This being human is a guest house.
Every morning a new arrival.
A joy, a depression, a meanness,
some momentary awareness comes as an unexpected visitor.
Welcome and entertain them all!
Even if they're a crowd of sorrows,
who violently sweep your house
empty of it's furniture,
still, treat each guest honorably.
He may be clearing you out
for some new delight.
The dark thought, the shame, the malice,
meet them at the door laughing,
and invite them in.
Be grateful for whoever comes,
because each has been sent as a guide from beyond.
--Jalaluddin Rumi
Next week, we will begin a “proper” series of Lenten messages leading to Easter on April 8. I promise.
But there is one more, very important subject to talk about before I finish this month’s series on “controversial” topics; and that topic is Islam. And I’ve chosen to study Islam this week by seeking an answer to the dangerous question, “What Would Jesus Do?”
I call that a dangerous question because there is never a clear answer. Jesus didn’t teach in clear, formulated answers. He taught in parables-stories- and by example. And those ways of teaching led to problems then, even as they continue to lead to problems now. Here’s an example: Luke 22: 36. It is the verse, taken out of its context, which is most often used in connection with present day discussions of Islam:
It was spoken by Jesus to his disciples just after the Last Supper in the Upper Room, and immediately after telling Peter that Peter would betray him. It was a warning- Jesus knew that for the next several days, after his death, the disciples would be in a fair amount of danger. Here’s what he said:
Verse 36: “He said to them, But now if you have a purse, take it, and also a bag; and if you don't have a sword, sell your cloak and buy one.”
It’s one of the great mystery verses of the New Testament, because there is no evidence anywhere in any of the gospels, or in Acts, or in any of the epistles that a single disciple bought a sword, nor that any of them ever used one in their own defense. It goes against everything demonstrated by him as Jesus was being crucified. Despite that, though, it is a verse which has been used, over and over again to justify aggression on the part of Christians.
And that’s the trouble with the question, “What would Jesus do?” It is possible to dig around and find an easy answer. But rarely is the easy answer the right answer. Beware of easy answers!
So here’s the question for this morning: What should we as Christians, think or do about Islam? And I’ll let you decide whether my answer is the easy answer or the right answer, or..none of the above.
First, There were no Muslims in first century Palestine. But there were Samaritans and they were a pretty interesting group of people: They believed that the Jews were wrong about almost everything. They believed there had only been one true prophet- Moses- and that all the rest of the Jewish prophets were false prophets. They had their own version of the Torah- Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy- and it was written very differently from the Jewish Torah. They believed the true Holy Mountain was not Mt. Sinai in the South, but Mt. Horeb, in the North, where they lived. They believed their priests were the only true priests.
Now for their part, the Jews believed Samaritans to be unclean, to be avoided at all costs, and to be wrong in every possible way about the way they worshipped their “false” God. they were never to be trusted, never to have business dealings with, and to be spoken to as little as possible.
It really is OK to think of Samaritans as modern day Muslims, because the attitudes held toward them were very similar to the attitudes held toward Muslims by non-Muslims today, and for many of the very same reasons. So, what would Jesus do? Well, here’s what he did:
John 4:4
Now he had to go through Samaria. 5 So he came to a town in Samaria called Sychar, near the plot of ground Jacob had given to his son Joseph. 6 Jacob's well was there, and Jesus, tired as he was from the journey, sat down by the well. It was about the sixth hour.
Point #1: Jesus was not afraid to enter Samaria. He refused to be bound by religious law that separated human beings, one from the other.
7 When a Samaritan woman came to draw water, Jesus said to her, "Will you give me a drink?"
Point #2: Jesus spoke first. He spoke to someone the Jews would have labeled as inferior on two counts- a Samaritan and a woman. And he spoke out of his vulnerability, as a person in need. He was thirsty.
9 The Samaritan woman said to him, "You are a Jew and I am a Samaritan woman. How can you ask me for a drink?"
10 Jesus answered her, "If you knew the gift of God and who it is that asks you for a drink, you would have asked him and he would have given you living water."
Point #3: Jesus makes the woman curious about him. He is respectful, but mysterious. He has something for her, and he wants her to know it, but he wants that need to rise in her, and not be inflicted on her.
11 "Sir," the woman said, "you have nothing to draw with and the well is deep. Where can you get this living water? 12 Are you greater than our father Jacob, who gave us the well and drank from it himself, as did also his sons and his flocks and herds?"
13 Jesus answered, "Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again, 14 but whoever drinks the water I give him will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life."
15 The woman said to him, "Sir, give me this water so that I won't get thirsty and have to keep coming here to draw water."
Point #4: Kindness and gentleness works! The Kingdom of God within this woman has been aroused! She wants to know more!
16 He told her, "Go, call your husband and come back."
17 "I have no husband," she replied.
Jesus said to her, "You are right when you say you have no husband. 18 The fact is, you have had five husbands, and the man you now have is not your husband. What you have just said is quite true."
Point #5: There is no condemnation in Christ Jesus. He doesn’t preach, he doesn’t shame, he doesn’t tip his Jewish nose up in the air in self-righteous authority, he simply states the facts as only a prophet- a true prophet- could know them.
19 "Sir," the woman said, "I can see that you are a prophet. 20 Our fathers worshiped on this mountain, but you Jews claim that the place where we must worship is in Jerusalem."
(Since Samaritans believed that there have been no prophets since Moses, this is one whale of an admission!)
21 Jesus declared, "Believe me, woman, a time is coming when you will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem. 22 You Samaritans worship what you do not know; we worship what we do know, for salvation is from the Jews. 23 Yet a time is coming and has now come when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for they are the kind of worshipers the Father seeks. 24 God is spirit, and his worshipers must worship in spirit and in truth."
Point #6: Jesus does not hide the fact that there are differences between Jews and Samaritans. But these are not fighting words. They are followed with an inclusionary vision of “true believers,” a status which the woman is just inches from at this point.
25 The woman said, "I know that Messiah" is coming. When he comes, he will explain everything to us."
26 Then Jesus declared, "I who speak to you am he."
Point #7: Ta-da!
27 Just then his disciples returned and were surprised to find him talking with a woman. But no one asked, "What do you want?" or "Why are you talking with her?"
28 Then, leaving her water jar, the woman went back to the town and said to the people, 29 "Come, see a man who told me everything I ever did. Could this be the Christ?" 30 They came out of the town and made their way toward him.
39 Many of the Samaritans from that town believed in him because of the woman's testimony, "He told me everything I ever did." 40 So when the Samaritans came to him, they urged him to stay with them, and he stayed two days. 41 And because of his words many more became believers.
Point #8: Jesus stayed with the Samaritans- he would have eaten their food, drunk from their vessels, looked them right in the eye, and right in the heart.
42 They said to the woman, "We no longer believe just because of what you said; now we have heard for ourselves, and we know that this man really is the Savior of the world."
Notice: No sword talk. No high-fives- “My team is better than your team.” No listing of points 1 through 8. Just conversation, openness, a willingness to go against the religious and cultural law, and..dare we say it?..love.
None of those things are easy to do. For most of us today, here in the U.S., breaking fee of the cultural bias toward Islam and Muslims is very difficult. Since 1979, when the Ayatollah took over the government of Iran, and especially since 2001, we have been fed particular images of particular Muslims in such a way by our media and by our government, so that it is almost impossible for us not to think of Muslims as anything but flag-burning, mob-crazed, oil-spoiled, Jew-hating maniacs.
And, indeed, some are. But most of those we see, because it is easy to see them (some of them love network cameras), most of those we see are nationalists using the language of Islam. They are not at all unlike the Nazis in that regard- nationalists who used the language of the Bible- specifically the gospel of John which we just read from- to further their nationalistic goals. Not at all unlike Timothy McVeigh who truly believed that by blowing up the Mullah building in Oklahoma City, he could help return this country to its so-called Christian roots.
One of the very real problems we must deal politically and spiritually with the reality of when dealing with Islam, is that it is not a hierarchical religion. There is no Pope, no international governing body. The nature of Middle-eastern and Asian Islam is that it becomes indistinguishable from the government of a country. Think of Saudi Arabia or Iran or Egypt. And then, when billions of dollars of oil are mixed into that formula, fundamentalist Muslims- who are usually among the have-nots- grow in political power, legitimate and otherwise.
When Church and State are one and the same, that’s called a theocracy. And, thank God, it is something we don’t know much about in the United States and must always be on our guard against this country ever becoming a theocracy. Theocracy always- always- leads to killing in the name of whatever God is fashionable at the moment. That’s true in the Middle East, just as it was true for awhile in the American colonies.
But even judging Islam by their Church/State connectivity can be confusing at times. Here’s an example: the three countries in the world most heavily populated by Muslims are, in order- Indonesia, India, and Pakistan. Now we know about the repression of women in Islamic societies, right? Or, do we? All three of those Muslim-heavy countries are democracies, or representative republics, similar to the U.S. system. Yet, unlike the U.S., where Christianity is predominate, Indonesia, India, and Pakistan have all, within the last forty years, elected women as presidents or, in the case of India, prime minister. We talk about equality here, but in those three countries, anyway, they demonstrated something we have not been able to yet.
Confusing? Yes. But then, most human things are, which is precisely the reason that easy answers are almost never the right answers. Here’s some more confusing statements for most Americans.
“The Detroit-based Shari'a Muslim Scholars Association of North America (SSANA) strongly condemned the 9-11 attack and said that there is no cause that justifies "this type of an immoral and inhumane act that has affected so many innocent American lives."
“These fundamentalist groups are endangering and embarrassing ordinary Muslims”
Inayat Bunglawala
Muslim Council for Britain
"Anyone can prove anything from any scriptures, provided he has a $2 piece of equipment," said Jamal Badawi, head of the Canada-based Islamic Information Foundation. "That is enough to buy a cheap pair of scissors to cut up verses and put them together the way you want."
“This despicable incident is an unacceptable outrage, regardless of who is ultimately held to be responsible, and we condemn it as fundamentally un-Islamic and against all the principles of our holy faith. We pray God to have mercy on the souls of the murder victims and to punish all evildoers who perpetuate and support such an act of Terrorism.” Islamic Association of Egypt.
“It's not courage in any way to kill an innocent person, or to kill thousands of people, including men and women and children..”
Sheik Mohammed Sayed Tantaw, Syria
That’s five of literally hundreds and hundreds of such statements issued by Islamic groups and scholars from around the world and available for anyone to see on the Internet, including Fox News and all the various preachers who seem to think God needs their special protection.
I maintain again, as I have for the past several weeks, that fear is the main culprit, not Islam. Fear sells television advertising, fear has a free hand in the public treasury, fear causes people to reach in their pockets and buy salvation from whatever hustler is screaming the loudest in the God-language of their own secret terrors.
Should we be wary of certain Muslims? Absolutely! Just as we should be wary of certain Christians, Buddhists, atheists, and Jews. The weapons of today are heinous and American and European factories are designing and manufacturing them at greater levels than anytime in history and they make their way- wink, wink, nudge, nudge- into the wrong hands all the time. We would be stupid not to be vigilant and wary.
But we are also- and that’s a collective ‘we’, my taxes buy the same percentage of weaponry as yours do- we are also..well, less than smart, less than our Savior would have us be, if we continue to fail to follow Jesus in this most important of challenges.
What if we put aside the normal human responses of fear, anger, greed, revenge, and dogma that we apparently cherish because we- humans- have been using them to no avail throughout all of recorded history? What if, instead, we, like Jesus, put ourselves purposefully and intentionally into positions to empathetically communicate with those we fear, to be respectful of differing ideas, to be motivated by Jesus’ kind of love, to identify the source of such of such love in kindness and gentleness, to sit knee to knee, eye to eye, stay with, eat with, and genuinely be with other humans as people born in the Image of God? And then, if it didn’t work the first time, to start all over again?
No, we won’t change everyone, through force or love. But we can change us. Our responses to Islam, and all things and people, must be as similar as we can make them to the responses of Jesus to all things and people. That’s not an easy thing to do: Jesus demonstrated that for us, too. But when you ask the question, “What would Jesus do?”, there’s a couple of answers.
One more by Rumi, to end these thoughts for now:
Tender words we spoke
to one another
are sealed
in the secret vaults of heaven.
One day like rain,
they will fall to earth
and grow green
all over the world.
