One of the scribes came near and heard them disputing with one another, and seeing that he answered them well, he asked Him, “Which commandment is the first of all?” Jesus answered, “The first is, ‘Hear, O Israel: the Lord our God, the Lord is one; you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind, and with all your strength.” The second is this, ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no other commandment greater than these.”
Then the scribe said to Him, “You are right, Teacher;. . . . this is much more important than all whole burnt offerings and sacrifices." (Mark 12: 28-33)
He lived! Thousands of years ago – born in Nazareth of Galilee, traveling Judea to Jerusalem. He was a teacher, a healer, a prophet. A man of God. He was a faithful Jew who saw perceptively that it was not the laws one followed – an ancient Holiness Code – that led a person to God, but rather faith and love were what led us to embody the Holy.
He taught people to seek God in their own hearts and to act through the Divine heart within them. To love faithfully your neighbor as yourself. To be generous with what you had, and to have humility before God. It was not by following the laws, as set forth in the holiness code, that led to faithfulness with God. It was by following a life of the heart – a life open to God’s Essence.
Jesus lived a life of faith. But he was first a student of that faith. He learned about Jewish law. He practiced his tradition. He asked questions of other rabbi’s - other teachers. Finally, he came into his faith and went to the banks of the River Jordan to claim that faith and be baptized by John the Baptist. At the moment of his baptism Mark tells us how God’s Essence came over him, and a deep and abiding faith welled up within him.
Immediately after this transcendent experience, Jesus was filled with doubt and temptation. Jesus was driven into the wilderness for 40 days while he wrestled with his new knowledge and was tormented by an internal spiritual struggle as he grappled with the human power to do good and evil. This struggle would recur again and again throughout his life, a testimony that tells us even those endowed with holy inspiration, face crises of faith that are painful and difficult – human faith falters.
It is only after this struggle in the wilderness that Jesus begins his life as a teacher. The time in the wilderness was his resurrection in life. A turning point, after which everything was different.
Jesus’s faith in God and in God’s goodness had been tested in the wilderness. And it is a renewed and deeper faith that has taken hold of him--and this is the faith he seeks to share with the world, with his followers, for the rest of his days. With this faith he can heal and teach and preach. And he seeks to call the people to listen and follow the Essence of God – the Holy Spirit that is active in our lives.
What is God’s Essence? I think Bishop Sprague – the outgoing Methodist Bishop here in Chicago - has a good description:
“God is not a Supreme Being “out there” in the great beyond. Rather, the word God is the sound image we humans employ to point to the very essence of it all that is both in our midst and yet beyond the boundaries of time and existence. . . . Not limited by time or space, history, or creation, God has been, is, and ever shall be. God is the Essence of it all and is constantly . . . at work creating, loving, doing justice, calling humans and all creation into relationship by forgiving, reconciling, empowering, and transforming so that all human beings and the whole created order might be saved.”
God’s Essence is the force at work in our lives that makes the wounded whole, forgives sins, reconciles, renews, guides history toward justice, drives creation's evolution and is the foundation of what is to come.
Somehow Jesus’s relationship with the source of our being, with God’s Essence, was so keen that he was able to embody that Essence in some way – and sought to share this experience, this incarnation, with others. He tried all his life to teach what he had discovered. He tried and tried and tried, and failed.
After telling yet another parable – that of the sower, he laments to the 12 apostles: “Do you not understand this parable? Then how will you understand all the parables?” (Mark 4:13)
The Apostles didn’t get it. They tried and tried and tried to get it. But parable after parable Jesus had to explain. Over and over again he tried in vain to reveal his own discovery, to share his faith. But to no avail.
Finally, Jesus returned to Jerusalem, a notable if heretical teacher. He is welcomed by the people and then betrayed by those who feared the potential of his power. Who misunderstood his faith.
Throughout the Gospels Jesus the man is a holy teacher, a healer, a prophet and a preacher. He travels far and wide with his disciples sharing his message. But throughout the story he is also a man – a fully human being who is full of questions, doubts, faith, frustrations, love, family difficulties, and desires. He is a man who lived and breathed and died – painfully – executed by the authorities, betrayed by his people, denied in this dark hour by those closest to him – even his friend Peter.
The person featured in the Gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke and even John, is Jesus the man. When then, does this man Jesus become Christ? What changes and when?
As I read the Gospels, I notice Jesus is not referred to as Jesus Christ - except once in the opening verse of Mark. And Jesus never refers to himself as Christ. Jesus is a man who talks about God and about his deep faith in God. He is possessed of a deep faith which has inspired his loving, saving, reconciling message about how humanity is called to live. I read and I wonder.
Jesus Christ enters the story with Paul – Paul the convert and church-builder. Paul whose ministry came long after Jesus died. What happened between the death of Jesus and his resurrection at the end of the four Gospel stories of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John and the beginning of Paul’s letters written to the Christian faithful a generation later, telling of salvation in our Lord Jesus Christ. How does Jesus become Christ?
Jesus had so embodied God’s Essence in his life, and his faith has been so great, and his actions had been so full of love – he had been so intimately in relationship with his God that the Apostles had been captivated by him. Had followed him as their teacher. When he died they thought all was lost. Those who followed him thought such an experience of faith was over for them – destroyed in death. But at the tomb they discovered otherwise.
Mary Magdalene, Mary mother of Jesus, found the empty tomb and they too were empty. But in their loss they heard the whisper of faith – heard the stir of God’s Essence in them and finally understood – Jesus hadn’t possessed special knowledge that was lost forever. He had listened for the stir of God’s Essence in his life and had lived accordingly. They could do the same. God was available to all people – Jews and Gentiles: the holy is concerned with the openness of your heart and the depth of your faith, not the prescribed rituals of the holy written down by priests.
This realization helped the Apostles discover they had learned something from their teacher – finally! They had learned to be faithful and to follow a life of love and compassion. A life of generosity and heart. A life aimed toward justice and equity – loving thy neighbor as thyself.
They discovered what they had seen in Jesus was alive in their own hearts. God’s Essence was in them as well. And with this realization Jesus becomes Christ – becomes the holy image of God’s manifestation in human life – available to us all – not by law but by our faith and through our own acts of loving-kindness.
This understanding of Christ is in fact what our American Unitarian forebears proclaimed. As Unitarian Universalists we tend to focus on the actions of Jesus – his healing and teaching. The way he called for generosity – his willingness to help the poor and heal the sick. His acceptance and welcoming of those who were ostracized from society. He fed the hungry, clothed the poor, challenged the powerful. He lived a frugal life, not an opulent one. He gave of his time and energy and talent to serve others. He tried to share what he had come to know.
Our faith today looks at this fine example and we acknowledge the important ways it shows us how to be in the world. To love our neighbor as ourselves. We pay great attention in our faith today to our acts of love and justice, compassion and equity. We strive to serve the good of all creation, and to consider all of life in what we do. We see the inherent worth and dignity of every person and try to live in a way that reveals this belief. In other words we pay a lot of attention to the second commandment Jesus taught: “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.”
But remember, this commandment was not the answer Jesus gave when he was asked, “Which commandment is the first of all?” When asked this he answered, “”The first is, ‘Hear O Israel: the Lord our God the Lord is one; you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind and with all your strength.’ The second is this, ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’”
The actions of Jesus – full of heart and justice-making – his healing and teaching, preaching and prophecy were all actions that flowed from his deep faith. It was his depth of faith that led him to live a life that was holy.
We do a good job talking about right action, but not such a good job embracing the faith that sustains those actions. For Jesus - faith came first.
We can’t forget to attend to the source of his story – the faith that fed Jesus life. But we do forget. Religious wisdom and religious action, no matter which faith tradition you turn toward, rise from a deep and abiding faith – and this faith leads to love and justice being done.
And so for us, Easter Sunday is our call to remember this faith and trust in God’s Essence. A humble knowledge that life is not all within our control. There are things we cannot will into being.We cannot will ourselves to love. Many years ago my best friend and I dated. We cared deeply for each other. We could talk about anything. We had similar values. We tried to fall in love – but we couldn’t. Love comes to us mysteriously – a gift of life’s essence – a gift from God. We can prepare ourselves – we can participate in love's blessing – but we cannot create it ourselves.
We cannot will forgiveness. I cannot tell you how many people come to me asking how they can forgive. I can talk with them about their hearts and their hurt and their anger and their fear. The journal writing, the self-reflection, the effort to make amends are ways we participate in forgiveness – but ultimately we cannot will forgiveness to come. That final leap of forgiveness – the moment our heart changes and is flung open again and we are somehow healed – we cannot will that event. Some force is at work with us. We participate, but we cannot control.
There are moments of revelation in our lives when we see – all of a sudden – that everything is different. Nothing has changed really, but everything has changed.
Whatever you call that force – that transcendent stuff – God’s Essence, the Holy Spirit, Divine Light – whatever you call it, it is precious and fragile. And we can reach toward it, be open to it, but such an essence we cannot control. The early Christian community described the leap from Jesus the man to this Divine Unknown “Christ”. He lives.
Christ is not a central part of my own personal way of participating in God’s Essence, but it is certainly instructive to see and understand how Christ vividly describes in human terms God’s Essence. The Holy dwells in us.
I have sat with people in my office, in hospital waiting rooms, in their homes, and had our exchange touch this essence. When the human heart opens up and is filled with love – such moments are holy – and precious. And all too brief.
Treasure the shared life we are called to lead – lives of love and justice, compassion and dignity. And treasure too the faith and trust and hope that we share and that fuels our actions. Our Unitarian Universalist faith calls us to follow the example of Jesus. To see his life – committed to love, hope, generosity, abundance, committed to serving others and extending to and empowering those less fortunate as a guide to how we are called to live.
And let us not forget the Spirit that held him. Let us not forget to follow his example of faith. He trusted the Mystery, God’s Essence, the Spirit – “Abba” as he said. He trusted and leaned into this trust with tremendous faith. Feeding thousands with but little. Healing the sick. Leading the spiritually dead back to life. May we too lean into our faith.
“God is not a Supreme Being “out there” in the great beyond. Rather the word God is a sound image we humans employ to point to the very essence of all that is both in our midst and yet beyond the boundaries of time and existence.”
May we trust God’s Essence – the gift of love, the restoration to wholeness, the forgiveness of sins, the reconciliation of humanity, the movement toward justice, the evolution of creation – seeking to live lives of faith with works that enact the heart of Goodness in the world.