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"We Have to Deal with the Real World "
Unison Gospel Reading Matthew 5: 6-10 Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, Unison Reading From the Qu’ran Sura 60:7
Back in the 1980s I preached a sermon outlining what I thought was a faithful response to the civil wars and unrest in Central America. Following the service a parishioner found me in the fellowship hall, stuck his finger in my chest and forcefully stated, “You, young man, are naïve!” I warned the session a few weeks ago that that is a hot button for me. You may call me a lot of names. Please don’t call me ‘naïve.” (It is okay to call me “Young man.”) In conversations about the teachings of Jesus, this is a common theme: naiveté vs. life in the “real” world. Wednesday evening I had a phone call from our 20 year-old son Andy. He is on a semester abroad in Mexico. He was telling me about his religion class. They went way out into the boonies to visit with indigenous peoples. Andy reported, “We heard them talk about the horrible things that happened to them when the so-called “Christian” invaders came to Mexico. They were murdered and raped and their land was stolen from them and they had to flee to the highlands where the land is infertile and they continue in abject poverty to this day, hundreds of years later. They told us about their religion, which is all about being connected to nature and we were invited to participate with them in one of their religious rituals which honored the earth. It all seemed so good, like if people all over the world lived like they did there would be no wars and no pollution and life would be good. It makes it hard to be a Christian.” I said, “You’re right. Over the years those who have called themselves Christians have often made it embarrassing to use the term to describe oneself. Andy, there are loads of examples of people who called themselves Christians doing horrible things: the Crusades, the Inquisition, the Nazis, the treatment of native peoples, the treatment of women, blacks, gays, …It’s beyond embarrassing, it’s tragic.” Then I urged, “Yet, please don’t throw the baby out with the bath.” I noted that a speaker on MPR a year or so ago stated, “For me, Jesus is like Elvis… I like the man, but the fan club creeps me out.” I told Andy that the Church has often been beyond embarrassing. At the same time the Church has done a multitude of marvelous things. Around the world no one has built more schools, hospitals, orphanages, soup kitchens and the like than the Christian Church. Yesterday morning I followed up our conversation with an email to him inviting him to read daily from the Mission Yearbook of Prayer. Back to the phone call, I was about to say, but Andy beat me to it…he said, “Yeah, and I suppose if people actually followed Jesus there wouldn’t be any war or pollution and life would be good.” Exactly. It was G.K. Chesterton who said, “It’s not that Christianity has been tried and found wanting. It has been found difficult and not tried.” That may be overstating the case a bit, but not a lot. Because when things get hard people are too quick to say, “Well, we live in the real world. This Jesus stuff is okay for Sunday school and for personal morality, but…well, friends, this ain’t summer camp.” “This ain’t summer camp.” The “this” may refer to international relations, or business dealings, or societal problems. People, even those who call themselves Christians, are often quick to cast aside the teachings of Jesus because we have to deal with the “real” world. Martin Luther King, Jr., was faced with the intractable problem of racism. And while many said that only violence would get the results needed, King refused to cast aside Jesus. He said that the teachings of Jesus are indeed made for the “real world” and chose the path of suffering love, of forgiveness rather than retribution, and the world was changed. I recently happened across a most fascinating book: A Deadly Misunderstanding: A Congressman’s Quest to Bridge the Muslim-Christian Divide. It is written by Mark Siljander. In the early 1980s he was a very conservative Republican congressman from Michigan who joined Congress in the same generation as Newt Gingrich and Tom DeLay, ready to remake the world. A staunch member of the Religious Right, he once walked out of a diplomatic luncheon associated with the National Prayer Breakfast when the speaker quoted from the Qur’an, the holy scriptures of the Muslims. After six years in Congress he was defeated for re-election. This led him to question a lot of his ideas and he dove into the Bible to seriously study it for the first time. He also dove into the Qu’ran for the first time. He discovered that Christianity and Islam share many base words and concepts. And that Jesus is mentioned 60 times in the Qu’ran. Now, I found this to be a captivating and inspiring book. I didn’t agree with everything in it, but I would love to study it with a group made up of Oak Grovers and Muslims. Siljander recounts many enthralling stories of his interactions with Muslim leaders around the world, as he journeyed to visit them not as a Congressman, but as a private citizen attempting to build bridges of understanding. I encourage you to read it for yourself. One chapter concerns his encounters with leaders in the north African countries of Benin and then Libya. In the late 90s the president of Benin was Mathieu Kerekou. Kerekou’s history is fascinating. He had been a committed Marxist-Leninist dictator for nearly two decades, during which he became friends with Moammar Qaddafi of Libya, but Kerekou had denounced Marxism in 1990 and became the first African dictator to institute a democratic government in his own country. In the mid-90s he became a committed follower of Jesus. Not too long ago, Mathieu told us, there had been a good deal of fighting among the different ethnic and cultural groups. Inspired by the teachings of Jesus and wanting to bring peace to his country, he set in motion an extraordinary chain reaction of reconciliation. He started by establishing a Youth Corps composed of the poorest of the poor. These kids began to learn trades so they could support themselves and, at the same time, to learn about Jesus-not Christianity per se, just the teachings and spirit of Jesus. Soon these youths began traveling from village to village. When they came to a new location, the locals would ask them who their chief was. They would simply reply, “Well, you wouldn’t know him.” After a while the villagers insisted on knowing the identity of it’s this man Jesus.” Before long, several dozen villages had become followers of the teachings of “this man Jesus” and these ideas of love, forgiveness, and reconciliation. Now, our host told us as he beamed with pride about these young goodwill ambassadors, there were thousands of children throughout the country plying their trades and spreading their chief’s ideas…. President Kerekou was now a staunch advocate of a free, democratic state; however, for the two decades before that, he had been just as dedicated a Marxist-Leninist, ruling Benin with all the autocratic gusto of a Tito or a Mao. He knew Castro, Saddam, Arafat, all the revolutionaries and radicals and freedom fighters. As we would put it in Beltway-speak, the man had quite a Rolodex. And among his circle of good friends, naturally, was Colonel Qaddifi. Now, in early 1999, President Kerekou got word to me that he had set up a meeting between myself and Libya’s leader. “I told the Colonel he needs to sit down and talk with you, Mark,” said my friend, and that was that. I agreed to go, and invited Doug to come with me. (Siljander pp. 86-87) Now this was during the aftermath of the bombing of the Pan Am flight over Lockerbie, Scotland in December, 1998. Two members of Libyan intelligence were charged with planting the bomb on the plane. But despite world outcry, Libyan President Moammar Qaddafi refused to extradite the two men. As you recall, economic and diplomatic sanctions were invoked against Libya. “From the United States, in particular, the isolation was absolute: there was no trade with Libya, no diplomatic relations, no talks, nothing. American citizens couldn’t visit Libya even if they wanted to—which nobody did….” (Ibid. pp85-86.) Toward the end of March, 1999, our bags were packed and we were about to leave for our trip when we were informed that President Kerekou of Benin would not be able to accompany us. The US State Dept had learned of our plans and leaned on him not to go or there would be consequences for Benin. But they decided to go ahead with Kerekou, knowing that Qaddafi would be very offended. Colonel Qaddafi was not only offended, he was furious. Livid. He saw our delegation as a flagrant bait-and-switch—which, truthfully, is exactly what it was, though not by our intention—and as Mathieu and I had both feared might happen, he refused to see us. If our head of state would not deign to keep the appointment, why should theirs? If we were coming only with Benin’s foreign minister, then it would be Dr. Omar al-Montasser, Libya’s foreign minister, who would meet with us, and not the colonel himself. It was a bad footing to start on, but at least we were seeing someone very highly placed in the colonel’s inner circle.…. The meeting in Libya began on a difficult note. Dr. al-Montasser raged at the two of us Americans. He said he knew we were there to heckle him about the Lockerbie suspects and he wasn’t interested in talking about it. We told him that was not our intention. Yes it was, he insisted, and he launched into another tirade. A second time, we denied having this agenda, and a third time he lit into us about t. We had lied about coming with President Kerekou, and now we were lying about the purpose of our mission. “Our countries are the worst of enemies, yours and mine,” al Montasser bellowed, “and this is why: you are all liars who lie about everything!” “Our countries may be enemies,” I ventured, “but those of us in this room are not enemies. We have never met you before, and we are here right now with only one purpose.” He glared at me and waited for me to go on, ready to pounce on whatever foolish lie I might next try to put across. “Our entire objective here is friendship. That’s all. We’re here to pursue a new relationship, based on the teachings of Isa—“ That was it. I might as well have tossed a stick of dynamite into his lap. Dr. al-Montasser leapt to his feet and started screaming at us. “What do you think, we’re all Christians here?! What kind of American arrogance do you think—“ “I’m sorry if I’ve offended you,” I interjected, “but Christianity doesn’t have 100 percent ownership of Jesus—I was referring to Isa al-Masih, the Isa of the Qur’an.” (90-91) “Surely not all I should,” I said, doing my best to convey a calm I did not feel. “But I am striving to learn more of your holy book. I know that sura 60:7, for example, says, ‘Allah will put friendship between you and those who have been your enemies. Allah is mighty, forgiving and merciful.’ And sura 42:40 tells us, “Whoever forgives and amends, he shall have his reward from Allah.’” Dr. al-Montasser turned red and a vein stood out on his neck; I was sure he would either have a stroke or strangle me with his bare hands, whichever came first. “So,” he screamed into my face, “you come to ‘forgive’us? Is that your position? You have the audacity to come here and on out own soil—“ “No,” I interjected, “not to offer our forgiveness—to ask you for yours.” The place fell as silent as a tomb. Al-Montasser stared at me. He opened his mouth, then slowly closed it again without making a sound. I was sure that if I said another word, he would explode—but I had to go on. “What I’m saying is, in the spirit of these and other suras of the Qur’an, and in the spirit of the teachings of Isa, I am asking your forgiveness for our country’s killing of Colonel Qaddifi’s daughter Hanna. The bombing raid that took her life happened during my service in Congress, and I fell complicit in this terrible event. I am so sorry.” He stared at me, mute and gaping. Had he not heard me? The color drained from his face. He slumped back into his chair, still staring at me in disbelief. At the end of our audience, as Dr. al-Montasser walked us to the door, he leaned toward me and quietly said, “You will have good news in ten days.” I glanced at him in surprise. “Whatever you do is completely up to you,” I replied. “Just know that we are here to establish a small island of friendship in a sea of mistrust.” He nodded, and that was the end of our encounter. Ten days later, Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al-Megrahi and Al Amin Khalifa Fhimah, the Lockerbie suspects, were handed over for transport to the Netherlands to stand trial. After our midnight flight to Tripoli, strange things happened in Libya. Later that year, Qaddafi pledged Libya’s commitment to help fight al-Qaeda, and offered to voluntarily open his weapons program to international inspections. In fact, Qaddafi changed course rather dramatically, earning a reputation as a moderating figure, African elder statesman, and –of all things—humanitarian who has done much to improve the lives of poverty-stricken sub-Saharan Africans. He has been praised by—of all people—his longtime friend Nelson Mandela. Following the events of September 11, 2001, the fearsome Colonel Qaddafi made one of the first and strongest public condemnations of the attacks by any Muslim leader. On May 15, 2006, the U.S. State Department announced that it would restore full diplomatic relations with Libya. (94-97) People talked to each other in a spirit of respect and reconciliation, in the Spirit of Jesus from the Bible, Isa from the Qu’ran, and the world was changed. On March 14 you will have the chance to talk to each other about the stained glass windows. In a spirit of respect and openness. And together we will seek the Spirit’s leading. What would Jesus do? Jesus isn’t just pie in the sky for the great by and by. He’s all about how we live our lives right now in the real world. And to him be the honor and the glory and the praise, now and forever. Amen
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