A sermon preached at Kowloon Union Church on Sunday 19 July 2020, the Seventh Sunday after Pentecost, by Peter Youngblood. The scripture readings that day were Isaiah 44:6-8, Psalm 86:11-17, Matthew 13:24-30, 36-43.
Since we have gone back to live-streaming, there really isn’t any need for me to wear a mask. But I was a little disappointed, because I wanted to try preaching with it on. And I wouldn’t have needed to trim my beard!
I must confess that despite my current appreciation for masks, back in January and February I was more like the stereotypical Westerner who thought you only needed to wear them if you were coughing or sneezing. But I did still wear one, just to be safe. I’m glad that I did, because since then we’ve learned that you can spread COVID-19 even without symptoms.
Now, there are still many people in my home country, the United States, that have not yet been converted into mask wearers. Citing personal freedom, many refuse to wear masks even when they are asked or required to do so. There have even been anti-mask protests against government policies, where people make a point of not wearing them, even burning them. Now, I am fortunate since my family and friends at home are smart enough to wear them, but I’ve heard stories of their own strange and concerning encounters with anti-mask folks.
Many human beings, including very many Americans, like to invoke the idea of personal freedom to avoid doing something they don’t want to do. This is rooted in the concept of free will, which is something we Christians affirm God gave us when we were created. Though we are fallen beings and our free will is contorted, through Jesus Christ we are liberated from slavery to sin and death. In Galatians 5:1, Paul states quite plainly that it is for freedom that Christ set us free. And we should not let ourselves be slaves to sin.
But masks are hardly slavery, and freedom is not certainly limitless. We can’t just believe, say or do whatever we feel like. It doesn’t work like that. We are free to make our own choices, but our choices have consequences for ourselves and those around us. Sometimes our expressions of freedom threaten, hurt or even kill others. Freedom can be contradictory. Human beings like to claim that we have the right to believe, say and do whatever we want, but often we refuse to extend these rights to other people. The history of slavery is a case in point. I am from the Southern United States, where people once claimed that a person had a right to own another person. This was used as a pretense to separate from the US, starting the Civil War. The US’ legacy of slavery has brought us to this moment when people are again fighting for racial justice. Many of the same privileged people who protested wearing masks now say people shouldn’t protest for Black Lives. They like to pretend that systemic, structural racism and prejudice does not exist, and these same people hide behind generic slogans, such as “All lives matter.” But this is to avoid the uncomfortable fact that even up until today persons of color are still denied their most basic rights, including the right to simply live. While BLM has not yet really taken hold in Hong Kong, non-Han Chinese and non-Europeans in this city face similar struggles. Where are the protests on their behalf?
God gives us freedom, but this freedom does not exist only for its own sake. God also demands love and justice. Love means to sacrifice our own freedom for the sake of others, and justice is to restore freedom to those who have lost it. Justice is to make amends and—if possible—reconcile victims with those responsible. Without love and justice, there can be no true freedom.
Jesus Christ sacrificed his own freedom for the sake love and justice, yet many Christians fail to live up to his standards. There is a hypocrisy that unites both Christians and people who refuse to wear masks (and often they are the same people). Christians demand the individual freedom to worship as we please without interference, yet too often we refuse to extend this freedom to persons of others’ faiths. Why do we do this? I think this reflects an insecurity on our part; deep down we feel that if we gave others the freedom to believe and worship differently, this would mean that our own beliefs are not as absolute as we thought they were.
Whatever you may think of them, other faiths do present a challenge to the Gospel, and Christians must respond to this challenge. Historically and theologically, we have usually done so in one of three ways. Prof. Tobias Brandner explained these quite well in his sermon a couple of months ago, so I won’t spend too much time on them.
But to review, the first way is to totally reject what other religions have to say. To quote Isaiah, Our God is the first and the last. There is no other God but God. Jews and Muslims may worship the same God, but they do not truly know God, because they do not know God’s son, Jesus Christ. Therefore they are excluded from salvation. Our parable today is just one of several in Matthew 13 that describes the Kingdom of God. Christians see themselves as the children of the Kingdom—the good seed that takes root in the field. But the good seed is mixed with bad seed, that is, the weeds that drink up so much the water and block out the sunlight.
The good seed are the privileged few who know and follow Jesus. And the implication is that the knowledge and promise salvation is only offered to Christians. At the end of time the evil-doers, the bad seed, will be separated from the children of the Kingdom and burned in the fires of Hell.
These metaphors create a clear distinction between the followers of Jesus Christ, on the one hand, and the forces of sin on the other. And for most of our history Christians have been inclined to include other religions as part of the latter. While we are the good seed, they are among the weeds. We are the wheat and they the chaff.
Yet is not God’s grace and love extended to all? Furthermore, is it not impractical to ignore or condemn other faiths in our modern, multi-cultural society? It’s much more difficult to hate a Muslim when they just happen to be your doctor. In response, some Christians have rejected exclusivism, choosing instead an alternative response to religious diversity. They believe that God has many names, and that each faith represents just another way to understand, relate to, and worship our creator. Different religions are just different roads that lead to the same ultimate source. If that is case, we ought to give others the freedom to worship as they please.
But the problem is that this way of thinking, which we may call pluralism, is an oversimplification. To say that all faiths point to one supreme reality is to exaggerate their similarities at the expense of their diversity. We can’t assume a Buddhist worships the same God as a Christian, because most Buddhists would probably say that they don’t worship any god at all! It’s a mistake to assume that each religion is a journey to the same thing.
This is a philosophical problem, but for a Christian it’s also a theological and ethical one. This is because to be Christian means to affirm the uniqueness and absoluteness of Jesus Christ. We must believe that there is something special about the Christian message, and that there are real differences between what we believe and practice, and what other religions believe and practice. Therefore in reality we cannot accept everything about other religions, but we can recognize what is true and good about them. This inclusivism is the third way of understanding other religions. Many Christians may recognize the good in other faiths, but we are nonetheless compelled to evangelize: to bear witness to Christian revelation, in the hope that others will listen.
There will always be limits on Christian tolerance. But we are not to reject others because they do not believe in Christ. Rather, what we cannot tolerate are beliefs, words and actions that oppose what Christ represents, that is, the total package of love, justice and freedom. When God says there “are no other Gods than I” what is meant is that God is love and justice, and love and justice reigns over all. While we can be critical of other faiths, we must remember that non-Christians are as capable of being as loving and just as Christians—and are quite often better at it. While some strongly believe that other religions are simply in the wrong, Jesus reminds us in Matthew that it is not for us to remove weeds from the field, because we will ultimately dig up the good plants as well. Human beings can’t really tell the difference between the good seed and the bad seed. Only God can.
Instead, in interfaith dialogue and practice, Christians look for signs of love and justice in other religions. Furthermore, we must also be self-critical. Do our own beliefs and practices of faith conform to love and justice? Upon reflection, we might discover that we fail to extend the grace that God has given us outward to others, including others of different faiths. Many of the same people who resist wearing masks are the same ones who say Muslim women shouldn’t wear face coverings, and so they support banning hijabs. But why do they think that? Is it because they believe a mask or hijab limits a persons freedom, or is it really because, deep down, they reject that person’s own free choice to wear whatever they choose, and to practice whatever religion they choose?
Because our individual freedoms, including our freedom of religion, affect not just ourselves, they must be guided by love and justice. Many persons of faith have already been willing to make sacrifices during this time. Passover seders have gone online, Catholic priests have opened drive-in confession booths, and Sikh doctors have shaved their beards so they can wear PPE. And wearing a cloth or paper mask should not be a political or religious statement, but should be simply an act of love that protects our own health, our family’s health and the health of anyone within spitting distance (pun intended). I know that many of us firmly believe that we are made in God’s image, and so we want other people to see our pretty faces. But for the sake of love and justice, please wear a dang mask. Amen.
