This is a rather tricky passage to preach on, especially
if, like me you are a Unitarian.
But
what I think the writer of Matthew’s Gospel is trying to say this: that God was
revealed through the person of Jesus Christ.
God
revealed through someone like you and me.
The technical term for this is Incarnation. An Incarnation
as James Martineau saw which ‘is true not of Christ exclusively but of Man
universally and God everlastingly. He bends into the human to dwell there and
humanity is the susceptible organ of the divine.’
God, or if you prefer, Good, with us. The distant and
unknowable made knowable, the unseen made visible. The Divine revealed to us as
and through humanity. God is relatable. God is not distant and far off, but in
each and every one of us. And Jesus recognised this too when he contrasted
intellectual pride – trying to find God in books and study – with those with a
simple, experiential faith.
This
relationship – this revelation of the Divine - is recognised by all the great
seekers and mystics: this fundamental relationship with God and that God is
revealed through all people, in all times. In fact, not just through people –
through the whole of creation.
Michael
Servetus, one of the fathers of the Unitarian faith, in his book ‘Christianity
Restored’ which was published in 1553, put it like this:
‘God dwells
in the spirit, and God is the spirit;
God dwells in
fire, and God is fire.
God dwells in
the light, and God is light.
God is in the
mind, inhabits the mind, and God is the mind itself.
Our soul is a
certain lamp of God. It is like a spark of God’s Spirit, and image of God’s
wisdom; created, to be sure, but most like that spiritual wisdom and placed
within it, having an inborn luminescence of divinity, a spark of that primary
wisdom, and the very spirit of divinity. The spirit of divinity is placed
within man, even after Adam’s sin, so testifies God himself...
In the very
fruits of the earth, in animals, stones, pearls, metals, treasures, springs,
rivers, wells, rain, clouds, thunder and lightning, and winds Christ’s mystery was figured.’
God is greater than religion, beyond churches and creeds;
beyond race, wealth sex, and sexuality. Even though we are many, we are all one
because we all share in the one light, live in the same blessed reality. This
just isn’t theology; this is a way of life, a call of justice, liberty,
equality and fraternity.
It’s
when we lose sight of this, when he lose sight of the Inner Light of the
Quakers, the Divine Spark of Wesley or the Christ Light of Martineau
– not only in ourselves but in others that the problems start. Treating
ourselves (and others) disrespectfully. Or,
as the author Terry Pratchett says
‘…sin, is when you treat people like things. Including yourself.’
Let us seek our own inner light, and seek it not just here
in this congregation, but across the street, in faces we do not know,
recognising the inherent worth and dignity of all persons, who are all bearers
and reflections of the same inner light: recognising the Divine Unity that embraces
us all.
I’d
like to end with words by the Rev Cliff Reed
‘Because God is One, Creation is one. Because Creation is
one, humanity is one. Because humanity is one, my neighbour and I are one. And,
indeed, each of us is one integrated whole participating in one infinitely
greater yet still integrated whole.’
Amen.
