A sermon by the Rev. Gordon Lindsay
The contrast between the two
Scripture readings that our lectionary assigns for this Sunday can hardly be
more stark. One comes from the Old Testament; the other from the New Testament.
The Old Testament reading
tells the colorful story of the prophet Elijah’s contest with the prophets of
Ba’al on Mount Carmel. Moviemakers love this kind of story. It has conflict. It
has blood and gore. It has touches of humor. It has a towering hero, the
prophet Elijah. And it has an awesome resolution.
But is it edifying? It seems
to operate from a mindset that Biblical religion is in a death struggle with
other religions. And for the 450 prophets of Ba’al, it actually ends in murderous
violence. Is this not a text that seems to justify the spirit of holy war
against the infidel?
We encounter a very different
spirit in the New Testament reading. In it Jesus receives a petition from a
Roman soldier asking him to heal a slave who is near death.
The one asking is a religious
outsider. He is not Jewish. He is a Roman, presumably a pagan in his official religious
affiliation.
Yet he feels no hostility to
Judaism. Instead he seems to admire it. He builds a synagogue for the local
Jewish community. He has cultivated such warm ties with the local Jews that
they plead his case with Jesus.
Jesus does not rebuff his
petition. Jesus grants it, along with some high praise for a Gentile. “I tell
you, not even in Israel have I found such faith,” Jesus says to the crowd
following him. His words must have startled the crowd.
Superficially these two
stories seem to confirm the common perception that the God of the Old Testament
is a God of wrath and judgment and the God of the New Testament is a God of
love and compassion.
I maintain that that
perception is a distortion of the two testaments. Most people who speak it have
never taken time to read either testament in any depth and wrestle with the complexities
found in both.
The distortion has fed a lot
of anti-Judaism in Christian church life. It is important, therefore, that we
come to understand it as a distortion and discard it.
The two readings, however, do
exemplify two different ways of responding to religions different from our own.
Is one way right and the other wrong?
Or do both passages have
something important to contribute to a Christian understanding of how we can
and maybe should relate to other religious faiths? That second question
expresses the theme I want to talk about this morning, if only rather briefly.
The question of how
Christianity should relate to other religions is an important one in our world,
because we live in a world of religious pluralism. Relationships between
differing religions have become a literal life-and-death matter for many of us.
The first thing I want to say
is that I think most Christian discussions about other religions begin with the
wrong question. That question is: Can adherents of other religions be saved?
I believe that is the wrong
question to ask for two reasons. The first is that it assumes that salvation
means going to heaven when we die. Salvation is all about what will be our eternal
fate as individuals when we come to the Last Judgment. Will be it eternal life
in heaven or eternal death in hell?
This understanding of
salvation, I believe, misses the heart of the Bible’s witness. As the preacher
Barbara Brown Taylor puts it, “Salvation [in the Bible] is not about earthlings
going up but about heaven coming down…Heaven may be God’s test kitchen, but the
pudding is intended for earth.”[1]
In the Old Testament,
salvation is primarily about a quality of life experienced here on earth. It is
a quality of life in which life is abundant, wholesome, and harmonious.
A quality of life in which
rulers are just, judges are honest, the economy is equitable, peace reigns
among the nations, and God is at home with human beings. It is as much a social
reality as it is an individual reality.
It also includes healing. And
in that respect, we can say the centurion’s slave in our gospel reading today
is saved when he is healed. He tastes a dimension of salvation, albeit not the
fullness of salvation.
In the witness of the Bible, salvation
is the gift of God, and in a very real sense we still await it. It has dawned
for us in the actions of God that we read about in the Bible, especially in the
death and resurrection of Jesus. But it will not be here fully until history
reaches God’s intended goal.
So can members of other
religious faiths experience foretastes of God’s salvation in terms of these
qualities of life? Yes, indeed, in so far as they respond in faithfulness to
the revelation of God that they have received.
In that respect they are in
no different position from Christians. What all of us experience in this life
is only foretastes of a full salvation yet to come, but those foretastes are
still real experiences of salvation.
When Jesus says to the
repentant tax collector Zacchaeus, “Today salvation has come to this house,”
Jesus is saying something about a present-day transformation that has occurred
in Zacchaeus. There will be a much fuller transformation someday in the future,
but the transformation is real here and now nonetheless.
There is a second reason why
I believe the question “Can non-Christians be saved?” is the wrong question to
start out. It is that we Christians are in no position to declare decisively
what will be the eternal fate of any other human being. That is God’s
prerogative.
The gospel stories are clear
that God can be merciful to a surprising degree. Just ask Zacchaeus, the woman
caught in adultery, and Peter who denied Jesus three times. We humans cannot
confine God’s mercy into our own theological boxes.
So what can we Christians do?
One important thing, says missionary bishop Leslie Newbigin, is that we can
“expect, look for, and welcome all the signs of the grace of God at work in the
lives of those who do not know Jesus as Lord.”[2]
He speaks from some
experience. He served as a missionary to India for some 40 years. And there he
had constant contact with people of other religious faiths, Hindu, Sikh,
Buddhist, and Muslim.
In rejoicing in these signs
of God’s grace we see at work in others, says Newbigin, we follow “the example
of Jesus, who was so eager to welcome the evidences of faith in those outside
the household of Israel.”[3]
We see a clear example of
that in our gospel reading this morning, as Jesus responds with admiration at
the faith exhibited by the Roman centurion. He was an officer in the occupying
army, but Jesus could see past that odious office to the man of faith behind
it.
In fact the text says Jesus
was amazed by the faith this pagan showed. And he brings salvation in terms of
healing to that Gentile’s house without ever stepping inside the door.
Here is a compelling model
for our relations as Christians to people of other religions. We can rejoice
and stand amazed at the real faith some of them show as well. And we can leave
their eternal fate in God’s hands, where it belongs, not in ours.
Yet we must come back to the
story of Elijah and his contest with the prophets of Ba’al. There is, I
believe, something important to be learned from this story, too.
The story of Elijah warns us
against a sloppy blending of religions into one common religious amalgam. That
is what I might call the cafeteria plan of religion. We choose this attractive
element from Buddhism, this one from Hinduism, this one from Islam, this one
from native American religions, and mix them all together with what we may have
picked up from a Christian upbringing.
It all becomes a religious
hodge-podge. And that is what I think many people today are trying to do when
they tells us they are spiritual, but not religious.
The ancient Israelites were constantly
tempted to do something similar. They worshipped the God of Abraham, Isaac, and
Jacob, the God who had brought them up out of Egyptian bondage and set them
free.
But the gods worshiped by the
Canaanites also appealed to them. The Canaanites assured them that these gods guaranteed
the fertility of the land, especially the god of rainstorms, Ba’al.
The Israelites wanted their religious
cake and to eat it too. But the Old Testament prophets are convinced that they
cannot. The two faiths represent stark contrasts between their understandings
of the divine.
It is more than the
difference between monotheism and polytheism. Canaanite religion looks for the
locus of divine activity in the rhythms of nature. Biblical religion looks for
the locus of divine activity in God’s actions in history.
Canaanite religion tends to
support a conservative structure in society, for it found perfection in the social
structure the gods set up at the beginning of creation. Biblical religion tends
to promote change and liberation, for it locates perfection in the future, when
God will usher in the kingdom of God.
The two religions, therefore,
had different understandings of the divine, different understandings of what
are the meaning and purpose of the human story. And those differences had
concrete implications for how human life should be lived here and now.
Again, I love how Newbigin
puts this insight. “As a human race,” he says, “we are on a journey and we need
to know the road. It is not true that all roads lead to the top of the same
mountain. There are roads which lead over the precipice.” [4]
We see that instantly when we
set the peaceful ethics of Buddhism side by side with the violent behavior of
the semi-religions represented by Nazism or Stalinist Communism. Do all three
lead equally to peace and wholeness? I think you know the answer.
Issues of truth are important
issues in inter-religious dialogue. Different religions, just as different
secular ideologies, represent different understandings of the world, of human
beings, and of the meaning, purpose, and goal of life.
For example, the Buddhist
concept of nirvana and the Christian concept of heaven represent two very
different understandings of the goal of life.
If I understand Buddhism
properly, in nirvana the individual loses his or her personal identity and is
merged into an impersonal bliss. The Christian hope is resurrection, where our
individual existences are affirmed within the bliss of the Kingdom of God.
I’m all for recognizing and
affirming the many things our religious traditions share in common. For
example, it is well known that most of the world’s major religious traditions
affirm a variation of the Golden Rule.
And as Christians we can use
these truths that we share in common as a basis for working together on the
personal, social, and international problems that afflict our world.
But in affirming what we hold
in common and ignoring where we disagree, we do not respect the unique vision
that each religion represents. We must honor our commonalities and our
differences. Otherwise we do not ultimately accept each other for what we are.
Furthermore, I believe that
if we each as individuals want to grow in depth spiritually, we ultimately must
opt to commit ourselves to one religious tradition over all the others. This
will be the faith I live by, regardless of the faith you choose
to live by. Otherwise I fear we sentence ourselves to a life of spiritual
mediocrity.
Let me use an analogy all of
you are familiar with. It is marriage. In marriage we commit ourselves to our
one spouse, not to two or three spouses simultaneously. In the language of the
marriage ceremony, we commit to be faithful to each other for better, for
worse, for richer, for poorer, and in sickness and in health.
Inevitably in marriage we
come to face tensions, conflicts, and crises in our relationship to our spouse.
But if we persist in working on those conflicts and crises with a goal of
growing more faithful to our vows, we also grow in maturity and wisdom. In such
cases, marriage becomes the refining fire for purifying the silver.
I think a similar thing is
true about our religious growth and development. If we wish to grow spiritually
mature, then it is fundamentally important, I believe, that we commit ourselves
to walking one religious way over all others.
If we are Buddhist, then walk
the Buddhist way fully and wholeheartedly. If we are Muslim, walk the Muslim
way. And if we are Christian, walk the way of Christ as that is delineated in
the gospels and expressed in the practices that have come to characterize
Christianity.
If we are to mature in depth
and grow spiritually, we cannot forever limp between the various religious
traditions, now picking this and now picking that. We must commit to one and
follow the road that it lays out before us.
Though his actions may strike
us as extreme, Elijah is calling upon the Israelites to make that choice and
commitment. That is his enduring message to us.
For us Christians, we believe
that Christ is that road to the mountaintop. Our task is to follow him on the
road he walked, believing that this road will lead us to life, here and now and
into eternity.
[1]
Barbara Brown Taylor, “Easter Preaching and the Lost Language of Salvation,” Journal for Preachers, Easter 2002, page
20.
[2]
Leslie Newbigin, The Gospel in a Pluralist Society, Grand Rapids, Mich.:
William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1994. Page 180.
[3]
Leslie Newbigin, The Gospel in a
Pluralist Society, Page. 180.
[4]
Leslie Newbegin, The Gospel in a Pluralist Society, Page 183.
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