Every Jot and Tittle

This is the sermon I preached this Sunday, September 26, 2010 at Central Unitarian Church in Paramus, NJ

In the Christian Scriptures, in the King James Version of the Book of Matthew (5:17-18), during the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus is recorded as having said: “Think not that I am come to destroy the law, or the prophets: I am not come to destroy, but to fulfill. For verily I say unto you, Till heaven and earth pass, one jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass from the law, till all be fulfilled."

I’d like to tell you a story that I hope will give you sense of my personal credentials in discussing jots and especially tittles. In English, jots and tittles are best described as the cross of a t and dot of an i, respectively. In the original written Greek of the Christian scriptures they were iota and keraia, the smallest letter of the Greek alphabet and a serif or accent mark. In the spoken Aramaic of Jesus’ time and place they were probably the yodh, the smallest letter in the Aramaic alphabet and small diacritical marks, hooks, and points that help to distinguish one letter from another. The point in all three cases is attention to the smallest detail. I could say that my study of linguistics, my credentials as a secondary school language teacher, a masters degree in the teaching of Russian, and a PhD in Educational Psychology and second language acquisition, combined with my theological training at that esteemed Unitarian Univeralist seminary, Meadville-Lombard Theological School, are my credentials for explaining jots and tittles, but I would be misleading you. The real story is this…..

Forty-nine years 1 month and 27 days ago today, on July 30, 1961, my parents, Harold Edwin Tittle and Phyllis Deane Tittle, bestowed upon me the biblical name of Matthew. They were, at the time churchgoing folks, Presbyterians, my mother with perfect attendance for many years. So, they certainly knew that the passage in the King James Bible which read: “one jot or one tittle” came from the book of Matthew. Hence my name Matthew Tittle is inherently biblical--that is as long as you’re reading the King James Version. My parents would not have overlooked this detail, especially since I know my family was focused on the gospels. You see, my older brother was Mark. My older cousin was Jon. I came third as Matthew, but my mother’s youngest sister rebelled, when her son was born, she refused to name him Luke. So we had Matthew, Mark, Jeff, and Jon. If I had been a girl, I would have been Mary, I don’t know if the intent was mother or Magdalene. In any case, being especially qualified to do so by virtue of my name and family tradition alone, I am preaching today on what it means to attend to every jot and tittle in our spiritual lives.

Now I know that some of you dislike references to biblical teachings. Unitarian Universalists have an unfortunate tendency to reject Jewish and Christian teachings, often because we have come to this faith after negative experiences especially with Christianity. This is exactly why this particular passage is important to religious minorities like Unitarian Universalists.

Every Sunday, after I preach a sermon, if I have used biblical teachings several of you come to me and ask why. Several more of you come to me and say thank you. If I don’t use biblical teachings, several of you come to me and ask why. Several more of you come to me and say thank you. We are a faith that draws from many sources. We are a faith whose roots and heritage are squarely planted in the Christian tradition. I don’t keep a tally of how often I use teachings from different traditions. I don’t have a quota system. And I don’t debate these points. You will never hear me ask you to accept Jesus Christ or any other prophet or deity as your personal Lord and Savior. You will never hear me tell you to believe in any singular and inerrant truth. 

If you are uncomfortable with the various sources of the living tradition that I am using-- and by the way, today I will have used all of them before our time together is finished: direct experience, prophetic words and deeds, wisdom from world religions, Jewish and Christian teachings, Humanist teachings, and earth centered traditions—if you are uncomfortable with my using any particular tradition, then your first task is to look within to determine why that discomfort is there. Then, as a Unitarian Universalist who is committed to acceptance of one another and spiritual growth, your task is to stretch yourself, to grow and to learn how to find meaning in that particular tradition. If you are already, or when you become comfortable with the various sources of our living tradition—and I know this is difficult work because I have done this work—I also threw out the babies Jesus and Moses with the bathwater long ago, but have since retrieved them—then your task is to apply those teachings in your own life, to attend to every jot and tittle of your spiritual life. Whether you agree or disagree with any particular preacher or the sources they are drawing on is irrelevant at best and a roadblock to deeper meaning at worst. You are on a free and responsible search for truth and meaning. I am not telling you what to believe. I am challenging you to be your best self, to minister to one another in love, and to serve the greater community.

In his 2005 sermon, “The Very Hardest Thing,” Unitarian Universalist minister, Edward Frost, said, "Unitarian Universalism is not an easy religion, nor should not be. A liberal and optimistic faith that people are inherently good and that this life is a blessed existence, especially for those who suffer the most, is a difficult proposition in the face of the truth of an indifferent natural order capable of great destruction, and an often intentionally angry humankind filled with a predictable history of evil." He says, “liberal faith in the perfectibility of humankind is tested to the breaking point by the daily demonstrated truths that human beings are capable of just about anything.”

We need to think deeply about and attend to every detail in our practice and understanding of religion. As religious liberals we encounter much that requires us to understand every jot and tittle of our own religion and that of others.

A few years ago, I received the following letter from a conservative Baptist preacher, who had stumbled on to my personal website. He wrote:

I am concerned for those who are involved in this type of church. It seems that UUs believe in anything whether it is right or not. Contrary to public opinion, there can only be one truth and the rest lies and deception. Truth is not to be determined by man but by God. The bible is the word of God and it is to govern human life. In the Bible, we are told the truth about who we are. We are sinners from the moment of conception due to the fall of Adam and Eve. Because of sin, we are eternally separated from a holy God. God's love for us was so great that he determined that he would die in our place so that we may be reconciled to God. Jesus said I am the way the truth and the life [his mistake not mine] and no man cometh unto the father but by me. We must admit that we are sinners and repent of our sins, trust the vicarious substitutionary death of Jesus and by faith ask him to save us. My prayer is that your eyes will be opened before it is eternally too late.

I receive these sorts of messages often. Just last night I received the following from someone who apparently stumbled upon a blog entry of mine from about a year ago calling for the repeal of the “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” law:

Dear Reverend Matt. I believe the bible, Sodom and Gomorrah were destroyed because of Lust one of the Capital Sins.  St. Paul in his Epistles writes that homosexuality along with many other sins is wrong.  Was it Carl Menninger who said, “What ever became of sin?”  God loves every person he created, but remember he also gave us the Ten Commandments.

At the surface level, these sorts of remarks are easy for me to dismiss, just as this other minister found it easy to dismiss Unitarian Universalism. At a deeper level, however, I find it critically important to understand the phenomenon of how people can be so conditioned to a particular and singular, absolute truth, because I think that this is just the opposite of what Jesus was trying to teach. All wisdom literature, Christian and Hebrew scriptures included, are inherently subject to and especially meant for interpretation. I don’t read any scripture from the perspective of assuming that the events depicted are true, but I do assume that the writers had a point. Those who wrote about Jesus portrayed him most often as teaching in parables. Parables are meant to be interpreted. They don’t have one true answer. The Buddha also taught in parables. The point of the parable, like a good sermon, is for the story to speak to the listener in ways unimagined by the speaker.

"Think not that I am come to destroy the law, or the prophets: I am not come to destroy, but to fulfill."

When Jesus explains that he hasn’t come to destroy the Law and the Prophets, he is referring specifically to Jewish law and the teaching of the many prophets of the Hebrew Scriptures. Remember, Jesus was a Jew, and was preaching to those who knew the Jewish Law and Scriptures, both Jew and Gentile.  He had to explain himself in this way, because he had just seconds earlier done something incredibly risky by saying, that the poor, those in mourning, the meek, the hungry, the thirsty, the merciful, the pure of heart, the peacemakers, and the falsely persecuted are those who are blessed. He raised them up over the rich, those without feeling, the bullies, the well-fed, the merciless, the deceitful, the war makers, and the persecutors. He also told them, the poor, the meek, the peacemakers, and so on, that they were the salt of the earth and the light of the world, and that they needed to let their light shine. This was heretical, dangerous stuff. He was also about to offer alternative ways to follow the law. And so, he felt it was necessary to explain himself. Even if the Sermon on the Mount never actually happened, those who wrote these stories were taking there own lives and livelihoods into their own hands by writing such subversive literature. 

Let’s assume for the sake of telling the story that these events did occur. Now, Jesus said he wasn’t trying to destroy the law. He even told the people specifically to obey and not break the Ten Commandments. But he was still very much an activist and even a subversive. I think he was trying to change the law. He promoted nonviolence, but he also promoted active resistance. He told the people to turn the other cheek, effectively offering an oppressor the chance to take another shot, which may very well land them in trouble; he said go the second mile. Soldiers could enlist citizens to carry their gear a certain distance, but no further, Jesus suggested going the second mile, not to help them out, but to get them into trouble. He said give them not only your shirt but also your cloak. A debt collector had to leave something for people to be afforded basic comfort. The cloak was both a coat for warmth and a blanket for sleeping. It couldn’t be taken, but if you gave it to them, again those charged with protecting the law risked breaking it. And even if these measures are interpreted as gestures of goodwill to the authorities, the result is still additional suffering on the part of the poor, the meek, the pure of heart, the peacemakers. The result either way is that the weak are really the strong. They are the blessed. To invoke a phrase from my former cross-town colleague in Houston and Sunday morning televangelist, Joel Osteen of Lakewood Church, “the victims are the victors.” Or as he says to his congregation “Be a victor, not a victim.” I’ don’t often quote Joel Osteen before, but this is a sound sound byte.

Let’s continue with the text: “I am not come to destroy, but to fulfill.” What was he fulfilling? I think this is the key to the whole passage, and perhaps the key to the whole of Christianity. Traditional conservative interpretations suggest, as did the Baptist minister who set me straight about the truth of religion, that the meaning here is nothing short of eschatological, the end times and the fulfillment of the apocalypse, the second coming and the final judgment.

But, if we separate the wheat from the chaff, to invoke another biblical nugget, we find that the heart of Jesus’ teachings, the wheat in this case, was almost exclusively devoted to the theme of love and care for one another, neighbor and enemy alike. It was for the creation of a beloved community.

Continuing again: “For verily I say unto you, Till heaven and earth pass, one jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass from the law, till all be fulfilled.”  Here comes the good part…

This first phrase, “For verily I say unto you” in the King’s English (I’m sorry I don’t have the Greek, Hebrew, or Aramaic on the tip of my tongue) is universally interpreted by biblical scholars to be an attention getter. “Hey folks, listen up, you better believe me when I say…”

Let me paraphrase: Hell will freeze over before even the smallest detail of the law changes until all is fulfilled, until you do something about it. Don’t go breaking the law, but change it so that this beloved community can be formed.

And after going through a few examples, he told these underdogs that until their righteousness exceeded the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees, until they became victors and not victims, that they would not enter the kingdom of heaven. The scribes and the Pharisees were the recorders, interpreters, and enforcers, of the political, social and religious order. Jesus is saying that those who suffer, those who care, those who are oppressed, those who look out for the world, are as well and even better equipped for the task of interpreting the rule of law.

The kingdom of heaven that Jesus refers to doesn’t only mean in the hereafter as many would have us believe. It is here and now. We can create heaven or hell here on earth. Human beings are capable of almost anything.

Nothing is going to change until we change it. Not one jot or one tittle. We need to attend to the details of our spiritual lives as Unitarian Universalists. This is the point of our religious plurality and acceptance of many wisdoms. Not to believe in anything we want. Not to keep from offending others. Not to practice an all-encompassing religion, but to practice great discernment and to keep our faith even in the face of unimaginable truth. To challenge the status quo, which has always been a primary mission of the church, so that we can bring about heaven here on earth. We can sit back and watch and do nothing and feel sorry others, or feel sorry for ourselves. But this would be the worst sin of all. Our playing small does not serve the world.

Edward Frost also said in his “Very Hardest Thing” sermon: “I believe it is the task of the Unitarian Universalist minister (and I would just say ALL Unitarian Universalists) to do the very hardest thing—to proclaim and maintain a faith, while struggling with the truths that, without a faith to live by, would hollow us out and beat us down.”

In case you hadn’t noticed, we are a religious minority. We have willingly been the victims, we have been persecuted for hundreds of years for our heresy. Over the past few years in the United States many have been criticized, ostracized, and persecuted for doing just what Jesus did, for dissenting—for being critical of the status quo and of those in and with power. But this is our task. This means speaking out, and more importantly, acting out in the world. It means knowing who you are spiritually and being as certain and secure in that faith as are the scribes and Pharisees of our times.

If we shy away from this moral imperative, “Till heaven and earth pass, one jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass from the law.”

 Amen.