Seeking Jesus in a U. U. Church

Posts by Joel at CUUMBAYA and Jamie at Trivum have encouraged me to write this post because I agree with them that there is a certain prejudice against belief in a living God and talking about Jesus in Unitarian Universalist Churches even though we profess to support

“Acceptance of one another and encouragement to spiritual growth in our congregations; and “" A free and responsible search for truth and meaning;”

Our 7^th and 8^th grade Sunday school class recently took a poll of the Congregation to discover what the adults believed about God. Although it was not a very scientific study, I think it pretty accurately reflected the diversity in the congregation. It didn’t surprise me that all of the 48 respondents agreed with the statement, “There are probably as many ideas about God as there are people.”, or that 43 out of 48 agreed with the statement, “There is a spark of divinity in each of us.” What surprised me was that only 8 members out of the 48 responding to the survey agreed with the statement, “My beliefs about Jesus make me feel closer to God.” Only the statement, “There is no such thing as God, and even the word is meaningless,” got fewer checks with 5 members agreeing. That surprised me because I'm guessing the majority of the members in our church grew up in a Christian congregation. As one of them, I cannot imagine coming to the place I am at in my spiritual journey without Jesus. I have resisted joining with the U.U. Christians in my congregation because the Jesus I seek to understand and know is more encompassing than modern Christianity. The term Christian in its modern context has come to mean exclusion and restriction of belief to me that fly in the face of Jesus’ direction to, “Seek and you will find; knock and it will be opened.” I am a Unitarian Universalist and the life and teachings of Jesus have helped bring me to the spiritual understanding that gives me comfort and guides my life today.

So, what do I believe about Jesus? John 1 says, “In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.” It goes on to talk about the Word as the light that enlightens every human and that through the word we become the children of God. I believe that God speaks to us through the life and words of Jesus. I don’t believe that Jesus was the only incarnation of God’s word, but I do believe that Jesus was the divine word speaking to us in human form. Even though other religious and secular texts give me guidance and the lives of others inspire me, I still find myself constantly asking, “What would Jesus do in this situation?” “How did Jesus tell us to respond to this?” The fact that I also read the Tao Te Ching and Buddhist koans to guide my life or that I view Buddha and Lao Tzu as other incarnations of the divine word, doesn’t lessen the impact that Jesus has on my life. I am a true believer that God, the Tao, the Goddess or whatever name we choose to call divinity, is still speaking to us today if only we have ears to listen. I’m seeking the Word in my UU Church and I’m still finding it in the message and life of Jesus.