Sermon: The Other - 01/03/10
The Rev. Christine Leigh-Taylor
Second Sunday after Christmas Day, Jan. 3, 2010
St. Clement’s Episcopal Church
Rancho Cordova, CA
The Other
Seminary students who seek ordination must complete at least one quarter of Clinical Pastoral Education, an intense, 400 hours of work in an acute hospital or other medical facility. The supervision is extreme because in CPE we confront life and death situations on a regular basis.
One day, as I was covering one of the acute medical wards assigned to me at California Pacific Medical Center in San Francisco, I entered a two bed room, and made my usual introduction: “Hello, I’m Chaplain Christine. Would you like a visit?” The person in bed one ignored me, but the woman in the far bed beckoned me in.
She told me she didn’t speak or understand much English. But it was clear she wanted to pray with someone. I invited her to pray in her language. She pulled a corner of the bed sheet over her head; I followed her lead, and put a Kleenex on my head. She proceeded to enter a kind of sing-song prayer. I listened intently as she sang her supplications. When she finished her prayer, she translated everything for me. We experienced the holy together without sharing either the same language or the same religion. She was a Muslim.
The next day, as I was doing my rounds, I came to her room again. As soon as she saw me in the doorway, she immediately pulled the sheet corner over her head, knowing that I would invite her to pray again. We went through the same procedure, and she seemed very grateful to have a prayer partner.
We live in a world of many faiths and cultures. Sometimes we are afraid of what is foreign. We worry that it might replace the familiar. We need to face that fear head on because the whole world is changing. There are only a few countries on this planet which are now dominated by a single religion. Some of them we call oppressive. In the United States we have chosen to welcome freedom of religious expression, which seems only right as many of our country’s founders came to these shores to escape religious intolerance. It would be totally inconsistent for us now to deny religious freedom to those who are not of our faith.
The wise men who came to visit Jesus were not Jews; they came from outside the country. The whole point of their story is to demonstrate the significance of Jesus’ birth to people who didn’t know anything about Jewish messianic prophecy. These guys came to see something for themselves. They were willing to set aside their own belief systems and pay respect to someone very unlikely who seemed to promise much. That is not to say that they returned to their homes as converted Jews, or proto-Christians, either. This story was included in the Gospel of Matthew to make the express statement that Jesus came for all humankind.
But how well would this story translate to the 21st century? Wouldn’t you want to know who some strangers were before you let them near your child? If they said they brought gifts, wouldn’t that actually heighten your concern?
We’ve become very suspicious of people who don’t look like us or talk like us. There are terrorists loose in the world today who would like to eliminate the United States. Flying is no fun anymore, and hasn’t been since 9/11, if not before. We try not to fall into racial profiling, but the fact is that when you see a couple of dark-skinned young men who don’t mix with others, and speak another language, these days your senses immediately prick up. What’s sad is that terrorists represent an infinitesimal percentage of the world’s population, but in responding to them we are willing to curtail freedoms for all the rest of us.
Next Sunday David and I are heading to Israel. We’ll visit the places where Jesus was born, lived, taught, healed, and where he was betrayed, beaten and crucified. It is all contained in an area that has been fought over for millennia, well before Jesus, and ever after. It is a land contested by Christians, Jews and Muslims, Palestinians and Israelis alike. We are walking into a cauldron of distrust and retribution.
But the tables will be turned. We will be the foreigners, inserting ourselves in someone else’s land, someone else’s battles. Or will we?
China may be poised to become the next economic superpower, but the United States still possesses enormous political and economic clout. With our very strong ties to Israel, the U.S. surely has power to promote peace there.
I, personally, am concerned with my responsibilities as a religious leader to build peace – wherever there is turmoil. The problems in the Middle East are not so different from the challenges we face in our own country. Religious diversity for most of us devolves around fundamentalism – my way or the highway – versus tolerance and respect for other religious views, especially other views within the broad Christian faith. Our religious diversity used to be Protestant, Catholic or Jew. Now we have rapidly rising numbers of Muslims growing up as proud Americans. We have Buddhists, Taoists, Confucians, Bahais, Hindus...and others, all committed to living the tenets of their faiths. (I might add that there is no religion that teaches killing of other religions – those who advocate that are religious extremists, and should not be confused with the religion itself.) Our religious landscape in the U.S. has changed dramatically. This is not a problem to be fixed, but a status to be acknowledged with grace.
Jews and Muslims do not see Jesus as Messiah, but they recognize him as a powerful rabbi/teacher. Muslims, Jews and Christians all worship the same God. But somewhat like Mormons, Muslims believe that further revelation was given to prophets who came after Jesus.
We are not called to give up our own faith in the face of religious and cultural multiplicity. Instead, we are challenged to live it more fully. As we say in our baptismal covenant, we promise to “strive for justice and peace among all people, and respect the dignity of every human being”. You said this at your baptism – or perhaps your parents pledged it on your behalf – but you continue to recite it several times a year in our renewal vows. We “strive for justice and peace among all people, and respect the dignity of every human being”. What a great way to begin the New Year!
Amen.
