"World Religions and Why We Care"
by Rev. Kimi Riegel
January 12, 2003

Message for all Ages: two poems

Readings :

Hinduism
"Common be your prayer; Common be your end; Common be your purpose; Common be your deliberation; Common be your desires; Unified be your hearts; Unified be your intensions; Perfect be the union amongst you."
Rg. Veda X, 191-3,4

Islam
There shall be no compulsion in religion. 2:256

Native American
"Let us walk softly on the Earth with all living beings, great and small, remembering as we go, that one God, kind and wise, created all."

Judaism
“And they shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruning hooks; nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war anymore."
Isaiah 2:4

Zoroastrian Faith
"The good religion which is of all things best, regards all men as God's children."
Zoroaster "Ushtavaiti Gatha"

Christianity
"A new commandment I give unto you, that ye love one another; as I have loved you, that ye also love one another. By this shall all men know that ye are My disciples, if ye have love one to another." John 13:34-35

Sermon: “World Religions and Why We Care”

We need to learn about other religions because tolerance grows from knowledge and this world can use all the tolerance it can get. And we need to learn about other religions because from them we gain wisdom and insight that deepens our own religious journeys.

I will start to today with a personal story. Not perhaps the kind of story you would expect to hear at the beginning of a service about world religions, but trust me I will get there. In 1994 a man named John Salvi, walked into an abortion clinic in Brookline , Massachusetts and shot and killed two women, wounding 5 others. He is a Christian and claimed to have done the killing to save innocent unborn children. Some within the pro-life moment heralded him as a hero. One such supporter thanked him for what he did in the name of Jesus. I was living in Massachusetts at the time. It was a terrible day for me, the only thing I could think of to do in the moment was take some cookies down to the women and men who had been so devastated by the shooting. Pretty lame.

The next Sunday evening the youth I worked with were still very shaken by the event and very angry. They talked of revenge and outlawing Christianity, perhaps typical responses from teenagers, but not that different than Salvi’s own responses at 24. In that moment I had the very real sense that my young Unitarian Universalists might someday be shooting or being shot at and I wanted to prevent that.

At the time the associate minister across the street at the Trinitarian church, (yes when the two churches split in the 1700s they kept the silver, moved across the street and called themselves Trinitarians) was completely unknown to me except that between the two of us we ran the largest youth groups in town. After much reflection and stalling, I finally called him on the phone. “Rev. Norm Townsend,” please I said. I explained to him in a shaky, disjointed way that I worked across the street and was upset by the shooting and was hoping to avoid our youth ever being in a position of shooting at each other and could we talk. He was intrigued enough to agree to coffee the next week. Now you have to understand that this is a very conservative Christian church that doesn’t believe in the ordination women, Families First meets there often, and they are anti-gay and pro-life. I was delighted that he was even willing to talk.    

That first coffee led to years of once a month coffees to talk about our faith, our lives and our youth. We had much in common and much we disagreed on. Most of the conversations will remain confidential between us, but we became the core of a youth interfaith movement that is still going strong. We developed workshops and evenings where the kids shared their faith. It was the groundwork that he and I did in those early conversations about our faiths that led to a town-wide service supporting the families of a tragic car accident in 1998.  I believe that the youth who participated in our programs are a little less likely to judge another’s faith and a be bit more tolerant. I hope they will be able to stand up and say John Salvi isn’t representative of Christianity and Osama bin Laden is not representative of Muslims.

We have to care about other religions because our world, no matter how hard we try to have it otherwise, our world is affected by another’s faith. To know another’s faith gives us a place to begin the conversations. To know another’s faith breeds tolerance. And as I said, this world can use all the tolerance it can get.

This need for tolerance however is not new to our era; religion has been the reason or at least the excuse for much of the war and hatred of the world, throughout history. Since humanity began writing of its encounters with “others” the question of what they believe, why they believe and how do I respond to that belief, has possessed humanity.

We Unitarians like to claim that we started the move toward tolerance. In 1557, in response to a request of the Diet (which is an old word essentially meaning gathering of religious folks to regulate or control matters of religious import) at Torda, the Queen of Transylvania decreed:

“Inasmuch as We and Our Most Serene Son (then King but at the time no more than 15) have assented to the most instant supplication of the Peers of the Realm, that each person maintain whatever religious faith he wishes, with old or new rituals, while We at the same time leave it to their judgment to do as they please in the matter of faith, just so long, however, as they bring no harm to bear on anyone at all, least the followers of a new religion be a source of irritation to the old profession of faith or become in some way injurious to its followers--therefore, Peers of the Realm, for the sake of procuring the peace of the churches and of stilling the controversies that have arisen in the gospel teaching, we have decreed to establish a national synod, wherein, in the presence of devoted ministers of the Word of God as well as of other men of rank, genuine comparisons of doctrine may be made and, under God’s guidance, dissension and differences of opinion in religion may be removed.”[1]

In 1569 that same King, John Sigismund, became the first Unitarian King. The King and his advisors first acknowledged the importance of freedom for one to follow their own conscience and then a few short years later, following their own conscience they became Unitarians. So really he and his regents were tolerant before they became Unitarian. The Edict of Torda as it became known did not change, was not revoked, by the King when he found the truth in Unitarianism, it remained the law of the land to allow others to find the truth themselves. It is certainly fair to say tolerance has, since our very early beginnings, been an important part of our faith.

Which is not to say we are like the Baha’is who in 1950 declared there would be an annual observance of World Religion Day in each of their religious communities. The Baha’i Faith puts great emphasis on the unity of humankind. Their main prophet Baha’u’llah wrote, “The fundamental purpose animating the Faith of God and His Religion is to safeguard the interests and promote the unity of the human race, and to foster the spirit of love and fellowship amongst men. Suffer it not to become a source of dissension and discord, of hate and enmity."[2] Their purpose in setting a World Religion Day is to find the commonalities among the faiths and thus bring us closer to unity in God’s name. While they do not exclude the Atheists, Humanists and other non-theistic faiths, much of what they do is to emphasis one moral code that begins with a faith in God.

For some of us this morning the use of the word God in the poems at the beginning of the service was problematic. As Unitarian Universalists we are not ready to speak of the words of God as a unifying force. We would want to spend some time defining God, Goddess and even not-God before using the words. So, though the notion of a world with a single spiritual standard or ethical belief might be attractive to some of us, we would not find that in faith in God. And while we are maybe even willing to join with the Baha’is in a search for world peace through religious dialog we are going to make sure that dialog includes those who don’t believe in God as well.

In addition, while our interest in others’ religions is about tolerance and world peace, it could also be said that Unitarian Universalists view the knowledge of other faiths at a much more person level. We affirm everyone’s search for truth and meaning. The front of the hymnal puts it this way:

The living tradition, which we share, draws from many sources:

Direct experience of that transcending mystery and wonder, affirmed in all cultures, which moves us to a renewal of the spirit and an openness to the forces which create and uphold life;

Words and deeds of prophetic women and men which challenge us to confront powers and structures of evil with justice, compassion, and the transforming power of love;

Wisdom from the world's religions which inspires us in our ethical and spiritual life;

Jewish and Christian teachings which call us to respond to God's love by loving our neighbors as ourselves;

Humanist teachings, which counsel us to heed the guidance of reason and the results of science, and warn us against idolatries of the mind and spirit.

Spiritual teachings of earth-centered traditions, which celebrate the sacred circle of life and instruct us to live in harmony with the rhythms of nature.

Grateful for the religious pluralism, which enriches and ennobles our faith, we are inspired to deepen our understanding and expand our vision.

We are inspired to deepen our understanding and expand our vision, thus we learn about others’ religions. We are curious. We are seekers. We want to know how others have handled the big questions. We want to know how other humans deal with the problem of living with death. We are open to the idea that after eons of thinking and living, humanity may have come up with a good idea or two in some of these traditions and it might behoove us to listen.

Forest Church , in his books, A Chosen Faith and Life Craft, uses a wonderful image that captures this idea of wisdom from other faiths. He likens the world to a great cathedral where humanity has been living forever. Among the various parts of the cathedral he asks us to pay special attention to the windows and the light that shines through them. Each of the windows is different. There are many windows but the light that shines through is the same. He writes: “In the Cathedral of the World there are windows beyond number, some long forgotten, covered with many patinas of dust, others revered by millions, the most sacred of shrines. Each in its own way is beautiful. Some are abstract, others representational, some dark and meditative, and others bright and dazzling. Each tells a story about the creation of the world, the meaning of history, the purpose of life, the nature of humankind, the mystery of death.”[3]

We will find out more about the nature of existence by looking at as many of the windows as we can. We will enrich our own understanding of life and its meanings by examining the windows. Some windows may not make any sense to us but that does not reduce their validity or the light that shines through them. Some windows will bring an understanding to our minds and hearts and souls that we never thought possible. Studying the world’s religions will deepen our understanding and expand our vision.

We are called to learn about others’ religions because tolerance grows from knowledge and this world can use all the tolerance it can get. We are called by our past to learn about the world’s religions, as tolerance has always been a part of our history. We are called to learn about the world religions because engaging in inter-religious dialog brings this world that much closer to peace and justice. We are called by our own curiosity and desire to deepen our understanding of existence. Learning about the world’s religions is a social justice act that deepens our daily lives.

I would like to end this morning with a meditation from the Baha’i tradition. Let the images of the windows stay with you as you hear these words:

Meditation
In striving to recognize the primacy of Fire and Light. I feel kinship with my Zoroastrian brothers and sisters.

In striving to obey the Ten Commandments, I feel kinship with my Jewish brothers and sisters.

In striving to be kind to neighbor and the needy, I feel kinship with my Christian brothers and sisters.

In striving to be compassionate to creatures great and small, I feel kinship with my Buddhist - Jaina brothers and sisters.

In striving to surrender myself completely to God Almighty, I feel kinship with my Muslim brothers and sisters.

In the recognition that wisdom flows from enlightened masters, I feel kinship with my Sikh brothers and sisters.

In remembering that uniting people should be the goal of religion, I feel kinship with my Baha’i brothers and sisters.

In my respect and reverence for Nature that sustains us, I feel kinship with my Native American brothers and sisters.

In feeling that these and more are all paths to the same Divinity, I feel kinship with my Hindu brothers and sisters.

In my love and laughter, joy and pain, I feel kinship with all my fellow humans.

In my need for nourishment and instinct to live on, I feel kinship with all beings on the planet.

In my spiritual ecstasy with this wondrous world, I feel kinship with the Cosmic Whole.[4]


Amen. Blessed Be. Namaste.