Relating
to Other Religions Matthew 16:13-20
There’s a story about a minister at a party who was
introduced to a woman who told him she use to be a Methodist
but she was now into Native American spirituality. The minister
asked which tribe...oh, no, not that kind of thing; some particular
shaman?...oh no, of course not!; well, is there some particular
group you meet with?...oh, dear God, no! Then, what do you
mean you’re into Native American spirituality? I mean
I read a book on it and saw Dances with Wolves, and
I thought it was nice.
This story illustrates
how the modern secular world teaches us to approach/relate
to other religions. I think it’s
a perfect example of how not to! Notice three errors.
First, we imagine it is enough to think we are something, and
that somehow makes us something. I can think of myself as a
brain surgeon, but if I lack the discipline of their practice,
that doesn’t make me one. Faith is no less an abstraction
and illusion whenever we divorce belief from practice. And
we do that a lot.
Second, notice how we lump religion with leisure and entertainment
options to be fawned over at parties with the latest fashions.
Here we relegate God to another consumer choice at the shopping
mall as opposed to the trembling of the earth beneath our feet,
the core of our being when all else has failed us. Others,
for whom God looms so large, must see such religiosity as silly
and careless.
Third, we repeat
the well-meaning but destructive cliché that
all religions say essentially the same thing. We blithely take
the distinctive truth claims of Native Americans, Jews, Hindus,
Buddhists, and Christians, put them in a blender, and push “whip.” We
homogenize religion, which may be good for milk, but not for
the substance of the world’s faiths.
Often, our first
mistake is to say, you’re a Moslem,
I’m a Christian. But those differences aren’t
important because we’re all saying mostly the same thing;
we all see God essentially the same way. That’s an insulting
thing to say, and makes us look ignorant. It’s a very
arrogant thing to say. It’s saying is no different than
what I already know; there’s nothing unique about it;
all of those centuries of development don’t matter because
I already understand. But if we actually listen to Moslems,
Hindus, or Sikhs, we quickly learn what they’re saying
is not the same.
William Willimon
writes, “Statements like, ‘Well,
you’re Jewish, I’m black Muslim, but what really
matters is that we’re all human beings,’ shows
not that someone is open-minded about religion, but just the
opposite. One is so closed-minded about religion that one cannot
even conceive that a person’s religious belief is the
most important thing in that person’s life (and not
to be trivialized as a) quirk of the personality of a universal
feel.”
Our gospel lesson
takes us to the primary place where Christians diverge from
other faiths. Jesus asks Peter point blank and
out of the blue: “Who do people say I am?” Embarrassed
glances are exchanged. Then responses are ventured out of the
awkward silence: “Some say you’re Shaquille O’Neal.
Others claim that you are Martha Steward. Still others say
Bill Gates or Oprah Winfrey or Matt Damon.” ȁut
who do you say that I am?” Jesus presses. You are the
Christ,” Peter says, the first in a line of millions
to do so.
So what happens
next? After Peter’s astonishing confession,
Jesus doesn’t bid him to go and use it as a battering
ram to hammer everyone who doesn’t see things as he
does. No, Jesus says, “Blessed are you, Simon. For flesh
and blood haven’t brought you to the place to utter
this truth. It has happened courtesy of the Father in heaven.” Jesus
is telling him that the power to recognize and speak this truth
is not the result of his intelligence of his moral character
or his attitude. Rather, it is a gift of God. It is pure grace.
It is only because that ability has been given him. No room
for smugness here.
Now this text has long be used by the Christian church as
the rationale for persecution of people of other faiths. We
forget that Jesus was not some American Gladiator glaring at
opponents on network television, but a suffering servant teaching
and healing in the backwaters of the empire. We forget that
Jesus never struck out or killed for what he believed, but
rather that he suffered and died at the hands of the violent
out of love for them, inviting us to follow.
So how does this
show us how we might relate to other faiths? Let me suggest
four brief words. The first is respect. Isn’t
this always a good place to begin, following a suffering servant
Savior who embodied humility? By respect I mean we expect and
find all signs of God’s grace at work in those who do
not acknowledge the lordship of Jesus Christ. We don’t
approach them by seeing their sins. If we are fascinated by
sin, we have sins enough of our own to keep us busy for a lifetime.
Rather we look for how the light of God has shone in their
lives even before the news of Christ’s reign has reached
them. This expectation is the active love of Christ which opens
itself to and finds the best in others, whether a woman from
Samaria or a centurion from Rome.
Item two is collaboration.
C.S. Lewis once observed that Christians can agree with other
faiths inasmuch as they agree with Christianity.
No reason exists why we can’t work with people of differing
faiths and ideologies in places where God’s purposes
are unfolding. Without compromising our ongoing story as the
church, it can overlap with the different stories of Muslims,
Hindus, and even secular intelligentsia. We trust God to see
through the church’s story of redemption and reconciliation
to its end. As the story unfolds, places exist where we can
agree with others about what is to be done.
Stanley Hauerwas
and William Willimon write: “The God
we worship as Christians is in the world, and we should not
be surprised that we often discover there people and practices
more faithful than we are in the church.” Spend some
time in an AA meeting. Notice how they stick together. Or with
a group of Scout leaders planning to take a dozen 13 year old
girls camping in the mountains for a weekend. Notice the sacrifices
they are willing to make. Or with the volunteers of a hospice
unit, teaching the real meaning of compassion.
Next, we have conversation. As we find places to work with
others, dialogue will result. Yes, as we work with those of
different faith commitments, junctures will appear where we
diverge. This is where the conversation often begins and gets
interesting. Here we listen before we talk. Sure, we can share
religious experiences. But deeper than that, different faiths
make different claims about where the world is headed and how
it will get there. If we live up to the name Christian, if
others see anything of Jesus in our claim to be his followers,
our partners will initiate this dialogue, not ourselves. They
will notice that while we may work side by side, our work has
a specific motives and works toward prophetic goals. Our belief
is not in the progress of the technocratic state, not in human
utopias, not in the cult of celebrity, but in the matchless
reign of the Lord God over heaven and earth. Does this crowning
conviction sufficiently shine through our words and deeds that
strangers to our faith cannot help but inquire about it? If
not, then we might take stock of what we are really about,
what lights up our eyes, what burns deep in our hearts.
Finally, the last
word is proclamation. Our contribution to the dialogue is
the truth we have found in the Bible and Jesus.
We tell our story not because we disrespect stories embodied
in other faiths, but because Jesus entrusted it to us for the
telling. Also, importantly, as we tell our story, it is not
our burden to make sure listeners are persuaded. We can leave
that with God. And while speaking of Jesus is a necessity,
a conversation where not many of us mainliners feel comfortable,
our most eloquent proclamation will be found in acts of sacrificial
love. Most cannot recognize Jesus as the Christ not because
they thing he is phony. They never come around because they
see so little of Jesus in those of us professing to follow
him. We tell our story best by embodying it first. Then our
words have more authority and texture than the usual algebraic,
tired, and still-sounding: “Jesus died for your sins.”
In four brief words:
Respect. Collaboration. Conversation. Proclamation. But notice
what I have omitted. It’s not
our place to conjecture about who is saved and who isn’t.
Who do we avoid such speculation? Because Jesus so exhorted
us, because such judgments are bigger than we are, because
they belong to God, and we trust God as just with them. If
we wish to worry about someone’s salvation, Jesus charges
us to worry about our own.
Lesslie Newbigin
tells of the height and breadth of what is at stake: “We must begin with the great reality made
known to us in Jesus Christ, that God - the creator and sustainer
of all that exists - is in his triune being an ocean of infinite
love overflowing to all his works in all creation and to all
human beings. When we see Jesus eagerly welcoming the signs
of faith among men and women outside the house of Israel; when
we see him lovingly welcoming those whom others cast out; when
we see him on the cross with arms outstretched to embrace the
whole world...we see the most fundamental of all realities,
namely, a grace and a mercy and loving kindness which reaches
to every creature.” And to that I say, Amen.
The Rev. Esther Hargis
August 25, 2002
© 2002, Esther
Hargis
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