Sermon for September 3, 2011
On this particular Sunday, I began by reading the following devotional by Rev. Lillian Daniel: the devotional was from the Still Speaking Devotional series of Aug 31, 2011. I thought that this was a wonderful piece of writing and wanted to share her work, and expand upon it for a meditation.
Spiritual but Not Religious? Please Stop Boring Me.
Matthew 16:18
“And I tell you that you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of Hades will not overcome it.”
Reflection by Lillian Daniel
On airplanes, I dread the conversation with the person who finds out I am a minister and wants to use the flight time to explain to me that he is “spiritual but not religious.” Such a person will always share this as if it is some kind of daring insight, unique to him, bold in its rebellion against the religious status quo.
Next thing you know, he’s telling me that he finds God in the sunsets. These people always find God in the sunsets. And in walks on the beach. Sometimes I think these people never leave the beach or the mountains, what with all the communing with God they do on hilltops, hiking trails and . . . did I mention the beach at sunset yet?
Like people who go to church don’t see God in the sunset! Like we are these monastic little hermits who never leave the church building. How lucky we are to have these geniuses inform us that God is in nature. As if we don’t hear that in the psalms, the creation stories and throughout our deep tradition.
Being privately spiritual but not religious just doesn’t interest me. There is nothing challenging about having deep thoughts all by oneself. What is interesting is doing this work in community, where other people might call you on stuff, or heaven forbid, disagree with you. Where life with God gets rich and provocative is when you dig deeply into a tradition that you did not invent all for yourself.
Thank you for sharing, spiritual but not religious sunset person. You are now comfortably in the norm for self-centered American culture, right smack in the bland majority of people who find ancient religions dull but find themselves uniquely fascinating. Can I switch seats now and sit next to someone who has been shaped by a mighty cloud of witnesses instead? Can I spend my time talking to someone brave enough to encounter God in a real human community? Because when this flight gets choppy, that’s who I want by my side, holding my hand, saying a prayer and simply putting up with me, just like we try to do in church.
Prayer
Dear God, thank you for creating us in your image and not the other way around. Amen.
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In the Church of Jesus Christ, into which we were baptized, we learn to be both spiritual and religious. I read this piece by Lillian Daniel to you today to introduce the topic about which Matthew spoke more than any other gospel writer: the Church and what it means to be part of the Church. The early Church Fathers loved to quote Matthew and it was instrumental in structuring the Christian community from its earliest days. (That is one of the reasons that Matthew is the first gospel, although it is not the oldest.)
We are here this morning, on Labor Day weekend, because we believe in doing the hard work in community. And we know that a walk on the beach is wonderful, but when it comes to God’s work, to bringing in the kingdom, maybe it just doesn’t lift the luggage. We are here to listen to God, to each other, and yes…we are here to put up with each other. And isn’t that wonderful.
This is an association like none other. We’re held to a different standard, a higher standard than that required in other kinds of associations. The Body of Christ is like no other kind of body.
The gospel passage from Matthew underscores the responsibilities of living into this kind of fellowship. This is part of a larger section in Matthew about the church, its structure and function. The rules by which we live into the privilege of calling ourselves Christians: a word that means “Little Christ.” We can be spiritual alone…we can’t be Christians alone.
As we know, Paul uses the image of the body to describe this association we call church. Like it is with our own bodies, there is no part we can leave behind and not feel the loss. Each member makes a unique contribution to the whole. We are richer for your presence, we are the poorer for your absence. We are not a fellowship of knowledgeable insiders, but a fellowship of believers united with each other in Jesus Christ, under his headship. For us, what it means to be religious, and spiritual, is to be part of a body where we live together in mutual interdependence under Christ.
We don’t need to be a Mega-church to qualify…it happens anytime 2 or 3 or more are gathered in His holy name. To coin a phrase by MLK jr. we are a network of mutuality, tied to a single garment of destiny. Our garment is resurrection, and we all share in that amazing garment. Our greatest hope is that one day that garment will be placed upon us and in which we know eternal life.
As Christians we are never alone, even if we walk alone on a beach at sunset. Yesterday in my sermon at Brenda’s memorial service I talked about the great cloud of witnesses. There is a foundational Christian belief that we are caught up in a communion of all the saints, Christians living and dead. In words that I have said countless times at funerals “for whether we live or whether we die, we belong to Christ who is Lord of both the living and the dead.”
And that brings me to my final point. Death and dying is no time to be alone. From my perspective, Death and dying is not the time to be spiritual but not religious. That is when the flight gets choppy, that is when we need to clasp hands and pray in the name of the One who rose from the dead, and who will bring us with him upon our raising.
Our Christian hope is not privately spiritual, it is available to all who believe. And that hope is inextricably to this crazy thing we call Church. I will let the 500 year old words of the Heidelberg Catechism speak to my personal reason for being part of the Church. As far as I’m concerned nobody has ever said it better.
The First Question: What is thy only comfort in life and death?
Answer.
That I belong– body and soul, in life and death– not to myself
but to my faithful Saviour Jesus Christ;
who, with his precious blood, has fully paid for all my sins,
and delivered me from the power of the devil;
that he protects me so well me that without the will of my heavenly Father, not a hair can fall from my head;
indeed, that everything must fit his purpose for my salvation.
Therefore, by his Holy Spirit, He also assures me of eternal life,
and makes me wholeheartedly willing and ready, henceforth, to live unto him.
Spiritual and religious, yes indeed.
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