Hosai Mojaddidi – Interfaith Iftar Loving Across the Difference Rev. Andrew Lobban &
AI: Summary ©
AI: Transcript ©
Well, it's really a blessing and an honor for me to be able to
share the stage tonight with Sister Jose, I was very excited
when I found out that we were going to each be giving a short
presentation. And then after that, we will open up to some dialogue
and some question and answer time before the time of Iftar. And the
evening meal. And Sister Jose proposed what I thought was the
perfect thing to spend our time on this evening. And that was texts
and traditions from our respective faiths having to do with the love
of God, after a couple of years of isolation of not being able to
gather like this. And really, I feel like escalating tensions and
conflicts in our homes, in our communities in the world, nothing
could be more fitting, than to spend our time talking a little
bit about the love of God.
Now, I want to preface my talk by saying this, the scriptures that I
picked, I feel are not necessarily the most universal ones that we
have in the Bible than Christians. And for two thirds of Christians
and Jews share. I did that very deliberately. It is not in any way
to be divisive, but rather an acknowledgment of the fact that I
believe each of our faiths as something quite unique to offer
the conversation about God's love. And I thought, why don't I see
what is pretty uniquely Christian. And I trust that sister, Jose will
offer us some things that are uniquely Muslim, and that that
would actually create a richer dialogue. So I offer this not in
exclusion of any other perspective, but rather as
something rather unique that I feel that the Bible and the
Christian tradition might have to offer this. So I'm going to focus
my talk on three things. And these are terms that I will unpack
because they may be unfamiliar to some
incarnation,
resurrection, and Trinity, incarnation, resurrection, and
Trinity. And these are three themes that you will find very
much throughout the pages of the New Testament. And the various
authors that are represented in the New Testament each emphasized
it to a somewhat different extent.
And I want to make sure before we go into it, that I'm also very
clear on a perhaps misconception that occurs and Christian
theologians over the centuries have very much had to deal with
this because everything about this incarnation, resurrection and
ascension can leave one square I'm sorry, and Trinity can leave one
scratching one head thinking, Wait a second, is Christianity a
monotheistic or a polytheistic religion because all of this speak
to sort of more than one aspect of God's so let me just say,
Christianity is an unapologetically a monotheistic a
one god religion, in everything I'm about to present from the
Bible, and everything from our tradition. All you're hearing
about is different faces different aspects, sometimes even different
persons, that language gets used of God, but it is all the one and
only God.
So I'm going to begin with the Gospel of John. There are several
texts in the New Testament that are attributed to the apostle John
and the community on the shores of the Dead Sea that really took its
inspiration and its theology from him. And I'm going to read the
very opening verses of the Gospel of John
takes me so these are the first several verses known as the
prologue to the Gospel of John. In the beginning was the Word and the
Word was with God and the Word was God.
He was in the beginning with God. All things came into being through
him. And without him, not one thing came into being.
What has come into being In him was life, and the life was the
light of all people.
The light shines in the darkness, the darkness did not overcome it.
There was a man sent from God whose name was John. He came as a
witness to testify to the light so that all might believe through
him.
He himself was not the light, but he came to testify to the light.
The true light, which enlightened is everyone was coming into the
world.
He was in the world and the world came into being through him. He
had the world did not know
When he came to what was his own, and his own people did not accept
him, but to all who received Him who believed in his name, he gave
power to become children of God, who were born not of blood, or the
will of the flesh, or have the will of man, but of God.
And the Word became flesh and lived among us. And we have seen
his glory, the glory as of a father's only son, full of grace
and truth.
Okay, so that's a lot to unpack.
This word that you hear so many times here is in Greek, the logos,
and the logos refers to the wisdom of God, the logic of God, the Word
of God. And this is something that gets pulled actually from two
places. One is from the Hebrew Old Testament, especially in the
literature that is attributed to King Solomon, we hear a great deal
of wisdom and wisdom is actually personified as this beautiful,
powerful woman. And this is the personification of some of God's
creative power and of God's wisdom, while John pulls from
that, and says, that that wisdom actually took on flesh in Christ.
And this is what in Christian circles we are referred to as
incarnation. It's the notion that the fullness of God, the Word of
God, the wisdom of God, actually came into a human body, and lived
among us. And I feel like this is one of the many ways that in our
New Testament tradition, the love of God has spoken up very
powerfully, because it's very easy to look around and say, yeah, it's
great to say that God loves us. But where's the evidence? So much
dad stuff is happening. If God loves us, why is there a war? Why
is there a pandemic? Why do our kids get addicted to drugs and
have horrible accidents? Why does all this stuff? Why do our
friendships and our families fall apart? Why does all this stuff
happen?
And if we look at the Incarnation, it gives us a very different
perspective. It gives us a perspective of a God who actually
somewhat hesitates to use the divine power to actually intervene
in human affairs, but rather loves us in a very different way. And
I'll give an analogy. If you have ever raised children, you know
that when they're tiny, tiny, you do everything for them, and you
intervene at any point when they have a need or where they may be
in danger. But the older they get, the less and less you do that. And
actually, if you don't stop doing that, you're a bad parent. At some
point, you need to pull back. And instead of doing everything for
your child and intervening every time there is a danger or a
difficulty, you instead are a presence who is there with them.
And the older they get, it's more and more presence of an equal
rather than a superior.
This is what we see in the doctrine of the Incarnation.
We see a God who says the way I'm going to love you human creature,
is the way a parent loves the child. And at first, without any
help from you whatsoever. I'm going to create you, and I'm going
to bring you out of the womb, and I'm going to nurture you on your
mother's breast. But as you grow, I am going to begin to use that
divine power and then divine intervention less and less,
because my dream for you is that you yourself become more and more
like the divine. And so instead, I'm going to live with you like a
sibling. Instead of looking over you necessarily, like a parent
looks over an infant.
And so this is what we see in the doctrine of the Incarnation.
But there is more.
Right now, in most Christian churches, we find ourselves in the
season of Easter and this is the season that we really focus very
heavily on resurrection. So the tradition is that on Good Friday,
Christ was nailed to the cross and died. Spent all of Saturday in the
tomb. And early Sunday morning was the tomb was found empty it the
accounts differ just slight detail, but they all
I agree that it was actually his female companions, who were the
first ones, to witness the empty tomb. And Mary Magdalene is the
one who is known for telling the apostles that she had first seen
the risen Christ.
And so we look at this tradition of resurrection. And the passage
that I'd like to go to actually comes from the literature of Paul.
Paul authored slightly over half of the New Testament. The New
Testament is comprised of gospels, which are accounts of the life,
death and resurrection of Jesus. And then numerous letters to early
churches and early pastors in the church, many of which were penned
by St. Paul, one of his longest and best known is the letter to
the Romans. And this was not surprisingly, to the fledgling
church in Rome in the first century. And this is one of the
passages that we read most commonly during the Easter season.
Please forgive me, I have lost my place, we know that Christ being
raised from the dead, will never die again.
death no longer has dominion over him.
The death that he died, he died to sin, once for all, but the life he
lives he lives to God.
So you also must consider yourselves dead to sin, and alive
to God in Christ Jesus.
Now, you might wonder at first, the word love does not appear
anywhere in that passage. So what does that have to do with the love
of God? As a matter of fact, the word death appears in that passage
more than once. And we don't often think of death in terms of love.
But let's unpack it a little bit.
This passage, perhaps more than any other presents in three very
short verses, the entire theology of resurrection found in the
Christian tradition. And the idea is that Christ died to sin. And
therefore, as humans, we can consider ourselves dead to sin.
And Christ rose became alive again to God. And therefore, as humans,
we can consider ourselves alive to God.
Now, this whole dead dissin business doesn't sound like great
news. But if you stop and think about the one advantage that a
dead person has, it actually says a great deal about the love of
God.
Think about it. If you go to a graveyard, and you scream
obscenities at somebody, and you pound on the ground, and you do
all you throw baseball bat to fire bullets, you give it your worst.
What is the dead person's reaction?
Absolutely nothing.
The dead person is not vulnerable to any of those attacks.
So if we think about this text, that way, we are dead to sin, and
alive to God.
Wow.
That's really good news. If God has made us people who are as
invulnerable to sin and sins all around us, it's in us that
temptation is everywhere, and we often succumb to it.
But if we are as imperturbable to that, as a dead person is to any
of the abuses that can be heaped upon them.
I really have a hard time imagining a more loving act than
that.
This story of death and resurrection, at first doesn't
seem very loving at all. In fact, it actually seems rather horrific.
But if I spend a little bit of time just meditating on those
three verses on the purpose of death, and resurrection, all of a
sudden, it has a very, very different meaning.
So the final thing I want to discuss a little bit is Trinity
back to John, but we're not going to go back to John's Gospel. There
are also a few letters that are attributed to John in the Old
Testament, and they all come out of this same Dead Sea community.
And this theme of God's love is incredibly strong in these. So I'm
going to read a short passage from the first letter of John.
Beloved, let us love one another. Because love is from God.
Every one who loves is born of God and knows God. Whoever does not
love does not know God, for God is love.
Now that probably pretty obvious why I would pick a passage like
that when we were talking about the love of God. But you might be
wondering what on earth does that have to do with Trinity and
Trinity is the Christian understanding of God that while
God is absolutely one,
within that one, there are there are three persons, three aspects,
three faces, if you will, that we refer to in worship as Father,
Son, and Holy Spirit. These are definitely not three separate
gods, but rather, three expressions of the same God.
And it is only because of that understanding that the author of
this letter can say God is love. Because notice, the Greek is very
specific, it does not say God is loving. It says God is love. In
other words, God's nature is love, well, to love, there must be a
subject and an object, right? Love can exist, if there isn't a giver,
and a receiver of it.
And in this understanding of God, as Trinity, we had this idea that
with in God's self,
there are these persons who love one another. So God is not only
loving, but by nature, God is love.
Now, where that extends to humanity, is it says, you know,
again, human creature, you are, in many ways a mess. There are so
many facets within you. And often those facets seem like they're at
war with one another. Do you ever had the experience of looking at
the mirror and thinking, I don't like myself very much, or one part
of me doesn't like another part of me very much, or I'm, I'm in
conflict with myself, I'm ready to jump out of my skin, I drive
myself crazy. And that's only looking in the mirror. Try living
in family, or in a religious community or in a civic community
or a global community. We know how well that turns out sometimes.
But if we not only as individuals, but as a human family, are created
in the image and likeness of God, this passage has something
incredibly important to say to us, which is its own k, if there's
tension, it's okay. If there's conflict. It's okay if one aspect
of you doesn't like another aspect of you doesn't understand another
aspect of you. It is okay if you don't like or understand your
neighbor.
Because being made in the image and likeness of God, you as
individuals, and you as community, are love. And this isn't the kind
of emotional love where it's like we feel all warm and butterflies
for each other.
It's rather that fierce kind of love, which is, I may not like
you, I may not understand you. But when push comes to shove, I
recognize you, as my sister, my brother, and if the train's coming
down the tracks about to hit you, I'm going to do everything I
possibly can to stop it. It's that kind of love.
So this was my offering from the Christian tradition and the New
Testament scriptures on incarnation, resurrection and
Trinity. And what they have to say about the love of God forbid so
much theory what you have to offer, I think
first of all, thank you so much, Reverend Andy and this wonderful
congregation for opening up your space for us in the month of
Ramadan. This is such an honor, I really feel very honored to be
here and I thank you so much. I'd like to first greet you with the
universal reading of peace. As Muslims when we see one another
even if we're complete strangers, we offer prayer and that is again
from the faith from as an extension of love but that is also
to to anyone that we we wish peace for all. So I would like to greet
you with a salam Wa alaykum which just simply means May peace be
upon all of you.
And with that said, I begin in the name of God, the Most Gracious,
the Most Merciful. This presentation as a reverend Andy
mentioned you
came out of deliberation about what do we really need to focus on
as faith communities. And as he so eloquently said, because of
everything that's happened in the past couple of years, but
certainly before that, as well, I think we all agree, we definitely
need more love our world is fragmented way, maybe more than
ever before. And we need to come together. So that's why I so
appreciate any work with other faith communities, because I think
we all really do have those same, you know, objectives, which is
just just spread love, and certainly love of God. So I've
prepared a presentation here that I'd like to invite all of you to
join me as I go through the slides and brother Minear is going to
help me. So we'll go to the first slide here, which for Muslims, we
understand love, first and foremost as a divine attributes.
And for those who are not familiar, God is certainly one we
are absolutely as Reverend and he also stated a monotheistic
tradition, we are very, very monotheistic. But we do also hold
that God defines himself according to what we call the 99 names or
the 99 attributes of God. So here is a quote from Prophet Muhammad,
God's peace and blessings upon him that he said, God has 99 names and
whoever preserves them will enter paradise. He also
had a specific prayer that he taught us, that he called upon
guided by, as this quote says, Your I asked you by every name
that you have named yourself, revealed in your book, taught any
of your creation, or kept unto yourself in the knowledge of the
Unseen that is with you. And so this is a prayer that Muslims will
learn and memorize and also say, following his example, so the 99
names is the image I apologize, I know, it's probably very difficult
to see I can't even see it in the laptop. But I've tried to give you
at least a preview of some of the names that are on here, there are
again, 99. And these are just partial, there's actually in fact
more names as well in the crime that God describes himself by. But
this is a collection that is heavily known and taught in. So
here are some of the names a rough man might the Most Merciful.
Kareem the most generous. Latif, the gentle, are reserved the
provider I shall call the appreciative and giving a Salam,
the peace, a rub the Lord. Incidentally, that's the word
rabbi, right? We kind of there's this semantic relation there
between Rabbi Iran and Harlock, the creator of the truth, and then
Allah dude, the loving and affectionate. And so I wanted to
just highlight this last attribute on what dude as I mentioned, we
understand love as an idea as a concept because of God's
attributes. So we are then taught what that means by looking at his
words as he defines what love is. And here is a verse from the
Koran, chapter 11, verse 90, where God says, What's the Pharaoh Rob
back home, Therma, to boo LA, in, in rugby, Raheem on modelled,
that's an Arabic and that translation is and ask forgiveness
of your Lord, then repent to Him. Surely my Lord is all
compassionate, all loving.
Now, this specific word allah dude, which is defined as the
loving and the affection also needs to be understood in the
context of love in the Arabic language, there are several
different ways to express love. The predominant words that are
used to define love are hope, which is really the feeling that
internal Fuzzy Wuzzy feeling that Reverend, and he was talking about
that feeling that we all feel for each other, hopefully, for our
family, our spouses, our children, our community members. So we feel
things internally, but then the manifestation of that love is
referred to as both and this is the expression that is then
defined by Allah dude. And so this, you know, God has again
named himself by this attribute to convey that he is not only loving,
but that he shows his love to his servants.
Now when God loves a servant here's another quote from Prophet
Muhammad peace be upon him. This is a
A beautiful exchange between and you might no notice some familiar
names here. That God says when he loves someone he calls to the
angel Gabriel who is referred to as Gibreel, in the Arabic
language, he says, Oh Gabriel, I love such and such a person, so
love him. And then Gabriel will call to the angels of the heavens.
Allah which is just the Arabic word for God loves a such and such
a person, so love him, and the angels will love that person. And
then Allah will place acceptance on Earth for that believer. So
this is how God again expresses his love in the heavenly realm.
Now God's love is reflected in his creation also in different ways.
And here's another quote from the Prophet Muhammad or Hadith which
is just a quote of his word, peace be upon him where he says, Verily
Almighty God rewards for gentleness what he does not give
for rudeness. If God loves a servant, if Allah loves a servant,
then he grants him the quality of gentleness, no household is
deprived of kindness, but that they have been truly deprived.
God also responds to our love of him with love. So here's a very
famous, these are a category of Hadith that we call Hadith,
pudsey, where God is actually speaking in the first person. So
it's not a revelation from the Quran, but it is considered still
revelation or sacred text. If my servant comes closer to me a hand
span, I come closer to him or her an arm's length. And if he or she
comes to me walking, I come to him or her at speed. So God is
responsive to our love of Him.
The most beloved servants to God, who are they, the most beloved
people to God are those who are most beneficial to people, the
most beloved deed to God is to make a believer happy, or to
remove one of his troubles, or to forgive his debt, or to feed his
hunger. And again, if you look at the wording here, this is not
exclusive to just Muslims, it's to humanity, people.
We also have in the Quran, defined groups that God has outlined of
people that he loves. So I'll read these in there in no particular
order, the first group are called The Ultimate Icynene. And these
are the doers of good, so people who are engaged in just good
benevolent acts and deeds, the second our ultimate pain, and
these are those people who are mindful of God who are really self
aware and watchful over themselves, and they have the
understanding that God has also ever watchful Lucas city and these
are the equitable and just so people who really push for justice
and fairness, and mobot and Mata, I'm sorry, eloquent are the
headings of tongue twister. Those who purify themselves, we have a
tradition of the Prophet Muhammad peace be upon him that cleanliness
is part of or half of faith. So that's why you may find when you
visit a mosque, for example, we will have spaces pretty large,
considerable spaces for the what we call the illustration or
ablution that we is required of us before prayer. So Muslims will
sometimes be washing our linens face up to four or five, maybe
more times a day, depending on how many prayers we're doing. And so
cleanliness in general is a very big part of of our faith toward me
and those who returned to him. So this is repentant people who have
who are in a state of repentance, they are, you know, they have
sinned, they have perhaps lapsed, and they returned to God knowing
that his mercy is vast, and they do not let their sinfulness impede
that process of returning to him no matter how many times they make
mistakes and there's quite a few different traditions of the
Prophet Muhammad where he shares that even if your sins are as much
as the foam of the ocean, and if you've ever stood at the coastline
here in California or anywhere and looked out into the ocean and seen
the foam you can see it's it's difficult to even you know, see
how fast that is. But that's that's the point is that don't get
worried about the number of sins just keep returning, keep
returning and many other beautiful traditions that have the same
message that God will forgive. All who asked and in Ramadan, one of
the famous or sorry, the the
Popular prayers that Muslims are saying every day in this month is
Allah home in Nikka are 412 Hibben as well for any, which is Oh God,
you are the one that forgives. So please forgive me. Right. So
that's this is a prayer that Muslims are saying all day
throughout the month of Ramadan. But this idea of returning to God
no matter what you think of yourself, because you have
certainty that God is the most merciful, of the Merciful, which
is an attribute he also defines himself, as, without killing or
those who put their trust in Him. So this is also a category of
people that God loves those who, when something happens, you know,
the world as we know, is a difficult place, but those who
have surrendered to know that God is in control, and they turn to
God first with prayer with seeking His help his assistants, and then
of course, whatever worlds to know that he exists to be able to
access his words. And so we look at the even the Quran is often
called the ultimate love letter from God. So there's love is a
very big part of the Islamic tradition. And, again, there
wasn't enough time but there are many more passages and many more
sacred texts that we could pull from to to show that but I thank
you again so much for the honor of presenting to you and I, I I wish
you all nothing but love God's love. Thank you so much.