“It doesn’t matter what you believe, as long as you’re sincere.”
You don’t hear that much anymore, maybe because we now know how dangerous it can be when someone sincerely believes God wants them to kill infidels. Maybe more than ever we treasure inclusive sorts of faith, to the point that any statement of faith or creed seems exclusive. We’re all the same. Love is all that matters. Why do we need to say anything else?
As we celebrate National Day of Prayer with communities of other faiths, it’s tempting to imagine that we are erasing all our differences. We can speak with one voice and leave all that divisive religious talk behind. But that’s not true. As an Episcopal church, we value our inclusive nature, but we also use one of the two historic Christian creeds every Sunday. We use baptism as the mark of belonging to our community. In the same way, our interfaith partners each have specific beliefs that they would uphold as important and true, and ways to define who is a member of their communities. We all stand for something. The interfaith issue is how we can each stand for something, each standing for something different, without trying to shut each other up.
Usually we manage this balance by being polite and respectful, and not making much of a statement at all. We can work with those of other faiths because the good we do outweighs our divisions. National Day of Prayer is different. This time we use our voices to pray, speaking up about what is most sacred to each. We do this without fighting or attempting to convert each other. Wow.
The interfaith issue: How can we stand for something without trying to shut each other up?
Not all Christians are comfortable with this activity. For them the Christian faith is an exclusive truth. Right doctrine determines who receives God’s blessings. If we open ourselves to interfaith worship activities, we are opening ourselves to the possibility that God is present in other communities of faith as well. We are not saying that these other communities are secretly Christian (or Christian but don’t know it). Their different stories and traditions are not ours. But we are saying that the truth of the Gospel can be found outside the church. Even while we proclaim our faith as the truth, we don’t have an exclusive claim on God’s presence. Who are we to tell God how to speak?
Could a faith that recognizes a sacred reality beyond itself be the direction of the Spirit in our day? How can we claim to love our neighbors and at the same time insist that they are wrong about the fundamental truths of their lives? But at the same time, how can we follow Jesus without recognizing the claims his way makes on our lives? Interfaith prayer is an opportunity to work out the truth of the Incarnation: God with us. As we go out into the world, we risk meeting God there, not just in the church. This meeting will expand our awareness, even as it challenges us our understanding. Worship tells the story: God is God, and we are God’s people. On National Day of Prayer, that story gets bigger.
Join Trinity and at least another dozen faith communities for National Day of Prayer, Thursday, May 3, 6:00 pm, in Grape Day Park.