"The principal of compassion lies at the heart of all religious, ethical and spiritual traditions and it calls us always to treat all others as we would wish to be treated ourselves."

With the reading of these familiar words, Karen Armstrong, on November 9, 2009, unveiled the Charter for Compassion.  For people of every faith and of no faith from around the world, they publicly confessed in the words of the Charter that “we have failed to live compassionately and that some have even increased the sum of human misery in the name of religion.

The Charter for Compassion welled up in the heart and soul of author Karen Armstrong. As she studied the world’s religions, their differences became clear, but it was the common thread that ran through them all that moved her.  When the TED organization offered to fund her deepest wish—her dream for the world—she offered to a hungry, hurting and war weary world the dream of compassion, the hallmark of faith for every soul in every land.

Lest this dream should sound simple, hear the words of the Charter of Compassion that, “impels us to work tirelessly to alleviate the suffering of our fellow creatures and to honor the inviolable sanctity of every single human being treating everybody, without exception, with absolute justice, equity and respect.”

As one who worked with and walked beside Martin Luther King, Jr., those words sounded startlingly familiar. In my bones I heard again the call to faithful action and I wanted to reach out and put my arms around my treasured friend, Karen, and remind her that dreams can be dangerous. Yes, any dream that takes faith seriously calls for nothing less that the willingness to risk, to risk even life itself.  King’s dream was expressed in majestic poetry; few could imagine how very dangerous that dream really was. For those who might think that compassion is soft, that the familiar strains of “Kum Bah Ya” play quietly in the background, I would invite you to think again.

For people of faith, our common heritage correctly insists that we be open to all.  The ethic of the Golden Rule belongs not to any one faith but to people of faith in every land. As a Christian pastor, I believe we are called by the words of the Charter to a compassionate Christianity and, if we take this call seriously, we will need the courage that is borne of faith.

What, you quite rightly might ask, are the spiritual roots for a compassionate Christianity? Listen to these words from the Gospel of John: “I am the good shepherd. I know my own and my own know me, just as the Father knows me and I know the Father. And I lay down my life for the sheep. I have other sheep that do not belong to this fold.  I must bring them also, and they will listen to my voice. So there will be one flock, one shepherd.”

The passage reinforces the call to unity of all humankind and the whole of creation.  This text is one of my favorites.  First, Jesus is presented as the good shepherd who loves his sheep and lays down his very life for his sheep and knows that flock, and as Christians nestle into that comfort zone, secure in and among their own. But Christians know better. They know that Jesus never leaves them in their comfort zone. Jesus’ truth always challenges us all.

Listen carefully to the text. Jesus says there are others who do not belong to this flock. They know my voice, and I will gather them also.  I must bring them also, he says – so here we encounter a Jesus not owned by Christians but a Jesus who claims and cares for all of God’s children, a Jesus to be shared.  This is not a parochial Jesus but it is rather an embracing Jesus, large and inclusive. And we squirm just a little and our comfort zone is disrupted.  For Jesus says there will be one flock; and we whisper, “Who is in and who is out?”

Well, there is no ours and theirs in the world of Jesus. There is no other. The dream is that all are one.  This passage is a challenge to Christian exclusivity and it is an affirmation of Christian civility and inclusivity. We are to hold all people as precious. I believe it is this understanding of faith that informed the powerful work of Martin Luther King, Jr. I often think he spoke words beyond his own capacity to comprehend. Surely he never imagined how threatening his dream would seem to those who found comfort in exclusivity.

Does the call to an inclusive Christianity call Christians to discard the faith of their ancestors?  The faith that brought them this far? Not at all. Jesus is really saying, “If you believe in me, if your faith is rooted in my teachings, then you will reach out and embrace all of God’s own from whom no one is excluded.”  Who would we exclude from that gathering? In practical terms, Christians are called to an ecumenical, inter-faith future. It is precisely because we are Christian that we accept the challenge that the scripture gives us to embrace one flock of humanity.

Now, all this could sound just like a lot of good theology, but lets for a minute root it in every day life.

Let me share a story with you. I lived for twenty years in New York City. It was home for me.  September 11, 2001 happened to people I knew. It was my own hometown, my son, my daughter-in-law, my little granddaughter.  A pastor friend of mine, whose church was very close to the World Trade Center, told a story that illumines what we have been wrestling with in this scripture.

A young man, in his twenties, lived through the terror of being in the World Trade Center on the day the twin towers came down.  He was on the forty-seventh floor and when the people were told to stay, his youth and his instincts told him otherwise. You see, he was able to run down forty-seven flights to safety. So his pastor thought, “What could possibly be his pastoral issue?  Did he have survivor’s guilt?  He was unable to get out of his mind the scene that he left behind. People of all ages, races, gender, and nationalities praying, praying in languages he could not understand, in postures of prayer with which he was totally unfamiliar.  But they were all praying to one God.

He asked his pastor, “What am I to make of that? To whose God did they pray?” “Suddenly,” he said, eyes tearful, “My God seemed embarrassingly narrow.” As he was running down the stairs, he couldn’t help but think of the God who was claimed by all of these people.

This young man had just encountered the one flock that Jesus calls us to. His was a vision of God’s intent for humanity, a distinct expression of faith: one message, one God, one flock, one shepherd, one hope. That God’s intent for humanity is that we will be one people. In the midst of tragedy this young man’s life was completely and forever changed. The hope for peace was incandescently clear. He had seen a vision and his pastor helped him to see how it might direct his own future.

Prayerfully we hope that we might all glimpse such a future, for in that future is hope.  Perhaps it is this vision that should be the passion of our hearts, a shared faith commitment that binds us together in a common struggle for a better world: a compassionate Buddhism, a compassionate Judaism, a compassionate Christianity, a compassionate Islam and all the other great religions, as well.

The United States is the most religiously plural nation in the world. Thanks to the framers of the constitution no one religion is to be allowed to force its beliefs (however noble) on the body politic. People of every religion and of no religion are to be free to worship or not as their conscience dictates. So just possibly we bear special responsibility to create for the world a model of interfaith respect and co-operation.

You see, the young man’s question to his pastor was spot on. Who is this God we claim for ourselves, by any name? God cannot be owned or contained within only one religion.

Does this mean that we are to be lukewarm about the faith of our childhood? No, quite the opposite. We are to be passionate believers called to respect that same passion in the faith of others.  Does it sound easy? Not hardly.

Instinctively our young man in the World Trade Center asked exactly the right question. His amazement at their “One God” was exactly the right amazement! Religious pluralism and interfaith understanding is no longer just living room dialogue. It is a crucial component in the search for a peaceful world. 

The point is that the world we are in, and the world our children and our grandchildren will be in, is increasingly an interfaith world and it will ask the very best from the religious faith that is in us, the living of our finest religion. And then we will be transforming those terrible religious barriers into the bonds of our common, hopeful humanity. And from our religious varieties, the faith we live by inside will touch our common life outside for the good of all.

“Born of our deep interdependence, compassion is essential to human relationships and to a fulfilled humanity. It is the path to enlightenment, and it is indispensable to the creation of a just economy and a peaceful global community.”

So, Gracious God, give us vision, wisdom, and courage so that we might be a compassionate people. Amen.

Conversation with Joan Brown Campbell

Daniel Pawlus: Joan, thank you so much for that beautiful message.

Joan Brown Campbell: You’re very welcome.

Pawlus: I want to begin by saying it is such a privilege for me today to spend this time with two of the great ladies of faith in America, two wonderful Joans. I thought we may begin by talking about the point that you made in your message, which is we are now a different world, a different America in terms of the interfaith experience, aren’t we?

Campbell: Absolutely.

Pawlus: Can you speak a little bit about how we used to be able to be in a bubble to a certain degree with our own faith traditions, and how that’s just changed today?

Campbell: Well, we’re changed by the Internet, first and foremost. We’re changed by travel. We’re changed by the way business is done and everything that we do, really. We have our young people, my grandchildren who have done as much traveling as I’ve done. They know the world. They see it. And I think, sad to say, we are also changed by the wars we have engaged in. All of a sudden, the faith of the people that we faced in these wars was not familiar to us and we became painfully familiar that we better try to understand this because we could not possibly understand their culture if we didn’t understand their religion.

Joan Chittister: I want to follow that up, too, because you made two very strong points. More than two, but two come through, Joan. One is that all traditions are based on this and they all teach it and they all realize it. The second seems to be that we all recognize that there is one God. So if there is one God we ought not be so surprised that that one God is speaking is all these traditions in their own face and language. Well then, Joan, out of your experience, is this a Pogo moment: “We have met the enemy and it is us.”? How can we possibly be failing at this so badly? How do you account for that?

Campbell: Well, you know, as the young man said to his pastor, it didn’t make sense to him and then all of a sudden he went, aha, of course it makes sense! We have not done a good job. Those of us who are in the church, and you and I are there, in trying to help people understand it isn’t about how small can we make God or can we own a God that looks like us, it’s how large is this God and can we possibly conceive of that. Once we’ve opened our arms to that, then you begin to be able to relate.

Chittister: That’s why I think this is a powerful piece because it’s actually calling the churches to a penitential moment. We teach it. I grew up from a little girl learning about it but I didn’t see it. And now the demand is that we make this real and the churches must lead in making it real as much as they led in talking about it.

Campbell: Because if everyone is created by God, we are all God’s children. We say this all the time, but then we went ahead and taught a kind of behavior that meant that we kind of wanted to own this God and, as Christians, we wanted to own Jesus. And we use that to separate us from other people, not to unite us with other people.

Pawlus: It called to mind some of the prophetic words of Martin Luther King, Jr. talking about Sunday being the most segregated hour. We are clearly at a place where that must change and is changing, hopefully. You both would agree, I would imagine.

Chittister: Absolutely.

Campbell: Absolutely right. And I think we have to start with young people who have a pretty good sense of this. Little children don’t start out with all these biases and all this particularity. They are very clear and they play with all kids now. I think part of what’s changing is my grandchildren go to a high school where there are seventy languages! They come home and say, “What’s this holiday that I don’t know about?” Or most of all, “How come they get that day off and we don’t?” But it’s not just that, it’s partly that they really want to know and understand this. I think we’ve come to an enormous moment of opportunity.

Chittister: What about the people who would call people like you and me heretic?

Campbell: Yeah, we do have a few of those, don’t we?

Pawlus: And I wish we had a whole other show to get into that topic today.

Campbell: That is a whole show. Believe me!

Pawlus: Ladies, thank you so very much for being with us today.