Jesus: A Universalist?

Rev. Amy Russell - 2009-04-12

Jesus: A Universalist?
Rev. Amy Russell
April 12, 2009

The image that I was taught about Jesus in Sunday school was a young man with blond hair, blue eyes, flowing robes. A man who was compassionate but bold, a man who was sure of himself and sure that he knew what was right and what was wrong. I did get the idea that if I was bad, Jesus would not be happy. But I was lucky because growing up in an Episcopalian church meant that I was taught about a loving, forgiving God and a Jesus who was also gentle and understanding.
Many of you were not given that kind of image of God or Jesus. Some people are taught that God sent his son, Jesus, to die on the cross to expiate for our sins so that we can have salvation from eternal damnation. But we might have been taught that in order to be saved from the fiery furnace, that we must declare Jesus to be our Lord and Savior. So many people believe in a God who is angry and vindictive. Someone who should be feared and reckoned with. A being much like some of the angry, punishing parents that some people struggle with in their upbringing.
This week, Popular Mechanics published a picture that they think might resemble the real historical Jesus. Looking at this image of a dark, swarthy man with black, wavy hair brings to mind that kind of composite image that airport security might question closely rather than the man that Christians have long lauded as the God made flesh.
Our concepts of who Jesus was and what he was about are a mixture of what we were told as children, what we may have gleaned from documentaries or from reading the Bible (although I somehow don’t think that is a popular activity in this group). Or we could have gleaned ideas from people who were intent on “saving” us when they approached us in the street. We may have warm feelings about Jesus, the teacher, who taught the Golden Rule, who gathered children around him, who at least attempted to heal the blind and raise the dead. Or we may have ambivalent feelings about a figure around whom a whole movement was born. A movement of Christianity that to some feels like a judging, exclusionary movement based on how the Bible is read.
So, what kind of person was Jesus? What was his mission in life?
We don’t know a lot historically about Jesus. There are many biblical scholars who discuss and argue about their very different views about the facts of Jesus’ history . And there are different viewpoints about who Jesus was in terms of what he was trying to do.
The Jesus seminar is a group of scholars who study the man Jesus based on archeology, biblical scholarship, and historical evidence. They then vote on what they believe about Jesus, what the New Testament says about Jesus, and what they think is probably fictional creations of the gospel writers. They have an intricate system of voting with red, pink, purple and black beads on the strength of their belief about something’s authenticity. But they have come up with a few things that they more or less agree about what was probably historically accurate:
• Jesus of Nazereth was born during the reign of Herod the Great.
• His mother's name was Mary, and he had a human father whose name may not have been Joseph.
• Jesus was born in Nazareth, not in Bethlehem.
• Jesus was an itinerant sage who shared meals with social outcasts.
• Jesus practiced healing without the use of ancient medicine or magic, relieving afflictions we now consider psychosomatic.
• He did not walk on water, feed the multitude with loaves and fishes, change water into wine or raise Lazarus from the dead.
• Jesus was arrested in Jerusalem and crucified by the Romans.
• He was executed as a public nuisance, not for claiming to be the Son of God.
• The empty tomb is a fiction -- Jesus was not raised bodily from the dead.
The Jesus Seminar scholars depict Jesus as a Jewish wisdom teacher who was teaching a social gospel message very different from the strict Jewish teachings about Jewish law and ritual popular at that time. These scholars see him as someone who was interested in changing how Jewish people saw their God and how they lived their lives with one another. This is the Jesus who sat down with sinners and who spoke about God’s forgiveness. The Jesus described by these scholars is a person who believed he was sent by God to teach people to love one another and to love God.
This viewpoint differs sharply from other biblical scholars. One of these other scholars, Bart Ehrman, writes about Jesus as a apocalyptic prophet warning the Jews about the end of the world coming in their lifetime. Ehrman points to the passages in Mark, which is considered the gospel written the earliest after Jesus’ death around 65 CE, that talk of the coming Kingdom of God on earth where the “Son of Man” will reign. This view of the gospels see Jesus as believing that God was sending a “Messiah”. A Messiah in Jewish tradition was a king anointed by God, who would rule this world under God’s dictate. Erhman believes that Jesus was not talking about himself as the Son on Man but about someone who would follow Jesus.
The scholars who see Jesus as a prophet prophesying the end of the world, portray Jesus as painting forces in the universe as good or evil. People in Jerusalem during the first century believed in demons and demon possession as we see in the story of Jesus casting out the demon. In their view of the world people were either wicked or righteous. The “Son of Man” would come at a time of judgment when everyone who was a sinner would be cast into the fiery furnace of hell. The people who remained on earth would only be the righteous. This is basically the scenario described in the Christian fiction series, “Left Behind”. The scholars who see Jesus as an eschatological prophet believe that the Synoptic gospels are predicting that this end would come some time soon after Jesus’ death. They say that Jesus’ mission was to sway people toward righteousness because they would soon be judged by the God on High.
Some of you know that lately I’ve been dipping my toes into the new world of Facebook. Facebook, for those of you who are allergic to the internet and don’t really follow what’s happening out there is a web site where people can create their own web site page with their own pictures and comments. It’s also where people can interact with friends or strangers- whoever they decide they want to interact with. This whole world is still a little intimidating to me because I’m not sure what to use it for and I’m afraid that I’ll make some social faux pas. You know like when you go to a party with new friends and you don’t know what kind of thing to wear, like are they jeans people or are they sweaters with pearls kind of people?
Anyway, one of the things you can do on Facebook is tell people what you’re doing at the moment or what you’re interested in. And you can also have conversations with individual friends or make comments about their latest adventure.
So, can you imagine if Jesus had a Facebook page today? What kind of interactions would people have with him?
First of all, you need to picture two very different individuals as described by different biblical scholars as being Wisdom Jesus or End of the World Jesus. Then, let’s imagine how their Facebook pages would differ.
First of all, in Facebook, you are given the option of deciding who will have access to your Facebook page and who won’t. This is called “friending” or I guess you can also “unfriend” someone. “Friend” is this context is a verb.
So, End of the World Jesus would only friend people who righteous or who wanted to become righteous. People who really worked on being “sinless”. I don’t exactly know how he would find that out, but if he is working with God, I guess he’d know. So, many of us would not get “friended” by this Jesus. On his Facebook page would be pictures of the “Son of Man” arriving on earth in fiery clouds with people who are sinners flying everywhere in their destruction.
Now, the Facebook bage of Wisdom Jesus would be very different. First of all, this Jesus would accept everyone as his friend. And when you became a friend, Jesus would greet you warmly and give you one main message, “God loves you and wants you to love others as friends.” On his Facebook page would be pictures of all kinds of people. People from all over the world. Muslims, Jews, Christians, and yes, even Unitarian Universalists would be Wisdom Jesus’ friends. People who were straight, gay, bisexual, or transgendered would be pictured. People who prostitutes, prisoners, drug dealers, and even Bernie Madoff would be this Jesus’ friends.
On this Facebook page, you wouldn’t see any pictures of fiery hell. Because this Jesus believed that God loved all people equally and therefore, would not create a fiery hell but would instead create a wonderful heaven for all. In fact, this Jesus would talk about the Kingdom of God being here on earth, here within each of us. In the Gospel of Thomas, which is not accepted within Christian canon but which is accepted by the Jesus seminar as being more likely to be authentic to what Jesus said reports that Jesus said this:
"If your leaders say to you, 'Look, the (Father's) kingdom is in the sky,' then the birds of the sky will precede you. If they say to you, 'It is in the sea,' then the fish will precede you. Rather, the kingdom is within you and it is outside you.”
Our Universalist heritage taught about a loving, forgiving God. A God who believed in “universal salvation” for all. In this teaching, God did not judge people as “saved” or “sinners” but instead showed mercy for all people and welcomed all into God’s embrace. The Jesus described by the Jesus seminar scholars could be called a Universalist. A person who believed in the goodness possible within all people and the absolute loving nature of God.
So, why does this matter to us at all? Many of us have left our Christian roots long behind; some never had Christian roots at all.
I think it’s important because the Universalist belief in the goodness of humankind and the lovingness of God is the basis for our first principle, the inherent worth and dignity of all people. Our seven principles weren’t just made up on the spot when a group of UU’s got together in the 70’s to create them. Our principles are the inheritance from our Unitarian and our Universalist roots. In both traditions, there is a strong history of emphasizing the goodness of humanity as creations of a loving God.
Harvey told me a great story the other day about a Universalist and a Methodist minister who were riding along on their horses, both being itinerant ministers, discussing the nature of God. The Methodist says to the Universalist minister, “If I were a Universalist, I would steal your horse and high-tail it out of here.” He says this, of course, because he was emphasizing that since Universalist didn’t believe in hell, there was no reason for them not to sin.
So, the Universalist minister replies, “If you were a Universalist, you wouldn’t even consider stealing a horse.”
The Universalists believed that each human was born with a God-given conscience and reason and therefore, would not sin simply because a Universalist would know in her heart that stealing was wrong. Jesus was frequently saying to the disciples, “those who have eyes to see, see and ears to hear, hear”. This is taken as a reference to humans using their own capabilities to understand what is right and wrong.

As Unitarian Universalists, we have a tradition of inclusion of others, not exclusion. That means that we welcome all people here regardless of their religious beliefs, their race or ethnicity, their race or economic status, or their sexual orientation. When we see those bracelets, What Would Jesus Do? That’s what I think Jesus would do. He sat down with the sinners, the adulterers, the tax-collectors. He said that whoever has no sin should throw the first stone. He told us that in his Father’s house there are many rooms. And that God so loved the world, he gave it his Son.
Our principles also suggest that as UU’s we believe in working toward justice, equity, and compassion in human relations. The Golden Rule that was spoken by Jesus, “Do unto others, as you would have them do unto you” is certainly reflected in this belief.
On Easter, Unitarian Universalists often feel uncomfortable with the traditional Christian theology of resurrection and redemption. What does Easter offer those of us who don’t accept the message of redemption through Jesus’ death?
On Easter, we often celebrate the metaphor of new life, as exemplified in the coming of spring with green shoots and flowers blooming. Spring returning after winter has always been honored as a celebration of re-birth.
We can also celebrate the teachings of a man who asked us to trust a universe that gave us the possibilitiy of new life every spring. A man who suggested that love was universal and all-encompassing. A man who taught that every person was loved by God and was therefore loveable.