video introduction

I wonder if you have had anything close to this experience in a church?

“I stand with 2,000 years of darkness and bafflement and hunger behind me. My kind have harvested the souls of a million peasants.” How inviting!

It reminds me of the cowboy who went to an up market church wearing jeans, ragged boots and a worn out old hat. As the cowboy took his seat, people moved away from him. No one welcomed him. As the cowboy was leaving the church, the minister approached him and asked the cowboy to do him a favor. "Before you come back in here again, have a talk with God and ask him what he thinks would be appropriate attire for worship." The old cowboy assured the preacher he would.
The next Sunday, he showed back up for the services wearing the same ragged jeans, boots, and hat. Once again he was completely shunned and ignored.

The preacher approached the man and said, "I thought I asked you to speak to God before you came back to our church."
"I did," replied the old cowboy.
"If you spoke to God, what did he tell you the proper attire should be for worshiping in here?" asked the preacher.
"Well, sir, God told me that He didn't have a clue what I should wear, seeing as He'd never been in this church."

I wonder if you have had the experience of being made to jump through hoops by the church. Maybe it was a catechism or some sort of membership system. Maybe you thought to yourself, “Im a spiritual and moral person. I try to live as well as I can, and do the right thing by others. And yet in church I am made to feel like a second class citizen because I don’t know the ritual or the lingo.”

I couldn’t tell you how many people have asked me, almost apologetically, if I would baptize their baby even though they aren’t members of any church. Many of them have already been rejected by 5 or 6 other churches who would only baptize the baby if the family would go to theology classes. I remember one particular woman in Auckland who had dragged her young baby out of 6 churches nearer her home before finding our church. She arrived exhausted and completely discouraged.

The weariness was bad enough. I can only wonder what it must have felt like to have been reminded of the rejection and exclusion of her new born baby by church after church. Shouldn’t it be the privilege of the church to be part of a family’s celebration of new life? Isn’t this sort of exclusion the very reason that so many people around the world are losing interest in the church?

Wouldn’t Jesus have made a priority out of baptizing a baby, even if it meant breaking all the rules of the religion of his day? What could be more important?

Healthy Religion

The whole purpose of religion is to bring together. That’s what the word means. Religion that is healthy should be the opposite of exclusive and judgmental. Religion was made to serve humankind, not humankind to serve religion.

If you are one of those people who have been shunned by the church because you didn’t measure up in some way or other, then this message is for you. If you are one of the people who have found the church to be irrelevant to your life, then this message is for you.

Religion is concerned with bringing together; head and heart, past and present, beliefs and values, people and neighbors, tribe and nation, spirituality and religion. All of life is part of a unity that is miraculously connected and beautifully meaningful. Maybe you don’t have to choose between spirituality and religion after all.

Eat, Pray, Love. Its All Spiritual!

Millions of people have been deeply moved by the Elizabeth Gilbert book, “Eat, Pray Love.” It’s the story of one woman’s search for meaning. She wanted her life to make sense as a whole, and all the parts to be honored. She wanted to create an expansive life so that even seeming opposites could be synchronized into a worldview that excludes nothing. She wanted to see if she could eat, pray and love all at the same time.

The concept of having it all reminds me of a Seinfeld episode. One of the characters, George, has a fantasy of making love to a woman while eating a sandwich. The scene has George under the sheets, his hands occasionally appearing out of the sheets to dip his pastrami sandwich in hot mustard. Then he says under his breath- “Now for the trifecta.” Grinning, he puts his ear piece in and begins watching a portable television under the sheets. The woman turns the light on, throws the sheets off and seeing George eating his sandwich and watching television, says, “what are you doing.” George replies sheepishly. “Pleasuring you!”

Narcissism aside, what if it was possible to have it all? To include it all? To honor it all? To love it all? One general difference between religion and spirituality is that religion has boundaries around its concerns; certain parts of life, certain types of music, certain language. Spirituality, on the other hand, is generally seen as an attitude towards all of life. What if it was possible to have a religion or a spirituality that is all of life because God is in your bloodstream, because all of life is infused with wonder and meaning the way sunlight glistens on water?

God as Wow!

Another American author, Ann Lamott, offers some wonderfully human perspectives on faith and religion. I heard one of my favorite phrases from Ann in an interview with Stephen Colbert. She described her Presbyterian denomination as “the frozen people.” In another interview, she recounts the time her son, Sam, said to her, "I think the reason they call God 'God' is because when you see something really, really beautiful, you go, 'God, that’s beautiful!'" As Ann said, "OK, that works for me."

Consider the possibility that every time you see a sunset, every time you smell a fresh baked cookie, every time you feel the touch of loving acceptance when you didn’t think you were worthy, and your only response is “wow”, then you have just named God. This is the God who is beyond religious pontification, beyond creeds and beyond names. Just WOW!

This experience of “wow” is completely personal and subjective. No one else can give it you, and no one else will have the exact same experience. This is partly where religion goes wrong. “Wow” can’t be institutionalized. You can’t put “wow” in a neat box of ancient beliefs. You can’t prescribe “wow” for another person or for whole groups of people.

As George Carlin once said-
“Religion is sort of like a lift in your shoes. If it makes you feel better, fine. Just don't ask me to wear your shoes.”

Jesus Was Spiritual More Than Religious

It seems fair to say that Jesus was more spiritual than religious in his first century context. He preferred ordinary people over priests, compassion over rituals, and justice over judgment. To the extent that religion was a tool for greater human compassion then it was worth pursuing, To the extent that it got in the way of peace, then it was destructive.

Jesus traveled with a group of hippies who were critical of a religion controlled by yuppies. Jesus was nominally Jewish, knew nothing of the later Christian movement named after him, and was intolerant of the intolerance of the temple.

If Jesus was alive today, he would be horrified by the way religions have been turned into bullyboy battles about whose God is bigger and whose pulpit is more grand.

In Mark chapter 2 (see below), there is a typical clash between spirituality and religion. Religious leaders of the day demanded that Jesus not pluck grain on the Sabbath. However Jesus had other priorities. Breaking bread with all sorts of people was an emphasis for Jesus. In particular, breaking bread with the urban poor of the first century was a symbol of radical acceptance. Bringing people together, directing resources to those in greatest need, celebrating the abundance of life- these were the spiritual concerns of Jesus, and took precedence over any religious ritual or tradition.

If we could keep the dogmatic religion that most of us have endured separate from Jesus desire to intimately experience the Source of Life and love, then Christianity could still offer something to those who see themselves as spiritual but not religious. Maybe Christianity can still offer you something meaningful.

 
Religion is Concerned with All of Life

There is an ancient story from India about the God Brahma, who got sick of being alone. So he created the goddess, Maya. Just for fun, Brahma and Maya created a whole world of illusion; sun, stars, planets, oceans, animals. Then they said, “Lets create an animal that is so intelligent and aware that it can appreciate this wondrous creation.” So they created humans.

Then the game began. Maya cut Brahma up into millions of little pieces and placed a piece of Brahma in every human being. Maya said to the human beings, “ I am going to make you forget who you are, then you can try and find yourself. You will spend a lifetime searching for your true essence.”

Every now and again, a little spark of Brahma wakes up in each of us. It comes at odd moments, sometimes with thoughts, but often in more spontaneous moments or reflections. As more and more people have more and more moments of waking up to their true essence of God or Brahma, the world becomes a more peaceful place.

Religion is one place that this awakening happens, but it’s not the only place. For many people, it doesn’t happen in religion because religion has over identified with its ideas about God and confused the idea with the reality.

Imagine a religion where all people were encouraged to think and explore ideas for themselves, where all people were encouraged to wake up to the spark of divinity within, and see the spark of “wow” in others. Imagine a religion where treating people right was more important than being right. Imagine a religion where compassion was more important than creeds and rituals.

You are a spiritual being, seeking an expansive worldview that excludes nothing and honors all people and all things. When I see the wonder of your spiritual essence, my only response is “wow”!

* One Sabbath Jesus was going through the cornfields; and as they made their way his disciples began to pluck heads of grain. The Pharisees said to him, ‘Look, why are they doing what is not lawful on the Sabbath?’ And he said to them, ‘Have you never read what David did when he and his companions were hungry and in need of food? He entered the house of God, when Abiathar was high priest, and ate the bread of the Presence, which it is not lawful for any but the priests to eat, and he gave some to his companions.’ Then he said to them, ‘The Sabbath was made for humankind, and not humankind for the Sabbath. Mark 2; 23-27