2009 New Year's Eve Interfaith Service
For the last 17 years St. Ignatius [Loyola] Catholic Church has held an Interfaith Service. I missed only once since coming to Baltimore.
Why do I go? There are several reasons. First of all, I support our Orthodox clergy in most of their activities whenever possible. I attend these services, initially in support of the late Fr. Constantine Monios, and now in support of Archimandrite Constantine Morales, both of the Greek Orthodox Cathedral of the Annunciation.
The second reason is to witness to the Orthodox faith. There is usually a reception after the service and this gives me an opportunity to witness. Many of the people who attend these services have no concept of what the Orthodox Church is or what we believe. This year Albert, who wants to be either a Jesuit or a married deacon, asked me some very basic questions about the Orthodox Church. I had a very interesting conversation with him and another man and they know much more about us now than they did before the service.
I do have a few problems with the service. The main problem is the call to worship by a Muslim. In the call he declares that Mohamed is God's prophet. As an Orthodox Christian who has some understanding of the history of Christianity and Islam, I find this very offensive. There are also other problems, but I will not discuss them now.
The first person whom I saw when I arrived was Governor Martin O'Malley. I knew that he would be there but I was surprised to see him outside. I also had a chance to greet him and he returned the greeting and asked my name.
This year there have been several highlights. The first was to meet in person Cantor Faith Steinsnyder of the VIllage Temple in New York and Cantor David Perper of Temple Beth Haverim Shir Shalom. They both come down from New Jersey and have been with us every year since the beginning of this program.
Cantor Perper explained to me about the prayer shaw and it was a wonderful explanation. The tassels at the bottom remind us of the law and there are about 650 precepts.
At the reception I had an opportunity to meet Right Reverend Eugene Sutton of the Episcopal Diocese of Maryland. He shared with us during his sermon that 40 or 50 years ago he would not had been invited to worship at any of the churches in his diocese, and now he is the bishop.
I also met Bishop Madden, the vicar bishop of Baltimore. He also came down to the reception afterward.
Bishop Sutton's reflection:
We started with an Arabic call to prayer. There was the camel calling music. The imam said "There is no god but God." He also said that Christians had a bell, the Jews a horn, and the Muslim decided to use the natural voice.
Archimandrite Constantine Morales used a prayer of St. Basil.
Rev. Lauretta Halstaead of the Kingdom Worship Center said that we are more alike than different. We all need to be transformed into the vessel of love.
The Rt. Rev. Eugene Sutton delivered the Reflection. He said that we are privileged to be in a city where the single elected officials begin the new year with a prayer. Then he said, "I'm Episcopalian. We don't tolerate much preaching."
Then he told us a story about a professor who used to reprove parents who up their hands to the child. The professor had just laid cement in his yard and was having a cognac to celebrate. Bishop Sutton said that as a bishop he drinks wine religiously. As the professor was having his cognac, he saw a child putting his foot into the concrete. He was livid and ran out to the yard and grabbed the child and was about to whack him when a parent said, "Professor, you are supposed to love that child, not hit him." He replied, "I do love him in the abstract, but not in the concrete."
All the songs the young people are singing today are about love, as if it is something you catch. Love is not just something you say you do or are, but what you actually do.
His grandparents were married for almost 60 years. He loved her so much that he almost killed her.
The Scripture reading was 1 Corinthians 12:31 - 13:13. Today it is revolutionary. How is your love life coming? How do you we say we love different than how it is explained in the Holy Scripture? Because we have various versions of the Truth, we began to act in different ways. Truth is not something that we can put to a vote.
Bishop Sutton then tells us a story about a young pastor just out of the seminary. He had a vision for the parish and he called a special meeting of the board to discuss this vision. After he laid it out before them, the senior board member said that we should put this to a vote. The pastor received no votes. The senior member then suggested that he closes the meeting with a prayer. He prayed, "O dear God, please show these people that it is not my vision but Yours. Let the truth be known." Right after he finished the prayer, there was thunder and lightning and a lightning bolt struck the table and cut it in two. Then the senior member said, "Well, Father, that is 12 vote to one."
There is a blog in the Baltimore Sun about this service. IN Genesis 22 it said that God put Abraham to the test to see how much he loves Him. He asked him to sacrifice his son Isaac. At that time the pagan religions around them were practicing human sacrifices and if you really loved your god, you would sacrifice your loved one. The purpose of the story is to praise Abraham for keep listening to God. Before he could lower his knife, he heard the voice of God. Whenever somebody's name is repeated twice in scripture, it is a time of tension.
Abraham stopped and he is a patriarch. Sadly the children of Abraham have not stopped. The children of Abraham are not following Abraham. They have not stayed their hands and have stopped listening. Love and truth have to go together. Love without truth is play acting. Truth without love is dangerous and sinful. We have to keep them together.
Stop the killings. The City of Baltimore only has two cities in front of it in the rate of decline in murder in the last ten years and they are New York and Los Angeles. We are going to stop the killings. The religious communities are getting together regularly to determine how we can stop the killings. We can't kill our way out of violence. We have a culture that worships regularly at the altar of the gun.
Bishop Sutton calls for his church to welcome people that others don't welcome. Forty to 50 years ago he would not had been welcomed as a worshipper in 40 to 50 parishes in his diocese. Now he is the bishop. He lets children to take communion.
At our final judgment God is going to ask us, "Did you feed the hungry? Did you clothe the naked? Did you do My will?" Those are the questions. Not what did you believe.
An ancient teacher told his class that it takes all of us to have the truth. He told them that the truth is in the middle, go to it. The closer they got to the truth, the closer they got to each other. Unless I come closer and closer to you, I'm going to miss the truth and I will not have love. Love is never arrogant, boastful. When I was a child, I used to think like a child. Now I am an adult. I choose to go with love.
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