A God Who Has No Favorites

A God Who Has No Favorites
Sixth Sunday of Easter, May 17, 2009
Acts 10:25-26, 34-35 1 John 4:7-10 John 15:1-8

To the churched and unchurched[1]
gathered in a temple not built by human hands[2]

First reading: Acts 10:25-26, 34-35

When Peter entered, Cornelius met him and, falling at his feet, paid him homage. Peter, however, raised him up, saying, "Get up. I am only a human being." Then Peter proceeded to speak and said, "In truth, I have finally come to see that God has no favorites. Rather, in every nation whoever fears Him and acts uprightly is acceptable to Him."

Second reading: I John 4:7-10

Beloved, let us love one another, because love is of God; everyone who loves is begotten by God and knows God. Whoever is without love does not know God, for God is love. In this way the love of God was revealed to us: God sent His only Son into the world so that we might have life through Him. In this is love: not that we have loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son as expiation for our sins.

Introduction
Benedict’s pilgrimage to the Holy Land

On Friday May 8, 2009 Pope Benedict XVI began a week tour of the Middle East as a self-described "pilgrim of peace." The news media (which claims to know the mind of the Pope) said Benedict wanted to repair the damage he had done to both the Islamic and Jewish communities.

It is true that in 2006 Benedict angered the Islamic community by a lecture given in Regensburg University in Germany. The lecture, which only momentarily dealt with Islam, seemed to suggest that Islam was inherently violent and irrational. Benedict quoted a medieval text which has a Byzantine Christian Emperor saying, “Show me just what Muhammad brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached.” The whole Islamic world rose up in fiery anger against Benedict.

Then in late January of this year, Benedict angered the Jewish community, when he lifted the excommunication of British Bishop Richard Williamson, 68 (with three other breakaway bishops excommunicated by John Paul II in 1988). In an interview with Swedish television Williamson denied the fact of the Holocaust. He said he did not believe that Hitler deliberately set out to murder Jews or that there were gas chambers at the Auschwitz death camp.[3]

To tolerate or to embrace

Benedict’s pilgrimage to the Holy Land was a mission to the three great monotheistic religions of Judaism, Christianity and Islam. In Jerusalem the Pope toured sites sacred to Muslims, Jews and Christians, stressing the common threads of the three faiths. He visited the Dome of the Rock, an Islamic shrine and oldest extant Islamic building in the world. Three years in the building (688- 691), it was built as a deliberate snub to Christians and Jews, whose faith, Islam claimed, had become corrupted and was replaced now by Islam. Mosaics inside contain verses taken from the Koran about misguided Christian belief in the Trinity. At the shrine Benedict said, “Here the paths of the world's three great monotheistic religions meet, reminding us what they share in common."

Benedict was certainly on a mission of tolerance between Jews, Christians and Muslims. But at the end of the day, tolerating one another is really negative and niggardly. On the other hand, a mission to help Jews, Christians and Muslims to accept and embrace one another as brothers and sister in the one family of God’s children is much more positive and generous, and, indeed, much more difficult.

A new approach to Judaism &Islam

Is it possible for Christians to accept and embrace Jews and Muslims as brothers and sister in the one family of God’s children, instead of merely tolerating them or viewing them as `jobs to be done’ -- converts to be made (as a zealous missionary mind-set is accustomed to view them)?
Dr. Joseph Hough, president of Union Theological Seminary in New York, thinks it is possible. He believes that Christians should be capable of something more generous and luminous than simply tolerating Jews and Muslims or viewing them as potential converts. Hough calls Christians to a new theological approach to other religions.

Born into the Calvinist Tradition which stresses the absolute sovereignty of God, he uses that sovereignty in a positive and constructive way. God, he says, is absolutely free to do whatever God wishes to do. God is free to come to us in the person Jesus of Nazareth. That’s what makes Christmas possible. But if we limit God’s freedom to come to us only in the person of Jesus, then our God is no longer free and no longer God. What’s more, that immediately sets us on a slippery slope to intolerance toward other believers or simple dismissal of them.

Hough’s God has the power and the freedom to come to us in any way God chooses. He can come in the form of Jesus Christ or in the form of anyone else He chooses. Hough’s approach frees us Christians from viewing other believers as foreigners and strangers, and it frees us to see them as brothers and sisters in the one family of God’s believers. (Eph 2:19) To be passionately Christian, Hough maintains, it is not necessary for us to believe that God has revealed Himself only in the face of Jesus. We can be passionately Christian without believing that we alone are God’s favorites.

Peter’s great discovery

St. Peter at first believed that Gentiles were unclean and that Jews were God’s unquestionable favorites. St. Peter like St. Paul underwent a great conversion. Acts relates the vision which converted him. One day he went up to the flat roof of his house to pray. It was noon, and he was hungry, but while lunch was being prepared, he fell into a trance and had a vision. He saw the sky open and something like a large sheet coming down and being lowered to the ground by its four corners. In it were all kinds of four-footed creatures and reptiles and birds of the air, which Jews were forbidden to eat. Then Peter heard a voice saying, “Get up, kill and eat! “ “Never, Lord, never!” Peter protested. “I have never in all my life eaten such creatures, for they are forbidden by our Jewish dietary laws.” Then the voice spoke again, “Don’t contradict God! If He says something is kosher then it is kosher!” The same vision was repeated three times. Then the sheet was pulled up into heaven again.

Cornelius, a Roman centurion and Gentile, known for his charities and beloved by the Jewish people, sent for Peter to come to his house to tell him what God wanted of him. Peter came immediately. He addressed a crowd gathered there, saying, “You know it is against Jewish laws for me to enter into a Gentile house like this. But God has shown me in a vision that I should never call any man profane or unclean. So I came as soon as I was summoned. Now tell me what do you want.” Cornelius then told Peter that he and the crowd gathered were anxious to hear some good word from him. Peter did, indeed, deliver a good word to them. He told them about the remarkable change of heart and mind that had come upon him as the result of a vision. He said to them, "In truth, I have finally come to see that God has no favorites. Rather, in every nation whoever fears him and acts uprightly is acceptable to him."

That same theme that God has no favorites is found in Deuteronomy 10:17, II Chronicles 19:7, Job 34:19, Wisdom 6:7, Romans 2:11, Galatians 2:6 and Ephesians 6:9.

Humble Judaism

Christianity (according to some Christians) is God’s favorite. Historically that claim has sent Christian missionaries into the whole world to baptize all nations in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. (Mt 28:19) In the seventh century Islam appeared and claimed that Christianity had lost its favored spot by believing in God as a Trinity of Persons. By Islam’s stout proclamation that "there is no God but Allah, and Mohammed is his prophet" Islam (according to some Muslims) has now replaced Christians as God’s favorites.

Judaism, on the other hand, is different from these two monotheistic religions. It makes no claim to be a favorite. With Peter it professes that God has no favorites. Rather, in every nation whoever fears Him and acts uprightly is acceptable to Him." Accordingly, Judaism feels no feverish need to go forth as missionaries into the whole world. Judaism rests in peace. It lives and lets live. It launches no crusades. It has no infidels to convert or destroy.

Conclusion
A blessed new mindset

We can be passionately Christian and still believe that God doesn’t have a favorite -- that Jews, Christians and Muslims, in fact, are all God’s favorites. What a blessed breath of fresh air that is, and what a blessed new mind-set that bestows on us! It frees us from the slippery slope of intolerance. It allows us to relax, for we don’t have to feverishly work to make the whole world Christian, despite the New Testament’s command to go forth and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.[4] (Mt 28:19) What peace-making that is! It puts an end to Christian crusades and Islamic jihads. How uniting that is! Jews and Muslims are not jobs to be done but people to be loved as God also loves them. Jews and Muslims are not foreigners and strangers but brothers and sisters in the one family of all believers in God. How celebratory that is! At Passover and Ramadan we can celebrate with Jews and Muslims, for the one and same God who has revealed Himself to us has also revealed Himself to them.

[1]] By “the unchurched” is especially meant not those who have left the church institution but those whom the institution has left!

[2] Acts of the Apostles 17:24

[3] Benedict quickly admitted he had made a mistake when he lifted the excommunication of the Holocaust-denying bishop and the Pope humbly promised that in the future the Holy See would better inform Itself by consulting the Internet.

[4] Biblical studies say that is more the command of the early church on the roll for new members than it is of Jesus Himself. The command to baptize “in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit” comes more from the mouth of the liturgy of the early church than from the mouth of Jesus.