World Council of Churches
Federation of Swiss Protestant Churches
Reformed Churches Bern-Jura-Solothurn

Palestine Israel Ecumenical Forum (PIEF)

INTERNATIONAL THEOLOGICAL CONFERENCE
“Promised Land”

Church Center Bürenpark, Bern, Switzerland
10 - 14 September 2008 

Children of Abraham
A Call for Hospitality

Rev. Dr Jean-Claude Basset
University of Lausanne, Switzerland

PDF version for downloads

Abraham neither Jew nor Christian

Let me start with a short notice, found in the Quran, saying that “Abraham was neither Jew nor Christian” (3:67). This is said in the context of a dispute about the legitimacy of Jewish, Christian or Muslim revelation: “People of the book, why do you argue about Abraham when both the torah and the gospel were revealed till after him? Have you no sense?” (3:65) 

The point is not so much historical as theological: in linking Jews with torah and Moses, Christians with gospel and Jesus, Muslims with Quran and Muhammad, the Quranic perspective opens the way for a direct relation of all three faiths to Abraham. 

Needless to say, Islam has its own view of Abraham, just as Jews and Christians have their own understanding. The point I wanted to underline is that we cannot limit our talk about Abraham to Jews and Christians. We are invited to include Muslims as another people having its share in Abraham's heritage. 

Isaac or Ishmael

My second remark is derived from the midrash found in the Talmud (Sanhedrin 89b) in relation to Genesis 22, where God calls Abraham to sacrifice his son. Every word of verse 2 becomes the occasion for an objection from Abraham: 

There is something touching in Abraham resisting the choice between Isaac and Ishmael. Quite clearly in this dialogue, Abraham loved both sons and put them on an equal footing. The biblical tradition gave more attention to Isaac, while the Islamic tradition connected Abraham with Mecca through Ishmael and his mother Agar. 

It could well be that time has come for Christians to have a more balanced approach. In the Bible itself both Isaac and Ishmael, together with their offspring, received a definite blessing from God. The two brothers had a separate existence, but they came together at the time of Abraham's death. That is to say that no one can pretend to the exclusivity of Abraham's heritage; on the contrary, they have to share it, in spite of their differences. 

Today, Christians as well as Jews and Muslims may consider themselves as children of Abraham—on condition that they recognize the other two as equally children of Abraham. In one way or another, they don't stand on their own but need each other to disclose the richness of their patrimony.

God's friend

For Jews, Christians and Muslims, Abraham appears as a model of faith and obedience: faith in the one God, opposed to any form of idolatry; obedience in leaving his home country, in accepting to sacrifice his son, Isaac or Ishmael. Abraham is also a model for prayer and piety: confident in God's mercy, he prays for the people of Sodom, where Lot lives, and is the first to be circumcized. In Muslim understanding, Abraham is also a model for pilgrims, establishing, together with Ishmael, the foundations of annual pilgrimage to Mecca.

Through the figure of Abraham, those who see themselves as his children cannot but live with the knowledge of their points of total or partial agreement and disagreement. By virtue of the very existence of the others, there is a dimension of incompleteness in any faith related to Abraham—even though Jews, Christians and Muslims all affirm their faith, in different ways, to be complete and final.

In the midst of all the differences, we notice a verbal agreement in calling Abraham friend of God: in Hebrew 'ohev (Is. 41:8 and 2 Chron. 20:7), in Greek philos (James 2:23) in Arabic khalîlu'Llah (God's intimate, God's protégé). That intimacy shows a dimension dear to Muslim mystics who link proximity to God with purity of the heart.

Abraham's hospitality

Among the many qualities recognized in Abraham by Muslims as well as by Jews and Christians is hospitality, especially since Abraham welcomed the three mysterious visitors who happen to be angels. In Islamic tradition Abraham is called father of hosts—abû l-dhifân—and his tent has four openings so that travellers can enter it directly from all sides. Hospitality is not just a moral duty, it is a requirement of faith.

Hospitality means making room to accommodate the other, the stranger. It is really a precondition for living together in peace and harmony, in spite or in the midst of cultural, traditional and religious differences. Whereas dialogue has mainly to do with words and speech, hospitality is a way of being, a spiritual attitude, translated into action. It is also a readiness to listen to the other. Inter-religious gatherings are attempts to deal with and accommodate the plurality of cultures and religious convictions.

Would it not be in keeping with Abrahamic hospitality that Jews, Christians and Muslims stop excluding each other from God's love and kindness and search together for ways to accommodate their different, and at time contradictory, understandings of truth and salvation?

Hospitality between religious traditions?

Hospitality is a sacred duty in many cultures and traditions. Welcoming strangers is a way to be open to newness, to unexpected insights, and finally to God. In Hindu tradition we find the recommendation “Look at your host as to Godself who comes to receive your attention” (Taittiriya Upanishad 1,11,2).

Welcoming foreigners and assuring them fair and just treatment is at the heart of the torah; in the gospel, Christians will be judged on the basis of their readiness to pay attention to the poor and needy (Matt. 25). Can we go a step further—welcoming not only the person but also his or her faith? This is certainly not common among the children of Abraham who tend to be suspicious of others’ faith and practices. At best they leave a space where other faiths are tolerated, but in any case they do their best to avoid being influenced—we could say contaminated—by other perspectives and practices.

As a way of conclusion, let me quote from the 12th edict of King Ashoka, an Indian Buddhist living in the 3rd century before Christ: “The faith of all others must be respected for one or another reason. By honouring them, one elevates one's own faith and at the same time one does other faith a service...”

May the children of Abraham learn from each other not only to respect but also to appreciate each other. By doing so, may they become less exclusive and more generous, less judgmental and more compassionate!