STANDING BETWEEN TWO WORLDS
December 22, 2002
The Reverend Anne Felton Hines
A few days ago my little grandson helped me put up the Crèche that my family used every Christmas since I was born. It's a beautiful, wooden Nativity scene, with not only the players of the Christmas story, but a donkey and ox as well.
It was hand-carved by my mother's childhood priest. It seems that Mom had shown him the picture in a catalogue of a Crèche made from paper cutouts, and he then began carving small wooden ones for families in his parish. When Mom grew up, married and was pregnant with me, this same priest carved the large one and gave it to her. She says that she has always known she would one day hand it on to me, since it was the year of my birth that she acquired it. (I've felt somewhat guilty about this, since both my younger sister and younger brother are theologically more logical recipients! But I'm managing to keep the guilt at bay!)
Putting out the Crèche was a big moment when I was a child. It required a fairly good-sized table, and we kids would go outside and find pine needles to spread in it, making it look supposedly more authentic. Mom laid cotton strips on the roof of the stable to look like snow, and we would carefully place each figure at strategic spots. I don't remember how it was determined who would place the baby Jesus inside, but that was clearly the job of honor.
But it would be a long time after leaving home before I would want this beautiful artifact in my home; for by the time I married, I had given up the faith of my childhood. Indeed, by the time I had my first child, I'd completely given up any belief in a God, and didn't care one hoot about the man who was supposed to be the "only-begotten Son" of that God - the "Savior of the world" - the so-called "Prince of Peace."
Too many wars had been fought in his name; too much hatred and violence, and just plain ignorance, perpetuated for his sake. And the exclusion of women in the Christian faith - both as disciples in the Gospels, and as religious leaders in the Church - made me furious. So rather than blaming all that ignorance and twisting of his message on the Church, I blamed it on Jesus himself - and quietly but firmly walked away.
And I know I wasn't alone in this. One reason I felt so "at home" in Unitarian Universalism was that it seemed to also reject Jesus. I remember an intergenerational Christmas service at one UU congregation which included a nativity play developed, I think, by the Religious Education department of the UUA. It had all the key players: Mary, Joseph, shepherds, angels, and 3 kings; even had a child who played the part of a star! And of course, it had a baby - except there was never mention of who this baby was; nowhere did the name "Jesus" appear in the play! It could have been the story of any birth. The real "star" of that particular worship service was Santa Claus, who appeared at the end!
Humanity, as St. Vincent Millay contends, has been guilty of stripping the words of Jesus down to tinsel and a day off for us all; we have muted him with the stone of indifference. But haven't we Unitarian Universalists been guilty, too, of silencing him - indeed, of ignoring the whole story of Christmas, preferring instead to focus on the Winter Solstice and all the myths and rituals tied to that celebration? We - I - have had no trouble telling the stories of Mithra and Persephone to our children, but choke on the story of Jesus.
Over the years, however, with the help of Biblical scholars such as Marcus Borg and Bishop John Shelby Spong, as well as Liberation Theologians in Latin America, I have been reminded that the real story of Jesus of Nazareth is one of incredible love and compassion - a love that insists that every person has "inherent worth and dignity," and that calls us to put our compassion into acts of kindness, justice and peace - not just once a year, but every day of our lives.
Remember as kids when you'd whisper a secret to a friend, and then add, "Pass it on!"? It is as if Jesus, through his teachings, has whispered to each of us: "You are loved; you are the hope of the world; pass it on!"
So while I won't suggest we "put the Christ back in Christmas" -- since "Christ" means "Messiah," and that's not our theology -- I do suggest that we Unitarian Universalists put Jesus - his way of life and his teachings -- back in Christmas; indeed, I'd encourage us to bring him back into our lives, throughout the year. I believe that we need to reclaim the man as our brother, teacher, prophet - as one of the enlightened ones.
Yesterday I was watching an old Christmas segment of "All in the Family," in which Archie is arguing with his son-in-law, "Meathead," who has just announced that there's no proof that Jesus was the son of God. Archie replies that of course he was, 'cause the Bible says so. But interestingly enough, it doesn't; none of the Gospels quote Jesus as saying either that he's God or the son of God. He is reported to have said, "I and the Father are one" - but many scholars today interpret that as simply meaning that there is no separation between Divinity and humanity; that the spark of God is alive in each one of us. Pretty Unitarian Universalist, if you ask me!
Indeed, while Jesus didn't say that he was the son of God, there are 70 times when he reportedly claimed to be the "Son of Humanity;" time and time again he proclaimed his humanness.
But the reason I think it's so important that we re-claim Jesus is because of his teachings - or at least, what is recorded as having been his teachings. Bishop Spong, in his book, Liberating the Gospels, asserts that both religious conservatives and religious liberals have forgotten that Jesus and his followers, including the supposed authors of the Gospels, were Jews, and were applying the sacred stories of their religious tradition to this new prophet. According to Spong, almost all of the stories about Jesus are probably mythical, and were simply attempts to interpret what the storytellers experienced as the "presence of God" in this very human person. What is important is not whether the stories were true or not, but what meaning they had for people back then, and what truths they hold for us today - Christians and non-Christians alike.
Contemporary interpretations of the life and words of Jesus open up a new vision of him for us. They invite us to know this humble prophet of old as a man who challenged the rigidities of his beloved religious tradition, but never thought to leave it; who shouted out in anger at hypocrisy, wept for the suffering of others, poked affectionate fun at his disciples, and proclaimed that it is the peacemakers who will be blessed. Here is a man who held up as the most important commandments to love God, and to love our neighbor as ourselves. And whod did he define as "neighbor?" Anyone, but especially those we consider to be completely alien to us.
Nor was it Jesus who excluded women from importance; rather, he included them in almost every aspect of his ministry, supposedly even choosing to appear first to them after his death.
So I celebrate the Jesus who is quoted as saying that if we want to enter the Kingdom of Heaven (which, incidentally, he implied was within each of us), we need to follow his ways of compassion and service to the poor, the oppressed, the imprisoned, and the stranger. In a story found in Matthew's Gospel, a wealthy man asks Jesus one day how to have eternal life, and Jesus tells him to sell all his possessions and give the money to the poor; the man walks away in disappointment!
One of my favorite stories, however, depicts Jesus singling out certain disciples as having fed and clothed him, welcomed him, visited him when he was sick and imprisoned. When they ask, "When did we do that?" he replies, "Whenever you have done that to the least of my brothers and sisters, you have done it to me." But what's even more powerful in that story is that he points to another group of followers and accuses them of refusing food and clothing to him -- refusing to visit him when sick and in prison. When, in astonishment, they ask, "When did we refuse you, Lord?" he responds simply, "Whenever you refuse these things to the least of my sisters and brothers, you have refused them of me as well." To whom, I wonder, might he say those words today? To some of our politicians, perhaps? Or our religious leaders ? Or even, perhaps, to some of us?
I celebrate the Jesus who admonished us to put aside judgment of others until we've first looked closely at ourselves. It is the Gospel of John which records the story of the adulteress surrounded by a crowd of men who wish to stone her for her crime. They ask Jesus what he thinks, and according to the Gospel, "Jesus bent down and started writing on the ground with his finger. As they persisted with their question, he straightened up and said, 'Let the one among you who is without sin cast the first stone.' Then he bent down and continued writing on the ground. When they heard this they went away one by one, until the last one had gone and Jesus was left alone with the woman…"
The Gospel account gives no indication as to what Jesus was writing in the dirt; but there is a later Commentary on it which suggests that what Jesus was writing was the names of the woman's accusers, and a list of their sins!
I celebrate the Jesus who spoke out against hypocrisy, denouncing the scribes and Pharisees who, he claimed, gave the required tithe to the Temple, but neglected the weightier matters of justice, mercy and faith. Again, he wasn't speaking against Judaism, but only against the hypocrisy of some of its leaders - something for which every religion, including ours, needs to keep a watch.
And I celebrate the Jesus who gave as perhaps the most important - but most difficult - lesson, that we must love our enemies - not like them, or condone their actions; but that we must love them, have compassion for them, and even pray for them. He said to his followers, "The Father makes the sun to shine on the just and the unjust."
It is this wisdom - to see God in all people, be they the oppressed or the oppressor -- that guided Mahatma Gandhi, Martin Luther King, Jr., Caesar Chavez and others in their non-violent justice work.
I am great at seeing the spark of Divinity in the people in the homeless shelters, or the mother and child dying from AIDS in Africa, or the victims of the September 11th tragedies, or some of the prison inmates with whom I correspond. But see God in the CEO of Enron Corporation, or in Osama bin Laden, or in the politicians leading us off to war? That's a lot harder for me. But Jesus insists I include those people in my image of Divinity as well.
Jesus of Nazareth was first and foremost a human being like you and me. He was a teacher, a prophet, and a devout Jew. And he walked the spiritual path of enlightenment, and tried to model that to others.
It is not important whether Jesus was born of a virgin or not; what's important is that he was born to ordinary, poor, and displaced people; and he never forgot that that was who he was.
It is not important whether the earth trembled when he died on the cross, or whether he was resurrected in the flesh; what's important is that he died for his convictions, and his followers felt his presence and the gift of his life beyond his death.
It's not important whether he was a Savior who died in order to redeem us; what's important is that whatever he did, he did out of love, and that whenever we act out of such love, we become saviors of a broken world, redeemers of buried hope.
In her book, Teaching a Stone to Talk, Annie Dillard describes her fear as a child of both Santa Claus and God, and consequently, of a neighbor woman who dressed up as Santa Claus each Christmas. At the end of the story, Dillard writes: "Miss White, God, I am sorry I ran from you. I am still running, running from that love from which there is no refuge. You meant only love, and I felt only fear." She goes on: " So once in Israel love came to us incarnate, stood in the doorway between two worlds, and we were all afraid."
Jesus came preaching only love, standing between the world of humanity and the world of the Eternal - which is where we all stand, as we are all sons and daughters of the Most Holy. If Jesus were alive today, I believe that he would be standing with displaced people everywhere, including here in America. I believe he would be standing with the Israelis and the Palestinians, working with them to find some thread of understanding. He would be standing with those who work for peace, encouraging them to not lose faith. He would be standing with the homeless and the desperate, with the elderly who are alone, with the children who are lost, with those dying of AIDS and other diseases, with those struggling with their inner demons, and with all who have forgotten that they are loved.
And I believe he would be standing with all those we might see as enemies of his teachings - those who have the power to end poverty and war and hopelessness, and do nothing. He would stand with them, and hold up the mirror of compassion, reminding them that they, too, are children of the Most Holy, and are an integral part of the family of Creation.
And I believe that this is where he calls us to stand - not only at this season of the year, but in all seasons. He calls us to be bearers of hope, beacons of light, voices for justice and peace - to become, as did he, the incarnation of Love and Courage.
It is as if he were whispering to each of us: "You are loved; you are the hope of the world; pass it on!"
© 2002 Anne Felton Hines. All rights reserved.
