SERMONS WORTH READING
 
Another Church Meeting, 8/2/1998
Yearning Toward God, 11/29/1998
Yearning With Joseph, 12/20/1998
Christmas Eve Sermon, 12/24/1998
Faith Is Risky, 2/28/1999
What Does God Want?, 2/27/2000
Condemned?, 3/12/2000
No Matter What, 2/18/2001
Faith's "Nevertheless", 2/25/2001
Forever a Gift, August 18, 2002
Relating to Other Religions, August 25, 2002
Beyond Our Ordinary Lives, September 1, 2002
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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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