Jesus, in our Unitarian theology, is not a savior, but a teacher, not a god, but an example for all humanity. He doesn’t do the work for us, but teaches us how to do our own work. And as an example of the best we can be, his example calls each of us to be teachers as well.
This year, we’ve been looking, during our worship time, at spiritual practice.
Spiritual practice is the doing part of religion. What do you actually do with your faith?
If faith is our beliefs, plus our values, plus our actions, spiritual practice is the actions: the active part of our faith.
Spiritual practices have both an inward and an outward movement.
Inwardly, spiritual practice is the way that we explore and deepen our faith.
Outwardly, spiritual practice is the way that we express our faith.
Inwardly, spiritual practice, is the means by which we examine the questions of Identity and Meaning. Who am I? as an individual. Who are we? as a human species. What is real about the world and what is illusion? What is life for? And what happens after I die? And the question of meaning, “Why does it matter?”
Outwardly, spiritual practice is our answer to the question of purpose, “What should I do?”
From our Beliefs and our Values, which is our theology, we say to ourselves, “OK then, the world and I being what we are, and this set of values being important, or worthy, here is what I should do.”
Some spiritual practices are more focused on the inward part of faith, searching for our answers to the spiritual questions and putting together our worldview. Other spiritual practices are more focused on the outward expression of our faith, where we say, “OK, then, now that I’ve got that worked out, here is what my faith calls me to do.” But every spiritual practice is a little of both, the means by which we explore and deepen our faith, and the means by which we express our faith through our lives into the world.
We started this exploration of spiritual practices by looking at the most common ways that Unitarian Universalists “do” our religion, I mean the kinds of spiritual practices that we do together as a spiritual community. For many of us, gathering for worship is the most obvious way we do our faith, exploring and deepening our faith, asking and answering the spiritual questions, and expressing our through faith the rituals and readings and singing that comprise our Unitarian worship.
After some examples of spiritual practices done with our spiritual community, we then looked at several kinds of spiritual practices that people do individually. There are quite a variety of these kinds of spiritual practices. You might do one or two: meditation, prayer, movement practices like tai chi, or yoga, or walking a pilgrimage or hiking in the woods, gardening, creative practices like painting, or dancing, writing poetry, keeping a journal.
Just about any activity can be a spiritual practice, so I encourage you to find the one that works for you. Just remember that a spiritual practice must be a practice, so we’re not talking about one time spiritual experiences, (although those can be significant) but we’re talking about a practice that you commit to repeating on a regular schedule: a practice designed to develop your spiritual capacity, so that the whole of your life can be more consistently spiritually rewarding.
And remember also, that what transforms a mundane activity like gardening, or knitting, or cooking, or working out at the gym, into a spiritual practice is three characteristics.
A spiritual practice is intentional. That is, you are deliberate about naming the activity as spiritual, and you focus on the spiritual aspect as you do it.
A spiritual practice is holistic. That is, the spiritual practice involves all of you as you do it, mind, body, and spirit. Your body is occupied, your mind is engaged, your awareness is focused on where you are and what you’re doing, not thinking about other things, or trying to do three things at once.
And a spiritual practice is ecstatic. Ecstasy in the spiritual sense is that feeling of being at one with the universe. Your sense of self expands beyond the narrow ego of “me” and “I” and you feel connected to and embraced by something larger than yourself.
Finally, in the last couple of weeks, we arrived at the third category of spiritual practices, those practices that we do in public and with people who are not part of our spiritual community.
Public witness, as a spiritual practice, like testifying at a city council meeting. Activism as a spiritual practice. Doing volunteer work for an organization that is living out your faith values in some way.
Last week, we looked at parenting as a spiritual practice. Parenting as a way of exploring and expressing our faith, doing our religion, for our children, within our family.
And today, I want to end this series on spiritual practice by looking at one more means of exploring and expressing our faith in public, I mean, teaching as a spiritual practice.
Bill Schulz says, in the words we used as our Opening Words this morning:
“This is the mission of our faith: To teach the fragile art of hospitality.”
Teaching is one aspect of the mission of our faith. Not to hold our faith to ourselves, but to share our faith. To help other people know what we know, and do what we do. “To teach the fragile art of hospitality.”
For Bill Schulz our mission also includes reverence for the critical mind and the generous heart. And then he gives two more examples that are both a kind of teaching by example: “To prove that diversity need not mean divisiveness; And to witness to all that we must hold the whole world in our hands.”
The mission of our faith, for Bill Schulz, is not just that kind of mission work where we directly reduce the suffering of other people. Mission work like giving food, giving clothing, giving money, or working to change public policies that propagate injustice against the vulnerable. Mission work, for Bill Schulz, is also teaching others so they can help themselves. Here’s what I’ve learned. Here’s how you can make your life healthier, more joyful. Here’s how we can work together to make human communities healthier and more joyful.
To teach the fragile art of hospitality.
To prove, through the successful example of our own diverse community, that diversity need not mean divisiveness.
To witness to all that we must hold the whole world in our hands, because they can see us, doing that work of holding.
As we come close to the Christmas holiday, it’s natural to start thinking of the life and message of Jesus, even if, in a Unitarian church, we don’t consider Jesus very often throughout the rest of the year.
And at Christmas time, perhaps more starkly than at any other time of the year, the difference between the Unitarian perspective on Jesus, and the more orthodox Christian understanding of Jesus becomes clear.
Christmas is a strange holiday for Unitarians to celebrate.
Jesus, in the Christmas story is merely a baby. Jesus has no lines in the Christmas pageant. He sleeps. He cries, perhaps. Perhaps he smiles, silently. He lies in the manger. He doesn’t do anything, of course not, he’s just a baby.
Everything that Unitarians revere about Jesus comes after this scene in Bethlehem. He’s great only because of what he will do, in our Unitarian theology. But in the Christmas story we’re supposed to believe that he is already great. Praised by angels, honored by kings, revered by shepherds.
Because to Christians, the baby Jesus is already God incarnate. The mere fact of his being born is already a miracle, a significant achievement in the salvation story that will eventually have this god child, die for all of us to pay the sacrifice required to balance the cosmic account books against our human sin and win for all humanity our eternal life.
But for Unitarians, who regard Jesus as strictly a human being, everything that will make Jesus important is still to come. Not part of the Christmas scene at all. The birth is just a birth, which is nice, but no miracle. The angels and star and shepherds and kings are just the kinds of elements that get attached to the stories of the births of mythic beings but are really beside the point for a human baby who will grow up to have a significant but strictly human life. And what we Unitarians want to celebrate in Jesus’ life won’t happen yet for thirty years and far away from the manger scene in Bethlehem.
What makes Jesus important to Unitarian Universalists is not his birth, or his death, but his life. And what makes Jesus important to Unitarian Universalists, in particular, is his teaching. It is Jesus the teacher, that we revere, not Jesus the savior. Not the Jesus who did great things on our behalf, but the Jesus who showed us how to do great things. Not the Jesus who lies in the manger and asks nothing of us, not the Jesus nailed to a cross who suffers and dies for us, while we watch and pray. Not the Jesus who changes our lives for us, but the Jesus who asked us to change our lives. The Jesus who, throughout his public ministry, told us what we needed to do, taught us how to do it, challenged us to try a new kind of life, and proved to us by his example that such a life was possible for any human to live.
To teach the fragile art of hospitality;
To prove that diversity need not mean divisiveness;
To witness to all that we must hold the whole world in our hands.
In Unitarian Universalism it is our understanding that each person is responsible for our own “salvation.” And salvation for Unitarian Universalists doesn’t mean an afterlife in Heaven, but a “heaven on earth” in this life. Each of us, like Jesus, is good enough, smart enough, and strong enough, to make a life of health and joy for ourselves, and to work with others to make lives of health and joy for all people and to care for the planet we share.
Jesus’ role in this Unitarian Universalist salvation story is not to do the work for us, but to show us how it’s done. Throughout his life, Jesus explicitly taught the lessons we need to know to take care of ourselves and each other, and when he wasn’t explicitly teaching, Jesus was showing us what to do by his example.
You probably know some of Jesus’ teachings. And you’ve probably incorporated some into your own life, or at least try to. Jesus himself summarized his teaching in what is called the Double Love Commandment. “Love God with all your mind and body and spirit and strength; and love your neighbor as yourself.” In other words, align your whole being with the best and highest you can conceive, and love all the world because you and the world are one interdependent existence.”
But there is one part of Jesus’ teaching that we often overlook in our Unitarian perspective.
We say that the usefulness of Jesus to our spiritual lives is his teachings. And we say that one of Jesus important teachings is the example of his own life.
And therefore, say Unitarian Universalists, we ought to do what Jesus taught us to do, and we ought to live as Jesus lived.
So doesn’t it follow, then, that one of Jesus’ most important teachings for us, is that we should be teachers?
If we should live by Jesus’ example, and Jesus lived as a teacher, we should be teachers.
Jesus is addressed directly in the gospels 90 times. He is called, Lord, Master, Savior, Rabbi. More than any other title, 60 times, out of 90, he is called, “Teacher.”
In Gospel scene after Gosepl scene something happens like this:
in Matthew 4:23
“Jesus was going throughout all Galilee, teaching in their synagogues and proclaiming the gospel of the kingdom.”
Or Mark 6:34
“When Jesus went ashore, He saw a large crowd, and He felt compassion for them because they were like sheep without a shepherd; and He began to teach them many things.”
Or Luke 5:3
“And He got into one of the boats, which was Simon’s, and asked him to put out a little way from the land. And He sat down and began teaching the people from the boat.
Or John 8:2
“Early in the morning He came again into the temple, and all the people were coming to Him; and He sat down and began to teach them.”
Jesus teaches throughout his life, by parable, by story, by interpreting the wisdom of others contained in scripture, and by the constant example of his actions.
And what is the very last teaching that Jesus gave? In the last verses of the Gospel of Matthew, after the resurrection and before he ascends to Heaven, Jesus says this. It’s known as the Great Commission:
“Go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you.”
Jesus commands us to be teachers.
Some of you are literally teachers.
I’m married to a teacher. My mother was a teacher.
Teaching is a very common profession among Unitarian Universalists. Teaching is part of our culture.
All of us should consider ourselves teachers.
How do we take the good news we’ve learned from our Unitarian Universalism and share it with others? How do we teach, by word, and by example, as Jesus did?
We could teach our children here at church by volunteering in our Religious Education program. We can teach our children at home. We can teach other family members, or friends and neighbors. We can be explicit by using words, or we can teach by example. The inherent worth and dignity of every person. Justice, equity, and compassion in human relations. The goal of world community. The interdependent web of all existence.
We can teach our faith, by deed, not creed, as we talked about a couple of weeks ago. We can hand down to our children “the heritage of mind and heart, laughter and tears, musings and deeds.” As de St-Exupery encouraged us in our opening words last week.
We can be generous in not holding fast the good gift of our faith to ourselves but in sharing it with others, and with the world.
For a faith that doesn’t much believe in supernatural saviors who will do the work for us, we must be faithful in equipping all people to do what they must do for themselves.
Be that teacher faith directs.
Be that helper nothing daunts–doubt of friend or taunt of foe.
Be that guide whom love sustains. Rise above the daily strife:
lift on high the good you find. Help to heal the hurts of life.