Hope in the Chaos

Nov. 27, 2022, Christ Presbyterian Church

Luke 21:25-36

You can hear this sermon here on YouTube.

 

Pastor Jessica likes to describe the reading we are about to hear as the one for “Scary Advent.” And lucky me – I get to be the one to preach this Sunday.

 

In this passage from the Gospel according to Luke, you will hear things that sound pretty ominous – or just plain confusing. 

 

Just before this passage, Jesus had been teaching in the Temple in Jerusalem. The chief priests and scribes and elders came to challenge him. They began to plot how to capture Jesus and turn him over to the Roman authorities. 

 

Right after this reading, we move toward the Last Supper, the betrayal of Jesus, his execution.

 

We think of Advent as a time to remember Jesus’ birth, his entry into our world. But this reading does not look back to that moment. It looks forward to a time when God’s vision for the world becomes a reality, even after all the troubles that are so much a part of lives in every generation.

 

These words  might be hard to hear at first in this season, but think of them as Jesus’  signs of hope in the midst of suffering.

 

Luke 21:25-36 (NRSV Updated Edition)

“There will be signs in the sun, the moon, and the stars and on the earth distress among nations confused by the roaring of the sea and the waves. People will faint from fear and foreboding of what is coming upon the world, for the powers of the heavens will be shaken.  Then they will see ‘the Son of Man coming in a cloud’ with power and great glory. Now when these things begin to take place, stand up and raise your heads, because your redemption is drawing near.” 

 

Then he told them a parable: “Look at the fig tree and all the trees; 30 as soon as they sprout leaves you can see for yourselves and know that summer is already near. So also, when you see these things taking place, you know that the kingdom of God is near. Truly I tell you, this generation will not pass away until all things have taken place. Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will not pass away.

“Be on guard so that your hearts are not weighed down with dissipation and drunkenness and the worries of this life and that day does not catch you unexpectedly, like a trap. For it will come upon all who live on the face of the whole earth. Be alert at all times, praying that you may have the strength to escape all these things that will take place and to stand before the Son of Man.”

 

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

 

Jesus was not painting a pretty picture here. “Signs in the sun, the moon, and the stars and on the earth distress among nations confused by the roaring of the sea and the waves. People will faint from fear and foreboding of what is coming upon the world, for the powers of the heavens will be shaken.”

 

It calls to mind that painting by Vincent Van Gogh – “The Starry Night.” I imagine some of you have seen that the immersive Van Gogh exhibit that had a long run in Milwaukee and just opened in Middleton.  And even if you have not been to that, this surely is one of the most familiar paintings around.
 
There is both beauty and chaos in this picture – much like we hear from Jesus, words that ultimately can give us hope in our own chaotic times. We’ll come back to that later.

 

When the Gospel according to Luke was written, it was probably late in the first century, after Rome had conquered Jerusalem and destroyed the Temple – the very Temple where Jesus had been speaking in this passage from Luke.

 

In some places, the Romans were persecuting the followers of Jesus. For the Jewish people – and for the many followers of Jesus who were of Jewish heritage and those facing persecution for being part of this new religious sect – this must have been a time when it  felt like their world was coming to an end.

 

I think sometimes – 2,000 years later – it can feel that way to us as well.

 

Roaring seas and waves. They are not new, but climate change has made them  ever more intense, along with raging forest fires and deep droughts. 

 

Fainting from fear. Just in the past few months, we have witnessed a continuing spate of mass murders – in a Wal-Mart in Virginia, at an LGBTQ nightclub in Colorado, at a food court in a mall in Indiana, at a Fourth of July parade in Illinois. 

 

Foreboding of what is coming. The people of Ukraine know that feeling well as Russian missiles cut off their energy supply as winter settles in. So do people in so many other places where starvation looms. So do people in this nation, divided by ancient racial animosities, split by political polarization.

 

It made the people in Jesus’ time, it makes people in our time, want to cry out for rescue.

 

There’s a familiar song that captures a bit of that feeling.

 

“Swing Low, Sweet Chariot” – a song I suspect most of you know – is attributed to an enslaved man from Oklahoma named Wallace Willis. The chariot “coming for to carry me home” is an allusion to the chariot that came for the Hebrew prophet Elijah at the end of his life. He and Elisha - the man who would pick up his stole and receive a double portion of Elijah’s spirit - stood at the Jordan River as Elijah rode the whirlwind in the chariot up to heaven.
 
There are so many of these songs that emerged from enslaved people in our nation, spirituals about the longing to be home. They were also songs about longing for freedom. Those songs will be our companions this Advent.

 

Let’s sing just the chorus of Swing Low. I’ll start with “Swing low, sweet chariot,” and then you answer “Coming for to carry me home.”

Swing low, sweet chariot.
Coming for to carry me home.

Swing low, sweet chariot.
Coming for to carry me home.

 

The first verse says:
“I looked over Jordan, and what did I see,
Coming for to carry me home?
A band of angels coming after me.

Coming for to carry me home.”

 

Yes, the Jordan River. That same Jordan River where Elijah was carried away. And for some of the enslaved people of the U.S., the Ohio River came to represent the Jordan – a place they could cross on the underground railroad to freedom. 

This painting from 1944 by the noted African American artist William H. Johnson, captures the chariot, the river and the band of angels greeting someone heading to freedom.

 

So home, in this song, is not only a reference to heaven. It is also a reference to freedom.

Luke Powery, the dean of the Duke University Chapel, has done a lot of work connecting the spirituals to this season of Advent. His book, Rise Up Shepherds, is one of the reading suggestions we are offering for this season. There will be two Bible study groups – one on Tuesday noon, the other on Thursday noon – that will use a series he has prepared exploring the four spirituals that will appear in worship today and for the next three Sundays.

 

In that book, Powery writes of Swing Low: “Home is where we will be free. God wants us to be free. God wants us to find our home in him, the One who is our refuge and strength, our strong tower.  Come home, not to your neighborhood, but to the abiding, loving presence of God.”

 

Let’s sing that spiritual again as a call and response, this time with a 1940 painting by Ruth Starr Rose, a white woman who grew up in Eau Claire in a family with a history of working for the abolition of slavery. She had a deep love of the spirituals and her paintings inspired by them won praise from African American artists and churches. 
 
Swing low, sweet chariot.
Coming for to carry me home.
Swing low, sweet chariot.
Coming for to carry me home.

 

That brings us back to Jesus’ words in the Gospel according to Luke.

 

In the midst of all the scary things around you, Jesus says, “stand up and raise your heads, because your redemption is drawing near.” 

 

Redemption. We will be set free. The love of God shown to us in Jesus will set us free. In the midst of all the chaos, watch for the Son of Man – a name for the one who will mark the end of this life as we know it and bring us to the time of God's judgement. Jesus adopts that identify for himself. 

 

Redemption thus equals liberation. God’s judgment is more than a personal evaluation of our lives. It brings liberation from the fallen world and its corruption that too often seems to swirl around us. It is rescuing people from the systems that oppress them.

 

Then there is the fig tree. How did that show up in the middle of this rather apocalyptic speech by Jesus?

“Look at the fig tree and all the trees; as soon as they sprout leaves you can see for yourselves and know that summer is already near. So also, when you see these things taking place, you know that the kingdom of God is near.”

 

The fig tree is often used as a metaphor for the peace and prosperity of Israel in the Hebrew scriptures. Once you know that, you know that this little interlude is a moment of hope. It’s not just destruction and chaos that are signs of God breaking through. It’s also new leaves on the fig tree that suggest that God’s vision for the world is getting closer to reality.

 

So, Jesus, says, don’t let your hearts be “weighed down with dissipation and drunkenness and the worries of this life.”  OK – so ease up on the partying. Also, let go of some of that anxiety. 

 

More importantly, says Jesus, “Be alert at all times, praying that you may have the strength to escape all these things that will take place and to stand before the Son of Man.”

 

There’s that contradiction again with what we tend to think about Advent. It is a time of waiting. And Jesus says be ready right now. 

 

It was Luke, after all, who wrote the best known story of Jesus’ birth. Now it is Luke recounting the story of Jesus near the end of his life not looking back nostalgically at the songs of angels, the gathering of shepherds, the presents from wise visitors. No, Jesus is looking forward on our behalf, offering not just words of warning, but words of encouragement that if we keep our focus on him, we will be okay in the end.

 

Sometimes these kind of apocalyptic words from Jesus are talked about as an anticipation of what is called Jesus’ Second Coming. One of the great New Testament scholars of our time – N.T. Wright – likes the phrase the “reappearing of Jesus” better. That’s a phrase that was used by the early Christians, he notes. 

 

He put it this way in his book, Simply Christian: Why Christianity Makes Sense -  "He is, at the moment, present with us, but hidden behind that invisible veil which keeps heaven and earth apart, and which we pierce in those moments, such as prayer, the sacraments, the reading of scriptures, and our work with the poor, when the veil seems particularly thin. But one day the veil will be lifted; earth and heaven will be one.”

 

So even though Jesus is on the precipice of his own torment that will lead to his death, his message still is filled with hope. Here’s a paraphrase I read: “The world is a scary place, but don’t let your hearts be troubled by it. I have overcome the world.”

 

Let’s go back to that painting by Vincent Van Gogh, The Starry Night image.
 
Van Gogh painted this when in 1889 he was in an asylum, plunged into a deep depression, feeling suicidal. The village at the bottom of the paining is dark. The sky is chaotic, yet the colors are bright. 
 
Look at the movement from the brightness of the sky to the cypress trees and the hills down to the stark village where a church spire stretches up to the sky. One interpretation of this – in the midst of his own chaos, Van Gogh was bringing the divine to the village. 
 

I think that captures what Jesus was telling the people in the Temple that day. Yes, things can be scary. Yes, there will be hard times.

 

In the midst of that chaos, though, there can be hope. That hope can be found when you stay connected to me, when you stay connected to God, when you let the energy of love flow from God through you to those you encounter along the way.

 

We don’t do this alone. We need God, we need each other. The second verse of Swing Low reminds us of that:

 

“If you get there, before I do…Tell all my friends I am coming too.”

 

So let’s end with Swing Low one more time:

 

Swing low, sweet chariot.
Coming for to carry me home.

Swing low, sweet chariot.
Coming for to carry me home.

 

Amen.

Freedom, finally

Here's a video of the sermon starting after the Scripture reading from the Classical Worship Service at Christ Presbyterian Church in Madison.

This month, we have been revisiting the adventures of the early followers of Jesus as they began to define what it would mean to live out the way of Jesus for them as individuals and for the them as a group that would become what we now call the church.

 

We heard about Peter and the Gentile Cornelius as the welcome widened beyond the confines of Judaism. 
We heard about Stephen preaching the message of Jesus only to wind up getting martyred as a young man named Saul stood by. We now know Saul as Paul, one of the great interpreters of that message of Jesus. 
We ran alongside the carriage of the nameless Ethiopian eunuch who Pastor Jessica named Baruch and watched the diversity of the early Christian community expand. 
And we witnessed the conflicts at the Council of Jerusalem and learned that the challenges of change are nothing new – and that churches can work their way through them with the Spirit of God in their midst. 

 

Today, we will go with Paul and his companion Silas to the city of Philippi, meeting a businesswomen named Lydia and other women at the river, freeing another woman from exploitation, winding up in jail only to have an earthquake set them free so they could return to Lydia’s home before going on with their adventures.

 

Here’s that story of a few days in Philippi from Chapter 16 of the Book of the Acts of the Apostles: Acts 16: 13-19, 23, 25-28, 40

  

I was sitting in a room earlier this month deep inside the Waupun Correctional Institution, a maximum security prison whose beginnings go back to 1851 – the same year Christ Presbyterian came into being. 

 

There were about 15 prisoners who were part of a restorative justice program and five us who were there for that morning’s session on masculinity. 

 

We knew we could leave at the end of the day. They knew they could not. There would be no earthquakes that would shake the prison off its foundation like happened to Paul and Silas in that story we heard today. 

 

There’s a song by Beyonce with these words:

Freedom, freedom, I can't move
Freedom, cut me loose
Singin', freedom, freedom
Where are you?

For these men, there is not freedom that will get them from behind these walls anytime soon. They search for ways to have the kind of interior freedom to sustain them behind bars.

This is the oldest prison in the state. The part of the building completed in 1854, built with prison labor, still stands. Of the 900 or so inmates here, about 60 percent have a mental health diagnosis. Some 92 percent are here because they were convicted of a violent offense. One fifth of them will be here for the rest of their lives. Thirty-five percent are white and they range in age from 18 to 79 years old.

Those are the numbers. But the guys sitting in this circle are not numbers, even though they each have a prison number, of course. They are men with names like Eric and Michael, like Antonio and Jason.

 

About half the guys in this group are becoming peer counselors – trained to help other inmates at challenging moments. The restorative justice program is designed to help them come to terms with the impact their crimes had on their victims and then to find that sense of inner freedom to move forward with their lives. 

 

It’s not easy. As one man wrote after the session I was at, “It seems like we only get seen as objects, not humans who made mistakes, so thank you for coming.”

 

One of the most stunning moments of self-reflection came from an older man in the group who regretted not only his own crime, but the fact that he had led other young men to commit murders.

 

Later, he wrote: “I was once a facilitator of this toxic manhood model. It was how I related to being a fully-formed man. But in reality, I was nowhere near being fully-formed. The cycle must be broken, but it begins with information, insight and knowledge.”

 

The earthquake in his life came not from the ground shaking that opened the prison doors but from a slow interior shifting of awareness, to a sense that he could find freedom in embracing a different view of life and then reaching out to others in their struggles. That freedom was, in Beyonce’s words, cutting him loose to be himself.

 

Let’s go back to that story from the 16^th chapter of Acts for a moment. It starts out in such a peaceful way – prayers by the river, a baptism of new followers of the way of Jesus, an extension of hospitality to Paul and Silas. I’d surely like to be part of that scene. I’ll bet you would too. 

But as with real life, all does not stay peaceful. Paul and Silas encounter a woman who was being exploited by her owners – she was held as a slave – to make money for them. Paul freed her from that exploitation which ruined their scam and that’s what got him and Silas thrown in jail. 

 

So now come with me for a moment to another Wisconsin prison, this one in Fox Lake, about 10 miles west of the prison in Waupun. This is a medium security prison. 

 

I was there five years ago as part of a small group from Domestic Abuse Intervention Services – DAIS – to receive a check from the inmates. 

Jerome Flowers – at the time the Dean of Students at La Follette High School, and I were both volunteers in a men-as-allies program. Faye Zemel is the Director of Prevention and Systems Advocacy at DAIS. 

 

We thought this was going to be a pretty routine event. Were we ever wrong.

 

The men at Fox Lake had a tradition of raising money for good causes. It’s not like they have a lot of money. In 2017 when this happened, prison wages ranged from a low of 8 cents an hour to a high of $1.50 an hour, with the average around 30 cents an hour.  Yet through food fundraisers and outright donations, they had raised $1,000 for DAIS.

 

Keep in mind that many of these men grew up in homes where domestic violence swirled around them. Others may have been batterers themselves. This was sensitive territory. 

 

What happened when we arrived at Fox Lake was extraordinary. It represented one way these guys found a sense of redemption and freedom even in the midst of imprisonment. 

About 200 of the 1,000 men at the prison were in the gym when we arrived. 

Military veterans formed an elaborate and disciplined honor guard to present the colors. Two men sang a jaw-dropping version of the National Anthem. Native American drummers played and chanted “Women’s Healing Song.” 

 

A prison rock band concluded the afternoon with a poignant original composition called “Don’t supposed to be this way,” mourning the pain of domestic violence. “Love can never be the same,” they sang of the broken hearts.

 

Faye said afterwards, “When we talk about stopping abuse, we have to stop the cycle of violence. That’s what these men are working toward.” They were not letting the fact that they were behind bars limit their opportunity to seek new forms of freedom for themselves or for others.

 

Of course for the women or men trapped in a violent relationship, finding the path to freedom is not easy.

 

I should note here that talking about domestic violence can bring up some bad memories for some people. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 1 in 4 women and 1 in 7 men will experience physical violence by an intimate partner at some point during their lifetimes. 

 

The odds are good that this has been a part of the lives of some people gathered here or who are with us online this morning. Please be aware of your own feelings around this and if you need to talk with someone after the service, please pull aside Pastor Jessica or Pastor Sharol or me.

 

That woman in the story of Paul and Silas may not have been caught in a relationship we would now define as intimate partner violence, but she certainly was being trapped and exploited by a man. 

 

When Paul said to the demons within and around her,  “I order you in the name of Jesus Christ to come out of her,” he offered a model of what we as church can do when those among us are trapped and exploited, abused and hurt by the relationships in their lives.

 

We also need to be aware of what we as church ought not do. 

 

I have known women who were told by their pastor to just submit to their husbands. 
I have known women who were told that their marriage vows were forever so even though their husbands were beating them up, they should not leave. 
I have known women who have been told that they should just forgive their abuser the way Jesus forgave those who crucified him. 

 

All of those are incredibly dangerous distortions of what I understand our role as followers of Jesus to be. And when we fail to walk in that way of Jesus, the consequences can be deadly.

Last year, in Wisconsin, there were 65 people killed in domestic violence homicides, five more than in 2020. Every year at the beginning of October, there is a vigil at the State Capitol remembering all those killed the previous year. 

 

Let me just touch for a moment on those aspects of Christianity that sometimes get turned against people trapped in violent relationships.

One has to do with Biblical texts about the man being the head of the family. In our time, many of us see marriage as a much richer experience when partners relate to each other as equals, even if they take on different roles and tasks within a marriage. 

 

Yes, I know that there are words in two of the letters attributed to Paul about wives being subject to their husbands. Guys who like to exert power over their wives love that verse. But nowhere do those texts give a man the right to physically impose his will on or to abuse his wife. It’s good to remember the rest of the words of Paul in the Letter to the Colossians,  “Husbands, love your wives, and do not be harsh with them.” (Col 3:19)

 

Another has to do with the commitments made in marriage. I think we all share a common belief that the commitments we make to one another in marriage are sacred and not to be taken lightly. In some churches and for some individuals, those commitments can become handcuffs preventing escape from abuse, whether emotional or physical. 

 

The core idea when we talk about this ought to be “God wants everyone to be safe.” Staying in a marriage when your life is threatened or your body abused ignores the reality of a commitment that is already shattered. 

 

And then there is forgiveness.  I see forgiveness as one of the central concepts of Christianity. It’s anything but a simple concept.  It's not like flipping a switch. It’s not ignoring the harm that is being done to you. It is not a free ticket for an abuser. Nor is it something we ought to be imposing on victims as if somehow that will make them worthy in God’s eyes. 

Closely related to that is the idea of reconciliation. Can’t they just work it out so they can be a couple again? Too many pastors counsel couples to stay together and work things out, but that will not work for the victim unless and until the abuser gets treatment, maybe not even then.

 

One place where those of us in church world can help is by attending to the grief that comes with a shattered relationship.
 
The survivor may have escaped from an abusive, threatening relationship, but her life has been totally upended. And along with the fear of the abuser and the anger at what has happened, there is also deep grief at the loss of what should have been. 

 

As a community, we have some experience in helping people navigate grief. Let’s not lose sight of that.

 

Let me add just a few specific notes. 

 

One is that if you know someone in violent relationship, offer them support but let them make their own decisions about the best way to deal with it. One of the riskiest times for someone in a violent relationship is when they try to leave. 

 

That leads to the second note. DAIS has a 24-hour help line (608-251-4445) and a text option (608-420-4638). If you are wondering what you can do, call them. If someone you know is feeling trapped, urge them to call. And if danger is imminent, of course, urge them to call 9-1-1.

 

Notice how we began today with the stories of men in prison – some of them there because of violence they inflicted on others. The men in these groups are trying to free themselves from the demons of their past and create a better life for themselves and for those who love them.

 

So many people can feel imprisoned – sometimes literally, but also by whatever circumstances are trapping us on any given day.

 

“How much longer ‘til we sing a new song?” 
asks a song from a project  known as the Common Hymnal. 
“A song of freedom now, a song to overcome.”

 

Paul and Silas made it out of their imprisonment. The woman who had been a slave was now free. 

Our story ends with Paul and Silas going back to Lydia’s home, “encouraging the brothers and sisters there.” With freedom comes the chance to widen the circle.

 

With freedom comes the awareness of familiar words from South African Archbishop Desmond Tutu, who knew something about the costs of imprisonment and oppression and the hope that can carry us through it all.

Goodness is stronger than evil, he wrote. 

Love is stronger than hate;

Light in stronger than darkness;

Life is stronger than death.
Victory is ours, victory is ours

Through Him who loved us.

Amen.

 

 

 

 

Christians in an Interfaith World

Matthew 22: 34-40; John 13: 31-35

There is a video of the sermon here.

It was late on a Friday afternoon in November of 2005. I was with folks from 23 different nations at a conference at the International Center in Bethlehem – a project of Rev. Mitri Raheb, the Lutheran pastor who some folks here have gotten to know over the years for his work to be an instrument of justice and peace in his native city.

One of the people at the conference was a young woman from Sweden. She was Jewish, so she asked if some of us would like to join her for a Shabbat service to mark the beginning of the Sabbath – that time from sundown on Friday until Saturday evening.

 We gathered in the parish hall of Christmas Lutheran Church, where Mitri was the pastor. I held hands with a Palestinian Christian who was born in Bethlehem who now is a German citizen. He read a Psalm – a Jewish prayer – in Aramaic. As we sang a Christian Taizé hymn in Swedish for this traditional Jewish family service, the Muslim chant for the call to prayer rang out from the mosque down the street.

 

Here we were in the Holy Land – a site of religious wars across the centuries – joining the prayers of three faith traditions in this special moment. None of us were giving up our own beliefs. All of us were respecting the beliefs and prayers of each other. All of us recognized that there is more than one way to understand the divine being we call God.

The people of this region know the stories of those who would kill others who do not follow their God. They also know the stories of those who have tried to reach across the religious divides with respect, building relationships that can transcend those divides.

 

Folks here at Christ Presbyterian know what it is like to get over those religious divides.  When we work with people who have come to Madison from around the world, we encounter the many faith traditions they bring with them.

People from here joined together in April with the local Muslim community for an iftar dinner – a breaking of the fast during one of the days of Ramadan. Our own Mary Straight worked with Wisconsin Faith Voices for Justice to set up visits over several years to the wide variety of faith traditions that are part of the Madison area. And the Thursday noon Lunch Bunch last year did a long study of Islam and then visited a mosque.

 

We have worked closely with Jewish Social Services on helping to resettle a family from the Democratic Republic of the Congo this month. And connections we have with various members of the Jewish community in town mean that we can take note of their high holydays that begin tonight with Rosh Hashanah.

 

So we as a congregation have some experience in this. But that does not mean that we have it all figured out – either as individuals or as a community of God’s people. 

 

We know from what we see around us and what we read about the wider world that a variety of religious traditions encounter each other in new ways. We know that the dominance of Christianity in the U.S. has diminished some in recent decades.  About 64 percent of Americans now identify as Christian.

 

While the largest group of people who do not identify as Christian are those who say they are not affiliated with any faith tradition – that’s about 30 percent of all adults – there are growing groups of people identifying with faiths like Islam or Buddhism, Judaism or Hinduism, and many more. That’s about 6 percent of the current U.S. population.

 

Globally, of course, Christians and Muslims are the dominant groups, followed by Hindus, Buddhists and Jews.

So we live in a religiously pluralistic world. The question is how do we live as faithful followers of Jesus without giving up what we believe while still respecting and learning from the beliefs of others?

 

When Eboo Patel was a young man, he had a chance to meet the Dalai Lama. I think his experience is useful to help us realize that to respect and honor other people’s faith traditions does not mean we have to give up our own.

Eboo grew up the son of Indian parents in a Chicago suburb. He was raised as a Muslim, spent time as college student working at a Catholic Worker house in Champaign, Illinois, explored Buddhism, was best friends with a Jewish man named Kevin. The two of them traveled to India and immersed themselves in the rich culture and pluralistic religious scene of that nation. And they had a chance to meet the Dalai Lama.

 

Like Eboo, Kevin had studied Buddhism, but then was reconnecting with his Jewish roots.  The Dalai Lama said to him: “Judaism and Buddhism are very much alike. You should learn more about both and become a better Jew.”

Then the Dalai Lama turned to Eboo and Eboo was getting nervous. He really had no particular religious identity at this point, although he was seeking one. How could he tell the Dalai Lama that he was a failure at trying Buddhism? He could not meditate the way he thought he should.

 

“You are a Muslim,” the Dalai Lama said to Eboo, having been clued in ahead of time. 

Eboo swallowed hard. “Yes,” he said, as the Dalai Lama giggled at his obvious discomfort.

 

“Islam is a very good religion,” the Dalai Lama said. “Buddhists and Muslims lived in peace in Tibet for many centuries.”

They talked awhile longer and then the Dalai Lama said this to Kevin and Eboo: “Religions must dialogue, but even more, they must come together to serve others. Service is the most important. And common values, finding common values between different religions. And as you study the other religions, you must learn more about your own and believe more in your own.”

 

The organization that Eboo founded – Interfaith America (formerly known as the Interfaith Youth Core) – is built on those principles, learning while serving together, respecting each other as you delve deeper into your own tradition.

 

I have found as I have developed relationships with people from other faith traditions – and relationships are really the key here – that I have had to clarify my own understanding of Christianity in order to be able to discuss it with them.

Here’s one example. Muslim friends will be puzzled over the notion that Christians say that we, like Muslims, only worship one God. They say you really talk about worshipping three gods. They are not referring to the Packers, the Badgers and the Bucks. They are talking about the Christian idea of the Trinity.

 

For a lot of Christians, the idea of the Trinity – three persons in one God to use the traditional terminology – is hard enough for us to understand on our own. Now try to explain it to someone who thinks we are not really being true to what we profess about worshipping only one God. 

Don’t worry – I am not going to go into a theological deep dive about the Trinity right now. It’s a great topic to explore. My point here is that my conversation with Muslim friends pushed me to dig deeper into my own faith tradition.

 

Those scripture readings we heard this morning from the Gospels according to Matthew and John contain some of the central messages of Jesus. “Which commandment in the law is the greatest?” the Pharisees asked Jesus.  
He had lots of Jewish laws to choose from. He had to navigate the divisions among Jews of his era about mattered most. Love God, he told them. And love your neighbor as yourself. 

Not just your family. Not just your Jewish neighbor. He told the story of the Samaritan  being a good neighbor to a Jewish victim. He offered living water to a Samaritan woman at a well.  So love those beyond your immediate community of believers.

 

And then at that Passover meal with his closest followers on the night before he was executed, Jesus told them “Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another.” He wanted them – he wanted us – to follow the model he had given them.

 

Some of our fellow Christians in our time are not doing so well at that. We have seen the growth of Christian nationalism that conflates religion and politics in dangerous ways. We have seen the attacks on places worship – the Sikh gurdwara in Oak Cree, Wisconsin; the Tree of Life Synagogue in Pittsburgh; the burning of mosques and the churches of Black congregations.

 

Animosity among religious believers is not new, of course. There were those Crusades in the Middle Ages, the Inquisition in Spain, the religious wars in Europe, the troubles in Northern Ireland, the battles between Hindus and Muslims in India and on and on.

 

But we do not have to let that animosity define how we will live as followers of Jesus. We can embrace his ethic of love for neighbor and reach out across the religious boundaries that get in the way. 

 

In Omaha, the Tri-Faith Initiative has brought together a church, a synagogue and a mosque on 38-acres of land as a place for interfaith learning, collaboration and celebration. They define their work in these words: “Together, we offer antidotes to fear and hate. We connect interfaith neighbors in community, nurturing relationships. We cultivate trust and understanding, celebrating religious differences.” 

Ten days ago at the White House Summit on Hate, the work of Eboo Patel and Interfaith America were cited for their Nation of Bridgebuilders project, launched in partnership with Habitat for Humanity and the YMCA. 

 

Madison’s own Masood Akhtar – a Muslim leader here - was honored at the White House for his efforts with the local organization he created, We Are Many – United Against Hate.

 

On a global scale, look at what happened at Queen Elizabeth’s funeral last Monday.

 

There was no doubt that this was a service steeped in Christianity. The queen – and now the king – after all have as one of their titles “Defender of the Faith.” 

 

But back in 2012, Queen Elizabeth had this to say: “Gently and assuredly, the Church of England has created an environment for other faith communities and indeed people of no faith to live freely…In the course of the last 70 years we have seen our society become one of many cultures and many faiths.”

 

This is a nation where Muslims, Hindus and Sikhs now have a significant presence. And you could see that under the vast ceiling of Westminster Abbey. There was a procession of religious representatives that entered ahead of the main funeral party - Jews, Baha’is, Jains, Zoroastrians, Buddhists, Sikhs and Hindus, as well as the chief rabbi of the United Hebrew Congregations of Great Britain and the Commonwealth and a high-level representative of Pope Francis.

 

There are, in other words, good things happening in the midst of the religious tensions in our world. And that leaves the question, what might we do?

As I noted at the beginning, folks here at Christ Presbyterian are already doing a lot. This is not a new concept for us here.

As individuals, we might look for ways we can connect locally with people from other faith traditions. Keep your eyes open for those opportunities. You can share stories and find places where we have shared values without glossing over the differences that may exist among our beliefs and our practices.  There are books, there are videos, there is music.

 

And speaking of music, here’s a personal note. On Sunday evening, Oct. 23, here at Christ Pres, my friend Michael Bryant are I are going to be doing a multifaith program of word and song called “One Light, Many Candles.” This was created by Betty and Noel Paul Stookey and we have adapted it with their guidance for our community.  Watch for details in the weeks ahead.

 

Notice that none of this involves trying to convince people of other faiths to become Christians. Our job, after all, is not to make God in our image but to find God’s image in all those human beings who are part of God’s creation.

 

Let me end back where I began – in Bethlehem, in the heart of one of the world’s long-standing and intense places of religious conflict.

 

At the beginning of the international conference, about 200 of us marched through the streets of Bethlehem on a windy, drizzly night carrying candles that we struggled to keep burning – an apt symbol of the fragility of this work.

 

The procession was led by drummers and the leaders of the main Christian religious traditions in the city. We moved from Christmas Lutheran Church to the Greek Orthodox Church to the Syrian Orthodox Church to the entrance of the Omar Mosque, where the imam greeted the Christians who account for only about a quarter of the population of Bethlehem had come in solidarity with the Muslims of that city.

 

We ended at St. Catherine's Church, the Roman Catholic facility next to the Basilica of the Nativity. The crowd joined the religious leaders arrayed across the sanctuary in reciting the Lord's Prayer, each in the language of their homeland. All the candles now glowed with hope as we sang the Latin words, "Dona nobis pacem" -- give us peace.

 

That is our challenge, my friends. To love our neighbors as Jesus told us. To let that love break down the barriers and the injustices of the world to bring peace to all.

 

Amen.