Many Ways?

DAILY BYTE

We’re thinking this week about our Christian faith in relationship to other faith traditions. And I think the world we find ourselves in is in many ways similar to the one in which the apostles lived.

Peter and the other apostles lived in a predominantly Jewish culture. We tend to think of Christ-followers as being Christian, but at the time of the story we’re reading from Acts, the followers of Jesus were Jewish, practicing Jewish customs like circumcision.

And as the message of Jesus spread, the apostles started to realize sharing the good news might mean speaking to people who weren’t their own faith – people who weren’t – Jewish.

And they were sceptical to say the least – nervous, definitely, and probably downright scared. They were twittering all over when they heard that Peter had gone to Jerusalem to talk and eat with people who were uncircumcised - people who were of a different culture and faith. They couldn’t get their minds around the idea that the opportunity for God’s repentance and the movement of God’s Spirit could possibly be available to people from other faiths!

And as people who believe that Jesus is the way, the truth, and the life, we struggle with this, too, don’t we? We ask the question, if Jesus is the way, then how can there be another way?

And not just another way, but many other ways all tied to the different faiths that exist in the world.

And we wonder, how can we be confident and bold in proclaiming what we believe to be true, while also being open to people with other faiths?

And the answer that the scriptures lead us to, I believe, is to do with looking for the Holy Spirit together. In the short story from yesterday, two friends went searching for the key in the light, and just as they did, we have to train our eyes to seek out the light of God’s Spirit in unlikely or surprising places.

Even if our friends are people of other faiths.

But that does not mean that we leave Jesus behind when we go seeking after the key to life. It means that we carry Jesus within us wherever we go, using his Good News as our measure for recognizing what the movement of the Holy Spirit looks like.

Where might you see Jesus and the work of the Holy Spirit in people of other faiths?

FOCUS READING

Acts 11:4-12a

Then Peter began to explain it to them, step by step, saying, “I was in the city of Joppa praying, and in a trance I saw a vision. There was something like a large sheet coming down from heaven, being lowered by its four corners; and it came close to me. As I looked at it closely I saw four-footed animals, beasts of prey, reptiles, and birds of the air. I also heard a voice saying to me, ‘Get up, Peter; kill and eat.’ But I replied, ‘By no means, Lord; for nothing profane or unclean has ever entered my mouth.’ But a second time the voice answered from heaven, ‘What God has made clean, you must not call profane.’ This happened three times; then everything was pulled up again to heaven. At that very moment three men, sent to me from Caesarea, arrived at the house where we were. The Spirit told me to go with them and not to make a distinction between them and us.