Galatians 3:26-28
26for in Christ Jesus you are all children of God through faith. 27As many of you as were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ.28There is no longer Jew or Greek, there is no longer slave or free, there is no longer male and female; for all of you are one in Christ Jesus.
This passage from Galatians gives much of the power to God in relation to who we will find in heaven. God through Christ has done amazing things in regard to unifying people. Yet, we continue to quarrel about who deserves eternal life, who deserves to be in our friend circles, who deserves this or that.
This past month I was in continuing education with other rostered leaders in our geographical region called the South Central Synod of Wisconsin. I was fortunate enough to have one of my college dorm mates as our speaker! Dr. Kathryn Lohre is assistant to Bishop Eaton and spoke on “Reconciliation within inter-religious circles.”
We delved into questions such as, “How do we respect those who have different religious beliefs than us?” and “How do we gain a better understanding of other religions, an understanding which is often different than what is portrayed through the media?”
These are questions and topics that continue to come up this day and age as we hear about Isis, as we remember the Holocaust, as we try to live together globally. I partnered Dr. Lohre’s lectures with ones that I heard at my other Continuing education this past summer with Dr. Kristen Johnston from Gettysburg Seminary in Pennsylvania. She spoke on “Holy Envy.” Dr. Johnston described “Holy Envy” as loving an aspect of another person’s religion so much that it creates a need for one to become even more devoted to that aspect of their own religion. For example, she said, one might appreciate the meditative aspect of Buddhism so much that one then looks for ways to more deeply meditate in God’s Word. Or one might appreciate daily ritual public prayer of Muslims so much that one might grow their own Christian prayer life.
As we complete our commemoration of the 500th year of the Reformation, one of the areas our church is spending time is in conversation with religious leaders from other religions, specifically our Catholic, Jewish, Muslim and Black Church brothers and sisters.
What does that mean for us at the local level? We don’t have as many people of different religions in our own communities we live in. So we are going to seek out and visit others in their church home to learn about them. This month Confirmation Students and others in the congregation are invited to visit Bethel Synagogue. Our Jewish brothers and sisters in Madison have been receiving more threats, more negative attention, more criticism. We can only bridge our religious understandings by learning, so that is my goal. Think about joining us to learn and appreciate all that those who are active Jews can bring us.
