The Faith Line

Joshua J Sander
4/18/10
Guest Preaching at St. Thomas
“The Faith Line”

Acts 9:1-6

The Gospel lesson today leaves us in kind of a cliffhanger, with Saul sitting in the middle of the road, blind and needing to finish his journey into Damascus to receive word from the Lord on what it is Saul is to do. Now, “The men who were traveling with him stood speechless because they heard the voice but saw no one. Saul got up from the ground, and though his eyes were open, he could see nothing; so they led him by the hand and brought him into Damascus. For three days he was without sight, and neither ate nor drank. Now there was a disciple in Damascus named Ananias. The Lord said to him in a vision, “Ananias.” He answered, “Here I am, Lord.” The Lord said to him, “Get up and go to the street called Straight, and at the house of Judas look for a man of Tarsus named Saul. At this moment he is praying, and he has seen in a vision a man named Ananias come in and lay his hands on him so that he might regain his sight.” But Ananias answered, “Lord, I have heard from many about this man, how much evil he has done to your saints in Jerusalem; and here he has authority from the chief priests to bind all who invoke your name.”

Well, let's pause there for a moment. Because it's important for us, as we consider this story, to understand whether or not Ananias is overstating his case. His words remind me a little bit of Jonah, who tried to run away from his duty rather than give the people of Nineveh a chance to repent because he thought they were too evil to live. Even after the entire city—including the animals!— repented, Jonah hated the people of Nineveh and wished them dead. Jonah was wrong. Was Ananias? Our only clue, really, is a little appendix to the story of Stephen.

Now during those days, when the disciples were increasing in number, they chose Stephen, a man full of faith and the Holy Spirit, along with several others. They had these men stand before the apostles, who prayed and laid their hands on them. Stephen, full of grace and power, did great wonders and signs among the people. Then some of those who belonged to a particular synagogue stood up and argued with Stephen. But they could not withstand the wisdom and the Spirit with which he spoke. So they stirred up the people as well as the elders and the scribes; then they suddenly confronted him, seized him, and brought him before the council. They set up false witnesses who claimed that Stephen was teaching blasphemy—sound familiar?—and when the high priest asked him, ‘Are these things so?’ Stephen replied: ‘You stiff-necked people, uncircumcised in heart and ears, you are forever opposing the Holy Spirit, just as your ancestors used to do. Which of the prophets did your ancestors not persecute? They killed those who foretold the coming of the Righteous One, and now you have become his betrayers and murderers. You are the ones that received the law as ordained by angels, and yet you have not kept it.’ When they heard these things, they dragged him out of the city and began to stone him; and the witnesses laid their coats at the feet of a young man named Saul. And Saul approved of their killing him. Devout men buried Stephen and made loud lamentation over him. But Saul ravaged the church by entering house after house; dragging off both men and women and tossing them into prison.

So Ananias was well within his rights to say, “Lord, I have heard from many about this man, how much evil he has done to your saints in Jerusalem; and here he has authority from the chief priests to bind all who invoke your name.” It’s ok to question God occasionally—as long as you’re willing to listen to the answer. The Lord answered Ananias, “Go, for he is an instrument whom I have chosen to bring my name before Gentiles and kings and before the people of Israel; I myself will show him how much he must suffer for the sake of my name.” So Ananias went and entered the house. He laid his hands on Saul and said, “Brother Saul, the Lord Jesus, who appeared to you on your way here, has sent me so that you may regain your sight and be filled with the Holy Spirit.” And immediately something like scales fell from his eyes, and his sight was restored. Then he got up and was baptized, and after taking some food, he regained his strength. For several days he was with the disciples in Damascus, and immediately he began to proclaim Jesus in the synagogues, saying, “He is the Son of God.”

This transformation reminds me forcibly of Eboo Patel—the American Muslim founder of Interfaith Youth Core—who wrote, "One hundred years ago, the great African American scholar W. E. B. Du Bois famously said, 'The problem of the twentieth century is the problem of the color line.' I believe that the twenty-first century will be shaped by the faith line. On one side of the faith line are the religious totalitarians. Their conviction is that only one interpretation of one religion is a legitimate way of being, believing, and belonging on earth. Everyone else needs to be cowed, or converted, or condemned, or killed. On the other side of the faith line are the religious pluralists, who hold that people believing in different creeds and belonging to different communities need to learn to live together..."

At first it may be difficult to see what the story of Saul has to do with the religious extremism of today, but Luke, the author of Acts, says, "Saul, still breathing threats and murder against the disciples of the Lord, went to the high priest." Can you think of a group of religious extremists who breathe threats and murder against another group based on their religious beliefs? I know I can. And it is all too easy to for us to say, "Al-Qaeda, breathing threats and murder..." Or "Hamas, breathing threats and murder..." and forget to include "Hutaree, breathing threats and murder..." and "The Ku Klux Klan, breathing threats and murder..." When speaking of religious totalitarian extremists, Christianity must remove the log from their own eye before attempting to remove anything from the eyes of our neighbors.

Saul—a Pharisaic Jew—breathing threats and murder against Christian Jews definitely falls into the category of believing that only one interpretation of one religion is a legitimate way of being, believing, and belonging on earth. And that everyone else needs to be cowed, or converted, or condemned, or killed. But Saul—a converted Christian Jew—is another story altogether. This Saul crosses the faith line from totalitarianism to pluralism—from the belief that everyone else needs to be cowed, or converted, or condemned, or killed to the belief that people believing in different creeds and belonging to different communities need to learn to live together. In fact, Saul the Christian Jew has such a complete turn-around—which is the meaning of “repentance” by the way, it is a turning around and going the other way—Saul the Christian Jew has had such a complete repentance that he changes his name. Saul, the extremist totalitarian Pharisaic Jew crosses the faith line and becomes the Apostle Paul.

This is the same Paul who settles an argument for the Church in Corinth concerning whether or not they could eat meat that had been sacrificed to other Gods. As a Greek church in the Roman era, encountering such food was commonplace. Saul would have said absolutely no—not ever, but Paul writes, “‘All things are lawful’, but not all things are beneficial. ‘All things are lawful’, but not all things build up. Eat whatever is sold in the meat market without raising any question on the ground of conscience, for ‘the earth and its fullness are the Lord’s.’ If an unbeliever invites you to a meal and you are disposed to go, eat whatever is set before you without raising any question on the ground of conscience. But if someone says to you, ‘This has been offered in sacrifice’, then do not eat it, out of consideration for the one who informed you, and for the sake of conscience— I mean the other’s conscience, not your own.” Paul, in other words, finds a way for people believing in different creeds and belonging to different communities to learn to live together. In fact, Paul breaks down all kinds of barriers, between Greeks and Jews, between slaves and free, between men and women!

As for me, I believe that Dr. Patel is correct: the twenty-first century will be shaped by the faith line. On one side of the faith line are the religious extremist totalitarians. On the other side of the faith line are the religious pluralists. Coming to understand the beliefs of people believing in different creeds and belonging to different communities does not threaten your own beliefs—in fact often times bumping up against beliefs that are not your own help you solidify and understand your own beliefs more fully! And what’s more, the basis for religious pluralism does exist within our tradition. Everything is lawful, but we should choose that which builds up. And I believe that living out, teaching—dare I say evangelizing?—about religious pluralism is of the utmost importance.

Eboo Patel’s family moved to the United States from India in the mid 70’s when he was just a baby. He writes, “At the age of nineteen, I was already convinced that America understood only violence. I was just this side of believing that it was my responsibility to inflict it. I only needed a nudge.” The world he lived in—the same world that I grew up in—taught him that America only understands violence. And he was one nudge away from giving his country something to understand. Today, Dr. Patel is promoting religious pluralism through the Interfaith Youth Core and was recently on the cover of the Christian Century. Why is he a hero of interfaith dialogue instead of another suicide bombing headline? Because his mother taught him that Islam is a diverse religion. Because when he learned to sing the song “Pass It On” at the local YMCA, his mother said, “I hope they teach the kids Jewish and Hindu songs, too. That’s the kind of Muslims we want our kids to be.” Because in that key moment when one nudge would have sent him down the path of violence—he discovered the work of Dorothy Day and the Catholic Worker movement.

We live in a world where mass media has the tools to instantly bombard us with images of violence from all over the world—and they do so because it sells newspapers, spikes television ratings, and drives up the hit counters on their web sites. We live in a world where we have the tools to anonymously say the most hateful and cruel things imaginable to an ever wider audience. We live in a world, in other words, that could easily teach our young people that the only thing the world understands is violence—and at that point, all it takes is a nudge. So it’s up to us—just like it was up to Dr. Patel’s mother and the Catholic Workers—to teach another way. We have to choose which side of the faith line we’re on. We have to decide what kind of Christians we are—what kind of Christians we want our young people to be. And it’s up to us to live up to the ideals we teach. Not just because we ought to practice what we preach, but also because children are much better at doing what you do than they are at doing what you say—and I have to tell you, young people have an amazing built-in hypocrisy detector. I think that we probably want to be the kind of Christians who know that it’s not ok to stone Stephen, that no one is dispensable and that love is more powerful than violence.

Ok, Rev. Josh, we’re on board, where do we start? It starts with little things—showing our young people that their tradition is a diverse one, giving our young people the opportunity to know someone who doesn’t hold the same beliefs as they do. Maybe it starts with folk from St. Thomas’ and folk from 1st Congregational Church making a commitment to come together and listen to each other. It certainly could start with us. And I don’t know where it ends—but I hope and pray and dream that it ends in a world that more closely resembles the Kingdom of God.

And I pray it the name of the Creator, and the Christ, and the Holy Spirit. Amen.