The Devotion of Our Lives
Rev. Linda Simmons
Sunday, April 20, 2014
Easter is thought to be named after the German Goddess Ostara. People have been
celebrating the new life of Spring for thousands of years. We are part of that long
tradition. The hope of Easter is about the triumph of life over death: the miracle of
Spring, birth, endurance of spirit, tradition, love. The freedom of Passover.
This Easter, my mind turns to Christianity and the New Testament and I search for a
message that still speaks to us here and now and does not depend on being right,
having the only truth, knowing who Jesus was or was not.
The New Testament is a series of gospels that each represent Jesus differently,
speak to different aspect of community and address different issues.
For Paul, who is not an apostle but an important figure in Christianity, Jesus is
represented as the one who suffered and was crucified. Paul quotes previous
sources that have been handed down to him. Paul was interested in writing about
what was acceptable and unacceptable behavior and ritual for early Christians.
In the gospel of Thomas discovered near Nag Hammadi, Egypt, in 1945, Jesus is a
speaking, living Jesus. The Thomas writers believe that listening to the sayings of
Jesus will lead to eternal life.
They do not equate Jesus to the Son of God. Jesus never rises from the dead and his
death was not meaningful. His life is what mattered. Jesus is wisdom embodied.
For Mark, the first of apostolic gospel writers, writing in around 70 CE, Jesus is a
miracle worker. He speaks of Jesus as the son of man, not of god. He does not speak
of Jesus’ birth or resurrection.
Matthew sees Jesus as a new Moses, offering a more stringent Torah and a new
promised land. He writes Jesus as completely Jewish but also commanding a mission
beyond Judaism.
John states that god so loved the world that he gave his only son. John’s is the gospel
of love and hate and contains much invective against the Jews and Judaism.
Jesus is the King of Israel, Christ, the anointed one. John has no Jewish role of
wisdom like the other gospels. It is purely Greek and Hellenistic.
Luke shifts the narrative from Jerusalem to Rome. What does it mean to begin with
Jews and end in Rome? Luke traces Jesus’ genealogy to Adam, the son of God, not to
David, not to Judaism, like all the others.
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The gospel of Mary Magdalene was discovered in the late-nineteenth century
somewhere near Akhmim in upper Egypt. It is a very important and well-preserved
codex or manuscript held together by stitching: the earliest form of book, replacing
the scrolls and wax tablets of earlier times.
It was purchased in 1896 by a German scholar, Dr. Carl Reinhardt, in Cairo and then
taken to Berlin.
One of the purposes of The Gospel of Mary is to trouble the notion of the that only
those who were male and who were Jesus’ disciples had the power to lead or speak
in Jesus' name. In Mary's ideal Christian community "bodily distinctions are
irrelevant to spiritual character since the body is not the true self." Gender does not
determine true self.
The example of Mary's leadership, her "steadfast and irenic character" her
willingness to go forth and teach the gospel because "she understands how the soul
overcomes the passions and advances past the powers that attempt to dominate it,"
make it clear that the criterion for leadership is spiritual maturity- not being chosen
as disciple or having witnessed the resurrection. In order to lead in the name of
Jesus. according to this gospel, one had to have found Jesus within themselves and
understood Jesus' words. It is integration not association that makes one a leader,
and in this text, Mary has done this work above all other disciples.
Every community of gospel writers wrote to convince their communities: Jew or
Gentile, slave or free, man or woman- that Jesus was worthy of following, of risking
one’s life to follow. Every community of gospel writers was tackling a different
problem of authority, integration, and practice.
And new texts are still being uncovered, most recently a papyrus which quotes Jesus
as speaking about his wife that Harvard scholars have determined is legitimate,
dating back to the 6th Century. What does this mean? How will this part of the story
be integrated? What is at stake in its integration?
As scholars have interpreted these texts, they have come to many different
conclusions.
Some say that Jesus was the Son of God and these writers and theologians built the
trinity in the second or third century to explain this relationship. As an aside, when
people ask who was the first Unitarian or those who did not believe in the trinity,
many say, Jesus!
Some say that Jesus was waiting for the apocalypse and believed it was coming
immanently and as it did not come and did not come, Christian writers had to revise
their texts and the teachings of Jesus to accommodate this.
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Some say that Jesus was a social revolutionary who preached about the coming of
God’s Kingdom here on earth as a new social order in which the meek would inherit
the earth, the poor would be fed, the lowest would be the highest.
Others say that this kingdom was one that Jesus saw himself as bringing only to the
Jews as their new King and that he knew revolution was necessary to overturn the
power structures in place and saw himself as a leader of that uprising.
Some say that Jesus was another messiah, healer, charismatic leader, man and Rabbi
who said he was fulfilling the prophecies. There were many like him in this time and
in this part of the world.
After his death, there is evidence that many people of his time became convinced
that he was not only a man. Which brings us to the resurrection.
Marcus Borg, a Canon Theologian at Trinity Episcopal Cathedral in Portland, Oregon
is internationally known in both academic and church circles as a biblical and Jesus
scholar. Borg writes in his book, The Meaning of Jesus: Two Visions, that it does not
matter if a resurrection occurred or not.
What matters is that some of his closest disciples experienced him as present in a
way that others were not present after their deaths. What matters is that people felt
Jesus to be active in their lives, minds, dreams and visions after his death.
What matters is that the story of Jesus did not die with him. People who loved him
kept his story alive, vital, necessary. It is true that this story lost much of its vibrancy
as various religious traditions made it small enough to fit their needs. But Jesus and
his stories keep breaking free of this and still change lives, leading some them to
more compassion, charity, love.
Stories, the way we tell them, who we authorize to repeat them, how we live into
them, matter, change lives, change everything.
And what is the story of Unitarian Universalism? I do not have time or space here to
go into all of our history so today I will very briefly trace our early Unitarian roots.
In the fall, I will be giving a class on Unitarian, Universalist, and Unitarian
Universalist history, these 2 noble faiths that joined as one in 1961.
Early Unitarians, and here I mean those theologians who rejected the trinity and
who lived and wrote from the 2nd century CE on, very early on held 3 basic
principles to be true:
Complete freedom of religious thought, the unrestricted use of reason, and tolerance
of differing views and practices.
These principles were upheld during the inquisition with great personal sacrifice.
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Many gave up their lives for the right to believe differently and defend others’ rights
to do so.
Our roots as Unitarians, those who did not believe in the trinity, can be traced back
to Jesus himself and to the Council of Nicea in 325 where the Arians argued that
Jesus and God were not equals and were subsequently banished and became the
hunted.
Another of our great ancestors is Michael Servetus, burned at the stake in 1533 by
John Calvin for arguing that the trinity misrepresented the relationship between
God and Jesus.
Due to Servetus’ writings and the influence of his life, others came after him who
would argue about a Christ whose saving message was his goodness and mercy and
not his death. They were also anti-trinitarians and were called Socinians and
influenced the development of Unitarianism.
The town Racow grew up in Poland in 1569 founded by some of these Socinians and
others who were hunted for religious difference. This town, that promised religious
freedom, thrived, had a school and printing press until the town was sacked by
mercenaries in 1634. Those that survived this eventually fled to Transylvania where
they were welcomed by the Unitarians with whom they shared much.
Francis David (David Ferenc in Hungarian) was born at Kolozsvar, Transylvania in
the first quarter of the 16th century. He renounced Catholicism to become a
Lutheran minister and later became a Unitarian and preached his first Unitarian
sermon in January 1566 in the main church in Kolozsvar. I stood in that church,
now Catholic, listening for the echoes of this great man.
The schism between Christians continued to grow in all of Europe and in
Transylvania. In early in 1568, King Sigimund, concerned to end the religious
controversy that was dividing Hungary, convened the Diet of Torda, seeking a
resolution to end the strife.
David argued for Unitarianism and toleration and won the day. The Edit of Torda
was published in 1568. It reads:
His majesty…reaffirms that in every place the preachers shall preach and explain the
Gospel each according to his understanding of it... No one shall compel another for their
souls… no one shall be reviled for his religion by anyone…and it is not permitted that
anyone should threaten anyone else by imprisonment or by removal from his post for his
teaching. For faith is the gift of God and this comes from hearing…
This came at a time when people were being condemned everywhere for their religious
beliefs and stands as a majestic call to understanding, forbearance and humility. I also
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stood in the church where this Edit was signed in Torda, now in Romania, and was
overcome with tears as this great call to our own humanity and the humanity of others
rolled down through the centuries.
In January 1571, Unitarianism was formally recognized as one of Hungary’s
religions enjoying equal status with Catholicism, Calvanism and Lutheranism.
Sigimund died soon after. The only Unitarian king in history.
This would be short lived as Sigimund would die within a year and toleration with
him. David died in a prison soon after.
This is just a tiny piece of our story, our heritage, our Unitarin gospel which means
Good News.
This story, our story, reminds us that what we care about, how we live, with what
values and beliefs, gives shape to the world.
There is a saying that goes something like this: If you were arrested for being a UU,
would be there enough evidence to convict you?
If you were arrested for being a UU, would be there enough evidence to convict you?
What does it mean to you to be Unitarian Universalist? What are you willing to
sacrifice to live into our principles which read:
 The inherent worth and dignity of every person;
 Justice, equity and compassion in human relations;
Acceptance of one another and encouragement to spiritual growth in our
congregations;
 A free and responsible search for truth and meaning;
 The right of conscience and the use of the democratic process within our
congregations and in society at large;
 The goal of world community with peace, liberty, and justice for all;
 Respect for the interdependent web of all existence of which we are a part.
When people meet you, can they tell that you are a Unitarian Universalist and if not,
why not? What would need to change in order for this to happen? What would need
to change in order for others to hear the principles through we way we live our
lives?
Every community tells a story that helps them make sense of the world around them
and of each of us in that world. What is our story and what does it ask of us?
I believe our story as Unitarian Universalists is one of tolerance, hope, courage,
willingness to be thought of as wrong and wayward and misguided and not letting
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that keep us from promoting peace, beauty, love, justice on this earth. I believe our
story asks us to look deeper, seek longer, question more fully all that is not just, all
that justifies treating others as unequal.
I believe we are those here to make a difference, to assess how that might happen in
community, and then to do, to live this all out loud until others could recite the
principles by watching us live.
UU Minister James Ford writes in his article, A Very Short Introduction to Liberal
Religion, “Simply looking at their own hearts and minds, paying attention to how we
each arise in this world precious, and how we are all wound up together vastly more
intimately than we can ever describe, leads as naturally as the day follows the night,
to a life of wisdom and joy. Some in this approach might think of themselves as
humanists. Many would just say they’re Unitarian Universalists.”
Paying attention to how we each arise in this world precious, and how we are all
wound up together vastly more intimately than we can ever describe. All of this is
how I want to tell our story; a story that invites me into my life with courage,
compassion, and humility.
I know an x-Catholic priest who told me the other that he relies on us as Unitarian
Universalists to let him know what is important to do now in this world. He said we
are the conscience of the world.
The conscience of the world. This is our story, to live into it requires a resurrection
of our history, our own hearts and minds, our love for humanity and each other.
Easter is a time of rebirth. It is a time when what has been sleeping, awakes.
I invite us all to awake to the story of our Unitarian Universalism and to live it out
loud, to live it out loud.
Amen.
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