Dr. John Young                                                                                                          3/1/09

Unitarian Universalist Church of Jacksonville

My Jewish-Christian-Islamic Truths

            Here is a one sentence version of this sermon, using the famous passage from the Jewish prophet, Micah 6:8: “What does God require of you, but to do justice, love mercy and walk humbly with your God?” For me, the foundation of Judaism is justice, the heart of Christianity is merciful love, and the soul of Islam is to walk humbly with God. The problems are that too often, like other human beings, Jews are not just, Christians are neither merciful nor loving, and Muslims lack humility.

            I have read the Koran several times and taught about Islam in my Religions of India course at the University of North Florida. I have also worked with Muslims, both in India and here in Jacksonville. Kathleen and I will attend an Islamic choir this evening as guests of the NE Florida Islamic Center. I grew up in an almost exclusively Christian small town in Kansas, played in Christian churches twice a week during my adolescence, and was baptized as an Episcopalian as a child, although I could never see my way to being confirmed in the faith. My real introduction to Judaism was as a graduate student when a Jewish girl friend introduced me to Sabbath services and my first Seder.

            I have comfortably integrated elements of all three of these ‘religions of the book’ into my spiritual practices and religious beliefs. Like Gandhi, I have said that I am a Jew, a Christian, a Muslim, as well as a Hindu, and Buddhist, but, of course, like most Unitarian Universalists, I am an unorthodox, selective version of any of them. I reject the tribal tendencies and victim paranoia of some Jews in America, the exclusive or apocalyptic faiths of many Christians, and the fundamentalist intolerance of many Muslims in the world. I believe that the fundamentalist versions of all three of these ‘religions of the book’ are the clearest impediments to peace and harmony in the world today. If you have not read Karen Armstrong’s The Battle for God, which summarizes this conspiracy against the future, you should do so, and I urge you to confront these powers and structures of evil persistently.

            However, I want to focus today, not on what I don’t believe or feel critical about, but on what I do believe, cherish, and try to practice in my life.

            I admire the tendency of the Jews to be in active negotiation with the powers of the universe, to argue with God. Jews tend to be realistic about the facts of life, to realize that you need to work out your interpersonal problems with the people and institutions involved, and to confront and grapple with the facts of natural, as well as human, evil. They argue with injustices caused by natural Creation itself. They intend to confront all injustice, and, at their best, they do not let themselves off the hook, by blaming their own failures on God or on people outside their own tradition.

I find the 10 Commandments a useful starting point about the rules for living. The Jewish High Holy Days, as a period of repentance and forgiveness, and the Passover, as a festival of freedom for responsibility, are among my most important holidays. Sabbath renewal, spiritual study and dialogue, and actively doing justice are Jewish spiritual practices central to my life.

            Like most Unitarian Universalists, I am a Jesusian, but not a Christian. That is, I see Jesus as a primary ethical model, and I try to live by his teachings: that consider everyone to be your neighbor, a child of God with sacred worth and dignity, and worthy of your merciful love. I am a Unitarian; so, I believe in God as Creation, evolving process not static being, with all of us as Creation’s children, but no one of us as savior. I am a Universalist; so, I believe that all religions have part of the truth, and that everyone is can be saved by life and by Creation’s love.

            In this Christianity of merciful love there is spiritual democracy; all people are sacred and fallible. The Golden Rule, found in most religions, becomes the foundation for a mercy based upon nonviolent activism and a love built upon responsibility and a persistent quest for fairness. An exuberant humanistic affirmation of life and people is combined with a recognition that our goals can only be reached by empathy, altruism, and a lifting up of what is uniquely sacred and enduring in one another. Christmas, as a celebration of the sacredness of each child, and Easter, as rebirth and renewal out of self-sacrifice and death, whether it is seasons, generations, or institutional transformations, ring true for me. The joy of worship, with its hymns and shared experiences, the disciplines of prayer and spiritual study, the debates of thought and action are Christian spiritual practices central to my life.

            Islam implies peace among people of faith and submission to ultimate realities. I, too, wish to nurture and sustain peace among the Earth’s people and to submit to both the realities of nature and to the integrity of our sustainable and most virtuous human objectives. Islam’s inclusiveness of the Biblical prophets is admirable. Its philosophically embracing monotheism is similar to Unitarian theology. I find the clarity of Islam’s basic practices inspiring. Like their five daily prayers, I seek to practice a regular daily schedule of pausing to spiritually center. I admire their pledged obligation to give at least 2.5% of their wealth away to the needy. I have found in my own life the spiritual deepening of pilgrimage and chosen sacrifice. I honor the elements of earlier Islamic history that sometimes were less tribal than the Jews and more tolerant than the Christians. I celebrate the ways in earlier times that Muslims preserved the ancient wisdoms and furthered the scientific enterprise and the scholarly debate of ideas. I cherish the wisdom and exuberant examples of the Islamic mystics, like our hymn this morning by Rumi: “Come, come, whoever you are, wanderer, worshipper, lover of leaving. Ours is no caravan to despair. Come yet again come.”  The Sufis often, for me, seem to open wide doors to the spirit.

Unfortunately, too many of these liberated elements of Islam have been marginalized by the current financial dominance of Saudi Wahhabis Sunni Islamic fundamentalism throughout the world, and the political dominance of Iran’s Shi’ite theocracy and the images and examples of Muslim fundamentalist terrorists upon millions of contemporary Muslim minds and hearts. Like Jewish and Christian fundamentalists, these forces reject democracy, marginalize and trivialize women, and damn non-believers. I see them as the enemies of the human future, and I believe that they must be overcome through persistent action.

I urge you to re-frame your relationships with these ‘religions of the book,’ and with sincere believers and practitioners of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. Like all people, they wish to be respected, affirmed, and understood to have integrity and conscience. If you are talking with a believer of one of these traditions, use their language as much as possible, and re-frame your beliefs and desires for action in terms that you affirm but that you also suspect they can understand and find grounds for within their traditions. We need to assume that most people wish to be fair, try to be loving, and recognize their imperfections. We need to proceed in ways that help others to do justice while feeling respected, to be loving while learning to transform themselves, and to admit and reform their own errors because we are equally prepared to humbly admit and reform our own inadequacies.

Talk with Jews about justice, with God-talk and remembered Old Testament phrases. Relate making amends, seeking forgiveness, and practicing responsible freedom. Talk with Christians about merciful love, use Jesus’ life and parables, remembered phrases from Paul’s letters and still treasured Christian teachings and practices. With Muslims, talk about our shared unitary view of ultimate reality, our respect for their inclusion of the older prophets of the book, their historical preservation of the West’s ancient wisdom and nurturing of science. Relate our quest to walk humbly and sustainably with the world with their desire to submit to Creation and to find peace with their neighbors. If we do justice, love mercifully, and walk humbly with Creation as we understand It, then you, too, can truly become a mensch, live with a Christian spirit, and proceed in the spirit of Allah and the prophets. Together with the vast majority of Jews, Christians, and Muslims, we can learn to do justice, love mercy and walk humbly with the God of our understanding.