Prelude Melodia Africana I by Ludovico Einaudi
Opening Words by by Cliff Reed (adapted)
As the true prophets of God have always told us,
the Divine will is for mercy and compassion,
love and justice.
May we never suppose that vengeance and cruelty,
hatred and murder, serve the Divine purpose.
In the spirit of human solidarity and oneness,
we join in worship.
Chalice Lighting (you may wish to light a candle in your own home at this point). (words by Cliff Reed)
Jesus told us that we are a light for all the world.
As we light our chalice, let us remember that.
May we be lamps shedding light among our fellows,
humble vessels of divine radiance to our one world.
Opening Prayer
Spirit of Life and Love,
be with us as we gather for worship,
each in our own place.
Help us to feel a sense of community,
even though we are physically apart.
Help us to care for each other,
in this world in which the clouds
of war, poverty, and climate change hover.
May we keep in touch however we can,
and help each other, however we may.
Help us to be grateful for the freedoms we have
and to respect the wishes of others.
May we hold in our hearts all those
who are grieving, lost, alone,
victims of violence and war,
suffering in any way,
Amen
Reading from the Gospel of Matthew, 5:1-12, 17-18
When Jesus saw the crowds, he went up the mountain; and after he sat down, his disciples came to him. Then he began to speak, and taught them, saying:
‘Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
‘Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted.
‘Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth.
‘Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled.
‘Blessed are the merciful, for they will receive mercy.
‘Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God.
‘Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God.
‘Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness’ sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
‘Blessed are you when people revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account.
Rejoice and be glad, for your reward is great in heaven, for in the same way they persecuted the prophets who were before you….
‘Do not think that I have come to abolish the law or the prophets; I have come not to abolish but to fulfil. For truly I tell you, until heaven and earth pass away, not one letter, not one stroke of a letter, will pass from the law until all is accomplished.’
Alternative Lord’s Prayer
Spirit of Life and Love, here and everywhere,
may we be aware of your presence in our lives.
May our world be blessed.
May our daily needs be met,
and may our shortcomings be forgiven,
as we forgive those of others.
Give us the strength to resist wrong-doing,
the inspiration and guidance to do right,
and the wisdom to know the difference.
We are your hands in the world; help us to grow.
May we have compassion for all living beings,
and receive whatever life brings,
with courage and trust.
Amen
Reading from the Gospel of Luke, 6:27-38
‘But I say to you that listen, Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who abuse you. If anyone strikes you on the cheek, offer the other also; and from anyone who takes away your coat do not withhold even your shirt. Give to everyone who begs from you; and if anyone takes away your goods, do not ask for them again. Do to others as you would have them do to you.
‘If you love those who love you, what credit is that to you? For even sinners love those who love them. If you do good to those who do good to you, what credit is that to you? For even sinners do the same. If you lend to those from whom you hope to receive, what credit is that to you? Even sinners lend to sinners, to receive as much again. But love your enemies, do good, and lend, expecting nothing in return. Your reward will be great, and you will be children of the Most High; for he is kind to the ungrateful and the wicked. Be merciful, just as your Father is merciful.
‘Do not judge, and you will not be judged; do not condemn, and you will not be condemned. Forgive, and you will be forgiven; give, and it will be given to you. A good measure, pressed down, shaken together, running over, will be put into your lap; for the measure you give will be the measure you get back.’
Prayer A World Awake from Spirit of Time and Place by Cliff Reed
Source of love,
help us to love when it is hard to do so.
Source of courage,
help us to endure when we are afraid.
Source of inspiration,
breathe into us when we are dried up.
The world cries out for love to heal its hatred and indifference.
The world cries out for courage to heal its cowardice and weakness.
The world cries out for inspiration to heal its soul-hunger and its withered hopes.
Source of vision,
show us the vision of a better world.
Show us the vision of a better world:
a world awake to its oneness,
a world of colour, song and comradeship,
a world of fairness, joy and festivals.
And give us the faith to feed the vision and to make it real. Amen
Reading from the Gospel of Matthew, 25:31-46
‘When the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him, then he will sit on the throne of his glory. All the nations will be gathered before him, and he will separate people one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats, and he will put the sheep at his right hand and the goats at the left.
Then the king will say to those at his right hand, “Come, you that are blessed by my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world; for I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me, I was naked and you gave me clothing, I was sick and you took care of me, I was in prison and you visited me.” Then the righteous will answer him, “Lord, when was it that we saw you hungry and gave you food, or thirsty and gave you something to drink? And when was it that we saw you a stranger and welcomed you, or naked and gave you clothing? And when was it that we saw you sick or in prison and visited you?” And the king will answer them, “Truly I tell you, just as you did it to one of the least of these who are members of my family, you did it to me.”
Then he will say to those at his left hand, “You that are accursed, depart from me into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels; for I was hungry and you gave me no food, I was thirsty and you gave me nothing to drink, I was a stranger and you did not welcome me, naked and you did not give me clothing, sick and in prison and you did not visit me.” Then they also will answer, “Lord, when was it that we saw you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or naked or sick or in prison, and did not take care of you?” Then he will answer them, “Truly I tell you, just as you did not do it to one of the least of these, you did not do it to me.” And these will go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life.’
Time of Stillness and Reflection Being the Resurrection by Victoria Weinstein
The stone has got to be rolled back from the tomb again and again every year.
Roll up your sleeves.
He is not coming back, you know.
He is not coming back unless it is we who rise for him
We who lay healing hands on the reviled and rejected like he did
on his behalf —
We who rage for righteousness in his insistent voice
We who love the sinner, even knowing that “the sinner” is no farther off than our own heartbeat
He will not be back to join us at the table
To share God’s extravagant banquet
God’s love feast, all are invited, come as you are
And so it is you and I who must feast for him
Must say the grace and break the bread and pass it to the left
and dish up the broiled fish (or pour the wine) and pass it to the right.
And treat each one so tenderly
as though just this morning she or he made the personal effort
to make it back from heaven, or from hell
but certainly from death
to be by our side.
[silence]
Because if by some miracle (and why not a miracle?)
He did come back
Wouldn’t he want to see us like this?
Wouldn’t it be a miracle to live for just one day
So that if he did, by some amazing feat
come riding into town
He could take a look around and say
“This is what I meant!”
And we could say
it took us a long time…
but we finally figured it out.
Oh, let us live to make it so.
You are the resurrection and the life.
Musical Interlude I Giorni by Ludovico Einaudi
Address What If the Resurrection Never Happened?
I am a member of a local writers’ group, and each month we have to write a story on a particular theme. This month’s theme was ‘Alternative History’, and the idea came to me: “What if the resurrection never happened? What if the remaining eleven disciples simply had to decide to carry on spreading the message that the Kingdom of God was at hand, and Christianity (as we know it) never came to be?” This is what I imagined might have happened…
A knock on the door. Peter raised his head, a last wild hope flooding his heart. It was half an hour before sunset on the third day since everything had gone to Sheol, but there was still time.
“Come,” he said, his deep voice calm.
The door opened and a slender figure in dusty red robes slipped in, closing it behind her. The Magdalene.
She looked magnificent, her long dark hair streaming down her back, her eyes sparkling. Then he looked again, more carefully, and realised that the glitter came from tears, which were now tracking their way down her cheeks.
“I came to tell you it is done,” she said, her voice low, hopeless. “Mary and I went to the tomb to – to anoint his body. Oh, Peter! He suffered so much. It broke my heart to see the wounds in his wrists, his feet, that spear gash in his side.”
Peter opened his arms to her, and she came to him, allowed him to enfold her briefly while she wept. Then she stiffened, and he let her go.
She stood back, met his eyes. “There has been no sign?” she asked.
He shook his head. “No, no-one has seen him. But it is still not sunset.”
She laughed, a bitter sound. “Give it up, Peter. It was a dream. He is dead – I have seen his dead body. I have wept over it. He’s not coming back. Not for us, not for anyone.”
At that, a horrible sensation of combined anger and hopelessness swept through him, as he fought against the truth of her words. He feared she was right. But that didn’t mean his Master’s dream of a better world was over. No. Not while there was still breath in his, Peter’s, body.
He met her tear-filled gaze. “Then we will have to continue his work without him.”
“How?” she said. “There are only eleven of you, since Judas… and without the Master to guide us…”
His spine stiffened. “Enough of this defeatist talk,” he said. “The others will be coming here soon. We need to have a plan to present to them. Our Master’s hopes for the coming Kingdom must not be forgotten. If it takes me the rest of my life, I will fight to keep that dream alive.”
“Oh, Peter,” she said, her voice soft. “He was right to call you the Rock.”
A flush of shame. “I may have denied him in the night,” Peter said. “I will not fail him again.”
All of them were waiting for him to speak, to pronounce. For a moment, Peter’s heart quailed in his breast – how could he, a humble Galilean fisherman, take the place of Jesus? The answer came quickly: he could not, but he could refuse to give up on everything the Master had meant, everything he had taught.
“All right,” he said. “The end of the third day has passed and our Master has not risen again. Mary here saw his dead body this afternoon, and he has not appeared to any of us.” He glanced around the room, noted their nods of assent.
“So what do we do now?” Matthew asked.
“We keep on going, we make sure that his teachings are not lost,” Peter said firmly. “All of us believe his message, that the Kingdom of God is at hand. We must continue the work he began – minister to the poor and needy, feed the hungry, heal the sick, clothe the naked, visit the prisoners, the forsaken. In his name, for his sake, we must not give up.”
“But the Pharisees, the Sadducees, the Romans,” Thomas protested. “Every hand will be raised against us.”
“Our Master kept the Jewish Law every day of his life,” Peter said. “So we have nothing to fear from the Pharisees and Sadducees. We are Jews also, and so long as we keep the Law, as Jesus did, we have nothing to fear from them.”
He sensed a settling among them, as his words began to be accepted. “It is not going to be easy,” he told them, “not without our Master. But we are those who shared his life, who heard most of what he hoped for, dreamed of – God’s kingdom coming here on earth. We must not fail him. We – hoped that he would be here to carry on the great work.” He paused, seeing the pain in their eyes. “But he is not, so it falls to us who remain to carry on.”
“But how are we going to do it, without Jesus?” Philip said.
“It is not going to be easy, and some of us will have to pay the ultimate price. But if, through our work, our words, our preaching, the message of our Master lives on, there is no price too high.”
“I’m with you,” James said.
“I too,” said John.
After that, to Peter’s relief, the others soon fell into line. “I am proud of you all,” he said, “as I’m sure our Master would be. We may be dismissed as just another Jewish sect, but we will do what we can to make sure his words are never forgotten.”
The next few weeks and months would have been hard. I imagined Peter setting up their new headquarters in his house in Capernaum on the north side of the Sea of Galilee. The disciples having to endure many “I told you so”s from the local population.
And perhaps slowly, so slowly, the word would have begun to spread. I imagined Peter opening his home to all who wished to stay – to share a simple life of food and faith and fellowship. His strength and example heartening the others. Over time, the rest of the disciples (apart from Andrew, who stayed to support his brother) going off in pairs to preach the coming of Jesus’s kingdom, first into Samaria, then farther afield. Their message was simple, as their Master’s had been: “Love the Lord your God, with all your heart, mind and strength; and love your neighbour as yourself.” Its appeal was undeniable, but their insistence that their followers keep the Jewish Law limited it to fellow Jews.
Would this new faith, this new idea of living, based on Jesus’s teaching and example, ever have spread to Europe? To the rest of the world? Would something like Unitarian Christianity ever have come into existence?
Because it’s all there in the New Testament. What Jesus taught, what he planned. The readings we heard earlier are but three examples of his teaching. And of course there were also his wonderful parables, which cast his teachings into simple stories, memorable and easy to understand, which his followers would have taken deep into their hearts.
A hundred years ago, Cyril J. Flower contributed a chapter on Jesus to Alfred Hall’s Aspects of Modern Unitarianism. Which delineated very clearly the early 20th century Unitarian beliefs about Jesus. He wrote, “Unitarians hold various opinions as to Jesus, but they are commonly agreed in placing emphasis on the importance of his teaching. They maintain that Christianity should be the religion of Jesus – the religion which he taught and lived – and not a religion about ‘Christ’, making him a mystical mediator between God and the soul. They reverence him as great prophet and seer, a fearless religious reformer, and a wonderful revealer of the truth concerning man’s relation to God and his fellow men.”
And as late as 1966, Fred Kenworthy, another Unitarian minister, wrote, “In so far as Jesus is important for us we stress … his humanity, simplicity, humility and love, his consistency between living and preaching. We value his teaching for both spiritual and ethical content, for his concern for the social order as well as what is revealed of God and the nearness of God through the quality of his life and death. Jesus for many of us exemplifies the independence of thought and willingness to challenge external authorities which are to be found in the tradition and experience of Unitarians themselves. The religion “of Jesus” is of substantial importance to us and the religion “about Jesus” developed by his early followers is of less significance to most of us.”
Since then, Unitarianism in the UK has moved on, becoming more pluralist, although a minority of us still describe ourselves as Unitarian Christians. Yet his teachings and his example are still important to many of us. His vision of the Kingdom of Heaven, here on earth, is a compelling one, where there would be social justice and equality, where the hungry would be fed, the stranger welcomed, and those who were sick or in prison cared for. As Victoria Weinstein, an American UUA minister, wrote, “He is not coming back unless it is we who rise for him, We who lay healing hands on the reviled and rejected like he did on his behalf — We who rage for righteousness in his insistent voice, We who love the sinner, even knowing that “the sinner” is no farther off than our own heartbeat.”
May it be so, Amen
Closing Words
Spirit of Life and Love,
Our time together is drawing to a close.
May we be inspired by the message
And teachings of Jesus,
To strive for a better, more just world.
May we return to our everyday world refreshed,
may we share the love we feel,
may we look out for each other,
and may we keep up our hearts,
now and in the days to come.
Amen
Postlude Stella del Mattino by Ludovico Einaudi