Worldly Wisdom and Foolish Grace. Barbara Carnegie Campbell
observe on Maundy Thursday, we observed Communion remembering that the Last Supper of Jesus with his disciples was also the last Passover Seder meal that Jesus shared with his Jewish followers.
Rabbi David prayed the traditional Passover Seder prayers behind the communion table with his arms outstretched and his head covered with his prayer shawl. When his prayers ended and I had offered the traditional Christian words used before communion, Christians came forward to receive the bread and dip it into the common cup of grape juice. Some of the Jews, when invited, also came forward a bit cautiously and tore off a piece of bread from the same loaf and took a small cup of juice from a tray on the table which represented the traditional last cup shared at their annual Seder meal.
Our Jewish brothers and sisters later prayed their ancient Prayer for the Martyrs as the Christians stood around the communion table and lit candles in memory of Jesus. We sang Christian and Jewish songs celebrating the martyrs and mourning the crucifixion of Jesus. We ended with a recitation of Psalm 23 by a ten-year-old girl; a psalm that is read at both Good Friday services and Jewish memorials.
As the service concluded, the Christians left mourning the death of Jesus at the hands of those Romans and Judeans in power who feared his message and popularity. St. Markers left in silence, walking behind the still-burning Christ Candle that I carried out of the darkened sanctuary.
Seven Tenebrae candles had shared the communion table that evening with the two Shabbat candles. The Tenebrae candles had been extinguished one by one following each lesson telling the story of Jesus’ death. As St. Markers and P’nai Or members came out mingled together into the foyer some turned around and looked back into the dark sanctuary and saw only the two Sabbath candles still burning, candles which represent, in the Jewish tradition, the kingdom of God still to come in fullness to the world.
The Jews left the sanctuary that night mourning the death of one of their great Judean teachers and prophets. Thousands of other Judeans had also died on crosses that hung on the roads leading in and out of Jerusalem during those years; thousands of others had been crucified, like Jesus, suspected of acts of sedition against Rome. It was clear to all of us that there was a serendipitous, holy spirit present that Good Friday Shabbat evening that embraced, comforted and led each of us to new depths of faith.
As Christians typically do after Good Friday services, members of St. Mark left the foyer directly that evening into the parking lot, to drive or walk home silently in the darkness of the night. As Jews do every Friday night after their Shabbat service, the Jewish congregation walked into our fellowship hall for refreshment and conversation. I had gone into my office to disrobe when a member of P’nai Or appeared at my door inviting me to join them in the fellowship hall. When I entered the hall everyone was sitting silently, which was highly unusual for this typically talkative group.
Rabbi David began playing his guitar and P’nai Or joined in singing to me. The memory of that moment still brings tears. I can only tell you a few of the words of their song: “Be not afraid. He walks beside you always . . .” When I asked member of P’nai Or, after the singing, how the worship experience had been for them, they shared feelings like, “You gave us back Rabbi Jesus!” “I finally understand what Easter means,” and “I no longer feel angry or blamed for his death.”
Our relationship with P’nai Or drew us into even greater interfaith connections in our community. I joined people of many faiths on the Interfaith Council of Greater Portland, an organization formed in Portland, Oregon by three spiritual leaders from Abraham’s tent following 9/11.
Rizwan Mosque, not far from St. Mark, is the oldest mosque in Portland and a bit like our missing triplet. Ahmadiyya Muslims, Jewish Renewal Congregations, and More Light Presbyterians are progressive faith communities equally rejected by some traditional members of their own faith traditions.
In 2013, leaders from Rizwan Ahmadiyya Islamic Mosque, P’nai Or, and St Mark decided to plan together for an Abraham’s Tent Summer Day Camp for children and youth from our three faith communities. We coordinated and directed the week-long, all day camp jointly for two summers until St. Mark had to give up its building due to financial difficulties. We discovered amazing similarities between our three traditions and within our three sacred texts. One of our day camp adult leaders described the Interfaith Summer Camp experience as an opportunity to build peace in our community:
In this day and age we find ourselves deeply interconnected through technology. A ten-year-old can connect with anyone around the world with a computer and access to the Internet. She may play a game or post a message on a Facebook page. This kind of interaction, in fact, has become quite common, but what we lack is face-to-face connection. What we lack even more is the opportunity to sit down and reason together with people who think and worship differently. If we did that more often, perhaps we would let go of fear and understand what Abdullah, another youth participant, realized: “I learned that we are all more alike than I thought.” Maybe we’re concerned about offending. Maybe we don’t know where to begin a conversation or don’t want to appear ignorant. Interfaith dialogue requires courage, but the alternative, as we have seen (during this summer of violence against strangers), can be tragic. St. Mark, P’Nai Or, and the Ahmadiyya Muslim Community took a chance for one week that some in all three faiths might frown upon. But sixteen children now have a greater knowledge of themselves and the world in which they live after walking through the flaps of Abraham’s Tent together. And peace just took a monumental step forward.
As part of Abraham’s Tent, Jewish, Christian, and Islamic children and their adult leaders were amazed to learn that the Quran contains many of the stories found in the Elder and Younger Testaments. The message that the Prophet Mohammad delivered to his people, the Quran, is filled with stories about Abraham, Moses, the Prophets, Mary, Jesus, and many other characters found in the Bible. It became clear that we could understand our own sacred texts better as we became more familiar with the other sacred writings from Abraham’s tent.
P’nai Or worshipped with St. Mark every year after that on Good Friday and we continued our summer interfaith Abraham’s Tent Day Camp until the St. Mark congregation was dissolved due to declining finances. St. Mark members moved on to several other PCUSA congregations in Portland while P’nai Or staying on in the building which they rented from the Presbytery.
During these years, I had the wonderful opportunity to share a small sacred text study with two special friends: Angela, a life-long leader in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, and Arif, a life-long leader from the Rizwan Ahmadiyya Muslim community. The three of us met monthly having decided ahead of time that we would come with texts, stories or understandings from our own faith tradition that spoke to a certain theme such as peacemaking, ecology, compassion, salvation, prophets, inclusion, or justice. My faith was so enriched and broadened by these conversations and loving friendships.
At the beginning of each chapter in this book, I include epigraphs of sacred texts from Torah, The Younger Testament Gospels and The Quran or Muslim Hadith writings as examples of how all three of these ancient texts reveal the same truth and divine will on how we are to live together.
For the sake of time and convenience through this study, I will call the one divine Ground of all Being, the one divine energy of love and peace that we worship, “God.” In my own mind, I sometimes substitute the word “Good” for “God” when I’m trying to see things from the point of view of those of no faith or those whose faith is non-theistic. I do not claim to understand “God,” as separate or different in any way from “Adonai,” “Allah,” or any of the other names people give to their experience of the Holy.
Ancient Lessons for Today
Jesus, was a Judean religious teacher called, by those who knew him, “Yoshua,” a common Hebrew name which would have been pronounced Yeshua or Yehoshua, in Hebrew. The English names “Jesus” and “Joshua” are derivatives of this common Arabic name.
Jesus lived 2,000 years ago in what is now Israel and Palestine. His words, which many believe are recorded, in some fashion, in the Gospels, are ancient words spoken for people who lived long ago and far away. We live in a time and place that is changing faster than ever. Younger generations are no longer accepting, verbatim, what religious institutions