Of Change and Farewells

 

Endings can be hard.  I’m in the midst of writing my final sermon as an Associate Minister at the Interfaith Community Church in Ballard.  I’ve been at ICC for four years.  Good people.  I will miss them.  I will miss the ministers I have worked with and learned from these past four years. 

 

Yes, starting a new church is exciting.  And the Living Interfaith Church is already taking good form and taking off.  And yes, I was careful to locate the church in a different county from the Interfaith Community Church.  We, if you will, are Interfaith north.  They are Interfaith south.  Though the occasional person will migrate up here from King County, and the occasional person will migrate down there from Snohomish County, we are really at the perfect distance.  Far enough away not to compete with each other, yet close enough to cooperate and do things jointly when the spirit moves.

 

Yet still, it is hard. 

 

An ending to something stressful, or something uncomfortable, an ending to a situation that once was right but is no longer … these endings can be a relief and cause for celebration. 

 

But I have loved working at Interfaith Community Church.  I leave only because the opportunity has presented itself to have two Interfaith churches in Western Washington.  And it is my hope that as people realize the positive effect of two Interfaith churches, that the two will soon become four and then eight.  My hope is that as we chart our progress on this website, others, around the country and around the world may think to themselves, “Yeah.  We could do that.” 

 

For months, the task of starting a new church seemed rather scary.  To be honest, it still is a bit scary from time to time.  But scary, it turns out, isn’t as hard to face as I thought it might be.  It’s  leaving people you love – not because you’ve stopped loving them but because the time has come to move on – this is hard.

 

Hard too that some have taken it personally.  Suddenly, nothing I can do or say can be seen other than through the prism of my leaving.

 

Off all the leave-takings the past six years, this one is by far the hardest.  I left the view home I had lived in for fifteen years, for a rental house to afford seminary, and never looked back.  I left the cocoon of seminary and never looked back.  Having thought I would be a UU minister, I left the program to become an Interfaith minister and never looked back. 

 

But leaving Interfaith Community Church is different.  It is my family.  I think that’s really it.  It’s like leaving home.  Not angrily storming out.  Still loving deeply your family.  But nonetheless, realizing that the time has come to leave.  And it’s hard.

 

Somehow I need to put into words both how excited and happy I am to be starting a new Interfaith church; and yet at the same time how difficult it is for me to leave my family.  How much I love, appreciate, and will always remember my friends at Interfaith Community Church.  And,  how I hope I’ll be invited back from time to time, as a friend, to lead a service.   I would like that.  Very much. J

Why Interfaith, Why Now?

 

I guess it’s the history buff in me, but as I look around I can’t help being reminded of the “bread and circuses” of Rome.  To be honest, it’s more circus than bread.  The foundational philosophy behind it all seems to be this: keep people distracted enough and you can get away with almost anything.

 

Right now we’re distracted.  We’re incredibly distracted.  We are distracted by fear.  We are distracted by what we see as an overwhelming need to take care of ourselves.  There’s a hauntingly appropriate line from Aaron Sorkin’s “The American President” that keeps coming back to me.  The people distracting us are incredible good at telling us two things: “What to fear, and who to blame.”

 

So we are blaming, and we are fearing, and, if you’ll forgive some minister-type talk, we are mortgaging not only our homes and our children’s futures, but our souls.

 

And there’s so much to distract us! 

 

We are just beginning to peek up over the corners of what has been called “The Great Recession.”  Massive unemployment.  Who should we blame!?

 

We are involved in two wars.  Two wars that soak up not only the blood of our youth but vast amounts of our treasury.  Who should we blame!?

 

We have just emerged from a bruising fight over health care.  Health care finally passed, but because the fight was so bruising, the reform is limited.  Who should we blame!?

 

We have an oil disaster in the Gulf of Mexico that is annihilating wildlife, and the livelihoods of thousands who depend on a clean gulf for fishing and for tourism.  Who should we blame!?

 

There is a battle raging that boggles the mind.  Some scream that government is the problem.  Others scream that government is the answer.

 

I disagree with both.  I think we are the problem, and we are also the answer.  Us, nobody else.  The curse of a democracy is that “we the people” bear the responsibility. 

 

An overwhelming majority of us voted for “change” a few years ago.  Now a whole lot of people are upset at how little has changed.  But we did not elect a Dictator in 2008, we elected a President.  If we truly want change, it must first come from within us.  And that hasn’t happened.  We haven’t changed.  Not a whit. 

 

WE are the ones who need to break our own addiction to oil, if we are going to demand that our government do so.  WE are the ones who need to vote with our dollars, demanding ethics and environmental responsibility from any distributor of food or manufacturer of a product we would use.  Instead, what we demand is “cheap.”  And I would submit that “cheap” has never been more expensive than it is today.

 

We need a spiritual renewal: not by “others” but from within ourselves.  We need a spiritual commitment to our brothers and sisters in pain.  We need a spiritual commitment to our common humanity, which means a commitment to responsible, rather than to cheap.

 

And to support that spiritual renewal we need to develop a community that recognizes our common humanity, while it not only acknowledges but celebrates our beautiful differences.  Interfaith can do that.

 

Interfaith is NOT the only answer.  But it is a viable one.  We need to come together.  We need to pray together, work together and renew our spirits together.  Today we live in an “us” vs. “them” culture.  I believe we must change that.  And that change can only come from within.

 

I believe we must move from a culture that says, “I am a success if I can feed my family well, and live in a nice house,” to a culture that says, “I cannot be a success if my neighbor is hungry.”  And that change too can only come from within.

 

John Donne put it, “Any man’s death diminishes me, for I am involved with mankind.”

 

Why Interfaith?  If you are Christian, do you truly understand what a Muslim, Jew, or Humanist believes?  And if you do not understand it, how can you respect it?  If you are Muslim, do you truly understand what a Christian, Jew or Humanist believes?  And if you do not understand it, how can you respect it?  And if you are Humanist and do not understand, or Baha’i or Buddhist and do not understand: how can you truly respect our common humanity?

 

Interfaith is built upon three pillars: compassion, understanding and respect.  We need all three.  We need them now.  And, it seems to me, we need them with increasing urgency.

Of Two Minds

 

It’s a bit like our services, when we spend time both with our joys and our concerns.  I’m of two minds today: one part joy, and one part concern.

 

My joy is our church.  We had our fourth service last Sunday.  It continues to be so beautiful.  The core of the service came from the readings.  Five different people reading from five differing texts.  One was from the words of Bahaullah (the founder of the Baha’i faith).  One was from the Urantia Book.  One was from the Qur’an.  One was from Hebrew Scripture.  And one was from the poetry of Patrick Overton.  All of the texts contained great truths and all of the texts were not only spiritually inspiring but of particular meaning to the reader.

 

What a joy to hear and learn from each other’s “Scripture.”  I realized, after our always spirited potluck discussions, that my definition of “Scripture” varies from what the dictionary says.  The dictionary sees “Scripture” as not only authoritative, but usually as referring specifically to what others will call The Bible.  For me, however, Scripture is a spiritual text that a person turns to for truths (not THE truth, but truths).  But I guess that’s the Interfaith in me.  For me, our Scriptures are our sources for spiritual truths, what we turn to for guidance and comfort.

 

Why this is an important difference I tried to make clear in the sermon.  I referred to a blog entry of a few weeks ago.  My Scripture is what is usually referred to as Hebrew Scripture.  It is the Scripture of my heritage and of my heart.  But in it is the story of the Towel of Babel – which explains our various cultures and languages by saying God was afraid of us becoming too strong and building a tower to Heaven, and so we were scattered.  That makes no sense to me.  I find more value in what is said in Islamic Scripture: The Qur’an.  Here our differences are seen as a positive motivation from God: so we can get to know one another. 

 

I see no conflict with a person’s Scripture being Buddhist, or Humanist, or drawn from a particular set of poems.  If it helps us, if it comforts us, if it guides us towards the Universal Golden Rule, that, to me, is what is important.  And to listen to five special and differing Scriptures was a delight and true joy.  I look forward to our next service, in July.  Where we'll hear a Christian reading and ?

 

NOW, to my concern.  I found myself today being drawn back into “the old me.”  The Better World Shopping Guide (once again, I strongly recommend it!) reminds us that we “vote” for the world we want to live in with every dollar we spend.  But the “save a buck” mentality is strong.  The “bargain” mentality is strong.  And it keeps seeping back into my life.

 

I don’t think it’s as simple as this alone, but far too often in seems like “save a buck” and “save the environment” are at odds.  “Save a buck” and “save people from being exploited” are at odds.  If the world is only about me, then “save a buck” makes sense.  But if I want to practice what I preach (literally, for me!), then I have to keep moving away from the “save a buck” mentality I was raised with, and have clung to for so much of my life. 

 

I bring it up, yet again, because it appears to be a constant battle that I must wage.  It is not only an inward battle, but a battle with the culture in which I live. 

 

It is NOT about me.  It IS about us.  And I need to remind myself of that every time I go to a store: whether to buy shoes, or food, or whatever.  “What’s the best buy for me?” isn’t the question.  “What’s the best buy for us, for humanity?”  That is what I struggle to keep in mind.  And if I’m going to criticize BP for it’s actions, then I darned well better be sure that my own actions fit my sermons. 

Living Our Interfaith

 

This Sunday, the Living Interfaith Church will have its fourth service.  At one and the same time it flashes in my mind “So many?” as well as “So few?”

 

I think “so many?” when I pause to think that less than a year ago, this was only an idea, a dream, an “if only it were possible” sort of hope.  And yet things came together, and by that I mean people came together.  There’s been no publicity.  Yet we are averaging ten or so people a service.  People from differing spiritual paths.  People not only willing but eager to be a part of a safe space that allows each of us the opportunity to be who we are.  None of us, and that certainly includes me, had any experience in starting a new church and indeed a new faith.  Yet here we are.

 

And it is indeed a new faith.  It is a faith that not only welcomes but encourages people from differing spiritual paths to come together and explore their common humanity.  What a life-affirming joy!

 

I think “so few?” when I realize that already we have donated three boxes of food to the Lynnwood Food Bank, and volunteered twice to help the food bank assemble and organize its donated food.  We are already a presence in the community. 

 

And this Sunday will be an inspiring example of what Interfaith can offer.  Four of us, from four differing traditions, will be reading brief passages from our own traditions and the sharing why that particular passage calls to us.  More than that.  I know from our previous services that everyone present will listen, really listen.

 

No one will be attempting to convert or to convince.  Rather we will all be sharing something deeply personal and deeply spiritual about ourselves.  And I have no doubt that in the potluck/discussion that follows the service, that sharing will continue.

 

My hope is that we will continue this sharing in the future.  I’ll certainly do all I can to encourage it.  At the first two services several people shared their personal spiritual paths – the paths that brought them to the Living Interfaith Church.  Now we are sharing passages of Scripture that call to us.  Again, sharing a part of who we are.

 

This is truly living our Interfaith.  Sharing with the community by being committed to working with the Food Bank.  Sharing with each other by being committed to a safe and welcoming space: where we can truly be who we are, as we respect and learn from who the person next to us is.

 

This not only wonderfully affirming, but for me couldn’t be coming at a more needed moment.  I hit the wall last Wednesday.  The Taliban slaughtering Ahmadi Muslims in Pakistan because the Ahmadi weren’t deemed Muslim enough.  The government of Israel and Hamas, playing cat and mouse with each other, and once again the Palestinians taking the hit for it.  A catastrophe in the Gulf of Mexico because corporate greed dictated shortcuts around safety.  Where, I yelled at myself, is our humanity?  Where is our dedication to the Golden Rule?  Where is compassion?  Is it dead?

 

And then I thought: no.  It is alive and well in many places.  And one of the places it is the most alive and the most well is in this seedling of a church called Living Interfaith.

 

We can do this.  We can change the world.  We can embrace our common humanity.  Indeed, we must.