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2. Two encounters

After these general observations on the Bible and people of other faiths, let us now turn to two specific stories of encounter between persons of different faiths, one from within the Hebrew Scriptures and the other from the Christian side.

 

Let us take first the story of Jonah. Why Jonah? I must confess a personal bias here. Years back, when I was minister of the Methodist Church in Colombo, I decided to give a series of Bible studies on the "minor" prophets. Even though I was familiar with the story of Jonah, it was while preparing for a Bible study on the Book of Jonah that I "saw" the radical nature of its message. My interest in dialogue was kindled, and I came to a new awareness of the theological significance of my neighbors of other faith connections. For me the Bible has never been the same again!

 

There is no need to recount the story. It is a familiar story and a Sunday school favorite. Though one must admit that it is remembered more for the whale that swallowed Jonah than for the message it carries!

 

When Jonah was called by God to go to the great city of Nineveh and speak against it, he decided to set out in the opposite direction in order to get away from that responsibility. Why?

 

Nineveh was the capital of the great empire of Assyria, Israel's deadly enemy, and one that did not share in its faith. For one reason or another, Jonah did not want to get involved, although at the end of the story he blamed God for all that happened. So instead of going to Nineveh he went to Joppa and got into a ship that was about to sail to Spain.

 

The rest of the story will be even more readily remembered. The ship is caught in a storm; the sailors discover, by casting lots, the person who has brought upon them the anger of God;

 

Jonah is thrown into the sea; he is brought ashore by the whale that has swallowed him, and is again commissioned by God to go to Nineveh to warn its inhabitants about the impending punishment for the wickedness of the city.

 

Jonah obeyed this time. The city was so large that it took him three days to walk through it. He gave his message: The Lord has decided to destroy the city for its wickedness. "In forty days Nineveh will be destroyed," he announced (3:4).

 

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Then something that Jonah never expected happened. The people of Nineveh decided that everyone should fast, and all the people, from the greatest to the least, put on clothes of penitence and prayed for forgiveness. Even the king of Nineveh responded to Jonah's message and sent out a proclamation to the people of Nineveh: "This is the order of the King and his officials: no one is to eat anything; all persons, cattle and sheep are forbidden to eat or drink. All persons and all animals must wear sackcloth (the sign of repentance in Semitic culture). Everyone must pray earnestly to God and must give up his wicked behavior and his evil actions. Perhaps God will change his mind" (3:8).

 

And the King was right. "God saw what they did... so he changed his mind and did not punish them as he said he would" (3:10).

 

The most interesting part of the Book of Jonah in fact comes only after this, and it may be helpful to quote the text in full:

 

Jonah was very unhappy about this and became angry. So he prayed, "Lord, didn't I say before I left home that this is just what you would do? That's why I did my best to run away to Spain! I knew that you are a loving and merciful God, always patient, always kind, and always ready to change your mind and not punish. Now then, Lord, let me die. I am better off dead than alive."

 

The Lord answered, "What right do you have to be angry?"

 

Jonah went out east of the city and sat down. He made a shelter for himself and sat in its shade, waiting to see what would happen to Nineveh. Then the Lord God made a plant grow up over Jonah to give him some shade, so that he would be more comfortable. Jonah was extremely pleased with the plant. But at dawn the next day, at God's command, a worm attacked the plant, and it died. After the sun had risen, God sent a hot east wind, and Jonah was about to faint from the heat of the sun beating down on his head. So he wished he were dead. "I am better off dead than alive," he said.

 

But God said to him, "What right do you have to be angry about the plant?"

Jonah replied, "I have every right to be angry - angry enough to die!"

 

The Lord said to him, "This plant grew up in one night and disappeared the next; you didn't do anything for it, and you didn't make it grow - yet you feel sorry for it! How much more, then, should I have pity on Nineveh, that great city. After all, it has more than 120,000 innocent children in it, as well as many animals!"

 

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A careful reader would have already recognized that Jonah is not so much a prophet as a character in the story. The true prophet here is the unknown author of the Book of Jonah who seeks to make a crucial point about God's relationship with humanity. Jonah represents a particular religious perception and understanding of the people of other faiths.

 

Jonah's annoyance centers around three things. First, he does not expect repentance from the people of Nineveh. For him they are beyond repentance and he does not even call upon them to give up their sinful ways; he simply announces the impending destruction. Secondly, he does not expect God to respond so quickly and so readily, and by so doing to put to shame the prophet of doom God had himself commissioned. Thirdly, Jonah suspects from the beginning that God is not entirely reliable in these matters. That was why he did not want to get involved. He was pressed into service. And then let down. He complains that if God wants to deal with people in his own way, he could at least have left him alone. Now, having predicted the destruction of Nineveh, which God wanted him to do. God has gone back on his word and Jonah himself is discredited. "Now Lord, let me die. I am better off dead than alive."

 

The Book of Jonah is meant to illustrate God's absolute sovereignty over the whole of creation. It portrays God as God of mercy and love, who would rather forgive than destroy. The point of the Book of Jonah is that this love and mercy of God are not confined to any one nation or people. This "foreign" city and people are as much the concern of God as Jerusalem and Israel; their prayer and repentance are as acceptable to God as anyone else's! God deals with the people of Nineveh with profound compassion.

 

What, then, does this book tell us about the way we think of and have dealings with people of other faiths?

 

The second encounter is described in the Acts of the Apost­les. In chapter 10 of the book, we have the story of the encounter between Peter and a man called Cornelius who is the captain of a Roman regiment. Now Cornelius is a "God-fearer", a name that is given to non-Jews who take an active interest in the

 

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teaching of the Torah and hold in honor the God of Israel. He is also active in works of charity.

 

Cornelius has a vision. He is asked by an angel of God to send for Simon Peter who is at Joppa in the house of another Simon, a leather-worker. He sends three men to invite him to his home in Caesarea.

 

In the meantime, Peter goes up on the roof of the house in order to pray. He has a strange vision.

 

He saw the heaven open and something coming down that looked like a large sheet being lowered by its four corners to the earth. In it were all kinds of animals, reptiles, and wild birds. A voice said to him, "Get up, Peter, kill and eat." But Peter said, "Certainly not, Lord! I have never eaten anything ritually unclean or defiled." The voice spoke to him again, "Do not consider anything unclean that God has declared clean." This happened three times and then the thing was taken back up into heaven (Acts 10:11-12).

 

This vision is the centre of the story, for Cornelius, who had sent his men to bring Peter to him, is a "Gentile". Normally Peter would not enter his house or eat with him. Peter acknowl­edges this when he enters the house of Cornelius:

 

"You yourselves know very well that a Jew is not allowed by his religion to visit or associate with Gentiles. But God has shown me that I must not consider any person ritually unclean or defiled" (v.28).

 

Then he listens to Cornelius' story of how God approved his prayers and works of charity, and makes his second confession:

 

"I now realize that it is true that God treats everyone on the same basis. Whoever worships him and does what is right is acceptable to him; no matter what race he belongs to" (v.34-35).

 

The whole story is set in the context of the conversion of Cornelius, but in many ways, it is also the story of the conver­sion of Peter. Peter learns, perhaps for the first time, that the religious laws set by religious traditions are not the boundaries within which God operates. Such religious laws are often necessary and they help provide identity, coherence and mean­ing for particular religious communities. Many of them may have been shaped more by specific cultural and historical necessities than a profound understanding of God and God's

 

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relationship with humanity. The real problem begins when these laws are given universal validity and are held as defining the boundaries of God’s own activity.

 

We have had many such instances in the history of the church. At one time, there was an attempt to limit the saving activity of God to the confines of the church, insisting, "There is no salvation outside the church". The debate on the relation between conversion and baptism continues to this day. A number of Christians believe that one has to be baptized in order to be saved, and this is being seriously challenged in some parts of the world. It is not our intention here to enter this debate. What is important for us is to recognize that Peter had to undergo a process of conversion in order to meet Cornelius and tell him about Jesus Christ.

 

But for the vision he had, Peter would have had many problems when the men sent by Cornelius arrived at his door, for he would normally not go to the house of a Gentile, far less eat with him and stay with him. For that encounter to happen, God had to convert Peter to his way of looking at humanity.

 

Secondly, Peter learned the lesson that Jonah also reluctantly learned. That there is no need to "channel" God to people. God has direct access to people, and they stand in a relationship to God.

 

Christians have always been slow and reluctant to learn this truth. Faced with the undeniable faith and the complete depend­ence on God in the life of a Muslim, or the deep devotion to God in the prayer of a Hindu, or the compassion and the dedication of a Buddhist, Christians experience a certain reservation to affirm these. Somehow, the average Christian would like to feel that not all this is really like Christian faith, Christian devotion and Christian dedication. They are sometimes interpreted as belonging to what is called "natural" revelation, which is "not quite the thing". At one time Christian theologians claimed that all these were sociologically interesting but had no transcenden­tal dimension to them.

 

But in the story of Cornelius we are told that God had heard his prayer and was pleased with his works of charity. It is true that he becomes a disciple of Christ. But long before he ever heard the message, he had stood in a special relationship with God. It was Peter who had to learn that truth. It had never

 

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occurred to Peter that God would communicate so directly with someone outside the Jewish religion and not ritually acceptable to his religious tradition. "I now realize", says peter, "that it is true that God treats everyone on the same basis!"

 

At the Sixth Assembly of the World Council of Churches in Vancouver, worship played a very important role. There was a children's camp, which was rum parallel to the Assembly. Its purpose was to expose the Assembly to the children and to bring the concerns of the child to the Assembly. The Worship Com­mittee gave one of the main morning worship services of the Assembly to the children and asked them to plan it. The children wrote their own prayers and songs. The song that captured the imagination of many of the participants of the Assembly was this one:

 

Black and white, red, and yellow

God loves us everyone;

black and white and red and yellow,

God loves us all.

God has no favorite people,

all are alike to him;

God is love, God gives peace,

God loves us all.

 

It was refreshing to hear from the lips of children the message that Jonah and Peter had to learn with so much pain and trouble!