I have a very low threshold for Jesus

The title of this post is a quote from one of the people I interviewed after worship at Micah's Porch. I have a very low threshold for Jesus, he said, in response to a question I had asked about why he found this church to be a place he felt at home. He meant that in order for him to feel comfortable in a worship service, he couldn't have it too filled with Jesus.

I was surprised. Even more surprised when he told me he was raised Unitarian, since generally I find that those who have the most resistance to Jesus in UU churches are those who were raised in a Christian faith. But actually, it is fairly common sentiment within our communities. We have a collective low threshold for Jesus. But I had expected a different attitude at Micah's Porch. Their pastor seems Jesus-oriented, though he hasn't told me that himself. In one of our first conversations, though, he told me that he was a traditional Unitarian. He even half-joked that while there are UU groups for polyamory, we don't yet have a clear acceptance of UU Unitarians. After talking with him further, I am pretty sure that he was not saying that there wasn't acceptance of the upper-middle-class-well-educated-reason-driven-white-male-orientation that is a big part of the Unitarian tradition. No, I think he was talking about Jesus. (And God, but I have to come back to God later. As a Unitarian, we can have these conversations separately. :) )

Despite the signficant presence of the UU Christian Fellowship, a good portion of contemporary Unitarian Universalism has a low Jesus threshold. As one of my good friends observed, UUs are much more likely to turn to Mary Oliver or Rumi than to the Sermon on the Mount for guidance and grounding in our worship.

When I went seeking a welcoming community with whom I could worship and heal - just about 10 years ago now - I confess to my own low threshold for Jesus. I do not know for sure if our collective intolerance is about injury, but mine was. I could not see my way to any kind of healing if it was to be wrapped up in Jesus. The word, the person, the ideas, the religion, even if just a shadow of the religion. I was angry at the church for being against me, and my love, for teaching me that God is love, and then backtracking and revising, asserting that God was only some kinds of love. But I took them at the original promise - God is full love, large love, complicated love, indivisible love. And that understanding and faith meant that I could not find God through the symbol of Jesus. Because Jesus had come to mean division, disintegration - distrust of the body, dis-ease of the heart.

I was relieved to find no mention of Jesus in that first UU church I attended. I don't know if I ever heard his name in the time of our attendance, and I was grateful. It offered me a kind of space and time to recover and rediscover my sense of truth and wholeness among religious community.

Jesus is a real issue for Unitarian Universalism today. I cannot even count how many times people have mentioned to me that they would be Unitarians if they could find a UU church that was willing to welcome them in their love for Jesus, and offer them a worship space and community that allowed Jesus to be a central part of their spiritual practice. I hear it from my classmates, I hear it in my community, and I see it in popular dialogue around religion - I mean who hasn't read Marcus Borg and thought - this guy is a Unitarian! But he's not.

Three or four years after I first attended a Unitarian Universalist church, I was reading a copy of the UU World magazine, and I had an epiphany. Seriously, it came to me suddenly, overwhelmingly: I loved Jesus. And if I was to really follow Jesus, to take seriously the message of Jesus, I would be forever a better human being. And if the world were to follow the ways of Jesus, we would be universally transformed. This was not a rational moment, but rather a deep feeling of confidence. And just as quickly as it came, it left, and in its place, I was afraid. Because I did not know exactly how to reconcile this deep understanding and peace with Jesus with my sense of being called to minister to those who - yes - had a very low threshold for Jesus.

I do think a lot of us UUs keep Jesus at arm's length out of a sense of injury. Whether a personal or societal injury, I do think we have been hurt by the use of Jesus in our world today. By the distillation of God into the image of Jesus dying and bleeding on the cross - which I think also distills humanity into sinful creatures who require the suffering of God to attain salvation. I know this isn't the first thing people usually articulate as the source of their injury as it relates to Jesus and Christianity, but for me, it is the theologically central struggle I encounter as I attempt to rebuild my understanding of Jesus and his message.

What are we going to do about Jesus? What are we going to do in Unitarian Universalism to make a safe and full space for those who are Unitarian in the traditional sense? Those who not only have a high threshold for Jesus, but seek Jesus as a central symbol for their path to the divine? Do we wish them well and best of luck, and send them all to the nearest UCC church? And simultaneously, what are we going to do with all of this anger and resistance we have built up in our communities towards Christianity and Jesus specifically, and theism and God generally? Or the sense as articulated here, that Unitarian Universalism is a 200 year movement away from Christianity? Is it possible for two members of the same religion to see Unitarian Universalism as a movement away from Jesus and the faith that most allows them to follow Jesus?

When I was first working through my project for the FTE, I returned repeatedly to a sense of injury within our Unitarian Universalist communities. And as I shared these thoughts with others, they assured me that this is not unique to Unitarian Universalism. The religously wounded walk into all kinds of faith communities, every Sunday, seeking recovery and rebirth. But what they find there, to be truly healing, to be bread for their journey, and not stones, as Elizabeth Schussler Fiorenza asserted - cannot shirk away from addressing this injury directly. By acting as if Jesus is a taboo subject (a love that dare not speak its name?), what possible way do we have for healing what is finally a distortion and misrepresentation of all that Jesus spoke of? If the only way we speak of Jesus is with derision or dismissal, what hope do we have of understanding our true historical inheritance, which includes many who were so committed to their sense of the Christian message that they were willing to die for it? And if we call ourselves open to all spiritual paths except the one which calls itself Christian, what way do have to know ourselves as fully interdependent with all of those who, as the central message of their lives, feel saved by their relationship with Jesus Christ?

Although I walked into Unitarian Universalism with a very low threshold for Jesus, I am coming to believe that now is the time for us to re-make our relationship with him and his teachings. Now is the time for us to heal these wounds once and for all, to offer worship and fellowship which is truly welcoming of those who find in his message life, joy, and healing. To offer counseling and support for those who find in this work buried pain and profound injury. To create systems of life which can, over time, meet all those who enter our sanctuaries seeking recovery from their own religious injuries, and offer them a greater path of life. To re-image Jesus for ourselves and for our world as a teacher of love, of a giver of life, of sign of hope. To foster imagination and strengthen relationships within our communities as we allow this work to draw attention to our differences in spiritual beliefs and practices. To encounter Jesus in a way which honors the true pluralism of our world, in a practice and exploration of what it may mean to find Jesus beyond notions of belief or creed, imperialism or colonialism. And to seek this and all of our spiritual healing with the faith that diversity reveals to us the divine, and that by being in a community which celebrates and relishes in its differences, we are ultimately made whole.


The amazing artwork on this post is from janet mckenzie. You can find a great summary of her work on the Tikkun Blog.

Grace

The freedom to be together, to know one another, to be known, to love, to be loved - these are gifts of grace. The gift of life, of breath, of time, of this moment - and the knowledge of a past, and a future. The gift of imagination, of envisioning something not yet true or real, but possible simply because we can see it in our minds and in our hearts. These are gifts of grace.

Sometimes I day-dream that my church, my future church, will be called Grace Unitarian Universalist Church. From my searches, I have not found such a place to exist. We seem to have a low account of grace in Unitarian Universalism - which I find confusing, given that Universalism is all about grace. Perhaps it is true, what my TA in theology class last quarter thought - in order to have a strong understanding of grace, you must have a strong understanding of sin. Neither concept is robustly developed in contemporary Unitarian Universalism, at least from what I have witnessed.

In my interviews with Revs. Jennifer & David Owen-O'Quill in Chicago last month, they both articulated that their gospel, their good news, is that God loves you - no matter what. That God's love is unconditional. They, like my TA, connected this good news to a strong theology of sin - we are all sinful and broken, and in the midst of that, we are ontologically and essentially good - for God is good, and God's grace is eternal.

I don't know. My sense of grace is not necessarily connected to sinfulness. Instead, I want to think about grace in the sense of unearned and undeserved gifts. Not unearned or undeserved because of your personal negative qualities or actions, but because there is no way to earn, or deserve, the kinds of gifts that constitute grace. Such as life. What could one do to "earn" life? Such as love. What could on do to "deserve" love? Such as those mountains my family and I stood upon this weekend. The children my partner and I held in our hands. Nothing a human can do could measure up to these things - because they are immeasurably good, infinitely valuable.


But UUs like to earn things, and so we tell ourselves that grace is an unnecessary concept - because human hands strive together and bring us all that we can conceive of. I count myself among this group I like to earn things. I don't know how not to feel like I've earned something - measurably good or otherwise. Have I done enough? Am I worth this gift? The good news Jennifer and David propose, if temporarily lifted out of a traditional theology of sin (I'll come back to this later, I promise), grants us the possibility that irrevocably the answer to these questions are: Yes, and Yes.

What a relief grace might be for those of us who seek salvation through endless lists of tasks. To know that even if we do nothing at all, even if we come empty-handed and directionless, we are already and always ok - what good news this might be.

As I have been attempting to re-assemble my yoga practice, I have been remembering what yoga has taught me about grace, and how hard a concept it is for me to believe or embrace. Whether in handstands or downward dogs, I found myself perpetually solving my struggles through muscle. Through determined force. I can get there if I push my way into it - I am strong, I tell myself. And sometimes I would. But often, I would hit a block that I could not overcome. Because to move forward, you need not only strength, but openness, willingness to receive from somewhere other than your muscles, faith in something uncontrollable and intangible, that is, grace. To move into a pose, you must not move into the pose, but let the pose be in you. Breathe, relax, wait. You cannot push your way in to these places, and in fact your pushing only delays your arrival. Your wanting only gets in the way of receiving. This is grace.

My friend from seminary (who I hope will sometime soon come and post a comment or two), who was raised UU, told me that finding the concept of grace as an adult was a deeply liberating encounter. It was something she found utterly lacking in her religious upbringing. Again, I find this bewildering given that Universalism makes no sense without a strong theology of grace. As we continue to manifest communities of depth in our congregational lives, I have a sense that we must do so alongside a great dialogue and growing appreciation for the concept of and witness to grace. And so I continue to dream of this future church, and imagine it might one day be real.

Sacred Space

I walked into the Chopin Theatre in Chicago's Wicker Park late on a Friday evening a few weeks ago, to see TUTA's production of Uncle Vanya. I was there with my sister Kristina, and quite unexpectedly and fortunately, my friend, Mark Lord, who just happened to be in town from Philadelphia. I don't think I had seen it live before, though I had read the play a few times, and of course Vanya on 42nd Street was a college favorite. It was performed in the basement space. The stage was covered in doors but no walls, the air was filled with music melancholy enough for Chekov, and the occasional subway train rushing by.

What makes a space sacred? What constitutes holy ground? How does it serve us, or allow us to better seek God, to consider some spaces hallowed and others just plain space?

I wrote in my entrance essay to seminary, that after feeling alienated from the cathedrals of Catholicism, I found God in the theatre. Sitting there between Mark and Kristina, with just a few other bodies sharing space nearby, experiencing together this funny and sad piece of theatre, the occasional brilliant moments of actors speaking old words with new life, I remembered just how much space matters.

The book of Exodus spends a ridiculous amount of time explaining just what would make a space holy for the God of Israel. If we take Exodus literally, God is gravely concerned with circumscribing the dimensions of a space that might be considered holy. By the time of David, God is less concerned with a space, and more concerned with having a good representative in God's King David. Of course, it isn't too long before David's son Solomon takes on his crazy-fabulous building project and creates the first version of the great temple of Jerusalem, which you could argue completely re-makes the entire identity of the Hebrew religion and the way the people see themselves and their relationship to their God.

The Sunday after I saw Uncle Vanya at the Chopin Theatre, I attended the worship service for the UU community, Micah's Porch held in the same space. It is hard to know what others saw in that space, if it could carry the same kind of borrowed meaning it held for me after seeing Vanya there just a couple nights before. But either way, I was reminded again, of just how much space matters. And not just because it shapes how people experience the service itself, but maybe more for how it communicates who is being invited, who might find this to be their place of worship, their place for community, for (as James Luther Adams suggested) practicing what it means to be human.

Spaces are like any part of the myths we use to access and experience Ultimacy - we must be careful not to confuse them with Ultimacy itself, and to be clear that their boundaries are constructed and performed for our benefit, and not at all real, as all the world is potentially and essentially holy. But we need these boundaries and performances of space, to help us recall who we are and are not, what we are made for, and what we are called to become.

One of the things that often confuses me - and I know I'm not alone on this - is just how predictable UU church spaces tend to be. Here we are, this free movement, affirming of an unbounded, expanding, alive faith, insistent on our congregational uniqueness and independence, creative expression and relentless discovery - and yet all our churches look alike. They look like each other, and they look like a good majority of other religious spaces. And although we are developing "alternative" worship spaces here and there, I'm still not sure why our "alternative" service isn't the main service.

People like to explain this to me in one of two similar ways...first, that our religious expression and theological inqury is so free, that we need the predictability of our space and our worship forms to ground us. It helps us recognize ourselves as "church." It offers us safety to explore ideas freely. Second, they tell me that because we have so many people who find us from other faith traditions, that this group prefers a more traditional church set-up for their worship experience. It makes them feel like they are going to "church," even when the ideas or experiences go beyond what they might have previously understood as acceptable for church life.

I don't know if these statements are true, but they have been repeated to me often. But even if they are true to some extent, they come with their own not insignficant issues, not the least of which is how these spaces that meet the needs of "come-outers" may fail to be inviting or worshipful for those who are raised Unitarian Universalist.

The Chopin Theatre, with all its chairs and stairways, with actors' props set alongside the walk-way, with its multiple spaces for eating and drinking, and with its posters of past and upcoming events, with all that comes with a Chicago theatre space - felt to me, as much like a church as any church I've ever attended. And yet, I wondered, if there were children in this church, would they find a place to be? How about differently abled individuals - would it have been accessible? And for all those who do not feel at home in a theatre - would they find this place just as alienating as a traditional church setting? Would they find God here?

Space does matter - as a point of access, as a component of the invitation we make to those with whom we hope to be in community. It matters experientially for the phenomenon of the thing - the sensory experience of it all, and it matters for what it signfies, what it communicates to us based on our culturally encoded shorthand - for its semiotics.

And space only matters inasmuch as it fails or affords us to allow us to find each other, to meet with each other, to experience that which is bigger than us, to know ourselves and each other, to practice being together, to practice and become fully human.