A Common Word
Matthew 22:34-46

October 26, 2008


We are closing in on the 500th anniversary of a curious, isolated event that for a while changed a significant part of the world. The Protestant Reformation is typically celebrated on the last Sunday in October for on All Hallows’ Eve a German Roman Catholic priest and university professor of the Bible posted a long list of 95 Theses in good academic Latin on the door of the Castle Church in Wittenberg, Germany. Extremely few people could read them, but the few who did thought the Theses said something seldom said before. Some figured it was terrible and heretical; others thought it was revolutionary.

Here we are today, spiritual descendants of those who read those Theses. Not everyone agrees the Reformation was something good, and many believe nothing was reformed. Yet, in some fashion, our minds and our institutions, this thing we call church, was reformed and is still reforming. Being all too human, the church and our minds have averted and reverted from our reformation, back and forth, for centuries. We know that it has been and will be possible and right to reform and so we aim to be reformed. Genuine reforming is never easy for it implies that you change dramatically the way you perceive and understand the world and behave accordingly. It is hard to figure out how to make such a quantum shift in many eras, but today I believe we are being called by circumstances and crises to reform our thinking in as drastic a way as any Lutheran, Calvinist, or Anabaptist in the 16th century.

When Luther posted those Latin theses on the Wittenberg door, he had one eye turned in the direction of Rome and his eye was on the Pope. Not favourably, of course, and the rejection of the human papacy has always been a cornerstone of the Protestant movement. Ironically, perhaps, on September 13, 2006, Pope Benedict XVI addressed a group in Regensburg, Germany, that included references to Islam that were not received as complimentary. One month later, a group of 38 Islamic authorities and scholars representing all branches and schools of thought united in sending An Open Letter to the Pope, working to describe the true teachings of Islam “in the spirit of open intellectual exchange and mutual understanding.” One year later a larger group of 138 Islamic scholars, clerics and intellectuals expanded their message in A Common Word Between You and Us.

The response from the Christian side has been overwhelmingly favourable and grateful for the opportunity to discuss seriously the key intellectual issue of our times. Several major conferences have been held with Christian and Muslim scholars and clerics in attendance. Rowan Williams, the Archbishop of Canterbury, has been one of the principal leaders. One was hosted last week by the World Council of Churches in Geneva in which Brenda Anderson, a faculty member at the University of Regina and member of Wesley United, participated as the representative of the United Church of Canada.

The title of this initiative is, in fact, a citation from the Qur’an itself. “In the Holy Qur’an, God Most High enjoins Muslims to issue the following call to Christians (and Jews—the People of the Scripture): Say: O People of the Scripture! Come to a common word between us and you: that we shall worship none but God, and that we shall ascribe no partner unto Him, and that none of us shall take others for lords beside God. And if they turn away, then say: Bear witness that we are they who have surrendered (unto Him).”

A Common Word then begins with our common words that fundamental to human life is that we love God and we love our neighbour as ourselves, precisely the response of Jesus to the Pharisees who wanted to trap him into placing emphasis on some other law.

Rowan Williams notes in one of the responses that these two “laws” are the beginning of our connections together, that “we are able to recognize some common marks of holy or reconciled human lives in each other.” But what we should not do is exercise the principle of subtraction, that is, when one subtracts all the difficult and controversial and even dangerous parts of our religions, what is left is universal and pure and agreeable to all, whether one of the faithful or an atheist. Much ecumenical dialogue is based on not offending the other side and so in the end nothing is offensive and nothing means much at all. Thinking with one another has long ceased.

The Pharisees take the last crack at attempting to entrap Jesus in his words. They did not particularly get on with the Sadducees, so when they heard that Jesus had silenced them, perhaps they smirked. They would take care of him - they would send in the lawyer!

“Teacher, which is the great commandment in the law?” Sounds simple, but it’s intended to be a dangerous question. Any favourite commandment of Jesus picked they would pick apart and attack because he had neglected something else.

It’s sort of like George who was asked at his 40th wedding anniversary dinner what was the most important thing he had learned from such a long marriage. “I don’t really know which is the most important, but there are at least 40 qualities I have developed that I wouldn’t have needed to know if I had stayed single.”

Jesus kept it simple. He began with the most fundamental of all Hebrew affirmations, the Shema’ - “Hear, O Israel, the Lord is our God, the Lord is one. You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your strength.” Only - did you catch it? - Jesus actually said “... with all of your mind” instead of “strength” This was not unusual then, to change a word which the listeners would immediately pick up on and get the point the different word was underlining. Here Jesus was probably referring to the Pharisees’ pride in their superior minds, but even their minds had to play in the total love of God that is the source of all life. If you love God that way, everything else follows - love of neighbour, a kindness and helpfulness to all of creation. It was so simple that it was embarrassing because everybody, every child, knew that before anything else you love God with all you’ve got.

Karl Barth was once asked which was the most profound of all theological truths - virtually the same question Jesus was asked. His audience was expecting a lengthy exposition filled with long technical terms. Instead, Barth replied, “Jesus loves me, this I know for the Bible tells me so.” The greatest truth, the greatest commandment is the one a three year old can sing.

This is where we begin on Reformation Sunday and as we sit down to listen to Muslims explain their faith, and as we explain ours, and keep remembering where we agree and accept and work to understand our many and vast differences. We do not become friends with Muslims by avoiding talking about Jesus or Mohammed. We talk about Jesus with a passion like we’ve seldom had before, and our fellow People of the Book explain ecstatically why Mohammed was the greatest of all prophets. A funny thing will happen on the way to the forum: You and I will end up comprehending and appreciating deeply what distinguishes Christianity; and our Muslim friends will comprehend why they continue to be Muslim, submitting to the One God Allah. And we will both painfully comprehend why each other’s idiosyncracies are sometimes difficult and painful for the other. Then you will be reformed, your mind will be renewed, as Paul says, and there’s no telling from there on how much you will continue to reform.

Preached by Robert Kitchen
Knox-Metropolitan United Church
Regina, Saskatchewan