Wayside Pulpit

Sight for New Eyes

On the rapid transit train this morning I noticed a weld between two metal handrails. It was beautifully executed--all the ovals of the weld near matching in size and texture. I appreciated the beauty of it because of a basic welding course I took years ago. If I had not taken the course, the skill of the rapid transit welder would have been lost on me.

How much beauty in life do we miss simply because we do not know it is there?

I think the spiritual life suffers from a similar story. We believe we know the spiritual--each us, of course, setting our own terms of the definition. When we see the spiritual, we know it as such, but how much do we wrongly cast aside as spiritually irrelevant?

How do we see what is hidden? Though it seems a bit circular, I think the answer is in religion itself. A belief system that opens up possibility, rather than making life more narrow teaches us to see more than we expect.

All the religions of the world have this aspect of openness, though it is not taught as much as certainity, definition, and structure. An unknown spiritual world is available to each of us for the knowing, we only need the willingness to see it.

A Ring

A few days ago a small ad appeared in the Want-Ads of a local paper. The ad was simple, it said, “Ring found call to identify.” This morning when I opened the paper the front page of the local section had an article about this particular ring. Apparently the ring was a rather expensive wedding ring and the grief was quite profound to the woman who lost it. Also, the woman who found the ring was deeply concerned about returning the ring to its rightful owner. As a result, the ring was returned, much joy ensued and they made headline news.

The woman who lost her ring wrote the following, “My aunt prayed with me and told me that God loves me and knows my pain and that He has sent a Christian to find the ring and return it to me.”

It seems, from their perspective, that only a Christian would return a diamond ring. A Muslim, a Jew, an Atheist, a Buddhist, or really anyone that wasn’t Christian, wouldn’t be the type of person that would work to find the rightful owner of something precious.

The woman who returned the ring was in fact Christian (just like the overwhelming majority of people in the community), but she returned the ring because she was the kind of person who would return a ring. Did her Christianity make her more likely to find the owner of the ring? Maybe, Maybe not. Christianity doesn’t necessarily make a person good, it simply makes them a Christian.

Honesty, trustworthiness, kindness, love, compassion do not come from any religion, rather they come from the heart. Good happens in the world because people do good things, not because they follow any particular faith tradition.

Interfaith

I just returned from attending the Earl Lectures and Pastoral Conference at Pacific School of Religion. The topic of the conference this year was interfaith work from the perspective of Christianity. I found the conference interesting because it raised more questions for me than answers.

I do not believe that interfaith work can truly happen from the context of a single religion. I cannot stand in my “Christianness” and claim to do interfaith work. I must move myself from that which makes me Christian, and stand in a different context, an interfaith context.

It is like a street with many houses, or even a settlement with many dwellings. Each dwelling is a religion. It contains within its walls the symbols, the history, the traditions, the spirituality and the beliefs that are known to those who hold title to that religion. Many religions have different perspectives and beliefs under one name, still the house holds all that which is attached to a particular faith system.

To be in an interfaith context I must walk out of the house of Christian, just as another must walk out of the house of Jew, Muslim or Buddhist. The area that exists outside of the specific symbols, rules and beliefs; the sidewalks, the driveways, the shared park down the street, becomes the new context for being religious. It is only when we move beyond our own doorways and meet in a community space can we enter the place of interfaith.

I do think, though, that there is something in each house that gets some of us out the door. I don’t know if the foundational belief to move beyond our own knowing is the same in every house, but each house has those that step down the stoops and leave comfortable couches and overstuffed chairs. In fact, maybe it is discomfort with the certainty of our home that pushes us outside.

There are Christians that would say we must stand in Christ to be in interfaith relationships or to enter into interfaith dialogue. I am not one of these Christians. Christian responsibility in an interfaith world requires that I must walk down from Calvary, leave its ominous shadow behind and turn into the bright fertile plain of something “all together” different.