Thursday, November 20, 2014

Now Thank We All

Thanksgiving and the Psalms


November 19, 2014

         When I tried to call to mind the events of that first Thanksgiving I realized again how fuzzy my American history is!  I’m not sure whether my ignorance is a product of poor learning in the first place or loss of what I used to know.  I’m reminded of the twisted way some kids hear the Bible stories we tell.  Like the kid who listed Joan of Arc as Noah’s wife or the one who got the gist of the story about Lot’s wife right—she turned into something—but confused this story with the story of the ark of the covenant going before the people as a pillar of smoke by day and fire by night.  He suggested that Lot’s wife was “a pillar of salt” by day and a “ball of fire” by night!  I’m afraid my recollection of the events around the year 1621 in New England was just about as confused as that boy’s Bible story. 
            You see, somehow I got to thinking that the Pilgrims were the first ones to arrive in the New World, the founders of the nation.  And then I picked up on the fact that the settlers arrived down in Jamestown in 1607, thirteen years ahead of the Pilgrims at Plymouth Rock.  And next I was startled when I read about an English speaking Indian who appeared in the camp named Squanto (Tisquantum in his language).  And confused as I was by thinking that these English folks were the first ones in the area, I wondered if someone was pulling my leg about this English speaking Indian who helped the Pilgrims plant their corn and learn to catch eels.  Where did he come from?  He seemed like a Rolex watch in a cowboy movie.  But no!  My ignorance had done it to me again.  It seems that young Squanto had not only been to England but to Spain, too.  Captain John Smith of Pochohantas fame had led an expedition into the New England area years before and a fellow captain on that trip enticed some Indians on to his boats to trade furs for goods and then held them as captives.  He took them to Spain where he sold some of them as slaves before others were saved by monks in a monastery who found out what he had done.  From there Squanto made his way to England where he lived and worked for a few years, learning English along the way, before joining an expedition to Newfoundland and subsequently back to his home territory at Plymouth.  Arriving there he learned that his whole tribe had died of some disease (imported from the boat crews apparently).  It was this English speaking Squanto who was brought to the Pilgrim settlement and may have made the difference between eating and starving for them.  As is usually the case, Squanto had a darker side that emerged later but his help in that winter of 1621 was almost providential.
            That first Thanksgiving occurred sometime in the Fall of 1621, and there was food enough for the Indians and the Pilgrims alike to enjoy as they celebrated the harvest that would see them through the second winter in America.  More than half of the original settlers did not live to give thanks for that harvest.  And so , the first Thanksgiving came after tragedy, suffering and death. 
            Two and a half centuries later, October 3, 1863, President Abraham Lincoln issued the Proclamation declaring that the last Thursday in November would be Thanksgiving Day.  Our country was in the midst of a Civil War and for millions there was little for which to give thanks.  Just a month or so later the President would stand on the battlefield at Gettysburg and urge
that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion -- that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain -- that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom -- and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.
In the Thanksgiving proclamation, President Lincoln asked that we set aside the day
as a day of Thanksgiving and Praise to our beneficent Father who dwelleth in the Heavens...and fervently implore the interposition of the Almighty Hand to heal the wounds of the nation and to restore it as soon as may be consistent with the Divine purposes to the full enjoyment of peace, harmony, tranquillity and Union.
            You may be wondering about this time how all this relates to the Bible since these Wednesday presentations are supposed to be Bible Studies.  The connection (at least in my mind) lies in the close association of suffering and thanksgiving in the first Thanksgiving and in Lincoln’s proclamation.  Only because they had suffered so much could the Pilgrims rejoice so at the bounty of food that was theirs at the end of that first year.  It is very hard to appreciate that which we have never lost or come close to losing.  How often have we said or heard others say something like, “Oh, if only I had known what I had before I lost my knees (or my health or my job…)I would have done things differently!”  And of course the opposite is true too.  Those who have been granted a new lease on life or a new freedom from pain or the chance to do something they thought was lost forever are effusive in their joy and gratitude.
            This connection between thanksgiving and threats to the things we value most is not new.  In fact, it highlights something that has puzzled Old Testament scholars for a long time.  Many years ago a German scholar by the name of Hermann Gunkel wrote a book on the Psalms that changed the way scholars understand these songs.  Gunkel identified several types of Psalms and showed that all the Psalms of a certain type had the same characteristics.  You can imagine how knowing this helped scholars understand some of the psalms that been hard to interpret.  It was like giving someone a line drawing of the shape of the various states before they started putting a jigsaw puzzle together.  Now they knew what to look for.  Psalms that had been fragmentary could be pieced together with others that supplied the missing parts.
            One of the types that Gunkel identified was that of the Thanksgiving.  He said that there were two kinds of thanksgiving psalms, one used by an individual person and another that the whole community could use.   Of course we use very personal terms when as individuals we thank God for something.  Remember the chorus that we sang as teenagers:
Thank you, Lord, for saving my soul,
Thank you, Lord, for making me whole;
Thank you, Lord, for giving to me
Thy great salvation so rich and free.
And compare that with the hymn we often sing at Thanksgiving
Come, ye thankful people, come, raise the song of harvest home;
All is safely gathered in, ere the winter storms begin.
God our Maker doth provide for our wants to be supplied;
Come to God’s own temple, come, raise the song of harvest home.
One is all about “me” and the other is all about “us.”  So it was in ancient Israel too.
            There aren’t many of the communal thanksgiving psalms left in our Bible for some reason.  Since we know that there were occasions when they brought their gifts of the first fruits to the Temple, we can assume that these times would have been occasions for them to thank God for the harvest just as our Pilgrims did in 1621.  There are a few left.  One of these is Psalm 124
1] If it had not been the LORD who was on our side,
let Israel now say --
[2] if it had not been the LORD who was on our side,
when men rose up against us,
[3] then they would have swallowed us up alive,
when their anger was kindled against us;
[4] then the flood would have swept us away,
the torrent would have gone over us;
[5] then over us would have gone
the raging waters.
[6] Blessed be the LORD,
who has not given us
as prey to their teeth!
[7] We have escaped as a bird
from the snare of the fowlers;
the snare is broken,
and we have escaped!
[8] Our help is in the name of the LORD,
who made heaven and earth.
           
It is interesting that while this is a thanksgiving psalm, the word thank or thanksgiving is not used in it at all.[1] This points up something that we all know naturally there is a fine line between thanking God and praising God.  C.S. Lewis made a wonderful point when he noted that we spontaneously praise what we value and urge others to join us in praising it.  “Isn’t she lovely?  Wasn’t it glorious?  Don’t you think that magnificent?”[2]  So it is with gratitude too.
            Notice also the close association of tragedy and thankfulness in this Psalm.   Israel knew that “if the Lord had not been on our side” things would have turned out quite differently and they were thankful for that help.  While many of the Psalms praise God for his creation or for saving acts in general, the true thanksgiving psalm "was composed for some particular occasion, and offers thanks for some particular benefit experienced and bestowed on people or congregation."[3]
            When we turn to the psalms expressing the thanks of an individual this association with pain and suffering is even clearer.  In fact, expressions of thanksgiving are often actually attached to the laments that describe the tragedy.  Look at Psalm 22.  Here again the word “thanksgiving” is not in the Psalm and the gratitude is expressed as “praise.”  This is the famous Psalm which Jesus quoted on the cross.  It begins, “ My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me and goes on to describe in exaggerated language how “all my bones are out of joint; my heart is like wax, it is melted within my breast” (v. 14).  But suddenly at verse 22, the tone changes and the Psalmist sings:
[22] I will tell of thy name to my brethren;
in the midst of the congregation I will praise thee:
[23] You who fear the LORD, praise him!
all you sons of Jacob, glorify him,
and stand in awe of him, all you sons of Israel!
[24] For he has not despised or abhorred
the affliction of the afflicted;
and he has not hid his face from him,
but has heard, when he cried to him.
[25] From thee comes my praise in the great congregation;
my vows I will pay before those who fear him.[4]
            Notice that the worshipper mentions that he had made a vow which he will now pay.  When illness or disaster struck, the worshipper would m[5] There is a beautiful (though heart-tugging) account of Hannah fulfilling the vow she made as she poured out her heart before God asking for a child.  When that child was weaned, she took him to the temple and dedicated him to God, leaving little Samuel with the priests at Shiloh in fulfillment of her vow. 
            So thanksgiving goes back a long way before 1621.  The Psalms are awfully hard to date, but clearly they were the hymns used in Solomon’s temple.  Some that are attributed to David may be even older.  Many come from the Exile (6th century B.C.) as we would expect.  Of all the tragedies that called for lamentation, the loss of Jerusalem and the shift from Israel to Babylon had to be the greatest that the nation ever faced.
            Many of the thanksgiving psalms don’t serve us well today because they focus on what God did for Israel in the Old Testament times.  A good example of this kind of thanksgiving Psalm is Psalm 105 that calls on Israel to
Give thanks to the Lord,
  call on his name,
make known his deeds among the peoples!
Sing to him, sing praises to him
  Tell of his wonderful works….
Then the psalm begins with Abraham and summarizes all the history of the Exodus and the escape from Egypt as the basis for praising the Lord.  In many ways, the story of the Exodus is the Old Testament version of the story of the Resurrection where a way out was made possible for a people completely shut in.  Understood like that, Psalm 105 still works for us Christians.
            As we approach Thanksgiving, what shall we sing?  Which liturgy shall we chant?  Though there is much hurt in our world over which to lament, there is always much for which to be thankful too.  Not least these days is the fact that there is at least one planet in this vast universe that seems to be made just for us.  Some say it is coincidence.  Most of us feel differently.  But however we understand the origin of our planet and its place in our universe, surely like the psalmist of old we should be moved to praise and thanksgiving by the fact that it is here for us.
O Lord, our Lord
            How majestic is thy name in all the earth!...
When I look at thy heavens,
            The work of thy fingers
The moon and the stars which thou has established
            What is man that thou art mindful of him
And the son of man that thou dost care for him…
O Lord, our Lord
            How majestic is thy name in all the earth!





BACK TO TEXT1. "...the Hebrew language has no word for "thank"; it uses words indicating "praise" (as a rule hodha), and "bless" berekh)...".  Sigmund Mowinckel, The Psalms in Israel's Worship, Vol 2 translated by D. R. Ap-thomas (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1962), 26.
BACK TO TEXT2. C. S. Lewis, Reflections on the Psalms (Collins:  Fontana Books; 1961), p 80
BACK TO TEXT3. Mowinckel, Ibid.
BACK TO TEXT4. "Might we be permitted to read Psalm 23, an individual hymn of thanksgiving, as the words of trust that are missing from the last strophe of Psalm 22? The two psalms share vocabulary and concepts, thus strengthening an argument for connecting them. Psalm 23 expresses confidence in God as shepherd to the psalmist. ...Reading Psalm 23 as a word of trust in answer to the heartfelt lament of Psalm 22 may add a new dimension of understanding to both psalms. Connecting them does not diminish the individual poetic and theological character of either, but rather creates a powerful statement of trust in the Lord."  Nancy deClaissé-Walford taken from the Working Preacher internet site:  https://www.workingpreacher.org/preaching.aspx?commentary_id=925. 
BACK TO TEXT5. Mowinckel, Op.cit., 27-28.  The thanksgiving psalm "turns to God not only to thank and praise him; it will also witness to his honour before men, and therefore turns to them.  The thanksgiving psalm will proclaim the new act of salvation, performed by [the LORD], and call upon men to honour and praise him.  The main section is therefore the tale of distress and salvation, with an introduction and a final invitation to praise and thanksgiving."
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Friday, November 7, 2014


Now Thank We All

The Songs and Hymns of Thanksgiving

November 12, 2014

We sing at Christmas.  In fact, we sing so much at Christmas that we call the songs we sing at Christmas by a special name;  they are "carols."  Are there any "Thanksgiving carols"?  I don't think so.  For years there have been just a few hymns  that we sing in church at Thanksgiving time:
Now thank we all our God
Come, ye thankful people, come
Count  your blessings
We gather together
Somehow we just don't sing at Thanksgiving the way we do at Christmas.  Do all the stores in the mall play Thanksgiving melodies?    I don't think so.  They skip ahead to Christmas carols right after Halloween--maybe before.  Even the secular songs written as Thanksgiving songs tend to get mixed up with Christmas.  For example there is Bing Crosby singing "When I'm worried and I can't sleep, I count my blessings instead of sheep." It is a song of Thanksgiving but it is in his album titled "The Voice of Christmas."  Or there is Lydia Maria Child's wonderful poem she wrote as part of a piece called "A Boy's Thanksgiving" way back in 1844.  We know it better as the song it became when someone set it to music, "Over the river and through the woods to Grandfather's (sic) house we go," but, because it has a sleigh and snow, some verses have been added to the poem to make it relate to Christmas.   In the same way the song that describes a young man's ride with Miss Fanny Bright in a one-horse open sleigh--which originally had nothing to do with Christmas--is now firmly embedded in our December repertoire as "Jingle Bells."  So a lot of songs that the malls could have used as Thanksgiving background music have drifted over to Christmas.
Maybe we don't sing at Thanksgiving because there is no biblical story involved like the story of Bethlehem and the manger. Thanksgiving is not a biblical holiday--at least not in the New Testament.  We'll spend some time later thinking about the roots of our Thanksgiving holiday in a Jewish festival,  but it is well known that our pilgrim ancestors celebrated the first Thanksgiving in 1621 and every President since Washington has called upon the nation to set aside a time for thanksgiving  even when times were very hard.   The day almost feels like a religious holiday like Christmas and Easter but it isn't.  And we don't sing our thanks like we sing about angels bending near the earth.  I don't think we will change the way we do Thanksgiving, but--at least in our church--we have a new hymnal and a new set of Thanksgiving hymns to sing if we want to.   Some of the Thanksgiving hymns in our new hymnal will be new to us, but the tunes to which they are sung are mostly familiar ones. Before we look at the hymns we can use to express our Thanksgiving, let's explore the new hymnal so we can make the best use of it.

Celebrating Grace Hymnal

Hymns are poetry set to music.  Most of us will only use the hymnal as we worship in the sanctuary, but those who do devotionals or teach Bible Study classes will find the hymnal to be a rich resource of poems to be used.  Great hymns have become great because of their beautiful language and ideas that inspire us.  The poets have a way with words that many of us can't match--but we can use their elegant words.  For example, in one of the Thanksgiving hymns there is a beautiful treatment of God's love for us:
                    "Because your love has touched me,
                      I have love to give away;
                     Now the bread of love is rising,
                     Loaves of love to multiply!"
There are three good ways any of us can make use of the hymnal for our private meditation or for use in teaching.  First, the hymnal is organized around the two basic elements of our covenant relationship with the LORD.   The first section is all about God who promised Israel "I Will Be Your God" (Exodus 6:7).  Here we find hymns (poems) that deal with God as creator, revealer, redeemer and sustainer and also hymns for use organized by the seasons of the Church Year such as Advent and Easter.  The second section of the hymnal focuses on how we will be God's worshipping and serving people, "You Shall Be My People."  Hymns in this section are grouped by theme and a group of hymns related to one broad subject can be identified quickly.    The second way to use the hymnal is to go to the "Topical Index of Hymns" beginning on page 738. Here hymns are grouped by theme as well, but there are many more categories to help us find just the right hymn to use.  The third tool that can make the hymns more accessible to us for use in devotional or teaching settings is the  "Index of Scriptural Bases of Hymns" (page 737).  If we are looking for some inspiration about a specific biblical passage this index will show us which hymns are based on the passage or book we are using.  This by no means exhausts the resources of our hymnal but these are some ways all of us can benefit from it.

Thanks to our Creator

In a very real sense, this planet on which we live is the "habitat for humanity."  Ours may not be the only planet in the heavens that was created for life as we know it--it's beginning to look as if it may not be--but this blue globe held in place by all kinds of unseen and, for most of us, unfathomable forces is a wonderful world.  From the looks of the dinosaur bones in the natural history museums there may have been a time before we came along when this earth was a very inhospitable place, and it is quite possible that it will be an uncomfortable place at some point in the future.  But for now, we can give thanks from the depth of our hearts for this beautiful planet with all of its creatures.  Even the secular thanksgiving songs express this thanksgiving for God's creation as Louis Armstrong taught us singing "It's a Wonderful World."
                    I see trees of green,
                    red roses too.
                    I see them bloom,
                    for me and you.
                    And I think to myself,
                    what a wonderful world.
Our new hymnal retains some of the old favorites  that we have sung from every hymnal we have ever used like the seventeenth century Now Thank We All Our God,   Come Ye Thankful People Come and  the 1970 hymn, For the Fruit of All Creation, by a British poet, Fred Pratt Green, which may not be as familiar as the first two.   In its first and last stanzas the hymn thanks God for the physical and spiritual blessings our Creator provides us.  In the middle stanza, Mr. Green "reminds us that thanksgiving must also be shown in our deeds of sharing God's bounty with those in need. Although the text is a modern one, it expresses the same message as [that of] the Old Testament prophets: offerings of thanksgiving are acceptable to God only if 'the orphans and the widows' have received loving care (see Isa. 1:10-17; Amos 5:21-24; Micah 6:6-8)."  The text is set to the lovely tune often used for lullabies, "All Through The Night" (In the original Welsh:  Ar hyd y nos).
                    For the fruit of all creation,
                    Thanks be to God.
                    For His gifts to ev'ry nation,
                    Thanks be to God.
                    For the plowing, sowing, reaping,
                    Silent growth while we are sleeping,
                    Future needs in earth's safe-keeping,
                    Thanks be to God.

                     In the just reward of labor,
                     God's will is done.
                     In the help we give our neighbor,
                     God's will is done.
                     In our world-wide task of caring
                     For the hungry and despairing,
                     In the harvests we are sharing,
                     God's will is done.

                      For the harvests of the Spirit,
                      Thanks be to God.
                      For the good we all inherit,
                      Thanks be to God.
                      For the wonders that astound us,
                      For the truths that still confound us,
                      Most of all, that love has found us,
                      Thanks be to God.

      Another hymn that calls on us to be thankful for our created world is #379, Let All Things Now Living.  The hymn begins with a call for all things now living to raise a song of thanksgiving to God the creator and it brings back this theme in its last stanza which looks forward to the time when "all things now living unite in thanksgiving."  In the lovely second stanza the poet, Katherine Davis, touches on the order God has ordained for his universe as something for which we can be grateful:
                      His law he enforces, the stars in their courses
                      And sun in its orbit obediently shine;
                      The hills and the mountains, the rivers and fountains,
                      The deeps of the ocean proclaim him divine.
                      We too should be voicing our love and rejoicing;
                      With glad adoration a song let us raise.


Thanks for The Created

That eminent theologian, Julie Andrews, reminded us  that we all have "favorite things" for which we are grateful even if we don't actually say "thank you" for them:
                      Raindrops on roses and whiskers on kittens
                      Bright copper kettles and warm woolen mittens
                      Brown paper packages tied up with strings
                      These are a few of my favorite things.
Some of our thanksgiving hymns also mention the specific things within our created world for which we are grateful.  One of these hymns is #374, I Thank You Lord For Each New Day  which begins its list of favorite things with:
                       meadows white with dew,
                       the sun's warm hand upon the earth
                       skies of endless blue
                       fruit and flower, lamb and leaf   and
                       every bird that sings
The second stanza expresses gratitude
"for every daisy's lifted face,
for every lovely tune,
for winter's white, for autumn's gold,
for harvest and for home..."

Thanks for Meaning

One of the hymns in our new hymnal that stands out from the rest calls us to thank God for the past, present and future.  The first line of the hymn-which becomes its title- is a little misleading because it asks What Gift Can We Bring, What Present, What Token? (#533).  It sounds like the title of a Christmas hymn like the little drummer boy:
                       Come they told me
                       A new born King to see
                       Our finest gifts we bring
                       To lay before the king
                       So to honor Him
                       When we come.
It isn't, however, a Christmas hymn. The "gifts" that we bring are our thanks:
               Give thanks for the past, for those who had vision,
                       who planted and watered so dreams could come true.
                       Give thanks for the now, for study, for worship,
                       for mission that bids us turn prayer into deed.
                       Give thanks for tomorrow, full of surprises,
                       for knowing whatever tomorrow may bring …
                       we rest in God's keeping and live in God's love.
As you can see, our gift is thanksgiving for being given a meaningful service to our Lord and our world, for "mission that bids us turn prayer into deed."
Another hymn that stresses our "gift" to God is # 670 Take My Gifts and Let Me Love You.  In the first stanza the hymn writer asks the "God who first of all loved me" to "take my gifts."  When we sing this verse we confess that because your love has touched me,
                        I have love to give away;
                        now the bread of love is rising
                        loaves of love to multiply.
In the third stanza the hymn has us pray that God will take even the gifts we don't have yet, skills and talents that we do not yet know we have:
Take whatever I can offer--
gifts that I have yet to find,
skills that I am slow to sharpen,
talents of the hand and mind.
Surely our hymn writer has given us a prayer we can each pray sincerely--we need to ask God to use more of us than we know is in us today.
And finally, our hymnal includes in the Thanksgiving index a hymn that does not use the word "thank" or "praise."  God of the Fertile Fields (#668) stresses our role as stewards of God's creation.  The God of the fertile fields is the one from whose "bounteous hand come gifts your love has planned, that all in every land be clothed and fed."  The hymn confesses "We would be stewards true" and prays "Let all our toil be used, no gift abused, no humble task refused."  It is not enough just to give thanks for the abundance with which we have been blessed--at least not until our brothers and sisters around this globe have enough.  In the same vein, God Whose Giving Knows No Ending (# 671) prays:
                       Now direct our daily labor,
                       lest we strive for self alone.
                       Born with talents, make us servants
                       fit to answer at your throne. ...

                       Open wide our hands in sharing,
                        as we heed Christ's ageless call,
                        healing, teaching, and reclaiming,
                        serving you by loving all.

Conclusion

Maybe we should adapt Elizabeth Barrett Browning's famous sonnet to ask:
How do I thank thee?  Let me count the ways.
I thank Thee to the depth and breadth and height
my soul can reach when feeling out of sight
for the ends of Being and ideal Grace.
I thank Thee to the level of everyday's
most quiet need, by sun and candlelight.
…
I thank Thee with the breath,
smiles, tears, of all my life!  and, if You choose,
I shall but thank Thee better after death. 

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Thursday, November 6, 2014

What About Islam? 
 Mountain Brook Baptist Church 
 November 5, 2014 

     People who worship God as Muhammad taught them are called Muslims. Their religion is called Islam. The news today is saturated with references to Islam; the name is even tied directly to that of a group attempting to form a new nation state, the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS). Nearly every mention of Islam in the news media for the last few months has been linked to ISIS and the barbaric executions of its prisoners or attempts to capture world attention by random acts of terror in civilian populations--most recently in Australia. Before ISIS there was the Taliban in Afghanistan whose religion resulted in the shooting of a schoolgirl because she dared to want an education, a schoolgirl that the rest of the world applauds and sees as a fitting candidate for a Noble prize. The Taliban and other radical Islamic groups insist on the application of Sharia law--Islamic law--to modern societies, a law that condones the execution of a Christian woman who refused to become a Muslim. Because of this association of Islam with terror many, if not most, Americans think of Islam as a religion of jihad and heinous acts that good people of all faiths find repulsive. One can hardly fault people for making such a connection because it is obvious that radical Islamic groups find justification in their religion for such inhumane actions.
     What about Islam then? There are an estimated 1.6 billion Muslims around the world, making Islam the world’s second-largest religion after Christianity, according to the December 2012 Global Religious Landscape report from the Pew Research Center’s Forum on Religion & Public Life. Should we lump the billion and a half Muslims with the million or so who have dominated the news with their radical religion? The answer surely is "No," but it would be easier to reach this judgment if major segments of the Muslim world would publicly condemn the radicals. Perhaps they have and we have not heard them.[1] It is true that Turkey--a Muslim country--has joined its NATO allies to resist ISIS. Many moderate Muslims insist that radical, jihadist Islam is not representative of the faith as a whole, which they insist is peaceful. In order for us to make a better judgment about the Muslims in the news I want to review with you the basics of Islam. If one is to compare Islam with Christianity, surely we should compare the best of both faiths and not the worst elements.

The Man Muhammad 
     The 1.6 billion Muslims in the world today all trace the beginnings of their religion to a man born in 570 A.D., almost six hundred years after Jesus and about eighteen hundred years after Moses. Muhammad was born to a poor family in the Saudi Arabian town of Mecca. Muhammad's full name is Muhammad ibn Abd Allah, ibn Abd al-Muttalib, ibn Hashim. Muhammad's father was Abdallah (ʿAbd Allāh, servant of Allah), of the family of Hashim. The name Muhammad means "Praised." His father died soon after Muhammad's birth. At the age of six the boy lost his mother and was thereafter taken care of by his uncle Abu-Talib. He spent his early life as a shepherd and an attendant of caravans. He was employed by a rich widow, Khadijah, fifteen years his senior, to take her caravan to Syria and trade for her. Muhammad handled this task well and at the age of twenty-five Khadijah married the younger Muhammad. She bore him six children. The two sons born to this couple died in infancy but four daughters survived. Of these four, Fatima, is the most famous. To an outsider at least, Fatima seems to fill the role in Islam that is filled by Mary in the Catholic Christian faith. Following the death of Khadijah, Muhammad married twelve other wives. One of those wives was betrothed to him as a child and married to him at puberty. This wife, Aisha, survived Muhammad by decades and was involved in the collection of his sayings which became part of the Quran.

Prophetic Call and Vision 
 Although all of the accounts of Muhammad's initial vision which began his life as a prophet are colored by the reverence and devotion of centuries of followers, there was obviously a dramatic moment in his life that changed everything. Here is the account that appears in one introduction to the Quran in English:[2]

 It was his practice to retire with his family for a month of every year to a cave in the desert for meditation. His place of retreat was Hira, a desert hill not far from Mecca, and his chosen month was Ramadan, the month of heat. It was there one night towards the end of his quiet month that the first revelation came to him when he was forty years old. He was asleep or in a trance when he heard a voice say: "Read!" He said: "I cannot read." The voice again said: "Read!" He said: "I cannot read." A third time the voice, more terrible, commanded: "Read!" He said: "What can I read?" The voice said: "Read: In the name of thy Lord Who createth. Createth man from a clot." ''Read: And it is thy lord the Most Bountiful Who teacheth by the pen. Teacheth man that which he knew not." When he awoke the words remained "as if inscribed upon his heart." He went out of the cave on to the hillside and heard the same awe-inspiring voice say: "0 Muhammad! Thou art Allah's messenger and I am Gabriel." Then he raised his eyes and saw the angel in the likeness of a man, standing in the sky above the horizon. And again the dreadful voice said: "0 Muhammad! Thou art Allah's messenger, and I am Gabriel" Muhammad (God bless and keep him!) stood quite still, turning away his face from the brightness of the vision, but whithersoever he might turn his face, there always stood the angel confronting him. He remained thus a long while till at length the angel vanished, when he returned in great distress of mind to his wife Khadijah. She did her best to reassure him, saying that his conduct had been such that Allah would not let a harmful spirit come to him, and that it was her belief that he was to become the Prophet of his people. On their return to Mecca she took him to her cousin, Waraqa ibn Naufal, a very old man "who knew the Scriptures of the Jews and the Christians," who declared his belief that the heavenly messenger who came to Moses of old had come to Muhammad and that he was chosen as the Prophet of his people." 

 Flight to Medina and Return to Mecca 
     Muhammad began to share his belief in one God, Allah, and gradually gathered a small group of converts numbering about forty. At this time each tribe, and sometimes each clan within a tribe, worshipped a god which was usually represented by an idol. The famed Kaabah around which a million pilgrims walk each year on their pilgrimage to Mecca was home to hundreds of idols and sacred objects. Muhammad began aggressively arguing that Allah alone should be worshiped and all the idols destroyed. Many of the tribes in and near Mecca resisted the message of Muhammad fiercely. Ultimately, Muhammad and his followers had to flee from Mecca. This flight to Medina a city north of Mecca is known as the Hegira and occurred in 622 A.D.[3] The religion known as Islam is dated from this event. The Muslim calendar counts the years After the Hegira or A.H. To determine the date of Muslim events on our calendar, simply add 622 to the AH date used by Muslims. The inhabitants of Medina welcomed Muhammad and he began to use military force to combat his enemies. He conquered several Jewish, Christian and Arabian tribes and eight years after fleeing, he entered Mecca in triumph, demolished the idols of the Kaaba, became master of Arabia, and finally united all the tribes under one emblem and one religion. Mecca became the most sacred place on earth to Muslims and to this day, Muslims bow in prayer toward Mecca. Each mosque has a niche in a wall indicating the direction to face when praying.
     In 632 he made his last pilgrimage to Mecca at the head of some forty thousand followers. Soon after his return to Medina he died of a violent fever at the age of 53, the eleventh year of the Hegira (A.H. 11), and the year 633 A.D. of the Christian era.

 Geographical Spread of Islam 
     Following the death of Muhammad, his disciples spread outward from Saudi Arabia across North Africa and the Middle East. Muhammad recognized Jews and Christians as "People of the Book" since they shared the Old Testament, and these religious groups were not required (theoretically) to convert when their territory was conquered--but they were required to pay the tax imposed on them and many such conquered populations converted rather than pay the tax. Those who were neither Christian nor Jew were required to convert or face death. The modern map of Islam shows a high concentration of Muslims in the original regions and also major populations in Africa, Turkey, and the Asia-Pacific region (especially India and Pakistan). After the death of Muhammad there was a major conflict over leadership. Ultimately two major groups emerged within the Muslim world--Sunnis (the majority group) and Shias. While they share the fundamental elements of the Muslim religion they differ widely over interpretations of the Quran and legal practices (Sharia law). In some cases the conflicts between Sunni and Shia have been more violent than the confrontation of Islam with other religious groups.[4]

The Message of Islam: The Five Pillars[5]
Profession (Shahadah)
     All Muslims share some things in common. Among these shared elements are the so-called Five Pillars of Islam. Some of these shared elements are very similar to Christian practices even though they may not seem familiar because of the way Muslims go about them. For example, the first pillar of Islam is a profession of faith! Sounds familiar doesn't it? While a new Christian will confess "Jesus is Lord" at his baptism, a convert to Islam would profess: "There is no god but Allah; Muhammad is the messenger of Allah." One becomes a Muslim when he or she recites this profession with a sincere heart. The profession must be made in Arabic. The Arabic word for this pillar is Shahada which comes from the verb "to testify." The Shahada is written in many elaborate and decorative ways by Muslims. The only things like this in the Christian faith are the medieval illuminated biblical manuscripts.

 Prayer (Salah) A second pillar of Islam is the requirement that one pray five times a day. One of the most common images of the Muslim faith is the picture of hundreds of men (women normally do not pray publicly) bowing in prayer in a mosque. In the Muslim tradition, the first prayer comes before sunrise, the second at noon, the third in the late afternoon, the fourth after sunset and the fifth before bedtime. The call to prayer may well be the first impression a westerner gets of a Muslim city. I well remember the call to prayer that came over the loud speakers in Casablanca before dawn on my first morning in Morocco. The one who calls to prayer chants in Arabic:
 God is Great (said four times)
I bear witness that there is no god except the One God. (said two times)
I bear witness that Muhammad is the messenger of God. (said two times) I

    If possible one prays at a mosque, but if that is not possible a devout Muslim will pray wherever he (or she) is--be that on a street corner or in a place of business. Many Christians no longer observe fixed hours of prayer, but liturgical churches--especially the Roman Catholic and the Orthodox churches--maintain this tradition. Monks and nuns still observe very similar cycles of prayer. For those of us not familiar with this kind of Christian devotion, it is instructive to visit the web site of St. John's Abbey in Minnesota.[6]

 "As Benedictine monks, we approach prayer in a distinctive, monastic way. We pray the Psalms, those ancient, iron-age poems given to the Church by the people of Israel, at regular times each day. We come together to do this "work of God" and it is the glue that holds our community life together."

    Muslims--like the Monks of St. John's Abbey--pray a fixed form of prayer, reciting the first chapter of the Quran and using other standard forms of prayer and praise as well as various positions of the body from standing erect to kneeling and prostration. The Muslims seek to involve their whole body in worship throughout the day from dawn to bedtime in ways not very different from that of Old Testament worshippers who sought to submit heart, head, hands and house to God (Deuteronomy 6:4-9).

 Providing (Zakat)
     Zakāt, "that which purifies," is the practice of taxation and redistribution, including benefits paid to poor Muslims, imposed upon Muslims based on accumulated wealth. It is obligatory for all who are able to do so, and it is considered to be a personal responsibility for Muslims to ease economic hardship for other Muslims to eliminate inequality among followers of Islam. In some countries the zakat is collected by the state and is mandatory, but in most countries the zakat is a voluntary contribution that varies in amount from at least two and a half percent upward. In addition to the tax, Muslims are expected to remember the poor. I had the special experience of being in a Muslim home one year when they celebrated the Festival of the Sacrifice (of Isaac or Ishmael). Each family sacrifices a sheep and prepares a great meal just as we do at Thanksgiving. The meat from the sacrificed animal is preferred to be divided into three parts. The family retains one third of the share; another third is given to relatives, friends and neighbors; and the remaining third is given to the poor and needy. I went with the father of this family late in the evening to deliver the food they had reserved to a poor employee and his family. He spoke no English and I spoke no Arabic, but words were not needed to understand what was transpiring. Christians, Muslims and Jews are all called upon to remember the poor.

 Fasting (Sawm)
     The fourth pillar of Islam is fasting, especially during the month of Ramadan (which is special because that is when Muhammad had his vision calling him to be a prophet). Fasting involves abstaining from food, drink and sexual intimacy from dawn to dusk. While not the same by any means, we Christians practice a form of fasting--though usually mild-- during the Lenten season leading up to Easter. The purpose of doing without is to heighten our conciousness of God. Muslims have a much more demanding routine since they are required to do even without water during the daylight hours. They can eat before sunrise and after sunset. The month of Ramadan comes at different times in our calendar year since it is based on a lunar calendar and when it comes during the long summer days it can be expecially demanding. The fast days of Ramadan do have their light side, however, since the long period without makes the meal that breaks the fast especially enjoyable. Muslims call this meal Iftar and it often takes the form of a big potluck meal at a mosque just after the evening call to prayer at sundown.

 Pilgrimage (Hajj)
     The last pillar of Islam is the Hajj, the once in a lifetime pilgrimage of a man to Mecca to make the walk around the Kaabah at the center of the holiest place of all for Muslims. Who can forget the images of a million men prostrating themselves in prayer around the Kaabah that are routinely featured each year in our newspapers. Christians are not under any mandate to make a pilgrimage to Israel, but each Christmas we see pictures of pilgrims making their way to Bethlehem, and each Easter we see Christians walking the famed Via Dolorosa in Jerusalem just as Christ did two millenia ago. Catholics by the million make the journey to Rome to stand in the plaza at the Vatican to hear the Pope's sermon and receive his blessing. Bethlehem, Jerusalem and Rome become Mecca for many Christians. Once a Muslim man makes the pilgrimage to Mecca (women are not required to make the journey), he is given the honorary title of Hajj. I have never forgotten the time I was privileged to have a traditional dinner with a family in Casablanca. The father of the family introduced himself--in English--by giving his name and saying, "I am Hajj." Clearly that pilgrimage was the defining moment in his life.

 The Quran (Koran) 
     The Arabic word qur'an is a form of the verb meaning "to read."  The Quran (Koran) is the Islamic sacred book; it is their scripture. Muslims believe the Quran to be the word of God as dictated to Muhammad by the archangel Gabriel and written down in Arabic. The Quran consists of 114 chapters of varying lengths, known as suras. The first sura is said as part of the daily prayers and is only a few verses long:
1. In the name of Allah, Most Gracious, Most Merciful.
2. Praise be to Allah, the Cherisher and Sustainer of the worlds;
3. Most Gracious, Most Merciful;
4. Master of the Day of Judgment.
5. Thee do we worship, and Thine aid we seek.
6. Show us the straight way,
7. The way of those on whom Thou hast bestowed Thy Grace, those whose (portion) is not wrath, and who go not astray.

     The Muslim scriptures touch upon all aspects of human existence, including matters of doctrine, social organization, and legislation. In a recent Baptist Press article which appeared in The Alabama Baptist on October 23, 2014, an Islamic scholar is quoted as saying:

“There is a fundamentally different hermeneutical approach between the two ends of the Islamic spectrum [literalists and rationalists]. For radicals, the words of the Quran, Hadith and legal texts are to be taken literally. They believe that Allah gave them those texts for all time with universal and timeless relevance. So when the Quran says to slay the pagans wherever you find them — or for that matter, says a man can take four wives — then quite simply Allah means that Muslims can follow those injunctions for all time. Hence the ISIS phenomenon...”

     In our Old Testament there are passages which command Israel to kill man, woman and child among their enemies (see Deuteronomy 20:10-18 for example). Most of us understand that such a command would have reflected the common understanding of warfare three millenia ago but none would think such brutality could be God's will for us today. Unfortunately, some Muslims are so rigid in their interpretation of their scriptures that they take such commands literally even today. Many of the narratives of our Old Testament are summarized or re-told in the Quran. The Quran tells of Jesus' virgin birth, recounts many of his miraculous healings and describes Jesus as a prophet. Muslims insist that God does not have a "son," thus they do not believe that Jesus was "son of God."

Conclusion 

     So what are we to make of Islam? It appears to many that we are on a collision course with Islam that cannot be resolved by dialogue. It is obvious that militant Islam which uses force to deny people freedom of choice in religious matters is a threat to free peoples of all faiths and especially to American Christians. It is abundantly clear that radical, militant Islam as we see it in ISIS and the Taliban (and numerous other groups) represents a worship of God that is as unacceptable as that espoused by radical Christian groups that use murder and violence to impose their understanding of God on others. Yet it is obvious that there are many ways in which Muslims and Christians (and Jews) have more in common than they do differences. We need to know Muslims better than we do now, especially American Muslims. Perhaps American Muslims can and will have the ability to influence the world. In a recent Wall Street Joural article, two high officials of the Muslim Public Affairs Council urged their American brothers and sisters to "Let Islamic Reform Start in America." It may not be possible for this to happen, but if we Christians can help America's moderate Muslims be a light to their world we could hardly find a more worthy endeavor. Perhaps if this is to happen it ought to begin with churches like ours.


FOOTNOTES

  BACK TO TEXT1. One Arab scholar, Dr. Nafeez Ahmed, has argued that there are moderate voices being raised in the Arab world: "Such global Muslim public opinion has translated into action. The “Muslim voices against extremism and terrorism” resource compiled by Sheila Musaji, founding editor of The American Muslim journal, collects in one website literally hundreds and hundreds of fatwas, formal statements, initiatives, and non-violent solutions by Muslim leaders, organizations and civil society movements vehemently opposing extremism and terrorism. Part of this collection includes innumerable calls for non-violence inspired by Quranic texts and Prophetic traditions by Muslim groups and leaders in the U.S., UK, Western Europe, India, Pakistan, Iran, Jordan, Egypt – to name just a few." Dr. Ahmed's comments are published on the Al Arabiya website: http://english.alarabiya.net/en/views/news/world/2014/07/07/Liberal-Western-pundits-where-s-the-outrage-over-moderate-Muslims-.html

  BACK TO TEXT2. Abdullah Yusuf Ali, The Glorious Qur'an: Translation (Reprint Edition. 2003) (New Delhi: Islamic Book Service, 2003) pages iv-v.

  BACK TO TEXT3. Pronounced "hay-gir-a" with the accent on the "hay" or "heh-djai-ra" with the emphasis on the "djai".

  BACK TO TEXT4. To hear Katie Couric explain the history of the Sunni and Shia conflict go to: http://news.yahoo.com/katie-couric-sunni-vs-shia-now-i-get-it-155748192.html

  BACK TO TEXT5. Sunni and Shia Muslims have different versions of the five pillars. The five presented here follow the Sunni version.

  BACK TO TEXT6. http://www.saintjohnsabbey.org/monastic-life/abbey-spirituality1/ Wall Street Journal, October 30, 2014
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