When you are sheltered among people of your same religion and don’t get to know people on the outside, it’s easier to do and believe what you’re told. Whether you like it or not, it’s your identity. It’s your culture. But as soon as you let in the outside world in, it’s harder to maintain a religious culture generation to generation without a lot of coercion. Teenagers are often not interested in what their parents are doing if their friends are doing something different. So Kumail’s parents had long odds once he moved from Pakistan to the U.S. A similar thing happened to me when I stopped going to Catholic school in 9th grade. And what religious culture I tried to make for my son was probably being undermined in preschool; his two best friends were from atheist and Jewish families.
We do not need an exclusive Christian culture. We need to build a compelling culture of respect and care, peace-building and creation justice with people of all faiths and no faith, to counter our popular culture of greed and exploitation and name-calling. So we have little to lose and lots to gain by befriending people of other faiths who value sacred community, even if the details of how we do that are very different. We bring each other gifts: not gold and frankincense and myrrh, but the jewels of our faith that remind us who we are and what we value: sacred stories that guide us, rituals and sacraments that invite us into the mystery of the sacred, and everyday practices that help us live our values. Whenever I make a friend who is committed to honoring what is sacred, even if they frame it very differently than I do, my own faith is encouraged and strengthened.
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Brea Congregational United Church of Christ
January 6, 2019
One Light
Matthew 2:1-12In the time of King Herod, after Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judea, wise men from the East came to Jerusalem, 2asking, “Where is the child who has been born king of the Jews? For we observed his star at its rising, and have come to pay him homage.” 3When King Herod heard this, he was frightened, and all Jerusalem with him; 4and calling together all the chief priests and scribes of the people, he inquired of them where the Messiah was to be born. 5They told him, “In Bethlehem of Judea; for so it has been written by the prophet:
6 ‘And you, Bethlehem, in the land of Judah,
are by no means least among the rulers of Judah;
for from you shall come a ruler
who is to shepherd my people Israel.’”
Then Herod secretly called for the wise men and learned from them the exact time when the star had appeared. 8Then he sent them to Bethlehem, saying, “Go and search diligently for the child; and when you have found him, bring me word so that I may also go and pay him homage.” 9When they had heard the king, they set out; and there, ahead of them, went the star that they had seen at its rising, until it stopped over the place where the child was. 10When they saw that the star had stopped, they were overwhelmed with joy. 11On entering the house, they saw the child with Mary his mother; and they knelt down and paid him homage. Then, opening their treasure chests, they offered him gifts of gold, frankincense, and myrrh. 12And having been warned in a dream not to return to Herod, they left for their own country by another road.
The Magi add spice to the nativity scene. Foreign kings. Gold and frankincense and myrrh. Camels. (Camels aren’t actually in the original story we read.) The Magi only appear in Matthew’s gospel. Matthew is very concerned with the fulfillment of prophecy, and the Magi fulfill the prophecy in Isaiah chapter 60. Later Christians assigned them names and countries of origin, made them kings and gave them camels, using Isaiah chapter 60 as a guide. Matthew simply calls them magi from the East. Magi can be translated as magicians, or as priests of a foreign god. Those job descriptions, magician and priest, used to overlap. These men are clearly figures of wealth and power, stopping to visit King Herod. They have some wisdom as well, since they knew astronomy, how calculate the movement of the stars, and there was no app for that back in the day. They were not wise enough to keep from telling Herod about this newborn king. Herod, hearing the news from the Magi, sought to get rid this treat to his rule of in a general massacre of babies, making Jesus a refugee fleeing violence, and I talked about that a couple of weeks ago.
Taking the story of the Magi at face value, they saw a star, a sign from God that something special was happening. They were not Christian (no such thing existed at that time.) They were probably not Jewish like everyone else at the Nativity stories. Whatever religion they did practice, they were secure enough in it that they could take a long pilgrimage to honor the birth of a Jewish King.
The Magi invite us to explore interfaith meetings and interfaith learning. There is one ultimate reality, one sacred light, and none of us see it very clearly. We each experience the sacred differently like the facets of a prism, through our own religion and culture and personal history. When we get to know people of other religions, we experience different facets of that same light. Hopefully we get more light. That’s a good thing under any circumstances, but especially in this time when people of different religious traditions and none must find common ground to heal the human divisions and the ecological devastation we face.
Some people are downright afraid of other religions. Their faith is a closed system that can’t deal with other facets of the sacred. We know that some Americans fear all Muslims, as if there weren’t Christian terrorists as well. Remember that fear is what drives hate, and fear justifies hate and violence. Building relationships overcomes fear. What we may not realize is the number of people of other religions and no religion who fear Christians. Sad, isn’t it? They need to get to know us and our flavor of Christianity!
Our church just joined the Brea Ministerial Association. That organization is not interfaith, and we may be the only mainline church participating. Interfaith bridge building is not on their agenda. They do service activities and community building, but I think see their most important job as bringing everyone to the Christian faith, saving them from hell. With the best of intentions, that overriding goal feels to people of other religions like coercion and the threat of violence.
As you can imagine, I bring a different perspective to the Brea Ministerial Association, and I will speak up when the opportunity arises. That may or may not make a difference, but we here, Brea Congregational UCC, we do make a difference. We are tiny, but we have a big street sign. We have a voice. That voice is desperately needed.
Over the holidays I watched the movie “The Big Sick.” The main character Kumail is a young standup comic in Chicago, an Uber driver, and a Muslim, sort of. He is trying to keep the peace with his Muslim parents by pretending be to a proper Muslim. At one point he’s visiting his parents and they say, “Prayer time!” So he goes down to their basement, pulls out a rug, sets the timer on his phone, and waits. After five minutes of standing around doing nothing in particular, the phone beeps, he puts the rug away and he goes back upstairs to join his family. I have been that kid. I have also been those parents. We want our kids to be like us, to do what we do, to value what we value. But the culture around them gives them other ideas.
When you are sheltered among people of your same religion and don’t get to know people on the outside, it’s easier to do and believe what you’re told. Whether you like it or not, it’s your identity. It’s your culture. But as soon as you let in the outside world in, it’s harder to maintain a religious culture generation to generation without a lot of coercion. Teenagers are often not interested in what their parents are doing if their friends are doing something different. So Kumail’s parents had long odds once he moved from Pakistan to the U.S. A similar thing happened to me when I stopped going to Catholic school in 9th grade. And what religious culture I tried to make for my son was probably being undermined in preschool; his two best friends were from atheist and Jewish families.
We do not need an exclusive Christian culture. We need to build a compelling culture of respect and care, peace-building and creation justice with people of all faiths and no faith, to counter our popular culture of greed and exploitation and name-calling. So we have little to lose and lots to gain by befriending people of other faiths who value sacred community, even if the details of how we do that are very different. We bring each other gifts: not gold and frankincense and myrrh, but the jewels of our faith that remind us who we are and what we value: sacred stories that guide us, rituals and sacraments that invite us into the mystery of the sacred, and everyday practices that help us live our values. Whenever I make a friend who is committed to honoring what is sacred, even if they frame it very differently than I do, my own faith is encouraged and strengthened.
In the middle of a culture that doesn’t care much about what is sacred, we also have access to a kind of potluck of spiritual beliefs and practices from all over the world that we can use to enrich our lives. Tai chi. Yoga. I love it that my son Mark listens to a Buddhist mindfulness teacher Tara Brach on his insight meditation phone app; he’s way better at meditating than I am. He goes to Shabbat services with his Jewish friends in New York City. He likes the singing. That’s the amazing smorgasbord we have access to.
This little church is part of the feast. If people are looking for an age-graded Sunday School or a bunch of rules to follow, we can’t help them. Yet a lot of our friends and neighbors and sometime attenders treasure us… what are our gifts to them? A taste of Process-Relational Christianity. (How to explain that to your friends? Try this. “God doesn’t control, God invites and inspires. God doesn’t plan everything out in advance; God co-creates with us like a jazz musician. And God is never far away; God is in and through everything. Our job is to pay attention.”) Another gift we give: permission to believe as you choose, and respect other beliefs. To vote on important church decisions as a congregation. Welcome for all including gender and sexually diverse people and a conscious effort to welcome people of all races and ethnicities, care for the earth as part of our faith, a heart for more dimensions of justice than we have energy to keep up with, and some unique cultural practices like First Food Sundays. We are part of that rich religious smorgasbord. There are a lot of people who got one taste and are still raving about it. We do wish we would see them more often, though.
Because somebody’s got to do the cooking for that potluck. Somebody’s got to keep this church’s culture going, and build on it, and let it be known. So I am deeply grateful for those of you who take a role in making Brea Congregational UCC happen. I celebrate all of you who participate in worship, on Council, in our music program, with your financial support, in the kitchen and in facility maintenance. I am grateful for those of you who represent us in the community through your service and your political and social action. Please know that your service and your faithfulness, your showing up makes a difference. To people who have walked through our doors once, or who have only driven by, or met one of you at a community meeting, you are bearing precious gifts from our Christian faith and practice here at Brea Congregational UCC.
As for receiving gifts, some of us went to an interfaith Ramadan meal, and experienced great generosity. There is no interfaith group in Brea, and I never managed to get on the mailing list for the one that supposedly exists in Fullerton. Something to work on. Elsewhere in Orange County, Muslims and Mormons are often the backbone of interfaith groups: they have experienced religious persecution, and they work hard for religions tolerance; for their own safety.
Personally, the faith tradition that has given me the most gifts is Judaism. Like my son, I developed Jewish friends in grad school in New York. Sam Gellman was my best friend besides my husband, and I learned how to be friends with an observant Jew: what not to feed him, what not to do on Saturdays, but much more, the stories that formed him. In seminary, I was blessed to have a Jewish teacher for Hebrew Bible, Marvin Sweeney. Even at Claremont, quite a liberal seminary, Professor Sweeney put up with a lot of ignorantly offensive Christian students. I have received all kinds of treasures of Jewish bible scholarship that most Christians don’t even know exist. Then Rabbi Marc Rubenstein, whose congregation shared space with mine, did a bible study with me. He had more midrash than bible scholarship, oral tradition beyond what’s in the bible, and he had one little teaching that sustains me to this day. It goes like this.
When we die and go to God, God will ask us three questions. First: what have you learned? Second: what mitzvot have you done? (A mitzvah is a good deed, an act of service or devotion) And third, how have you enjoyed My world? These three questions have been inspiring me for years now. Thank you Rabbi Marc.
Wise people of other faiths, bringing gifts. We are blessed by them. May we, as part of a vital and faithful Brea Congregational UCC, bring gifts to those who cross our doors and cross our paths. And may we meet people of other faiths with our minds and hearts open, to receive their gifts, to experience more facets of the One Light that invites us into abundant life. Amen.
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