READINGS
1. From Thich Nhat Hanh, Living Buddha, Living Christ, Riverhead Books, New York, 1995:
"Professor Hans Kung has said, 'Until there is peace between religions, there can be no peace in the world.' People kill and are killed because they cling too tightly to their own beliefs and ideologies. When we believe that ours is the only faith that contains the truth, violence and suffering will surely be the result. The second precept of the Order of Interbeing, founded within the Zen Buddhist tradition during the War in Vietnam, is about letting go of views: 'Do not think the knowledge you presently possess is changeless, absolute truth. Avoid being narrow-minded and bound to present views. Learn and practice nonattachment from views in order to be open to receive others' viewpoints.' To me, this is the most essential practice of peace."

2. from Harvey Cox, Many Mansions: a Christian's Encounter With Other Faiths, Beacon Press, Boston, 1988:
"Both Buddhism and biblical faith recognize the validity of the human need for a direct encounter with the real stuff of life. Buddhism locates our alienation from reality in ignorance, wishful thinking, abstracting, concept pandering. It has elaborated a sophisticated range of techniques and teachings for helping people to rise above this ignorance and face reality as it is. Biblical faith attributes our dilemma not to ignorance but to fear and lovelessness, our anxious need either to dominate the people around us or to keep them at a safe distance. Therefore, the Buddhist path emphasizes overcoming ignorance, and the biblical course concentrates on the restoration of mutuality."

THE SERMON
A few months ago a man from the architect's office came by the church with some papers for our files. I asked him if he was an architect, and he replied that he was an architectural student. I'm particularly happy with our religious education wing, and so I asked if he would like to see the new wing his firm had designed for us. While we were looking at the new area, he noticed the symbol of world religions that is displayed in the central area. I told him that it represented the great religions of the world including Christianity, Judaism, Islam, Buddhism, Hinduism and the Chinese traditions of Taoism and Confucianism - and the flaming chalice, representing the Unitarian Universalist tradition. I added that the children in our Sunday school learn about all of these faiths. He asked particularly about the crescent and star, and I said that represented Islam. Then he told me that he is a Muslim. He said that he finds that there is some hostility to his religion here in America. People hear about Islamic fundamentalists and terrorists, but they don't know that the vast majority of Muslims are very moderate, peaceful people. I told him that we share some beliefs in common with the Muslims - for instance, the very name "Unitarian" refers to a historic belief in one God, rather than the usual Christian trinity. I said, "Muslims teach that Abraham was a prophet, Jesus was a prophet, and Muhammad was the last and greatest prophet." He agreed that this is so. I said, "Most Christians would say that Abraham was a prophet, Jesus was God incarnate as a man, and Muhammad was nobody." Again, he agreed that this is so. Then I said, "We would say that Abraham was a prophet, Jesus was a prophet, and Muhammad was a prophet, too. For me, Jesus was the greatest prophet, the most important to my faith. But I believe we should also honor and respect the faith of Muhammad." He found this interesting. He said, "We teach that Muhammad was the final prophet, so why would Jesus be the most important?" I said, "I was raised in a Christian culture, it is part of my heritage. Jesus is important to me because I know the story of his life, and I've studied his teachings. And the last one doesn't have to be the most important. I believe that there are still prophets in our own time, like the Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr., and Mahatma Gandhi. God has spoken to all cultures, not just our own." He said he had never thought of it that way before. We exchanged a few more pleasantries, and he excused himself. Now, I might have added that a number of women could be ranked among the prophets, too, and too often men have silenced their voices - but we didn't go into that. Maybe another time.

THE NEED FOR DIALOGUE
As travel becomes easier, foreign lands seem closer, and immigrants settle in the United States, interfaith dialogue is a necessary component in the search for peace. Too often, relations between the ancient spiritual traditions of the human family have turned rancorous. Wars in the Sudan, Sri Lanka, Bosnia, Kosovo, and Lebanon - not to mention the hostility between Israelis and Palestinians - have been based, in large part, on religious differences. To make matters worse, some faith communities are divided among themselves, as in the conflict between Catholic and Protestant Christians in Northern Ireland. Sunni and Shiite Muslims declare each other to be worse than infidels. Israelis cannot find a coherent strategy for peace in large part because of religious differences among Jews themselves. In the U.S., Christian fundamentalists attack mainline Christians as traitors to the Gospel, but are willing to work with the heathen if their politics are acceptable.
Yet there are those who encourage dialogue, who are willing and able to find areas of common ground. In the 19th Century, James Freeman Clarke, a Unitarian minister, wrote the first important book on interfaith dialogue, Ten Great Religions. In the early 20th Century, Clarence R. Skinner told us that it was time to redefine Universalism, at least in part, as a search for the "universals" that unite humankind. In seminary I took courses on "Far Eastern Religions," "Christian Encounter with African Traditional Religions," and "Christian-Buddhist Dialogue" - and I took the last two of those at a Lutheran seminary. Harvey Cox, a Baptist theologian, is well known for his book on interfaith dialogue, Many Mansions. His title comes from the Gospel of John 14:2, "In my Father's house there are many mansions. If it were not so, I would have told you." And the expatriate Vietnamese Buddhist monk, Thich Nhat Hanh, has written a fascinating book about Christianity and Buddhism titled Living Buddha, Living Christ. In that book, he expresses deep appreciation for many elements of Christian tradition, and for the possibilities for experiencing the love and compassion that many Christians and Christian communities offer. Nhat Hanh has experience with Christianity in his homeland. The French occupied Vietnam in colonial times, and brought Catholic missionaries with them. Many Vietnamese converted. In 1963, President Ngo Dinh Diem of South Vietnam, a Roman Catholic - and whose brother was the archbishop - decreed that the South Vietnamese could not celebrate Wesak, the Buddha's birthday. This touched off a wave of protests, and helped lead to Diem's overthrow. Understandably, many Vietnamese have associated Christianity with colonialism and Western attempts to establish cultural domination. While Thich Nhat Hanh finds much common ground with Christians, he is willing to criticize, too. For instance, he takes issue with Pope John Paul II, who represented "Christian triumphalism" when he wrote:
"Christ is absolutely original and absolutely unique. If He were only a wise man like Socrates, if He were a 'prophet' like Mohammed, if He were 'enlightened' like Buddha, without any doubt he would not be what He is. He is the one mediator between God and humanity." Quoting this passage, Nhat Hanh comments: "Of course Christ is unique. But who is not unique? Socrates, Mohammed, the Buddha, you and I are all unique. The idea behind the statement, however, is the notion that Christianity provides the only way of salvation and that all other religious traditions are of no use. This attitude excludes dialogue and fosters intolerance and discrimination. It does not help."

JESUS AND BUDDHA
Biblical scholar Elaine Pagels, in her introduction to Living Buddha, Living Christ, points out that in the earliest years of Christianity, many Christians were not so exclusive as John Paul II and many other modern Christians. Many early Christians saw Jesus as one through whom the divine was made manifest, and through whose example and teaching they could hope for similar enlightenment. She quotes from the Gospel of Thomas, a very early Christian gospel that was eventually suppressed by the Church leadership. In Thomas, Jesus is quoted:
"If those who lead you say to you, 'Look, the Kingdom is in the sky,' then the birds of the sky will get there first. If they say, 'It is in the sea,' then the fish will get there first. Rather, the Kingdom is inside of you, and is outside of you. When you come to know yourselves, then you will become known, and you will realize that it is you who are the children of the living Father. But if you will not know yourselves, then you will dwell in poverty, and it is you who are that poverty." This view of Jesus sounds almost Buddhist. Rather than claiming that he is the "only begotten Son of God," as the creeds of the Church later insisted, the Jesus portrayed in the Gospel of Thomas says that "it is you who are the children of God." But the majority of Church leaders rejected this view, and steered the Church toward a creedal statement, in 325, that declared that Jesus was of the same substance as God. Thich Nhat Hahn, nonetheless, feels a closeness to the Christian tradition. He writes, "On the altar in my hermitage in France are images of Buddha and Jesus, and every time I light incense, I touch both of them as my spiritual ancestors." He can do that, he says, because of the positive contacts he has had with real Christians, such as his friendship with the Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr., who once nominated Thich Nhat Hanh for the Nobel Peace Prize.
Nhat Hahn continues, "When you touch someone who authentically represents a tradition, you not only touch his or her tradition, you also touch your own. This quality is essential for dialogue. When participants are willing to learn from each other, dialogue takes place just by their being together. When those who represent a spiritual tradition embody the essence of their tradition, just the way they walk, sit and smile speaks volumes about the tradition… For dialogue to be fruitful, we need to live deeply in our own tradition and, at the same time, listen deeply to others."
There is a science called Buddhology, the study of the life of the Buddha. As an historical person, Siddhartha the Buddha was born near the border of India and Nepal, got married, had one child, left home, practiced many kinds of meditation, became enlightened, and shared his teaching until he died at the age of eighty. But to Buddhists, there is also a living Buddha within the heart of the disciple, the Buddha of ultimate reality who transcends all ideas and is always available.
The study of the Christ is called Christology. When speaking of Jesus the Christ, we need to know whether we are talking about the historical Jesus, or the living Christ. The historical Jesus was raised in Nazareth, the son of Mary and of Joseph, a carpenter. He became a teacher or rabbi, traveled about Galilee and Judea, and was crucified by the Romans at about the age of thirty-three.
In the Gospel of John, Jesus is quoted as saying, "I am the door." Nhat Hanh describes Christian belief, saying, "The living Jesus is the Son of God who was resurrected and continues to live. In Christianity, you have to believe in the resurrection or you are not considered a Christian. I am afraid this criterion may discourage some people from looking into the life of Jesus. That is a pity, because we can appreciate Jesus Christ as both an historical door an ultimate door… "The Buddha is also described as a door, a teacher who shows us the way in this life. In Buddhism such a door is deeply appreciated because that door allows us to enter the realm of mindfulness, loving-kindness, peace, and joy. But it is said there are 84,000 Dharma doors, doors of teaching. If you are lucky enough to find a door, it would not be very Buddhist to say that yours is the only door. In fact, we have to open even more doors for future generations… It will be a pity for our children and our children's children if we are satisfied with only the 84,000 doors already available. Each of us by our practice of our loving-kindness, is capable of opening new Dharma doors."
In Christianity, there is a tendency to make the person of Jesus to be more important than his teachings. Unitarians and Universalists have criticized this view. In the early 1800s, the Rev. Theodore Parker contended that if what Jesus said is true, than it is true no matter who said it. The geometry taught by Euclid does not rest on the authority of Euclid. If he was right, the proof is in his teaching, not in his personality. Thus, the Church has it backwards. The Church teaches that what Jesus said was important, because Jesus said it. But in fact, Jesus is important because of what he said.
Nhat Hanh points out that the Buddha said that it is the teaching, or Dharma, that is important, not his person. If we practice the Dharma, we can make nirvana available here and now. "The living Dharma is not a library of scriptures or tapes of inspiring lectures. The living Dharma is mindfulness, manifested in the Buddha's daily life and in your daily life, also."
In Christianity it is sometimes said that Mary is the "Mother of God," because she was Jesus' mother. Although Mary has been given an important, if limited, role in Catholicism, she is of lesser importance to Protestants. Otherwise, the feminine side of the divine has been minimized in Christianity.
Nhat Hahn says that the seed of mindfulness that is in each of us is described as the "womb of the Buddha." "We are all mothers of the Buddha because we are all pregnant with the potential for awakening. If we know how to take care of our baby Buddha by practicing mindfulness in our daily lives, one day the Enlightened One will reveal himself or herself to us," Nhat Hahn writes. "Buddhists regard the Buddha as a teacher and brother, not as a god. We are all dharma brothers and sisters of the Buddha." The Perfection of Wisdom is "the mother of all Buddhas," and Indian Buddhists represented it in female form.

MUTUAL RESPECT
Thich Nhat Hahn also appeals for true interfaith dialogue. He writes, "Dialogue can be fruitful and enriching if both sides are truly open…Real dialogue makes us more open-minded, tolerant and understanding. Buddhists and Christians both like to share their wisdom and experience. Sharing in this way is important and should be encouraged. But sharing does not mean wanting others to abandon their own spiritual roots and embrace your faith. People are stable and happy only when they are firmly rooted in their own tradition and culture. To uproot them would make them suffer. There are already enough people uprooted from their culture today… We must help them return to their tradition. Each tradition must establish dialogue with its own people, especially with those young people who are lost and alienated. During the last fifteen years while sharing the Buddha's Dharma in the West," Nhat Hahn writes, "I always urged my Western friends to go back to their own traditions and rediscover what values are there, those values they have not been able to touch before. The practice of Buddhist meditation can help them do so, and many have succeeded. Buddhism is made of non-Buddhist elements. Buddhism has no separate self. When you are a truly happy Christian, you are also a Buddhist. And vice versa." True peace between the peoples of the world will come from true respect. This can only happen if we respect the cultures and the religions of other people. Rather than trying to "convert the heathen," true missionaries help improve living conditions, and their lives witness to their faith. Understanding and love are values that transcend all dogma.

PRAYER
May we be willing to listen deeply, and understand honestly, with compassion and true respect; appreciating both the differences that separate us, and the universals that unite us.
Amen and Blessed be.

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