In 1972 I was a ten-year-old boy growing up in Trenton, Michigan in a family that was Southern Baptist on both sides—all the way back to the Flood.
I remember being out grocery shopping with my mother, when in a deli I came face to face with something I had never encountered before. It looked like a doughnut, yet it had no frosting. I asked my mother what it was and she said, “That’s a bagel.”
BAGEL... It seemed so EXOTIC. I begged my mother to buy one, and she agreed. On the way home I asked her to tell me more about this unusual food. “It’s a Jewish thing,” she said.
Those words instantly struck terror into my tiny heart. I stared back at the grocery bag in the back seat and started to tremble. Would God be mad at me for eating the Jewish doughnut thingy? Would God punish me for daring to eat beyond my faith? Might I even lose my salvation?
This was the greatest problem of my early career as a theologian, and I explored it in my 1973 monograph “Jewish Foodstuffs and the Soteriological Dilemma.” Composed in crayon, and published in blotchy purple mimeograph, it vividly depicted how profoundly conflicted I was about this issue.
I never did eat that bagel. Instead I watched it with growing dread until it began growing blue fur. My mother finally threw it out, much to my overwhelming relief.
In fact, I was 22 before I ever actually ate a bagel. When I did, it was a revelation. Okay, as an adult I can see how silly my childhood fear was, but in truth there are still an awful lot of people—adult people—otherwise intelligent adult people—who continue to think this way.
Today, I can’t imagine limiting my diet to the foods of my own ethnic tribe—since both sides of my family hail from Oklahoma, this would mean a steady diet of ham-hock, black-eyed peas, and fried potatoes. And as much as I enjoy that once in a while, man cannot live on ham-hock, black-eyed peas, and fried potatoes alone, although no one has bothered to inform my grandmother of this.
Instead, my life is far richer because I enjoy not just Oklahoma fare, but English fish and chips, German knudle and strudel, Chinese dim sum, Indian samosas, Tai iced tea, Japanese sushi, Russian borsch, Hawaiian poi, Mexican enchiladas, and Jewish bagels and lox. There’s nothing wrong with ham-hock, but it’s not the only suitable food for humans in the galaxy. And thanks be to God for that.
I feel the same way about religions. I am a Christian, I am, in fact, a Catholic priest, and I love my tradition. I love our liturgy, I love our scriptures, I love our prayers, our devotions, our saints, and especially the bits that are kind of embarrassing, like kneeling in adoration before a cracker. This tradition is my home, Christians are my people, and this wisdom is the food that nourishes me.
But it is not the only cuisine on the menu. I am also nourished by the wisdom of Buddhism, I am fed by the devotions of Hinduism, I am inspired by the scriptures of Taoism, I am edified by discipline of Islam, I am warmed by the heart and the humanity of Judaism.
The great religions of the world have set before us a banquet of wisdom, of knowledge, of creativity, of insight, of dizzying diversity, of heart-wrenching pathos and beauty. With such a sumptuous feast, why should I limit myself to ham-hock?
It does not make me less of a Christian to sample the wisdom of other traditions, but it does make me more human. It opens my eyes to the fact that people of every enthicity and religion have the same pain and struggle and hope and aspirations as any other. It wakes me up to the fact that even though our religious traditions can seem to be wildly different on the surface, underneath they address the same fundamental human needs—how to fix what is broken, how to forgive and let go, how to connect to others, how to be in relationship with the Mystery we in the West call God.
This is one of the ways we live out this path called “interfaith"— loving our own tradition, while also honoring the beauty and the wisdom and the profundity of other traditions, and not being afraid to partake of them. It is not an insult to my own faith tradition to recognize the truth in another faith, to be inspired or edified by other paths. Indeed, this strengthens and reinforces the wisdom of my own tradition.
Indeed, in the world as it is today, it is morally necessary that we do so. In a world torn by sectarian violence, we need a lot more people trying to understand and appreciate those who live their faith out in different ways. In a world divided by rhetoric, we need people brave enough to investigate for themselves what other people say and how they think and how they live. In a world so quick to demonize others as being somehow inhuman and alien to us, we need to find the core of our common experience as human beings. In a world so desperate for solutions, we do ourselves no favors by shutting down the creativity and diversity offered to us by other cultures.
Indeed, if we could just bring everything to the table, then dine upon it with respect and attention, what couldn’t we solve? Unfortunately many people profit from fear and demonization and division. Such people may tell you that you will go to hell if you eat that bagel—but don’t you believe it.
The Chaplaincy Institute is a rare and precious school. It lays before its students a diverse and sumptuous feast composed of some of the most delicious spiritual traditions known to humankind, and bids them eat: ingest, understand, and be transformed. It also teaches students how to take that wisdom forth into the world, preparing them for jobs where they will encounter the sick, the hurting, the needy, and the dying—real people like you and me.
Because the people of this world do not eat just one kind of food, these ministers are prepared to feed them whatever it is that will be most the meaningful, the most inspiring, the most comforting to each particular person in their time of deepest need. We can best help not by forcing our own religious beliefs and symbols and metaphors onto people, but by listening for the symbols and traditions that are held dear by those people in need, and being able and ready and willing to feed them exactly the kind of wisdom that will be most nourishing.
This, my friends, is a sacred calling. It is also a vision that is often misunderstood or maligned. Friends and loved ones, these graduates are going to need your love and support to succeed at the ministries they take on, because there are a lot of people out there who don’t or won’t understand what they are trying to do. Yet there are a lot more people out there who need what they are now uniquely equipped to offer.
To serve in this way is a rare and greatly needed thing in our world today. It may not be your calling, but just by being here today you are upholding and encouraging these graduates in their ministries. Please keep it up—this work is not easy, not everyone will understand them, and the need of the people they will serve is great. They are going to need your continued love and encouragement and support.
Along with asking you to give, I also want to ask you to receive—to enjoy the table of interfaith delights that has been set before you in this service today. You don’t need to be Buddhist to be nourished by Buddhism, or to be Jewish to be nourished by Judaism. No matter what your religious tradition, I hope you will open your heart to be touched by the wisdom, the hope, the inspiration, and the aspirations of traditions that you may have little knowledge of or contact with.
And remember: no one is going to get mad at you for eating a bagel. This is a motto I live by.
Amen.
