Sermon, Sunday, 21 June 2009

1 Samuel 17:1a, 4-11,19-23, 32-49 and Mark 4:35-41

Storms and giants. Giants and storms. The Hebrew Bible reading and the gospel reading together cause deep resonance some two and three thousand years after they occurred. And here we are, on a lovely Sunday morning in California, replete with images of storms and giants.

Now I have never faced a Goliath in my life: a real life, gargantuan person who was clearly out to do me harm. And, similarly, the times I have been on any sort of water craft have been peaceful, calm affairs without the stress and angst of a storm raging about me. (Okay, the time I did go water-skiing was not so calm, but it was a beautiful day.) But certainly, looking at these passages as metaphors, we each have faced our share of giants and storms in our lives. Each of us has stood toe-to-toe with our own personal Goliaths. Each of us has been buffeted and tossed helplessly about while we cling as best we can to whatever sense of reality we can grasp.

The reactions of the actors within these stories are worth investigating. I think that keeping an eye on David and on the disciples might be instructive. Both react differently to the particular stress they face. Both come out okay...eventually. And it might be useful to use the lens of art history to view these stories.

At the start of the Renaissance, that amazing period of time in history when humanity got its act together in some respects and dusted off the bleakest times of the dark ages, artists were finally seen as something more than craftspeople. Prior to this period, art adorned and the creators of art weren’t necessarily known entities; we don’t really have the names of many of the artists prior to the renaissance.

In the midst of this change comes Donatello, who, early in the renaissance, created some stunning works of art, including the first nude free-standing statue in a very long time. Statues, prior to this for several centuries, had been part of architectural features, not items to be viewed from all sides. And what was the subject of this first of its kind statue? None other than one of our heroes from the readings this morning, David.

Now, most of you probably know much better the famous other sculpture of David. But let’s look at this earlier take on the subject, which precedes Michelangelo’s version by about 70 years and is also found in Florence, Italy.

Donatello chose to cast his David in bronze, perhaps a reference to the armor of Saul’s which David didn’t wear or the obviously really heavy, impressive, and clearly useless armor that Goliath did wear. This David is not terribly large--true to the scripture, David is small, as is the statue itself.

We find David here at the point of having just killed Goliath. We see Goliath’s sword in David’s hand and there at David’s feet is the freshly decapitated head of Goliath, still wearing his less than helpful helmet. David’s face is calm repose, almost blank. This is still the early renaissance--emotion did not yet play a large role perhaps. But in that face, we see a David who is self-assured and certain. It seems like David has his eyes cast down; in humility perhaps, but also maybe regarding the spoils of his victory.

So, some 70 years later, one of the greatest artists who ever lived, took on the same subject, but with a very different approach, with a different medium, having a different result. Michelangelo took about three years to turn an enormous block of marble into the David who knew what he was about to do but had not yet done.

This David stands ready; facing his Goliath with assuredness and certainty. Against all the warnings of his own countrypeople and the derision of the opposing army, especially Goliath, David comes to face the foe who would enslave God ‘s people.

In his right hand, he holds a stone, visible only from behind. This hand is strong though and prepared; the veins are showing and the grip on his stone is tight. The right hand is prepared and ready to spring into action.

David’s face and left hand are different though. This face, in comparison to the face of Donatello’s David we just saw, is filled with emotion and confidence. David knows here that he is facing one of the biggest foes, at least physically, that he will ever face. The left hand is up at his shoulder, holding the slingshot waiting for its stone. You can’t quite see it here, but this hand is smooth; no bulging veins. The grip is loose yet ready.

Finally we turn to the painting that is on the bulletin cover: Rembrandt’s Christ in the Storm on the Lake of Galilee, painted about 120 years after Michelangelo was working on his David. The boat, if you’ll notice is barely visible heightening the sense of urgency; in the midst of this raging storm, there is little support for the terrified band of disciples. With waves that big and the wind obviously howling all around them, I’m not sure I don’t blame them their lack of nerve for which Jesus chastised them.

And there, at the center of all those frightened disciples, sits Jesus. You really have to look for him in the midst of all that’s going on. But he is the calm, the eye of the storm, so to speak. We peer into the situation through this painting in that moment just after Jesus has been awakened from his sleep and just before he calms the waters. The astonishment of the disciples which we heard about in the reading after he calmed the store has not yet replaced the fear and terror.

As we deal with the giants and storms of our lives, we can make choices: we can remove all the armor that surrounds us yet weighs us down, the armor that our culture insists we put up. We can strip ourselves of our defenses and face them with the certainty and knowledge that God stands with us. We can strive to listen for those simple words “peace, be still” and know that the storm will truly eventually end. We can rest assured that victory is ours, no matter the outcome of our struggles and that we are God’s people, in the midst of facing our giants and storms.

© 21 June 2009, Gerry Brague

Sermon, Sunday, 14 June 2009

1 Samuel 15:34-16:13 Mark 4:26-34 2 Corinthians 5:6-17

Through the long liturgical season which we have just started, the season known as the days after Pentecost, when you hopefully like the color green in all its variations, there are actually two tracks in the revised common lectionary for the Hebrew Bible readings. One track is tied to the Christian Testament readings, especially the gospel reading. These readings are usually linked in some thematic way and they will bounce all over the Hebrew Bible. The other track is not tied to the gospel readings and goes through the sweep of a story. I have usually chosen to follow that 2nd track and am doing so this year. So our reading today from Samuel is the start of the narrative about David, the great king of Israel. Next week, we’ll pick up again in the story about David and in ensuring weeks hear more about him.

Therefore, there’s not really supposed to be a thematic link between this reading and the Mark reading. But did you notice a happy coincidental theme between them? David, small and young, is an unlikely candidate for the kingship. And Jesus, in the second parable he tells in today’s reading, makes a great deal about the mustard seed, which is tiny and one wouldn’t expect major things to come out of it. But Jesus points out that a shrub big enough for birds to nest in grows from it.

Our faith history, according to the Bible, is topsy-turvy this way so often. The weak become strong; the small, big. It’s unexpected. The powerful aren’t always as powerful as we think. Joseph’s brothers thought they were done with him when they sold him off to Egypt, but little did they know their little brother would have power in the end; power enough to save them from starvation.

Esther was a woman in the court of a mighty king and outwitted a powerful advisor who was going to kill the Jewish people. Mordecai, that nasty villain, was out to eradicate all the Jews but Esther, in a surprise turn, comes from her humble position and saves the people while eliminating the threat that Mordecai posed.

So it goes: Jeremiah was only a boy; Moses stuttered; “whatever you do for the least of these you do for me;” the angels announced the birth of Jesus to lowly shepherds. Even Paul gets it when he casts off the power he held that allowed him to search out and eliminate the new Christian faith and becomes one of those persecuted himself.

Throughout the Bible, tables are turned again and again. Maybe it’s what Paul was writing about in today’s epistle reading when he said that “there is a new creation: everything old has passed away; see, everything has become new!” (2 Corinthians 5:17) He really did get it: the old orders of things have got to change; in Christ everything is new and upside down.

And David, out there minding the family flock like a good boy, missing the big shindig in town, was no doubt surprised when he was summoned and found himself under the oil horn that Samuel was wielding. He was the least likely of the family to go far...after all, he was the youngest. Nothing was expected of him. When it came time for the whole anointing ritual, he was an afterthought on his father’s part.

Now remember, the kingship of Israel was a new thing, so it’s not like David or anyone else was sitting there aspiring to be king. Israel had not had kings. God was their king. Theirs was a loose confederation of tribes which had gone to judges to settle important matters. They had great generals who secured the promised land for them and kept out invaders. They had high priests who led the people in their religious life. But kings, earthly rulers, were not a part of their socio-political life.

The people grumbled though that they thought they needed a king like all the other countries around them. You know that ever-present drive of human nature that says if Mary has a red wagon then her neighbor Johnny has to have one too? It works the same for countries and governments. Israel grumbled loud and long enough that finally God gave in and said “alright already, you can have a king” and Saul was named.
Well, Saul is one of those tragic figures from the Bible who starts off good and ends up at the bottom of the heap. We won’t go into Saul’s decline here, but as you heard in today’s reading, God repents--yes, God repents--of having chosen Saul as king. And Samuel, who has been doing God’s work for several chapters now, has to go off and anoint a new king in Bethlehem.

Well, things around Israel must have been tense; Samuel doesn’t want to do this because if Saul gets wind that he’s getting the royal pink slip, he’s not going to be happy and Samuel has a good idea of how that regal unhappiness will play out. So Samuel is on edge. The people of Bethlehem seem a little edgy too; when they see Samuel approaching they don’t rush out to welcome him. No, their first jittery question is “Do you come peaceably?” It makes you think that there are things going on between the lines of our reading.

But Samuel says he’s come to do a sacrifice, which is the cover story for the anointing. So he begins and he gets Jesse to parade all his sons before him, all seven of them: big, handsome, strapping examples of manhood in its prime. But God has a surprise for everyone, including Samuel and David. The runt of the litter is the one God wants. God is not going to make the same mistake again from when God gave Saul the royal ball to run with.

It all reminds me of the search a certain prince carried out, when he was looking for the one woman who would fit into a glass slipper that he has kept as a souvenir. Of course all the maidens of the country want to fit into that slipper, and they all try, but, as we all know, it only fits the lowly, soot-covered Cinderella.

It’s a common story in human history, this rags to riches tale. It’s found from folklore to literature, including scripture. And Jesus knew that when he compared God’s realm to a mustard seed.

A mustard seed? How could that be? We all know that God’s realm is like the vast ocean; God’s realm is like the huge cities that we’ve built; God’s realm is fast cars and roaring jets and the expanse of the desert.
No, says Jesus, think smaller...think, in fact, tiny. God’s realm is so tiny you might just miss it, which most people do as they search for the grand and glorious. Because Jesus knows things little can and do grow. Jesus knows enough about farming to point out that it takes a seed, a wee seed, for something to grow. And Jesus knows too about David coming from the bottom of the heap to end up as the greatest ruler that Israel ever knew. If Samuel had said to Jesse, “yeah, you’re right...the kid out with the sheep probably smells bad anyways and God certainly wouldn’t want someone that low” things would have been very different in Israel’s history.

We don’t see as God sees; that’s stated plainly in our reading this morning. God sees beyond what we mortals can take in. God sees potential and hope and fulfillment while we usually look at size and stature and glitziness. And if we’re not careful, while we’re oohing and ahhing about how grand something is, we just might miss the fact that that little mustard seed is growing up and providing homes for birds and doing whatever else mustard bushes are meant to do.

Listen for God telling you to go ahead, hook up with the little ones all around you: the marginalized, the dispossessed, the have-nots. God already sees them. God wants you to see them too.


Image from http://www.finaltrump.com/2009/03/the-three-anointings-of-david/ and looks like an old Sunday School picture. I liked it though...those really put-off brothers in the background tell a story in and of themselves.

© Gerry Brague, 13 June 2009

Lection Divina--Newsletter Article for the week of 31 May 2009

Dear Friends,

During worship on Pentecost Sunday, we used Lectio Divina, for our scripture reading, a spiritual practice in which one tries to listen actively to what the text, and God through the text, is trying to say to you.

Lectio Divina is active, sacred listening. It is a way of hearing a text in a new manner, allowing it to sink into your being. It is a different way of reading or hearing a text than how you might read or hear a newspaper story or a piece of junk mail. And though we did Lectio Divina as a group, it can be done privately also. Simply follow the same steps we did on Sunday with any text that you wish to go more deeply with.

To begin, select your text. You may want to follow the lectionary. Or you may wish to find some old, familiar texts that you need to hear in a new way.

Then quiet yourself. Turn off not only your stereo and tv and telephones and any other distractions you may have but also turn off, to the best of your ability, all the things that are nagging you and are running through your head. Spend a few minutes in silence.

Then read the passage. Though you can read it silently, I recommend that you do it aloud so that you can actually hear the words of the text. Read slowly and evenly, making sure each word gets its proper emphasis. Notice, as you read, what word or phrase sparkles or shines or jumps out at you. Don’t analyze why that word or phrase stood out. When you’ve finished the first reading, spend some time in silence with your word.
Then read the text again, this time through the lens of the word that spoke to you. Spend time in silence seeking understanding on what that word or phrase means to you.

On the third and final reading, seek to grasp what the text is calling you to do. Is it a call to action? Is it simply a response of gratitude? Is there something in your life that needs to be changed?

Finally, spend time in silence to bring all these experiences together. Throughout, seek God’s presence with you as you look to understand the word God sends to you.

Peace,
Gerry

Sermon, Sunday, 31 May 2009 -- Pentecost Sunday

Acts 2:1-13

April in New England can be an iffy affair. Some in that section of our country joke that there are really only three seasons: summer, winter, and mud. April can be a part of that mud season with one day filled with spring sunshine and the warming of winter out of one’s bones while the next can bring a drop of many degrees and several inches of snow on the flowers doing their best to begin the growing process.

So it was in April 1934. There were some wonderful days of sunshine and then a terrible storm arose. Of course, on the tops of the White Mountain Range in New Hampshire, those changes in weather are only accentuated to the extremes. And the summit of Mt Washington, the tallest of the White Mountains and one of the highest on the eastern seaboard is no exception.

It was there, atop that treeless apex, that on April the 12th of 1934 that the fastest wind speed on earth was recorded, a measurement that stands to this day. Does anyone know what the speed of the wind was in that wild storm? There was a gust of 231 miles per hour.

Since that’s the fastest recorded wind speed, and because I sincerely doubt that anyone here today was there on top of Mt. Washington some 75 years ago, I imagine none of us have really experienced such high wind speeds. But who’s been in the midst of a hurricane? Or a wind storm sweeping across the plains? Or been atop a high, unprotected mountain in the midst of a storm.

I experienced the high winds of a hurricane while in seminary and those winds only got to 80 miles per hour or so. Still, from my dorm room window, we watched several of the tall pine trees on our campus lose their branches, one entire tree giving into the relentless pressure of those winds and toppling over. And those winds were only a quarter of those from the top of Mt. Washington back in 1934.

We’re told that on that day when the disciples gathered to celebrate the first Pentecost after Jesus’ death and resurrection, that besides the tongues of fire that appeared and the miraculous speaking in languages which everyone understood, there was a violent wind that rushed from heaven and filled the house in which they were gathered.

Let me be clear: this was not a puff...not a breeze...not a wafting zephyr. No, this was a VIOLENT wind. A wind that would knock your socks off, though I doubt they wore socks yet by this point in history.

In the original Greek, the word used here is biaios and it is not found elsewhere in the New Testament. The King James Version translates this word as ‘mighty’, but the translation of the word biaios is closer to forcible or violent, which is how the New Revised Standard Version translates it.

Too often we want to think of the Spirit as moving among us in those puffs and wafts and gentle zephyrs. Too often, we invite the Spirit into our midst and expect a breeze to blow through; nothing too strong or anything that would disturb our carefully coiffed theological stances. Our prayers often seek a kinder, gentler Spirit to blow around us.

But that’s not the Biblical precedent. If we are to read the Pentecost story and believe that nothing has changed since then, we should expect major, mighty, violent wind to accompany the Spirit. It’s not a wind that we can control like an oscillating fan in a too warm bedroom. It blows where it will and as strong as it will. And we’d just better be prepared for it not only to undo our tightly curled, perfectly in place hairstyle that we call church, but to blow us right along with it to places we may not want to go. This violent, forcible Spirit will move us and shake up everything we think is already right in place, and just where it should be.

I’ve been on the top of Mt. Washington. (Don’t think I got too athletic and hiked up or anything--there’s a road and a van that takes you there.) Like the top of most high, unprotected mountains, it is a very windy place, even on the best of days. I have a feeling though those winds, and the winds of that hurricane I experienced, are nothing to what God has in store for us when the Spirit is unleashed among us.

Photo of the Pentecost Dome at Basilica San Marco, Venezia, Italia; photographer unknown

Sermon, Sunday, 10 May 2009

[Please note: I shall be on vacation for a little while, so this will be the last post until I return.]

Psalm 22 (25-31)

It’s a moment, even if we haven’t experienced or witnessed it ourselves, that is easy enough to imagine. Think of a crowded shopping mall...or a busy downtown street...or a teeming subway train. A small child becomes separated from her Mother, even if for a brief instant. Mom, of course, knows where her daughter is the whole time, but, in that instant, the child has no idea where her Mother is; Mother, her source of protection & nourishment. For a brief moment, a look of bewilderment flashes across the young girl’s face. Then comes fear followed by crying out. Reunion, because Mom is ever watchful, ever listening, is swift and brings comfort, quelling fears, reassuring the young one that all is well. But until that happens, there is confusion and fear and longing...longing for a return to safety and solace...longing for arms that hold and words that soothe.

Now age the young girl a few decades or so. Elongate that time of bewilderment, fear, and longing. Stretch it out to be several decades long itself in fact. Delay that reunion, withholding comfort, safety, and care from the one who longs for a return.

That description is the way many have experienced God; or better put, experience a lack of God. That description delineates what many of us feel about the Divine. Those of us who are bewildered or anxious or frightened because we feel we’ve been abandoned in the shopping mall we call life, surrounded by strangers in a strange land, seek and yearn for God’s return to our lives, yet think our cries go unheard; we feel abandoned because indeed God does not come to scoop us up in God’s arms right away. We stand amidst the swirl of people going to and fro all around us; people who are seemingly going about their business; people who seem to be connected to their God; people whom we want to be. Instead we yearn for the one who is no longer in sight. Instead we ache for God’s loving embrace once again. Instead, we are left seeking and crying out in our distress.

The verses from the Psalms that we read together today is the very end of Psalm 22. Those verses belie the beginning of the Psalm in which the author cries out in a way I have just described. Yes, we hear about the psalmist’s praise and how even the dead will bow down to God and deliverance is for generations and generations yet to come.

Yet hear the opening words of Psalm 22, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” Sound familiar? Of course, it’s the very same words that Jesus used from the cross; the words that he was mocked for saying, in the same way that the Psalmist was mocked and felt abandonment in the first 24 verses of this Psalm. “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? Why are you so far from helping me, from the words of my groaning? O my God, I cry by day, but you do not answer; and by night, but find no rest.” (1-2)

It sounds familiar because it is familiar to anyone who’s been around a church during Holy Week and know all too well the narrative of the crucifixion. For some of us though, it rings true for other reasons. Not only is it the cry of Jesus from the cross, in his pain and sorrow and grief as he hung awaiting death, but it’s the cry that many have exclaimed when feeling forsaken, abandoned, bereft, deserted. Deserted, indeed, by the Creator, by my God, my God.

We all know the good works of Mother Teresa, the Albanian religious sister who served the poorest of the poor in Calcutta, that poorest of the poor city. If anyone who has graced the pages of the daily newspapers in our lifetimes is going to end up being declared a saint, it is, no doubt, she. She worked tirelessly to alleviate suffering, to care for those who needed care, to bring the Christ into the lives of “the least of these.”

Yet listen to her words:

"There is so much contradiction in my soul, no faith, no love, no zeal. . . . I find no words to express the depths of the darkness. . . . My heart is so empty. . . . so full of darkness. . . . I don't pray any longer. The work holds no joy, no attraction, no zeal. . . . I have no faith, I don't believe." (as quoted in The Journey With Jesus Website, http://www.journeywithjesus.net/)

These words, made public at the occasion of the 10th anniversary of her death in 1997 from her letters, surprised many. But to many believers...yes, believers...her words had the ring of authenticity and truth. They all sound too familiar; too much the truth of our own lives; too resonant with the very thoughts that have found a home in the shadowed moments of our own lives.

The Psalmist complains that

“I am a worm, and not human; scorned by others, and despised by the people...On you I was cast from my birth, and since my mother bore me you have been my God. Do not be far from me, for trouble is near and there is no one to help.” (6, 10-11)

This ancient author goes on to describe the bulls and dogs who surrounded and are ready to attack. We read of the pining for God...an ache so real that it calls out through the centuries upon centuries to Mother Teresa and to many of us.

In our yearning, we struggle to maintain our balance in the swirl all around us. As we reach out, stretching our arms into the seeming void,we hope to grasp onto something, anything that will lead us to God, to that reunion we desperately crave.

But like Mother Teresa, we all too often find need in our midst instead of God. Our yearning is overshadowed by the great deprivation which surrounds us. The work that needs to be done eclipses our own deep-seated want for God’s touch.

So we set off, off-balance as we are, to right whatever wrongs we can along the way, as we ourselves stumble along. We do right because it is, well, right; because in the absence of a God who calls, suffering must be addressed, whatever the motivation.

So the Mother Teresas and all who know too well the mood of the beginning of Psalm 22, reach out for God and in our reaching out happen upon those who cry not for spiritual food, but for real, belly-filling food. As we seek to be sheltered by God, we find those who don’t know what real shelter is, sleeping night after night in a new doorway on the street. Our thirsting for the connection with the Divine remains unslaked as we provide cool cups to those who thirst for water that quenches thirst from the lack of clean, accessible water.

If these sermon words of mine seem foreign to you, if Mother Teresa’s story is unfamiliar, if the early verses of Psalm 22 do not describe your situation, rejoice and be glad. Love the God who is your companion and your way.

If however you have noticed the nodding of your head throughout these words of mine, know you are not alone. From Mother Teresa around the globe to our community, there are many who seek God, but find God to be unreachable and remote. Continue to do the work that gives meaning to your life. God, when God reveals Godself to you again, will have been there with you as you reached out to those needing care.

Chalice Newsletter for the week of 3 May 2009 -- Defending Ourselves

St Peter enthroned,
originally uploaded by Lawrence OP.

Dear Friends,

Peter stood before the court of the Priests and Elders of Jerusalem. He and his colleagues had been arrested the day before and, after spending a night in jail, found themselves before the leading religious figures of Judaism of their day.
Peter, if you remember, was always something of a foil throughout the gospels. Jesus likened him to Satan at one point in fact. Peter was always getting it wrong, it seemed, around Jesus.

But here he was, facing the authorities. They had been arrested because of a healing they did, though clearly the real reason they were brought in was because they were getting just a bit too popular. Luke, the autor of Acts, tells us they had 5,0000 followers. No doubt this is a representative number; no one went out a did a census of how many followers of The Way there were at that point. It is interesting that the number matches at least one account of the miraculous mass feeding that Jesus performed during his ministry. Luke’s point is that it was a large number who were following by this point.
So Peter, who bumbled his way through the gospels, is suddenly thrust into the position of being a spokesperson. Peter, who denied that he ever knew Jesus just hours before the crucifixion, faced the same people who schemed to have Jesus put to death. And, relying on the Spirit, Peter defended himself and those with him against the charges, those used as presenting charges as well as the unspoken ones.

If we had to defend our faith, would we open ourselves up to the movement of the Spirit and allow it to work through and in us? If we found ourselves facing a group of religious bigwigs, would we be confident of God’s presence with us?

And, actually, aren’t we in that situation more often than we like to admit? In our daily lives, when we are in contact with friends, colleagues, and acquaintances, don’t we have opportunities to tell the story of our church and our faith time and time again?
Peace,
Gerry

(Picture © Br Lawrence Lew, O.P. "St. Peter Enthroned" ;
text © Gerry Brague)

Sermon, Sunday, 3 May 2009

Acts 4:1-12

“Houston, we have a problem.” These words, immortalized in the movie Apollo 13, have entered into the common lingo of our day as a way to say, sometimes humorously, that something is amiss. The wording, I discovered, is not exactly accurate, since both Apollo 13 crewmembers John Swigert, Jr and James Lovell said “Houston, we’ve had a problem.” The shade of difference in the meaning though means little. The problem referred to, if you remember, was a major one--life threatening in fact for the three crew members as they sped toward the moon. An electrical explosion shut down many operations in the command module including the oxygen system. “Houston, we’ve had a problem” translated by the movie into the present tense, was the start of some very tense days in 1970. After the film came out in 1995, the misquote phrase joined the popular jargon. Now-a-days, when you hear it, you know something’s not right. And so it is that the phrase comes to mind as I read the Acts lectionary text for today and think about pluralism as it stands these days.

When we became a part of The Center for Progressive Christianity several years ago, in preparation for that stance, several of us participated in an ongoing study of that organization’s eight points. The second of those eight points states:

By calling ourselves progressive, we mean that we are Christians who recognize the faithfulness of other people who have other names for the way to God's realm, and acknowledge that their ways are true for them, as our ways are true for us.

And in the light of today’s Acts reading, I want to say “Houston, we have a problem” though I wonder if Houston really cares or can do something about it.

Most of us, during that study, and I’d wager today, would affirm that 2nd point of The Center for Progressive Christianity. The thought behind this different approaches to God is known as pluralism which has a fairly major influence on us these days. No longer do we automatically discount something because it is different from us. Neither do we reflexively accept something because it is like us. We are more discerning now and more open. This, in and of itself, is not a bad thing. We are working on being open to diversity in our midst and learning how to live that out.

On the website The Journey with Jesus by Daniel Clendenin, he writes that David Barrett identified 10,000 religions in 2001 in the World Christianity Encyclopedia. Ten thousand separate religions that humanity has turned to in its attempt to understand, get closer to, and/or explain the divine. Of those 10,000, 150 of them have one million members or more. Either way you look at it, Christianity is one amongst many. And as Clendenin asks, “Is it reasonable to believe that Jesus is the only way to the only God, and that the other 9,999 religions are false?” Most of us would not take such a hardline position, I would surmise. But Clendenin goes on to make some important points to consider before we rush to a blind and wholehearted embrace of religious pluralism. (http://www.journeywithjesus.net/)

Because out there, in the world today and throughout the vast scope of our history, people have done some amazing things in the name of religion. And I’m not saying “amazing” always in the sense that they are wonderful things being done; I’m thinking too about actions and events that make us stop and shake our heads in dismay.

There have been crusades and jihads and wars, killing thousands upon thousands of people, all fought to prove that one religion’s path to God is the right one to the right God. We’ve had centuries of slavery and subjugation of entire peoples, often in the name of religion. Women have been and continue to be oppressed through religious beliefs. Some ancient Polynesian religions, I understand, had a class of slaves who were the human sacrifices to the Gods. Hinduism has long history of a complex caste system including the untouchable caste that, if you’re unlucky to be born into, you cannot escape. In the jungles of South America, Jim Jones led hundreds to their suicides in his church. Polygamy has been practiced by religious figures throughout history, including but not limited to the Mormons. which has some break-away sects that still understand their religious call to be one of multiple wives for one husband.

From Donald Wildmon of the American Family Association to Fred Phelps of “God Hates Fags” fame to Iranian Ayatollahs to Osama bin Laden to the Lord’s Resistance Army of northern Uganda to countless others today, we haven’t come far from the Crusaders marching to conquer the Moors several times a thousand years or so ago. But if we are to truly embrace pluralism, we need to recognize that it’s more than thinking warmly of the Dalai Lama or working together with a Jewish synagogue for Interfaith Hospitality Network.

And so we read today’s lectionary text from Acts in which Peter, defending himself and his colleagues, says flat out: “There is salvation in no one else [than Jesus] for there is no other name under heaven given among mortals by which we must be saved.” (4:12) How do we defend our stance on religious pluralism facing such a direct statement by a true leader of the early church? Even from the words of Jesus we hear “I am the way, the truth, the life, no one comes to the Father except by me” (John 14:6) and the parable about a wide easy road and a narrow, difficult gate that is hard to get through in Matthew. (7:14)

As we did that study about becoming a member congregation of The Center for Progressive Christianity, I recall that during the session about point two, this one that I read a few moments ago about pluralism, we likened getting to God as a gate. We discussed whether there was only one path that led to that gate or whether there were multiple paths. As I remember it, we pretty much agreed that there were indeed multiple paths and we were on one of them, that path known as Christianity. We ended up with an image on newsprint with a number of lines converging from the bottom at a point near the top on a line, the space above which we had labeled “God.” It was an upside down funnel of the theological variety.

But I wonder now if that was only part of the picture. I wonder if there are other paths we didn’t draw in; lines that do not go to the gate we had imagined; paths that might even lead away from the top of that page where we placed God. Perhaps it’s not so much an upside down funnel as it is a mishmash of paths and lines going in all directions. What then do I do with pluralism? If I embrace and blindly accept these 9,999 other religions without much investigation into them, am I being naive and opening myself, and perhaps others, to possible movement away from God? And with so many other religions to check out, how and where does one draw the line that says “no, that is not a religion that leads to God.”

And I still have that defense from Peter to contend with. Now, mind you, circumstances between dear, old Peter and us are quite different. There was no “Christianity” then; there were a group of followers of Jesus of Nazareth, most of them Jewish. They hadn’t even gotten to the point where they were a thorn in the side of the Roman Empire yet; they were up in today’s reading before the Jewish high priests, not some imperial court. Peter was defending this sect within Judaism to the Jewish authorities. He shrewdly used a verse from Psalm 118 in his defense (the part about the rejected stone being the cornerstone) since they were indeed building a new religious edifice and that would be a verse that the priests would surely have known. Peter wasn’t talking so much about other religions in this case, but about how this new group related to Judaism.

So where does this leave us? Probably with more questions than answers. How do we approach pluralism? How do we work in interfaith situations and not seem triumphal? Where do we draw those lines about some of those other 9,999 religions? Do my lines need to match yours? Do I have to accept religions that still oppress women or gay men & lesbians or are xenophobic? Is violence such a part of religion so as to leave it to be irredeemable? And what then can be said about our own religion? How do we approach those who would say that their religious stance is the only way to that gate we see as the entrance to God? Is there no common ground? And how do I deal with other Christians who take very seriously the fact that following Jesus is the only way to approach God? Are we practicing the same religion? I’m not sure.

I fear this is one of those times at which I present more questions than answers. As we seek to find Truth however, we wonder about the truths that are out there. Indeed, Houston, we do have a problem. We have a problem in the tension between accepting other religions and acknowledging their ways as true for them while not diluting the message we are called to proclaim of God’s love and grace to the ends of the earth. We have a problem in opening ourselves up to others while understanding our call to bring the Gospel to others.

If you find yourself pondering such struggles, you are not alone. You are joined by many who seek to understand God as best they can while remaining true to the Christian faith that claims them.

© Gerry Brague, 3 May 2009