"The Journey To Interfaith"

When I was in the third grade, back in the early ‘60s, my public school classroom had a Christmas party. At one point I looked around and noticed one of my classmates wasn’t there. I asked my teacher where she was. When I remember what she said it sounds an awful lot like an adult in a Charlie Brown TV special. Wah, wah. Wah wah, wah wah. But I know that what she basically said was: The girl was Jewish and Jews don’t believe in Christmas so she didn’t come to school that day. I was shocked. I knew something wasn’t right, but I didn’t know what to say at the time. I think I’ve always been sensitive to those who feel left out.

Fast forward to a few years ago. I’m a minister living in a parsonage in a small town. On one side of the parsonage was the church and on the other side of the parsonage was a public school. I was invited by the school to come to their Thanksgiving lunch, the day before Thanksgiving. Great! Before we ate, a school official turns to me and says, “Pastor would you like to say a prayer?” And I’m thinking: No, I would not like to say a prayer; not in a public school; I’m a card-carrying member of the ACLU for crying out loud. Why would I want to say a prayer? But what was I going to do? So I said, “Let us bow our heads. We give thanks for this food and we give thanks for the hands that prepared it. Amen.” Now, I never mentioned God and I certainly never mentioned Jesus. I hoped that would pass muster with the ACLU (if not with God and Jesus). I think I’ve always wanted to include everyone.

I went to high school in Germany. (Not because I was smart, but because my father was a civilian in the military.) We went to church on an Air Force base. At the end of a road, the Protestant church was on one side of the street and the Catholic church was on the other. One day, I’m sitting in the Protestant church and a guy comes in, goes up to about the 5th row, drops down on one knee, crosses himself and sits down. About 30 seconds later he realizes he’s in the Protestant church and not the Catholic church and he quietly leaves. Then, many years later, I would wonder what we can do to bring Protestant and Catholics and all Christians, as well as Buddhists and Hindus and all faiths together. Maybe I’ve believed that since I felt called to the ministry.

I felt called to the ministry on my birthday in 2001. My birthday is 9-11. After seeing those planes crash into the World Trade Center, the Pentagon and a field in Pennsylvania, I decided to pursue a path to pastoring, to one day preach love in a sometimes hateful world. I think even then I had hopes of bringing people together.

Then I went to seminary, Western Theological Seminary here in Holland. I took a sacraments class, where we learned about Communion and Baptism. One night, I called my Mom and said, “Have I ever been baptized?” She said, “Well, when you were a kid, we went to a church that didn’t believe in infant baptism. So, unless you were baptized as an adult, no, you’ve never been baptized.” So I went to my teaching church, where I was doing an internship and I said to my teaching church pastor, “I don’t think I’ve ever been baptized. If I’m going to be a Christian minister, I suppose I should be baptized.” He said, “Well, duh,” or something like that. So that Sunday we scheduled my baptism. I woke up that Sunday morning, looked at the calendar and said, “Oh my goodness. It’s December 7th, Pearl Harbor Day.” The church wanted me to say something before I was baptized. I said that I hoped my birthday, 9-11, and my baptism day, December 7th, would mean that my ministry would be about justice and peace. Again, I think even then I had hopes of bringing people of all faiths together.

Then this past October, I wrote a column for the Holland Sentinel about a vision I had of bringing all people of faith together. The column came out on a Saturday. I read it when it appeared and said to myself, “Okay, Willy, what are you going to do to bring all people of faith together?” I didn’t know. The next day, I preached about it and said: What are we going to do about it? We should start an interfaith group or something. That afternoon, I went to the home of some Baha’is. They said: Nice column yesterday. I said: Thanks, but what can we do about it? They said: Well, after 9-11, we had an interfaith group for a while, but then it fizzled out. I said: Let’s start it again and I invited people over to our house that week. We’ve been meeting every week since. The Sunday that I preached about interfaith togetherness and we planned our first meeting was October 25, 2009, Reformation Sunday, the day protestants celebrate Martin Luther deciding that the church needed to reform. I feel the same way. Now, I hope that those three dates: my birthday, 9-11, my baptism day, December 7th, and now the day I preached about interfaith togetherness, Reformation Sunday, mean that my ministry will be devoted to justice and peace and being welcoming to all people of faith. I think Jesus felt the same way. Eventually.

Jesus is approached by a Canaanite woman, a Gentile, a non-Jew. She wants him to cure her daughter. Jesus tells her, "I was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel." But she pleads with him, "Lord, help me." He answers her, "It is not fair to take the children's food and throw it to the dogs." She says, "Yes, Lord, yet even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from their masters' table." Then Jesus tells her, "Woman, great is your faith!” And her daughter is healed. Christian preachers go through all kinds of contortions trying to explain away what seems to be a fairly heartless indifference from Jesus to the woman’s plea for help. "Oh, he didn’t really compare her to a dog; it was more like a puppy." Oh, that’s much better. I think what happened that day was that that woman helped Jesus to realize his message wasn’t just for one group of people; his message was for all people. I think that day Jesus became an interfaith minister.

You can find other examples of interfaith ideas in the Bible. The Psalmist says, “Praise the Lord, all you nations! Extol God, all you peoples! For great is God’s steadfast love toward us, and the faithfulness of the Lord endures forever. Praise the Lord!” The Psalmist doesn’t say: For great is God’s steadfast love toward some of us. He says: For great is God’s steadfast love toward us. All of us. Each and everyone of us. Jews and Gentiles. Everybody.

Martin Luther King, Jr. spoke about interfaith ideas, too. In his “I have a Dream” speech in Washington, DC, in 1963, Dr. King said, “I have a dream…when all of God's children, black men and white men, Jews and Gentiles, Protestants and Catholics, will be able to join hands.” I have that same dream. So did Gandhi.

Gandhi says, “I am a Muslim and a Hindu and a Christian and a Jew.” That’s how I feel, too. I am a Christian and a Jew and a Muslim and a Hindu and a Buddhist and a Baha’i and a Unitarian Universalist and an agnostic and an atheist. I am one with every one. We are all one.

The Dalai Lama, a Buddhist, says, “My religion is simple. My religion is kindness.” If only all religions were about kindness. Too many religious people, unfortunately including many Christians, seem to be more about meanness than kindness. I think that they think it’s okay to be about meanness as long as they worship God or Jesus or whoever. I think they’re woefully misguided.

One of my favorite quotes of all time is by St. Irenaeus. St. Irenaeus says, “The glory of God is a human being fully alive.” I think one way to be fully alive is to be open-minded, to respect all people’s religious or non-religious journey. To be in a place that sees religion as cooperative, not competitive. We’re not talking about a rivalry between Michigan and Michigan State. We’re talking about our brothers and sisters, children of God, all on a path to God or the Divine or Love.

Here you are, sitting in the first service of Interfaith Congregation. Why? How did your spiritual journey lead you here today? And how does all this interfaith stuff apply to your life? Do you see yourself as part of a Divine Mosaic? Do you see yourself as a star in a heavenly constellation? Do you see yourself as a grain of sand on a sacred beach?

I want to encourage you to see this as the first step (or the 400th step) in your interfaith spiritual journey. Engage in conversation with people of other faiths. What do you have in common? Where do you differ? Invite them to come here if you’d like. Maybe they can take part in an interfaith discussion. Because, let’s be honest, we can’t keep doing what we’ve been doing, where different religions, heck, even different denominations within Christianity, can’t get along. That’s crazy. And dangerous. It can lead to conflicts, terror and even war. We can’t afford to have that anymore.

Earlier I said I didn’t know what to say back when I was in the third grade and a classmate of mine felt excluded from a Christmas party because she was Jewish. But I know what to say now. It wasn’t right for my public school to have a party that made my classmate feel excluded. (The Supreme Court would eventually agree with me.) I wouldn’t belong to any club that excluded Jews or Muslims or Hindus or Buddhists or any other religious group. But I did belong to such a club. It’s a club called the Christian church. And while I know in a lot of ways I’m comparing apples and oranges, am I really? I didn’t feel right back then being part of an exclusive group. And I don’t want to be part of an exclusive group now. That’s why I’ve started Interfaith Congregation. Perhaps it’s ironic (or maybe providential) that the seed for Interfaith Congregation was planted in a little boy at a third-grade party to celebrate Christmas. But then again, isn’t that what they say Christmas is all about? The phrase isn’t: Peace on earth, good will toward some. The phrase is: Peace on earth, good will toward all.