Recovering the "R" Word--January 24, 2022

Recovering the "R" Word--January 24, 2022

"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." [James 1:26-27]

I've heard it so often, I've lost count: "I'm spiritual, but I'm not religious."  My bet is you've heard that line, too.  Maybe you've said it yourself.

The description, "spiritual-but-not-religious," is one of the ways folks express two things at once: for one, how frustrated, disappointed, and hurt they have been with organized religion like churches, congregations, and the industry of "Christian" products out there, and at the same time, how these folks are still open to the idea that there is more to life than shallow consumerism and hamster-wheel drudgery.  For a lot of folks who identify themselves as "spiritual but not religious," they are open to the idea that God is real, and maybe even find Jesus compelling, but have been so let down before by church abuse, religious bigotry, blatant hypocrisy, and the co-opting of faith by political parties that they feel that "The Church" (or any one theology, tradition, denomination, or religious faith) is more trouble than it's worth.  

These folks are aching to connect with more than just the shallow stuff of life, but they feel like they've been burned before somewhere along the way, maybe by someone who told them they didn't really belong, or spewed hatred while convinced they had God's endorsement on their bigotry, or had turned the Infinite Mystery of God into a neat-and-tidy system that rang hollow.  Maybe they're rightly skeptical of Respectable Religious Leaders (pastors like me included, as well as celebrity church figures on TV, or those who entwine themselves with elected officials or political candidates) who seem to have unquestionable answers, and can bear no doubt or divergence from an "official" version of orthodoxy.  Maybe the folks who are "spiritual but not religious" just think any time we try and pin down the divine we are likely to just be making idols out of ourselves.  Nadia Bolz-Weber has put it so powerfully before:  "People don't leave Christianity because they stop believing in the teachings of Jesus. People leave Christianity because they believe in the teachings of Jesus so much, they can't stomach being part of an institution that claims to be about that and clearly isn't."

So, yeah, if you have ever found yourself in the position of describing yourself as "spiritual, but not religious," there are plenty of folks of integrity, compassion, and yes, of faith, who are right there with you.  In fact, it seems to me that James himself, this co-writer of the Bible, has a lot of sympathy for folks who have been let down by the rotten things people say and do in the name of "religion."  If you've ever been let down by the ways Respectable Religious folks seem so unlike Jesus, James is right there with you.  

But James points us in a rather different direction.  He is out to recover the "R-word" by reclaiming what "religion" is all about by pointing us to the practice of love in public action.  James doesn't just say, "If you are disappointed with religion, then let's all do our own thing and hope it makes us feel closer to the divine."  I think that's because James is not naive, and he knows that we are just as likely to be self-absorbed and hypocritical on our own as we are in groups.  And James' problem with "religion" doesn't seem to be the idea of committing to a certain way of life--he just wants to make sure that our way of life is rooted in love for the most vulnerable rather than showing off our piety to impress others (or God).  So he sees a value in the habit and rhythm of regularly engaging in certain practices that help us grow in love and help our neighbors--in fact, I dare say that's what James thinks the heart of "religion" is.

If our default definition of "religion" has to do with mindless repetition of empty words, or making dogmatic proclamations for the sake of keeping people out, or ritual acts we think God needs us to perform in order to keep us out of hell, James says we need a different definition, not to give up on the word itself.  Interestingly, many think that our English word "religion" comes from Latin roots that mean something like "what you are bound to"--as in, what are the things that bind us to God and to one another.  In that case, the right question to ask is, "What is worth binding our lives to?"  We human beings can't help but devote ourselves to something; the trouble is that so often we devote ourselves, either to lesser things or outright garbage.  We give our time and attention (and money) to countless screens, large and small.  We give our allegiance to political ideologies that bring out the worst in us and nurse the apathy and cruelty in us. We recite whole litanies of arrogant and cruel words to one another on social media, insisting we are doing it to defend the cause of righteousness, when really we embarrassing ourselves and spoiling for a fight.  We turn our focus onto ourselves, our self-interest, and our own benefit.  And then we have a way of dressing all of those things in the language of God to justify ourselves.  Well, yeah, of course that kind of "devotion" is rotten!

James reminds us, though, that just because human beings often dedicate their lives to terrible things (or hypocritical things), it doesn't mean the problem is with the idea of being dedicated or devoted to anything at all--it's about what we are willing to devote our lives to. And for James, since none of this is about impressing God, the thing to devote our lives to is the ways we care for those most at-risk and vulnerable in society.  Caring for "orphans and widows" is a sort of standard biblical shorthand for God's command that we look out for those who are on the margins in society.  In the Hebrew Bible (what we call the Old Testament sometimes), there was a standard, recurring principle of providing for "the widow, the orphan, and the alien/foreigner."  For James, who sees his audience as the outsiders and aliens living in the midst of a hostile world, the addition of the third, "foreigners," was redundant.  But in directing his readers to care for "orphans and widows in their distress," James points us to look out for the needs of those who are least able to provide for themselves and to take their well-being as our own responsibility.  James is directing us, in other words, to what modern-day culture calls "social justice." 

For James, that kind of "religion" is always done as an expression of the character of the God we believe in.  It's never about earning points with that God (that ends up turning other people into pawns in my chess-game to "win" eternal life, rather than people worthy of love and care just by virtue of being alive).  But it's also never just about private "feelings"--the kind of "religion" James cares about takes concrete, practical, and public action to care for the people most on the margins around us, because that is where God's heart it pointed, too.

And if that's what James would have us devote our lives to, well, that's something worth binding ourselves to, I think.  That's the kind of "religion" that matters, because it is essentially about loving God and loving our neighbors--knowing that we and our neighbors are beloved of God already.  James isn't here to give up on the idea of "religion"--just religion done badly, done selfishly, or done hypocritically.  And if I use the slogan "I'm spiritual but not religious" to rationalize withdrawing from the needs of my neighbor in the pursuit of my own "inner peace" or fulfillment, I'm missing the point, too, from a different direction.  That's why James takes the approach of recovering the R-word--he's ready to give up on all the ways we distort religion into some kind of pious posturing, but he still sees worth in our regular practice to love our the most vulnerable neighbors around us.  And the more we make a habit of seeking the well-being of the most at-risk among us--whether it's those more likely than you to get sick with preventable illness, or those more at risk of not having enough to eat, or those most in need of encouragement and love--the more we are shaped by love... for love.  That's worth giving our lives to--because that's also what makes us more fully alive as well.

So if you're at that place of being disappointed enough with organized religion that you are ready to give up on the whole project, know that you've got James at your side--but that he points us all the same to a recovered sense of what "religion" was meant to be all along.  It's always been about love--the love for God that is expressed in the concrete actions of love for the marginalized folks around us.  

When love for neighbors takes form beyond empty wishing or mushy feelings, that's what religion is meant to be: using these bodies of ours to care for the bodily needs of everyone around us.  And that--well, that, I can see myself giving my life to.

Lord God, bind us in love toward you and those people whom you love who are most in need of knowing your love.  Let that be our religion, and let it be well-pleasing to you.