Overcoming the Religious Spirit There are many stories about clergy being interviewed by search committees. One that I particularly remember is about a priest who had not gone to seminary but was ordained under special circumstances. He had done very well in a rural farming community and was now being considered for rector of a suburban parish. The head of the committee was an English professor at the local university. He was very concerned that the future rector of the parish spoke properly, with correct grammar, syntax and so forth. In the interview he asked the priest, When the hen is on the nest, does she sit or set? The priest was frustrated. He didn t know what to say. Finally, he replied, It really doesn t matter if she s sitting or setting. What I want to know is this: when she cackles is she laying or lying? One of the most common criticisms of the church is that we always seem to focus on the trivial, the inconsequential and unimportant matters rather than what s at the heart of Christian faith. To the people outside the church, we look silly. They see and hear about us attending church, believing in Christ, and receiving the sacraments. But then they see us majoring on the minors rather than the majors, making form more important than substance, outward show more important than spirit and heart, being more focused on ceremony and ritual than conversion. It s this kind of religion that comes under attack in today s gospel. Jesus is saying, There s a type of religion I have a problem with. Jesus and his disciples were eating a Sabbath meal. Some of the strict Jews noticed that the disciples had not washed their hands with proper religious ritual before they ate and challenged Jesus as to how religious he really was. Why do your disciples not live
according to the tradition of the elders but eat with defiled hands? they asked. And Jesus reacted with anger and said, Isaiah prophesized rightly about you hypocrites, as it is written, This people honors me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me In the time of Jesus, a religious Jew might hate his neighbor with all his heart, and he might be full of envy and jealousy and concealed bitterness and pride, but that did not matter as long as he carried out the correct hand-washings, and observed the correct laws about cleanness and uncleanness. A religious spirit takes account of people s outward actions; but it takes no account of their inward feelings. A person may well be meticulously serving God in outward things and bluntly disobeying God in inward things and that s hypocrisy. Jesus could not stand that kind of religion. For more than 2,000 years the problem of the religious spirit has not gone away. There is a kind of person for whom faith is a set of rules (usually negative rules). Rather than a religion centered on relationships, it s a religion centered on rules. It s principle for the sake of principle. It s all of the lips, not of the heart. These are very serious religious people but according to Jesus, people with a very serious problem. So what s wrong with the religious spirit? First, it is not a religion of God. It is something centered in human activity not divine activity. You abandon the commandments of God and hold to human tradition. These people are concerned more with the way one worships than with worship itself; with the right form regardless of the right spirit; with the right words rather than with what the words mean.
I began my ministry in the Diocese of Quebec where there was several joint Anglican United Church of Canada parishes. Ministers from the two denominations would alternate in parishes every few years because neither the Anglicans nor the United Church members were large enough to go it alone. In one remote parish on the Lower North Shore of the St. Lawrence River, the congregation became deeply split over the shape of a proposed communion table. Anglicans wanted one kind of table, United Church members another. The divisions became so deep that the Anglican priest then serving the parish had to resign and all over the shape of a table! Here was a church divided in the name of religion. One of the most-unpleasant church disputes I have ever encountered was an Altar Guild meeting. Guild members hotly debated where the bread box and cruets of wine and water should be placed on the credence table. Some wanted it one way, others wanted it a different way. The discussion got so intense that one woman walked out in a huff, she just couldn t stand the bickering and pettiness any longer. Here were Christians divided in the name of religion. When I first came to the Diocese of Arizona, a parishioner of a prominent Phoenix church told me about his former rector who insisted on using red vestments on Christmas Eve, even though the liturgical color appointed is white. This parishioner was so upset by what the priest had done that he left the church he just couldn t stand that the priest used the wrong color. He only returned when the priest retired from the parish. I pointed out to this person that before the 19thcentury Anglicans did not have colored vestments there were no stoles or chasubles or burses, red, white or whatever. That surprised him but he still couldn t
accept what the priest had done. To him it was a cardinal sin to use red rather than white at Christmas. Here was a person angry at a fellow Christian in the name of religion. I have encountered parents who have refused to attend their daughter s wedding because she was being married in a different church from theirs. I have seen the same phenomenon with the ordination of a priest whose mother of a different church refused to attend the ceremony. This is dividing the family and denying their daughter in the name of religion! Jesus knew that true religion is not a matter of rules; it s a matter of relationship a relationship with the God who knows the heart of a human being, knows what a human being thinks and feels a God who desires to forgive our sins and heal our hurts and love us and be our friend. The problem that Jesus had with people with a religious spirit is that they knew nothing of that kind of selfless love they ve missed it, and their religion had kept them from it. So first: the religious spirit is not a religion of God. But second, the religious spirit raises the wrong issues. In our gospel reading, the issue raised by the Pharisees is trivial. It wasn t about the nature of God, or who Jesus was, or how a person can find and know God. It was about washing your hands in the proper way! It was principle for the sake of principle. Certainly all of us have admiration for people who hold strong principles and refuse to compromise on an issue of conscience. What we must be sure of, however, is, are we emphasizing the right issue? When I was in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, I heard the story of an old-time Mennonite bishop who was having difficulty with some
women under his spiritual care. The Mennonite bonnet had strings which were used to tie the bonnet under the chin. Some women (and this may be shocking to sensitive ears) decided not to tie their bonnets, but to let the strings dangle. The bishop remarked, Honestly, I just don t know what this world is coming to! Here was a cleric with strong principles but the wrong issue. In 1917, while the Bolshevik Revolution was being violently waged in the streets of St. Petersburg, the Holy Synod of the Russian Orthodox Church was meeting in a grand palace debating the shape of liturgical vestments. And of all we know of that synod, the issue of the shape of vestments was hotly debated but not a word about the social conditions in Russia! The members of the synod had strong principles but the wrong issue. True religion gives churches and their members a sense of balance in life, common sense, not principle for the sake of principle, but principle for the sake of people. So first: the religious spirit is not of God. Second, it raises the wrong issues. And third, the religious spirit creates a kind of personality that is incompatible with the personality of Jesus Christ. What Jesus found in the Pharisee is a personality that is cold, negative, holier-than-thou often judgmental and always right. In contrast, Jesus, and those who follow him are warm, open, positive people our religious experience being one of liberation, not enslavement one of understanding, not of judgment not always having the right answers but knowing the right, true God. Several years ago a Dayton, Ohio Roman Catholic priest refused to give communion to anyone who did not conform to his dress code. His bishop removed him from office. The priest s appeal to Rome was rejected, not because standards of dress don t matter,
but because refusing communion is a judgment on a person s heart which cannot be made solely on the basis of clothing. So how does the church overcome the religious spirit? It s simple, really. When we have the same love and acceptance for others that God has for us, when we make love the priority and everything else secondary, when we act in the spirit of Jesus and claim the freedom of the gospel, then the religious spirit will give way to a life-affirming, life-giving community. When love supersedes law, and when relationships are more important than rules, then we know we are moving in the way of Jesus. There is a story about a posh, upper-class, southern Episcopal Church that was very conservative and formal. One Sunday as the service was underway, a student at the local university by the name of Bill walked into the church. He had wild hair, wore a T- shirt with holes in it, jeans and no shoes. Bill had just become a Christian and was checking out churches in the area, and now he was at this Episcopal Church. He knew nothing of the liturgy or proper religious etiquette. When Bill walked into the church, he couldn t find a seat. He walked closer and closer to the pulpit, and realizing there were no seats, he just sat down on the floor. This was perfectly acceptable behavior in the college dorm but it wasn t acceptable at this church. There was tension in the air. People were feeling uptight. No one knew quite what to do. The Rector who was just about to preach his sermon stood frozen in the pulpit. At the back of the church, there was the Senior Warden. He was a staid and proper, southern gentlemen; a pillar in the community, a longtime member of the church and a cradle Episcopalian. He was a devout man, elegant and dignified. This man was in his
80s; he had silver gray hair and was wearing a dark three-piece suite with shoes polished. Cane in hand, he began walking slowly down the aisle toward Bill. Everyone in the church knew what the Senior Warden had to do. It had to be done. Décor and propriety had to be maintained. No one could expect this old school southern gentleman to tolerate such irreverent behavior. It took a long time for this elderly man to reach the front of the church, but finally he got to where Bill was sitting on the floor. He then put aside his cane and with great difficulty sat down next to Bill on the floor so he wouldn t be alone. Everyone in church choked up with emotion, including the Rector, who said from the pulpit, What I was about to preach, you will never remember. What you have just seen, you will never forget. Be careful how you live. You may be the only Bible some people will ever read. The story could have ended radically different if the Senior Warden had a religious spirit. Bill could have been asked to leave the church, or to come back when he was properly dressed. Instead, he entered a church where he found the love of Jesus. Really, isn t that what true religion is all about? Dr. Gary Nicolosi September 2, 2018 Text Mark 7:1-8, 14-15, 21-23 Proper 17, B