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10

Jesus, Son of Man10

History tells us that there was a man born nearly 2,000 years ago who lived in an inconspicuous village, in a subjugated country, which was one of the poorest and smallest nations on earth. By almost all standards his life ended prematurely and a failure. His ministry, which began the age of 30, occupied a period of no more than three years, and may have been as short as six months. He was forsaken by his friends and disciples; he was executed as a criminal between two thieves; and his broken body was sealed in a borrowed tomb.

Yet this man called Jesus has become one of the most influential men in the course of history, and today commands a response from hundreds of millions of people. Who was Jesus and what did he stand for? One of the most important things he stood for from our point of view as Unitarian Universalists was the idea of love. What troubles us most deeply, however, is that Jesus’ ethic of love does not always seem practical, does not seem realistic for our time. We should acknowledge, of course, that there never has been a time, including Jesus’ own, when his commandment seemed practical.

For the ethic of Jesus is an absolute ethic. There is no room left for compromising and applying it to a greater or lesser degree according to the situation. Jesus is not concerned about adapting it to circumstances. He believes that our acts should conform to the ethic. It is an absolute demand that is placed upon us—not just to love our friends, but our enemies as well; not just to walk one mile, but two. It is all or nothing. In the concrete situation, one either loves or one does not.

Was Jesus a hopeless idealist? To one who reads the New Testament closely, it becomes clear that Jesus was far from being a visionary, or even a perfectionist. He had shortcomings and recognized them. There were occasions when he became violently angry; there were those he found it difficult, if not impossible to love. We can cite his attack upon the money-changers in the Temple, his cursing of the cities of Chorazin, Berhsaida, and Capeernaum (Matt 11:20–24), his harsh replies to the Pharisees when they asked for a sign in Matthew 12:39, his invective against his opponents in Matthew 23:13 when he entered the long tirade, “Woe unto you. . . .” Thus, when someone called him “good master” he answered, “There is none good but one, that is, God” (Mark 10:18 KJV).

If Jesus was not oblivious to his own limitations and to those of others, if he knew how difficult it was to follow the unqualified commandment of love—why did he continue to hold it, and expect us to follow it? The answer to this question, and it is perhaps the most important one that we can ask of Jesus, is that he stood for something besides the ethical, something which made love possible.

Indeed, contemporary scholars of the New Testament point out that in comparison to this “something else,” love is mentioned relatively seldom by Jesus. Although its use is emphatic, love is confined to a few passages such as the Sermon on the Mount, or the passage where a lawyer asks Jesus what the greatest commandment is. Jesus affirms the commandment of love, but he does not explain it. He simply does not present a detailed ethical system. As Rudolph Bultmann said in his book, Jesus and the Word:

The command of love explains nothing concerning the content of love. What must a man do to love his neighbor or his enemy? It is said simply that he is to do it. What a man must do . . . is not stated. It is assumed that everyone can know that. (Bultmann 1958, 94, 113)

If this is so, what is this “something else” which makes love possible, which Jesus emphasizes and develops? If you read the first three or four books of the New Testament carefully, you will know the answer. It is what almost every one of the parables is devoted to. The something else is what Jesus called the “Kingdom of God.”

What did the Kingdom of God mean for Jesus? There are three divergent interpretations. First, the one which we most often associate with him is there would be an eminent and catastrophic end of history and God’s new order would be established. Second, and this is an interpretation which has become most popular in our denomination during the past century with social action and belief in human progress, the Kingdom of God could be established within history. A third interpretation is that the Kingdom of God did not depend upon the termination of history or a consummation of it but was a reality of the spirit rather than of the world and it is among us even now.

Which view did Jesus endorse? According to scholars, clearly not the second which is a product of modern times. For a while perhaps the first, as Albert Schweitzer maintains. But during the latter part of his ministry, as men like Rudolph Bultmann and C.H. Dodd contend, Jesus held to the third, that the Kingdom of God is a reality of the spirit aside from history.

What influence could such a reality have had on moral decision-making? Jesus never fully explains what he means, but I think I have a sense of what he meant. We must remember that for Jesus, God was not only a central teaching but a living reality. In Jesus we have a radical break from the God of Judaism, the unapproachable ruler of the universe. For one of the first times in history, God is considered as a father, from whom support and strength could be expected.

It was precisely this expectancy, this trust and confidence, this security in one’s acceptance, that was the spiritual reality that constitutes the Kingdom of God. There is no good reason why this sense of acceptance and trust of life cannot be ours also. It doesn’t matter where we say it originates, so long as it is “among us” and moves us toward action.

As I see it, this Kingdom that Jesus proclaimed can be experienced by us as peace in the present and hope in the future. First, there must be a deep sense of self-acceptance and identity that is peace. But since the future is most uncertain—and this was Jesus’ greatest emphasis—peace in the present is not possible unless accompanied by and predicated upon hope, expectancy of the good that the future holds.

This is somewhat vague. Let me give examples of what this reality is that is the equivalent of the Kingdom of God, which has a place in our lives and is a prologue to moral decision. One of the best examples I can think of is a spirit that permeates the home just before the family goes on a vacation, or the spirit among children the night before Christmas. Here we are filled with a sense of expectancy and joy. We all come more fully alive and find ourselves doing things for each other, loving each other in ways we would not ordinarily do. When children are “good” before Christmas it is not just because they’re going to get presents and must be well behaved. It is because they are filled with a spirit of expectancy that makes them feel good and they want to do well. The purpose of religion is to encourage such a sense of expectancy and hope all the time.

Another example is a very specific sensation that comes to us just before we are able to make a moral decision, just before making a decision to love. It is a feeling of well-being, of peace and of hope, that wells up within us, and suddenly it is as if we were released from unseen bonds and are able to love. Next time you’re in a position of making such a decision and you decide to do what you know is right, even though it may mean difficulty and even sacrifice, see if you don’t feel a sense of fulfillment and peace that accompanies or proceeds the moment of moral decision.

The trouble is that we accept such random moments of beauty and meaning as incidental rather than realize that if we emphasized them all the time, our capacity for moral decision would be enhanced. This is the primary task of religion, to give priority and attention to the deepest realities of being that lead to moral decision. Is the absolute ethic of Jesus, is the commandment of love difficult and elusive? Then seek the kingdom of peace and of hope. Under conditions of peace and hope the absolute ethic is practical, even inevitable.

The kingdom Jesus offered was not the one that the Jews expected, either. They looked for a kingdom and Messiah in the tradition of David, who would liberate their country. So, misunderstood and rejected, Jesus gave his life trying to express the nature of his kingdom and out of a faith that it would prevail, even over death itself.

And the wonder of time is that it has. For the deepest message of Jesus for our time is more than the ethic of love; it is the presence of the kingdom of peace and hope that undergirds the ethical and makes it possible. Yet, it may not be the kingdom we expect either; it is also in our power to misunderstand and reject it. We stand as those who, by the lakeside, heard the Son of Man for the first time: “The kingdom of God is not coming with signs to be observed; nor will they say, ‘Lo, here it is’ Or ‘There!’ For behold the kingdom of God is in the midst of you. (Luke 17:20–21 RSV).

10. Sermon delivered by the author at the Church of the Reconciliation Unitarian Universalist, Utica, New York on April 22, 1962.