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Jesus cried; Voltaire smiled. From that divine tear, from that human smile was born the sweetness of civilization today. Victor Hugo, centenary oration on Voltaire, 1878

My object will be, if possible, to form Christian men, for Christian boys I can scarcely hope to make. Thomas Arnold, 19 c. English headmaster

I’m taken aback when people walk up to me and tell me they are Christians. My first response is the question, “Already?” Maya Angelou, Wouldn’t Take Nothing for My Journey Now, 1993

The Christian ideal has not been tried and found wanting. It has been found difficult; and left untried. G.K. Chesterton, 1910

I believe that everyone has the right to their own religion, be you Hindu, Jewish or Muslim. I believe there are infinite paths to accepting Jesus Christ as your personal savior. Steven Colbert

INTRODUCTION

Several days ago in a rural Amish community, 5 girls were killed in a random act of violence. The Amish community responded in a way which seems to have been inspired by their Christian commitments. Forgive the man who killed our children, they said. We must forgive him. They did not call for retribution. The widow of the killer was even invited to one of the funerals, and it was said she would be welcome to stay in the community. This, the Amish said, was Jesus' way.

Martin Luther King Jr., recalling Jesus’ words from the cross – Father forgive them – spoke of how an astonishing response such as this would be the only way to interrupt the bloody cycle of vengeance and separation. King, like Jesus, advocated that we learn to practice forgiveness not so that we would be weak, but so that we could be free. May we – christians and non-christians here today – may we be inspired now and always by these Amish, who had the courage to put their convictions into practice.

[Light Chalice] Today I welcome the youth group from St John’s Episcopal Church.

Buddhist monk Thich Nhat Hahn’s first experienced Christianity when the French came to Viet Nam, his home, and attempted to destroy Buddhism. This initial encounter made it difficult for him to appreciate Christianity. But eventually he came to know Christians who truly embodied the spirit of Christ. He writes: “On the altar in my hermitage in France are images of Buddha and Jesus, and every time I light incense, I touch both of them as my spiritual ancestors. I can do this because of contact with these real Christians.

When you touch someone who authentically represents a tradition, you not only touch his or her tradition, you also touch your own. This quality is essential for dialogue. When participants are willing to learn from each other, dialogue takes place just by their being together. When those who represent a spiritual tradition embody the essence of their tradition, just the way they walk, sit, and smile speaks volumes about the tradition.

And so in that spirit of dialogue I welcome you: Episcopal and Buddhist, Christian and Pagan, Universalist and atheist. I appreciate the dialogue that we’ve already had this morning. I appreciate your willingness to learn from one another.

In 1965, among the hundreds of Unitarian Universalist ministers and laypeople who went to Selma Alabama to march with Martin Luther King Jr. was Rev. Joe Nerad, minister of this Wausau congregation, and Rev. James Reeb, whose death in Selma helped to focus America’s attention. Reeb’s death helped our nation to wake up to the struggle for civil rights for African Americans.

Even though he went to Selma knowing about the likelihood of violence, Reeb would not have wished to be characterized as a martyr. He came simply as a christian who felt he had to LIVE according to the words he had long espoused.

Reeb was raised by conservative christian parents, and connected deeply to the christian church as a youth -- organizing, teaching, and leading worship. In the military during WW II, he formed associations with likeminded soldiers wherever he was stationed. With an ecumenical spirit, he wished to gather christians of every stripe into fellowship. Writing a friend at the time, he said, “I feel joy in my Christian experience. It tells me I am just touching on a fuller life in Christ.”

In college “Jim would engage any student who would talk to him on any point in Scripture. One day he asked a group of them to weigh the familiar words from the Sermon on the Mount. He read: Ye have heard that it hath been said, An eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth: But I say unto you, That ye resist not evil: but whosoever shall smite thee on thy right cheek, turn to him the other also. And if any man will sue thee at the law, and take away thy coat, let him have thy cloak also. And whosoever shall compel thee to go a mile, go with him two. Give to him that asketh thee, and from him that would borrow of thee turn not away.

“What does this mean?” [Jim] demanded. “If I have two suits, do I give one away?” The others resorted to the explanations and interpretations of this passage that have been repeated down the centuries. But [Reeb], the thinker who sought to draw every argument out to its logical conclusion, was not satisfied.

“We cannot escape the meaning of those words by interpreting them,” he insisted. “The problem is with us, not with what Christ said. If I were really dedicated, I would give away my extra suit. I don’t because I’m not dedicated enough.” [Excerpt from No Greater Love: The James Reeb Story, by Duncan Howlett.]

In my youth I too found myself earnestly involved in the life of the institutional church -- where I found love, security, and great commitment to the ideals embodied in the life of Christ. I was drawn by two things in particular. First: the teaching exemplified in the parable of the great feast. With Christ all are welcome at the table. Second: Jesus not only spoke this message, He lived it. His was a life of integrity, and I took this as a serious challenge.

Unlike Reeb, I was never led to believe that the words of the christian scriptures were meant to be taken literally. In fact, even as a child I appreciated Jesus’ quirky plays on words, his evocative metaphors containing layers and layers of meaning, and especially the surprising counter-intuitive twists of his parables such as when he advocated for breaking the law –condemning the Pharisees for following the letter of the law exactly... and missing out on its spirit.

As a Roman Catholic child, I was taught that I had to believe in the doctrines of the church. I didn’t. Sometimes I’d omit words from the creed or I’d sing songs differently than they were printed, but this wasn’t a serious stumbling block to my faith – it was more of a private game that I rather enjoyed. It was only in college, when I encountered some others as zealous as myself who called themselves christian, that I began to have my doubts about the whole project.

I once traveled with a Baptist preacher to a missionary conference. We enjoyed one another’s company and shared stories of our visions for the kingdom of god. I told him about the college classes that I was taking in theology and science, and well, another class I was thinking of taking the next quarter. Something I thought might be of help if I were to travel to other lands and work with people of different cultures. It was a class in world religions, and I was excited about it.

But my companion suddenly became very serious. He warned me that I ought not expose myself to such teachings, and he told me about the FBI. The FBI, he told me, teaches its agents how to spot counterfeit money. And how do they do this? Do they have them study ACTUAL counterfeit money? OH NO! Instead these agents study the real McCoy. They learn every shade and swirl. They learn to recognize the true thing so that when they see anything else they know it is false. Study the Lord, he said, and ONLY the Lord. And you won’t go astray.

John Murray gathered the first Universalist congregation in Gloucester, MA in 1774 – preaching a gospel of universal salvation. The predominant doctrine of the colonial New England churches was Calvinism, which held that Jesus’ death had brought salvation to an elect group, predetermined by god. Only so many would be saved, and whether you were in or out had nothing to do with what you believed or how you acted.

Over time Calvinist theology moderated to say that all people had the potential to be saved through christ’s sacrifice. But John Murray went way over the top saying that ALL WOULD--in fact all had already been saved, through christ.

By 1790 – 16 years after Murray planted the first universalist congregation, there were perhaps two dozen congregations – enough for a convention. Of course a convention calls for some kind of organizing principle. But behind their universalism, the delegates to the convention were Baptists, Congregationalists, and followers of diverse theological schools.

So their Articles of Faith, as their first joint statement was called, would have to be very general, and non-binding. They were written in this spirit: If we agree in brotherly love, there is no disagreement that can do us any injury, but if we do not, no other agreement can do us any good....

The account of the convention includes references to belief in the holy scriptures, a supreme being, Christ Jesus as the mediator between god and man, the holy ghost, and the importance of good works. The practical resolutions they passed included support for the abolition of slavery, which they saw as inconsistent with the principle of the ultimate worth of each person in the eyes of god.

After another 13 years, the convention had grown to 38 churches, and had seen a bit of theological controversy. So the statement of 1803, still tiptoeing around being a creed, and entitled a Profession of Belief, was shortened to eliminate reference to the Holy Ghost, and to Christ being a mediator between god and man.

A great spirit of revival buoyed the Universalists through the mid 19th century, with tremendous growth in numbers and in social reformation projects. By 1857, the universalist Reform Association had its fingers in Slavery and the Colored Race; Domestic Slave Trade; Service; Wages; Marriage; Women’s Rights; Parental Relations; Rights to the Soil; War; Non-Resistance; Diplomacy; Commerce; Seamen; Foreign Slave Trade; Colonization; Indians; Foreign Relations; Conflict of Races; Temperance; Education; the Pulpit; the Sabbath; the Press; Politics and Laws; Amusements; the Poor; Dress; Food; Capital Punishment; Prison Discipline; Juvenile Offenders; Imprisonment for Debt; Dueling; Gambling; Courts; Trials; Idiots; Insane; Deaf and Dumb.

By 1933, some key terms of the convention were changed: gone was all reference to the bible, Jesus was no longer referred to as the Christ, universal salvation was only referred to by the oblique references of “God’s eternal and all conquering Love,” and “the supreme worth of every human personality.” But their focus on the Gospel is clear. It was a social Gospel. The statement twice called for the establishment of the Kingdom of God, on earth, at least in part through human effort.

In the 1940’s, the Universalists applied for admission to the National Council of Churches. They wished to join forces with other groups to address the pressing human needs resulting from the war. Twice they were turned down by the NCC on theological grounds. Although two denominations offered to change their votes if the Universalists would accept Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior. The others insisted that the Universalists were not sufficiently Christocentric; and too much like Unitarians. Merger with the Unitarians came 19 years later.

But who were these Unitarians? Weren’t THEY christians? The Unitarians were also a scattered group of liberal churches in the early 1800s. What they held in common was a repugnance to the orthodoxy of their day. Other than this they were a theologically diverse lot, independent as congregations, and wanting to stay that way.

They were called “Unitarian” only in derision by their Trinitarian neighbors. None chose to wear that name with pride until William Ellery Channing delivered his highly controversial sermon, “Unitarian Christianity” in 1819. Widely reprinted, it became the basis for the gathering of an association of Unitarian churches.

In the sermon Channing professed his faith in the Bible and the moral leadership of Jesus. However, he drew a sharp distinction between himself as a liberal and his orthodox neighbors in the way he interpreted the bible, based upon the newly emerging higher criticism which focused upon a rational biblical interpretation, freely utilizing the tools of modern scholarship. Channing also focused upon the human, rather than the divine, qualities of Jesus.

The Unitarian progression away from, or beyond traditional christianity was more swift than that of the Universalists. By the 1840s, Rev. Ralph Waldo Emerson had begun to develop a transcendentalist philosophy in which any reverence for the person of christ was seen as abominable. The point of Jesus life and ministry, according to Emerson, was to attract people to his principles, not his person. Emerson eventually left the Unitarian ministry because he found Unitarianism too conservative.

Neither Emerson nor a follower of his, Theodore Parker, were well received by their colleagues, but within a few years their philosophy became dominant among Unitarians. Parker’s dramatic sermon, “The Transient and the Permanent in Christianity” heavily criticized the forms of religion – doctrines, theology, and ritual – these forms were seen as transient. This general idea was not so dramatic, but Parker included the bible, christ’s divinity, and christ’s miracles as mere forms, having no absolute value.

Actually Parker received little immediate heat for his provocative statements. But when some orthodox ministers chose to publish his sermon to see if they could smoke out the truth about the infidel Unitarians... and see if they would disavow Parker, he was eventually asked to resign from fellowship. Fortunately for him and us, the Unitarians had neither a creed nor a formal mechanism to remove anyone who would step beyond it...and so Parker continued to preach for many years. Fortunately too for the cause of abolition, for Parker’s reliance upon the principles of Jesus led him to be an outspoken anti-slavery advocate.

In the 1950s, when James Reeb went to Princeton for his seminary training, he was confronted for the first time with a look at the bible through the eyes of history and science – instead of looking at history and science through the eyes of the bible.

Reeb began to recognize some of the internal contradictions of scripture, and his fundamentalist theology began to crack. In time he found himself resigning from the Presbyterian church because he felt the confession of faith interfered with his continuing search for the truth of god. He wrote at the time, “A church based upon a confession cannot in the final analysis be devoted to seeking the truth. It must be devoted to upholding the ideas set forth in the creed. These ideas may be true. It is just that, to my mind, the confessional church does not provide a setting within which to test whether they are true or not.”

But still he could not leave the church. Having learned of the Unitarians through a book by Sophia Lyon Fahs[1], he applied for fellowship with the Unitarians in 1958. He never became a parish minister. Drawn primarily to the streets, Jim worked as a chaplain, a youth organizer, and a community organizer in Washington DC. His attention was drawn in particular to the growing population of blacks moving from the deep south into the Washington ghettos.

Inspired by the work of Martin Luther King Jr., he responded to the call to Selma in 1965. After the first day’s uneventful march, he had mixed feelings about whether to remain, or to return to his work and family. That night he telephoned his wife Marie to say that he would stay to march again.

Olsen and Miller were waiting by the door for him when he came out. For a moment they discussed whether to go to the left or to the right. They had come from the left, but the right was the shorter route to Brown Chapel, so they went that way, falling in step together.... They had gone but a step or two when they became aware that four white men on the other side of the street were coming toward them from between some parked cars. Instinctively they quickened their pace, but they did not break step and they did not run.

“Hey, niggers,” one of the four called. “Hey, you niggers,” he called again, coming up on the three ministers from behind. Their attitude as they came on was even more menacing than their voices, and the men felt they were in for trouble. The other two increased their step a little more. Jim did not, nor did he look around. Olsen, however, glanced back, just in time to see the leader of the group take a vicious swing at Jim’s head with a heavy stick. He hit him square on the left temple and Jim fell to the pavement on his back.

Orloff Miller immediately dropped to the sidewalk according to the technique taught to civil rights workers, face to the ground, hands at the sides of his head. One or perhaps two men began kicking and pummeling him. “Now you know what it is like to be a real nigger,” he heard one of them say. Clark Olsen, who by now was several steps ahead of the other two, was attacked by one of the four, who began pounding him with his fists, knocking his glasses off and breaking them. It was a hit-and-run attack. In half a minute it was all over.

...The following morning at Selma [all the marchers] met in the church again, while Jim lay unconscious in a Birmingham hospital. Now everyone knew he was on the critical list. An undercurrent of anger was growing in the group and the leaders were concerned. The urge to express their outrage and sorrow in some overt manner was almost uncontrollable. Andy Young of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference rose to remind them that nonviolence was the discipline of the civil rights movement.... “You can’ push the philosophy of Jesus by using the methods of Caesar.” No provocation could justify their turning to violence. [Howlett]

Reeb died within 48 hours of the attack. As a white northern minister, his death received a great deal of public attention. Memorial services were held in cities and towns all over the world by Christians and Jews, blacks and whites, rich and poor... One official catholic newspaper even proposed sainthood.

As I look upon the life of James Reeb I find that the truth of his convictions lay not in their source – his christian faith – but in their expression in his life.

As a christian I identify christ as my moral model and inspiration. It is with great discomfort that I say this, even within my own congregation, because every box on which we place a label gets packed tight with preconceptions. Preconceptions that so easily put up barriers between us. And christ’s central message, I believe, was: “take down the barriers!”

I am sorely tempted to spend another 20 minutes telling you why I am NOT a christian....how my theology is different not only from that of the traditionalists but even from the theology of other liberal christians. I don’t even believe in the god in which Jesus himself appeared to believe.

By any conventional definition of God, I would be considered an atheist. And it doesn’t hurt my feelings terribly if someone wants to call me that. I’ll be saying more about the glories of secularism and humanism next week. And one of these days I’ll explain more about what I mean when I use the word “God” in a naturalistic (as opposed to supernaturalistic) sense.

So obviously I have yet to work through this internal dilemma about labeling myself a christian. Frankly, I’m embarrassed to be lumped into the what seems to be the predominant “Christianity” of our day. But what an inspired life it would be if I could get beyond the label and concentrate with all of my heart, all of my mind, and all of my strength ... to forgive, and to live – as he did.

[Our service concluded today with a collection for a newspaper ad through which we will be expressing our congregational opposition to the proposed state constitutional amendement which would ban both gay marriage, and benefits to couples, gay or straight, who are not married.]

[1] Fahs was best known for her children’s books and curricula which collected stories from religions and cultures around the world – stories demonstrating the values common throughout human history and centering on the golden rule.