What is your relationship to Jesus these days? It’s a question that comes up, surprisingly NOT at the door from someone wishing to proselytize me into their religion, but from Unitarian Universalist friends. Christian and Christianity are words that belong to a religion that I am no longer a part of. But, to be honest, Jesus is a different story.
Jesus is a presence, and that presence is mediated through the stories of him and about him.
When I was in seminary, I remember encountering a way of seeing Jesus that was radically new to me. I had grown up with the “atonement Jesus;” that is, the Jesus that was here to pay for all human wickedness so that we might be acceptable to God again (atonement Jesus was a creation of St. Anselm in the 11th century). Atonement Jesus was built on the notion that human beings are born evil and on human fear used against people to keep them under the control of Church leaders. Fear of eternal damnation was what we faced, according to the atonement Jesus approach, and we had to do whatever was required by atonement Jesus to avoid it.
But,there was, long before atonement Jesus, another story about Jesus. This was “iconic Jesus.” Iconic Jesus is the Jesus who shows us who we are (because we have forgotten). Every story he tells is a story about who we are.
When we see him taking action by feeding hungry people, or restoring broken families, giving children his full attention, healing untouchable lepers, elevating women, gentiles and Samaritans to full human status, and chasing money changers out of the Temple, he is showing us how to be who we truly are with one another.
When he turns water into wine, when he shares bread and wine and calls them his body and blood, when he tells fishermen how to catch more fish, he is showing us the beloved community that we are.
When he faces misunderstanding, judgment, and death, he is showing us the unconditional love that we are capable of for ourselves and each other–even our political enemies.
Jesus reminds me of who we are. That is my relationship to Jesus, and really, to any other being who becomes that kind of window into who we are. There are many like Jesus.
Unitarian Universalism has provided me the sacred space to reforge this relationship to Jesus that traditional Christianity would not have allowed me. This community, UUCG, in particular, has created that kind of safe and sacred space for me for 20 years now, the sacred space of holy presence, of a beloved community.
~Bob Patrick
