Readings:
Genesis 17:3-9; Psalm 105; John 8:51-59

‘I will establish my Covenant between myself and you, and your descendants after you, generation after generation, a Covenant in perpetuity, to be your God and God of your descendants after you.. You, on your part, shall maintain my Covenant, yourself and your descendants after you, generation after generation.‘
Genesis 17:7, 9

Jesus said to the Jews, ‘I tell you most solemnly, whoever keeps my word will never see death.’ The Jews said, ‘Now we know for certain that you are possessed. Abraham is dead, and the prophets are dead, and yet you say, “Whoever keeps my word will never know the taste of death.” Are you greater than our father Abraham, who is dead?’… Jesus replied, ‘I tell you most solemnly, before Abraham ever was, I Am.’ At this they picked up stones to throw at him…
John 8:52, 53, 58, 59

To whatever Christian denomination we belong, we believe that we are children of the covenant, that the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, God of the Jewish people, is also our God. The covenant with Abraham is God’s covenant with us now: and on our part we pledge to maintain that covenant.

For Israel, maintaining the covenant meant mirroring God in all her dealings. Most of the Law is about the way in which the Jews must mirror the compassion, tenderness, mercy and justice of God, not only to other Jews, but also to the stranger.

Paul says of Jesus, ‘He is the image of the unseen God and the first-born of all creation, for in him were created all things in heaven and on earth: everything visible and everything invisible… all things were created through him and for him’ (Colossians 1:15-16). Jesus is the full revelation of the covenant, the unbreakable bond between God and ourselves, for this man, Jesus, human like us, can say, ‘before Abraham ever was, I Am’ (John 8:58). This is an astonishing claim, not only about Jesus of Nazareth, but also about our own identity and destiny.

Belief in Jesus’ divinity is to believe that he is the image of the unseen God and that in him all peoples, of all religions and of none, are being called into unity with God, with one another and with all creation. God’s ways are not our ways, his thoughts not our thoughts (Isaiah 55:9). He works in ways which transcend our thinking and imagining and he works in every individual, so that there is no religion, no nation, no group, no individual from whom we cannot learn something, for there is that which is of God in everyone.

Some Christians believe inter-faith relations to be a danger to Christian faith: others believe inter-faith relations to be integral to Christian faith. If we believe Christ to be, in Paul’s words, the image of the unseen God in whom all creation has its being and in whom all things in heaven and on earth are to be reconciled (Colossians 1:15-20), then this reconciliation must somehow include all people, of all religions. This raises a question for Christians: can we ever claim to have a complete knowledge of Christ and of his ways? Paul says the love of Christ goes ‘beyond all knowledge’ (Ephesians 3:19).

All the Christians whom I have met personally, or through reading, who are engaged in inter-faith work, claim that their study and friendship with people of other religions has helped them appreciate in a new way the breadth and depth of their own faith. One striking example in my own experience was Stella Reekie, a Church of Scotland deaconess, previously mentioned in this book, who died in 1983. She was appointed by Christian Churches in Scotland to work with immigrants. She kept open house and people of many different religions came to her. At her funeral, mourners included Sikhs, Hindus, Muslims, Bahais, Jews, as well as Christians of different denominations. A Sikh gave the address. He compared Stella to water — life-giving, refreshing, cleansing, and assuming the shape of whatever receives it. ‘Stella’, he said, ‘was to me a Sikh, to my Muslim friends a Muslim, to Jews she was Jewish’. He ended by saying, ‘I have never understood what Christians meant when they say “Jesus died for our sins”, but I know that Stella died for our sins’. Stella was no theologian, but her Christ-centered life was the very stuff of theology. God’s ways are not our ways, his thoughts are not our thoughts. May he preserve us from trying to take over from him, limiting the ways of God and of his Christ to those patterns of thought and behaviour with which we are familiar and approve!

Prayer
God, give us the grace to wonder at our being and our calling to live in covenant with you, and help us to recognize you, Lord of all creation, in everyone we meet. We ask you this through Jesus Christ, our Lord.
Amen.