Light of the World
Easter Sermon given at the Brookfield Unitarian Universalist Church
March 27, 2016
by Rev. Craig M. Nowak
I was going through some files recently and came upon a folder that contained letters of recommendation written for me at various points in my preparation for the ministry and later, my search for a call or pastorate. I sat down for a moment with the folder and looked through its contents. In letter after letter people readily and lovingly shared their experience of knowing and working with me. A warm feeling came over me, part gratitude, part humility. As I continued to read the letters I realized that the people who wrote them said things about me, I rarely, if ever say about myself. Indeed, one of the things I’ve struggled with, or hesitated to do, all my life is toot my own horn.
On the surface, this does not seem to be an issue Jesus struggled with, at least not in John’s gospel, which contains the eight well known “I am” statements:
John 6: 35, 48 I am the bread of life
John 8: 12, 9:5 I am the light of the world
John 8: 58 Before Abraham was, I am
John 10:9 I am the door
John 10:11 I am the good shepherd
John 11:25 I am the resurrection and the life
John 14:6 I am the way, the truth, and the life
John 15:1 I am the true vine
For many Christians these statements are hard evidence of Jesus’ divine nature upon which the veracity of the concept of the Trinity depends. For people of other or no particular faith, these statements are evidence of nothing in particular, other than, for some, that Jesus as portrayed in the gospel of John, may have been an insufferable braggart. I mean, can you imagine being at a party or working with a guy that full of himself?
But what if these statements were something other than evidence of Jesus’ divine nature or potential arrogance?
What if the “I am” statements in John’s gospel were really like a letter of recommendation, a testimony of the experience of Jesus rather than a declaration of objective truth about him?
Well, this is not unlike the claim of the late renowned Jesus scholar, Marcus Borg. Borg, like many scholars, believed the explicitly christological language in the gospels represents “the voice of the (Christian) community after Easter and not the voice of Jesus.” (The Meaning of Jesus 149). Indeed, most scholars do not believe Jesus ever uttered the “I am” statements himself, noting, “he didn’t speak like that.”
Borg suggests, “As self-statements, these are highly problematic...but if we think of these not as self-statements of Jesus but as the voice of the community, they become very powerful.” Borg’s point is that “I am” statements of Jesus, we are in fact hearing the voice of the early Christian community’s experience of what he calls the “post-Easter” Jesus.
Regardless of our particular theology, a good number of people are familiar with and more or less on board with the pre-Easter Jesus. This is the guy best known for his parables and the golden rule who went too far, ticked off the authorities and was brutally executed.
The post-Easter Jesus is more problematic, especially if our theology differs from Christian orthodoxy. And it may not matter that much to us today except that as UU’s (Unitarian Universalists), whether our personal theology is Christian based or not, our religious history is rooted in the Judeo-Christian tradition. As such, the acknowledgement, if not celebration of Easter and the post-Easter Jesus, is part of that history.
Now, one factor that makes the post Easter Jesus problematic is how one approaches scripture. Many of us have come to approach scripture, including the gospels, as something of a textbook to which we bring an expectation of historical and scientific accuracy. And so it is the plausibility factual details, we tell ourselves, that matter most and determines whether the stories are true or not. Thus, scripture never fails to disappoint.
Of course, there is an old saying, “The devil is in the details”, and indeed this is true when “the details” become a distraction from what’s really important. Take for instance, the story of the empty tomb as recorded in Mark’s gospel. Our rational, details oriented mind almost automatically seeks historical or scientific evidence to support the story’s claim. Who rolled away such a massive stone and how did they do it? Was it the person the women met inside the tomb? Who is that person anyway? And where’s the body? Resurrected? How did it happen? Is he really walking around somewhere? If so, he couldn’t have actually been dead. Maybe he was in a coma? These details are distractions engaged by the mind in its pursuit and need for logic and order. The mind that wants to find an explanation and resolution for an unusual or distressing event so life can get back to “normal.”
But that is not religion’s goal.
At its best, religion is concerned with transformation, of the self and of society. It does not seek to return to normal, but rather to usher in a new way of living and being in the world...it seeks a new normal that transcends the limits of life as we have known it.
When we encounter stories or events in scripture that seem, on the surface, impossible, we are being challenged to look beyond the horizon of the familiar and engage in a different way of thinking about the story or event described.
Thus the question the empty tomb invites us to consider is not how did it happen, but what does it mean? And more specifically here, what might it mean for UU’s who by and large, do not identify with the doctrines of Christian orthodoxy?
To this UU, one meaning of the empty tomb is that Jesus defeated death, that is, his presence and influence continued to be experienced as a living reality even after death. The form of how he was experienced may have changed, but his presence was nonetheless felt or known to his followers as real, or living. Thus, to me the empty tomb is the first and most accessible introduction to the post-Easter Jesus. If nothing else, it tells me the post-Easter Jesus is the Jesus who survived the Roman authorities attempt to extinguish the experience of his presence in the life of his followers.
This understanding is perhaps not that difficult to accept. If you’ve attended a memorial or celebration of life service I’ve officiated at you know that I don’t claim to know what happens after death. What I do know and what I lift up and affirm however, is that our relationship with someone after they have died does not end, but the nature of that relationship changes.
And indeed for the early Christian community, the nature of their relationship to Jesus did change after he was crucified. In fact, it evolved. In the midst of the challenging social, political, and religious climate of the first century of the Common Era, the post-easter Jesus evolved beyond the experience of the living presence of a man this followers knew and loved, toward an experience of him as a potent force who continued to offer spiritual sustenance, light their way out darkness, and lead them from death to new life. In other words, “The bread of life.” “The light of the world.” “The resurrection.”
These statements, according to Borg, “are not simply statements about the community’s experience of the post-Easter Jesus. They are also affirmations about the pre-Easter Jesus.” For they affirm that Jesus’ way... the rejection of empire and what it represents... is the gateway or path to the kingdom of God in the here and now. To use more contemporary language, Jesus taught people to die to the ways of the world, a way of life pre-occupied with appearances, security, and self so they might be reborn into a new way of living and being in the world, a life of heart, rooted in a deep and generous compassion toward all.
For many Christians then and now, this post-easter experience of Jesus informed their understanding of the pre-easter Jesus as a flesh and blood embodiment of God. They began to see him as one who showed them in human form, what God is like. Thus, he came to be seen, and remains for many, the “light of the world.”
But is there a way Jesus is “the light of the world” to those of us who are not adherents to Christian orthodoxy, are agnostic or atheist, which includes a good many UU’s?
Here I turn to our religious forbearer, the Rev. Theodore Parker, who, in his sermon “The Transient and The Permanent in Christianity”, wrote, “It must be confessed, though with Sorrow, that transient things form a great part of what is commonly taught as Religion. An undue place has often been assigned to forms and doctrines, while too little stress has been laid on the divine life of the soul, love to God, and love to man.”
When I hear Parker’s words, I’m reminded that the question for me and a significant number of UU’s is not, Is Jesus the light of the world?, but, What is the light of the world? Or, What does the light of the world look like?
From where I stand it looks a lot like practices of severing our allegiance to the ways of world in favor of a deeper, fuller, more compassionate life. It definitely looks like the way and the life of Jesus, but not exclusive to Jesus or Christianity...nor a message restricted to the pages of sacred texts for that matter. Indeed, the children’s book Hug Time, which our intergenerational readers offered this morning is itself a story of severing allegiance to convention in order to inhabit a life of extraordinary generosity of spirit.
As I see it the light of the world is thus less a specific historical or spiritual leader, than a countercultural approach to life, a life in which through words and deeds illuminates a path out of fear based convention toward an ever expanding and deepening practice of compassion toward all...a life transformed. Jesus certainly lived such a life. And I dare say that our choice to be and engage here at BUUC (Brookfield Unitarian Universalist Church), to welcome a fearful, judgmental society’s marginalized or feed children left hungry by a miserly, self-serving soci-political culture is an effort toward such as life. A life in which we kindle our own light to be joined with others who willingly choose an alternative to the cycle of terror and vengeance and the practice of self-serving economic, social and spiritual violence that define the ways of the world to this day.
Easter, as I see it, is an affirmation that the truth of the religion of Jesus...of the transforming, enduring power of a countercultural life... is valid without an attendant assent to the creeds and doctrines which form the religion about Jesus. To say Jesus is the light of the world is not to make an objective truth claim about his nature, but to say the the light of the world looks and feels like the kind of life this man embodied. A light to seek, affirm and keep aflame with our own lives for a world in desperate need of resurrection.
Amen and Blessed Be
Happy Easter
Easter Sermon given at the Brookfield Unitarian Universalist Church
March 27, 2016
by Rev. Craig M. Nowak
I was going through some files recently and came upon a folder that contained letters of recommendation written for me at various points in my preparation for the ministry and later, my search for a call or pastorate. I sat down for a moment with the folder and looked through its contents. In letter after letter people readily and lovingly shared their experience of knowing and working with me. A warm feeling came over me, part gratitude, part humility. As I continued to read the letters I realized that the people who wrote them said things about me, I rarely, if ever say about myself. Indeed, one of the things I’ve struggled with, or hesitated to do, all my life is toot my own horn.
On the surface, this does not seem to be an issue Jesus struggled with, at least not in John’s gospel, which contains the eight well known “I am” statements:
John 6: 35, 48 I am the bread of life
John 8: 12, 9:5 I am the light of the world
John 8: 58 Before Abraham was, I am
John 10:9 I am the door
John 10:11 I am the good shepherd
John 11:25 I am the resurrection and the life
John 14:6 I am the way, the truth, and the life
John 15:1 I am the true vine
For many Christians these statements are hard evidence of Jesus’ divine nature upon which the veracity of the concept of the Trinity depends. For people of other or no particular faith, these statements are evidence of nothing in particular, other than, for some, that Jesus as portrayed in the gospel of John, may have been an insufferable braggart. I mean, can you imagine being at a party or working with a guy that full of himself?
But what if these statements were something other than evidence of Jesus’ divine nature or potential arrogance?
What if the “I am” statements in John’s gospel were really like a letter of recommendation, a testimony of the experience of Jesus rather than a declaration of objective truth about him?
Well, this is not unlike the claim of the late renowned Jesus scholar, Marcus Borg. Borg, like many scholars, believed the explicitly christological language in the gospels represents “the voice of the (Christian) community after Easter and not the voice of Jesus.” (The Meaning of Jesus 149). Indeed, most scholars do not believe Jesus ever uttered the “I am” statements himself, noting, “he didn’t speak like that.”
Borg suggests, “As self-statements, these are highly problematic...but if we think of these not as self-statements of Jesus but as the voice of the community, they become very powerful.” Borg’s point is that “I am” statements of Jesus, we are in fact hearing the voice of the early Christian community’s experience of what he calls the “post-Easter” Jesus.
Regardless of our particular theology, a good number of people are familiar with and more or less on board with the pre-Easter Jesus. This is the guy best known for his parables and the golden rule who went too far, ticked off the authorities and was brutally executed.
The post-Easter Jesus is more problematic, especially if our theology differs from Christian orthodoxy. And it may not matter that much to us today except that as UU’s (Unitarian Universalists), whether our personal theology is Christian based or not, our religious history is rooted in the Judeo-Christian tradition. As such, the acknowledgement, if not celebration of Easter and the post-Easter Jesus, is part of that history.
Now, one factor that makes the post Easter Jesus problematic is how one approaches scripture. Many of us have come to approach scripture, including the gospels, as something of a textbook to which we bring an expectation of historical and scientific accuracy. And so it is the plausibility factual details, we tell ourselves, that matter most and determines whether the stories are true or not. Thus, scripture never fails to disappoint.
Of course, there is an old saying, “The devil is in the details”, and indeed this is true when “the details” become a distraction from what’s really important. Take for instance, the story of the empty tomb as recorded in Mark’s gospel. Our rational, details oriented mind almost automatically seeks historical or scientific evidence to support the story’s claim. Who rolled away such a massive stone and how did they do it? Was it the person the women met inside the tomb? Who is that person anyway? And where’s the body? Resurrected? How did it happen? Is he really walking around somewhere? If so, he couldn’t have actually been dead. Maybe he was in a coma? These details are distractions engaged by the mind in its pursuit and need for logic and order. The mind that wants to find an explanation and resolution for an unusual or distressing event so life can get back to “normal.”
But that is not religion’s goal.
At its best, religion is concerned with transformation, of the self and of society. It does not seek to return to normal, but rather to usher in a new way of living and being in the world...it seeks a new normal that transcends the limits of life as we have known it.
When we encounter stories or events in scripture that seem, on the surface, impossible, we are being challenged to look beyond the horizon of the familiar and engage in a different way of thinking about the story or event described.
Thus the question the empty tomb invites us to consider is not how did it happen, but what does it mean? And more specifically here, what might it mean for UU’s who by and large, do not identify with the doctrines of Christian orthodoxy?
To this UU, one meaning of the empty tomb is that Jesus defeated death, that is, his presence and influence continued to be experienced as a living reality even after death. The form of how he was experienced may have changed, but his presence was nonetheless felt or known to his followers as real, or living. Thus, to me the empty tomb is the first and most accessible introduction to the post-Easter Jesus. If nothing else, it tells me the post-Easter Jesus is the Jesus who survived the Roman authorities attempt to extinguish the experience of his presence in the life of his followers.
This understanding is perhaps not that difficult to accept. If you’ve attended a memorial or celebration of life service I’ve officiated at you know that I don’t claim to know what happens after death. What I do know and what I lift up and affirm however, is that our relationship with someone after they have died does not end, but the nature of that relationship changes.
And indeed for the early Christian community, the nature of their relationship to Jesus did change after he was crucified. In fact, it evolved. In the midst of the challenging social, political, and religious climate of the first century of the Common Era, the post-easter Jesus evolved beyond the experience of the living presence of a man this followers knew and loved, toward an experience of him as a potent force who continued to offer spiritual sustenance, light their way out darkness, and lead them from death to new life. In other words, “The bread of life.” “The light of the world.” “The resurrection.”
These statements, according to Borg, “are not simply statements about the community’s experience of the post-Easter Jesus. They are also affirmations about the pre-Easter Jesus.” For they affirm that Jesus’ way... the rejection of empire and what it represents... is the gateway or path to the kingdom of God in the here and now. To use more contemporary language, Jesus taught people to die to the ways of the world, a way of life pre-occupied with appearances, security, and self so they might be reborn into a new way of living and being in the world, a life of heart, rooted in a deep and generous compassion toward all.
For many Christians then and now, this post-easter experience of Jesus informed their understanding of the pre-easter Jesus as a flesh and blood embodiment of God. They began to see him as one who showed them in human form, what God is like. Thus, he came to be seen, and remains for many, the “light of the world.”
But is there a way Jesus is “the light of the world” to those of us who are not adherents to Christian orthodoxy, are agnostic or atheist, which includes a good many UU’s?
Here I turn to our religious forbearer, the Rev. Theodore Parker, who, in his sermon “The Transient and The Permanent in Christianity”, wrote, “It must be confessed, though with Sorrow, that transient things form a great part of what is commonly taught as Religion. An undue place has often been assigned to forms and doctrines, while too little stress has been laid on the divine life of the soul, love to God, and love to man.”
When I hear Parker’s words, I’m reminded that the question for me and a significant number of UU’s is not, Is Jesus the light of the world?, but, What is the light of the world? Or, What does the light of the world look like?
From where I stand it looks a lot like practices of severing our allegiance to the ways of world in favor of a deeper, fuller, more compassionate life. It definitely looks like the way and the life of Jesus, but not exclusive to Jesus or Christianity...nor a message restricted to the pages of sacred texts for that matter. Indeed, the children’s book Hug Time, which our intergenerational readers offered this morning is itself a story of severing allegiance to convention in order to inhabit a life of extraordinary generosity of spirit.
As I see it the light of the world is thus less a specific historical or spiritual leader, than a countercultural approach to life, a life in which through words and deeds illuminates a path out of fear based convention toward an ever expanding and deepening practice of compassion toward all...a life transformed. Jesus certainly lived such a life. And I dare say that our choice to be and engage here at BUUC (Brookfield Unitarian Universalist Church), to welcome a fearful, judgmental society’s marginalized or feed children left hungry by a miserly, self-serving soci-political culture is an effort toward such as life. A life in which we kindle our own light to be joined with others who willingly choose an alternative to the cycle of terror and vengeance and the practice of self-serving economic, social and spiritual violence that define the ways of the world to this day.
Easter, as I see it, is an affirmation that the truth of the religion of Jesus...of the transforming, enduring power of a countercultural life... is valid without an attendant assent to the creeds and doctrines which form the religion about Jesus. To say Jesus is the light of the world is not to make an objective truth claim about his nature, but to say the the light of the world looks and feels like the kind of life this man embodied. A light to seek, affirm and keep aflame with our own lives for a world in desperate need of resurrection.
Amen and Blessed Be
Happy Easter
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