Rev. Dr. Marilyn Sewell

First Unitarian Church

December 13, 1998

It was August of 1988, and my son and I were standing in line in front of a movie theater in San Francisco, waiting to get tickets for the just-released film The Last Temptation of Christ, based on the book by Nikos Kazantzakis. We must have been at least an hour early, because I wanted to be sure to get in. I have always been fascinated with portrayals of the human side of Jesus. It was a controversial film, to say the least. Before it opened, the Campus Crusade for Christ had offered to pay the distributor, Universal Pictures, all of their expenses if they would turn over all the copies of the film. Universal then took out a full-page ad in the NY Times saying "freedom of thought is not for sale."

As we arrived, we saw a group of protesters standing near the line waving signs saying things like "Don’t Attend the Devil’s Movie" and "God Is Watching You." As we moved through another line into the lobby, armed police went through my purse, to be sure I was not concealing a weapon. The fear was, I suppose, that some people might have been so concerned about the filmmaker’s presentation of Jesus as human—a desecration of God, as they saw it--that they might shoot one of us for seeing it.

I went in and sat down next to a young man who happened to be an Italian American, a lapsed Catholic and in fact an atheist, as he explained to me. He said that he cared nothing for Jesus, that he came to the movie out of curiosity. Then he spent the next 45 minutes talking to me non-stop about this Jesus that he had forsaken, but who apparently had not forsaken him.

The movie itself was a bit of a let-down—Willem Defoe was not very appealing as a blond, hippie-like Jesus who came across as confused, more than anything else. I half expected him to say, "Man, I just can’t get behind this crucifixion thing." But I was fascinated by the fantasy sequence at the end of the film—the part that portrayed the last temptation. In this sequence Jesus fantasizes that he is invited by an angel to come down from the cross and lead an ordinary life—he makes love to Mary Magdelene, marries her, they have children. Then he wakes up, finds himself back on the cross, and dies fulfilling God’s purpose.

So why all the furor about this film? Seems pretty innocuous, really. But not to those who cannot accept the humanity of Jesus. Every age has had its own kind of Docetism, which is the theological name for a kind of heresy, a view of Jesus that denies his full humanity in favor of his divinity. In our age, we cannot accept Jesus’ physicality—in particular, his sexuality. Because of this culture’s split between the spirit and the flesh—the spirit being the higher, the holy realm and the flesh being the sinful, lower realm—we have trouble with Jesus being fully human. Think about your early picture of Jesus as you grew up. Sweet Jesus, sitting around with children on his knees and lambs curled up at his feet. Smiling, unperturbed, pleasant.

But as a matter of fact, the man in the scripture is robust, a carpenter capable of heavy work. He is a sensual man who is aware of the beauty of the natural world, and one who enjoys good food and drink with his friends. He is a convivial man who smiles easily and cracks witticisms and laughs aloud at the little ironies we all endure daily. And he is a man of great tenderness, not ashamed of his tears. He likes the company of men, and they are readily drawn to him, but he likes women just as well, and women are fascinated by him.

He enjoys his body. He is aware of the wonders of its shape and movement, likes to feel the sun on his limbs, takes pleasure in resting after a long day’s journey. He likes the feel of splashing water on his skin when he washes. And he is a sexual man, who enjoys being a man. His sexuality is sometimes troubling for him, for his desires cannot always be satisfied, but he accepts that as simply part of what is, like being thirsty at times or feeling weary or getting angry. It’s part of being human. It’s good.

And in his remarkable self-acceptance, his erotic nature deepens and blossoms, and seems to bring new life to whomever he comes close to—at least those who are not afraid. For his energy can be fearsome and calls for a profound response. It is a call to wholeness and selfhood. Some turn away, terrified or sad or angry or—murderous, because he’s asking too much. Asking us to accept our bodies as sacred? Asking us to accept the Divinity within, as he did so fully? Really, he has to die, doesn’t he.

I am reminded of the true story of a child, only about 5 years old, who was taken by his parents to a Passion play in an outdoor amphitheater. The play portrayed the sufferings of Jesus leading up to the crucifixion, and the child was transfixed. For him, the story was not fiction or drama, but real. When the time came for Jesus to be crucified, he tore himself from his mother’s arms and went running down the stone steps of the amphitheater, shouting, "No, stop, don’t do it! Stop! Don’t kill him!" The bleeding was real for him, the cruelty of the soldiers was real, the indifference of those looking on. Why wasn’t somebody doing something? Jesus is so much safer as an icon, a sweet shepherd. We don’t want to hear about the blood. Too close to home. Too real. The problem is that we continue with our crucifixions. Every time a prophet rises up and confronts us with a truth we don’t want to hear. Time for a crucifixion. Out of sight, out of mind.

Jesus came in the flesh and died in the flesh. Contrary to what is conventionally taught, Jesus did not claim to be God incarnate. Scholars generally believe that those scriptural claims were added later by writers who wanted to make a case for Jesus’ divinity. It is more likely that Jesus said something like the passage in Mark 10:18: "Why do you call me good? None is good but God alone." "Don’t make a god out of me," he was saying. "Be true to the God within yourself." From this perspective, then, we cannot project all of our goodness, all of our holiness, onto him. Jesus saves? Yes, he can save us from our sins, but not by dying in our place for us—rather, by showing us how to live in obedience to the Spirit. By showing us in his person, in his body, what compassion looks like, what sacrificial love demands. What resurrection—that is to say, new life--is all about.

Interesting—the theme at the end of the Jesus story circles back to the beginning of the story: new life springing from death. In the Christmas story, hope appears in the midst of winter, in the midst of the darkest season of the year. The story starts, though, when an angel appears to a peasant girl in Nazareth. He tells her that she is favored by God, that she is going to have a son named Jesus, whose kingdom will have no end. Mary then asks a very practical question, "How can this be since I have no husband?" The angel says not to worry about the details, that God will provide. And Mary answers, "Behold the handmaid of the Lord; be it unto me according to thy word."

Notice the circumstances of this special birthing. This baby comes to an unmarried peasant woman who is engaged to a carpenter. These are poor people, working people. Nothing special about them. Except that they had been chosen. Then note the setting of this birth. Mary was about ready to deliver, but according to the law, she and Joseph had to travel to Bethlehem to be taxed. And we think the IRS has some weird rules! So there they are in Bethlehem, and the baby is coming. But there is not a single room in town, because everybody else is there to be taxed, too. Turned away in their greatest hour of need. "But we have a baby coming!" Joseph pleads. So the inn keeper says to them, go out in the barn with the animals—there you will be protected from the worst of the cold. And so Mary—doubtlessly frightened, feeling the contractions hard at her--gives birth, in blood and in pain, as we all give birth, there in the stable. It’s difficult. It’s messy. It’s real human stuff. Not like the Christmas cards.

This picture of Christmas, though, is scandalous to anyone who wants religion to be purely spiritual. For those who want God removed from the earth, up there in a cloud somewhere, the whole concept of incarnation is an anathema. If you want a spirituality that lifts you above the earth and removes you from your body, believe me, Jesus is not for you. If we look at the Jesus story, we cannot avoid such questions as who gets the rooms in the inn. Questions about unwed mothers. Which children are legitimate and deserve a good start in life. Questions about oppressive acts of government and who gets taxed and how much.

There is no way to divide your spiritual life from your life in this world—nor from the economic and political policies of this country. There is no way to get the dung out of the barn, to remove the smell of the sheep from the shepherds, to deny the cold that slips through the cracks of the wall of the stable. Spirituality is not a trip out of this world; spirituality is the Spirit of Love moving through you in this world, in all of its pain and dirt and disappointment.

So why did Holy One send the message of divine love through a baby? A tiny one who was naked and vulnerable, needy, hungry, crying? Why did Eternity enter time through a peasant family? Why did Jesus break bread with lepers, consort with prostitutes, seem to have a special preference for the down and out? Archbishop Romero, who was martyred because of his speaking out against those oppressing the poor in El Salvador, once said that only the truly poor can celebrate Christmas, for they are the ones "who know they need someone to come on their behalf." The fact is that the Holy One doesn’t enter our lives without an opening, without an invitation. Blessed are the poor in spirit—that is, the humble or those who know they need--for they shall see God.

At the root of the term "incarnation" is the Latin carnis, meaning flesh. Same as in chili con carne—chili with meat. But there is an interesting twist on the Latin, says poet Kathleen Norris. She points out that hidden in the word "incarnation" is an obsolete English word, "incarn,"which means "to cause flesh to grow," as in the flesh that begins to grow over a wound. The last common use of the word in English, interestingly enough, was in early 19^th century medical textbooks. The incarnation, then, is a sanctification of all human flesh, given for the healing of the world.

All flesh is holy, then? Now there’s a radical thought for you. You mean, it’s not just prophets and bodhisattvas who are imbued with holiness? Everyone is? One of the countless volunteers working with Mother Teresa recounts the story of her finding a baby abandoned in a trash bin. She reached down and pulled the tiny form up into the light, and her eyes opened in wonder and delight. "There’s life here!" she exclaimed.

If we, then, begin to really believe that flesh is holy stuff—all flesh—we will stop our endless quantifying and judging and comparing. All are holy. Not just the rich man with the power and prestige that money confers, not just the lawyer with her office in Koin tower, but the alcoholic sitting with his paper bag and his bottle down in the Park blocks, the prisoner who waits out the endless days of his sentence in jail.

My younger son Madison did an interesting project in a prison last summer. Given an opportunity to teach gifted high school students and to choose whatever subject matter he wished for one of his courses, he decided to take these kids into a prison not far from their summer school, to interview the prisoners. His assumption was that it’s important for all of us to be able to communicate with persons who are very different from ourselves, and his students were mostly children of privilege. Most of the parents, to their credit, allowed him to take their children into the prison. One who did not wrote that he thought his child would gain more from interviewing someone who was "more of a success in life" than a prisoner. Each child interviewed a single prisoner for 6 hours and then wrote a short piece in the voice of the prisoner.

Here is one of those voices. He has four years left to service in a 23-year sentence for five felonies: "I had a great life before I came to prison. Prison screwed all that up; I screwed all that up. . . . . I loved my life before prison. . . . . I had a great respect for my momma and always had five brothers and sisters to play with. I didn’t come from one of those "dysfunctional" families, so to speak. We had it hard. We lived in the ghetto and, man, that isn’t Disneyland.. . . . . My family don’t care that I’m here. I got a stepfather in prison, a sister in prison, a brother in prison, cousins in prison. Is my family supposed to worry and cry ‘cause I’m in prison. . . . . Are they supposed to obsess about me being here? I don’t think so.

"Society is getting worse every day. There is a real problem with race relations in the outside world. I think that to solve all the problems with race, you just need to split the country in half. Put all the black people on one side of the border, put all the white folk on the other side of the border. Let each side of the border make their own set of rules. I would be more willing to follow the laws of the black people than of the white people. How are they going to tell me not to murder or rape people when they did it to the black slaves a hundred and thirty years ago?

"My crime was based on one thing: the Almighty Dollar. Money. The root of all evils. That’s the only reason I did what I did. I did it for the money. Money is all that makes the world go ‘round. Those who have it have power; those who don’t, don’t. I didn’t justify my crimes. I knew what I was doing was wrong. I didn’t care. I wanted to take the easy way out. . . . . I felt great committing my crimes. I felt as if things were going to get better for me. I have no guilt about it. The money was insured. I grew up in the ghetto, man. You had to learn how to survive."

Words from the Messiah? Is there a prophetic voice here? I know few people who are as willing to be as open about their lives and their mistakes as these prisoners. I don’t always agree with their conclusions, but I have much to learn from them. Listen to the themes in this brief story: alienation from family, the power of money, the pain of racism, greed, taking the easy way out. Do any of us have any of those same themes running through our lives? You bet we do! But here they are writ large. They are right in our face. And so we listen and learn.

It’s interesting to me that artistically Christ appears in different forms and guises, according to the race and ethnicity of the believers. There are Messiah figures of every skin color and facial shape. The Holy is no respecter of persons. A powerful moment for me came when I saw the sculpture Christa during my seminary days. Christa is a female Jesus hanging on a cross. It was shocking, sobering. Did I need a male Christ? I had to think about my gender assumptions in regard to power and in regard to holiness and in regard to sacrifice.

If each one of us has that divine spark within—whatever our skin color or sexual orientation or gender--and I think that we do, perhaps our task in this world is to discern how the Holy wants to move in us and bless the world. What are our particular gifts? In what ways do we distort or misuse or simply fail to develop our gifts? Maybe sin is no more than squandering our capacity for giving and blessing and healing this broken world. In that healing, we ourselves are healed, are saved.

We speak of the ministry of the laity so much these days, and I deeply believe that that is what church is essentially about. Tom and I envision, call forth, administer—but as servant-leaders. We invite you to deepen spiritually, to discern your gifts, to bring wholeness to this church and to the larger community. Whether you serve coffee on Sunday or teach in the learning community or plan the financial life of the church or sing in one of our choirs, you are giving out of that spiritual center that animates all of your being. Incarnation becomes not a vague theological term but instead is seen as a way of living for each one of us. Cherish your flesh, for when you think about it, how else is God going to work in the world, except through your eyes, your hands, your feet? Through your flesh you embody your deepest values and manifest those values in the world.

Let’s go back to Mary for a moment, as she hears the dubious message from the angel. Metaphorically, this is one of those times—and we all have them—when the Holy knocks on our door and asks plainly for entry. Mary is properly frightened, as are we all when such an event occurs. Who am I, to have an angel call on me? She throws up some logic as her defense and tries to squirm out of the invitation. But then she quiets down and says, "Behold, the handmaid of the Lord. Let it be."

When these moments come, all our plans are thrown askew. Nothing is the same anymore. When the Holy enters the world, the status quo has to be abandoned. But if we answer yes, our life takes on a strange and beautiful kind of peace. Not the peace of the world, for often the holiness within is at odds with the world. But the kind of peace that falls upon us when who we are and who we were meant to be are one and the same. Our spiritual destiny calls to us, and we answer, and frightened and uncertain though we may be, we say, "Here am I. Send me."

So then what? Do we get to escape disappointment and betrayal and suffering and death? Well, no. Jesus didn’t. As a matter of fact, these are our lot, anyway, as human beings. No one escapes these things. The difference is that now we somehow sense that there is a bigger picture than we can readily see. There is more love somewhere, we believe, and we are a part of that larger order of things. We give ourselves in faith to the Mystery, and we simply rest in the reality of each day. Surprisingly, we find that that is enough.

So be it. Amen.

PRAYER

Holy One, incarnate in the least of us, help us to acknowledge your love in our lives and to live out of that understanding. Forgive us for abusing and misusing your good gifts to us. May we see the Sacred in the earth and in all of her creatures, and in whatsover ways as you invite us to bless this world, may we say yes, oh, yes. May it be so. Amen.

BENEDICTION

Go now and be aware of the holiness within—and touch the holiness in all who cross your path.

OPENING WORDS

"In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God."

John I:1

Copyright © 2000, Reverend Dr. Marilyn Sewell. All rights reserved.