“Increase in us true religion.” I don’t know if you noticed it, but that’s part of the collect we prayed at the beginning of the service today. It caught my attention; I don’t know if maybe it caught yours as well. It struck me that this may seem an odd thing to ask God for. But maybe not, if we can figure out just what it is we’re asking for when we pray these words. Increase in us true religion. I think this sentence may be the key to what we hear today in our lessons and prayers.
So what might we be requesting when we pray for God to increase in us true religion? What is ‘true religion,’ anyway? I suppose one way to interpret this phrase is to understand it as ‘true’ as opposed to ‘false’ . That is, increase in us our religion, which is the truth, as opposed to somebody else’s religion, which must be false. But I don’t think that’s it. I don’t think that kind of exclusivist prayer is what we’re praying here. What I think we’re praying for has to do with what the heart of what religion is, or what religion means. So that’s where we need to start.
‘Religion’ is often defined as a set of beliefs that lead to a set of behaviors. One believes in certain things, and what one believes causes one to act in certain ways. At least, that’s the theory, that’s how it’s supposed to work. So that if one is Muslim, you believe in Allah, pray several times a day towards Mecca, believe in and work on the five pillars of the faith. If one is Jewish, you believe in God, whose name is too sacred to be said aloud, take on the commandments at age 13, follow the Torah and the Talmudic teachings. If one is Christian, one believes in God as known to us through Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit, understands the Bible to be the Word of God; believes in the life, death, and resurrection of Christ Jesus, and tries to live one’s life in accordance to Christ’s teachings. That’s the idea. So we can see that as a definition – religion as a set of beliefs and behaviors – this makes a certain amount of sense. And it is fine as far as it goes. But it seems to me that if we understand religion only to be a set of beliefs that lead to a set of behaviors, we are missing out on the foundation that leads to both holy belief and holy behavior. And that foundation is a relationship with God. A sense of God’s presence. A connection with the Divine.
In our time and place ‘belief’ has come to be understood as ‘intellectual assent’ - when one says that one ‘believes in God’ one is saying that one gives one’s intellectual assent to God’s existence. Again, fine as far as it goes. But don’t you think something is lacking with this? This word belief that we have come to understand as about the mind, the intellect, actually means instead to give one’s heart to. I don’t know that we can give our hearts to someone, something, if we don’t have a relationship with that someone or something. It’s this relationship with God that ultimately gives life and meaning to those beliefs we profess and the actions those beliefs are supposed to lead to. We have to understand ourselves as beloved of God. We have to know that God calls us by name and claims us as God’s own. We have to realize that though we can (and do) break God’s heart with our actions on occasion, that God always calls us back and welcomes us into the arms of love. Without this foundational relationship, I don’t know that the beliefs and behaviors matter all that much.
So if we go back to the line in the collect which we started with, asking God to increase in us true religion, that prayer might actually be asking for God to help us in deepening our own relationships with God; as that relationship deepens, so do our beliefs, and then, we hope, our actions start more and more to flow out of both the relationship and the beliefs. Last week in my sermon I made a passing remark about people who say that they are ‘spiritual’ but not ‘religious.’ This is a position that I can be critical of, because, as I said last week, I think it’s a way of being where nothing will be asked of us. I think it’s a way of being or remaining uncommitted – uncommitted to community, uncommitted to a real life of faith. Where this ‘I’m spiritual but not religious’ has been said to me most has been in settings where people have been wanting to be clear with me that I’m just not going to see them in church. I believe in God, they say, but I don’t need to go to church for God to know that. And in these conversations, what I have found is that when this has been said to me, it’s a way of claiming belief – and possibly relationship – but without having to commit to any of the actions that a Christian life should commit one too. I believe in God but I don’t go to church, I’m spiritual but not religious – more often then not, those who have said these things to me use this position as a way to remain apart from Christian community and purposely separate from any commitment of their time, their energy, their resources to them following more closely the teachings of Jesus. It is my firm conviction that being ‘spiritual’ and being ‘religious’ are not to be separated. This split between the two is an artificial one at best. Because they are two sides of the same coin, being religious and being spiritual. I see this coin as encompassing our sense of relationship with God and also our beliefs, our faith, and the behaviors that flow from those beliefs and that relationship. I think to separate the two is to do a disservice to both. I also think that this artificial separation stems from a misunderstanding of what it means to be religious. I think most often people understand this to mean someone who rigidly follows a set of rules and can be mercilessly judgmental about those who don’t follow the same set of rules. But this is not true religion. It is a common mistake/misunderstanding, though. And it is one that Jesus had to deal with as well. In fact, it’s the argument that we see Jesus smack in the middle of, in today’s gospel lesson from Mark.
What we observe is a tussle Jesus has with the Pharisees, a theological and religious tussle. The Pharisees, being what one might call ultra-observant about the rules of their faith, notice immediately that some of Jesus’ disciples are not. In this instance it’s the ritual washing before eating that the Pharisees notice; other places in the gospel, it’s healing on the Sabbath, or eating with sinners, or a number of other violations of their particular understanding of their tradition. The Pharisees consider themselves quite religious, and not only that, but also consider themselves the arbiters of religiousity. Some of Jesus’ disciples fail their test, and that lets Jesus, their leader (who should know better) in for a lot of criticism. But Jesus doesn’t take their criticism. He comes right back at them – as if he’s been waiting, as it it’s a conversation he’s had with them many times before. He quotes the prophet Isaiah to them, saying this: ‘This people honors me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me; in vain do they worship me, teaching human precept as doctrines.’ There’s a lot of this kind of thing in Isaiah, who makes an enormous effort in his years of prophecy to get the people – and that includes us – to understand that outward observance or outward statement of belief means very little without our hearts being changed. A line in our prayers of the people, which we’ll pray shortly, calls this holding to the ‘the assurance of external observance without the commitment of faith.’ We hear something similar from James in his letter as well, as he says, “If any think they are religious, and do not bridle their tongues but deceive their hearts, their religion is worthless. Religion that is pure and undefilied before God is this: to care for orphans and widows in their distress, and keep oneself unstained by the world.” It’s not just about what some would mistakenly call ‘religion’ – following the rules – but it’s also about what one might mistakenly call spirituality – getting our hearts oriented more fully towards God. But religion and spirituality overlap too much to be separated. And our faith is much less meaningful unless we live in the overlap between the two. Going in one direction only is not ‘true religion.’ That is, this ‘religious’ versus ‘spiritual’ is not an either/or proposition. I think this is where we as humans get into trouble, by making artificial distinctions, making it about one or the other, when the truth is that it’s both. It is the inclination of our hearts – towards God – but it is also about how we show that inclination. Hearing and doing, as James says, not just hearing – or not just doing. Where more . . . dare we say conservative Christians – come in for criticism by those on the left within Christianity is that it seems to be only about externals – go to church x number of times a week, say the right things, interpret the Bible a certain way, tell the right story of conversion. Yet they often lack what some consider to be Christian love and charity towards neighbor, lack compassion, which is perhaps the most significant attribute of God and the major orientation of Jesus. On the other hand, where some Christians on the left have come in for criticism – that they aren’t ‘real’ Christians – is that they claim an orientation – of love of God and neighbor – but one that cannot always be seen from the outside – the external observance.
But here’s the thing. What if it weren’t about left or right? What it is isn’t about either/or? What if we were to do our best to live in the overlap of spiritual and religious, of external observance and commitment of faith, of honoring God with our lips and our worship and with our hearts? What if each one of us decided to do something that could help deepen our relationship with God – and then looked for what effect this had on our beliefs and actions? What might that look like?
What if this prayer to increase in ‘true religion’ means praying for all of this – that our hearts be more and more inclined towards God, and that our outward observance – our behavior – reflect this to anyone who might be looking? Because I think it might just be transforming.
Let us pray: Lord of all power and might, the author and giver of all good things: Graft in our hearts the love of your name; increase in us true religion; nourish us with all goodness; and bring forth in us the fruit of good works. Through Jesus Christ our Lord.
Amen.