A Sermon offered by The Reverend Kathleen C. Rolenz
for the West Shore Unitarian Universalist Church
December 8, 2002

Reading: "For Margaret, Who Fights the Same Battle Over and Over,"
 from "Instructions in Joy," poems by Nancy Shaffer.

Listen.
When you quarrel with God
really you are quarreling with
those who have come after God.
It is not God who taught you only
a certain prayer or said reward
lies in only one direction. It is not
God who said "reward" rather than
"embracing love" which is everywhere.
Not God who taught you to hate
God, shun God. Those like you–
two-legged and mortal–did this: those
also hurt, in turn, by others before them.

You could leave off this quarreling:
just begin again, with just yourself
and God. You can choose a different
name for the Holy; stop cringing when
I say mine. Each is only a word for what
can’t be said, the barest beginning,
a glimpse. The rest you may do in private.

But see: what you do there in private,
shows: what you come back with is written
all over you. It doesn’t matter
what the particular word is. Only
that you return there often, opening
yourself to everything that makes it.

Those who taught you what to pray and
how to pray were wrong, if what they
taught you, you hate.

You can begin again.

I know what it's like to have a quarrel with God,

Especially the God of my childhood.

Nobody really knew what God looked like, except for Michaelangelo--

God, in the heavens, Yahweh of the Hebrew Scriptures,

Old man with the beard, who knows if you're naughty or nice

God--of course always a man, never a mother, or lover or friend,

Stern unyielding--a Father, but who wasn't like my father.

Yes, I've always had a quarrel with God

I've always had a quarrel with the Bible as well--

The collection of stories--some of them inspiring and uplifting,

Some seemingly irrelevant for modern life,

Again, patriarchal and bloody and in many cases, downright wrong,

Being told in my Missouri Synod Lutheran Church to simply believe,

To accept it wholeheartedly, to see it as written by God's hand,

Just as the ten commandments were drawn by God's finger.

Oh yes, I've had a quarrel with the Bible too.

I've always had a quarrel with Christianity too--

It's rigidity, it's rites and rituals, sometimes seeming so stale and remote,

It's literalism and moralism; its patriarchy or its piousness;

Feeling freed from the shackles of Christianity when I became a Unitarian Universalist,

How odd, how strange it should be that I am doing a sermon now about being a Christian by Choice.  To quote the Grateful Dead, what a long strange trip it's been!

This morning I invite you to walk with me down one of the paths of our year-long sermon series; called One Church, Many Paths. So far we've looked at Humanism and Buddhism, later on during the year we'll explore Judaism, Paganism, and today, we'll look at the Christian Path.

            It is interesting that for some Unitarian Universalists, hearing the word "Christian" in church, from the minister, is difficult.  I am aware that for some, this church represents a safe haven from the Christianity of their past, a past that, for some, has left scars or wounds that have never completely healed.  And, for some UU churches, hearing a sermon about Christianity can be controversial.  A couple of years ago, I was invited to be the guest preacher at a local congregation.  When I told them what the sermon title was "What is a Christian" there was a furious flurry of emails deciding whether or not they would put that sermon title on the sign board outside. I must admit, I was surprised by the controversy, but it did make me think about where we are at, as a denomination, in regards to those who regard themselves as Christians and who also claim themselves as Unitarian Universalists.  I also began to wonder about my own quarrels with God, with the Bible and with Christianity.  Was there a way of being a Christian in this denomination?  Is there any other type of Christianity other than the Jerry Fallwell or Pat Robertson brand--because this kind of Christian has created more atheists than Madeline O'Hare could ever claim credit for! 

            This morning I want to look at three aspects of Christianity.  First, I want to explore what Jesus scholar Marcus Borg calls the "old" images of Christianity as it relates to the Bible, Jesus and the institution known as Christianity.  I want to contrast that with Christianity within our own faith Unitarian Universalists.  Then, I want to look at what Borg calls "a paradigm shift" in contemporary Christianity; as centuries old Christianity comes in conflict with post-modernity.  And finally, I want to talk about the difference this chosen path in my chosen faith as a Unitarian Universalist has made in my life in terms of spiritual practice and shaping an identity as a Unitarian Universalist Christian.  And, I must give credit to Dr. Marcus Borg, Jesus Scholar, author of many books on seeing God, the Bible and meeting Jesus (Again) for the first time.  Some of us from West Shore attended  his lecture series this past weekend.  Much of what Borg offers is intriguing and meaningful for Unitarian Universalists.  It was reading Borg and John Shelby Spong that helped me to realize there are many, many ways of being a Christian.

            So, let's take a walk with the faith of our childhood--the "old" paradigms of the Christian faith.  If this were a class I'd ask you to call out the images from your religious upbringing (assuming you actually had one) that you were taught in Sunday school.  For me, attending a Missouri Synod Sunday school, the script came pretty easy--it was laid out right there on the felt board for all to see.   God was a man, of course, everybody knew that.  He created the earth in six days.  He was the father of Jesus, but Mary was not exactly the mother, because she was a version.  (I didn't realize until I was about 13 that they meant she was a virgin--not a virgin…)  The Bible is a divine product and it is historically and factually true.  The Bible was written by God, with a little help from his friends, and should read like a novel, flowing from Genesis to Revelations, as part of God's divine plan. Jesus was a miracle worker who did things that nobody else throughout all of history could do--including being physically raised from the dead.  I'm sure you can think of other examples.  This state of uncritical acceptance Borg calls "pre-critical naivete."  Many children are in this camp; as well as our fundamentalist and conservative brothers and sisters.  I want to emphasize, as Borg did the other night, that being in a state of pre-critical naivete is fine as long as you do not impose that belief on everyone else.  If this belief system of fantastic miracles; of God intervening on behalf of history brings you comfort, joy, a deeper sense of compassion and awareness, there is nothing wrong with that.  However, this is not a state in which our Unitarian and Universalist forebears chose to stay.  We've always been religious rebels--heretics--the root meaning of the word "heretic" means simply "to chose." 

            Historically, Unitarians and Universalists have not accepted religious "truths" without question.  Michael Servetus, the 16^th century Spanish physican was one of the first to point out the errors and inconsistencies in the bible.  As a teenager he wrote a book entitled "On the Errors of the Trinity" ridiculing anyone who believed in it.  In a new book about Servetus, called 'Out of the Flames, " the authors write:  "Servetus had become…so frustrated with what he perceived to be the unwillingness of those around him to see the obvious that he was unable to stop himself from shaking them by the lapels.  Servetus was so smart that it never occurred to him that his arguments would be more effective if he didn't imply that anyone holding an opposing view was an idiot."   For all his pains and his intelligence, Servetus was burned at the stake in October 1553.  May we learn something from his example!

            In his controversial sermon, Unitarian Christianity, William Ellery Channing, explained to his listeners that Unitarians feel it our "bounden duty to exercise our reason upon the bible perpetually…"  Unitarians and Universalists have always felt free to make their own opinions about the Bible--about Jesus--about God--and about the Christian faith.  We do not feel compelled to accept the stage of pre-critical naivete, unless we choose to.  Which leads me to the next step of our walk down this path--towards the path of critical thinking.

When I first discovered Unitarian Universalism, it was like a breath of fresh air.  In fact, I've always thought that instead of offering a "Building Your Own Theology" course for newcomers, we should first offer a "Deconstructing Your Theology" class, because that's what many of us have to do with the theology of our Christian past..  I felt liberated to discover there were other people, like me, who questioned the beliefs of our childhood.  Unitarian Universalists have always held scholarship and intellectual study in highest regard, and I was not disappointed.  Even entertaining such ideas as maybe God doesn't exist--perhaps God is just a figment of my imagination; or, perhaps Jesus didn't really come back from the dead was such freedom!  I can't say for sure, but I guess this is where many UU's are in their relationship to their Christian background.  We don't have to take the Bible literally, we can see it, as Clarence Darrow once said, "as a good book--but not the only book."  We realize that the laws, rules and regs from the Hebrew Bible are contextual and historical and may or may not be relevant for our times.  We can re-focus our attention not on obscure and unanswerable questions about the after-life, but rather, focus on this life.  Again, I want to honor and acknowledge that if this is the place where you are in your spiritual journey and with your relationship to Christianity, that's fine.  It's a legitimate and meaningful position.  As critical thinkers, most of us no longer hear the biblical stories as true stories, or at least that their truth has become suspect.  Not it takes faith to believe thm, and faith becomes believing things that one would normally reject. [1]This place of critical reflection on the Bible has distinguished Unitarian Universalists from other mainline Protestant denominations for many years; and it's a part of our history and heritage we should be proud of.

            However--Borg cites a paradigm shift happening in mainstream, liberal Christianity, and it's a shift that affects the future of our denomination as well. It's the stage that he calls "Post-critical naivete," and it's the stage that best characterizes where I am on the Christian path.  To be in the "post-critical naivete" stage means that you don't suspend your rational mind in order to be a Christian.  Again, to quote Borge, "Postcritical naivete is the ability to hear the biblical stories again as true stories, even as one knows they may not be factually true and that their truth does not depend upon their factuality." [2] In other words, you don't have to believe in the virgin birth, or the inerrancy of the Bible, or that Jesus as the only begotton son of God, divine, not flesh and blood like you and me.  To enter this new paradigm, you don't have to accept the Christianity of your childhood; believing in the supernatural or other things that defy the rational mind.  Furthermore, being a Christian is not in conflict with being a Unitarian Universalist.  What you can do, is what UU's have done for centuries, is to see not the literal truth of Scripture, but the metaphorical meanings that point lie beneath the Scripture.  Borg continually asks, "but can a story be true, even if it isn't historically accurate?"  The answer is--of course it can!  We lose so much richness when we insist on taking stories literally, as events that happened in exactly one way.  Metaphor simply means "to see as"--it's the richest device we have to express the ineffable--the story of a people's relationship with the divine.  I appreciated Borg's comments, when he reminds us that Jesus said "I am the light of the world,"--but he's not a candle; "I am the bread of the world," but not a loaf; "I am the lamb of God," but he's not a sheep--it's pointing to something greater, in meanings that exist all around us already.  What Jesus did was open our eyes to them.  He kept trying, through story, through parable, through teaching and through the conduct of his life to say over and over again "the kingdom of God is like this…or like this…" 

            We already know in our hearts what the Kingdom of God is like.  We know it's another metaphor--another way of trying to tell the story of what living in peace, in giving others the benefit of the doubt; of a community of selfless service would look like.  This is the Jesus that I finally came to know again, for the first time.  Not the meek and mild white boy from the Middle East.  Not the Jesus described in the book of John as the mythical hero--but the one who kept saying "hey guys--don't you get it?  Can't you see it?  Don't you know what it means to live as if God existed--as if that which we hold most supreme, most dear, most valuable, took the highest priority in our lives?"  At some point, quite against my will, Jesus became alive to me.  His story became my story; and the Bible was a sometimes desperate, sometimes dynamic expression of a people's faith--which became my faith as well.

            The Jesus I have come to love walked with all kinds of people, from all walks of life.  Nobody was turned away from his table, not Pharisees, not tax collectors, not prostitutes.  He wasn't afraid to touch, or be touched by people.  He didn't live in a gated community.  Can you imagine for a minute, how radical that was, expecially back in his time when to be touched by a leper or a woman considered "unclean" mean being ostracized from one's own religious community?  In his day, the blind, the lame, the physically handicapped weren't put into a sanitary institution, they were kicked out on the streets and left to beg for a living, and Jesus walked among them, touched them, and healed them.  We can puzzle about the miracles, we can apply our skeptics lens to whether or not he actually healed people, but we do know that something happened when people were in his presence.  Maybe the blind and the lame were so astonished that he would even speak to them, much less heal them, that he gave them hope--hope that their lives weren't worthless--because he told them, by his presence among them, and by his actions--the kingdom of God is within you.

            There are many religious teachers in the world's religions; and I admire and honor them all.  However, as I got older, I realized  that I couldn't be guided by them all.   As Wayne said in his sermon on the Buddhist path, I needed a teacher.  I needed to focus on one path that I could practice and follow for the rest of my life.  After reading Spong and Borg, I realized  I didn't have to fight with my rational mind about whether or not certain events happened in exactly this way.  It didn't matter.  What mattered was the presence of God I saw in Jesus; and how he attempted to live that out.  I don't think of him as the only begotton Son of God.  I don't believe he was born of a virgin or even came back from the dead.  None of that matters to me.  What does matter is how he practiced his faith.  And regardless of what theological orientation you claim as your own, I believe how you practice your faith is what really matters.

            Marcus Borg said that "without practice there is little transformation."  I believe that to be true.   All of the major world's traditions offer some guidelines for a religious and spiritual practice.  The Muslim call to prayer five times a day makes you stop what you're doing and devote some time to God.  The Buddhist practice of zazen is a reminder that enlightement is practice, and practice is enlightemment.  And the Christian path of contemplative prayer, or spiritual direction, or corporate worship, all of these are ways that point us towards deepening a relationship with the Holy.  My own practice is a kind of lectio divina, which is a slow reading, reflection, responding and resting with Scripture.  I primarily study the Bible, but also use poets Rilke, Rumi and Hafiz as sources of reflection.  I want to remind you you don't have to choose this path as your way.  As we've said over and over again, this one Church has many paths that lead us towards the Divine, or a deeper life of human understanding, compassion or wisdom.  It doesn't matter what path you choose, but we do hope that you will be intentional about your path.  All of our religious education classes, the Practicing a Unitarian Universalist Religious Life, are geared towards helping you to balance your mind, your heart, your body and your spirit as the practice aspect of your devotional life. 

            Oddly enough, identifying myself as a Christian has made a difference in my life.  Instead of wanting people to be less defined about their theology, I am comfortable with greater definition.  Instead of wanting to meld all the religious beliefs into one big pot, I am delighted with the differences.  Instead of being less tolerant of other's religious position, I find that I am more tolerant, and find more similarities than I ever have before. 

            How does this impact the future of our denomination?  Well,  I think the Episcopalians and other mainline liberal denominations have a leg up on us if we continue to be hesitant to embrace Christianity as a path in Unitarian Universalism.  I'm finding there are many seekers who are not abused by the Christianity of their past--but are looking for a new paradigm--a fresh approach to religious questions.  They are interested in the world's religions; they are excited about finding Unitarian Universalism, but ask:  "Do I have to give up God to be a UU?  Do I have to give up my Christian background?" 

            My answer is always the same--of course not.  We are a people who embrace the Unity of one church--but honor the diversity of many paths.  The Godless Marcher can enjoy a rich fellowship with the Buddhist practitioner or the Christian, or the just plain Unitarian Universalist. 

I no longer feel the need to quarrel with God, the Bible, Jesus or Christianity.  That's not to say that I won't continue to argue, to study, to question, to challenge and to reject.  But I do believe that you can begin again--you can see the Bible and Jesus and Christianity in a new way, in a way that doesn't compromise the intellect.  I believe we can open ourselves up to these ancient texts and words that we can claim as our own, as Unitarian Universalists--seeing them through UU lenses.  I believe the words of the poetry Nancy Shaffer when she writes: Those who taught you what to pray and how to pray were wrong, if what they taught you, you hate.  You can begin again.  Wherever your spiritual path may take you--may you find the wisdom and the courage, to begin again.