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God’s In Sight
By Administrator | July 19, 2007
A sermon based on 1 Kings 17:8-24
June 10, 2007 at Palm Bay, FL
by Scott Elliott
I am a little bit worried this morning, you see in order for my sermon illustration to work I need you to imagine a mountain top. My concern is that I am told that the highest natural point in Florida is about 345 feet above sea level.
Does anybody know what this point is called? It’s called Britton Hill.
While 345 feet may seem like an impressive geographic feature to us here in Florida, it’s not a mountain.(In fact I wonder about that hill designation – on the Oregon coast where I come from we’d call that a sand dune).
What I need is for you to picture an imaginary mountain. A place, we’ll call Mt. Faith.
A mountain very high above the valley, so high that a body can see in one direction for what seems like forever.
And it’s not easy to get up the mountain, but it can be done through various routes each leading to a different place on the mountain top.
In fact on the mountain top there are places to sit with vistas for all the faiths of the world – giving each a unique view. One place looks out over a winding river snaking though a valley far below. Another looks at a series of distant blue snow capped mountains continuing on past the horizon. Another’s vista is of a lush dense forest stretching for miles and miles– as far as the eye can see. Three are as any other views on that mountain, I’ve only listed a few.
No two faiths share the same view, but, each has more to look at and contemplate and consider than can be absorbed in a lifetime.
Imagine now that all the world is God. Each one of those faith routes leads to a view of God, but no faith sees the same view from it’s place on the mountain. The faith that sees the river would understand God differently that the faith that sees the forest or the one that sees mountains. Each view would be of God, just not all of God.
If the various faiths would swap stories or share views the people on that mountain could learn a little more about God than their experiences from their own views provide them. But even then all of God could never be comprehended. God’s existence expands way beyond the view of humans on the mountain called faith.
Christianity throughout history has spent a lot of time making the claim that its view of God is the only view of God. In fact it’s been asserted that it is the only route to God.
But even our bible stories suggest there are other views and ways to experience God.
What’s more the Bible teaches that God has long respected and honored people of other faiths.
Today’s lectionary reading from 1 Kings is one such story. All of Israel is in a drought and God sends Elijah not to Israel but to Zarephath. More specifically Elijah is to go to a widow in Zarephath to perform miracles which not only rescue her and her child from starvation, but, actually raise the child from the dead.
And that woman from Zarephath has faith, not Jewish faith, but faith in God, and respect for Elijah as one who speaks the word of God.
God’s nature is love (1 Jn 4:08), so is it really a surprise that God would tend to those of other faiths? That God would love them too?
We are told quite often in this place that we are called to love not just God, but everyone, that is, ourselves, our neighbors and our enemies. Such a comprehensive umbrella of love covers the poor and oppressed to be sure, but it also covers those of other faiths, whether considered neighbors or enemies, or lowly widows in places like Zarephath .
The nature of God shown in Jesus includes holding dialogue with other faiths, respecting and loving people of other faiths too.
For example, when the non-Jewish Canaanite woman convinces Jesus to provide her with equal access to his healing gifts we are told that Jesus helped the Canaanite woman because he respected her faith, not because she converted to his (Mt 15:28).
In addition to rewarding the faith of the Canaanite woman Jesus also affirmed that other ways besides following him were viable paths to God and God’s realm.
In Matthew 15 Jesus indicates that he did not come to abolish the Old Testament commandments and then he clearly validates Judaism and the commandments by declaring that ” whoever does [the commandments] and teaches them will be called great in the kingdom of heaven.”
Later in Matthew’s story of the sheep and goats Jesus goes so far as to claim that anyone and any nation that cares for others is on the path to God and will be rewarded for it. Remember the story? The Son of Man has gathered all the nations and to those he has put on his right he says:
“Come, you that are blessed by my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world; for I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me, I was naked and you gave me clothing, I was sick and you took care of me, I was in prison and you visited me.” Then the righteous will answer him, “Lord, when was it that we saw you hungry and gave you food, or thirsty and gave you something to drink? And when was it that we saw you a stranger and welcomed you, or naked and gave you clothing? And when was it that we saw you sick or in prison and visited you?”And the king will answer them, “Truly I tell you, just as you did it to one of the least of these who are members of my family, you did it to me.”
And just to prove to you that sometimes lawyers know what they are talking about in Luke 10 a lawyer says ‘’Teacher . . .what must I do to inherit eternal life?'’ [and Jesus] said to him, ‘’What is written in the law? What do you read there?'’ [The lawyer] answered, ‘’You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your strength, and with all your mind; and your neighbor as yourself.'’ And [Jesus] said to him, ‘’You have given the right answer; do this, and you will live.'’
To make his point Jesus – and the lawyer– both declare that a good neighbor is the non-Jew Samaritan whom we know as The Good Samaritan And it’s no accident that the story requires a Jewish man to let the Samaritan, a person of another faith, tend to his woundedness, to be his savior if it that is what it takes.
This ties in nicely with Jesus’ claim that anyone, anyone who feeds the hungry, clothes the naked, tends to the sick or visits the imprisoned will be in the Kingdom of God (Mt 5:19; 15:21-28, 25:31; Lk 10:25-28).
In other words, Jesus’ nature respects non-Christian paths to God. Jesus’ love, God’s love, extends beyond those we think of as “of our faith.”
Elijah tends to the non-Jew Zarephath woman and she sees through his actions that he is a man of God. Jesus tends to the non-Jew Canaanite woman and she sees through his action and he through hers that each is a person of faith. Jesus and Elijah in these stories respect people of other faiths. Surely God does too.
Of course both Elijah and Jesus also challenged leaders of other faiths. Elijah takes on Baal’s priests and royalty who did not honor God by being righteous or by doing justice. Jesus challenges leaders of faiths – temple elite, Pharisees, Sadducees and even the representatives of the Roman cult– none of whom were honoring God. But both Elijah and Jesus honor and respect people of other faiths.
You don’t have to be a Yahwehist for Yahweh to do miracles for you, as the widow in Zarephath finds out.
You don’t have to be a Jew or a Jesus follower for God to do miracles for you, as the Canaanite woman finds out.
God is God.
In Exodus we are told that when Moses asked for God’s name God responded: “I Am Who I Am.”
All our quibbling over what we think God is won’t change that.
God is who God is.
And God it seems can be seen, can be righteously followed others.
It’s as if all of God’s people have climbed different paths up a mountain each way leading to a different look out over a vast expanse of creation, of God. Each faith with a different view of God.
If it is true that different bits of God are seen and not seen by faiths of the world.
Imagine what might happen if religions talked with one another and actually considered what others were viewing, we all might just learn more about God, and certainly more about our neighbors.
People might turn to one another and echo the words of the Zarephath widow: “Now I know you are a person of God, and that the word of the Lord is in your mouth.”
Who knows what might happen if we started honoring other faiths. Hate might start losing ground. Love might start gaining ground. We might know God a little better.
Rumi, the great 13th century Muslim poet, did not use a mountain metaphor, but a large animal to speak to this idea. Listen to his 800 year old poem called Elephant in the Dark :
Some Hindus have an elephant to show.
No one here has ever seen an elephant.
They bring it at night to a dark room.
No one here has ever seen an elephant.
They bring it at night to a dark room.
One by one, we go in the dark and come out
saying how we experience the animal.
saying how we experience the animal.
One of us happens to touch the trunk.”A water-pipe kind of creature.”
Another, the ear. “A very strong, always moving back and forth, fan-animal.”
Another, the leg. “I find it still, like a column on a temple.”
Another touches the curved back.”A leathery throne.”
Another, the cleverest, feels the tusk.”A rounded sword made of porcelain.”
He’s proud of his description.
Each of us touches one place and understands the whole in that way.
The palm and the fingers feeling in the dark are how the senses explore the reality of the elephant.
If each of us held a candle there, and if we went in together, we could see it.
Whether we chat on a mountain about what we see or speak in the light about what we feel, God in the nature of Jesus and Elijah calls us to honor other faiths, those other routes to views of the Sacred. AMEN.
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