SUNDAY SERMON Sep 5, 2010
It is said that angels can fly because they take themselves lightly. How bound to the earth are we as we try to reason ourselves into the air? One of my favorite songs is sung by Mary Chapin Carpenter. It is called “Why walk when you can fly”, it is a wonderfully light song that recognizes the great pains and troubles in the world yet asks, why walk when we all could fly. Why be burdened and held by the bonds of our fear and anxiety when we could let them all go and fly to soaring heights.
Paul Tillich, a great theologian once wrote, “The burden Jesus wants to take for us is the burden of religion. It is the yoke of law imposed on people of His time by the religious leaders, the wise and understanding. Those who labor and are weary laden are those who are sighing under the yoke of the religious law. And He will give them the power to overcome religion and the law; the law Jesus gives them is a new being above religion. The thing they will learn from him is the victory over the law of the wise and the understanding. Jesus is not the creator of another religion, but the victor over religion. He is not the maker of another law but the conqueror of law.”
The burden of religion is not something we would expect Jesus to take from us. Often the focus of my own sermons as well as other studies and reflections is on the burden of the world. On how our society is beating us down, on the injustices of our political system. We focus much on the oppression our social system levies against the poor. The burden of religion is often far from our minds. Yet it is the burden of religious law that is much greater than the burden of social law. Social law has no ability to liberate us. Our focus, so often, leads us to forget what it was the Church Jesus envisioned embodied.
We know well what the Church Jesus embodied does not entail. Divisiveness is prevalent in our society, unwillingness on all sides to find compromise together is appalling. The hatred and bias that is bringing a literal meaning to Jesus’ words hate father, mother, brother and sister truly is rending our families apart. It is a hatred that is cleaving reason from belief rather than materialism from our faith.
This Gospel recommends being prepared, unfortunately, today, we find ourselves answering the questions of the Gospel in an adamant, unreasonable way. No matter what it takes, I will stand against that army approaching, needless death is much better then surrender or compromise. Or we say, we can do anything we want on our property, it is mine and mine alone, and no one else matters.
No one else matters, this is not the Church Jesus envisioned. This is not the Church we know and love, or is it? We separate religious law from social law and proclaim that religious law is better, even though it seems social law, currently, is much more inclusive and even loving than religious law. We tend to blame society and societies rules and mores instead of the divisiveness of our own religious rules and mores.
What if we, as the Church stopped blaming our politicians and our other elected officials, what if we stopped blaming officers of the state and looked solely at our own rules, both written and unwritten? What if we stopped to look at how well we were living into the rule of Jesus, the law of religion that we abide by, that we were made to overcome, as Paul Tillich suggests. Did not Jesus trump all religious law by saying, “Love God with all your heart and love your neighbor as yourself?”
People are disillusioned and discouraged by religion not because the fundamentalists have the most powerful voice in our country today, but because we as moderate Christians have not spoken and shared our story, shared our beliefs with the world and our passion for Christ. Our voices have been silenced not because someone else’s voice is louder than ours, but because we have chosen not to speak of the complexities of our faith, we have been unwilling to speak and share with the world the value of living with and loving each other. We are to blame for the suspicion of religious institutions, we are to blame for declining churches, we are to blame for the overburdening of religious law and misinterpreted meaning given in the Gospels. It is our fault, not theirs.
Rather than allow ourselves to be freed from religious law, rather than overcome religion, we have pulled down the blanket of religious law upon us, seeking its comfort, we have welcomed the solitude of religious institution and its bonds that tie us to the ground, keeping us from flight. What does it mean to overcome religion? What does it mean to be freed from religious law? What does it mean to give up all our possessions? What does it mean to become a disciple?
What if becoming a disciple meant giving up our religious possessions? Releasing ourselves from the yoke of the religious institution and law? What if being a disciple meant liberating ourselves from the heaviness of religious ought’s and should’s? What if, instead of looking at the cars we drive, and the things we have and identifying those as the things that prevent us from being disciples, what if instead we looked at our religious possessions? Our religious possessions, I would argue, are much more attached to us than any of the material possessions we own. We have certain religious beliefs and understandings that are not as tangible, and much harder to identify.
You all probably can identify myriad things that bind us to religion, none of which are material at all. Our beliefs, why do we believe what we believe? What beliefs keep us from the loving inclusivity of Christ? What religious rules do we have that prevent us from following Jesus? Our prayer, can our practice or lack of practice of prayer keep us from being disciples?
I think if I stopped and took a close look at the religious bonds that tied me to the ground I would see unfinished work, towers that were leaning every which way, completely unfinished, I would see myself overrun by armies of the enemy, trampling my spiritual and religious being into the ground, deeper and deeper, preventing me from that lightness of being that allows the angels to fly. I would see that I am truly not ready to be a disciple of Christ.
Jesus said, “Whoever does not carry the cross and follow me cannot be my disciple.” Thomas Merton responded, “If we are called by God to holiness of life, and if holiness is beyond our natural power to achieve then it follows that God must give us the light, the strength, and the courage to fulfill the task God requires of us.” I may not be ready to be a disciple, but I know God and Jesus want me to be a disciple. So I will turn my work to a different task, understanding the burden of religion and releasing the religious bonds that keep me from taking on the weight of Glory, the weight of love, the freedom of Christ.
Paul Tillich, a great theologian once wrote, “The burden Jesus wants to take for us is the burden of religion. It is the yoke of law imposed on people of His time by the religious leaders, the wise and understanding. Those who labor and are weary laden are those who are sighing under the yoke of the religious law. And He will give them the power to overcome religion and the law; the law Jesus gives them is a new being above religion. The thing they will learn from him is the victory over the law of the wise and the understanding. Jesus is not the creator of another religion, but the victor over religion. He is not the maker of another law but the conqueror of law.”
The burden of religion is not something we would expect Jesus to take from us. Often the focus of my own sermons as well as other studies and reflections is on the burden of the world. On how our society is beating us down, on the injustices of our political system. We focus much on the oppression our social system levies against the poor. The burden of religion is often far from our minds. Yet it is the burden of religious law that is much greater than the burden of social law. Social law has no ability to liberate us. Our focus, so often, leads us to forget what it was the Church Jesus envisioned embodied.
We know well what the Church Jesus embodied does not entail. Divisiveness is prevalent in our society, unwillingness on all sides to find compromise together is appalling. The hatred and bias that is bringing a literal meaning to Jesus’ words hate father, mother, brother and sister truly is rending our families apart. It is a hatred that is cleaving reason from belief rather than materialism from our faith.
This Gospel recommends being prepared, unfortunately, today, we find ourselves answering the questions of the Gospel in an adamant, unreasonable way. No matter what it takes, I will stand against that army approaching, needless death is much better then surrender or compromise. Or we say, we can do anything we want on our property, it is mine and mine alone, and no one else matters.
No one else matters, this is not the Church Jesus envisioned. This is not the Church we know and love, or is it? We separate religious law from social law and proclaim that religious law is better, even though it seems social law, currently, is much more inclusive and even loving than religious law. We tend to blame society and societies rules and mores instead of the divisiveness of our own religious rules and mores.
What if we, as the Church stopped blaming our politicians and our other elected officials, what if we stopped blaming officers of the state and looked solely at our own rules, both written and unwritten? What if we stopped to look at how well we were living into the rule of Jesus, the law of religion that we abide by, that we were made to overcome, as Paul Tillich suggests. Did not Jesus trump all religious law by saying, “Love God with all your heart and love your neighbor as yourself?”
People are disillusioned and discouraged by religion not because the fundamentalists have the most powerful voice in our country today, but because we as moderate Christians have not spoken and shared our story, shared our beliefs with the world and our passion for Christ. Our voices have been silenced not because someone else’s voice is louder than ours, but because we have chosen not to speak of the complexities of our faith, we have been unwilling to speak and share with the world the value of living with and loving each other. We are to blame for the suspicion of religious institutions, we are to blame for declining churches, we are to blame for the overburdening of religious law and misinterpreted meaning given in the Gospels. It is our fault, not theirs.
Rather than allow ourselves to be freed from religious law, rather than overcome religion, we have pulled down the blanket of religious law upon us, seeking its comfort, we have welcomed the solitude of religious institution and its bonds that tie us to the ground, keeping us from flight. What does it mean to overcome religion? What does it mean to be freed from religious law? What does it mean to give up all our possessions? What does it mean to become a disciple?
What if becoming a disciple meant giving up our religious possessions? Releasing ourselves from the yoke of the religious institution and law? What if being a disciple meant liberating ourselves from the heaviness of religious ought’s and should’s? What if, instead of looking at the cars we drive, and the things we have and identifying those as the things that prevent us from being disciples, what if instead we looked at our religious possessions? Our religious possessions, I would argue, are much more attached to us than any of the material possessions we own. We have certain religious beliefs and understandings that are not as tangible, and much harder to identify.
You all probably can identify myriad things that bind us to religion, none of which are material at all. Our beliefs, why do we believe what we believe? What beliefs keep us from the loving inclusivity of Christ? What religious rules do we have that prevent us from following Jesus? Our prayer, can our practice or lack of practice of prayer keep us from being disciples?
I think if I stopped and took a close look at the religious bonds that tied me to the ground I would see unfinished work, towers that were leaning every which way, completely unfinished, I would see myself overrun by armies of the enemy, trampling my spiritual and religious being into the ground, deeper and deeper, preventing me from that lightness of being that allows the angels to fly. I would see that I am truly not ready to be a disciple of Christ.
Jesus said, “Whoever does not carry the cross and follow me cannot be my disciple.” Thomas Merton responded, “If we are called by God to holiness of life, and if holiness is beyond our natural power to achieve then it follows that God must give us the light, the strength, and the courage to fulfill the task God requires of us.” I may not be ready to be a disciple, but I know God and Jesus want me to be a disciple. So I will turn my work to a different task, understanding the burden of religion and releasing the religious bonds that keep me from taking on the weight of Glory, the weight of love, the freedom of Christ.
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