Sermon: “Nearest in Love”
Malala Yousafzai, the winner of the 2014 Nobel Peace Prize, said in a recent interview, “Often people talk about refugees and immigrants in numbers and in figures, and we hear ABOUT refugees, we never hear from refugees.” She continued, “My father often says, ‘If you want to know about a Muslim person, do not know them through the news. Go and visit your next-door neighbour who is a Muslim and talk to them.”
If we contextualize interfaith dialogue, its benefits, the meaning and the practice in our daily life, we are simply and intentionally following Jesus’ great commandment and teachings such as “Love one another” “Love your neighbour”, and “No one has greater love than this, to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.” Interfaith dialogue is about paying attention to the other, rather than to our reaction to them, and befriending our neighbours as friends. Very often, those transformative friendships are cross-cultural and cross-generational.
Before we learn about one lesson from Islam and our Christian relation with Islam, let’s break down what “neighbour” can mean. The Spanish language has two words for the one English word that gives two senses of “neighbour”. The Vecina/o means one who lives nearby (near home), like the person over the back fence or in the apartment next door. Projima/o means one with whom someone lives in a relationship of accountability. What I learn from these two words for neighbour is that even though we don’t have (or we don’t think we have) any Muslim person or family near our home or on our street it can’t be used as an excuse to not learn about Islam and to not learn from Islam and the Muslim way of life. We truly need to seek out ways to understand and know each other.
On a personal level, if someone said to me, “I am obliged to love you because you are my neighbour”, I would be offended, because it would make me think, “Is my significance to you dependent on your religious belief that the action of loving your neighbour will help you be a better person?” The teaching “Love your neighbour” must be understood in the light that we ought to love our neighbour because of our, and their, innate worth. Every person has immeasurable worth as God’s children and the truth about our dignity and importance calls us to know each other; therefore, we are in a relationship of accountability with one another – we are all neighbours.
In fact, Muslims and Christians together comprise over one-third of the world’s population, and increasingly we now interact daily as neighbours, friends and co-workers. I’m sure many of you have Muslim friends, neighbours, and co-workers.
I am grateful for my Friday group, (whom I meet on the second and fourth Fridays). We meet at Rainbow Resource Centre. There, I have met several Muslim friends; every time I see them I get to know them a little better. We build trust and liking. I find that many of them can talk to each other in Arabic, even though they have different nationalities (Syria, Egypt, and Pakistan, in particular.) “All Muslims must learn Arabic to read the Quran.” I am especially thankful for my blossoming friendships with a few of them, one of whom is a young Trans woman originally from Syria, who lived in Turkey before coming to Canada, just four months ago. Another person is Muhammad from Pakistan. Until very recently he was the educator at the centre, and taught me by words and examples, that even though he is queer, his faith in Islam and his sexuality cannot be separated. He is himself, a whole person, with his faith being the anchor of his life, and his hope is that we all know we are spiritually connected. Sadly, however, they taught me that Islamophobia (the fear of Islam as the religion and Muslims as people) is real, not only in Canadian society in general, but also in the LGBTQ community. The community is influenced by the association of Muslims with terrorism and the belief that the Islamic faith supports it.
I met a bunch of Muslims through the Friendship Kitchen, free cooking classes for newcomers, in my last congregation. The Muslim participants inspired me so much, when I asked the question to the group, “What is the best thing that has happened today or recently?”. Astoundingly, all of them said, in their turn, “That Ramadan (the lunar month of fasting) started.” They looked very cheerful and happy, even though they didn’t eat (because they were fasting) the meal shared after the cooking class! I wondered two things, “Are they not hungry? How are they so joyful?”
Muslims are expected to follow what are called the five pillars of Islam. The Muslim participants’ joy amazed me, and made me wonder what if we, as Christians, embraced Lent as a time for spiritual fasting with the same joy that our Muslim neighbours showed as they welcome Ramadan? (By the way, Islam means “serving God” and Muslims means “people submitted to the will of God.”) The five pillars of Islam are:
To bear witness that there is no god but God, and that Muhammad is the prophet of God.
To perform ritual worship (salat) five times daily at appointed times.
To fast from break of dawn to sunset during the month of Ramadan.
To give alms (zakat) regularly.
To go on pilgrimage (hajj) once in a lifetime, health and wealth permitting.
Here, I would like to ask you one question. Do we worship the same God? I guess, you already know the answer, but might not quite know exactly how it works. I did the same. Interestingly, this question is more of a problem for Christians than for Muslims. The answer is yes, we worship the same God. The first important lesson we need to explore in the interfaith relation of Christians and Muslims is that we share a common heritage. Muslims are following in the tradition of Abraham, Moses, and Jesus in worshipping Allah, the Arabic name for God. It is really cool that Muslims and Christians are related, and in fact, we are in close kinship!
In Genesis, God promised Abraham that he would be the father of a great nation (Gen. 12:1–3) and that his descendants would be as many as the stars in the sky (Gen. 15:1–6). Sarah, however, was barren. So she brought Hagar, her slave girl, to Abraham so that he might at least have a child through her. When she became pregnant, Sarah was jealous and Hagar fled to the wilderness. There an angel comforted Hagar and told her that her son was to be called Ishmael and that her offspring would “greatly multiply” so that “they cannot be counted for multitude” (Gen. 16:10).
After Ishmael was born, Abraham received a further promise that Sarah would conceive and give birth to a son to be named Isaac. Abraham, both incredulous and overjoyed about the promise of Isaac, nevertheless interceded before God for Ishmael. And God answered, “As for Ishmael, I have heard you; I will bless him and make him fruitful and exceedingly numerous; he shall be the father of twelve princes, and I will make him a great nation” (Gen. 17:20). In Genesis 25:13–15, we have the record of Ishmael’s lineage, which leads to Arabia. Muslims trace this lineage on to Mecca and Muhammad.
The Qu’ran explicitly denies that Jesus died on the cross and that Jesus can in any way be identified with God and these two are irreconcilable points of difference with Christian faith. Plus, Christians believe in the Trinity, (God, Christ, the Spirit being one God, yet in three persons) and Islam rejects it. However, it is important to know that Islam gives immense honour to Jesus as a prophet within Islam, and believes that God vindicates Jesus by not allowing him to die on the cross. (In the same respect, whenever Muslims speak the name of Jesus, they add “The peace and blessings of God be upon him”, the same words reserved for the name of Prophet Muhammad.)
We worship the same God. I hope that knowing this, our perception about our relations between two faiths and religions, changes how we perceive our Muslim neighbours. While Jewish people do not accept the Christian understanding of a triune God, few Christians would argue that Jewish people worship a different God. It is very possible to speak in the same way of the God witnessed to us by the Qu’ran. Different conceptions and ways of speaking of God do not negate our common orientation to the one God known by many names. Christians and Muslims worship the same God, the God of Abraham, Sarah, and Isaac, Hagar and Ishmael. We are the “nearest”, neighbours, in affection and shared heritage.
In fact, fourteen hundred years ago the Qur’an stated that Muslims and Christians will surely find themselves as the “nearest in affection” or “nearest among them in love” (Surah 5:82). Today, however, the relationship is clouded by tensions, mistrust and violence. In some Muslim-majority countries, Christians have charged Muslims with systemic discrimination and worse. Muslims complain of the continued colonialism and exploitation of the West (money, armaments, military power), linking Christianity with Western hegemony and abuse. Reconciliation is at the heart of our faith and our being the church.
May we truly seek to understand and know each other, who are the “nearest in love” through friendship, crossing over differences and acknowledging our kinship.
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