Almighty God, guide us to seek your Truth: come
whence it may, cost what it will, lead where it might. Amen.
Over
the five Sundays of this Lenten season, the sermons will all have a common
theme. Each sermon will stand as an independent reflection, but there will be a
common thread that ties them all together. Traditionally, Lent is a season of
focus – we focus more intently on God through prayer and reading Scripture, we
focus more on making changes to benefit our soul, we focus on what matters
most. Many of us would say that our faith, that God, that our Church is one of
the most important things in our lives. And that is a truly wonderful thing,
it’s a blessing to serve a church where people put faith first in their lives.
The invitation of Lent is to go deeper into that common priority.
A
few months ago, I watched an outstanding TED Talk called “Time to Reclaim
Religion” by Sharon Brous. Her Jewish identity was in name only. Before she
completely gave up on her religion though, she decided to gather a group of
friends who similarly weren’t all that involved in their Jewish faith. They
talked about all the things that they wanted their faith to be about. And they
soon realized that Judaism stood for all of these things that they longed for.
The problem was that the practicing of their faith was stale.
She
notes that religion is perhaps the single most powerful force in our world.
Religion has enabled miracles, such as Desmond Tutu’s work of reconciliation in
South Africa, and religion has also been at the core of the Crusades, World War
II, and the Inquisition. There has been a rise in atheism after 9/11, when
people saw the terrors that religion can cause people to do in the name of God.
And it is true that religion very much is sometimes a part of the problems of
our world. But religion can also be a part of the solution.
The
issue at hand is not the tenets of faith, but rather how they are applied.
Religious extremism, of all varieties, is a problem. When you go to the
extremes, you go beyond the boundaries of the religious tradition. So when
Muslims choose to leave behind true Islam and choose to behead Westerners, they
have become too extreme. When Christians choose to leave behind the teachings
of Jesus and choose to bomb abortion clinics, they have become too extreme.
When Jews choose to leave behind the Torah’s command to love your neighbor and
choose to kill Palestinians, the have become too extreme. Faith is not the
problem, it is applying the faith too extremely, in a way that is closed off to
mystery, compassion, or difference.
If
extremism is one end of the religious spectrum, the other is, as Brous calls
it, “routine-ism.” Routinism is a religion that is devoid of live, vision,
meaning, or impact. Routinism sounds like “I’m not sure why we do it, other
than we’ve always done it.” Routinism is practice without piety or engagement.
And routinism can be just as destructive as extremism. Routinism might mean
that we choose pleasantness over standing up against injustice, it might mean
despairing instead of having hope, it might mean emptiness instead finding
fulfillment.
The results of routinism
are clear – religious participation in our society is on the decline. We are
stuck in an institution that is rote and perfunctory, often devoid of life and
soul. Many, especially younger Americans, are not interested in religion and
religious institutions because what they see is a lifeless, irrelevant, and
hypocritical faith. And why would you want to be a part of that? I, for one, am
glad that religion is on the decline because it’s the canary in the coalmine
telling us that we’ve gotten off track. It’s not that our message is no longer
relevant, it’s that we no longer live or share our faith in compelling ways.
In her lecture, Brous
compares these two poles to that of a marriage. She notes that when you’re
dating, you are more likely to be an extremist when it comes to an anniversary
– flowers, gifts, a fancy dinner. But by the time you get to your 11th
wedding anniversary, routinism may have set in. You just hope that your spouse
has also forgotten to buy a card.
In most churches in this
country, extremism isn’t the problem, rather routinism is. Her talk is called
“Time to Reclaim Religion;” and that’s just what she has done. She’s founded a
vibrant Jewish community in Los Angeles. And this isn’t just a Jewish
phenomenon. Routinism plagues all faiths and all congregations. If religion is
going to be a part of the solution instead of a part of the problem, we need to
get away from the poles of extremism and routinism. It means that we need to
choose compassion over violence, inclusion over hatred, mystery over certainty,
unity over uniformity, active participation over passive membership.
In the lecture, Brous
then suggests four ways that we might break out of our routinism and find a
faith that is more vibrant and saving. I’ve adapted those four suggestions for
the Christian landscape, and added a fifth. Each Sunday in Lent, the sermon
will focus on one of these five commitments that lead to religious and
spiritual vitality instead of religious routinism.
The first commitment, and
the focus for the rest of this sermon, is wakefulness. The first thing that we
need to do in order to break out of routinism is to wake up from our slumber of
passivity, ignorance, and apathy. Now, you might think “Because of technology,
I’m more well-informed than I’ve ever been.” And it’s true, it might be easy to
think that we don’t need to wake up, but rather to get some rest. Certainly, we
are over stimulated. Studies show though that result of having more
information, of being so well connected to the world isn’t always a good thing.
If there is an earthquake
in Taiwan, a tweet from our President, or a homerun hit by your favorite
player, your phone will tell you about it within seconds of it happening. This
is amazing technology, and certainly does make us better connected. We end up
being bombarded with news with no time to discern what is valuable information
and what is simply mental clutter. Psychologists sometimes call it “psychic
numbing,” where we don’t respond to bad news or situations because there’s
simply too much bad news out there.
Part of waking up means
that we can no longer be numb. When there is suffering, and we choose to no
longer be numb, it means there will be pain. There’s a reason why so many choose
routinism over pain. To wake up to these inconvenient truths, to look evil in
the face, to be with those who suffer is hard work, but it is the work of our
faith. This is what Jesus did, and also why he was ultimately killed. Jesus
pointed to inconvenient truths, he called us to wake up, he spent time with
those rejected by society. And people didn’t want that, they preferred their
complacent routinism.
There are a few things
that we need in order to wake up. For one, we need prophets who call our
attention to these issues. We have some out there, but we need to listen to
them more intently. Whether it be racism, sexism, environmental degradation,
income inequality, imperialism, mass incarceration, there are many inconvenient
truths that our faith can be a part of the solution for, but we must first wake
up to these realities and become instruments of God’s saving grace.
We also need to be deeply
rooted in our faith to withstand the brokenness of what we will be awoken to.
Prayer, worship, community, and Scripture reading are vital if we are going to
commit to being wakeful. And we must also have humility. In the words of
Reinhold Niebuhr, “Nothing that is worth doing can be achieved in our lifetime;
therefore we must be saved by hope. Nothing which is true or beautiful or good
makes complete sense in any immediate context of history; therefore we must be saved
by faith. Nothing we do, however virtuous, can be accomplished alone; therefore
we must be saved by love. No virtuous act is quite as virtuous from the
standpoint of our friend or foe as it is from our standpoint. Therefore we must
be saved by the final form of love which is forgiveness.”
This theme of being
wakeful is something that we see in our readings from both Genesis and Matthew
this morning. Both stories focus on temptations. In Genesis, it is a temptation
to “be like God.” One theologian has said that instead of seeing this as an
episode of “Original Sin,” that we might see it as “original insecurity.” Adam
and Eve were not content as they were, they were tempted by something that they
cannot have – divinity. They were under the illusion that they could somehow
become more powerful than the limits of their humanity. And as a result of this
insecurity, they trespassed the restriction on eating a particular fruit.
In Matthew, the
temptation comes in the form of testing Jesus’ alignment and identity. The
Tempter comes and says “If you are the Son of God…”. The three temptations here
are based in physical well-being in the form of bread, showing association with
the powerful in asking God to protect from danger, and having political
leadership in the form of governing all the nations of the earth. Now, there is
nothing wrong with bread for the hungry, with relying on God, or with worldly
leadership. Those weren’t the temptations – the temptation came in the form of
collateral damage.
The temptations in
Genesis and Matthew are false promises, as all temptations are. This is how
advertising, politics, and self-doubt all work. If you just used this product,
your life would be better. If you just elect this candidate, magically all the
jobs will come back and divisions will end. Or when you look in the mirror and
think “If I just lost weight or was more outgoing, then I’d be more deserving
of love.” Temptations are always built on false promises. Look at the serpent.
It promises that eating the fruit of the tree will make Adam and Eve like God.
But, lo and behold, when they eat the fruit, they do not become equals to God.
And in the same way, no product or politician will solve all of your problems.
Adam and Eve were stuck
in the routinism of Eden. Jesus, however, was awake to God. Jesus knows that
things like bread, trusting God to protect you, and political power are not bad
in themselves, but that falling asleep into compliancy will derail his
ministry. The thing about these temptations, or our temptations, is that they
are not one-time events. Temptation is an on-going struggle. It’s not as simple
as saying, “Well, if I don’t steal this one time, I’ll never consider it
again,” “Well, if I don’t cheat on my spouse this one time, I’ll never be
tempted to do it again,” “Well, if I don’t have a drink today, it means that
I’ll never want to again.” No, temptation will keep coming for us. I don’t know
what temptation looks like to you; I don’t know how the Tempter will come to you, but I know that you will face temptation.
Temptation is pernicious
because it lulls us to sleep. In the classic Screwtape Letters, CS Lewis writes of one demon guiding a younger
demon on how to draw humans away from God. The demon says “Keep them busy in the nonessentials life… It is funny
how mortals always picture us as putting things into their minds: in reality
our best work is done by keeping things out.”
At
another point in the book, the demon says “A moderated religion is as good for us as no religion
at all—and more amusing.” How often it is that our religion is moderated, or
routine. We are tempted to focus on all the wrong things – power, prestige,
wealth, security. We buy into false promises that tempt us into thinking that
we can be agents of our own salvation, that we can find the fountain of youth.
We are tempted to think that religion is about what we think rather than what
we do. We are tempted to think that reading Scripture or saying prayers is
optional. We are tempted to think that we’re too busy to worry about the
problems of other people. We are tempted to think that some problems are too
big to solve. We are tempted to think that we could never change the world. We
tempted to think that being a Christian is as simple as being a “nice” person
as opposed to following our radical Lord. We are tempted to fall into
routinism, because it’s simply easier than being awakened to pain, being
awakened to responsibility, being awaked to God’s call to us.
If we
seek a vibrant faith, a growing church community, the transformation of our
lives and world, we will need to commit to wakefulness. Breaking out of
routinism will mean seeing inconvenient truths, it will mean courageously
taking the risk of compassion and love, it will mean actively responding to
injustice, it will mean committing to spiritual practices that nourish our
souls for battle with darkness, it will mean following our Crucified Lord. It
is time to wake up.
