A lot of people don’t understand why I do the job I do. The pay isn’t good and the hours are usually pretty long. But nothing makes me more sad than meeting people, most commonly of my generation, who don’t understand why I do what I do simply because, for them, religion is nothing other than a malign force in society. I find this very hard. I am a Christian (never mind a priest) because fundamentally I believe that human society finds its fullest, most glorious expression only when it turns to God. I believe that without God our world, as well as our individual lives, will never flourish in the manner for which we were intended. I believe nothing else more passionately than that which is why I’ve given my life to furthering God’s rule, the kingdom of God in this world.
But, that said, I can understand where a lot of these critics are coming from. Much that falls today under the broad category of “religion” represents forces in this world that I find myself wanting to oppose utterly. That ranges from the Taliban and the Scientologists through to conservative Christians who peddle the sort of Puritanism that American newspaper editor H. L. Mencken defined as “the haunting fear that someone, somewhere, may be having fun.” None of these people seem to further the work of the God I believe in.
So this is the first problem: in our age when people seem to reduce complex matters to binary choices, religion has been reduced to a question of whether or not you have it, rather than considering the kind of religious beliefs people actually hold. But religions believe very different things, and, as we are seeing more and more in our own Anglicanism, people within even one denomination can believe very different things. And this does indeed put us all under a great deal of strain because we are required to share a label, be it “theist”, “Christian”, “Anglican” or just “religious”, with people whom we may think hold fairly intolerable opinions about matters as important as the ordering of society and freedom of self-expression.
So what’s going on? Well clearly, religion is not just a “yes or no” matter. Clearly, the diversity of religious expression we see in the world today varies greatly in the legitimacy of its response to the supposed object of religion – that is God, the truth and meaning of all that is. And that may seem obvious. But in fact, that is quite an unfashionable position, because while unbridled relativism is viewed as a nonsense in most areas of life and experience, when it comes to religion there is still a strong body of opinion that says: if something works for you, then that’s your truth and we can’t question it. I think that for the integrity of religious faith, we need to resist that. An image used frequently in the spiritual traditions of many religions is that of a mirror. And some mirrors give a cracked and distorted reflection while others show their object with clarity. Likewise, some forms of religion present a cracked and distorted reflection of God. Others show a clear reflection, if always, as St Paul says, through a glass darkly.
This is what today’s readings are all about: how can we ensure this reflection? How can we make sure that our religious expression is faithful, more faithful to God – to the truth and meaning of all that is – than that of the religious people we find reprehensible? I’m going to draw out from our readings three qualities which need to be present in faithful religion.
First, from our Gospel reading, we need to listen very carefully indeed to the words of Jesus: “You abandon the commandment of God and hold to human tradition”. That’s an accusation directed at hypocritical Pharisees. But it’s one that echoes down the centuries. We can hear it voiced by Martin Luther in the 16th century when the Church allowed the human tradition of economic transaction in the form of indulgences to obscure God’s revelation of grace. We can hear it echoed by John Wesley in the 18th century when the Church of England got so caught up in the human traditions of privilege and authority that it failed to take the gospel to the nation’s working-class communities. We can hear it echoed on the lips of Martin Luther King in the 20th century when the human tradition of racial prejudice divided the churches of America.
So the question is, where do we need to hear that criticism today? In the current crises in the Church I think it needs to be heard by those who allow a particular human tradition of patriarchal family life to become such a universal norm that it leads to the exclusion of women from leadership and the exclusion of lesbian and gay people from the life of the church. I think it needs to be heard by those who would reduce our churches to little more than unchangeable heritage sites or music concert halls. It needs to be heard by all who allow the traditions that are important to us to become more important than the command of God – to worship God in spirit and truth, to live by the commandment of love, to serve our neighbour.
And that brings us to the second quality, from the Letter of St James. He states clearly, we are not simply meant to hear God’s Word, we are to do it: “Religion that is pure and undefiled before God is this: to care for orphans and widows in their distress.” The phrase “widows and orphans” in the Bible is shorthand for “all those in need”. And, of course, this is how we really win over those in our secular society who are religion’s despisers. People are convinced of the positive value of religion when they see people of faith making a difference. I know, for example, that the Winter Night Shelter project with which many members of his congregation are involved has done a great deal to challenge the anti-religious prejudice of many community leaders in the south of this borough. By their fruits will you know the truly religious, says the Lord. And the same will be true of us personally in our day-to-day lives too. It is well documented that conversion to Christian faith most commonly comes about through contact with an inspiring friend or colleague who is known to be a Christian. So I wonder… Are we prepared to take responsibility through our actions for the coming to faith of others? Are we prepared to take responsibility for good religion? Are we indeed prepared to take responsibility for God in a world suspicious of God?
Third (and underpinning both these other two challenges), from our Old Testament reading, “what other great nation has a God so near to it as the Lord our God is whenever we call to him?” Here we get right to the heart of the matter. The mirror of religion gives a clearer reflection of God when we get closer to God. We are able to overcome our dependence on human tradition and we are empowered to live out our faith when our religion is not empty because we are truly close to God and God is real for us. You may be feeling… God is not real for me, God does not seem close to me. How can I deepen my religious beliefs in this way? And the only answer is to pray, to open ourselves to God in quiet humility. That is the beginning of true religion, the moment that begins to challenge all the ways in which our religion becomes self-serving and idolatrous. It’s when we wake up to what religion is really all about but so easily is forgotten – the Lord, the Holy One, our Maker and Redeemer. This is the moment which CS Lewis allegorised so beautifully in his book The Horse and His Boy, when we read how the boy Shasta fears the steps that he hears walking behind him.
Who are you?” he said, scarcely above a whisper.
“One who has waited long for you to speak,” said Aslan.
That moment of call to which we respond in prayerful encounter with God is one that was also recorded by St Augustine of Hippo who we remembered in the church calendar on Friday. Augustine had been leading a confused and turbulent life, looking for truth amidst the pagan traditions of the late Roman Empire. But his restless heart finds peace when he finally speaks to the God who has been waiting long for him to speak. He writes in Confessions:
“Late have I loved you, beauty so old and so new; late have I loved you… You were with me, and I was not with you… You called and cried out loud to me and shattered my deafness. You were radiant and resplendent, you put to flight to my blindness. You were fragrant, and I drew in my breath and now pant after you. I tasted you, and now I feel nothing but hunger and thirst for you. You touched me, and I am set on fire to attain the peace which is yours.”
Getting close to God through prayer was, for Augustine, the beginning of true religion.
So to conclude, in the world in which we live today we cannot ignore the fact that there is much bad religion around and that is a brush with which we will be tarred whether we like it or not. But we have the responsibility to God for the sake of the world to make our faith in him as accurate a reflection of his truth, his life and his glory as is possible for our human nature. We must resist the all-too-easy reduction of our faith to affection for human traditions. We must live our faith in actions rather than words. But most importantly, our religion that will be empty, meaningless and probably destructive if we do not open ourselves in prayer to the God who is already near to us. If our religion is not about God it will be about ourselves. God waits for us to speak; let’s set aside time this week and every week to turn to him in prayer.