"The True Ressurection"

Today is Easter. Among orthodox Christians, Easter is the most important day of the year, celebrating Jesus’ bodily resurrection into heaven. Death and resurrection is central to Christian theology and calls for joyous celebration.

Unitarian Universalists, even those who call themselves UU Christians, often struggle with Easter. Few of us believe in conventional understandings of bodily resurrection. Indeed, Unitarians and Universalists have, through the centuries, tended to focus far more on Jesus’ life and teachings than on his death and resurrection. Many of our members are inspired by Jesus’ ministry and gain strength from it, me among them. Whatever one believes, the story recounted in the gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John (and several non-canonical accounts) reveals an extraordinary prophet and poet, well worth studying for the ethical clarity, wisdom, and compassion therein. This morning I want to propose one Unitarian Universalist way of looking what Jesus was calling us to recognize, and of the meaning of resurrection.

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Last week I spoke on Exodus. I looked at Israel’s escape from Egypt mythically, as a prototype or paradigm of liberation. Egypt, in Hebrew, means “the narrow place.” Thus we contemplated the Exodus as a paradigmatic escape from narrowness and into freedom—an archetype, really, of liberation. The Exodus story has important parallels in the Christian story: as the Hebrews passed through water en route to political and cultural freedom, so individual Christians pass through water—baptism—en route to a certain psychic and emotional freedom: freedom (in Paul Tillich’s words) to be. That is, freedom to love; or, rather, freedom to experience coursing through one’s veins the love which “creates and upholds life.”

Think of it this way: while they lived in Egypt, the Israelites were—or at least thought of themselves as being like—a bunch of billiard balls. They were the same size and shape, but bouncing off one another and without cohesion. Their liberation from bondage involved adopting a covenant. This bound them together; now they were like a rack of billiard balls: unified, arm in arm. Jesus’ message, it seems to me, is that whether one knows it or not, all billiard balls are interconnected; we are all subtly and dynamically interconnected aspects of a single web: the Web of Life.

Jesus was neither the first nor the last person to say this; indeed, he was only repeating in a new way what had already been said by the prophets, especially Isaiah. Our Seventh UU Principle—respect for the interdependent web of all existence of which we are a part—affirms the same idea. The important part is that Jesus said this in a unique way that opened the eyes of many who actually heard him and of countless others over the centuries since he died.

What do we actually know about him? Not very much. Biblical scholars pretty much agree, however, on four things:

- He was an itinerant preacher and healer, the leader of a religious movement within Judaism.
- A central part of his message was proclaiming what he called “the Kingdom (or Reign) of God.”
- He taught in parables and aphorisms, challenging many then-prevalent conventions of holiness and social hierarchy. And, finally, that
- He was executed by Roman authorities, probably around the year 36 or 37.

This morning I want to focus on Jesus' proclamation of the Reign of God and on his use of parables. What did he mean? And why that method? Let me venture the following….

Just as today, there were in Jesus’ era many itinerant preachers running around. He had many followers, but he made some enemies, too; especially among the ecclesiastical authorities. By the standards of the day he was something of a blithe spirit; dining and cavorting with notorious sinners, he was no stickler about following ‘the letter’ of Mosaic Law. Minor infractions of the Mosaic Law led to many challenges by scribes and Pharisees—the Pat Robertsons and Jerry Falwells of that era. Jesus always answered his challengers in terms of his elementary principle—that the immanent Reign of God is at the heart of everything. This tactic almost always worked—at least to silence them. Moreover, he had a way of deflecting their animus with parables: simple, memorable stories using humble imagery and often with a surprising or paradoxical twist. His elementary principle, as I’ve said, was the Reign of God. He’d keep coming back to it: the Kingdom, or Reign, of God right here in our midst. It is like leaven, he’d say, or a mustard seed, or a fig tree.

There are at least thirty-six parables attributed to Jesus, depending how you count. There are two common threads running throughout: the web of human relations, and an emphasis on the downtrodden. To be conscious of the web is to live in the Kingdom. And the downtrodden are often more conscious of the web than those who are socially secure.

Inequality is part of life. The parables imply that inequality is part of the Kingdom, too. People differ greatly in terms of energy, intelligence, strength, artistic and musical facility; you name it. The ability to see patterns, connections, and relationships of all kinds—the intuitive side of life—is distributed unequally, too. And for all its ignominy, a diminished social location tends to enhance one’s ability to see such patterns and relationships. Why? Because of need. Need itself kind of presupposes the web; within this common human web of interrelationship, I have a need, and it can only be responded to from within the web. Anytime your position, situation, or attitude in life estranges you from this web, or from seeing its importance, you’re lost. It’s that simple. The good Samaritan , the lost sheep , the Laborers in the vineyard , the judge and the widow : all of these parables are about the web. The people passing by the man who fell among thieves in the parable of the Good Samaritan did not or could not put themselves in his place; i.e., they didn’t or couldn’t see the web. Until you come to the point of recognizing your need of others, you’re outside the web of interrelationship.

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The parable of the prodigal son begins with a man’s younger son leaving home. He partakes of riotous living and squanders his inheritance. Eventually, living in squalor, he comes to his senses and returns home. Seeing him “at a distance,” his father rejoices. Clearly, his joyous reception isn’t dependent on his son’s repentance since the young man doesn’t even have a chance to speak! At this point the plot thickens. The elder brother comes in from working all day in the fields and—not at all surprisingly—is indignant, which (of course) is very very human. “You can have all you want of mine,” says the Dad, “but you can’t take away my fatherhood.”

For the Dad, the relationship is primary and a priori. Not so for the older brother. He’s lost his relatedness and speaks of his brother as “your son.” When his long lost brother returns, the older brother’s need is tremendous. He’s threatened because he feels unappreciated and without status in the eyes of his dad and because he’s lost his relatedness to his brother and his father and even himself. This, too, is very human. As we’ve probably all discovered, when attempting to restore a broken relationship, we often run into all sorts of other problems. To the older son, the Dad was clear: “Look, from my viewpoint he’s come back and this is one of the happiest days of my life.” What he doesn’t say clearly enough is that “You, too, older son, are one of my greatest blessings.” The best you can say for the older brother is that he’s brought to the edge of discovering his need, and therefore his relatedness. The younger brother’s return has busted everything wide open, and nothing in that household will ever be the same again. The web is not a simple thing; all the strands have now been changed.

The parable of the rich man and Lazarus has many angles and directions. Essentially, it asks the question: whence does your motivation, in terms of the Kingdom, derive? If you’re not moved by the condition of Lazarus, what’s the appearance of someone returning from the dead going do for you? The role of the dogs in the parable is touching: they minister to people in ways that even priests won’t do. Throughout, the rich man is unmoved by the human condition. Even in Hell, he fails to get the point: he wants the poor man to serve him still and relieve his torment. He continues to plead—“I don’t want my brothers here”—and doesn’t even say he’s sorry to Lazarus. If you’re only moved by your own suffering, Jesus seems to say, then you’re a long way from the Reign of Heaven. There is nothing inside you that can make the bridge. “Why didn’t the prophets persuade you, not to mention Lazarus? What good is a resurrection going to do?” One can see the last judgment as an extension of this: Jesus as a symbol of the relatedness among things; “whatever thou doeth unto one of the least of these my brethren, thou do it unto me.”

The parables’ recurrent concern with the downtrodden is important. This is because some experience of brokenness has to occur before the Reign of Heaven can open up in a person, before the depth of life can be revealed and understood. Neither the rich man nor the younger brother recognize their need and call out until they’re in pain. Need betokens a dependence in some fashion and this presupposes the web of relationships.

Every person is dependent on a set of relations between themselves and others. If you act as though you’re independent of the web, then you’ve lost the Kingdom; you’re in Hell insofar as you can’t respond to the needs of others and won’t be responded to by them—because you can’t see the web. The older brother’s understanding of reality would make sense if all of life’s variables and experiences could be dealt with accordingly. But they can’t, because if we use the older brother’s belief system then the father will have to give up his fatherhood—which he cannot do. From the older brother’s point of view, relationships are a function of the individual. From his father’s point of view, individuals are a function of the web; the interrelated web is a priori.

Until you come recognize the depth of your dependence, and need, you can’t make it to the new understanding. Furthermore, it’s going to cost you plenty, since your understanding of reality (from the older brother’s point of view) must be wholly sacrificed for the new understanding. If everybody held the older brother’s view, then we would all be impoverished, and although sacrificing the elder brother’s viewpoint for the dad’s costs him plenty experientially, all will eventually be enriched.

Being in the relationship web: this is the Pearl of Great Price .

I was charmed to read that UUCCSM’s ministerial Ministerial Candidate, the Reverend Rebecca Bijur, has made a spiritual practice of singing lullabies. Well I remember singing lullabies to my daughter and how much it meant to both of us. I remember, too, a practice I made, from time to time, of telling Meredith during that same bedtime hour about all the people who were waiting for her to be born, her Aunts and Uncles, her grandparents, her cousins, my students at school, the people in her mom’s and my theater group, her mother’s friends—and I’d name all of these people—my friends, our neighbors in the houseboat community where we lived and where she was born, the women in her grandmother’s quilting group, and on and on: this whole matrix of love and concern that was waiting for her, not even knowing yet whether she was a girl or a boy, or what her name was, but looking forward to meeting her, and loving her, and waiting expectantly for her arrival. “Show me your face before you were born,” asks the Zen master. That face is the web.

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Jesus was executed because the authorities, threatened by his outreach to the dispossessed, decided that he must be a revolutionary—and put him to death. My sense is that neither Jesus’ parables nor his overall teaching are about social justice per se; they’re about relationship. They’re about withdrawing our projections and noticing each other’s beautiful faces and complex natures. Jesus praises the downtrodden and impoverished not because they’re better than the well-to-do, but because the downtrodden and impoverished are the ones most likely to experience and express need. Staying within the web means realizing that regardless of inequality (which apparently exists within the web, too) the rich and successful are just as dependent on the web as everyone else is.

Maintaining a sense of one’s self while remaining connected is never easy. Being in relationship is hard work, especially emotionally. Abandoning the elder brother’s point of view—the idea that you’re an independent agent—is costly; it’s a kind of death. Or ego death. Restoring relationality can be thought of as resurrection. Rebirth, here and now, in the Kingdom: alive, awake and engaged in the interconnected, interrelational Web of Life.

Let us pray.
Spirit of Easter:
Help us to grow. Help us grow in our capacity to experience and express our needs to one another. Help us reach out and hear those who reach out to us. Help us to cease sacrificing others, learning instead to cultivate our own sacrificial hearts. And help us see the Reign of Heaven here in our midst, among those with whom we dwell. Amen.