First Parish Unitarian UniversalistOur Passion
A sermon preached by the Reverend Diane Teichert
First Parish Unitarian Universalist - Canton, MA
March 14, 2004
In this sermon, I want to use Mel Gibson’s movie The Passion of the Christ to proclaim our Unitarian Universalist passion, its good news and saving power, and inspire you to pledge as much as you possibly can in this year’s canvass, which, as you heard, starts today, so that First Parish can be an ever stronger voice for that passion, good news and saving power right here in Canton and the surrounding towns.
It’s a lot to cover, so hold onto the pew!
One thing, I’ll say up front. I did not see the movie. To be sure, I felt that I should see it. Because, with my Canton clergy colleagues, I said I would. We said we’d publish a collective statement criticizing the film’s reported anti-Semitism. We thought we had better see it before we wrote the statement. We said we’d go the theater together on opening day. I said in the meeting, the absolute only way I’d see it would be if I went with them.
Our interfaith movie outing proved to be too difficult to schedule. And, the collective statement too difficult to agree upon. But, truthfully, reading the reviews that appeared before opening day, I lost enthusiasm for the plan entirely. I realized that, to be true to myself, I could not see that movie. I love our interfaith cooperation, but not that much! To thine own self be true.
I did not go to see Mel Gibson’s movie The Passion of the Christ. I’ll tell you why.
First, I did not see it because it is R-rated for violence and I almost never go to violent movies.
Second, I did not see it because the suffering, death and resurrection of Jesus is the least important part of his story to me and the least-likely to be “true.”
And, finally, I did not see it because I do not want to support, even with just a ten buck admission fee, the film’s stated purpose: to evangelize Americans into a kind of Christianity that mobilizes people into political action against principles and purposes that are my passion as a Unitarian Universalist.
I’d like to say a bit more about each reason. But, let me say, too, I accept that you may have good reason to see it, and if you do, I’m interested to hear about your experience.
As for its violence, I was told that 90% of the film is brutally gruesome. And that, perhaps to make it seem more like a documentary, the audio is in ancient languages with subtitles. This means that you cannot shut your eyes and still follow the action. You are therefore forced to watch the violence. I’d have been wasting 90% of the admission price, sitting there with my eyes shut!
As I said during Canton’s Cable 8 interview about the movie with four Canton clergy, I believe we each can and should exercise our own good judgment regarding to which aspects of American popular culture we wish to expose ourselves and our children. As Unitarian Universalists, such discernment is one important part of our “free and responsible search for truth and meaning.”
To me, our spirits are like our bodies in that both are affected by what we take in. We avoid, most of us, most of the time, food and drink which is unhealthy and behaviors which are injurious to us physically. We know that the impact of unhealthy food and risky behaviors, even if it’s invisible, is long-term bad.
Why would I want to introduce violent images into my mind and spirit, where they linger long-term bad, recurring in nighttime dreams and daytime fears? If I don’t drink polluted water and always step out of the way of the exhaust as the bus goes by, why would I expose myself to dangerous substances of the spiritual variety, such as violent movies? Those images become part of us just like the water we drink and the air we breathe.
There is a certain elitism in this attitude, I admit. In Madrid this week, in Iraq, Israel, Palestine, Afghanistan, in some American neighborhoods and in some American homes, and even at certain local hockey rinks, people are living with real-life violence and the fear of it. They cannot, as I have been privileged to do, avoid it.
But, if I keep myself informed, support non-violent solutions to human conflicts and work for love and justice in our world, I don’t think I need to watch 126-minus-10% minutes of gruesome violence toward a man I was raised to love in order to be reminded that humans have been, are this very minute, and will be in the future violent towards others.
On the other hand, I did choose to see the films Schindler’s Lis” about the holocaust and Boys Don’t Cry about a transgender person who was brutally raped and murdered, both also R-rated for violence, because I felt I had much to learn from the true stories on which they were based. In my view, The Passion of the Christ does not tell a “true story.” I chose not to see it.
Perhaps you are wondering, how could she say it’s not a true story? This gets me to my second reason for not seeing the film.
What is most true, most powerful and most inspiring to me about the story of Jesus is his life, not his suffering, death and resurrection. It’s his teachings, his radical inclusivity, his focus on love, and his lifting up of the children, the poor, and the despised minorities over the pious, the rich and the powerful. It’s his prayer life, and his courage. These are the things that I bring forward from my Christian upbringing into my Unitarian Universalist faith, and they were barely mentioned, only in flashbacks, in Gibson’s film, I’m told.
In fact, one of the promotional slogans for The Passion of the Christ is this: “Dying was His Reason for Living!” To me, the film’s got it backwards: living was his reason for dying! The way Jesus lived was the reason he was killed.
Yes, according to the Bible and two other ancient sources, a man named Jesus was crucified; that’s the way the way the Romans killed those they wanted to punish or get rid of. Yes, according to the Bible and one of those two sources, Flavius Josephus, a first century Jewish historian, some of the Jewish authorities wanted to get rid of him, too, those perhaps who had “sold out” to the Romans or saw a threat to themselves in this Jewish peasant leader with a loyal following and a challenging message.
The other source, the pagan (i.e. Roman) historian Cornelius Tacitus, did not mention the Jewish authorities at all, stating only “Christus, the founder of the name, had undergone the death penalty in the reign of Tiberius, by sentence of the procurator Pontius Pilate.” (John Dominic Crossan, Who Killed Jesus?, p.5)
Did crowds of his fellow Jews angrily demand the death of Jesus? We don’t know. The Bible says so, but it’s not corroborated by either of these other ancient texts. Keep in mind that the Biblical text is not a first-hand account. Scholars believe that the earliest of the gospels, thought to be the book called Mark, from which I read earlier, was written between 40 and 70 years after the death of Jesus. So, by then, it was oral history.
Think about it this way: You are active in this renegade religious movement within Judaism. You want to write the story of your beloved founder and his death decades ago. The Romans rule, savagely, as an occupying force. In that same period, they destroy your temple in Jerusalem. It’s not a good time to be a Jew. Among Jews, there is rivalry. On whom would you blame the death of your leader, in writing? The Romans, and invite their further wrath? Or on the Jewish authorities and your rival Jewish groups?
From my reading of the scriptural texts and commentaries that I trust, it seems clear to me that the Bible does portray Jewish people as clamoring for Jesus’ death. So, in that sense, the movie is Biblically accurate in being anti-Jewish. But, in this aspect, we have no evidence that the film is historically accurate, as best we can tell from the very limited historic record, as I’ve already cited.
Skipping forward several centuries, the Roman emperor Constantine converts and declares Christianity the religion of the Roman Empire. Now it is a state religion and the empire a religious state. It is terribly true that it and other governments since, more recently Hitler’s Nazis, used the gospel account of Jesus’ trial and death to justify the condemnation and even persecution of Jews. It is true, too, that such is perpetrated to the present day by some Christians who read the bible literally.
So, that is why both the Bible and the movie are accused of being anti-Semitic. Some think that the movie threatens to set back the reconciliation between Jews and Christians since World War II, especially since the Catholic Second Vatican Council, which met between 1962 to 1965 and condemned anti-Semitism. I hope not.
Interestingly, alarmingly, in an interview with Diane Sawyer last month, Mel Gibson said "I'm just Roman Catholic, the way they were up until the mid '60s." I read that he has his own Catholic chapel near his home, in which a pre-Vatican II Latin Mass is said. Well, one of the ways “they” were “up until the mid ‘60’s” was anti-Semitic. Does he want to return to that, too?
What is most threatening to me about this movie, though, includes but goes beyond the fear that it will incite condemnation and persecution against Jews. I am alarmed by the way in which The Passion of the Christ was promoted and by its stated purpose: to evangelize Americans into a kind of Christianity that we know, by who is endorsing it, mobilizes people into political action against principles and purposes that are our passion as Unitarian Universalists.
As a clergy person, I received several promotions of the film in the mail, addressed to me by name here at First Parish, from Outreach, the “official church resource provider for the passion.” First, I received a DVD disc. In it, a prominent evangelical author invited me to pray about how God wanted to use me to bring people to Christ through this movie. The movie, I was told, promised to effect people emotionally, causing them to identify with the suffering of Jesus Christ, and intellectually, causing them to want to read and understand the gospels. I and my church should be ready to meet their needs.
Sincere-sounding interviews with the actor who plays Jesus and the Director Mel Gibson emphasized that the movie rating was not R for violence but R for Reality, the real story and the real depiction of the suffering of Jesus. Anyone over 12 should see it, they said; it’s violence for a purpose, like Schindler’s List or Saving Private Ryan. The DVD included a preview, rated G, which showed plenty enough gore for me, and in which a slithering snake was featured prominently, in the last frame being squashed by a boot. ???
I also received this slick full-color, mostly blood-red and devil’s black fold-out brochure which offers me all kinds of resources for simultaneously promoting the film and my church, following a timeline from January 9 th when I should have called my local theater to see if I could purchase an entire showing of the film on opening day (!)… through April 12 th when, they say, we should plan our follow-up events for those who come to our church on Easter, April 11th!
[Deleted during delivery due to time: For example, I could buy a bundle of “ImpactCards” to distribute around town that show the bloodied head of Jesus logo for the film with the words “The Passion of the Christ: True or False” on it, and a trailer across the top that says “Go see the movie in theaters, then join us to explore the claims” on one side. On the other side, Outreach would customize the professionally written text and headlines to promote my upcoming sermon series on the passion of Christ and our Easter Sunday services, with a map showing our location and our church logo. Only $300 for a thousand.
Or, I could have purchased a 4x12 foot vinyl banner, vertical or horizontal, to hang on the front of our building or stand on our front lawn, again showing the bloodied head of Jesus, with the words: True or False? Find Out This Easter! Services at 9 and 11 a.m. Only $349 (originally $499). Already on sale, what a bargain!]]
And, most recently, I received this catalog with all the afore mentioned products, plus sample sermons, coordinated website designs, full-color order of service covers, door-hangers with the now-familiar movie logos and texts on one side and our church’s information on the other for when we go house-to-house for Christ, and more.
These people are well-organized, well-funded. Yesterday’s Globe reported that Gibson is already making $200 million on the film. But, if you think it’s only about bringing people to Christ, or only about bringing money to Gibson, think again. If you think it’s an accident that the film was released in an election year, think again.
Among the individuals listed as endorsing the film with quotes of praise and excitement are familiar conservative evangelicals like Billy Graham; Bill Bright, late president of Campus Crusade for Christ; and Jack Graham, President of the Southern Baptist Convention. It seems to me that the movie may help re-build the so-called Moral Majority.
I’m even more concerned to see the names of James Dobson, President, and Donald Hodel, CEO, of Focus on the Family. This is a national organization that lobbied at the State House last week in favor of the Constitutional Amendment to ban gay marriages though it wasn’t properly registered to do so. Its affiliate in our state is the Massachusetts Family Institute headed up by Ron Crews, who moved to Massachusetts from Georgia to fight against gay rights, and has been the most frequently quoted spokesperson against gay marriage since the MA Supreme Judicial Court ruling last November.
As Unitarian Universalists, our principles and purposes affirm and promote seven things, as you see printed on the back of our order of worship today, among them the inherent worth and dignity of every person; justice, equality and compassion in human relations; the right of conscience and the use of the democratic process within our congregations and in our society at large.” I believe that these principles call us out into the public square of the democratic process and even onto our front lawn from time to time and I believe we find ample guidance from them for the positions we take while we’re there.
We of the liberal religion persuasion must not cede to these evangelicals the nation’s public square, or allow theirs to be the only “religious” voice in American discourse and decision-making on public policies that effect each and every one of us—whether it be foreign or domestic, housing or health, education or terrorism, or supporting the gay and lesbian brothers and sisters among us and out there.
That’s why the Unitarian Universalist Association has taken the lead in organizing “Faithful Democracy,” a liberal religious interfaith coalition that includes Protestant, Catholic, Muslim and Jewish organizations pledging to register and mobilize people of faith to vote in the upcoming national election. That’s why UU’s in our district, including seven from First Parish and myself gathered last month to learn about techniques for doing just that. And, that’s why our Social Action Committee will soon be encouraging all of you to register if you aren’t already, and is proposing to work with their counterparts in the other congregations in Canton to make Canton the top voting town in the Commonwealth come November.
I’m just as passionate about what happens inside our yellow doors as I am about what happens in the public square or out on our front lawn. This is where we come to find acceptance from one another and encouragement in our spiritual growth, and energy and direction for the work of love and justice we do in the world.
This is where we look deep within ourselves and into each other’s eyes, and delve into the wisdom of the prophets and of the world’s religions, for signs of truth and meaning, signs that can carry us through our most troubled and needy hours, signs that will challenge us to live up to these principles and purposes of ours.
This is where we dedicate our children, that they too might grow spiritually and ethically, that they might join us in celebrating the incredible and interdependent web of all existence, of which we are a small but significant part in a cosmic whole. This is where we mourn our dead, that our memories of them might become like stars in the night sky, always there for us, even when we can’t see them, we might know for sure that love lasts forever, even beyond death.
This is where we come to have our inner passions stirred. As Mary Giurleo said after reading Owl Moon to the children this morning, “a Unitarian Universalist spiritual life is sometimes like owling: if we're very quiet and pay close attention to the world around us and our own feelings, we can have a moment that's so special and wonderful that it's hard even to describe in words, but we know it's true.”
Amen.