Ronald J. Glossop

1st Unitarian Church of Alton, Illinois, 1 April 2001

I. Introduction

A. This sermon is for Unitarian Christians. It seeks to provide a

somewhat revolutionary interpretation of the Christian Biblical message

which does not require believing in what is physically impossible. At the

same time it may involve more mysticism or spiritualism than many

Unitarians would be comfortable with.

B. This reinterpretation starts with the recognition that the

earliest Christian writings available to us are not the Gospels of Matthew,

Mark, Luke, and John but the letters of Paul, all of which were composed

before any of our present Gospels. In fact, the Gnostic Marcion's first

effort to put together a Bible in the 2nd century consisted mostly of the

letters of Paul, and even a substantial proportion of our present New

Testament consists of Paul's letters.

C. Now deceased Unitarian minister A. Powell Davies wrote a very

informative book about Paul published in 1959 aptly titled The First

Christian: A Study of St. Paul and Christian Origins. Think about that.

The first Christian was not Jesus but Paul.

D. At the same time I want to make it clear that what I will be

proposing this morning is not a thesis put forward by Davies or even by

Paul. I am suggesting a certain way of understanding some of what Paul and

other early Christians were saying that does not depend on believing that

Jesus was physically resurrected on the first Easter. You might say that I

am presenting a humanistic, secular, and in some ways drastically new

reinterpretation of the Christian message.

E. To understand this reinterpretation, one must distinguish

between Jesus, the living historical person about whom we really know very

little on the one hand, and Christ. That word "Christ" is the Greek

version of the Hebrew "Messiah," the name used by the Jews for the

"Anointed One," the King, which Yahweh was to send to redeem the Jewish

nation from its humiliation by Assyrians, Babylonians, and Romans.

F. It was Paul and some other Hellenistic (that is,

Greek-speaking) Jews who used that word "Christ" in a new way to refer to a

Savior-being for all humanity, not just Jews. And when they used the

expression "Jesus Christ" they were much more interested in the "Christ"

part than in the "Jesus" part, though they did want to make the connection

to a particular historical person who lived in Palestine.

G. The irony is that Paul, the most successful recruiter of new

persons to join the newly developing church and the composer of the

earliest parts of the New Testament, apparently never even met Jesus. In

his letter to the Galatians (1:11-12) he notes that he did not get the

gospel (good news) that he was preaching from the other early disciples,

but in a direct revelation from Jesus Christ, that is, in a vision he had

one day on the road to Damascus. If he had actually heard or known Jesus

"in the flesh," it seems that he would have mentioned it at this point.

For Paul (and thus also for many early Christians who were his recruits)

what was important was not the life of the flesh-and-blood historical Jesus

or even the details of his physical resurrection but rather the

significance of the faith that a new Savior, the Christ, had come, and not

just to the Jews as many of the other early believers thought.

H. And the significance of this new faith was that there was hope

for all persons concerned about morality and goodness, and that this hope

should inspire love and concern for others, especially the oppressed and

less fortunate.

1. As Paul himself puts it in the much-quoted passage in I

Corinthians 13: 13: "And now these three remain: faith, hope, and love.

But the greatest of these is love."

I. Thus the new Christian faith being preached by Paul combined

the joy of a special connection with the deity (ultimate reality) then

being advanced by the mystery religions of Greece with the moral commitment

& concern about others found in Judaism.

II. The earliest and most interesting account and discussion of the

resurrection of Jesus is that which Paul provides in the 15th chapter of I

Corinthians.

A. Read I Corinthians 15:1-11 noting how the focus is on the

significance of the gospel (good news) which Paul has preached and which

the Christians believe. As some Biblical scholars put it, the focus is

more on "the resurrection faith" related to "Christ" than on the historical

resurrection.

B. Even when Paul seems to shift to discussing the historical

resurrection of Christ (note that it is not Jesus), he continues to focus

on its significance rather than to argue for its truth in relation to the

historical Jesus (read verses 12-19).

C. When he does finally get to the issue of whether a resurrection

actually occurred, he focuses on the mythological interpretation and its

significance rather than any related historical facts (read verses 20-30).

III. Now I want to shift to a somewhat different emphasis which Paul

sometimes uses.when he speaks of the body of Christ.

A. This reinterpretation of Christianity is based on the "mystical

view" that the community of followers, the church itself, is the

resurrected body of Christ. Jesus lived, preached about the need to be the

servant of everyone, especially the oppressed and unfortunate, and was put

to death by the powerful, both Romans and Jews. His revolutionary view was

, "Whoever wants to become great among you must be your servant" (Matthew

20:26). Some of his followers were inspired to follow his teachings and

example. When Jesus was killed, this message of service to others was not

destroyed but was taken up by the Church, that is, by his resurrected body.

Christ, the risen Jesus, continued to preach, teach, and heal, through his

followers.

B. One direct statement in support of this interpretation is in

Paul's letter to the Colossians 1:24 where he says, "Now I rejoice in what

was suffered for you . . . for the sake of his body, which is the church.

C. In Ephesians 5:30, in the context of the notion that in

marriage husband and wife become "one flesh," Paul says of the members of

the church that "we are members of his body."

D. In Ephesians 1:22-23, Paul refers to "the church, which is his

body."

E. The most extended development of this idea is in I Corinthians

12: 12-27 (read this), which concludes with the explicit statement in verse

27: "Now you are the body of Christ, and each one of you is a part of it."

And in verse 13 he notes that it is by baptism that one becomes part of

that body.

F. This reference to baptism as a way of entering the Church as

the Body of Christ can also be connected with another statement by Paul

(Galatians 2:20), "I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live,

but Christ lives in me."

G. Consider these suggestive verses from Philippians 3:10-11: "I

want to know Christ and the power of his resurrection and the fellowship of

sharing in his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, and so, somehow,

to attain to the resurrection from the dead." In other words, to become

part of the Church is somehow to participate in the resurrection.

IV. An inspirational poem urging Christians to act on their beliefs, by

Annie Johnson Flint (a poem which I have only slightly revised).

Christ has no hands but our hands To do his work today;

He has no feet but our feet To lead men in His way;

He has no tongues but our tongues His teachings to convey;

He has not help but our help For those who've gone astray.

We are the only Bible The careless world will read;

We are the sinner's gospel; We are the scoffer's creed;

We are the Lord's last message, Given in deed and word;

What if the type is crooked? What if the print is blurred?

What if our hands are busy With other work than His?

What if our feet are walking Where sin's allurement if?

What if our tongues are speaking Of things His lips would spurn?

How can we help our fellows His way of life to learn?

V. A disclaimer: I am not claiming that this interpretation based on a

few of Paul's statements is what Paul himself consciously had in mind. I

readily acknowledge that his main focus was on the actual resurrection of

individuals with "spiritual bodies" into some kind of new existence after

death. I am only saying that some of Paul's statements can be understood

in a different way from how he himself understood them but in a way that

can give us a more scientifically sophisticated but inspirational

interpretation of the meaning of Jesus death and resurrection.

A. I also want to admit that one could readily point to other

persons whose lives and teachings have lived on after them. For example,

one could also talk about "the resurrected body of Socrates" or "the

resurrected body of Buddha" or "the resurrected body of Gandhi." In other

words, I would not want to say that Jesus is unique as a source of

inspiration to serve humanity.

B. At the same time, I would say that historically we should

acknowledge the huge amount of good which as been done by Christians

(though of course it is also true that a large amount of evil has been done

in the name of Christ and the Church). But think of all the people who

have been helped and comforted; all the churches & missions which have

inspired people to live better lives; all the hospitals & orphanages &

schools & shelters which have been built over the ages and throughout the

world. Has the Resurrected Christ continued to preach & heal & teach &

comfort long after his life on earth ended? Perhaps it is not totally

false to say that the Body of Christ is still at work in the world.