By David Carlson | For The Times-Post

When I taught religious studies for over four decades, I became quite used to people trivializing religion or dismissing it as something weak and anemic.

The whole point of being religious, some people would share with me, is to be kind.

No wonder many people think that religious training might be good for children but is something that adults outgrow.

You might not be surprised, given my vocation, that I have a completely different view of religion.

In one of my favorite courses to teach, an introduction to Judaism, Christianity and Islam, I should have written this on the chalkboard on the first day of class: “Warning: This course could turn your understanding of life upside down.”

What I mean is that these three religions, if taken seriously, undermine what we consider normal and acceptable in terms of how this world should operate. Each of the three intends to turn our lives and world upside down.

In the Hebrew scriptures, God is described as specifically watching over the foreigners, the widows, and the orphans; that is, the most vulnerable in any society, the ones most invisible, are a special concern to God.

In Christian scriptures, Jesus makes the audacious statement that if people want to be in his presence in this world, they will find him in the hungry, the thirsty, the naked, the sick and the imprisoned.

In the Hadiths, the sayings of the prophet Muhammad in Islam, the prophet remarks that if people want to find God, they will find God sitting next to the hungry, the thirsty and the sick.

The similar answer of the three religions to the question, “Where can God be found in our world?” is astonishing.

Judaism, Christianity and Islam have all built some of the most beautiful buildings in the world as places where God can be found.

But the scriptures of these three religions make a radical and disturbing claim: God-talk might be found in those beautiful buildings, but God will not be found in those beautiful structures if worshippers do not find God among the neediest in our world.

We open the newspaper or watch the news and hear about people massing at our southern border or floating precariously on rafts in the Mediterranean Sea, all hoping for relief from hunger, disease and danger.

How easy it is to momentarily feel sorry for these people even as we might offer a prayer of thanksgiving that theirs is not our plight.

But if we Jews, Christians and Muslims sincerely want to live in the presence of God, we cannot ignore what our scriptures say so bluntly.

The Divine does not say, “Helping the needy is a kind thing to do.” Instead, the Divine is saying, “Do you really want to be with Me? I’m waiting for you here, among those who are suffering. If you care to find me, you have to care for them.”

No doubt about it, to change where we expect to find God in our world will turn our view of the world upside down.

And making that change will force us to confront our hypocrisies.

One of the common messages of Judaism, Christianity and Islam is that our religious sanctuaries can be places where we assume we are in the presence of God but where, in reality, we are hiding from God.

Ouch!

It’s worth noting that the phrase “There but for the grace of God go I” is not found in the Hebrew Bible, the Christian Bible or the Qur’an.

Whatever truth the phrase might once have had, it is too often uttered with the underlying thought, “Phew, glad that didn’t happen to me.”

A better phrase would be “There (in those trying circumstances) God is waiting to be found by you and me.”

Here is an added thought to ponder: when Jews, Christians and Muslims find God among the neediest, they will meet one another, heart to heart.

And that will truly turn our world upside down.

David Carlson is a professor emeritus of philosophy and religion. Send comments to [email protected].