Being Religious: Beliefs Reflected in Life

It seems fair to say that in our time the identifier religious is not one eagerly accepted or claimed, even among those who actively engage in some form of religious life or practice. This suggestion is perhaps best confirmed by the increasing number of people who identify as spiritual but not religious. The opposite conception, religious but not spiritual is virtually unheard of. It must be said that for much of Christian history the two terms religious and spiritual were regarded as virtual synonyms and this designation would not have been used. Spiritual but not religious is easier to understand, however, when we recognize that religious in this expression is taken to mean something like institutionally aligned or affiliated. In other words, religious in this sense means to belong to, and participate in, an institutionalized form of church life much as we do this morning in gathering for public worship. When understood, from this admittedly limited perspective, I think it is easy to understand why so many have issue with the term.

The Institution of the Church, across its various expressions and traditions, has done so much to earn the distrust of many. We need consider only a few examples from recent history. The Institution’s failure on a massive scale to protect children from predators, causing incalculable harm, and too often seeking to cover up the offenses. Or the all too numerous stories of trusted Church leaders living lavish lifestyles and profiting enormously at the expense of members of the community who faithfully give seeking to serve Christ and his Church. These are but a few instances of how the Institution and its leaders have sinned grievously, offended the commandments of God and betrayed the trust of many faithful people who had come to the Church for the comfort, community and growth in faith it is intended to provide. For so many people, the Church seems full of hypocritical people who say one thing and then do the exact opposite. For those who have faith in God, but little regard for the institution, the label spiritual but not religious must seem fitting.

Now my intention is not to disparage this expression or those who claim it. I am not, however, convinced that that understanding of religious as institutionally connected, is indeed the only way to understand the term or even the most helpful. Furthermore, I believe the biblical witness offers an entirely different and indeed more profound understanding of what it means to be truly religious. Today I would like for us to consider that idea, drawing first on the text before us from the epistle of James, and then connecting that concept with the message of the gospel text from Mark.

To begin with James. A primary theme of this epistle is its concern for conduct and the way Christians are to live, with an emphasis on works or deeds as the fruits of faith. Such an emphasis has roused the displeasure of various theologians across the centuries, most notably Martin Luther, who had little good to say about the epistle of James, feeling that it undermined the Pauline focus on justification by faith alone. Such theological debates need not detain us, but we do need to recognize the overarching concern of the epistle of James, that faith is intended to bear fruit in the lives of believers. In other words, good works naturally follow faith. This idea is expounded in a portion of James, chapter two, that we’ll hear next Sunday, so I will leave that for later. The same idea, however, is expressed in today’s reading in the perhaps familiar command to ‘be doers of the word and not merely hearers who deceive themselves’. More on that verse in a moment. But let us first turn to the final portion of the appointed passage, one that presents us with a very interesting sense of what religion might be.

It says this: “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 undefiled before God the Father is this; to care for orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself unstained by the world”. The focus is not on belief or acceptance of certain ideas, but on behavior in our manner of living. Though as we will see, faith precedes that. The first concern expressed in those final two verses, one that is repeated throughout James, is for the control of the tongue. “Any who claim to be religious but do not restrain it, possess a worthless religion”, the text tells us. Such a strong statement ought to remind us of the power of our words and the damage we can do to ourselves and others when we fail to control them. The second mark of pure and undefiled religion, care for orphans and widows in their distress, draws on God’s command to the Israelites repeated throughout the Old Testament, “to care for the orphan, the widow, and the stranger or resident alien”, groups that were most vulnerable in that society as they still are in ours today.

James teaches us that to be religious is to embody and live out the faith in caring for those in need and resisting the temptations of this world. To return to that earlier verse, it is to be doers and not merely hearers. Yet at the same time, we must not understand that expression to denigrate or ignore the importance of faith and receiving the word. It’s not a dichotomy between being faithful and doing good. Faith is the foundation from which our good works flow. The goal, indeed, the challenge, is to integrate the faith we proclaim and the way we live. To find harmony between our words and our actions.

This idea of harmony is also at the heart of the gospel passage from Mark, chapter seven. After an extended period of time in which the gospel readings were taken from John, chapter six, and its long bread of life discourse, the lectionary today returns to Mark. The scene is a confrontation between Jesus and some of the Pharisees and scribes about the ritual washing of hands. Now, an over simplistic and indeed problematic reading of this passage, reduces it simply to conflict between the rigid rule following of the Pharisees and scribes on the one hand, and Jesus’ message of freedom from pedantic and insignificant rules on the other, with anti-Jewish sentiment lurking just barely beneath the surface. Such a simplified understanding is inadequate and our close attention to the text will, I hope, reveal that more is at play here.

The precipitating offense, at least from the perspective of the Pharisees and scribes, is that Jesus’ disciples were eating with defiled, that is unwashed, hands. Both in the Pharisees question to Jesus and in that lengthy, parenthetical explanation, this practice is described as the tradition of the elders. Notice that it’s not described as the law of Moses or the Torah, but as tradition passed down from previous religious leaders, the elders. In other words, it is a practice of the Pharisees, and not one binding on all Jews by the law, despite the misleading note in verse three, which is clearly an editorial note intended to explain unfamiliar material to a gentile audience, saying that all the Jews observe this practice. The origin of this ritual hand washing seems to be the custom of priests washing and being made clean prior to eating food offered to God in the temple sacrificial system, a practice that was later extended to all the food that they ate. While that tradition applied only to priests, the Pharisees had extended the purity expected of the priestly to all people.

This call to holiness of life is admirable and not on its own worthy of condemnation. And we should note that Jesus criticizes the Pharisees and scribes not for their observance of this practice, but for their hypocrisy. Quoting from Isaiah chapter 29 and saying this, “This people honors me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me. In vain do they worship me, teaching human precepts as doctrines”. Their hypocrisy of which they are accused, is revealed by the disconnect between their outward actions and inward disposition, by lips that honor but hearts that are far from God. Here, in truth, the lectionary does not help us as it cuts out verses nine to 13 in which Jesus provides an example to explain his condemnation. He chastises the Pharisees and scribes for nominally ascribing to the commandment to honor father and mother, while at the same time allowing people to take the offering that would normally be due to parents, to support them in their old age, and giving it instead to the temple. The implications of this admittedly obscure example is that the Pharisees and scribes advocated for a policy that left many parents financially unsupported, perhaps even destitute, while claiming at the same time that the commandment to honor mother and father was being dutifully observed. Such is an example, Jesus tells them, of abandoning the commandment of God and holding to human tradition. The issue once again is one of professing one thing and then acting in a way contrary to that expressed belief.

We find similar criticism from Jesus elsewhere in the gospels when he tells the Pharisees and the scribes that though they tithe, in keeping with the law, they still neglect the weightier matters of the law, justice and mercy and faith. Jesus’ primary concern in this first portion of the Markan gospel passage is the need for harmony between the exterior and the interior, our acts and the content of our heart. Furthermore, the epistle of James makes it clear that this is what it means to be truly religious, living in a way that reflects the faith we profess. In this regard, James stands in a long tradition dating back to the Hebrew prophets, who repeatedly expressed God’s displeasure with those who offered empty prayer and sacrifice while justice and righteousness were neglected. The response required of us is not to abandon our ritual practices or to neglect matters of faith, but instead to be deeply grounded in that faith in such a way that allows Christ to so thoroughly transform us that we might follow the model of his life. An example of perfectly integrated belief and action.

There is a simple prayer that our choristers here at the Cathedral say at most of their rehearsals, and before most every service of Evensong. It’s simply called The Chorister’s Prayer, and it goes like this:

Bless, O Lord, us thy servants who minister in thy temple. Grant that what we sing with our lips, we may believe in our hearts. And what we believe in our hearts, we may show forth in our lives, through Jesus Christ our Lord.

This short, simple prayer, intended for children, so beautifully captures what is I think the true biblical understanding of what it means to be religious, that our beliefs might be truly reflected in our lives. Such an understanding of the term is, I think, an identity we can all gladly accept and a goal we can strive for. And it is a powerful witness to the world when we live in this way. Our Lord Jesus Christ offers us the example to follow of his own life and ministry, that was the fullest expression of love and mercy that he preached and proclaimed. So let us make that prayer our own, that what we believe in our hearts, we may indeed show forth in our lives to the glory of Almighty God who is Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Amen.