Enter Jerusalem*

A CHALLENGE TO "ENTER JERUSALEM"

Message delivered by The Reverend Dr. Gregory Wilson

April 11 at UUCB and April 25, 2004 at Friendship Fellowship

 

Today I would like to share two perspectives of the Christian Easter Story.

Christian Unitarian Universalist claim salvation is for all persons. From the Universalist tradition there is not one person that will not know the love of God. Christian Universalist proclaim we will all experience the love of God We today who our Christian Unitarian Universalist claim that truth. That salvation is universal.

In the 19^th-century Hosea Ballou, a great Universalist preacher stood firm for over 35 years preaching and laying a solid foundation that salvation is universal standing on the work of third century theologians of the Christian faith. He had an intuitive sensibility about the love of God from a young age. Hosea Ballou’s father’s was a Calvinistic Baptist Preacher who believed Universal Salvation was heresy......... When Hosea was 11 years old he picked up a stick and he said to his father, if I were to make this stick an alive human being that would enjoy this life all the while knowing it was going to suffer misery for eternity with that make me a good creator. He reports his father just looked at him and walked away. Hosea Ballou knew from a young child the love and wisdom of God. In another story, One day a group of Universalists decided to go to Hosea Ballou’s father’s Church, his father being a Calvinistic Baptist clearly an adversary to the Universalist, the Universalist decided to stir up some trouble. They challenged the elder Ballou by quoting Romans 5:18, "so then as through one transgression they resulted condemnation to all men, even so through one act of righteousness they resulted justification of life to all men." They were questioning the Calvinistic Baptist interpretation of the phrase, life to all persons. How could this phrase exclude some people from the everlasting love of God. Hosea Ballou never forgot these words. And from then on as he studied the Scriptures it was always from a Universalist perspective.

Today along with one of the great founders of our faith Hosea Ballou, as Unitarian Universalist’s hear today we claim that truth , indeed salvation is universal.

This is one result and one aspect of the core teaching of the Christian church, the resurrection of Jesus Christ. That Christians can rejoice in the fact that we are all in the presence and will be in the presence of the love of God.

However there is another aspect of the life and death and resurrection of Jesus Christ that moves beyond this core truth of Christianity. In other words the story of the resurrection of Jesus Christ is at least twofold. It is the core of the Christian faith and it has truth within it that moves beyond the Christian faith.

The Christian Easter story is the end of a much longer story. It begins in the very act of creation, the creation of humankind, according to the Judean Christian faith tradition.. What we learn from that story are several things. We learn that as humans we fail, we make agreements and we break them, and we have the potential to hurt the very ones we love, we can become estranged from one another and yet continue in the relationship. And we learn that our response as human beings to these sources of brokenness is often a sense of shame, when Adam and Eve realized they were naked they covered themselves and when they head God coming to visit in the cool of the evening they hide in fear of being exposed. After some conversation, God made them clothing and their shame was comforted and the relationship was reconciled. So we also learned in the creation story that God offers comfort for our shame so that we can be reconciled with God and one another, once again. In both the first and second generation of humankind we see stories of betrayal, self betrayal, the betrayal of highly held values and the betrayal of the other. We see innocence murdered as Cain killed Able. This is the beginning of the Christian Easter story. The Christian Easter story is not only about the life of Jesus it is also a story about us.

In three accounts of the resurrection story, found in the gospel of Luke , "see my hands and my feet, that it is myself; touch me and see, for a spirit does not have flesh and wounds as you see that I have." And in the gospel of John 20:20 and 27-28, "he showed them both his hands and his side. The disciples therefore rejoiced when they saw the lord." And in John 20:27, "then he said to Thomas, reach here with your finger, and see my hands; and reach here your hay and, and put it into my side; and be not unbelieving, but believing. Thomas answered and said to him, my lord and my God". As Jesus is talking to his disciples after his death and resurrection he acknowledges the wounds in his hands and in his side as testimony that indeed he has come through his suffering and experiences life once again. The resurrection of Jesus Christ was not creation out of nothing it is a creation out of a life story in which death occurs.

The memory of his suffering and the telling the story of his woundedness appears to be part of the outcome of his resurrection. It is his testimony of an encounter with another that has brought, that which was dead back to life. It is the power of the telling of his story that brings others to attention and belief. It is only after sharing his woundedness did the disciples rejoice even, after the resurrection. The telling of his trials is integral to the story of Jesus celebrating his new life with his disciples. I know traditionally the interpretation of these verses have been to assure us that Jesus was truly raised from the dead in physical form. However, restricting this interpretation to only this perspective, I believe misses a truth about brokenness and reconciliation as we live out our lives in relationship, in our families, and in our communities.

How does this relate to us in the here and now. In Matthew chapter4:17, Jesus teaches us at the kingdom of God is at hand, now. So we must ask ourselves how does the life and resurrection affect us while we are alive, it is not only about our hope in the after life somehow it is also our hope now, in this time and place, where we live. How we can make sense of the celebration of the resurrection and new life if only refers to the afterlife. The entire story of Christ from birth to ministry to the crucifixion to the resurrection, must be about our lives in the here now. How can these themes of life, death and resurrection bring us a more abundant life , spiritually, emotionally, and relationally. How can this story reconcile brokenness in relationships, how can this story affect my own self judgement that I live with daily, how can this story create intimacy in my marriage that has been dry for years, how can this story move me to be kinder to my partner and my children? How can this story help me now, enjoy my life?

I believe that the psychoanalytical theorist’s Donald Wonnicott can help us here. He teaches us that when a person is overwhelmed beyond what their psyche, their spiritual life can tolerate they will experience something similar to death for that moment of time. It is curious thing, he calls it the experience of not yet. That which has happened that we have yet to experience. These events disrupt the continuity of our life stories, the capacity of memory, and our capacity for empathy. An example for my own life of what I believe he is referring to, when I was doing my first clinical pastoral educational unit at a psychiatric hospital, I was charged with visiting a young boy. He was 10 years old and his father had recently died I was 27 in this is my first experience and clinical setting. Our training process is that we would have pastoral conversations as chaplains and then after the conversation we would go write down what was said and in weekly supervisory meetings we would present the memory of the pastoral Conversation, called a verbatim. A Word for Word account of how we remembered the pastoral visit. My supervisor was very affirming and he gently pointed out to me that I had changed the direction of the conversation away from this young boy talking about the pain of his father’s death. At first I denied I did this with some intensity, he showed me what I wrote, and gently said you wrote it I didn’t. After some silence he asked me what happened between my father and myself when I was 10. The tears just started to flow, indeed this is when my father left my house. At that time I began experience what I did not experience when I was 10 years old. That part of me that was still wounded and was split off, numb, forgotten indeed was buried. Many of us have memories that are buried. That part of me was not available for the conversation with a young boy. So we ask where was that part of me that has the capacity to empathize but on that day changed the direction away from empathy away from the not yet felt pain of my history? I believe from the Christian perspective we could say that part of me experienced betrayal, life itself betrayed me as a young boy as my father drove up over the hill away from my home.. I believe this is what Donald Winnicott is talking about when he identifies the death experienced but not yet felt. This not only happens to young children, the overwhelming of our psyche in our spiritual lives this happens to us as children and adults.

I was not able to speak to that boy about an issue that we had in common because I had not yet experienced that event in my mind or in my emotional life. That aspect of myself, that part of me that was buried was beginning to stir, first in tears and later in celebration. Often this way to new life is characterized by tears. That in me that was not available one day was available the next day. One day I could not see the next day I could see. My wounds were no longer hidden within I was able to share with others. Painful events in which parts of ourselves that are lost along the way of life occur in most of our lives. It occurs when our innocense is betrayed by life itself, as in the life of Jesus.

As Jesus looks Pilot in the eye he knows innocense is looking at power. He has come to Jerusalem for this moment, what will the powers that be do when they look innocense in the eye. Innocense challenges all forms of oppression, injustice, famine, hunger, simply by existing.

The child watches his/her father drive down the road not knowing when he will return, innocence betrayed, the family fishing Sunday afternoon at the edge of the lake dead fish wash up on shore because of chemicals left unchecked by factory 25 miles up the river, innocence betrayed. A man comes home early from work to discover his partner has left, a wife finds the hotel receipt in her husband’s jacket, a professional crosses the trusted line, A spouse joyfully shares they have a dream and realizes the person they love really does not care, the first disillusionment of a marriage becomes the foundation for the life of the marriage, innocence betrayed. All these experiences have the potential to eat away at our spirits to point where we are only existing floating through time disconnected from our souls.

The confrontation of these broken covenants is the same as when Jesus went into Jerusalem. He went to confront the brokeness of his time. We must also move into our Jerusalems to confront our brokenness. Innocence must look power in the eye not knowing the outcome. These confrontations are always about the betrayed discovering they have been betrayed, a broken covenant, sacred balance, goodwill, the belief in our powers being benevolent and kind, it is always about the betrayed innocence looking power in the eye. The innocence discovers betrayal in horror in disbelief they confront the power that has already murdered their sacred space between them and they ask is there any hope this could be different. Jesus is already on the cross as he looks pilot in the eye. The potential of lives changed forever being held in hand of power that has already betrayed the innocence of existence. The road to new life is difficult.

What needs to happen in all of our lives at this point when we recognize there has been a betrayal is our history and it is still painfully strong within us. We must indeed enter our Jerusalem’s Just as Christ entered Jerusalem. He knew prior to his entering Jerusalem that he had to go through this suffering and yet he went anyway. He prayed and he argued with God so that he might not have to go. But what we learn from the story of Jesus indeed he had to go. It is like many of us, we fear, we fear the future, and we dread the outcome awareness but yet we bring ourselves to confront that person or our own history indeed even ourselves when we have betrayed we stand on the edge of Jerusalem and ask is there another way, knowing there is not another way . The very next step requires all the courage we have, a deep breath and we step The hope of the Christian story is that we can move to the other side of that suffering and as we are on the other side of that suffering indeed just as Christ experienced new life we can also experience new life. It is knowing suffering from the other side that new life occurs, relationships can be healed, inner judges can be quieted.

However just as in the story of Christ you cannot go through this process without witnesses without a community of people that care. When he went to the garden he asked close friends to go with him. When he was captured, when in Jerusalem and was on trial Peter was close at hand, struggling with his own grief and torment but nonetheless he was close at hand. Women ministered to him as he was on his way to his death and they stood with him as he was dying and indeed they were the first witnesses to his resurrection and his celebrating his new life in his new community. In this way of healing we are not to travel that road alone indeed we cannot travel this road alone, we must travel this road in community. When a person chooses to go into their Jerusalem we are to do this in a community so we can minister to one another. So that we can claim our best selves for ourselves, our families, and for our communities. Just as Christ did not allow the world to tempt him away from the expression of his ministry we to can walk this courageous path. And we to can share our suffering from the other side celebrating our new lives, no longer being held captive by the past, no longer being held captive by ourselves, no longer being held captive by others. Today we can be healed of past wounds, today because of the work in the ministry of Jesus Christ we know it is possible for us to be our best selves. And for that we are forever grateful to those who have walked this path before us and have taken the first step into their Jerusalem and when through the city turn around and helped others to take their first step so that we may have new life because of their willingness to travel into their own personal Jerusalem’s.

        

Copyright 2004, Rev. Gregory Wilson, D.Min.