Religious monopolies are problematic.  It is a bit much to claim you have an exclusive corner on God.  But that doesn't stop us from trying.

 The urge is natural.  When you have experienced something ultimate, your sense of joy is so profound you can't help but use the language of the absolute and universal.  My wife is the best woman in the world.  I say that with joyful gratitude, and I know it to be true.  I can't imagine a better partner.

 But when we make our joyful praise too literal and exclusive or when we empower it with institutional trappings, we run some risks.  Just because the Razorbacks are the greatest doesn't necessarily mean the Longhorns are going to hell.

 Out of their joy and satisfaction, some Christians act as if they've got a monopoly on God and on God's grace.  There are harder and softer versions of this triumphalism.  At one extreme are the absolutists who believe their own religion is the absolute and only truth and base that claim on some infallible revelation.  They claim a monopoly on God.  Jesus got crucified in part because he challenged such a religious monopoly.

 Jesus offered people immediate access to God's forgiveness, and he ran afoul of the authorities who ran the Temple monopoly on forgiveness.  When he healed a paralytic by saying, "Take heart, son, your sins are forgiven," the authorities cried "Blasphemy!"  Only God can forgive sins, said their scriptures, and the Temple held the monopoly on that process.  The crowds, on the other hand, reacted with awe, "and they glorified God, who had given such authority to human beings." (Matthew 9)  Jesus offered every human being access to God's forgiveness.  The religious authorities protected their monopoly, charged him with blasphemy and turned him over to the state to be executed for political sedition. 

 We've got lots of versions of religious absolutism today.  Americans are bothered by sects of militant Islam who see those who disagree with them, even other Muslims, as infidels worthy only of conversion or eternal condemnation.  Yet we have our own sects of exclusivist Christians who see those who disagree with them, even other Christians, as lost souls worthy only of conversion or eternal condemnation.

 In their dark logic, these religions ask their adherents to believe in a god who will eternally torment the vast majority of humanity, even people whom they know and love and respect.  Why would people follow a God who is meaner than they are?

 There is a better way.  For Christians, the Doctrine of the Trinity opens the way for us to recognize and embrace the presence of the Word of God universally.  We teach that it is through the Second Person of the Holy Trinity, God's Word, that God's creativity and grace is actualized from before time and forever.  God's presence within and among us, the Holy Spirit, recognizes and embraces God's work wherever it is manifest. 

 Christians name the Second Person of the Holy Trinity Jesus, for in Jesus we see the heart of God in a historical life, Jesus the human face of God.  For us, God is defined by Jesus but not confined to Jesus.  John's Gospel begins with a prologue of praise for the work of the Word from the beginning of creation.  Christian custom identifies the work of God's Word in the ancient Hebrew wisdom tradition of Sophia.

 Wherever God's light is present, Christians can embrace that light as a manifestation of God's Word, by whatever name, symbol, metaphor or experience. 

 My journey in Christ has been enhanced by what I have learned from other religions -- the profound compassion manifest in Buddhism, the discipline of the daily prayers of Islam, the wisdom of Rabbi Heschel, the heroic non-violence of the Hindu Gandhi, the celebration of the Spirit's presence in nature through Native American and other indigenous traditions, the silence of Zen, the commitment to social justice of the Unitarians, the exuberant love of the Sufi poet Rumi, the timeless myths of extinct cultures.  From a Christian perspective, all of these are beautiful refractions of light from the One God whose Word goes out into all creation.

 Or to borrow from Greek philosophy, we say that God is perfect truth, perfect goodness, and perfect beauty.  Whenever and wherever there is any manifestation of truth or goodness or beauty anywhere in all creation, it is the work and presence of the Word of God.  If you can't see and rejoice, then maybe your Jesus is just too small.