In the name of God – Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
Amen.
“The
light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it.” During
Christmastide, we celebrate the Incarnation, the coming of God to us in Jesus. Matthew
and Luke give us nativity stories with Mary, Joseph, wise men, angels, and
shepherds, but John gives us a cosmic nativity scene. And in doing so, the gospeller
John connects Jesus to Moses and to John the Baptist. Our reading notes that
Jesus “came to his own people.” Though there is a very transcendental nature to
Jesus that is not confined by time or space, Jesus also lived in a very finite
context. He was born in modern-day Palestine, spoke Aramaic, and grew up
learning about the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. Jesus was Jewish, and that
fact not only influences our interpretation of him in Scripture, but also has
important implications for us today.
In
our reading from Galatians, St. Paul writes about the tensions in the early
Church regarding the relationship of the Jewish faith system to following Jesus
Christ. For the most part, Paul’s ministry was spent preaching the Good News to
Gentiles, that is, non-Jews. And so a hotly debated topic during this time was “How
Jewish do you need to be in order to be Christian?” I know it seems like an odd
question today, but it really was contentious at the time. Paul’s response is
something like “If you are Jewish, stay Jewish; if you are not Jewish, stay not
Jewish; what matters is being in Christ, which strips away distinctions like
Jewish or Gentile, slave or free, male or female.”
Galatians
is an interesting letter because Paul is writing to the citizens of Galatia
about a third-party known as the “Judaizers.” They never show up in the letter
directly, but you can infer their presence and influence among the Galatians.
As their name suggests, they say that in order to follow Jesus, a Jewish
Messiah, that you need to first be Jewish. So you have to follow the Law of Moses
and be circumcised. That is the context in which Paul writes “Now before faith
came, we were imprisoned and guarded under the law until faith would be
revealed. Therefore the law was our disciplinarian until Christ came, so that
we might be justified by faith. But now that faith has come, we are no longer
subject to a disciplinarian, for in Christ Jesus you are all children of God
through faith.”
Those
sentences are problematic for two reasons. The first is that many would label
it as “anti-Semitic,” and it does lead to such conclusions. There is a branch
of theology called “Supercessionism” which claims that Jesus superseded Judaism,
which was sort of like the appetizer to the main course of Christianity. But
that is not only highly offensive to Jews, it’s clearly not what Scripture leads
us to believe about Jesus or Paul. Context is always important in reading the Bible.
Paul is in the midst of a heated argument, and so he uses some hyperbolic
language to get the point across, that the point of faith isn’t Law, but
Christ. That isn’t to undermine the Law, but it is to keep the focus on Christ.
The
second problem with passage is translation. Translators widely agreed that “disciplinarian”
is a poor word choice, as the word in Greek is paidagogos, which you might notice is related to our English word “pedagogy.”
The Law is a teacher. And the word “imprisoned” is the same word that is used
for a harbor master who watches out for ships, it’s not about being
constrained, but rather protected. But the point is this – we do irreparable harm
to Jesus, Paul, and our Jewish brothers and sisters when we diminish the fact
that Jesus was Jewish. Jesus’ faith was a Jewish faith, and is the foundation
of ours as well.
There
was some major news earlier this month about the relationship between
Christianity and Judaism. A group of leading rabbis issued a statement saying: “We
acknowledge that Christianity is neither an accident nor an error, but the
willed divine outcome and gift to the nations… Both Jews and Christians have a
common covenantal mission to perfect the world under the sovereignty of the
Almighty, so that all humanity will call on His name… We Jews and Christians
have more in common than what divides us: the ethical monotheism of Abraham;
the relationship with the One Creator of Heaven and Earth, Who loves and cares
for all of us; Jewish Sacred Scriptures; a belief in a binding tradition; and
the values of life, family, compassionate righteousness, justice, inalienable
freedom, universal love and ultimate world peace.”
In
turn, the Vatican issued the following statement, saying, in part: “That the
Jews are participants in God’s salvation is theologically unquestionable, but
how that can be possible without confessing Christ explicitly, is and remains
an unfathomable divine mystery.” These are ground-breaking statements of hope
and reconciliation, and ought to be commended. What I find to be so encouraging
about them is their humble sense that God is bigger than any of us. They
profess that God can do more than we can ask or imagine. And given this sense
of divine mystery, we should focus on the things that unite us, not those
things that seek to divide us.
In
the passage from Galatians, Paul notes that we cry “Abba! Father!” and are Abraham’s
offspring and heirs of God. Up to this point, I’ve been speaking about the
relationship between Jews and Christians, but there is another faith system
that is a part of Abraham’s offspring and professes faith in the God of Abraham - Islam. Given the rhetoric in the media and in coffee shops, as people of faith, we
need to examine the issue of inter-faith dialogue through our faith.
At
the outset, I want to be clear that I firmly believe and trust in Jesus Christ
as the fullest revelation of God, and I believe that salvation comes through
his Crucifixion and Resurrection. I reject the claim that “all religions are
different paths up the same mountain to God,” but I also deny that salvation is
ever closed to any group of people. I am not an expert on Islam, but I have
studied Islam extensively. In college, I took several courses on Islam, taught
by one of the leading experts on Islam in the US; in fact, this professor was
sent by the State Department to negotiate in the Iranian hostage crisis of
1979. So I do have enough credentials to speak on the subject of the relationship
between the faiths that trace their lineage to Abraham: Judaism, Christianity,
and Islam.
For
the most part, the average American knows next to nothing about Islam, and yet,
we see this faith system as being false, hateful, and violent. Some are so misinformed
about Islam that they think it would be a good idea to ban all Muslims from entering
this country. I won’t debate whether or not that is un-American, but it is
certainly un-Christian. The current anti-Islamic rhetoric is not based in
theology, but fear, ignorance, and hatred.
A
question that often comes up, and is again in the headlines due to the
suspension of a professor at Wheaton College, is “Do Muslims and Christians
worship the same God?” This discussion is a very important one to have. If we
all claim that there is one God, and we claim that Jews, Christians, and
Muslims all worship different gods, then peace will be nearly impossible, and we
will have to reject the notion that God might be bigger than our intellectual
capabilities, which is heresy.
Consider
where Islam traces its roots, from Genesis 17: “As for Ishmael, I have heard
you; I will bless him and make him fruitful and exceedingly numerous; he shall
be the father of twelve princes, and I will make him a great nation.” You’ll
recall that Abraham and Sarah were told by God that they would have a son, who
would be the father of a great nation. When the promise wasn’t coming fast
enough, Abraham and one of Sarah’s servants, Hagar, conceived a child, named
Ishmael. In our own Scripture, God promises to make a great nation of Abraham’s
son, Ishmael. This is where the branch of Islam begins, but is still a part of
the tree of Abraham, with roots in the one, true God.
Islam
has five central tenets: a confession of faith around God’s oneness, daily
prayer, charity, fasting, and pilgrimage to draw closer to God. That sounds a
lot like Christian faithfulness to me. Both faith systems profess that there is
one God who created all that exists and is radically distinct from the
Creation. Muslims and Christians both say that this God is merciful,
compassionate, and good. Both faith systems say that God desires that we love
God and others. In Arabic, the word for “God” is “Allah.” If we spoke Arabic,
we would pray to Allah, in the same way that if we spoke Spanish, we would pray
to Dios. And contrary to what you may hear, Islam is no more a violent religion
than Judaism or Christianity. In fact, the word “Islam” means “surrender” and
is linguistically related to the Hebrew word “shalom,” meaning peace. What
unites us is more significant that what divides us.
The
faith of Abraham has never been about right belief as much as it has been about
right action. Rarely does Scripture tell us what we are to think, but there are
countless examples of instructions about how we are to love our neighbors as ourselves,
and both faiths are about doing justice and mercy. Has Islam been used for evil
purposes? Certainly. But let us not forget our own dark history of the
Crusades, Inquisition, lynch mobs, and the Holocaust – all atrocities committed
in the name of Jesus. Is it problematic to take ethics and social norms from
the 7th century Middle East and apply them to today? Yes, just as
problematic as it is to do so with1st century norms from Israel.
So
do Christians and Muslims worship the same God? Unless we want to reject God’s
promises, unless we want to reject the fact that no human language can fully
capture God, unless we want to reject our union through Abraham, the answer is
yes – yes, we believe in the same God. Now, to be clear, the “same” does not
mean “identical.” We believe in the same referent, but the descriptions of God
differ greatly. God, described by Judaism, is different than Christianity’s
description, which is still yet different from Islam’s understanding of God.
But
we are united in God’s promises. In Christmas, we celebrate that the Light of
the world has come into the world. We also profess that this Light has been
shining from before time began. We claim that darkness cannot overcome this Light.
A different understanding of God cannot stop this Light from shining. Our
ignorance of other faith systems cannot stop this Light. Our fear of the “other,”
who Jesus urges us to love as ourselves, cannot stop this Light. The goal of
our faith is not to conquer people of other faiths, it is to embrace them in
the love of Christ. That is the Light that shines in this season of Christmas.
Both
the Incarnation of Jesus and Paul’s writing urge us to consider the roots of
our faith and our connection to Abraham. Judaism and Islam are our siblings in
the faith of Abraham. Like most siblings, there is an intense rivalry. But we
have the same human father, and the same divine parent. Should we try to blend
ourselves into one faith? Of course not. Should we dismiss the uniqueness of
God’s Incarnation in Jesus? Absolutely not. Is continued ignorance, suspicion,
and hatred going to lead us to peace? Not in a million years. But should we
live in peace, should we strive to learn more about each other, should we focus
on what unites us more than what divides us, should we acknowledge that God’s
grace knows no boundaries? I think we should.
May
God’s Incarnation remind us of the divine mysteries of God’s being and salvation.
May all of God’s children, and especially the children of Abraham, find the
grace, courage, and will to walk in peace. Let us close with the prayer
attributed to St. Francis: Lord, make us instruments of your peace. Where there
is hatred, let us sow love; where there is injury, pardon; where there is
discord, union; where there is doubt, faith; where there is despair, hope;
where there is darkness, light; where there is sadness, joy. Grant that we may
not so much seek to be consoled as to console; to be understood as to
understand; to be loved as to love. For it is in giving that we receive; it is in
pardoning that we are pardoned; and it is in dying that we are born to eternal
life. Amen.
