This morning I heard that Lord Rabbi Jonathan Sacks, the former Chief Rabbi of the United Hebrew Congregations of the Commonwealth for 22 years, has passed on. Tears! The world will miss his wisdom. To quote Krista Tippett of OnBeing.org:
“Rabbi Sacks was one of the world’s deepest thinkers on Religion and the challenges of modern life. He died last week after a short battle with cancer. When Krista spoke with him in 2010 [full transcript here], he modeled a life-giving, imagination-opening faithfulness to what some might see as contradictory callings: How to be true to one’s own convictions while also honoring the sacred and civilizational calling to shared life — indeed, to love the stranger?“
The title for today’s blog is, ‘America, What’s Wrong with YOU?‘
No one needs to remind you that “a house divided against itself cannot stand” (Matthew 12: 25). Robert James Jeffress Jr., the Senior Pastor of the 14,000-member First Southern Baptist Church in Dallas, TX, offers hope in his Fox News Op-Ed: ‘Pastor Robert Jeffress: Biden is President-elect — How Should Christians Respond?‘ Here is an excerpt:
“Daniel 2:21 says that ‘It is God who changes the times and the epochs; He removes kings and establishes kings.’
Human governments and rulers change in God’s direction and design. Our faith and our salvation lie not in any individual ruler but the ruler of rulers, the King of kings. We have to remember that even though the White House occupant is changing, the One who occupies the throne of Heaven hasn’t changed.
The fact that God has established authorities means that by obeying the government, we obey God.
The Apostle Paul told us: “Let every person be subject to the governing authorities. For there is no authority except God, and those that exist have been instituted by God” (Romans 13:1).
Paul also told us to pray “for all people, for kings and all who are in high positions” (1 Timothy 2:1-2).
Now, it’s always easier to submit and to pray for someone when he was our preferred candidate. But the rubber meets the road when the person who takes office is not the one we supported. Paul didn’t give us any wiggle room — his command applies all the same, whether the emperor was the faith-friendly Constantine or the evil emperor Nero.
Here is our chance to show that Christians are not hypocrites. We serve a God who remains on His throne, sovereignly reigning over every square inch of this vast universe. We serve a God who loves us and will never leave or forsake us. And now, we have the chance to show the consistency and constancy of our Christian witness to this world.
When Joe Biden becomes president, we should commend him for the things he does right. We should condemn the things he does wrong. And above all, we must pray fervently for our president.
If President Biden succeeds, we all succeed. May God bless Joe Biden, and may God bless the United States of America.“
How can one be faithful to one’s convictions while also honoring the sacred and civilizational calling to a shared life to ‘Revere the Stranger?’ Ask Saint Pope John Paul II! He shares his thoughts in ‘Open the Door to Solidarity [Unity],‘ excerpted as follows:
“Openness to others is one of the essential components of a spirit formed by the Christian tradition.
Resources are not equally divided among humanity, though humankind is fundamentally equal despite the famines raging from north to south [and east to west].
Solidarity imposes itself as an obligation.
Blocks of self-interests confront one another. Conflicts lacerate entire nations.
On their part, Christians profoundly desire that humanity consolidate every agreement based upon respect for humankind to build peace. With their pursuit of unity, they wish to be a living sign of mutual trust, of a march towards the harmony that they hope to share fraternally
Taught by its history, Christianity can tell the world that people in good faith can overcome divisions and that wounds can heal, provided that today’s world provokes love and galvanizes hope.
Rediscover yourself! Be yourself! Rediscover your origins! Revive your roots!
Open the door to universal solidarity [unity].“
And now to the OnBeing Studios circa 2010 … In Memoriam:
Krista Tippett: I remember a statement of a brilliant, excellent American journalist after September 11, 2001, that what those events demonstrated was that for the three monotheistic religions in, particular, to survive and be constructive members of society in the twenty-first century, they would have to relinquish their exclusive truth claims.
That, I think, made a lot of sense to many people. The case you make also aims towards the traditions being constructive parts of the twenty-first century, but you take it differently.
So, let’s talk about how it is possible in your imagination to retain the essence, the truth claims, of Judaism, and also, as you say, honor the dignity of difference, understand one’s self to be enlarged rather than threatened by religious others.
Rabbi Sacks: I use metaphors. Each one may be helpful to some and not to others. One way is just to think, for instance, of biodiversity. Thanks to Crick and Watson’s discovery of DNA and the decoding of the human and other genomes, the extraordinary thing we now know is that all life, everything, all the three million species of life and plant life all have the same source.
We all come from a single source. Everything that lives has its genetic code written in the same alphabet. Unity creates diversity. So, don’t think of one God, one truth, one way. Think of one God creating this extraordinary number of ways, the 6,800 languages that are spoken.
Don’t think there’s only one language of which we can speak to God. The Bible is saying to us the whole time: Don’t think that God is as simple as you are. He’s in places you would never expect him to be. And you know, we lose a bit of that in English translation.
When Moses at the burning bush says to God, “Who are you?” God says to him three words: “Hayah asher hayah.” Those words are mistranslated in English as “I am that which I am.” But in Hebrew, it means “I will be who or how or where I will be,” meaning, don’t think you can predict me.
I am a God who is going to surprise you. One of the ways God surprises us is by letting a Jew or a Christian discover the trace of God’s presence in a Buddhist monk, or a Sikh tradition of hospitality, or the graciousness of Hindu life. Don’t think we can confine God into our categories. God is bigger than Religion.
Krista Tippett: Although at the same time as you say that God is bigger than Religion and I think this is an ‘and’ for you and not a ‘but’ there is also a unique relationship that is evidenced in those texts and a covenant that is particular to the Jewish people. Even as you honor the dignity of difference in the contemporary world, you uphold the dignity of particularity.
Rabbi Sacks: By being what only I can be, I give humanity what only I can give.
It is my uniqueness that allows me to contribute something unique to the universal heritage of humankind. I sum up the Jewish imperative, very simple, and it has been like this since the days of Abraham: to be true to your faith and a blessing to others regardless of their faith.
That’s the big paradox when you reach the very depth of particularity. I don’t know why it is. An Isaiah comes along, and he delivers his prophecies, and they’re so particular to that faith, that place, that time. Yet I call Isaiah the poet laureate of hope.
At the height of Martin Luther King’s “I Have a Dream” speech, at the very pinnacle of it, there he is quoting verbatim two lines from Isaiah, Chapter 40. I doubt whether Isaiah, centuries ago in the Middle East, could envisage that a black civil rights activist would be moved by his words one day.
But it’s the particularity of Isaiah that spoke to a Martin Luther King. That’s how we are as people. I don’t know why it is, how it is, but it’s the authentic, the unique, the difference that makes us feel enriched when we encounter it.
And a bland, plastic, synthetic, universal can’t-tell-one-brand-of-coffee-from-another-brand-of- coffee, by contrast, makes life flat, uninteresting, and essentially uncreative.
Krista Tippett: There’s a line of yours, and it might please you, I think, that I first heard it quoted by a young Muslim, interfaith leader, Eboo Patel.
You said: ‘Religion is not what the enlightenment thought it would become mute, marginal, and mild. It is fire, and, like fire, it warms, but it also burns, and we are the guardians of the flame.’
What do you see when you look at the world in terms of seeds of a deeper moral and spiritual imagination emanating from your tradition and other traditions? Where are you finding hope?
Rabbi Sacks: I think God is setting us a big challenge, an enormous challenge. We live so close to difference with such powers of destruction that he’s giving us very little choice. To quote that great line from W. H. Auden:
“We must love one another or die.“
That is, I think, where we are at the beginning of the 21st century. And since we really can love one another, I have a great deal of hope.”
God treats each person as though he or she is the apple of His eye. And behold the Good news! God has reconciled with us all. He seals His forgiveness with His blood on Calvary. God has made the ultimate sacrifice to prove how His eternal love and unconditional grace for everyone will pack out through eternity.
What’s more, God relates with each of us individually. Yes, with 7,8 billion people alive today, each person relates to God in his or her inimitable ways. And, how God connects with one is not necessarily the business of another.
Read more: Transcript of Krista Tippett’s Conversation with Lord Rabbi Jonathan Sacks
Read more: ‘Pastor Robert Jeffress: Biden is President-elect — How Should Christians Respond?‘
Read more: ‘Revere the Stranger.‘
Read more: ‘Open the Door to Solidarity [Unity],‘
With Every Good Wish to You, I am,
Sincerely,
Building the Bridge Foundation, The Hague
Abraham A. van Kempen
Senior Editor
* ‘Christian Zionism … Enraptured Around a Golden Cal” (2nd Edition)
e-book version $ 3.33 (2nd Edition Available on Amazon)
Paperback 33.30 (2nd Edition is Temporary out of print)
A Theo-geopolitical eye-opener expounded with conviction, common sense, and compassion. With 500+ references, ‘Christian Zionism … Enraptured Around a Golden Calf’ pits the Holy Trinity of Zionism – One Tribe, One Land, One God – against the Holy Trinity of Christianity – ALL people, ALL nations, indeed, glorifying the one ‘I Am’ with many names.
I like reading a post that will make men and women think. Annelise Darrel Luciana