Tag: diversity

The Gift of Religious Diversity

CMM, Cape Town / / Pentecost, Sunday Letter

Grace and peace to you and through you

One of the most beautiful things about Cape Town is the healthy religious diversity that flourishes among us. For some of us this religious diversity is planted within our own households. This is to be celebrated and cherished. To discover and learn from others what for them is sacred is a crucial part in honouring their humanity and loving them as our neighbour. This is especially so as we have just entered the month of Ramadan – a sacred time to Muslims of fasting for inner spiritual attunement.

At our Synod two weeks ago we were addressed by Mr Ebrahim Rhoda from the Strand Muslim community who shared with us a brief historical overview of the Strand Muslim community from between 1822 – 1966. In his talk he brought to our attention the relationship that early Methodists had with the early Muslim community. Some of the statements from the Methodist and other Christian clergy make you want to hide in shame. One missionary declared: “It has been my endeavour, within my humble sphere, to check this growing evil, but generally without success.” Another says, “With few exceptions they follow either a base, sinful course of life, or are ensnared by the awfully prevalent delusion of Mohammedanism.” From this we are reminded that we are often tempted to speak of another’s religion in the least charitable terms while taking a most generous view of our own. This is fueled by blind passion, hidden insecurity or both.

Rhoda also spoke of the great cooperation between Methodists and Muslims. One such story of collaboration resulted from a fishing disaster in which both Muslims and Methodists drowned. And from this we are reminded that shared suffering is often the knife that cuts through our shallow differences awakening us to our shared unity. Only when we know a person’s deepest hurt can we say that we know them.

There is a story of how Francis of Assisi (1181? – 1226) who rejected the call for war and instead during the Fifth Crusade went to meet Al-Kamil, a Kurdish ruler and Sultan of Egypt. His original intension was to convert the Sultan to Christianity but he left their time together with a profound sense that the Muslim Sultan was a person of God. Francis thereafter instructed his fellow monks to live at peace with Muslims with no need to convert them.

In these days where difference is often the basis for division may we learn to do difference differently. May difference be a lens through which we can learn and grow. And may we come to experience the mystery of how difference awakens us to our oneness at our depths.

In this may we hear Jesus say, “If you love me, you will keep my commandments” and a minute later he says, “They who keep my commandments are those who love me.” [John 14: 15 & 21]

Grace, Alan

Independence is an illusion

Alan / / Sunday Letter

This vine grows inside the prison courtyard on Robben Island — offering shade, fruit and hope.

This Harvest Festival we pray for farm workers.

 

Last week we witnessed Paul’s prophetic plagiarism — taking an accepted social theory of his day and turning it on its head. Instead of using the human body as an analogy for the State to protect and promote inequality, as many of the Greek philosophers before him had done, Paul used it to reveal the innate equality and interdependence of all.

Paul reminds us that a body is made up of diverse yet unified parts. To have one without the other is to result in death. The body only works because of its diverse parts all working together for the good of the one body. For the hand to say that it only wants to associate with other hands — that it does not want to be associated with the eye for example is very shortsighted 🙂 Similarly for one group of people to only want to stick together with those who share some common feature is equally shortsighted. Or, for the hand to say I want to be on my own and have nothing to do with any other part would result in its own demise. Independence is an illusion — we are not separate — we are one.

This means to cut someone out of our life is self-mutilation and to kill another is suicide. For when one part of the body suffers (read: another person) then all suffer (read: all people).

In the little book written in the 1970s by Martin Bell, entitled The Way of the Wolf, a little boy is able to hear the wind talking. The wind tells the boy:

Anything that hurts anyone hurts you. Anything that helps anyone helps you. It is not possible to gain from another’s loss or to lose from another’s gain. Your life is immensely important.

Spoken by the wind. Paul would say they were spoken by the Spirit — God’s wind of love — reminding us who we really are — we are one in all our rich diversity.

Grace, Alan