Genesis 17:1-7, 15-16 (first published 8 March 2009)
One of the most important documents to emerge from the Vatican II council that met from 1962 to 1965 is entitled Nostra Aetate, usually rendered in English as The Relation of the Church to Non-Christian Religions. Rejecting centuries of anti-Semitism and Christian-Muslim antagonism, the document declares that people who follow other faith traditions also have light from God in their religions, light that can benefit Christians if they will enter into dialog with their brothers and sisters from other faiths. In today's reading from Genesis, God says that Abraham will be the ancestor of many nations. Both Jews and Muslims take Abraham as their literal ancestor, and Christians take Abraham as their spiritual ancestor in the faith. And while Hindus, Buddhists, Sikhs, and others do not belong to one of the three major Abrahamic religions, the principle that all people on earth are part of the human family, and that people of faith share something important, even vital, with one another, applies to them as well. The enduring legacy of warfare between Christians and Jews, Christians and Muslims, Jews and Muslims, Hindus and Muslims, Hindus and Buddhists, etc., is a great blot on all of the world's religions. Here is where people of faith can learn something from people who claim no allegiance to any divinity yet strive for a world of peace and acceptance among people with different beliefs and practices. The ecumenical movement has been active within the Christian community for about a century, and it continues to grow. The inter-faith movement is younger, but for the sake of world peace, and for the sake of our individual souls, it must grow and be supported by people of all faiths as well. It is true that Christians, Jews, Muslims, Hindus, Buddhists, Sikhs, Jains, atheists, and followers of other religions and systems of belief do not agree on many things, but surely there is one thing we can all agree on. We only have one world. It is a gift--many would say a gift from God--and we, as a single human family, must learn to live together on it.
Psalm 22 is best known in Christian circles for its opening line, "My
God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" uttered by Jesus from the cross,
according to the Gospels of Matthew and Mark. Later lines (vv. 6-8,
14-18) were woven by the evangelists into the story of the crucifixion
or viewed by the early church as a prophecy of the manner of Jesus'
death. Taken as whole in its original context, however, this psalm may
be categorized as a psalm of complaint, which uses standard, nonspecific
language to convey a situation of affliction, associated with either
disease or an enemy (the two possibilities were not mutually exclusive
in a world believed to be inhabited by evil spirits and the evil eye).
Like most psalms of complaint, this one follows up its expression of the
currently dire situation with an expectation of God's ultimate
deliverance, a promise to fulfill a vow (i.e., a sacrificial meal), and
a hope of future praise. And like most psalms of complaint, God's
deliverance is seen as a blessing not only for the speaker but also for
the community, and especially for the poor. From its earliest days,
Christianity, following the example of Judaism (later followed as well
by Islam), believed that caring for the poor and afflicted was a central
part of its mission. The book of Acts describes the early church in
Jerusalem as pooling the resources of its members to care for the poor,
and the apostle Paul speaks of a collection for the poor in several of
his letters. Too often this obligation to help the poor has been turned
on its head in the modern church, where the health and wealth gospel
proclaims that riches are a blessing from God, so the poor must be
people who are sinful, or at least people of little faith. Even
Christians who reject the excesses of the prosperity gospel too often
blame the poor for their poverty, pretend real poverty doesn't exist (at
least in the U.S.), or support policies that further victimize society's
most marginalized: the poor, the sick, and the resident alien. If we
can see beyond the connections between Psalm 22 and the crucifixion to
the psalm's core meaning, we will discover a world in which praise of
God goes hand in hand with care for the poor among us: "You who fear the
Lord, praise him! ... For he did not despise or abhor the affliction of
the afflicted; he did not hide his face from me, but heard when I cried
to him.... The poor shall eat and be satisfied; those who seek him shall
praise the Lord." This psalm proclaims the unity of the community of
faith, which in ancient Israel included the entire community, not just
immediate family or a self-selected group, the way modern churches (and
synagogues and mosques) tend to be. The poorest in the community were
invited to celebrate in sacrificial meals such as the one anticipated in
this psalm. The idea that someone would be allowed to starve or go
without care because of their inadequate financial resources or their
"alien" status was inconceivable in that world (see the book of Ruth).
So should we ignore this psalm's explicit association by the early
church with Jesus' crucifixion as irrelevant? Not at all! On the
contrary, earliest Christianity saw Jesus as the model sufferer,
marginalized from the rich ("the Son of Man has nowhere to lay his
head"), ostracized by the powerful, oppressed by the religious and
political elite, executed by the state in a painful and humiliating
fashion. The author of Hebrews describes Jesus as the "pioneer and
perfecter of our faith," but he is equally the prototypical unjust
sufferer, afflicted by the powerful, yet filled with intrinsic worth, as
are all those who are afflicted today.
Romans 4:13-25 (first published 16 March 2003)
A poster on the wall behind Fox Mulder's desk in the basement of
the FBI building in Washington, DC, says, "I Want to Believe." As
Mulder and Scully investigate all sorts of strange phenomena in
The X-Files, the themes of faith and skepticism underlie
almost every episode. What seems an overwhelming amount of evidence
to Mulder is capable of other explanations in Scully's mind. How do
we know where to draw the line between faith and gullibility? How
can we distinguish healthy skepticism from obtuseness? Just
believing in something doesn't make it so, but neither does denying
it make it go away. Abraham had faith that God would bless his
descendants, and Paul says that those who share Abraham's faith
likewise share his blessings. There may well be certain traditional
beliefs that modern people would do well to let go of in light of
advances in knowledge, but doing so does not mean that we must also
let go of our hope. Abraham "hoped against hope" that God would
fulfill his promise to him, and we are likewise called on to be
people of hope. We can hope for a day when all legalism will be set
aside and people will be free to worship God as they feel led. We
can hope for a day when all the children of Abraham will be able to
live in the same city, and even sit at the same table, in peace. We
can hope for a day when people of faith acknowledge and respect the
commitment of other believers, even those who believe differently.
Until that time, it is up to us, as spiritual descendants of
Abraham, to live out our faith in such a way that we promote
righteousness and justice to all with whom we have contact.
Mark 8:31-38 (first published 16 March 2003)
Dietrich Bonhoeffer, the German theologian, believed that the authentic Christian life was one lived in the shadow of the cross. "The cross is not the terrible end to an otherwise god-fearing and happy life, but it meets us at the beginning of our communion with Christ. When Christ calls a man, he bids him come and die" (The Cost of Discipleship). Most of us prefer the view of Peter, who thought Jesus had lost his mind when he began to talk about the suffering he must endure. And who can blame him? Someone who actively seeks to suffer must be considered unbalanced, or at least immature. When Origen, the third century theologian, was a teenager, his father was incarcerated for being a Christian, and he was scheduled for execution. Origen, in his youthful zeal, planned to turn himself in to the authorities as well, but when his mother got wind of it, she hid his only set of clothes, and because he was too embarrassed to go outside naked, his life was spared. Origen went on to become the greatest theologian of his generation, and one of the most original thinkers in the early church. As a young man, he was wrong to think that taking up his cross meant that he had to die a literal death, although many people of his day were killed for their faith. However, he was right to recognize, even at a young age, that being a Christian means something more than just being a member of a social club. It is much more than professing to hold certain fundamental beliefs. Following Christ by taking up one's cross means to be willing to sacrifice one's time, one's efforts, one's career, and possibly even one's life, if circumstances demand it. Eight years after writing the words quoted above, Bonhoeffer, having left the security of England to return and minister in his native Germany, carried his cross into a Nazi prison cell, where he was executed for his opposition to Hitler just a few days before the end of the war. We have not only the example of Jesus, but also the example of people like Origen and Bonhoeffer, who were willing to give up everything they had to follow Christ. What sacrifices are we willing to make?