THE ANONYMOUS CHRIST AND THE KINGDOM OF GOD

THE ANONYMOUS CHRIST
AND THE KINGDOM OF GOD
by
The Rev. Dr Ian Ellis-Jones
Senior Minister, Sydney Unitarian Church, Sydney NSW, Australia
Also Senior Pastor, Unitarian Ministries, Columbia, South Carolina USA
Based on an Address Delivered on December 21, 2008 at the Sydney Unitarian Church

“Then said Jesus unto his disciples, ‘If any man will come after me,
let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow me.’” (Mt 16:24)

Greetings, welcome, and peace be with you all.

At this time of the year [the Christmas season], when we celebrate the birth of
the man Jesus and experience him in spirit and by imaginative reflection, we
would do well to recall his very own words telling why he came into this world.
Those words were these: “I am come that you might have life, and that you might
have it more abundantly” (Jn 10:10).

The reason I am a Unitarian, and a Unitarian Christian, is that I do not believe
that Jesus was, or even claimed to be, God in any exclusive or unique sense.
Divine, yes, but not God in any exclusive or unique sense. I believe in the
Divinity of Jesus, but not the supposed Deity of Jesus. There is an important
theological difference between the two. The message of Unitarianism and
Universalism is this – we are all divine. Even Jesus himself affirmed, “Is is not
written in your law, I said ye are gods” (Jn 10:34; cf Ps 82:6). What a wonderful
heresy to affirm and believe in!

However, I truly believe that Jesus is much more than a teacher, moral exemplar
and way-shower. Yes, for me, and for many other Unitarians and Universalists
over the years, Jesus is much more than that. Although I seek and find the Divine

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in various places and sources and persons, I fundamentally encounter it through
and in the person of Jesus, whose Divine personality abides in each of us as our
potential perfection. In that sense, for me at least, Jesus is “Lord”, because he
reveals in a very special and preeminent way both the nature and essence of the
Divine Life which is love and the nature of my manifold imperfections and
shortcomings.

What about “Savior”? Well, certainly not in the sense of Jesus dying vicariously
for my sins in order to placate any angry, punishing God, because on my
prayerful reading of the Bible I do not believe that Jesus thought that his death
was in any way necessary to secure my forgiveness or that of any other human
being for that matter. And what is the evidence and authority for my belief?
Jesus, himself. Read the Lord’s Prayer, and the Parable of the Prodigal Son,
among other portions of Scripture. However, if one is lost in a very dark and
heavily wooded forest (in this case, a forest of largely self-imposed selfishness,
self-absorption, self-obsession, loveless behavior and a state of profound
separation from others and from one’s true Self), and someone, in this case
Jesus, can provide a means of escape and show you the way out of the forest -
this state of spiritual darkness - and bring you back into the light of day, then that
person may rightly be referred to as one’s savior, metaphorically or otherwise.

Now, in the 25th chapter of Matthew’s Gospel, in the New Testament of the
Christian Scriptures, we meet what has been called the “Anonymous Christ”, and
we read that the person of Jesus can be experienced even today as a living
presence, for he comes to us, and visits us, in our home and in our community.
Yes, Jesus’ spirit, the Spirit of God that was in Jesus of Nazareth, can live in us.
How? Well, the person and personality of Jesus may come to us, appropriated by
faith, through an idea, imaginative reflection, a word we hear, as well as through
a person who is suffering or joyful. We encounter this personality of Jesus in our
interactions with others. Everyone we meet, everyone we serve, is in the image

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of Jesus. Roman Catholics understand this so much better than Protestants.
Yes, the Anonymous Christ, as it is known, comes to us in so many ways, and
we fail to recognize that Jesus’ incarnation, the very manifestation and Self-
expression of the Living Christ, continues all the time, in us and in other people.
We read about the Anonymous Christ in Matthew 25:34-40:

Then the King will say to those on his right, “Come, you who are blessed
by my Father; take your inheritance, the kingdom prepared for you since
the creation of the world. For I was hungry and you gave me something to
eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger
and you invited me in, I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick
and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me.”

Then the righteous will answer him, “Lord, when did we see you hungry
and feed you, or thirsty and give you something to drink? When did we
see you a stranger and invite you in, or needing clothes and clothe you?
When did we see you sick or in prison and go to visit you?”

The King will reply, “I tell you the truth, whatever you did for one of the
least of these brothers of mine, you did for me.”

Jesus’ followers were originally known as “people of the way”. Jesus, in his vision
of the Anonymous Christ, offers us a vision and a challenge. The call to follow is
not a call to worship Jesus. He never sought nor wanted that. No, the Way of
Jesus is a call to follow Jesus’ path, to live as he lived, and to serve others as he
did.

Biblical Unitarianism offers what I believe is true Christianity. Christianity is the
true religion of Jesus – the religion that Jesus taught, and by which Jesus himself
lived and died. Jesus called it the “gospel of God”, and told us that the Kingdom
of God was within us (see Lk 17:21).

Harry Emerson Fosdick, the distinguished American Baptist minister, author and
academic, wrote that a Christian is one who answers Jesus’ two-worded appeal,
“Follow me.” The Presbyterian theologian Samuel Angus described a Christian
as a person who is inwardly and whose life is moulded after that of Jesus. In

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other words, to believe in Jesus is to confess that in him we find the true essence
of the Divine, which is love. Similarly, Brennan Manning, in The Relentless Love
of Jesus, wrote:

To be a Christian means to stake one’s life on the revelation of God in
Jesus Christ.

Now, this is my point. Many people I know, even many who do not formally
identify themselves as Christians, live lives that are so much more nobly and
deeply and closely moulded after that of Jesus than those fundamentalist and
evangelical Christians who claim, ever so proudly, to have been washed in the
saving Blood of the Lamb and who have forsaken the true human Jesus of the
Gospels (who never used any language of sacrifice, bloodshed, propitiation or
expiation) and who have substituted for him a Christ of dogmatism, metaphysics
and pagan philosophy. I repeat, many people, who would not identify as
Christians, are real followers of the way of Jesus. There is a wonderful hymn, in
The New St Alban Hymnal, written by Marguerite Pollard, which contains this
wonderful verse:

And there are some who love him well,
yet know not it is he they love;
he tends the holy fire within
and draws them to the heights above.

Yes, the Kingdom of God (also known as the “Kingdom of Heaven” in Matthew’s
Gospel, “eternal life” in John’s Gospel [but also in the Synoptic Gospels], and the
“Beloved Community”) is essentially a kingdom of humanity and of human
concerns - irrespective of class, creed, color, race, belief-system or any other
little human distinctions – a kingdom of sensitivity between people, and of love
and peace and goodwill for all the people of the earth, indeed for all created
things. Jesus can never be restricted to one denomination, theological position or
even religion – not even Christianity. As E. Stanley Jones, the famous Methodist
Christian missionary and theologian, pointed out, the Kingdom of God is founded

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directly on goodwill and universal brotherhood – life as it ought to be. It is a
spiritual kingdom, a spiritual community of souls in whose hearts the universal
spiritual values I referred to earlier are recognized as supreme and sovereign –
hence the expression, the sovereign, righteous reign or rule of God in which
power and goodness, judgment and mercy are combined.

This kingdom is a past, present and future reality all at the same time.

The Kingdom is a past reality because it has been in preparation - and been
prepared for us - from the very foundation of the world (cf Mt 25:34) in the form of

… the Oneness
That spans the fathomless deeps of space
And the measureless eons of time,
Binding them together in act,
As we do in thought. …

… the unity
Of all that is,
The uniformity of all that moves,
The rhythm of all things
And the nature of their interaction.

So wrote Rabbi Mordecai Kaplan, the founder of Reconstructionist Judaism.

The great American Unitarian minister of yesteryear Robert T. Weston expressed
it beautifully when he wrote:

There is a living web that runs through us

To all the universe
Linking us each with each and through all life
On to distant stars.

The Kingdom of God is for all humanity, and has both an internal and an external
aspect to it. Externally, the Kingdom of God is that creative Oneness that holds,
sustains and governs the entire universe and everything in it (past, present and

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future) – something that is truly beyond our mortal comprehension. Internally, the
Kingdom of God lives as a present reality in the human heart, in our innermost
being. In the oft-cited words of St Augustine, “I sought you outside and you were
inside.” Jesus, the Way-Shower into the Kingdom of God, was a human who was
utterly obsessed by humanity, and it is his birth and life that we celebrate today.
Samuel Angus wrote in Jesus in the Lives of Men:

Jesus made the great discovery of oneness with the Father which he
lived out in its expansive fullness in his own experience; he invites each
of us to rediscover that discovery and to live in its thrilling and life-
transforming power.

And what did Jesus say about the Kingdom of God? Well, many things, in fact far
too many to mention this morning, but perhaps his greatest pronouncement on
the Kingdom is this, “… the kingdom of God is within you” (Lk 17:21).

It was Alfred Lord Tennyson who wrote, “Men may rise on stepping-stones of
their dead selves to higher things.” Tennyson was a believer in the humanity of
man, that is, the Kingdom of God. Another such believer was the Unitarian
Charles Dickens. He was no believer in cast-iron creeds; he put his faith implicitly
in the humanity of man. His wonderful story A Christmas Carol is itself a parable
or object lesson on the besetting sin of selfishness and how it can, and must be,
overcome. D. N. Brereton has written about Dickens and A Christmas Carol:

His powerful appeal to that better nature which he devoutly believed
every one possesses is made with the aid of every artifice known to his
decidedly histrionic genius.

Brereton also wrote this about Dickens’ Unitarian understanding and literary
expression of Christmas which was embodied in so many of Dickens’ writings on
the subject of Christmas:

The spirit of Christmas – giving to the world more than one takes from it,
devoting oneself to others, striving to be entirely unselfish – surely that is
the true spirit of the Founder.

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I have said this before, so forgive me for repeating this. I firmly believe that all we
really need to know about Jesus and what is, or at least ought to be, our vision
and challenge, can be found in one verse of the Bible, namely, Luke 9:11, which
reads:

When the crowds learned [where Jesus was], they followed him; and he
welcomed them and spoke to them of the kingdom of God, and cured those
who had need of healing.

First, the crowds followed Jesus. The Lord Christ continues to speak to our time,
saying, “Follow me”. One of my favorite Christian books - it was also my mother’s
favorite Christian book as well - is In His Steps written by Congregational minister
Charles M. Sheldon and first published in 1896. Sheldon, a leading exponent of
the Social Gospel, challenges us to ask ourselves, in every situation in which we
find ourselves placed, “What would Jesus do?” We can reword that question as,
“Where is the Anonymous Christ now?” In 1 John 2:3-6 we read:

We know that we have come to know [Jesus] if we obey his commands.
The person who says “I know him” but does not do what he commands is a
liar, and the truth is not in that person. But if anyone obeys his word, love
for God is truly made complete in that person. This is how we know we are
in him: Whoever claims to live in him must walk as Jesus did.

Secondly, Jesus welcomed the crowds. No one was turned away. That is why we
do not turn away any person who comes here with good intentions. That is why
we erect no barriers around our altars. That is why section 20(d) of the Unitarian
Church Act 1927 (NSW) provides:

(d) The congregation shall not at any time make any rule whereby the
acceptance of any creed, article or profession of faith shall be established
as a condition of membership of the congregation, and any such rule if
made shall have no force or effect … . No particular doctrines or opinion
are or shall be required to be taught or observed or forbidden to be taught
or observed in such congregation … .

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However, more is required of us than that. We must make sure we erect no
barriers outside this place as well, for the Anonymous Christ can be found
everywhere.

Thirdly, Jesus spoke of the Kingdom of God, which he came to establish, and to
which he brought an entirely new conception. Yes, he came not to establish a
church but a kingdom. The church itself is not the Kingdom of God. The latter is
not of this world (see Jn 18:36), for Jesus gave the words “Kingdom of God” new
meaning. The Kingdom of God, for Jesus, was a spiritual kingdom (and an
ethical and moral one at that), not a physical organization, and it was a present
and future reality all at the same time.

As a present reality, Jesus revealed that the Kingdom of God was already
present in his own life. Jesus formed a community that strove, in steadfast
service, to be a living model of God’s reign. We accept the Kingdom of God, and
help to make it a future reality as well, by building it here on earth – a kingdom
that will develop and grow to maturity with Jesus as the Great Exemplar, inspiring
us all to believe that God is love (1 Jn 4:8) and to follow his example. Yes, “Thy
kingdom come” (Mt 6:10), and we need to pray and affirm that because - and I
include myself in this - not yet are all of us, or perhaps any of us, ruled by God in
every thought, word and deed.

The Kingdom of God – a past reality, a present reality … and a future reality.
What an incredible concept.

And what is the “entrance fee”, if you like, to enter the Kingdom of God? In the
excellent commentary on the Gospels, The Mission and Message of Jesus: An
Exposition of the Gospels in the Light of Modern Research, by H. D. A. Major, T.
W. Manson and C. J. Wright, we read:

Jesus teaches that entrance into the Kingdom of God is dependent not
upon race but upon character and conduct. … Where God reigns in

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human personality, there the Kingdom of God has come on earth, and it
is for this kind of advance of the Kingdom that Jesus taught His disciples
to pray.

That is why Unitarians of yesteryear would affirm, in what was known as “The
Unitarian Covenant”:

We believe in:
The Fatherhood of God;
The Brotherhood of Man;
The Leadership of Jesus;
Salvation by Character;
The Progress of Mankind
onward and upward forever.

“Salvation by character”, or, in the words of Major, Manson and Wright,
“character and conduct”. Nothing about being washed in the precious shed blood
of Jesus Christ. As I have said, so many times before in this pulpit, that butchers
shop theology owes its origins, not to the teaching of Jesus, but to a most
uncomfortable mixture of certain notions of Jewish sacrifice and a very heavy,
indeed fatal, dose of Greco-Roman mystery religion. That sort of theology has no
place in any self-respecting Unitarian church or in any other church or fellowship
or society of men and women who wish to remain faithful to the spirit, teachings
and religion of Jesus and other enlightened leaders across the years. Read,
especially, the Gospel of Luke, which makes it very clear that Jesus did not
accomplish his work of salvation through vicarious sacrifice but by liberating us
from sin and selfishness, thereby enabling us to be restored to health, joy and
peace.

The Kingdom of God, sensibly interpreted, is not some supernatural event that
will supposedly come to pass when this world comes to an end but a kingdom of
this world in which there is justice, equality and freedom for all. “I tell you the
truth, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers of mine, you did for
me” (Mt 25:40, 45). I mentioned earlier that in John’s Gospel the Kingdom of God
is generally identified with “eternal life”. Eternal life, in New Testament terms, is

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not so much ever-enduring life but life of a certain quality – the life that Jesus
seeks to give us, the life lived as Jesus himself lived his life, that is, a life of love
and selfless self-giving to others (the Divine ideals manifest in the Person and
spirit of Jesus). Again, in the immortal words of Tennyson, “Men may rise on
stepping-stones of their dead selves to higher things.” So, “seek ye first the
kingdom of God, and His righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto
you" (Mt 6:33).

Fourthly, Jesus cured those who needed healing. Whether those healings were
miraculous (whatever that means) need not concern us. As Unitarians we are
rightly skeptical of so-called miracles and the like. Nevertheless, our task here, in
this Church of ours, is to provide opportunities for healing, particularly through
the power of the written and spoken word. We come here as broken, damaged
people in need of healing. The healing words of Jesus and other enlightened
teachers, thinkers and writers, as well as the healing power of music, have the
power to change lives. Yes, the Anonymous Christ is present here in all who
come for healing of body, mind and soul. Jesus rightly saw healing as the sign of
the Kingdom of God coming upon us. As a church, we exist to point to the
Kingdom of God - sensibly and properly interpreted - preach that kingdom, and
help to bring into visible manifestation, in this dangerous, broken, and very sick
world of ours, the marvelous works of that kingdom.

At the risk of sounding heretical - not that that’s a bad thing, being a Unitarian – I
think that Jesus himself was both a Unitarian and a Universalist. He was
undeniably a Unitarian in the sense that, as a Jew, he believed in the Jewish
Shema, namely, that God was one. He was also holistic and progressive in
matters of faith and religious practice, crossing narrow religious laws and
boundaries. He was a Universalist in the sense that he warmly welcomed faith,
love and righteousness wherever he found them, even in Samaritans and

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Romans – those groups which contemporary religion condemned and excluded.
There’s a lesson for us there, as well.

I am reminded of something else that Samuel Angus wrote, which is contained in
his wonderful book Jesus in the Lives of Men:

Jesus is not accredited to us today by his miracles, or by a virgin birth, or
by a resurrection from an underworld, or by a reanimation of his body
from the grave, or by fulfillment of prophecies; he is accredited by his long
train of conquests over the loyalties of men, and chiefly by the immediate,
intimate and inevitable appeal made by him to everything that is best and
God-like in each of us, and by his ability to “make men fall in love with
him”, and “to win the world to his fair sanctities”.

One of Jesus’ most interesting and powerful, indeed confronting, parables is the
one known as the Parable of the Wedding Feast (also known as the Parable of
the Marriage Feast and the Parable of the Unwilling Guests). In Matthew 22:1-10
we read:

Jesus spoke to them again in parables, saying, "The kingdom of heaven
may be compared to a king who gave a wedding feast for his son. And he
sent out his slaves to call those who had been invited to the wedding
feast, and they were unwilling to come. Again he sent out other slaves
saying, ‘Tell those who have been invited, “Behold, I have prepared my
dinner; my oxen and my fattened livestock are all butchered and
everything is ready; come to the wedding feast."' But they paid no
attention and went their way, one to his own farm, another to his
business, and the rest seized his slaves and mistreated them and killed
them. But the king was enraged, and he sent his armies and destroyed
those murderers and set their city on fire. Then he said to his slaves, 'The
wedding is ready, but those who were invited were not worthy. ‘Go
therefore to the main highways, and as many as you find there, invite to
the wedding feast.' Those slaves went out into the streets and gathered
together all they found, both evil and good; and the wedding hall was
filled with dinner guests.”

Note how the rich and powerful – the so-called “big end of town” – were all too
busy to come. Nothing has changed. The poor, the maimed, the hungry, the halt,
and the blind – they are not too busy to show up. The Kingdom of God that Jesus

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spoke about – indeed, it was his entire message (what he called the “gospel of
God”) – is a very different sort of kingdom offered by the world, whose kingdom is
an altogether materialistic and consumeristic one, symbolized in the Bible by the
great whore of Babylon. As the October 2008 edition of The Beacon, the journal
of the Melbourne [Australia] Unitarian Peace Memorial Church, points out, in its
editorial, the present economic crisis has occurred “as a result of massive greed
resulting in the most obscene and ongoing profiteering, manipulation of markets,
unbridled gambling in stocks and shares, the amassing of immense and
unprecedented personal wealth, and the unregulated freedom to speculate and
gamble.” Is this the Kingdom of God of earth? Is this the meaning of Christmas?
Of course, not. Herbert Spencer was basically right. The world out there is
basically a jungle and only those who have the instinct to compete for survival,
and who share its materialistic and hedonistic values, are able to live in it.

The late Dr Norman Vincent Peale, in a sermon preached many years ago at his
Marble Collegiate Church on Fifth Avenue, New York City, reassured his wealthy
congregation that they had been made rich by God because they deserved it.
Now, as most of you already know, I have always been a great admirer of Dr
Peale, who ministered to the needs of millions of people throughout the world
during his long lifetime, but where in the Bible is it written that God never intends
His children to suffer poverty? The great Biblical scholar J. I. Packer, in his book
Keep in Step with the Spirit, has written:

The claim [that God never intends His children to suffer poverty] may
sound plausible when made by a wealthy banker in a luxurious hotel
ballroom, but one only has to imagine it being voiced to Christian villages
in India or Bangladesh or some drought-ridden part of Africa to see how
empty it is.

Remember the words of Jesus, as recorded in Mark 10:25, “It is easier for a
camel to go through the eye of a needle, than for a rich man to enter into the

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kingdom of God.” The Bible condemns greed, materialism and exploitative
profiteering in no uncertain terms.

Well, what does, or ought, Christmas mean to Unitarians? May I suggest that
Christmas is, or ought to be, a time for deep self-reflection, self-abandonment
and self-surrender. The true message of Christianity is that it is better to give
than to receive, and to love rather than hate, that getting rich at the expense of
others is evil, that oppressing, subjugating, exploiting and manipulating others is
evil, that destroying the planet and all that is sacred and holy is evil, and that
helping others (especially those who are marginalized and otherwise unable to
help themselves), working for justice and to end oppression, and promoting
harmony, peace and goodwill is good. Christmas is not just about the birth of
some Jewish kid who was born some 2,000 years ago. Christmas is about the
birth and the ongoing rebirth, that is, the bringing into daily conscious existence
the Kingdom of God, which is something fundamentally spiritual (that is, non-
materialistic) in nature, even though its various manifestations are entirely
practical, physical and earthly.

We are told in Romans 12:1 to present ourselves as a “living sacrifice”. We do
that by living selflessly for others and showing reverence for the Divine in all
people and in the whole of creation. We then not only encounter the Anonymous
Christ, we also share our saving experience of the Anonymous Christ with those
with whom we come into contact. Yes, we must work, in steadfast service, to
bring about the Kingdom of God on earth, so beautifully encapsulated in those
undying words of Christmas, “Peace on earth, goodwill towards all people.” For
so many people – and this is nothing new – Christmas is simply a time for, and
season of, frivolity and good cheer. Now, don’t get me wrong. Those things have
their place, and we intend to have some frivolity and good cheer, indeed
joyfulness, immediately after this service, but let’s never forget the true Unitarian
meaning of Christmas … “Peace on earth, goodwill towards all people.”

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Remember, we are here to build, and not to destroy. We are building the
Kingdom of God. Do you want to know more about this kingdom? Well, may I
offer this. It is in the doing, rather than the questioning, that the truth reveals
itself, and the kingdom is made manifest. Let us make the Kingdom of God a
future reality … until that day, on which there will be no sunset and no dawning,
of universal restitution and restoration of all things and people, when all things
and people will eventually be restored to their Source and Original Essence.

In summary, irrespective of whether or not we individually identify ourselves as
Christians, Christmas is all about the birth, or the rebirth, of the Kingdom of God
(also known as the Kingdom of Heaven in the Christian religion) in one’s heart
and mind. That Kingdom - the essential message and theme of all of Jesus’
teachings - is the reign and sovereignty of God (that is, that which is the Divine,
no matter what name we use to describe the ineffable and ultimately
inexpressible) over all life but especially as a present, personal and spiritual (that
is, non-material) reality in our own individual lives, in which the Divine Ideals of
Love, Purity, Truth, Beauty, and Light (in the spiritual sense) are dominant. This
is the “Gospel of God” preached, taught and lived by Jesus.

And how does one enter into this Kingdom? Entrance into and acceptance of the
Kingdom is dependent upon character and conduct, in faithful obedience to the
Divine Spirit that was in Jesus. Finally, what is the “result” (if that be the right
word) of our entering into and experiencing this Kingdom? The realization of our
God-given potential, and the full release of the yearnings and the powers of our
respective personalities, through self-sacrifice and obedience to and acceptance
and expression of the will of the Divine on a daily basis, and being loyal to the
spirit of Jesus and trying to follow his example and that of other enlightened
leaders and thinkers throughout the ages, serving the Anonymous Christ
wherever we find him or her. Finally, what are we to “do” with the Kingdom of

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God? We are to live it, and share it … and how very appropriate that is at this
particular time, for Christmas is supposed to be all about sharing.

May you have the spirit of Christmas which is peace, the gladness of Christmas
which is hope, and the heart of Christmas which is love. For Thy love’s sake.
Amen.

-oo0oo-

THE ANONYMOUS CHRIST AND THE KINGDOM OF GOD

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