Epiphany - Sunday January 7th, 2007
(by Rev. Glenn Brown)
It has often been commented, especially during the joint meetings between us and the Muslims, that comparing the religions highlights things about our own which had not been so obvious before. Meeting with their imam as well as the Hindu priest and the rabbi, has been a very positive experience for me. As I talk with my counterparts informally, I have asked questions which were meant to help me understand how their institutions work as organizations – do their clergy have the same unclear status as do United Church clergy; to what extent do their views bind the congregation; to what extent the views of the elders. Among my questions have been those which sought understanding about how one becomes a clergy in their religions.
I want to tell you that, to listen to their stories is at least as inspiring as to listen to those of our own candidates for ministry and, because of their continuing enthusiasm for their calling after years of experience, perhaps even more inspiring. I think that, came we from the same religions, I would gladly accept pastoral care from any of them.
But I am also struck by the differences, and I hope that my preliminary remarks will make it clear that as I denote differences, you will not mistake any remarks for disrespect. It is that they highlight what we believe.
Let me give a simple example. When I was having my “office hours” at the mosque, a meal was served after Friday prayers. I cannot sit on a floor for a long time, so a small table was set up for Hassan and myself. Now, Hassan is Canadian and U.S. born and raised in a family which were for a long time not very religious. As we ate, Hassan with his right hand and I with silverware, he explained that his eating with the hand was not so much a cultural practice as it was imitation of the prophet. Adherence to Mohammad’s teachings and imitation of his ways are very important in Islam, and are part of living in a right way.
How different our religion! I use as an example the text from Paul’s letter to the Galatians which is a key example of moving from a religion based upon earning salvation to one in which salvation is the fundamental gift. (I put forth the following even thought I know that there are many conservative and extremely liberal Christian groups whose attitudes resemble closely the religion that Paul left behind.)
Our religion in a nutshell is this: because of the Christ event (teachings, healings, miracles, death on our behalf, and resurrection), we are given a start-over. We are seriously placed in a lifestyle in which we do good not to earn merit, but because merit has already been awarded. We call this in baptism the washing away of our sins or the old person, and the putting on the new as if an article of clothing. Sometimes we call it putting on Christ.
So first, what do we mean by “sin?” Look around at the state of the world, look at the street people; look at the turmoil in Iraq and Africa, and you can see what sin is. It is the falling short of getting it right. It is also, for the sake of some particularity, sometimes the elements of morality to which Paul and current religious people often point such as adultery, lying, theft, dissembling, depriving people of proper living circumstances, and so forth. But it is not the particularities that matter in themselves, it is the whole effect and the fact that we have not got everything altogether right. That’s what Paul is talking about when he writes about the Law and breaking it. The particularities, moral things, are rather like the things we can do to haul in global warming – don’t sit in drive-throughs, sort the trash, drive less, and so forth.
Most importantly in our daily lives, we are aware of mistreating others and being mistreated, that is, sinning against and being sinned against. Wronging, intentionally or not, and being wronged, intentionally or not. In contrast to our judicial system and the secular philosophies that fill our air, the solution to wronging and being wronged is not justice or punishment, but forgiveness. When one of Jesus’ disciples asks how often he must forgive his brother, Jesus replies 70 times 7, that is, endlessly. Because that is really the only way we can get along. Reinhold Niebuhr puts it in the context of successful marriage – spouses learn to bear one another’s burdens, and forbear from exacting payment for wrongs and hurts. Bearing and forbearing is what Paul preaches as the way to get along in the church (he doesn’t say much about getting along with those outside the church. That is for us to work out). God forgives us, we forgive each other, teaches Jesus. He teaches quite insistently on this point, warning as part of teaching his disciples the Lord’s Prayer, that if they do not forgive others, God will not forgive them.
So the technical financial terms “debt” or “trespass” in the Lord’s Prayer. Each of us contributes to the inadequate keeping of the wholeness of the society. The times when we do wrong, or the times when we fail to do right, are our debts and trespasses. But our lives are not turned over to keeping lists of these (although sometimes our self-understanding can be improved by doing so), but rather in our daily prayers and in our weekly worship we turn over these matters to God with the request for forgiveness and healing, by which we mean, please reduce or eliminate the harm from them. (Yes, it’s fair to pray for reduction of harm. After all, we are responsible for our actions and their consequences, although there is always debate about whether responsible for unintended direct consequences. But we don’t have power over consequences, yet God does. So praying for God to reduce or eliminate harm is fair game. Does God do that? Sure. Think of the story of Joseph being sold by his brothers into slavery. Joseph could perceive how God made the lemonade out of that lemon. (Remember last week’s sermon about looking in our past for God’s miracles?)
And then, having perceived the wrong we have done, and the right which we failed to do, we ask for and receive forgiveness from God, and perhaps from the person we wronged and from ourselves, and then, we move on, confident that the very power of God is still available to work through us.
If our religion then does not expect us to earn our way to heaven; if everything can be forgiven again and again and again, what is life all about? It is about being able to get along with each other because we are secure in our knowledge that none of us is better or worse than the next person; we are all caught in the same struggles; we all have the same needs of security, guidance, love, and being cared for; and sometimes because of our learnings, we can help each other.
Are we imitating someone? No. We are listening to the teachings of Jesus, and are aided by watching Paul think his way through the consequences of leaving a religion based upon good deeds, for a religion based upon forgiveness and justification, followed by good deeds. We are following a religion that keeps its record of the commandments as illustrations of how God wants us to live for the sake of our own happiness and that of others, but which firmly believes that we will not ever do it all right, and which preaches that this is OK, and we are OK. God knows this in advance and continues to encourage and empower us.
It’s simple, but very different. Can you see this for yourself?
