I wonder if you’ve ever noticed something a little strange about the Bible. (You’re probably thinking, “there’s a lot that’s strange about the Bible!”, but I wonder if you’ve ever picked up on a particular irony that’s evident in today’s gospel reading.) The Bible—which is a book (or a collection of books), that is the very cornerstone of our faith; a book that we adorn with elaborate bindings and gold leaf pages; a book we decorate with gold covers and process around the church; a book that is literally ornamentation in here; and can be ornamentation on a living room bookshelf at home; a book that is central to the religion by which we practice our faith—contains whole strands that seem downright anti-religion. While there are certain sections (especially in the Old Testament), that lay out elaborate and meticulously detailed instructions for religious ceremonies, there are other strands (most notably in the Psalms and the prophets), that take full-on, gloves-off shots at religion—or at least at its potential corruption and misuse. So on the one hand we have an entire book of the Bible (Leviticus) dedicated mostly to ritual practices, and then we get the prophet Amos announcing at one point “I hate, I despise your festivals, and I take no delight in your solemn assemblies” (5:21). Yikes! So there’s this tension running through Scripture between the importance of religious practice on the one hand, and the pitfalls it contains when it becomes divorced from the God who gives it meaning and life on the other.
It’s this tension that drives the conflict between Jesus and the Pharisees in today’s gospel lesson. It’s a pretty common kind of exchange between Jesus and the Pharisees. The Pharisees accuse Jesus’ disciples of not properly observing the religious tradition of the day (in this case it’s a ritual washing before eating), and Jesus responds by pointing out how they tend to focus so intently on external religious observance, that they stifle, and in many ways undermine, the spirit, and commandment, and purposes of God—the very things religious practice are designed to remind us of.
This kind of exchange happens over and over again in the gospels. But I think it’s very easy for us 21st century Christians to miss the point here. There’s always a danger that we’ll think Jesus’ critique is directed at someone else—some ancient, archaic religion practiced by someone else. It’s easy for us to sit back and think how silly and uptight they got about their little rituals; thank goodness we don’t get hung up on such external minutia! But anyone who’s been a member of a church (from any denomination), anyone who’s ever been on a vestry, or really held any kind of leadership position, knows just how tightly we can hold to our own ritual and legalistic traditions when someone tries to do something like move some furniture around in the church, or change the prayer book, or fiddle around with the music, or whatever. I’m not the pastor of this church, so I don’t know what the untouchable parts of your own traditions and practices and liturgies are, but I know they’re there. All of us (and priests are probably the worst about this) have human religious traditions that we cling to as if they were the very word of God.
So the question raised by our lesson today is how are we using the tradition that’s been given to us? Are we, as one commentator put it, “majoring in the minors” of our religion? Are we getting so caught up in the minor details of our faith or life that we are actually shutting ourselves off to the active presence of God among us? Do we see our faith as mostly about getting a set of rules right in order to please God? Do we see what we’re doing here as a kind of economic transaction between us and God, where we perform these actions in order to earn a little more favor with God? Or are we using these traditions that are given to us as primarily a means to have our hearts and our spirits opened up and transformed by God—by God’ love and forgiveness and healing? Religion, at its worst, sees the beauty of liturgy and music and buildings, and all of the practices and traditions we use throughout the year, as ends in and of themselves, or as a way to please and manipulate God’s favor. Religion, at its best, sees the beauty of all of this that we’ve been given—this great building, the magnificent music, and all of the official and unofficial customs and traditions you all keep in this congregation , are ways to be continually reminded of God’s presence, and continually lifted out of ourselves and opened to his transforming grace in our lives. What is religion doing in your life? Is it a side note, a mere external practice? Or is it a way of constantly being renewed and set free to love the world with the endlessly giving and reconciling love that God has shown to us?
Carol Anderson, the rector of All Saints Church in Beverly Hills California, tells a story of a certain couple she became close to in one of her first congregations. They were in church almost every week, admired her sermons, invited her to dinner in their home a number of times, and shared a great deal of themselves with her, as she did with them. Some time after Carol had moved to a different parish, she heard that the husband in the couple had committed suicide by jumping out of one of the top floors of their apartment building in Manhattan. He left a note, which simply said, “I couldn’t make the connections.” Carol talks quite movingly about how that has haunted her, and how it reshaped the way she understood her ministry. The church ought to always be about helping us make the connections between what we do in here—the Scriptures we hear, the music we sing, the traditions and rituals we observe—and the lives we have to face out there.
That’s why our reading from James this morning is so concerned to exhort us to be doers of the word and not merely hearers. James has always been a tough book for us Protestants. The great reformer Martin Luther called it “an epistle of straw,” and thought it ought to be removed from the Bible. For him, it came too close to suggesting that we earn our salvation by our good works. But the point of what James is saying is not so much that our faith must produce action so that we can earn God’s favor, but rather that our faith—what we profess and do in here—ought to connect with the real stuff of our lives. This is not an isolated compartment of our life, but rather what we do here should always be about helping us make the connections between the God we proclaim and the real lives we have been given to lead. The point of all this in here is to change us out there. The point of all this in here is that our whole selves and our whole lives might be re-oriented around God’s mission to love, and forgive, and save the whole world. The point of doing this in here is that our lives out there might flow from and be constantly in tune with God’s love.
So what is this doing for you? How are you making the connections between the God whose love washes over you again and again through the beauty of this place, and the life you are called to in a world that is starving for that love? This morning, as we observe again the tradition of our elders, of bread broken and wine poured out, pray the God might break you open with his love, through you, pour out that same spirit of justice, and peace, and love into the lives of those around you. Amen.
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