus J. Borg

When I was a young teacher in my mid-twenties, an older colleague delighted in characterizing modern theology as "flat-tire" theology - "all of the pneuma has gone out of it." The irony of his comment depended on the double meaning of pneuma, a Greek word meaning both air and spirit. For me, modern theology was a joy: insightful, challenging, liberating.

Though I still see modern theology as a treasure of great value for both church and culture, I also see that my colleague's statement was (and is) largely correct, not only about theology in general but also about biblical scholarship and historical Jesus studies in particular. Within scholarly circles, Jesus' relationship to the world of Spirit is seldom taken seriously. Attention is directed to what he said, and sometimes even to what he did, but seldom is attention paid to what he was.

What Jesus was, historically speaking, was a Spirit-filled person in the charismatic stream of Judaism. This is the key to understanding what he was like as a historical figure. In an important sense, all that he was, taught, and did flowed out of his own intimate experience of the "world of Spirit."

Sermon:

Now we are on dangerous ground. We have spent some time over the last two months talking about the idea of holiness and about the idea of God. Why they linger, how the can be retained after the calamitous 20th Century, how they might be helpful to us now. Today we carry that conversation further and talk about Jesus and the idea of the Christ. For some of you I suspect this is a very difficult topic - it is freighted with the kinds of abuses that religious groups of humans are subject to - abuses which tend to be Christian in this country because we are a majority Christian country. Come with me anyway.

Today we will talk about the life and ministry of Jesus, and next time I am here, which will be Easter Sunday, we will talk about the death and resurrection.

There are two things I want you to take away from both these sermons. First, there is no religious idea we can't approach. Fear should not be driving our spiritual development or limiting our religious imagination. Second, we are not a bomb squad. Our goal in approaching these stories is not to render them harmless.

Can I just say that again, for emphasis? We are not a bomb squad. Our goal in approaching these stories is not to render them harmless. To deprive them of their power to harm is to deprive them of their power to help, since power is always two-sided.

Today we will talk about Jesus' life, and the power of that life is, I believe, two-fold. It is in what he said, but it is also in who he was. Unitarian Universalists, in good bomb squad manner, like to preserve the teachings of Jesus and eliminate the miracle stories. But the miracle stories are the way that those who wrote these texts down for us have of signaling to us who they thought this man was. They mark the difference between a historical figure, Jesus, and a holy one - Christ. We can't ignore them or discard them and still claim to be hearing the story.

The power of the death and resurrection of Jesus is also two-fold, as it happens. It is that God suffers with us, which is a claim unique to the Christian story, and it is also that death did not conquer this man, did not defeat him. More on that when the Lenten days are over and the time of rising has come.

Stories have power and they are trying to tell us something, and all the stories we have of Jesus have some miraculous component to them. The gospel of Mark, which is the earliest of the four gospels and one of the sources for two of the others, is almost exclusively a story of miracles and wonders, with relatively little of the preaching of Jesus thrown in. The miracles mattered a great deal to the community around Jesus at the time of his life and immediately after his death.

Marcus Borg puts the storytellers into a context for us in Jesus a New Vision. He says that for these pre-modern people there was essential unanimity on two points.

First, in addition to the visible material world disclosed to us by ordinary sense perception (and modern science), there is another level of reality, a second world of nonmaterial reality, charged with energy and power. This basic division of reality into two levels can be spoken of in many ways - as the sacred and the profane, the holy (or "numinous") and the mundane, God and "this world," and so forth. What is most important is the notion of another level or levels of reality rather than any particular set of terms. Moreover, the "other world" - the world of Spirit - is seen as "more real than "this world." Indeed, the "other reality" is the source or ground of "this world."

Second, and very importantly, the "other world" is not simply an article of belief, but an element of experience. That is, the notion of another reality does not have its origin in prescientific speculation about the origin of things, or in primal anxiety about death or the need for protection, but is grounded in the religious experience of humankind. It is not merely believed in, but known." [Borg, Jesus A New Vision, pg. 26]

When he puts it that way, I think probably most of the folks in this room can go pretty much of the way with him, and some of us are in fairly complete agreement with both points.

So when dealing with the subject of Jesus and the person of Jesus we need to pay attention to what he said - to the lessons he taught, as far as the scriptures allow us to reconstruct them - but we also need to pay attention to the fact that for those who were with him at the time Jesus was a powerfully spiritual person - someone with extraordinary access to this second, experienced reality. He was Jesus the Christ.

The reason he persists - the reason we divide history at the time of his presence on the earth - is that he had a powerful, prophetic presence. It is who he was that caused people to preserve what he said.

So let's talk about what he said. Here's what I love among the sayings of Jesus most of all: the Sermon on the Mount. This is recounted most beautifully in the Gospel of Matthew, but it's also in the gospel of Luke. It's not in the Markan gospel, so Matthew and Luke must have also had some other source from which this text is taken. They tell many of the same stories, but Matthew is prettier and fuller, so we'll draw our quotes from that sermon, the central example of Jesus' ministry, this morning.

Our call to worship this morning was the beatitudes from the Sermon on the Mount - the blessings. They are beautiful like music, aren't they - like music that Jesus could hear and plucked out of the very sky to tell to the rest of us who couldn't hear it. I cut the list short, I confess. Here are the two I left out:

Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness' sake for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

Blessed are you when people revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account.

Rejoice and be glad, for your reward is great in heaven, for in the same way they persecuted the prophets who were before you. (Matthew 5:10-12)

So you can see that I started the day by doing what we like to do with the story of Jesus and the Christ - I cherrypicked the pretty parts and left the more troubling ones out. I don't want to be persecuted for righteousness' sake, and most of us would feel rather silly being persecuted for Jesus sake. Of course the most extreme of our conservative Christian brothers and sisters seek that experience as part of their faith, which is what makes us uncomfortable. (I saw "Jesus Camp" too, you know). Part of the complexity of dealing with Jesus the Christ is sorting out the more troubling statements, and figuring out which of them he might actually have said, and what he might have meant by them. We aren't going to do that in any systematic way this morning, there isn't nearly enough time. I am just acknowledging that looking to what Jesus said in a thorough way is a more complicated undertaking than it might seem in the next few minutes.

What is so radical about this man that we are still talking about him 2000 years after his ministry and death?

He said "You are the light of the world. A city built on a hill cannot be hid. No one after lighting a lamp puts it under the bushel basket, but on the lampstand, and it gives light to all the house. In the same way, let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father in heaven. (Matthew 5:13-16)"

He said "if anyone strikes you on the right cheek, turn the other also; and if anyone wants to sue you and take your coat, give your cloak as well; and if anyone forces you to go one mile, go also the second mile. Give to everyone who begs from you, and do not refuse anyone who wants to borrow from you. You have heard that it was said, "You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy." But I say to you, Love your enemies, and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be children of your Father in heaven; for he makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the righteous and unrighteous. (Matthew 5:38-45)"

About wealth he said a great deal - more than on any other subject. And he reminded us "Do not store up for yourselves treasures on the earth, where moth and rust consume and where thieves break in and steal; but store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust consumes and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also. (Matthew 6:19-21)"

"Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow; they neither toil nor spin, yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not clothed like one of these. …So do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will bring worries of its own. Today's trouble is enough for today. (Matthew 6:28-30,34)"

"Ask and it will be given you; search, and you will find; knock, and the door will be opened for you. For everyone who asks receives, and everyone who searches finds, and for everyone who knocks, the door will be opened. Is there anyone among you who, if your child asks for bread, will give a stone? Or if the child asks for a fish, will give a snake? If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give good things to those who ask him! In everything do to others as you would have them do to you; for this is the law and the prophets. (Matthew 7:7-12)"

This sermon is certainly emblematic of the ministry of Jesus, which had precious little to say, frankly, about your personal sexual morality, or about making war on the infidels (nothing to say about that at all, actually) and a great deal to say - a great deal to say - about loving your enemies, being kind to those who persecute you, and being willing to give up all your money - all of it - to serve God. We don't know how much of what is reported in the gospels was actually said by Jesus. The letters of Paul were written earlier, and they emphasized the death and resurrection as the central image of the ministry of Jesus. The gospels were written later, and we assume that the stories on which the three synoptic gospels agree are somewhat reflective of what Jesus actually said.

That Luke and Matthew report this sermon and report it similarly means that they both probably wrote about it from an earlier text - that there was an earlier text means that this is likely to have been a real part of Jesus' ministry - because it was recorded closer in time to his life.

Would you give these sayings up because there are Christians who are cruel to other people? I would not. They are too important to me for that. They amaze me with their depth and their clarity, and with the power they still hold to push me to align myself with what I know is true, good, valuable.

And what do we make of who he was? Of the miracle stories that make up such an important part of the synoptic gospels? The story of the calming of the storm and walking out on the water. The story of the loaves and the fishes, multiplied to feed the 5,000. These are stories that come as a tug on your coatsleeve by someone who wrote them 2,000 years ago. How would such a person get your attention. How would they begin to convey the full power of what they had witnessed? If we were the storytellers and we were telling stories about someone we had laid down our own lives to follow, how would we talk about him? How would we tell people thousands of years into the future that to us this man had an insight into the nature of the divine that was so powerful and so unique and that was conveyed not only by his words but by his presence - by his being - that none of us had ever seen anything like it or even imagined that such a thing could be? Did Jesus walk on the water? I'm not sure it matters.

There is one story I can tell you, and it is from the Markan gospel - the oldest story of the gospel stories. Mark tells the stories in a very unornamented way - which is why we tend to like to quote from Matthew and Luke, both of which are considerably more literary. But this little story comes from Mark and I tell it to you because I am in love with the simplicity of it, and because it has saved my life. It is the story of Jairus' daughter. This is how the gospel tells it.

"When Jesus had crossed again in the boat to the other side, a great crowd gathered around him; and he was by the sea. Then one of the leaders of the synagogue named Jairus came and, when he saw him, fell at his feet and begged him repeatedly, "My little daughter is at the point of death. Come and lay your hands on her, so that she may be made well, and live. So he went with him. ….

When they came to the house of the leader of the synagogue, he saw a commotion, people weeping and wailing loudly. When he had entered, he said to them, "Why do you make a commotion and weep? The child is not dead but sleeping." And they laughed at him. Then he put them all outside, and took the child's father and mother and those who were with him, and went in where the child was. He took her by the hand and said to her, "Talitha cum," which means "little girl, get up!" and immediately the girl got up and began to walk about (she was twelve years of age). At this they were overcome with amazement. He strictly ordered them that no one should know this, and told them to give her something to eat. (Mark 5:21-24,39-43)"

I note in passing that in between the story of Jairus approaching Jesus and the story of him raising the daughter up there is another story inserted of the hemorrhagic woman, who touches his robe and is healed - Jesus tells her that her faith has made her whole again. If you think about storytelling, the insertion is probably important, don't you think?

I love the non-miraculous nature of both healing miracles. Jesus does nothing for the bleeding woman - he tells her she has done it for herself. And when he approaches the child his is completely straightforward. He speaks to her in Aramaic - the Greek text has the words he said to the child in Aramaic, and they are in Aramaic in the English translation. Jesus spoke Greek, but he comes to this child speaking her language. And he doesn't say anything wild or miraculous. He says "talitha cum," "little girl, get up." Now I don't know what kind of trouble you've had in your life, but I'm betting you've had some. And I'm not going into any detail here but let me tell you I've had some myself. And on my worst days, on the hardest days of my life, when my own usual love for being alive had gone somewhere where I couldn't find it, I went to this story. "Little girl, get up." And I did. Did Jesus raise a twelve-year-old girl from the dead, or was she only sleeping? I don't know. I know that by this story he has raised me, more than once. Would a story about anything less than rising from the dead be of any help to me lying on these pages 2000 years away from the power of the man's presence? I doubt it very much. This is the power of story. Is it true. Oh yes it is. Did it happen? I have no idea. It really makes no difference to me.

We are not a bomb squad. Our purpose in encountering these stories is not to render them harmless. It is to let them live. To let them live in the spirit of the one they are told about - a man who would have very little patience with the modern-day saducees and Pharisees who sell religion in his name, and are cruel to one another. A man, I am convinced, who would have very little patience with the more mainline churches that have lost every vestige of religious imagination or experience of the divine in favor of a dogmatic insistence on their own authority.

Borg says that "Jesus was not primarily a teacher of either correct beliefs or of right morals. Rather he was a teacher of a way or a path, specifically a way of transformation [pg 97]. Read him only for the morals of the stories and you will miss him entirely.

Now consider the world. Consider how deep and how wide it wounds. Consider how much is broken and weakened, how much is in need of repair - in need of the very transformation that Jesus lived, and by his being transmitted to those around him. Consider well and truly whether we can afford to discard any story that carries a power for healing within it, as these stories undoubtedly do. Remember that no story can carry this power unless it also carries a power for harm. That is in the nature of power.

I would not suggest that you read from the Bible every Sunday in this church. Though I would suggest that you read from it with some frequency amid the other sources you consult.

I would urge that you keep by your side every tool that can heal the brokenness of the world. For the brokenness is great and the tools are few. But if we love God, if we are careful with one another, if we are open to the many ways of holy wisdom, if we are honest in our hearts and gentle with our words - as Jesus showed us to be - they are sufficient.

Amen