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“Religion and Spirituality” |
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Sermon Preached By The Rev. Bruce Sanguin Luke 15:1-32 |
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Ask someone if they believe in God and nine times out of ten you’ll get back a variation on a single theme: well, I’m spiritual, but I’m not religious. What they really mean is that they wouldn’t be caught dead in a church. But, they are quick to add, they believe in a Force or a Power that transcends institutional religion. In other words for them the difference between the two is that spirituality is the life within religion, and they’ve given up on finding that life in an institution. The irony is that nine out of ten churchgoers would tell you the same thing – with the important difference being that they actually find that life within the church – hopefully. The truth is that any spiritual movement that is going to be around for more than a decade or so is going to have to institutionalize or it will die a very fast death.
Jesus didn’t intend to found a new institutional religion, believe me. He had a faith – Judaism. But he was a reformer. He didn’t set out to start a new religion. He started a reform movement within Judaism that couldn’t be accommodated by that faith, and so it developed apart from it. Jesus didn’t concern himself with church buildings and committees and making sure there was enough money to pay the staff – all concerns of institutional religion. This fell to St. Paul, after it became clear that Jesus’ reform movement and his own faith system couldn’t be integrated.
I mention this because the parable this morning is really about the dialectic, or the swing between the two poles of religion and spirituality. In this corner you have the religion represented by the elder son. He’s been a good Jew and a good son all his life – his assigned role in life is to inherit 2/3 of the farm, take care of his parents, and do his ancestry proud. It’s a lot of responsibility. He is dutiful, righteous, and in all ways seeks to please his father. He expects to be rewarded for his faithful and righteous behaviour – in this life through an inheritance from his earthly father, and through the material prosperity that will come his way because God rewards the faithful. In the next life, he expects to be rewarded with eternal life – the badge of honour for those who have made the necessary sacrifices on earth.
We could call this “conformist” religion. A full 80% of all religious faith, Christian and otherwise, on the planet earth in this 21st century, is conformist – the elder brother religion. In this worldview, religion is associated with an unchanging moral order and an unwavering truth. There’s a right way and a wrong way, a true way and false way. Fathers, both on earth and in heaven exist to sustain this way and truth with rewards and punishments. What baffles the elder son in the parable is that his father seems to have forgotten the rules – when he should be punishing his younger brother instead he is forgiving him. When he should be shunning him, he’s throwing a party.
There is nothing wrong with this conformist religion please note. Historically, it emerged in response to the life conditions created by the “law of the jungle”. In this worldview the spoils go to the strongest, who take what they want when they want it for no other reason than that they want it. Still today, where warlords dominate, in certain parts of Africa, Afghanistan, Columbia, conformist religion would be an enormous improvement – establishing a moral order where none exists, and a higher truth to be accountable to instead of personal whims.
The downside of conformist religion, however, is pointed to in the parable in the attitude of the elder brother – the tendency to uphold the moral order through violence. When his penitent younger brother returns having blown the inheritance in dissolute living, and is received with open arms by their father, the elder brother is resentful. He’s out working in the field being a dutiful son when the scallywag son returns. When he hears there’s going to be a party for him and they’ve rolled out the red carpet, big brother is anything but celebrative. His brother should be punished, not rewarded. Rewards are reserved for the faithful, you see, in conformist religion. This resentment in conformers manifests on a continuum of violence. At one end it’s the violence of excluding the sinner. You refuse to have anything to do with such a person - or on a community level you shun the individual. The belief, for example, that unbelievers end up in hell is a kind of shunning on the level of eternity.
At the other end is physical violence – you end up with the worst of the Taliban. Or you find Islamic fundamentalists executing young women for having been raped. When your religion is all about being good, and when you’ve spent all your life trying to measure up in order to receive the reward of the faithful, compassion can give way to judgment and mercy can give way to righteous violence. The elder son embodies the regressive tendencies of conformist religions, including most of the Christian church. He can’t celebrate because it literally goes against his religion.
Notice, that in the prelude to the parable of the prodigal son, the author of the gospel makes it perfectly clear that Jesus is not a conformer. He is accused of being a drunkard and a sinner – in other words he is “impure”. He is the prodigal one who is being rejected by elder son – his own religious institution. This comes as a shock to Christian conformers –if he were among us today he would likely be hanging out with the transvestites and the cross-dressers, the prostitutes and the street people and the binners – all those whom we quietly judge as the “impure”.
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So if the elder son represents the “religion” that the average person on the street turns his nose up at, what in the parable represents “spirituality”? It is represented by the dynamic between the younger son and the father. The moment of their connection - after he’s been away doing everything wrong - the moment when the son’s humility meets the father’s unconditional love – that’s the “God moment”. The son realizes in that moment that nothing he could do could prevent his father from loving him. When he impetuously asked for the inheritance the father loved him. When he squandered it in a foreign land, he was held by this father’s love. When he ate pig-food, his father loved him. And when he returned, before he could even get his confession out of his mouth, he found himself in a bear hug and covered with his father’s kisses.
And now the younger son knows in his heart something that the elder son questions – the unconditional love of their father. Conformist religion is about believing in God’s love, and thinking that it’s a reward for behaving yourself. Deep spirituality is about knowing God’s love, and knowing that it’s not a reward – it’s just the nature of God. We’re held in God’s love and by God’s love – especially in our darkest moments. It’s just the air we breathe. The elder brother was held in the same love. He just too busy earning his love, by being dutiful and responsible, to notice. He couldn’t celebrate because all his assumptions about how life worked were just overturned by the presence of grace.
In practice you can’t easily notice a difference between the younger son and the elder son – religious types and spiritual types are both good kinds of people. They both do works of loving-kindness; they help out the church, do volunteer work, serve food at the local soup kitchen. It’s not the behaviour that distinguishes them; it’s the attitude, the spirit with which they go about their tasks. Because quietly the elder son is keeping track of the good deeds, of who’s measuring up, and who’s dropping the ball, of who’s in and who’s out. A ledger is being kept and at some point he’s expecting good behaviour to be rewarded. The worst is when they see some undeserving soul getting all the minister’s attention. They can’t quite stomach the love and the joy being shared because they don’t have it, and unconsciously it’s a source of enormous grief. They’ve spent their whole lives being faithful and responsible, and along comes an undeserving soul, and they’re throwing a party for him! It’s not fair. It just seems, well, too easy! And long ago, he substituted morality for love – good works for joy. But it’s a pale substitute and deep inside he knows it.
As for the prodigal son, he never wants to miss an opportunity to show his love. He’s not jealous or resentful, because he knows that this is what it’s all about. If there’s love to be given, he’s there with open arms standing in line to give the wayward soul a big hug. Any excuse to celebrate love is good enough. He knows that there’s plenty of love to go around – the more it shows the more it grows! His life now is not about being good, being responsible, being dutiful – although he’s more moral, more responsible and dutiful than he’s ever been. But the love of the father touched him, and all he wants now in life is to grow up and be like him. That’s the difference between religion and spirituality.
Friends, pray for the elder brother. Pray that his heart will soften, that he will come to know his father’s love. Because honestly – we all have a hidden elder brother that feels we deserve the love, not that other guy. Pray for the elder brother, because if the elder brother represents 80% of the world’s religions then our greatest hope for humanity lies in his growth. Pray that the elder brothers – all conformist religions find their hard-hearted, strict moralism and their punitive systems of rewards and punishments softening in the presence of the father’s love. Pray that the Truth may give way to the Heart. We are called to love, not judge, the elder brother. Pray that the joy may one day return, the sooner the better. Pray that his resentment may not translate into more violence.
I imagine the younger and the elder brother meeting after the celebration is over. I imagine the younger telling his older brother how much he respects him, and that there is nothing the elder brother can do to stop the younger from loving him. I imagine the love of the father flowing through the younger brother and over time breaking open his brother’s heart wide open. I imagine a day when the split between religion and spirituality is healed in the very institution of the church – when we understand that the only purpose for the church is to convey the love of the father.
Friends pray for the elder son – pray for all those religious people who have forgotten about mercy and compassion. Pray for those who believe it’s all about being good and righteous and punishing the evildoers. Pray for those in the White House who still believe this nonsense. Pray for all who have lost the spiritual sensibility of mellowness of heart. Pray for those who are making plans as we speak to kill the infidels and reap their reward in paradise. Everything depends upon the reconciliation of the religion of the elder son with the spirituality of the younger son. The future of the planet may depend on it.
Come to the table of Christ’s love, my friends, and bring along your elder brother. Amen. |
