Sermon August 13th 2006 - Rev June Pettitt

A Unitarian Minister looks at the life of Jesus

Although we don't have sermons on our Christian heritage every week, I think it is important to remember that our Unitarianism emerged from a Christian background...and indeed, there will be many people who see their Unitarian faith as a Christian faith, although different from the mainstream. Our Unitarian Christian tradition has been to focus on the life of Jesus, Jesus as a man. We want to know what he was as a person, that is, as described in the Gospels . So I thought I would say a little about that this morning.

The problem is that we don't know for sure a lot about Jesus. How much we know for sure is disputed. It is true that we have accounts of his life in the Gospels, but we always have to remember that the Gospel accounts were written down in that form some time after Jesus lived, and were not written as history in the sense we understand that today. Some stories may have been included because they were stories of meaning for the early Christians, to tell them something of the meaning and significance of Jesus, this is different from telling each event in Jesus' life as it happened, as you might now if you were writing a biography of someone.

Also, I would like you to think of how in our own times there can be different interpretations and different accounts about something which happened a month ago, think how it must have been in the first century, and how accounts of Jesus' life and its meaning had been passed down a generation or more before they were put into the form of a Gospel. So we don't know for sure how much is literally true.

The first Gospel to be written was probably Mark's gospel, sometime around AD 70, around the time of the destruction of the Temple in Jerusalem by the Romans, so you see, that was some time after the death of Jesus..also, no doubt the writer of Mark was influenced by these events when he wrote the Gospel. The Gospel of John, a different type of gospel was probably put together at the end of that first century, although no-one actually knows for sure.

So, we just don't know for sure if the portrait of Jesus in the Gospels is completely accurate, but then I think it is worthwhile to use what is written in the gospels to explore what sort of person Jesus probably was....bearing in mind, that there are people who have been doing that for centuries, and many found it changed their lives..that is the important bit - many people who followed the way of Jesus found it changed their lives.

Jesus was a man. That might sound obvious, but there are ideas about Jesus being the uniquely Divine Son, or perhaps for some, a semi-divine being, so I think that to say Jesus was a man is an important place to start. I point to a passage in the Bible Luke Chapter 18 verses 18-19:

A certain ruler asked him, 'Good Teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?' Jesus said to him, 'Why do you call me good? No one is good but God alone'.

I think in that passage Jesus is saying that he, Jesus, is not God. (I have to tell you that there are some people who would dispute my interpretation of this passage. .and would argue the exact opposite).

An important point to remember is that Jesus was a Jew and in the Jewish culture of the times no one was likely to claim to be God.

So I point to that passage in the Bible which I think is about Jesus being a man, not God. .and did you know that author Dan Brown in his Da Vinci Code has made the whole business of Jesus' humanity and divinity an issue again? Yes, I have finally got round to reading this book because I have heard so much about it. One of the characters in Dan Brown's novel - on page 315 of this best seller - talks about how Jesus' divinity was voted in at the Council of Nicaea, a council of Bishops who met in Nicaea, which is in Turkey..this was in the fourth century.

Although I would certainly say there is some simplifying here ..of complex issues in this account in Dan Brown's novel, (I am not saying this depiction of history is entirely accurate),

......but Unitarians can say that they have been pointing out the significance of the Council of Nicaea for some time now......for Unitarians have wanted to restore Jesus the man rather than recite creeds about his divinity which have their distant origins in that Council in the fourth century.

So I would emphasise the humanity of Jesus, and I think that Jesus was a wandering healer and teacher, who had quite a gift for attracting people to his teachings. Jesus was a teacher who astounded people by his teachings:

Matthew chapter 7 verses 28 to 29

Now when Jesus had finished saying these things, the crowds were astounded at his teaching, for he taught them as one having authority, and not as their scribes.

Jesus taught love of neighbour and he taught forgiveness.

It seems that Jesus had quite a gift for telling stories, and I think clever in the way he answered questions that were put to him, sometimes by opponents. His ability to attract large crowds would have been a very dangerous thing at that time, because the Romans were ruthless against anyone who might stir up trouble in their Empire.

The Jewish authorities were also wary of anyone stirring up trouble, because their privileged position was dependent entirely on the goodwill of the Roman occupiers. ..and they were very privileged, and so did not want any disturbance of the peace.

What comes over very strongly in the stories we have about Jesus as recorded in the gospels, two points I have here...

•  is that he had a concern for people, particularly the marginalized and the poor

•  and also a close relationship with God whom he called Father.

It is useful to understand some of the social and economic background of those times. It is important to know how desperate some of the population would have been. There had been an agricultural revolution going on, in that farming was becoming more commercialised, so that although farming was doing well and the yields may be high, the ordinary people were losing out, the system favoured the wealthy landowners. The rich were getting richer and the poor poorer. Sometimes people sold themselves into slavery to survive, or sold their children into slavery.

At the time there was a real concern for the material basis of life: land and food. When debt is mentioned in the Gospels, we have to remember that this was a real problem at the time. The land had been thought of as God's land, as God's land it was for all the community, but now it was becoming land for the rich, and land for the Roman Empire . Ordinary people were soon in debt. You see - the taxes, which had to be paid, were another big problem for ordinary people. The land produced food, but remember there were Roman Legions around, they had to be fed, too.

In opposition to this, Jesus believed in a Kingdom of God . .or Kingdom of Heaven...or some have said 'The reign of God'. We do not know exactly what the Kingdom of God meant, but it would be a place where the poor and marginalized would be accepted. God's values would replace all the corruption and exploitation and degradation and power politics.

It is important to remember that Jesus did not urge his followers to acts of violence to achieve this. Others in those years did resort to violence: there were bandits and revolutionaries.

Also - The Kingdom of God was for this life, we are not talking about an afterlife, and it would be an age of peace. It was an in breaking of a new way of living, and in this new kingdom the lowly would have a place, the proud would be displaced.

This kingdom Jesus spoke of was not the way of the Romans, the way of military might. To say Jesus is Lord, would have meant that you don't think Caesar is Lord, and therefore this would have been treason. To say Jesus is Lord would have had a particular significance that perhaps is lost now. The emphasis needs to be on Jesus is Lord, rather than on Jesus is Lord.

Jesus had a concern for people. People and their needs were more important than the rigid following of the formalities of religious law. It was not that Jesus was rebelling against the Jewish religious law, Jesus was a Jew and he quoted the commandments, but Jesus did prioritise the needs of people and was suspicious of empty religious forms, suspicious of outward ritual rather than genuine goodness . So Jesus was willing to heal on the Sabbath. Nowadays we talk about how deeds are more important than creeds. I think Jesus would have agreed.

People can no longer go back to first century Palestine to follow Jesus, of course not, but people have been influenced by, and have drawn from the Jesus' stories about how to live: drawn from the ideas of Jesus which people have adapted to the times and situations in which they live. How do his ideas about a kingdom of God , or the reign of Love if you prefer to see it that way, how would such ideas fit in the way you live your life? That is what people have asked themselves over the centuries.

Jesus has not just influenced people in the Christian tradition, but has been admired by people of other faiths. Muslims see Jesus as an important prophet. The spiritual leader, Gandhi, was a student of Hindu philosophy and also Gandhi particularly admired Jesus. Gandhi decided that he did not have to become a Christian to admire and follow the teachings of Jesus: particularly Gandhi admired the Sermon on the Mount. Gandhi did recommend to Hindus that they seriously study the life and teachings of Jesus.

"Jesus occupies in my heart," said Gandhi, "the place of one of the greatest teachers who have had a considerable influence on my life. I shall say to the Hindus that your life will be incomplete unless you reverentially study the teachings of Jesus... Make this world the kingdom of God and his righteousness and everything will be added unto you..."

('Gandhi and Christianity' edited by Robert Ellsberg and published by Orbis Books, Maryknoll, New York 10545.)

So that is from Gandhi - as a Unitarian I am quite happy with Gandhi's method, Jesus clearly influenced his life. The fact that Gandhi did not become a Christian, I think is less important than what Gandhi did in his life.

Let us consider what- as a Buddhist leader - The Dalai Lama has said about Christianity. The Dalai Lama - although he agrees that there will be some people who will feel the need to change religions - he actually advises people, in general to explore their own religion in depth rather than swap about, ..and the Dalai Lama said for Christians,

(For a Christian)

... 'One might reflect upon the life and example of Jesus Christ himself, how he conducted his life, how he worked for the benefit of other sentient beings, and how his actions illustrated a compassionate way of life.'

And the Dalai Lama goes on to say that one could meditate on the life of Jesus in this way, to draw from this example of a life of compassion, until one has an experience of feeling changed from within.

(The Good Heart: A Buddhist Perspective on the Teachings of Jesus by His Holiness the Dalai Lama 1998 Wisdom Publications, Page 46)

changed from within

People again and again are held and fascinated by the life of Jesus, and come back to the values that Jesus declared were the ones that really mattered. Jesus did not believe status and power and money were the ultimate values to follow, rather compassion for all is an ultimate value. .and remember, hearing about Jesus has changed many lives over the centuries.

Amen

 

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