Where in the World are you? Why is Religion Important?
“The Beginning,” Circle Window, FPCE
second in a sermon series, “Confirmation for Adults,” Matthew 23:1-4, 23-28; Colossians 1:9-18
The Rev. John Hembruch, D.Min. + January 26, 2020
We are in the second week of a sermon series with the general theme, “Confirmation for Adults.” One week ago, we thought together about the question “Who are you?” and how one of the most profound ways we can answer that question is in reference to our baptism, saying, “I am a child of God.” Having given some thought to answering the first question, today we move on to two more: “Where in the world are you?” and “Why is religion important?”
Long ago, the question “Where in the world are you?” would have had an answer so static and widely shared that no one would have thought to ask it. Each person would have answered the question without much reference to faraway place or people, “I live here in this town or village, with my clan and family, who have lived here so long that we’re not quite sure what came before.” But today, people often live far from where they were born, and may make moves of thousands of miles several times through the course of their life’s journey. Family may be quite distant, and live in more than one faraway place. To interact with them, we don’t even have to make a road trip or take a flight. We can speak with them and see them through computers or phones in our hand.
Fifty years ago, the book Future Shock appeared, written by Alvin and Heidi Toffler. The Tofflers set out to understand and describe the development of human society. Many of their basic observations are still valuable. Looking back in time, they observed, it took a nearly unimaginable number of years for human beings to learn how to make basic tools from earth’s natural resources. Yet, the closer you get to our era, the more rapid technological change has occurred. For example, I remember conversations during the 1980s and 90s with members of the congregations I served, who were born in the late 19th-century, who literally could remember the time when they heard a sound in the sky, looked upward, and saw for the very first time an airplane. Now, on a clear day, we can look up almost any time, and see an airplane, maybe even a drone. If we look up on a clear night, we might see a satellite in orbit.
The Tofflers described the pace of change measured in lifetimes. Of the approximately 800 lifespans in recorded history, the first 650 were lived in nothing more glamorous than caves. Only in the past seven life spans have we had mass printing. Only in the past three have we had electric motors. Space flight is only now approaching the span of one lifetime. In a fraction of a lifetime, I’ve moved from typing my master’s papers on a typewriter, my doctoral papers on a computer that booted up with two floppy disks, now to a phone in my pocket that has more power than the computer that guided astronauts to the moon.
The Tofflers argued, in essence, that there is something very disconcerting to the human psyche about living in a world of such rapid change. The shock of being propelled as if on the tip of a rocket into an ever-changing future makes some questions more important to our health than ever before.
· Where in the world are you?
· If the places we inhabit today look quite different than the ones we lived in yesterday, and the shape of our personal world tomorrow is unpredictable, then where do we find our grounding?
· As a bullet point in today’s confirmation class materials asks so well, “Is there a way to see life whole? Can you provide yourself with a framework, a focus, a plan for your life that helps you get it all together?”[i]
Historically, there is a field of study and knowledge that typically has tried to answer such questions. Before I mention the name given to this field, I want to acknowledge that is a problematic label. It has enough negative connotations that some Christians would rather not hear the word at all. Before I introduce it, I want you to know I’m sympathetic to those concerns. So, here goes, that word, that field of study and knowledge, is “religion.”
When people hear the word religion, they may think of an attempt to connect our human lives to imaginary godlike figures, an attempt that often becomes oppressively complicated and hopelessly boring. It’s the kind of opinion they might form when hearing a text from scripture like’s today’s gospel reading from Matthew 23, in which Jesus was criticizing the Pharisees for the way they treated the ancient Mosaic Law, living according to their self-serving interpretations of it, while ignoring the basic principles that had inspired its writing. If you’re like most Christians in our time, then it’s hard to see the value in rigid observance of hundreds of rules regarding what to eat, how to dress, and which garden herbs you should cut and donate to the church. If that’s “religion,” then we’d rather not have any part of it. As many a pastor has preached, Jesus was much more interested in his followers experiencing a new relationship with God than he was in them practicing a new religion.
If you can scrape away all the negative connotations that have sullied its reputation, then you will find that the word “religion” really isn’t so bad. In terms of its etymology, “religion” is derived from the Latin ligare, meaning to bind or connect (the same root as the word “ligament”) and prefixed by re, meaning “again.” “Religion,” then has something to do with taking some things that have been torn apart, and reconnecting them.
· Where in the world are you? Religion is the realm of study or knowledge that helps answer that question.
· If the places we inhabit today look quite different than the ones we lived in yesterday, and the shape of our personal world tomorrow is unpredictable, where do we find our grounding? Good religion can provide a framework for interpretation, a way of understanding where you have come from, and a way of forming a plan for your life that helps you reconnect it all together in a unified, more harmonious whole.
The Apostle Paul, in his letter to the Colossians, described a cosmic vision of religion that has inspired writers of prose and poetry across the ages. In his vision, Paul says that Jesus is the one in whom space and time are connected. In a simple sentence that could be described as the Christian definition of religion, Paul says, “In him all things hold together.”
It doesn’t take much education or experience to realize that much of what passes for religion is evil. Religion, in its worst manifestations, can be depressing, destructive, and death-dealing. But in its best manifestations, it can provide the framework for living life abundantly, through faith, with hope, and in love.
There’s a saying popular in our culture, “I’m spiritual, but not religious.” When it’s used, the people speaking often mean that they are sensitive to spiritual concerns, in their own way, but simply are not interested in traditional religious practices like attending church. I think it’s important to recognize that the saying too casually dismisses and obscures a deep truth about human nature.
That deep truth is that we all are religious. It’s the way we are wired as human beings.
· Paul Tillich, one of my favorite theologians, described religion as being rooted in an “ultimate concern.” Even in the lives of most atheists, you will find priorities and passions that consume time and attention with a religious quality.
· Blasé Pascal was a French mathematician and physicist, who laid the foundation for the modern theory of probabilities. He described an “infinite abyss” (an empty place) in each human, which we try to fill in many ways, most of them unsatisfying, because, he said, “this infinite abyss can be filled only … by God himself.”[ii]
· You may use drugs or clever thinking to escape thinking in religious categories, but you can’t escape religion. You may choose bad religion or good religion, but you can’t escape religion.
· As Bob Dylan sang in an old song,
“You might be a rock 'n' roll addict prancing on the stage. You might have drugs at your command, women in a cage. You may be a business man or some high-degree thief. They may call you doctor or they may call you chief. But you're gonna have to serve somebody, yes you are. You're gonna have to serve somebody. Well, it may be the devil or it may be the Lord. But you're gonna have to serve somebody….”
The good news that the Christian Church, in its best forms, continues to preach, is that in a world in which you have to serve somebody, your best option is to serve Jesus Christ. He is the one who can answer the question “Where in the world are you?” in terms of a sacred past out of which this world and you have been created, and in terms of a hope-filled future toward which you are called. He is the one who helps answer the question “Why is religion important?” by reconnecting the many scattered parts of our lives that feel complicated and confusing. In Christ, all things hold together.
NOTES
[i] Bob Bauer & Larry Kalp, “Confirming our Faith,” New York: United Church Press, 1980, chapter 1 “Where in the World Are You?”
[ii] Blaise Pascal’s Pensees (New York; Penguin Books, 1966) p. 75.
