Jesus, looking at him, loved him, and said to him, “You lack one thing: go, sell all that you have and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; and come, follow me.

Last week I recalled the paradoxical image of the yin yan in which the seed of one is located with the other. I was talking about order and chaos: on one hand that boundaries like the walls in a walled garden allow for a balance in the environment so that harmonious growth can be achieved. on the other hand wilderness the absence of boundaries is the transformative experience that allows us potential to discover what is essential to us. Throughout the Hebrew and Christian scriptures we see the interplay of these extremes as growth towards order is exchanged for the complete reset of chaos.

This is the setting that the author of Mark uses to establish Jesus ministry and teaching: Jesus is driven by the spirit out into the wilderness where he stays for 40 days, on his return he begins his ministry.

This church is built within the boundary walls of Christian tradition. And paradoxically it thrives in openness to new revelation, emerging understanding. Our ancestors in faith questioned many doctrines which had become fundamental to a systematic understanding of Christian faith. Foremost of which was the claim that Jesus was God. Unitarians disputed that there was a scriptural basis for this claim, and this can strike some Christians as deeply shocking and even offensive so it is worth treading carefully when we take time, as sometimes we should, to consider our own position.
There is a line which to me summarises this position very well in Sidney Spencer’s 1956 book ‘The Deep Things of God’: “…in order to be loyal to the spirit of Jesus we can make no demands alien to his teaching be a condition of Christian discipleship.” – and I’d add that it should certainly not be necessary to hold to a doctrine which contradicts his own. Of course Jesus knew nothing of the doctrines which the church has used to define discipleship and in the reading from Mark’s Gospel which we heard Jesus ask why he should be called good, since none is good but God?
I’d just like to consider that statement.

I heard a podcast earlier this week (which I very much recommend by the way: OnBeing). Ariel Berger described being a student of the eminent Jewish theologian Elie Weisel. It is a beautiful and moving account of being awakened to moral sensitivity and positive moral force. I mention this because it struck me that the account was told from the same kind of time perspective as that between the events recounted and the writing of the gospel. Ariel Berger said of his experiences: ‘that classroom is with me all the time’.
We must do better at recalling well the faith tradition from which Jesus emerged. Jesus was always and above all a Jewish rabbi, steeped in Jewish mystical and Jewish temple tradition.
Unitarians often claim to be more interested in the religion of Jesus rather than the religion about Jesus and although I know that they mean: they mean want to recall the life and ministry of Jesus, more than the traditions of the Church – but I often think they would do as well to consider more carefully the religion that Jesus himself observed – and this is but one of the resources which mainstream Xianity has deprived itself of and which I feel grateful to be able to acknowledge.

When Jesus said that none but God is good it fits with my understanding of the monotheistic theology that Jesus and we affirm to say that God’s goodness is something in which we participate. Jesus invitation to the young man in the parable was to renounce the distraction of money, the distraction of worldly pleasure, and instead participate in goodness. This participatory spirituality into which we are invited by the life and ministry of Jesus is the spirituality in which Jesus participated.

And of course a spirituality of participation is also a spirituality of inclusivity, because in participation we open ourselves to the complete emotional range of experience, the sweetness of an apple, the completeness of heartbreak, the brokenness of injustice, the wound of bereavement, but also the joy of springtime, the unconditional love of a pet, the mature reflection of long friendship; all the vivid experiences of living fully bring us into a closer relationship with the divine if understood aright.
In yearning and in delight, in sorrow and joy we experience participation with the core of experience, the life of life. This opening to life, is a kind of tenderness, brings in a gentleness that is receptive to the sacred and sees the divine in others,

yes none but God is good, and all are equally invited to participate…