St Paul’s United Church Sunday, May 1, 2005

The God We Know– Rev. David Mundy

Acts 17:22-31 1 Peter 3:13-22 John 14:15-21

It’s not often that a young university student calls to talk about religion but the young woman on the other end of the line needed to “blow off steam.” She had been to a bible study the evening before with a group of other students. The church she was attending was full every Sunday, the music was lively, and the singing enthusiastic. It was a pleasure for her to go to church where most of the other worshippers were her age. What she didn’t like was a theological outlook where everything was portrayed as black and white. Having grown up in the United Church there was a little more shading of grey.

The reason she needed to talk with me was a comment made by a young man at the study. Somehow they got on to the subject of the destructive tsunami that had resulted in so many deaths through Asia. He suggested that this might have God’s judgement on the Hindus and Muslims who would not turn to Christ. Fortunately the leaders of the group moved them away from that line of discussion but the young woman was still distressed. How could a Christian even think this way? In our discussion I reminded her that the tsunami struck on a Sunday morning when Christians who lived in coastal communities were worshipping. They were swept away along with people of other faiths. And of course there were thousands of young children who perished and had never learned any creed.

While I tried to stay calm, the longer we spoke the angrier I became. My faith is obviously important to me but there are times when I am ashamed of the way some followers of Jesus reason. Why would the God of love be so indiscriminate in killing innocent people and why choose this moment in time?

I shouldn’t have been surprised by what she shared with me. It turns out that a similar message was preached from the pulpits of large churches in various places throughout North America and no doubt many parishioners were nodding their heads in agreement.

My young friend knew that she strongly disagreed with this outlook, but as a Christian, how should she regard those who don’t profess Christ? Her inclination was to say that every person is loved by God, but who will get into the kingdom of heaven? Does it really matter if we profess Christ as Saviour?

What would your answers be if you received this sort of phone call? “Sorry, wrong number” doesn’t count! This morning we return to the ecumenical lectionary and readings which may help us consider what sort of answer we would offer.

The two passages we heard remind us of the time when Christianity was a fledgling religion and those who took Jesus’ message of love and resurrection hope to the world were very much in the minority. One of the first evangelists, a man named Paul of Tarsus came to the Greek city of Athens to preach the gospel of the risen Christ. Paul travelled all through the Roman Empire as part of his mission, including the cosmopolitan cities of Greece. Usually Paul visited local synagogues because as a Jew who had become a Christian he knew that he could argue persuasively from scripture that the promised Messiah had come in Jesus.

When Paul came to Athens he was disturbed by the number of idols he found in the city, something that would have been anathema to a devout Jew. But what we heard today is that Paul was willing to be adaptable when necessary. Because of his non-Jewish audience Paul doesn’t quote scripture, nor does he draw on Jewish tradition. Instead he points to an inscription in the city square which it dedicated to “an unknown god.”

From there he makes his case for a God who is the creator of the universe as well as our divine parent. To do this he quotes two Greek philosophers who would have been known to his audience. Then Paul brings it all home by saying that God is not distant and unknown. God knows us and is revealed to us in “one man” who is Jesus Christ. Paul does call his listeners to repentance, or a change of heart, but only after he establishes common ground. If we had read one more verse, we would have heard that some in the audience scoffed at the notion of the resurrection but others said “We will hear you again about this.”

What can we say about the God we know? Certainly the message of Jesus the Christ was one of love and inclusion and in our denomination there is a strong emphasis on this aspect of our Christian faith. We need to be enthusiastic and bold in sharing this good news with others. When many of us hear the word “evangelical” it carries with it, at least for a lot of mainline Christians, a negative connotation of the arm-twisting and aggressive believer. The word evangel simply means “good news.” When we are evangelical we want to let others know the good news of Christ.

Unfortunately the Christian community has struggled through the centuries with letting a passion for this gospel become coercive and destructive. There are many examples of how the church triumphant has attempted to force people to believe rather than persuade them through our example and conviction. For some reason we take it upon ourselves to become God’s instruments of judgement on earth and the gatekeepers of heaven, even though there is nothing in scripture which tells us to take on these roles. Then sharing the gospel becomes bad news.

This week a new movie will be released called Kingdom of Heaven which is about the notorious crusades of the eleventh and twelfth centuries. It sounds as though the Christian crusaders will come off rather badly in this film and Muslims, including their leader Saladdin are portrayed in a more sympathetic light. History tells us that when the crusader forces invaded the holy city of Jerusalem they cut down all people in their path. Since they couldn’t distinguish between the Muslims and the Jews and the Christians in the city they killed them all.

And let’s be honest, it’s not just a matter of our relationship with other religions. Christians of different “brands” don’t have the best reputation for getting along all that well, even in the present day. The recently elected pope, Benedict XVI, supposedly a direct spiritual descendent of Peter, wrote a paper in the year 2000 when he was still Cardinal Ratzinger which described other religions and Protestant faith as “deficient.” I don’t know about you, but when I’m told that I am deficient, I am fairly sure it isn’t a complement! Perhaps he should be referred to the passage from 1 Peter we listened to today. In verse fifteen it says“in your hearts sanctify Christ as Lord. Always be ready to make your defence to anyone who demands from you an accounting for the hope that is in you . . .” It’s essential to go on to the next few words of the following verse“yet do it with gentleness and reverence.”

Of course the temptation for some of us is to let the pendulum swing to the far end of the arc so that we are reluctant to make any claims for Christ or even to talk about our faith in any positive way. We can end up with this vague sense that we don’t want to be judgmental, not realizing that tolerance and acceptance are the outcome of faith rather than the faith itself.

Our faith as Christians is not just in a number of moral ideas or ethical percepts. Our faith is in someone, someone who is not just an historical figure from two thousand years ago but a living presence in our midst in this moment and every moment of our lives. Even in this pluralistic world it is important for us to share our hope in Jesus Christ and to do so always with gentleness and respect, as 1 Peter tells us. I would expect nothing less from those of other religions who are passionate about what they believe.

Many of you know the name of Rabbi Harold Kushner who wrote the book When Bad Things Happen to Good People. He has also written To Life!: A Celebration of Jewish Being and Thinking. The last chapter of the book is called Why You Need to be a Jew. Notice that it’s not Why I Am a Jew, but Why You Need to be a Jew. In the opening paragraph Kushner says “Judaism has the power to save your life. It can’t keep you from dying; no religion can keep a person living forever . . . But Judaism can save your life from being wasted. “

That’s a fairly bold statement, wouldn’t you say? In the rest of the chapter Kushner offers a passionate apologetic for the positive aspects of Judaism. He does not pass judgements on other religions, nor does he suggest that others are outside of the sphere of God’s love and compassion. I’m absolutely convinced that if I sat down for a conversation with Rabbi Kushner I would enjoy every minute of it. It would be important for me to be able to share with him why Jesus Christ has changed the way I live here and now. And I would probably tell him that while I am fully aware that this life comes to an end, I believe that in Christ I have been given the gift of eternal life. This is the God I know.

My encouragement this morning is to first of all ask how your faith in Christ has the power to save your life. When we are open to an encounter with the Christ of life and love our lives will be changed, and it is important to ask how that is happening.

Then you might ask how you will take your lamp out from under the bushel and let it shine in the day to day activities of your lives. There may not be many opportunities to put our faith into words, but when Peter encourages us to be faithful witnesses in the world he doesn’t tell that we do so with our words alone. Christians will always be people of both compassion and loving action in the world. There is a saying attributed to St. Francis of Assisi which came to my attention again recently: “Always be prepared to bear witness to the gospel, and if necessary, do so with words.”

We didn’t get to the gospel lesson this morning because we chose the other two passages but it is a passage from John’s gospel where Jesus speaks to his disciples at the last supper. He assures them “I will not leave you orphaned” and then promises “they who have my commandments and keep them are those who love me: and those who love me will be loved by my Father, and I will love them and reveal myself to them.”

The Christ of love has been revealed to us, and this is the God we know.