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PAST SERMONS
"Coming Out as a Christian"
May 22, 2005
Rev. Louise Green, social justice coordinator
READING
Matthew 5: 1-9
SERMON
A Unitarian Universalist congregation like All Souls holds many traditions, all under the wide umbrella of a faith that honors the inherent worth and dignity of every person, our first principle. There is room for the life-long Unitarian, for the goddess worshiper, for the Hindu devotee, for Buddhist meditators, for fallen-away Roman Catholics, and formerly oppressed Southern Baptists. You can be male, female, transgender, straight, lesbian, gay, bisexual, queer or questioning. We strive to include people of all races, ethnicities and nationalities. You may be a theist and express your spiritual devotion to an entity you name God. Or you might use another language of reverence, and invoke Spirit of Life, Higher Power, or a general feeling of transcendence found in the rhythms of nature. You could be a humanist, convinced of the great potential of human beings and searching for excellence in values and ethical behavior.
However, there is one identity that can still evoke tension and misunderstanding. For all the inclusion within UU congregations, there is often great discomfort in being a practicing still-into-Jesus Christian. There are, in fact, a number of UU Christians, and the Universalist tradition is Christian, but the place at the table can feel a bit tenuous. It may be the last closet in the UUA, where coming out involves risk, pain, and a sense that you may not ever belong.
The central problem seems to be that many UUs feel they have matured beyond more limited Christianity, and they will let you know this in no uncertain terms. Unitarian Universalists proudly cite their history of divergence from trinitarian Christians, with more negative stereotyping than would be possible if true respect were present. The superior UU position is seen as superseding the less evolved, less intellectual, and less intelligent Christian faith. But the irony is this: while Unitarian Universalism grew over the last century so did Christianity. Some UUs are still reacting to a narrow understanding of what is possible within the Christian tradition, as if no change had occurred throughout the modern decades. With a very limited education around the Bible, Christian theology, or understanding of Jesus, they are basically dissing what they don't know.
You don't have to be UU to understand that a very right-wing, Biblically fundamentalist and powerful Christian base is organized in this country. Their theological, social and moral values are well-publicized and clearly articulated, and their success well known. But what you may not know is that there is a wide spectrum within the Christian faith, just like in the UU Association. You see this in different denominational structures and polity, in varied theological understandings of God, Jesus and the Holy Spirit, in the understanding of the essential nature of human beings and their relationship to spiritual life, and in the core interpretation of the central Christian story of death and resurrection. There is a huge degree of difference, and to characterize folks who are practicing Christians as all the same is just, well, uninformed. It is the same mistake we make in other kinds of prejudice around race, class, educational privilege, sexual orientation and gender. Any time we generalize about the whole group with limited knowledge, using a small sample, or the most publicized examples, we get into trouble.
So I'm going to get more personal here, and say what some of you already know, that I am a practicing, unapologetic Christian, and an ordained minister in the United Church of Christ. I do sometimes wonder: Is there room at the UU table for me? I am on the staff here as Director of Social Justice Ministries, but this is also my congregational home, where I worship on Sundays, and where I put time, talent, and a financial pledge, as do many of you. I can't believe I'm the only Christian amongst us, but a lot of you are in the closet because it's not the most comfortable denomination or church in which to be "out" as a follower of Jesus.
My own history is as a cultural Christian, an Anglo-Scot Presbyterian, with religious roots way back on both sides of my family. On my mother's side, my great-grandmother went overseas alone as a missionary, married my great-grandfather and raised a family in China. On my father's side, my great-grandfather was a Presbyterian minister in Texas and Arkansas, and so were all three of his brothers. My four grandparents, great aunts and uncles, and parents all grew up Presbyterian and became heavily involved in the church as elder, moderator, deacon, teacher, denominational staff and church musician. I had a fairly liberal church-oriented childhood, took a 12-year time out from age 18 to 30, and came back to congregational life with my existential turning-30 crisis. Soon I felt a tumultuous call to ministry, but decided to claimed a new and more progressive tradition with the United Church of Christ for ordination.
The UCC is sometimes jokingly referred to as "Unitarians Considering Christ," and is the most liberal of the mainline Protestant Christian denominations. It is non-creedal and focused on social justice, honoring the right of the individual to work out his or her own theological positions in dialogue with a community of faith. The polity, or governance, is congregational, without bishops or regional authorities. The congregations hire and fire their own ministers, and agree to go forward together in a covenantal relationship that allows for a wide degree of theological difference and dispute. The denomination nationally is open and affirming to lgbt people and ordains gay ministers and blesses same-sex couples. The UCC is multicultural and multiracial now, but struggling to be more racially and ethnically inclusive as a denomination.
Does any of this sound familiar? The UCC was originally the Congregational church, the very group with whom New England Unitarians parted ways. Many of our traditions are from the same Puritan roots, and the values we believe in are similar. The key difference is in the formulation of who or what God is. In the UCC, there is a 3-part symbology, or trinity, that ties together a lot of theological discourse. Three faces to the same divine force: Creator, Redeemer, and Sanctifier, or God, Jesus Christ, and Holy Spirit. However, views about who God is, who Jesus is, and who or what the Holy Spirit is, again vary widely.
The historical Jesus asks the question in the Gospels, "Who do you say that I am?" This has been a conundrum for many Christians for 2000 years and for millions it is a struggle. My own answer reflects a liberal Christian sensibility, a post-modern divinity school education with socio-historical criticism of the Bible, and my experience in a number of Christian communities that have a passion for social justice. One way I look at Jesus is through the writing of the Gospels in the New Testament, not divinely revealed texts to me, but challenging and spiritually rich just the same. The Beatitudes we heard this morning form the heart of what is often seen as the most important sermon of Jesus, and I hear a preacher who is both reassuring and provocative. As the community organizer Pat Parker used to say, "one hand comforts and the other moves them along."
With one hand Jesus reaches out to the broken in spirit, the mourner, and those seeking mercy. And with the other, he elevates the lowly, the pure in heart, and the peacemaker, turning the usual ordering of social structure on its head. In story after story in the Gospels, Jesus offers the blessing of internal liberation to excluded people, and an opportunity to seek personal healing. At the same time, he challenges the current systems of privilege, disturbing the powers, and questioning whether the rich, the elite and religiously arrogant will in fact come to know God. He is a standard bearer of freedom for Christians, both internally as we seek to heal over time, and externally as we try to disrupt the structures that keep certain people in and certain people out.
The story of Jesus' trial, crucifixion, and resurrection are at the core of Christianity, and changed the historical Jesus into the theological symbol of the Christ or Annointed Messiah. Every Christian must also wrestle with this puzzle, and examine a mystery that will never be fully explained in literal fact or historical confirmation. I agree with one Latin American liberation theologian who said that all that matters is that "we live as if resurrection were possible". To live as if resurrection were possible is to believe that people can change for the better, that forgiveness and reconciliation are desirable, and that there is a value in seeking wholeness with God. I don't believe the power of Christ is in atonement for our sins, which I and many other liberal Christians don't see as necessary. It is also not in the theological elevation of a divine Son Jesus at the right hand of God the Father, which reflects a patriarchal and historical view I also don't share.
To me, the power of Jesus, the power of the symbol of Christ is in the astonishing and gratifying change that takes place when we seek a spiritual life that transforms us and our community. It is the experience of resurrection that I have felt over and over in my life that makes me love the Christian story. It is about my own growth and social change, not my intellectual belief or my dogma, but rather my embracing of the powerful presence of the Holy Spirit to move what seems impossible to move. Transformation happens, and I see Jesus as preaching that essential gospel. I believe in the possibility of resurrection personally, politically, and theologically, and find that the Christian ritual year marks this in ways both universal and exceedingly powerful.
Is there room for followers of Christ in the kaleidescope of prayer and practice and identity that is All Souls? Can the wide umbrella of faith that is Unitarian Universalism hold this Christian experience? Are we able to honor the inherent worth and dignity of every person, without withholding acceptance from those whose spiritual path follows an ancient tradition from which Unitarians diverged? Perhaps as we learn from nature, from Buddha and Moses, learn from Emerson and Channing and Parker, there is also room to learn from Jesus, an itinerant rabbi of a Jewish renewal movement, one who became the Christ of transformation to millions.
May we seek the wisdom of every spiritual path, without fear, without arrogance, without dismissive judgment. May we be open to the Spirit of Life and the Source of Love in our lives, in every way they might emerge. Blessed be and Amen.
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