"The Disciplined Spirit"

Just a few short, shaky months after the events of 9/11, I attended a late afternoon interfaith worship service at the First AME Church in Los Angeles. The theme was religious tolerance, and the participants were as diverse as only a Los Angeles group can be. Special guests and speakers were seated on the chancel, facing the congregation.

As the winter light began to fade, the service paused and the room went quiet. The Muslim imams seated on the chancel took out small packets of food. We all watched as they began to eat. Our worship leader explained to us that it was Ramadan, and at sundown our Muslim guests were breaking their fast.

They ate reverently - though they must have also been ravenous. I watched, fascinated, as the simple act of feeding oneself was elevated to a religious ritual. I had to suspend all my ingrained church rules about not eating in the sanctuary as I witnessed a custom that answers to a higher law. They could not wait. All over Los Angeles - all over the world, Muslims break their Ramadan fast at sundown.

Rituals reinforce the unity of a faith community. Ramadan is a practice that is central to the Muslim way, incorporating several acts of worship performed alone or in groups. Prayer, fasting, abstinence, and charitable giving are religious disciplines heightened during Ramadan, the holiest of Islamic months.

Rigorous disciplines such as fasting and abstinence require personal and collective commitment. Each individual must struggle with keeping the commitment, but the community provides the essential solidarity. Charitable giving also connects with the Muslim view of the individual in society, in which personal generosity takes care of the weaker members, as well as the institutions that serve everyone. All Muslim activities, including the observance of Ramadan, reflect a distinctive world view. Acts of worship are not simple individual expressions of faith. They are the way in which people enact the Divine Law. More important than theology, Divine Law is how people live out God's will for humanity.

Muslim scholar Seyyed Hossein Nasr writes, "Divine Law embraces every aspect of life and removes the distinction between sacred and profane or religious and secular. Since God is the creator of all things," he continues, "there is no legitimate domain of life to which His Will or His Laws do not apply. Even the most ordinary acts of life carried out according to [the Divine Law] are sanctified, and persons of faith who live a life according to the Divine Law live a life immersed in grace . . . ."

The discipline required for Ramadan, or for any act of Muslim devotion, belongs to a reality created by God. The spiritual practices of Islam are not simply an expression of personal intention. They are compliance with the source of transcendence, without which life is meaningless. "Islam" comes from the Arabic word meaning "surrender." It also means "peace." Thoughtful Westerners have sought, in recent years, to learn more about Islam and its impact on world events. This education is important, since not all we hear is reassuring. Just this week the news has hinted ominously at a connection between Ramadan and our elections here in the United States, as well as increased insurgency in Iraq. Such reports leave us with the erroneous impression that Ramadan itself foments violence and anti-American feeling.

Only education about Islam and dialogue with its followers can help us put such notions into perspective. No one can predict whether our election season will proceed undisrupted, but we can do something about our own ignorance and fear. One way is to use the occasion of Ramadan as an opportunity to explore the differences and the similarities between our faiths.

I have always been impressed by the quality of discipline practiced by Muslims. Certain practices are so deeply ingrained that they are refreshingly free of the hesitation we tend to feel towards ritual and discipline. For us, spiritual practice is about personal choice. It's about taking a great leap into unfamiliar territory. Many of you are knowledgeable about meditation and yoga, but there is nothing in our tradition that teaches us how to learn them.

The rituals we practice as part of our worship do invoke our heritage, but they are also voluntary and rather idiosyncratic. We insist on finding personal meaning in everything we do. We value community, but it is not our higher power. We are the final authority in the spiritual practices we keep.

We religious liberals do practice other disciplines required by our community. Democratic decision-making, for example, can take a lot of out of you, and test your commitment too. But whether you pray or conform to spiritual practices belonging to your predecessors are decisions you alone may make, and others will not measure your faith by them.

Another difference between us and followers of Islam is how we see the social order. Unitarian Universalists speak of the "interdependent web" and our earth as a sacred place, but we expect our society and our government to be secular. We may revere our democratic institutions, but we do not need them to reflect back to us our faith tradition - or any other. We get upset if we sense that our government is imposing a religious perspective on our country.

We value religious pluralism - the idea that many faith traditions can peaceably coexist - and think that diversity enriches everyone. We conclude that pluralism can only thrive in a society that allows every faith perspective to express itself freely and without preferential treatment.

For many Muslims, the value of a diverse and pluralistic society does not have to conflict with their view of the world as sacred. Peaceful relations with neighbors and religious tolerance are values they cherish too. It is even possible to follow Divine Law and live in a secular society, as Muslims in the West must do. Their spiritual legacy, and all the practices by which they preserve it, are their higher power. And some choose to institute Divine Law as the law of the land.

Naming differences between one religious tradition and another is a delicate matter these days. And yet clearly there are differences between Unitarian Universalism and Islam, just as there are among others. What we do with differences - whether we fear them or learn from them - is the challenge of our time.

One Muslim perspective, offered by Seyyed Hossein Nasr, may help us learn what we need to know. In his book, "The Heart of Islam: Enduring Values for Humanity," Nasr writes about his faith tradition with erudition and loyalty. Having lived in the United States as well as Iran, he is immersed in the complexities of East-West dialogue and the challenges of globalization. He writes, "The destinies of the West and the Islamic world are intertwined in such a way that one cannot reduce the situation simply to 'us' and 'them' in total mutual exclusion." That goes for both sides. Understanding and co-existence require an acceptance of the ways in which we are alike as well as dissimilar; even more, of the ways in which we need each other.

Whatever our religious differences, our customs, or our vision of society - differences which sometimes seem insurmountable; our humanity is one and the same. We yearn for love and acceptance, for a peaceful world in which to raise our young, for security and contentment. Religion may divide us, but not our essential humanity, or our bond with all life.

It is not always easy to remember this, but it is true. Seyyed Hossein Nasr writes, "In this critical moment in human history . . . all human beings must seek to live an ethical life based on mutual respect and greater knowledge of each other." Perhaps what it means to live an ethical life is to seek to understand what it means to be different; to set aside fear and overcome ignorance.

The purpose is not to discover that we are all the same, but to remember that we are all human. And we need each other to live. What must we learn before we can live together in peace?

If you are anxious and distracted this year, as I am, by the election, by the war, by the very real divisions that affect us every day, everywhere we go, take heart in the simple fact of our humanity. We are one people. We have many faiths, but one great hope: that difference will not lead to hate.

Live in that hope. Learn to understand. And let this weary world heal, one soul at a time.

References for this sermon include "Islam: A Short History," by Karen Armstrong (New York: The Modern Library, 2002) and "The Heart of Islam: Enduring Values for Humanity," by Seyyed Hossein Nasr (New York: HarperCollins, 2002).