St. Paul’s United Church Sunday, May 22, 2011

The Way? Rev. David Mundy

John 14:1-14

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You might not be aware that there is a ministerial here in Bowmanville, which means that clergy from the various churches, as well as the principals of the Christian schools and representatives from a couple of other Christian organizations meet regularly to address common interests.

Our ministerial is a success story in many ways. We get along for the most part, despite a broad range of theological outlooks. We hold an annual worship service, coming up in June, where most of the congregations shut down worship in their own churches to come together for a common service. I’m not aware of another service like this.

The Gathering Place community meal, which is held at St. Paul’s each month, is actually a collaborative effort of the ministerial. There are nine participating congregations at the moment, and the spirit of cooperation amongst the volunteers from all those churches is heartwarming.

We don’t always agree though, or at least our agreement is not without some tensions. As an example, a few months ago the new Islamic centre in Courtice was vandalized. Some of us proposed that it was time to send a letter of welcome from the ministerial in which we decried the vandalism and affirmed the right of freedom of religion for everyone, including our Muslim neighbours.

Well, no one said “no” to this proposal, but it wasn’t as though everyone offered an enthusiastic “yes” either. There were several drafts of the letter because of the reluctance to extend an unequivocal hand of welcome. We even changed the opening which was “salaam aleikem,” which is “peace be with you” in Arabic. I’m not sure why, but there was an obvious discomfort for some of the pastors in even suggesting that we were endorsing the existence of the Islamic centre and thereby Islam itself.

We didn’t dig too deeply as we did our awkward dance of seeking common ground but I couldn’t help but wonder whether some from our group would have been relieved if the centre pulled up stakes and moved, or simply closed down. They might assume that Muslims worship a different god, which is really no god at all.

Let me be very clear that I don’t subscribe to the notion that there is some sort of “one size fits all” religion. Christianity is an incarnational faith, affirming God’s presence with us in Christ, and the events we recently remembered and celebrated through Holy Week and Easter are central to our understanding of what it means to be God’s people in Christ.

Just the same there is tremendous opportunity to be in dialogue with other expressions of Christian faith and the other religions of the world without compromising what is essential to our own faith. Without that conversation we risk the bizarre reality of people hating one another supposedly because they love God so much.

This morning we listened to a passage of scripture which you may have heard and thought “Hey, I know this one – they read it at funerals.” That’s true, but it more than just a funeral text. The context is the last supper Jesus shares with his followers before his arrest, trial and execution. We can only imagine the emotional tension for Jesus as he tries to explain to the other people around the table that he going to die, and he assures them they will know where he is going. We hear that Thomas is willing to pipe up and say “we don’t have a clue what you’re talking about” or words to that effect.

Then the response from Jesus: “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.” Those words have been often used a sort of schoolyard “my religion is better than your religion – nyah, nyah!” for exclusion rather than inclusion. Yet, they are there, plain and simple.

So what do you think? Is Jesus the only way, truth and life? After all, Jesus doesn’t say that he has taught them this way – he embodies the way of God, or the path of God. And he sure doesn’t say he is one way among many either. There is a note of exclusion here that may be unsettling for some of us who are trying to figure out what it means to be God’s people in a pluralistic world. Yet this is Jesus, the Jew, speaking to his followers who are Jews, and they are celebrating a Jewish meal called Passover. This is a multi-faith event long before the term Christianity has been coined.

I know that for me, growing up in a pasty coloured, largely Protestant part of Ontario, the concept of other religions was just that, a concept. Many of my early years were in the village of Brooklin, not far from here and I don’t think I ever met someone who was Jewish, let alone anyone who was a member of another religion. I cringe now at the memory of saying things such as “he Jewed me down” when speaking of striking a bargain, with no sensitivity to the import of those phrases. Honestly, I’m not sure that I knew Muslims and Hindus even existed when I was a kid.

It was very different for my children who are all adults now. They had friends growing up who were various shades of beige, brown, and black and practised Hinduism, Islam, and Buddhism far more faithfully than many of the lapsed Christians in their circle. Our then teenaged son earnestly invited us to go to a Hindu gathering with one of those friends and I remember thinking that sitting on a pew is hard, but sitting cross-legged on the floor for an hour and a half was even harder! It was the first time, though, that we had attended Hindu worship and we lived to tell the tale.

For those of you who like statistics, here is the breakdown of the numbers for the world’s major religions. While you can see there aren’t many Jews, comparatively, Judaism has always “punched above its weight” as an influential religion.

Christians 2.1 billion

Muslims 1.5 billion

Hindus 900 million

Buddhists 376 million

Jews 13.5 million

Yet, even though we have made strides forward, there are the regular reminders that religions are still wary of one another for many reasons. The terrible events of what we call 911 and other acts of terrorism perpetrated in the name of Allah, have led some to believe that Islam is synonymous with violence even though the vast majority of Muslims decry them.

You may have heard of the incident in the United States two weeks ago when the pilot of a major airline refused to take off because of two of his passengers who were dressed in traditional Arab clothing. Even though they had gone through security and the other passengers didn’t object to their presence, the pilot could not be convinced and these two men were removed. The irony was that these Muslim imams were on their way to a conference on Islamaphobia.

So what do we mean when we listen to Jesus is the way? This morning when we baptized little Andrew, we didn’t baptize him into “whomever it may concern.” He was baptized into Christ, in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit – the triune God. I am so glad that I had the privilege to baptize him as a Christian and pray that he may mature in this faith. Jesus is our way, and our truth, and our life, and if we claim this, we better understand what that means, perhaps more now than ever.

Still, Christ’s way is never based on suspicion and hatred and the violence which is a blight on all religions. People are abandoning organized religion at an alarming rate in our culture, and the inability of religious folk to get along can’t be helping. Jesus’ way is one of radical love and compassion, a way which desires the highest good for the other.

We need to be constantly asking what that radical way will look like in our daily lives and how we can open the conversation with others, even though we know that our faith expressions are different.

An evangelical leader in the United States named Ed Stetzer is a willing participant in interfaith dialogue, but also feels that it is important to witness for Christ. He tells of going to an interfaith gathering where he and the Muslim imam got along really well and agreed with a laugh that each would be happy to bring the other to the truth – the truth of their convictions. Stetzer offers four principles for healthy and respectful conversation.

Let each religion speak for itself.

Talk with and about individuals, not generic “faiths.”

Respect the sincerely held beliefs of people of other religions.

Grant each person the freedom to make his or her faith decisions.

The religious writer Karen Armstrong comes at this in a different way. Armstrong is a former Roman Catholic nun who abandoned Christianity altogether for a while, other than as a historian for several religions, but she has come back to the questions of faith in a new and searching way. While she also points out that religions are not the same, and each one makes its particular truth claims, she encourages us to find common ground for discussion. Armstrong’s latest book is called Twelve Steps to a Compassionate Life in which she offers that every major religion upholds a version of what we know as the Golden Rule. In the seventh chapter of Matthew’s gospel Jesus says “do unto others as you would have them do unto you.”

Armstrong defines compassion in this way.

Compassion impels us to work tirelessly to alleviate the suffering of our fellow creatures, to dethrone ourselves from the centre of our world and put another there, and to honour the inviolable sanctity of every single human being, treating everybody, without exception, with absolute justice, equity and respect.

You will have already seen this morning the bulletin cover which is a poster of the Golden Rule created by the Scarborough Mission which shows us the various versions of the rule in the religions of the world.

Maybe we all need to follow Twelve Steps to break our addiction to our negative views of one another. In the end we can “agree to disagree” in our fundamentals but live in the spirit of charity and openness which lives out this compassion. Our deep desire can be to live out the practicalities of this compassion.

Along with compassion we can be passionate about Jesus, the Risen Christ, the One through whom we experience forgiveness and receive abundant and eternal life. That is our faith and we can live it every day without apology and with a joy which will attract others.

I hope that for all of us, Jesus is the way and the truth and the life, today and always.