The holiday season is upon us. We know that beyond the glitz and glimmer; beyond Christmas trees, Santa sliding down chimneys, reindeer flying; beyond caroling, parties, Yule logs, and returning sun; beyond all that is deep and all that is shallow about the season, there is also, always, the profoundly ethical meaning of Christmas embedded in the stories of the birth of Jesus: a call for peace on earth; a call for good will; a call to remember those less fortunate than ourselves. We know this call is easily forgotten or, worse, sounds hollow when we hear it. To guard against forgetfulness, to make solid what might otherwise sound hollow, want to share with you how the great twentieth-century Christian mystic, Howard Thurman, interpreted the teachings of Jesus.

I assume some of you are familiar with Howard Thurman's work, others only with his name, and still others will have no familiarity with Thurman at all. Howard Thurman is not a household name, not even among Christians. He was not a Unitarian Universalist, though he was a friend of liberal religion, a regular guest in UU congregations, and even served for a brief period as visiting minister at the UU Community Church of New York. He is often mistaken for a Unitarian Universalist. Not only do two of his prayers appear in our hymnal, but Beacon Press, the Unitarian Universalist Association's publishing house, still publishes many of his books. Much of what he wrote sounds like a Unitarian Universalist wrote it. For example, in a 1971 book called The Search for Common Ground, in contradiction to the standard Christian interpretation of the book of Genesis, he wrote that "creation is still going on, not only in the spinning of new worlds, systems, nebulae, and galaxies in the infinitude of space… but also in the human body, which is still evolving, in the human mind … and in the human spirit, which forever drives to know the truth of its fellows."¹ The more I study him, the more I learn how influential his thought has been in the lives of Unitarian Universalist ministers, I realize it is not that he sounds like a Unitarian Universalist; rather, Unitarian Universalism often sounds like him.

He was a Baptist minister, born in Florida in 1899, raised in Daytona, educated at Morehouse College. He served as chaplain at Howard and Boston Universities. He also served the Fellowship Church of All Peoples in San Francisco, regarded as the first attempt in American history to have a black minister and a white minister serve as equal co-pastors of the same congregation. Throughout his life he remained a committed Christian and identified himself as a mystic.

In 1949 Thurman published a short book-112 pages-called Jesus and the Disinherited. Today this book is virtually unknown outside liberal religious ministerial circles, seminary classes, and veterans of the civil rights movement. It is a compelling interpretation of teachings of Jesus, one that rings profoundly true to my spiritual ear. By true, I do not mean that Thurman somehow understood Jesus or 1^st century Palestine better than anyone else. Rather, I mean that Thurman read the Christian scriptures through the lens of his experience as an African American growing up in the segregated south, and produced an interpretation of Jesus that makes concrete sense and is applicable to people's lives-especially people who are suffering, people who, as he puts it, "have their backs against the wall." Thurman wrote to and for the disinherited, people who do not have access to wealth and power, people who experience discrimination and other forms of abuse in their daily lives.

To make sure we do not underestimate the impact this man and this book have had on American history, I remind us that Howard Thurman was Martin Luther King, Jr.'s mentor at Boston University. King carried a copy of Jesus and the Disinherited in his pocket. Many civil rights leaders, especially clergy, would call Thurman for advice during the tumultuous years of the 1960s. He was the minister to the ministers, the chaplain of the civil rights movement. When the Executive Director of the National Urban League, Whitney Moore Young, Jr., a Unitarian Universalist, died in 1970, Thurman delivered the eulogy at his funeral.

Jesus and the Disinherited began as Thurman's response to critics of Christianity he met while traveling in India in the 1930s. Many Hindus were suspicious of Christianity because their British colonizers were Christians. Thurman recounts a conversation between himself and an Indian lawyer who asked him, "What are you doing here?" How can you, an African American, embrace Christianity when in fact it is Christianity that has been the source of your oppression for four hundred years?² And on that same trip Thurman met Mohandas Gandhi, the great prophet of non-violent resistance. It was the first meeting between Gandhi and an African American. Thurman is said to have asked Gandhi, "What, in your opinion, is the greatest threat to the religion of Jesus in India?" Gandhi replied, "Christianity."

As Thurman began to wrestle with the Indian critiques of his birth religion, he did something remarkable for his time. Actually, it is remarkable for any time! He listened. And after listening he entered into heart-felt dialogue with his critics. He did not become defensive, did not reject the critics as non-believers. He took their challenges seriously and began constructing a case for his religion. This is one of the highest forms of respect in a religiously pluralistic world: to regard people who profess a different religious world-view as equally worthy, equally valid; to accept their challenges as opportunities to grow one's own faith. This is exactly what Thurman did, and from this encounter emerged Jesus and the Disinherited.

The first thing that strikes me about Thurman's interpretation is Jesus' universal appeal beyond doctrine or dogma. Thurman doesn't always say it explicitly, but he believes one can follow Jesus whether or not one accepts Christian doctrine. He is mindful of Jesus' Jewishness, reminding us Jesus had no knowledge of the Christian doctrines developed many years after his death. Thurman presents Jesus before Christianity, before the church, before his elevation to Christ. Thurman never denied the standard Christian doctrines. He believed in the divinity of Jesus. But that was a personal matter. In this book he presents Jesus not as the object of worship, not as a God, but rather as a religious person, a religious subject, a spiritual model for us to emulate-someone who could alter the course of events not because he was God, but because he was a human being whose connection to God filled him with inner strength, a profound sense of self-esteem, and clear sense of purpose. Thurman presents a Jesus-oriented religion in tension with Christianity. He presents the religion of Jesus, which is prior to and distinct from Christianity. He takes Jesus off the cross, asking not 'what is the meaning of Jesus' dying?' but 'what was the intent of Jesus' living?'

To answer this question, Thurman starts with what we can know about Jesus from a sociological standpoint. He was a Jew. He was poor. He was a member of a minority group in the midst of the dominant and powerful Roman Empire. He was part of an oppressed group; he was among the world's disinherited. In Thurman's view, the driving question for Jesus was this: "under what terms is survival possible?"³ Under what terms could Jews survive Roman rule, with their religion, culture, and civilization in tact? It was not a matter of overcoming Rome. Jesus was not militaristic. He did not favor armed rebellion. He did not favor violence. The religion of Jesus sought the survival of his people against crushing odds, and the key to that survival was maintaining their spirit, their connection to the Holy. As Thurman says, Jesus' "message focused on the urgency of a radical change in the inner attitude of his people. He recognized fully that … no external force, however great and overwhelming, can at long last destroy a people if it does not first win the victory of the spirit against them."⁴

Thus Jesus preached that the Kingdom of God is among you. The Kingdom of God is among us. The Kingdom of God is within us. Locating the Kingdom in the heart created the spiritual resource Jews needed for survival when their backs were against the wall. Thurman says, "anyone who permits another to determine the quality of [their] inner life gives into the hands of the other the keys to [their] destiny. If [the oppressor] knows precisely what he can do to you or what epithet he can hurl against you in order to make you lose your temper, your equilibrium, then he can always keep you under subjection. It is [our] reaction to things that determines [his] ability to exercise power over [us]."⁵

Thurman talks about three reactions to oppression-fear, deception, and hate-and says Jesus saw these reactions growing among the Jews under Roman rule. While Thurman believes each of these reactions is helpful in a limited way, they eventually make it difficult to sustain spiritual depth and strength. Fear helps you protect yourself against violence, says Thurman, but only for so long. Fear "finally becomes death for the self."⁶ He turns to Jesus for a look beyond fear. Matthew 10:28: "Do not fear those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul." Luke 12:32: "Fear not, little flock, for it is God's pleasure to give you the kingdom." Thurman writes, "the awareness of being a child of God tends to stabilize the ego and results in a new courage, fearlessness, and power. I have seen it again and again."⁷

When Thurman talks about deception, he refers to the tendency among oppressed people to lie, cheat, steal-whatever they can do to get by. Like fear, he sees that deception plays a limited role in survival. He says "deception is perhaps the oldest of all the techniques by which the weak have protected themselves against the strong."⁸ Although he does not blame the disinherited for resorting to deception, he says that, like fear, deception does not ultimately enable you to keep your soul in tact. If we continue to call a bad thing good, we will slowly start to lose our sense of moral distinction. "The penalty [for participating in] deception," writes Thurman, "is to become a deception. [The one] who lies habitually becomes a lie."⁹ He sees in Jesus a call to subvert the habit of deception. He cites Matthew 25:40: "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.'" Practice, says Thurman, "a complete and devastating sincerity."¹⁰ There is a conscience, deep within, that knows when human morality fails, that knows the damage done to the soul. And no matter what you believe about salvation and the end of history, there is a reckoning we all must face; to the sacred we are transparent. To be in touch with God, to be in touch with the sacred is to welcome that transparency, to welcome vulnerability, to embrace that complete and devastating sincerity. Such sincerity enables the spirit to thrive and soar.

When Thurman talks about hate, like fear and deception, he says there are positive aspects. Hate can motivate one to action, galvanize creativity, even lead one to greater self-realization; but in the end, harboring hate "is death to the spirit and disintegration of ethical and moral values."¹¹ In Thurman's words, "Jesus rejected hatred. It was not because he lacked … the incentive. [It was] because he saw that hatred meant death to the mind, death to the spirit, death to communion with [God]. He affirmed life. Hatred was the great denial."¹² Instead of hate, Jesus preached love. Love transforms. Love heals. Love protects our souls from the damage that fear and hate and deception can do. Love, nestled deep within and flowing out to friends and enemies alike, recognizing all people as children of the most holy, allows the disinherited-and indeed, in Thurman's view, all of us-to survive with our spirit in tact, our human dignity affirmed, our lives blessed. Thurman concludes: "What Jesus did, all [of us] may do. Thus interpreted, he belongs to no age, no race, no creed. When [we] look into his face, [we] see etched the glory of our own possibilities, and our hearts whisper. 'Thank you and thank God.'"¹³

As we proceed with this holiday season, headed as we are to Christmas Day, let us remember the story of Jesus at its deepest level is not about a virgin birth or shepherds in the fields or an inn with no room save for the stable. It is a story about the entry into the world of a new spiritual way of being in which people can claim and proclaim their humanity, can know what matters most deeply in their lives, and never lose their sense of self, never lose their sense of integrity, never lose their connection to holiness, no matter how difficult social and economic circumstances become. May this realization make your Christmas all the more meaningful. Amen. Blessed Be.