“Looking Beyond the Details”

August 29, 2010

I John 4: 16b-21

Luke 9:49-50

I want to speak this morning about the problems and possibilities of interfaith dialogue and cooperation in light of the nationwide controversy surrounding the proposed Islamic community center in lower Manhattan.

In his book Abraham: A Journey to the Heart of Three Faiths, Bruce Feiler tells of meeting with Sheikh Yusef Abu Sneina, an imam and one of the most vocal Islamic leaders in Jerusalem. Feiler says that the sheikh was known as something of a flamethrower—and he was a little wary about this meeting.

They spoke together about the interfaith dialogue. Near the end of the conversation, Feiler asked the imam if he believed the ancient patriarch, Abraham, was a uniting figure or dividing figure. After all, Jews and Christians as well as Muslims look back to Abraham as a common ancestor in faith. And yet Jews, Christians, and Muslims often find themselves divided.

The imam replied: “If Muslims, Jews, and Christians follow what is mentioned in the Koran, then Abraham can be a uniting figure,” which sounded somewhat like an appeal to Muslim superiority. Then he added, “But even if Jews and Christians just follow what is mentioned about Abraham in the Bible, then we can reach unity…If all people—not just Muslims, Christians, Jews—follow the correct path of Abraham, I’m sure life would be better….If we look beyond the details, which we may disagree about, and follow the principles of Abraham—truth, morality, and coexistence—then most of our problems will disappear.” [1]

This is the hope of faith. On a local level our friend Shams Ghoneim of the Muslim Public Affairs Council keeps calling us to that hope, always gently reminding us that people of different faiths need to look beyond the details in order to see what we have in common.

For a few minutes, let us hold onto hope as we face the reality of our own nation. We’ll come back to our own situation in Iowa City, but first let us look to New York City and, yes, the controversy over the Islamic Community Center to be built there.

Back in December of last year The New York Times published a front-page article about the Cordoba Project, a plan to build a Muslim community center in Lower Manhattan. Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf, the organizer of the project who had previously worked with the FBI, was quoted saying: “We want to push back against the extremists.” The mayor’s office, two Jewish leaders, and the mother of a man killed on 9/11 all voiced their support for the project.

Near the end of the month, the conservative media personality Laura Ingraham interviewed Abul Rauf’s wife, Daisy Kahn about the Cordoba Project while guest hosting on “The O’Reilly Factor.” At the end of the interview she concluded: “I like what you’re trying to do.”

And that was about it. For over five months there was no news about the community center. Nor was there any controversy.

That all changed in May, when a New York City community board committee approved the project. The New York Post ran the headline: “Panel Approves ‘WTC’Mosque.” One blogger, using slightly more exaggerated language wrote: “Monster Mosque Pushes Ahead in Shadow of World Trade Center Islamic Death and Destruction.”

And everyone was off and running.

“Cordoba House” was the name originally chosen for the community center. This was to echo the legendary Golden Age in medieval Spain when Cordoba was the capital and Christians, Muslims, and Jews—the three children of Abraham—lived together. Certainly, even in those days there were sibling conflicts—sometimes vicious, but people of different faiths managed to live together. The hope was that this new center would be, among other things, a place of renewed interfaith cooperation.

As you know, things haven’t really been going in that direction.

“Cordoba House” is now called “Park51”—from its street address; far less evocative and for some far less provocative.

Detractors have taken to calling this the “Ground Zero Mosque,” suggesting an image of minarets rising on the World Trade Center site. They of course obscure the fact that the community center is some two blocks and many adult bookstores away from what they call a hallowed site. From Ground Zero one cannot even see the site of the old Burlington Coat Factory that will become the community center.

Ignoring as well the fact that Muslims have prayed at the Pentagon, the other 9/11 site, for years, opponents of the project claim that an Islamic place of worship this close to Ground Zero would be a desecration, marring the memory of those who died there.

What is going on?

It’s easy to say that this is simply politics—although political lines are not easily drawn. Loud voices to the contrary, some Republicans have come out in favor of the center. And some Democrats have condemned it.

It’s easy to say that this is simply about religion—although in addition to Christian and Jewish groups, some Muslim organizations have voiced their opposition to the project. And, of course, there are representatives of all three religions who support it.

It’s easy to say that it’s about honoring the memory of 9/11—although some families of the victims speak in support while others don’t.

So what’s going on?

This controversy grows from a strange place where loss and fear, hope and faith, religion and politics all meet together. So maybe we shouldn’t be surprised that the emotional tenor of the discussion is so high, that there is far more heat than light being generated. We are being forced to consider emotions that are deeply felt and attitudes that are deeply held. Little wonder, then, that everyone is shouting—including me when I watch the news.

We can succumb to shouting, anger, or bemused frustration.

Or we can hear in this controversy a call to something greater—a call to a broader and more open faith.

This controversy offers us a chance to transcend the enmity and fear in whose grip so many are held.

At our best—and, granted, we are not always at our best—at our best we stand for certain values in the United States: freedom, tolerance, and courage in the face of fear. And I worry that in the past nine years we have seen the decay of just such values.

In the name of homeland “security” we increased government surveillance of citizens, restricted our freedoms, and resorted to torture. Some would now argue that the Constitutional freedom we all have to practice our religion without fear of government interference should be limited as it is in other, more repressive nations. So Newt Gingrich and others suggest that until Saudi Arabia allows religious freedom for Christians, we should restrict it for Muslims. This odd new and low standard does not, I think, reflect the usual attitude about freedom in the United States.

Religious tolerance, the acceptance of our neighbors with all their differences, is giving way to religious attack. In the past week we saw video of an African American man being harassed because he looked “Muslim.” We heard of a taxi driver who was stabbed repeatedly when he told his passenger that he was Muslim.

Both of these events occurred in New York and it’s easy here in the Heartland to think that we are isolated from such extremism. But across the nation there is growing resistance to the building of new mosques, growing suspicion of Muslims. Just yesterday we heard the news of arson at the site of a proposed mosque in suburban Nashville, Tennessee.

Here in Cordoba on the Iowa River, Christians, Jews, and Muslims do live together. We are each others’ neighbors, spouses, friends, co-workers, and classmates. We don’t always agree. But we talk. We work together. And yet, even here Muslims are beginning to feel a little less welcomed, a little more threatened. In spite of the fact that Cedar Rapids is home to the oldest mosque in the United States, even in Iowa the situation is becoming more tense.

As a nation our courage seems to be fading as well. I give thanks for those brave men and women like Andrew Ghabel who daily face the uncertainty and danger of serving in Afghanistan and Iraq.

But here in the United States a growing number of people seem to want only to frighten others into rage. And many are ready to follow that lead.

As a nation we continue to be obsessed with terrorism. Last June a Gallup poll found that Americans believe terrorism is a bigger threat to the future well-being of our country than health care costs and unemployment. All this comes as an ever-growing majority of the Muslim world continues to reject terrorism. In spite of our fears, the reality is that while some still would wish us harm, they are increasingly unable to actually inflict that harm.[2]

While so many would replace freedom with restriction, tolerance with animosity, and courage with fear, our faith gives us the ability to make different, healing choices.

Hear again those surprising words of Jesus: “Whoever is not against you is for you.”

On his way to Jerusalem—and to his own death—Jesus tells his followers that there are no special privileges conferred on a small inner circle. What matters is showing mercy, furthering peace and justice, showing compassion to those on the margins of society. God’s healing work in the world can be done by all sorts of people. We will find some of them in churches. But others are in synagogues and mosques, pushing back against the extremists of all stripes who would limit and exclude.

Muslim students have prayed in our chapel for years. We welcome them here, not because we are nice, tolerant, open people—although I like to think that we are. We welcome them to pray in our sacred space because we are people of deep faith. Our faith recalls the prophetic words of Isaiah that God’s house shall be a place of prayer for all people. Our faith recalls the challenging words of Jesus, who calls us into a greater community with all who share common cause with us.

Some Christian congregations in this city would not join the Consultation of Religious Congregations when it was formed because it included Muslim and Jewish congregations. Our faith, however, told us that we needed to be a part of just such an organization. The words of Jesus lead us to work with people of other religions because more than just our own strength is needed to bring peace in a world filled with violence, mercy in a world filled with contempt, and compassion in a world filled with selfishness.

In faith we hear as well the words to early Christians whose very lives were endangered because of their commitments. “Perfect love casts out all fear.”

We know, don’t we, that our love is not perfect, that our love will never be perfect in this life. We do our own “profiling.” There are those groups whom we find difficult to love, whose ideas and actions we fear because they don’t fit with our own perspective.

So we can understand—if not the arguments of those with whom we disagree, at least their fear.

We are called to a broader, more open faith in these days: a faith that lets up on the restrictions and seeks a new freedom; a faith that seeks a new acceptance of one another in all our differences; a faith that transcends fear and moves toward love, bringing others along with us on that journey led by God.

The good news is that we are not alone on that journey. Christians, Muslims, and Jews in Iowa City walk with us. And we walk together with Christians, Muslims, and Jews across this nation and around the world.

There is, of course, a paradox in all of this—one that is seen clearly in our worship this morning. Today we come together at the table in celebrating the sacrament of communion—one of two sacraments that are unique to us as Christians. At the table we proclaim what is specific about our faith: that God is made known to us in Jesus, who was broken and whose life was poured out for us and for many; that God is made known to us in Jesus crucified and resurrected.

Those are the details that make us who we are. It is as we live out of all that is unique and specific about our Christian faith that we discover the ability to go beyond the details and to join with people of other faiths who also seek the good.

From this table where we see and share bread broken and wine poured, our sight is directed outward. We look beyond the details and begin to see each other—human beings created in the image of the one God who desires the well-being of all creation.