ED
Richard: A very beautiful video and very inspiring message from Australian
priest Father Dave. My own personal view is that Christians have far
more in common with Muslims,
who revere Jesus–not as the son of God, certainly, as do Christians, but
as a prophet whose life and teachings are worthy of admiration and respect,
than with Jews, whose
Talmud denigrates Jesus and insults his mother, Mary. And I suspect Father Dave
would probably not strongly disagree with me on that, although this is not the message he is trying, per
se, to get across here. What he is saying is that we need to try to move beyond
tribalism and to realize that “we’re all in this together,” as he puts it.
Certainly
the more discerning amongst us realize the great truth in that. Whether the
Zionists running the US and Israel will ever evolve to this level of spiritual
understanding is doubtful, although as the saying goes, “with God anything is
possible.” The main thing to keep in mind, though, is that we all need to love
and care for each other, just as the Samaritan did for the man lying on the
road, and that if we want to get off the path to destruction that we’re on now,
this is the way to go about it.
[What
follows in printed form is the address I gave at the Arrahman Mosque,
Kingsgrove, on September 27th. It was a great night and was captured
beautifully in the video tribute put together by the guys from the mosque.
Sheikh Jehad Ismail is a beautiful man. I hope to work closely with him in the
future in building bridges of community and understanding.]
Salaam
Aleykum, Peace.
In the name
of God, merciful and compassionate (bismi-llāhi r-raḥmāni r-raḥīm), and with respect to the traditional
custodians of this land (elders past and present), let me thank all of you, my
brothers and sisters, for the gracious hospitality you have shown me this
evening and for your warm welcome.
I bring you
greetings too from my Archbishop ~ his grace, Rev. Dr Glen Davies. The
Archbishop asked me specifically to pass on his salaams to you, as he asked me
to share with you his hope that our common belief in a God of peace might lead
to greater peace and understanding between our communities.
I read a
book recently entitled “Why did Jesus, Moses, the Buddha, and Mohammed Cross
the Road?” It’s a book by American Christian social
activist Brian McLaren about Christian identity in a multi-faith world, and I
thought it was a very good book. Indeed, I it is one that I think almost
everyone here would enjoy so long as they could get beyond the apparently
irreverent title.
The title,
which most readers would appreciate is a play on a very ancient joke about
chickens crossing roads, doesn’t really have a lot to do with the book as a
whole. Even so, the author does begin by asking us to imagine what it would be
like if these four characters did cross a road together.
I appreciate
that it is an entirely fanciful image. Even so, can we imagine what it would be
like if Jesus, Moses, the Buddha, and Mohammed found themselves on one side of
a road together, each preparing to cross? I think it impossible to imagine
exactly what would happen but I think we can be very sure as to what would NOT
happen. A fight would NOT break out!
We cannot
imagine Jesus saying to Mohammed ‘you must cross behind me’ any
more than we can imagine the three monotheists shouldering out the Buddha and
telling him that he’d better find a road of his own to cross!
It is a
fanciful scenario, but I imagine that if such a crossing were to take place
these men might not only cross the road together but might then sit down and
break bread together! They might discuss God and life at length and perhaps
they would disagree with each other on some matters (indeed, I suspect that the
Buddha might find himself constantly on the defensive) but I think we all know
with complete confidence that any such discussion would take place in an
environment of mutual respect and openness.
The obvious
question then that this scenario brings to mind is, ‘if we all know
full well that Jesus, Moses, the Buddha and Mohammed would show
respect to each other if they met, why do their followers have so
much difficulty doing the same thing?’
‘Tribalism’ is the answer to that question, I believe.
Tribalism is
the great enemy of inter-faith dialogue. Indeed, I would suggest that tribalism
is the greatest enemy that religion itself faces ~ not just Islam or
Christianity or any particular religion but all religion.
Throughout history, religion of every brand has shown a tendency to degenerate
into tribalism, and every time religion degenerates into tribalism we find that
instead of the signs of the presence of God we find intolerance, violence and
war!
Tribalism is
allowing your faith to divide the world into us and them. It
is supporting your faith in the same way you support a football team. You go to
the games, you put on the colours, you cheer for your team, and you come to a
very self-conscious awareness of your identity as a supporter of your team in
contrast to them – the supporters of the others teams whom you
might be tempted to despise!
I am a
supporter of the Newtown Jets Rugby League team. Some
Sydney-siders might not have even heard of the Jets as we are
not now in the first grade Rugby League competition. We were in the first grade
though when I was a teenager, and that’s when I started supporting theJets.
For those
who don’t know, the Jets are still playing in the New
South Wales Cup competition, and I’m happy to say that we still have a
strong following, especially amongst old die-hards like myself ~ the over 50’s
brigade who have been following the Jets since we were boys!
And one of
the most fascinating things about being involved in Jets-supporters gatherings
is that you find the old rivalries never die! Us old die-hard supporters still
think of our team as a group of battlers ~ a working-class team from a working
class suburb, and this despite the fact that Newtown is now anything but a
working class suburb and our team is made up almost entirely of imported Pacific
Islanders (like most of the other teams)!
What
this demonstrates very well, I think, is that you can be a tribal supporter of
your team without knowing anything about your team. Indeed, you can be a
die-hard tribal supporter of your football team without knowing anything about
football! All that is required is that you turn up to the games, wear the
colours, and cheer loudly for your team, boo the other team, and curse the
referee whenever a decision goes against you (even when the decision was entirely
legitimate).
This is the
essence of tribalism, I think, and it’s not a serious problem when football is
the focus, and yet it becomes very serious when people treat their religion
with the same level of superficiality. I can proudly assert myself as a Christian without
knowing anything about Christianity and without displaying any of
the signs of a genuine disciple of Jesus Christ. I thus define my identity with
reference to my tribe and equally with reference to the tribes I am not a part
of!
Being a Christian means
that I am NOT a Muslim or a Jew or a
Buddhist or an Atheist. If you ask me what I know
about Islam or Judaism or Buddhism or Atheism I
probably know even less about these other religions than I do about my own
religion, and I probably won’t feel very comfortable talking about any of that
unless, of course, it is with ‘one of us’ ~ another
like-minded person from my tribe who will reinforce me in my identity and
remind me that whatever it is that these other tribes might believe, we know
that it is inferior to what we believe (whatever that is)!
Now … I
don’t mean to be simplistic. A degree of tribalism ~ a degree of us and them ~
is unavoidable in religion, and indeed it may even be desirable!
Tribalism
is a part of the horizontal dimension of religion ~ that
aspect of religion that binds us to each other ~ in contrast with the vertical
dimension that binds us to God, and I think we all want to affirm the
importance of the communal dimension of faith.
Religious
faith, properly conceived, is never simply a private affair. It always has a
communal dimension. Our fellowship with like-minded worshippers and our common
identity as a community of faith is as essential a part of Islam as it is of
Christianity and of Judaism. Even so, I think we all recognise that our
communal identity as a people of faith (the horizontal dimension)
can only properly be built upon a genuine vertical axis where there
is a real relationship with the Almighty.
It is when
we lose the relationship with Almighty God altogether but maintain our tribal
identity that our faith degenerates into the kind of tribalism we see unfolding
so tragically across our world.
What we see
with the so-called ‘Islamic State’, for instance, is an example of
tribalism at its worst, and it bears the two common characteristics of what I
might call ‘extreme tribalism’:
~ Firstly,
the tribe is defined with extreme rigidity. You don’t simply have to be a
Muslim but a Sunni Muslim with the right sort of Sunni Muslim doctrine.
~ Secondly,
extreme and disciplined religious piety is substituted for a genuine
relationship with God.
This second point is a personal observation and is a reflection, I think, of
the way that people with political power always operate in our world.
They say
that there is always a direct relationship between the number of times words
like ‘democratic’ appear in your country’s name and the lack
of actual democracy in that country. In other words, if you call your country ‘the
true and democratic people’s republic of …’ you can be sure that
you’re dealing with a totalitarian dictatorship.
Similarly,
when any government wants to conquer and destroy another country and steal
their resources they will always talk in terms of ‘liberating’ the
people and acting out of a ‘humanitarian concern’.
Similarly,
when a tyrant wants to commit godless atrocities and establish a merciless and
tyrannical state we can be we can be sure that he will embed his actions in
obsequious religious rhetoric about the mercy of God and do his best to appear
as the most pious of men!
In the New
Testament it says that the signs of the presence of the Spirit of God are ‘love,
joy, health and peace’ (Galatians 5:22), and I think we would
recognise that these signs of the presence of the Spirit of God are as absent
from the ‘Islamic State’ of Al Baghdadi as they were from the ‘Christian
state’ established in the same land by the Christian ‘Crusaders’ many
centuries earlier.
When
tribalism is all you’ve got, religion degenerates into savagery. For those of
us though who wish to build our tribal identity around a genuine relationship
with God, the question that needs to be answered is ‘how should we
relate to persons of other religious tribes?’ and this is the question
that I want to devote the rest of my time to this evening ~ at least with
regards to how Christians should behave.
As to how
Muslims should treat persons of other tribes and faiths, I will not presume to
answer. I will leave that to my dear brother, Sheikh Jihad, and to other
Sheikhs and experts in Islam. My focus will be on how followers of Jesus should
treat persons from other religious traditions, as I believe the Lord Jesus
spelt this out for his followers very clearly.
In the Gospel
according to Saint Luke, chapter 10, it is recorded that a teacher of
religious law came to Jesus with what is perhaps the most fundamental of all
religious questions ~ “What must I do to inherit eternal life?” To
this the answer was given,
These were
words quoted by Jesus from the Torah ~ the law of God
(from Deuteronomy 6:5 and Leviticus 19:18 to be exact).
The lawyer
though, we are told, was looking for a loophole (as one might expect for a man
in his profession) and so he asked Jesus “but who is my neighbour?”
The religion
of the Jews, then as now, was very tribal. There was a very strong sense of us and them, and
if you look at the verse from the Torah that Jesus was quoting, it is clear
there that the ‘neighbours ‘being referred to were other Jews.
This helps
us understand why this man of religion asked for clarification from Jesus as to
who his neighbour was. When the commandment was originally given, it was given
to a relatively isolated and homogeneous Jewish society. Times had changed and
the Jews were now living under occupation in a relatively cosmopolitan society.
They were constantly interacting not only with fellow Jewish believers but with
Greeks and Romans as well as with persons from various other countries from
across the region. The lawyer therefore
wanted Jesus to confirm for him that the love that God commanded him to show to
others need only be extended to members of his own tribe.
And Jesus
told him a story:
“A man fell
victim to robbers as he went down from Jerusalem to Jericho. They stripped and
beat him and went off leaving him half-dead” (Luke
10:30)
Perhaps you
have heard this story before. Perhaps you have not. It is known amongst
Christians as the ‘Parable of the Good Samaritan’ and I’ve
been hearing this story read and reflected upon since my youth.
What comes
next in the story is that various good religious people ~ persons like the man
questioning Jesus ~ came upon the scene and they ‘pass by on the other
side’ without helping the injured man.
“Now by
chance a priest was going down that road; and when he saw [the injured man], he passed by on the other side. 32 So likewise a
Levite, when he came to the place and saw him, passed by on the other side.” (Luke
10:31-32)
As I say,
I’ve been hearing this story read and reflected upon since my youth, and I can
tell you that it is a popular pastime amongst Christian preachers at this point
to speculate upon why these religious figures did not help the suffering man.
~ Perhaps
they were running late for a synagogue service?
~ Perhaps it
was because they feared that the man might be dead and hence ritually unclean
if they touched him?
~ Perhaps
they feared that the criminals who had attacked this man were still lying in
wait and would pounce on them if they hung around?
~ Perhaps
indeed the whole thing was a setup and the apparently half-dead man was really
in good health and only acting as bait?
These and
various other scenarios are ones that are often suggested. It was my friend
Stephen Sizer though, whom I met up with earlier this year in Tehran, who
pointed out to me that Jesus has already told us exactly why these clerical
figures did not stop to help – it was because the man had been left ‘stripped’ and ‘half
dead’.
The
assailed man was naked and unconscious, and because he was naked and
unconscious these good religious Jews had no way of telling whether the poor
man was a member of their tribe ~ whether he was one of us or one
of them!
These are
the ways you distinguish between us and them. We
distinguish people by their clothes and by their accents.
That’s as true in today’s context as it was then!
Whenever, as
a Christian, I see a woman in a hijab ~ she is one of them!
Conversely, of course, many of you may think ‘ah, she is one of us!’ Conversely,
whenever I hear that lovely Aussie ‘how ya goin’ mate’ I know he’s ‘one
of us’, whereas for many here your immediate reaction may be ‘Ah!
He’s one of them!’
In 2004 I
made my one and only trip to Israel. I went to see my dear friend Mordechai Vanunu when he was released from
prison. For those who don’t know Morde, he was the man who told the world about
the secret Israel nuclear stockpile and indeed published a series of
photographs from inside the Dimona nuclear reactor in the London Sunday Times
in 1986.
Morde served
18 years in Ashkelon prison for his ‘crimes’ and I almost got
killed by going to see him when he was released. My visit though was covered by
Australian TV’s “Foreign Correspondent”, and the team there were
good enough to allow me the services of their driver who drove me around and
ferried through various checkpoints in his taxi without every once being
stopped by the soldiers at those checkpoints.
I asked the
driver (whose name was also David) why the soldiers never stopped him. He told
me it was because they knew he was Jewish and not Palestinian. “But how
can they tell?” I naively asked him, as I didn’t think his complexion
make it obvious. He told me that Palestinian taxis always had more bling in
them (hanging from the rear-view mirror, etc.) and that if the soldiers had any
doubts they only had to casually greet him, as once they heard his accent it
would remove any doubts.
This is how
we tell if someone is one of us or one of them ~ we listen to the way they talk
and we look at the way they dress (and the way they deck out their taxis).
Jesus makes clear though that the man in the parable not only has no taxi but
no clothes and he cannot speak, and hence he has no way of communicating to
those who might be in a position to help him whether he is a neighbour, a
brother, a sister, a friend, one of us or one of them ~ in other words, whether
he is worthy of their time or whether he is somebody else’s problem.
The man in
Jesus’ story is naked and unconscious, and so the good religious Jews can’t
tell whether he’s a Jew or a Palestinian. He could even be a Roman for all they
know! He could have been an Australian!
Well … he probably couldn’t have been an Australian as a 1st Century Australian
would have had a distinctive complexion, and he definitely would have been ‘one
of them’ (as he generally still is in white Australian society today).
The hero in
Jesus’ story is a Samaritan ~ a Palestinian of sorts and most
definitely ‘one of them’!
“But a
Samaritan traveller who came upon [the beaten man] was moved with compassion at
the sight. He approached the victim, poured oil and wine over his wounds and
bandaged them. Then he lifted him up on his own animal, took him to an inn and
cared for him. The next day he took out two silver coins and gave them to the
innkeeper with the instruction, ‘Take care of him. If you spend more than what
I have given you, I shall repay you on my way back.’”” (Luke 10:33-35)
This ‘outsider’ is
really too good to be true, and this is the sting in the tail of the story. He
is one of them and yet he knows how one of us should behave better than we do
ourselves. Just when we thought that we knew where to draw the line between light and dark and good and
bad and us and them we find one of them clearly
displaying the presence of the Spirit of God better than any of us.
And we had been so sure up to that point that God was one of us!
I will leave
Jesus’ story there but I hope you have caught the sting in the tail of this
story. It is a story that blurs the lines between us and them.
The hero is one of them. The characters who are a part of our tribe
fail miserably to do what is right and have to learn from the godliness of the
man from the other tribe, and indeed that man’s godliness is seen in the very
fact that he does not seem to care whose tribe you are a member of! He acts in
love regardless of tribe, and Jesus concludes the story by saying to the man
who questioned him “Go and do likewise!”
As I say, I
think it is entirely clear for followers of Jesus as to how we should behave
towards persons from other faiths and tribes and religious traditions. What
Jesus teaches us is that love does not recognise tribal boundaries!
Sisters and
brothers, moving beyond tribalism is not easy, and if we look around our world
we will find no shortage of reasons to view members of other tribes with
suspicion and fear. Even so, as the Apostle John said “perfect love
casts our all fear” (1 John 4:18) and we can move beyond fear and
beyond tribalism to follow a God of love ~ moving beyond us and them and
recognising that in the end it’s just us!
For we are all in this together. We are all God’s children ~ all of us! Salaam
Aleichem.
The Palestinian national soccer team, a source of pride for many,
has been under attack by the Israeli state. (AP Photo/Tara
Todras-Whitehill) ED Noor: Whenever they attack the Gaza Strip, one of the first places to be destroyed is the soccer stadium just as a matter of principal. 
