The Road

This Week's Lectionary Passage:  1 Corinthians 10: 1-13
I do not want you to be unaware, brothers and sisters, that our ancestors were all under the cloud, and all passed through the sea,²and all were baptized into Moses in the cloud and in the sea,³and all ate the same spiritual food,⁴and all drank the same spiritual drink. For they drank from the spiritual rock that followed them, and the rock was Christ.⁵Nevertheless, God was not pleased with most of them, and they were struck down in the wilderness.  ⁶Now these things occurred as examples for us, so that we might not desire evil as they did.⁷Do not become idolaters as some of them did; as it is written, “The people sat down to eat and drink, and they rose up to play.”⁸We must not indulge in sexual immorality as some of them did, and twenty-three thousand fell in a single day.⁹We must not put Christ to the test, as some of them did, and were destroyed by serpents.¹⁰And do not complain as some of them did, and were destroyed by the destroyer.¹¹These things happened to them to serve as an example, and they were written down to instruct us, on whom the ends of the ages have come.¹²So if you think you are standing, watch out that you do not fall.¹³No testing has overtaken you that is not common to everyone. God is faithful, and he will not let you be tested beyond your strength, but with the testing he will also provide the way out so that you may be able to endure it.

Well, it seems as if Paul is trying to shake up his Corinthian hearers a bit.  After all, they were pretty sure of themselves.  They were righteous and God-fearing and their faith was serving them well.  But Paul reminds them that it is not about them.  After all, a life of faith is not a life of checking off the boxes of all things good that one has done and counting one's accolades; it is, rather, a life of an ongoing relationship with God.  And, as we all know, relationships do not move in a neat escalating line.  They have ups and downs and sometimes feel as if they are going to break completely apart.  Paul (as opposed to others in that day and, sadly, in ours) sees salvation here as a journey, an ongoing relationship, rather than securing a place in heaven or avoiding a place in hell. 

The truth is, relationships are hard.  This faith thing is hard.  It does not guarantee one a life of ease or plenty.  As Paul reminds us, look at the past. Faithful people lived in the shadows and had the waves crash over them.  Things were not easy.  Why would our life be different?  You see, faith is not something that removes us from life, that separates us from the world.  Faith is what calls us to live there, to be who we are called to be in this world, showing the world a different pathway.  Yeah, I know, it's not easy.  But we have to persevere.

In our time, so much of religion is presented as a cure for all.  Well-meaning seekers are promised that faith, REAL faith, UNENDING faith, UNFALTERING faith, will bring them health and wealth and ease.  OK, excuse me here, but, really...no.  The Scriptures never depicted that.  This faith thing is hard.  Did you forget that it has to do with a cross, an instrument of death?  Did you forget that it acknowledges that pain and suffering is part of life?  Did you forget that we are told to deny ourselves and follow a pathway that we've never followed before?  But, more than anything else, did you forget that God has walked ahead?

It may not be easy; it may destroy you; it may even end your life as you know it.  But God has walked this way before.  That's the difference between shallow, empty pictures of fame and fortune dangled above a well-paved and perfectly landscaped path and following this bumpy, over-grown road with the marks of a cross drug through it and the, albeit faint, footsteps of faithful travelers who have gone before. 

Faith is not about finding the easiest way but following where God has gone before.

Grace and Peace,

Shelli

LENT 2B: Religiosity on Life Support

Lectionary Text:  Romans 4: 13-17 (18-25):
For the promise that he would inherit the world did not come to Abraham or to his descendants through the law but through the righteousness of faith.If it is the adherents of the law who are to be the heirs, faith is null and the promise is void.For the law brings wrath; but where there is no law, neither is there violation.For this reason it depends on faith, in order that the promise may rest on grace and be guaranteed to all his descendants, not only to the adherents of the law but also to those who share the faith of Abraham (for he is the father of all of us,  as it is written, “I have made you the father of many nations”) —in the presence of the God in whom he believed, who gives life to the dead and calls into existence the things that do not exist.

In our pragmatic 21^st century minds, sometimes it is much easier to grasp at the obvious and to make that the basis of our belief.  But, as Paul reminds us, if our whole faith system depends on nothing more than adhering to the set of laws or interpretations that have been laid down by those that came before us, what good is faith?  Remember that faith is about relationship.  The law is not bad.  In fact, it’s usually a necessary construct to help us understand, to help us point to that which we believe.  But it is not the end all.  It is not the God who offers us relationship.

Now, that said, I personally struggle with those who profess to be "spiritual and not religious".  Really?   For me, it’s a little like traveling without baggage, which can mean that your not weighted down and are essentially free to do what you want, but, chances are, at some point you’re going to find yourself virtually unprepared for what you encounter.  To put it another way, how many of you really want to go to dinner with someone who always leaves their wallet at home?  They may be fun to talk to and all, but is that really the way we live?

There is a story told among Zen Buddhists about a nun who one day approached a great patriarch to ask if he had any insight into the Nirvana sutra she had been reading. "I am illiterate," the man replied, "but perhaps if you could read the words to me I could understand the truth that lies behind them." Incredulous, the nun responded, "If you do not know even the characters as they are written in the text, then how can you expect to know the truth to which they point?"  Patiently the patriarch offered his answer, which has become a spiritual maxim for the ages: "Truth has nothing to do with words. Truth can be likened to the bright moon in the sky. Words, in this case, can be likened to a finger. The finger can point to the moon's location. However, the finger is not the moon. To look at the moon, it is necessary to gaze beyond the finger, right?" (from a commentary by Daniel G. Deffenbaugh, available at http://www.workingpreacher.org/preaching.aspx?lect_date=3/4/2012&tab=3, accessed 27 February, 2012.)

Now I don’t think Paul would in any way dismiss religion or even the rules.  He’s just reminding us that they have their limitations.  They are not God.  In fact, it is easy for them to become idols of worship in and of themselves (and last I read that was frowned upon!).  But they have their place.  They provide a systematic way of at least attempting to understand something that, in all honesty, really makes no sense to us.  (And, to turn it around, professing to be “spiritual and not religious” actually has a good chance of becoming a religion in and of itself.)  An authentic faith, it seems, is one that weaves what doesn’t make sense into understanding, laughter into prayer, and a grace-filled encounter of the Divine into our everyday life.  It is about both transcendence and meaning and, on a good day, the weaving together of the two into a Holy Encounter with the Divine Presence that it always in our life. 

You cannot practice religion for religion’s sake.  That would certainly be the death of your being.  You need to somehow breathe life into it.  That’s where spirituality comes in.  But spiituality cannot stand alone because it has nothing on which to stand.  Together they are religiosity on life support—a practice of faith, an embrace of the faith community, a recognition of one’s call to help and serve others, all with the Spirit of God, the life of your being, breathed into onself. 

G.K. Chesterton said to “let your religion be less of a theory and more of a love affair”.

On and on...continuing with our act of giving up so that we can take on, on this seventh day of Lent, think about the rules that you follow in your life and in your faith.  Which of them give you life?  Which of you them do not?  Let go of those rules that do not give you life, even if they are the "untouchable" ones!  It's not about rules; it's about life! 

Grace and Peace on this Lenten Journey,

Shelli