Religion and Faith

           

            There was a picture on television this week of a little Syrian boy sitting in a chair, covered with blood and debris, just traumatized.  He had been a victim of an air raid in Aleppo that was a part of the incredibly harsh war that is being waged in that country against the rebels and ISIS by us along with the Syrian government and the Russians.  It was a horrible picture that reminded me of the picture of the small child who had drowned in the Mediterranean Sea in the midst of the outflow of Syrian refugees trying to get away from the horrible violence in their country. There was also a story in the paper this week talking about the first responders in Aleppo, who freed the young child in the photograph; how they are targeted themselves when they move in to try to rescue victims who are in collapsed buildings.  Many of them are killed doing this work.  What is notable to me is that these first responders ask no questions before they rescue.  They don’t care what the religion is of the victims.  They are simply aware of the need that is before them..  I also remember the picture taken by the photographer Margaret Bourke-Wright of the dust bowl family in the middle of the depression.  They were in California and they looked hungry and scared in the middle of their own trauma. That picture became a symbol of the depression that the whole country was experiencing.  Those pictures and stories are heartbreaking because we would all like to do something to take care of these people, although from far away, that is usually impossible. 

            Taking care of these people sounds like a small thing, but it isn’t.  I am touched by Jesus’ compassion in the Gospel of Luke when he is in the synagogue on the Sabbath and sees a woman who is all bent over hand can hardly walk.  He doesn’t hesitate.  He goes to her and he says: you are free from your ailment. He laid hands on her and she stood up and began praising God.   The leader of the synagogue was indignant, telling Jesus that there are six days in which to do your work, but not on the Sabbath.  Jesus yelled at him and made a great case for a woman bound by her illness for eighteen long years who ought to be freed from it, perhaps particularly on the Sabbath.  Jesus didn’t care what that woman believed; he simply knew that she needed to be healed.

            Again we have the collision of religion and faith.  Jesus is showing the people in that place the beauty of faith, the exercise of what our religion teaches us.  Doing nothing on the Sabbath is an article of religion.  Healing a woman bent over and in misery is an article of faith. Taking care of people in Aleppo in collapsed buildings is an article of faith. This is what our Lord taught us over and over again.  We are here on this earth to take care of what we find around us; to make the world a more habitable place for everyone.  Are there problems?  Of course there are.  Fixing as many of them as we can is our mission.  We aren’t sent by our Lord to make everyone believe the same things.  We are not theology teachers in this world to be sure that everyone has the right religion.  Actually, that sounds silly.  We are more like God’s emergency workers here in a chaotic world to rescue as many people as possible from the effects of the chaos that they have experienced. 

            Every week we come to our churches to worship and to lay our lives at the foot of the altar.  We are painfully aware that our lives are full of things that we wish we hadn’t done.  We ask our God for forgiveness in our confession every week.  That is why we can all approach the altar without fear that we won’t be accepted.  Everyone is invited to this altar to receive the sacrament.  That is why we are here.  I once heard Krister Stendahl, who had been the dean of  Harvard Divinity School tell me that once when he was celebrating the Eucharist at Harvard Chapel, a Sikh had come to the altar rail to receive the sacrament.  A Sikh, he said.  Wasn’t he worried about what he believed?  No, he wasn’t.  He was holding out his hands for the sacrament and I gave it to him, Dr. Stendahl said.  That is the distinction between faith and religion.  We offer the sacrament to anyone who comes because it is our command from our Lord.  What we all believe can come later, when we find ourselves in the presence of our God.  Then we will know.  Right now, we need our faith.

             I have always known that we aren’t the only religion in this world.  Muslims can claim a space, as can Jews, Hindus, Buddhists Sikhs and people of all of the ways that there are in this world of worshipping our God.  Respecting each other’s religion is one of the ways that we have of making this world a better place.  Remember, Jesus was never a Christian.  He was a Jew from the moment that he was born until his death.  Yes, he became the Christ and the basis of what we believe as Christians, but he never negated the other religions that had been created to celebrate the goodness of God.

            Can you imagine anyone saying harsh things about the Dalai Lama, or about Elie Wiesel, who survived the Nazi Concentration camps. Or about Brigham Young or any of the people who created religious communities in our history.  They were all faithful, and they were all flawed, but their work in this life was always to make this world a better place for everyone.  They also, by the way that they lived their lives, had something to teach all of us about the meaning of faith and how it can make a difference in this world.

            Our mission in this world is to make a difference.  When we help one another, we show our love, which is an outgrowth of our faith, and a response to the call of our Lord.