Intro – One of the more interesting dynamics in my own process of having ‘holy conversation’ is when someone asks what I do. When they discover I’m a pastor… I’ve seen all sorts of things go off. Discomfort with their behavior, discomfort with what they then expect from me, or even just fascination. Not so different from what you experience if you are said to be a ‘Christian’… or even that you go to ‘church.’ Suddenly there is something on the table that defines you and defines you in relationship to them.
> At the heart of the matter is the nature of religion… religion as it’s generally experienced and related to in our current culture.
Religion is a term that in itself can be neutral. Religion in it’s most basic use simply refers to “an institutionalized or personal system of beliefs and practices relating to the divine.” (Encarta) Our current cultural use has come to emphasize the outer form of such structures and the more negative cultural perception is that the outer form is empty inside.
“Religion” holds a strange dynamic – it’s both dangerous and safe. It is dangerous in that we may not trust what that religious person` thinks of us and what they should get us to adhere to. On the other hand it can be a safe way to frame a discussion because we can talk about things as externalized… as merely a cultural or traditional difference that should have no real implications for our lives. It is much safer to talk about Jesus in the context of religious traditions than to discuss who he really is and what he really said and did.
This challenge has always been at hand regarding Jesus…
John 4 – he meets a Samaritan woman (John 4:4 – 12 (summarize / paraphrase) / 13-26 (read / PowerPoint)
Jesus is speaking to her deep spiritual need. Through the Spirit’s leading he helps her see the deeper thirst of her soul… not yet met through her many relationships. Just when you expect a transforming moment… she asks a safe religious question … and Jesus transcends being contained in religious traditions and differences. He ultimately makes clear that he is the hope she is waiting for.
> What a fascinating encounter…. fascinating because I think this conversation is still going on today. (We may want to talk about spiritual life but instead are asked where our church is… whether we saw the PBS show about some obscure asect of religion… or hear about the recent religious leader who’s been found in a scandel
> We need to keep Jesus lifted from the limitations of cultural religious understanding. After 2000 years of religious forms of “Christendom” that bears his name…. we stand as a testimony of a risen and relating Christ who transcends all that has been developed and done in his name.
Note: Also Jesus has also been co-opted into many ideas that deem themselves more about ‘spirituality’ than religion… which I hope to discuss in weeks ahead..
How do we help relate to Jesus outside of ‘religion’?
I. Recognizing the underlying aversion to ‘religion’
One of the most common sentiments heard today… is that “I’m not into organized religion.” Many will express valuing spirituality…. but not organized religion. We do well not only to try and understand what the aversion may involve… but also to become the best interpreters of religious aversion and re-presenters of Christ who transcends such religious nature.
The anti-‘organized religion’ sentiment is SO understandable. But if we reflect on it a bit, I think it becomes clear that
The essence of the anti-‘organized religion’ sentiment is not that people mistrust organization (we organize our lives in countless ways) but rather we mistrust human authority and control… which operates more notably within structures and organizations.
We are those who live in “the land of the free” and are a bastion to the world of those who revolt against tyranny… and insist on certain rights and voices for all. (Even though many may now criticize our failures… they are shaped by our success.) Distrust of absolute and abusive authority is in our fabric. (Europe has the history of church and state united in an evil collusion… and America and Latin America have their own forms of religious power being imposed.)
Added to that backdrop… a generation who became anti-establishment… and has experienced even greater disappointment and disillusionment with the established authority figures in life. We have an increasing loss of character and commitment by those in authority (workplace exploitation, political & corporate corruption, scandals, divorce, abuse, etc).
> This leads people into a misguided sense that being independent of anything organized is to be ‘free.’
However… the limits of just trying to avoid the problems of organized religion with having our own spiritual ideas to follow or following some new author who says they are not religious… really just shifts rather than avoids human authority and power. One simply becomes ‘a religion of one’ (or ‘a church on one’, etc) and the concepts really carry all the same vulnerabilities in the long run. The truth is that we can leave what we deem as organized and become our own religion (with more parallels than most would like to admit)… but in the end it implies that everyone else is untrustworthy and flawed but that I am not. It can prove to be a rather foolish and arrogant assumption.
> We need to be explorers of people’s experience which relates to ‘religion’…. helping them interpret their own journey and the assumptions they have formed.
Perhaps there is nothing more helpful than simply asking people about what has shaped their journey. It could be as simple as saying…”I’ve had an interesting journey in coming to relationship with Christ. What has shaped your view of God over the years?
What we will discover is a story that you can relate to… and .. a story that isn’t finished.
II. Restoring Jesus as the Center
We may need to see our own relationship with Christ lifted out of religious framework….
• Jesus never started “Christianity” as a new religion or ideology… rather he fulfilled what God was doing to restore relationship with all creation through the Jewish people.
• God never started “Judaism” as simply an exclusive religion… rather God was working through a people to rescue and restore the whole world.
Galatians 3:8 (NIV)
“The Scripture foresaw that God would justify the Gentiles by faith, and announced the gospel in advance to Abraham: "All nations will be blessed through you."
Acts 11:26 (NIV)
“The disciples were called Christians first at Antioch.”
The term “Christian” was not a title that followers of Christ used of themselves… it was first used by outsiders… probably in a derogatory way. It simply meant ‘little Christs.’
Initially Jesus was simply the fulfilling of what God had begun through the Jewish people.
The simple truth is that Jesus never called people to ‘become Christians.’
What is Christ’s primary and ultimate call to the lives that encounter him?
“Follow Me” - Follow = direction, Me = center
It is a call towards himself as the center and which involves direction.
Cultural Christianity verses Christ-Centered Life
Chart that reflects shift from Cultural Christianity towards Christ Centered Life
Christianity is not a religion… it is not a moral or ethical code… it is not a set of beliefs… it is not simply a program for solving life’s problems. Christianity is the incarnate and now indwelling presence of God in Christ.
John 14:6 (NLT)
Jesus told him, "I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one can come to the Father except through me.
Paul’s explanation of Christian behavior is that of "the manifestation of the life of Jesus in our mortal bodies" - II Cor. 4:10
"It is no longer I who lives, but Christ lives in me, and the life that I now live in the flesh, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself up for me" - Gal. 2:20
James Fowler
“Christianity is not religion; it is the reality of Je¬sus Christ as God coming in the form of His Spirit to indwell man in order to restore him to the functional intent of God whereby the char¬acter of God is allowed to be manifested in man’s behavior to the glory of God.
The distinctive of Christianity and Christian behavior is the aware¬ness that all goodness is derived from God in personal relationship with Jesus Christ, and that all goodness is behaviorally expressed by the dynamic of God’s grace alone, which is the out-working of Christ’s life. Our focus must be on the divine source of all goodness.”
C.S. Lewis -
"I think all Christians would agree with me if I said that though Chris¬tianity seems at first to be all about morality, all about duties and rules and guilt and virtue, yet it leads you on, out of all that, into something beyond. One has a glimpse of a country where they do not talk of these things, except perhaps as a joke. Everyone there is filled full with what we should call goodness as a mirror is filled with light. But they do not call it goodness. They do not call it anything. They are not thinking of it. They are too busy looking at the source from which it comes." - Lewis, C.S., Mere Christianity. pg. 130
> We need to shift the emphasis from conformity to external religious prescriptions to that of spiritual formation centered in relationship to Christ… out of which moral and behavioral formation flows.
We could certainly engage this at great length…. But this series is about Holy Conversation… how we can learn to talk about God in everyday life. So let me move us onto to…
III. Responding To Some Specific Aversions Towards Organized Religion: Becoming Re-Presenters
Jesus denounced and defied many of the human exploits of religion. He was an expert in how we manipulate religion. As His followers we can become those who re-present Him as such. As fellow travelers we can help re-present both the problem of religion and the person of Jesus who transcends it. We can do this through helping shape the truth of the problem and telling stories that represent Christ’s response.
1. Religion Excludes and Divides People
True - Actually anything people believe in can divide them. The issue that really seems to effect us is how we relate in our differences.
> Jesus places grace and compassion as the very center in which we should relate.
Stories:
• “Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who mistreat you.” - Luke 6:27-28
• The Good Samaritan: Jesus asks this one guy who he thinks he should consider to be his neighbor. He goes on to share about how a traveler got robbed and left for dead. Religious people came along who shared his ethnic and religious background… and didn’t help him. A man of mixed ethnic origins who was despised came along…helped him… and is pronounced to be the true neighbor.
2. Religion involves imposing beliefs on people and trying to control them
True – It seems people make the mistake of believing that something is so right for everyone… that they can’t see the problem of using force or coercion to implement it. Trying to force one to believe in something seems to defy genuine confidence in the power of what one believes…. and trying to force a relationship with God (or anyone) is by nature impossible. God has never forced relationship with anyone.
> Jesus denounces control and force. If anyone ever understood te difference between control and influence… it was Jesus.
Stories:
• Peter rebuked for drawing a sword to defend Jesus (Luke 22:49-51; Matt. 26: 51-52)
• Pilate – Jesus : My Kingdom is not of this world
3. Religion is too full of superiority and hypocrisy
True – It can be so easy to claim we are good because we believe something good. I think we can all face a gap between what we believe and what we’ve become… and try to and try to ignore and cover up the gap… which is essentially hypocrisy.
> Jesus strips all the religious and moral superiority from everyone by showing that real change is inward… from the inside out.
Stories:
• When religious leaders seem to always point to their outward superiority… Jesus challenges them saying they are like cups that may seem clean on the outside… but should worry about the inside…. like tombs painted up well… but bearing nothing that’s alive.
• Peter’s process of being humbled. -One of his followers named Peter was a real enthusiastic type who began to think he was better than the rest… beyond fault… Jesus predicted he would deny him three times when things got rough. (Matt. 26:69-75)
4. Religion becomes a political position I just don’t agree with
True - People have tended to simplify Jesus to fit their political perspective… and often feel even more passionate of their political positions because of it.
> Jesus defies simple ideologies. His call to radical love, compassion, justice, and sacrifice tends to leave a lot that could challenge all political positions. He seems to validate the necessary role of governments… but places his call on personal change more than political power.
Stories:
First followers included two who were on the most passionately opposite positions of the moment… a nationalist zealot (terrorist) and a national traitor.(Mark 2:13-17)
Full Story- Fascinating process that often gets missed in who Jesus gathered as his core group of 12 followers. The nation and people of Israel were under Roman rule and oppression. The level of hatred towards the cruelty of Roman power created very heated feelings between those who differed in their position of response. The Zealots were the resistance movement against Rome. They were those who believed that only violent uprising could honor their dignity as a Jewish people. (Others groups advocated a more restrained and accomodating separation.) One of the zeolts named Simon became a follower of Jesus.
Well one day…. Jesus approaches one everyone hated…. a tax collector named Levi. These guys were given carte blanch by the rulers to get as much money from the people as they could with only the official portion going to the government. It was sanctioned corruption. This would be bad enough except that the government that they were collecting taxes for was the occupying forces of Rome. They were collaborators with the pagans that were controlling God’s promised land. They were traitors.They would be first against the wall in the revolution.
You might wonder what was going through the mind of the disciples as Jesus walked toward the tax-collecting booth. “Is this it? Is this the beginning of the revolution, is he going to turn over the table, rip down the booth and beat this guy up? How does Jesus treat this outcast, this corrupt traitor to God’s people? He calls him to join him… he calls him out of his destructive lifestyle, and comes to eat at his house!
Later he is referred to as Matthew… probably a new name gievn by Jesus… as Matthew means "gift of God." Perhaps that is how Jesus thought of him. He doesn’t just call this tax collector to be his follower, but Matthew becomes one of the 12 “inside circle” disciples and he is an author of one of the Gospel accounts which we know as The Book of Matthew.
5. Religion is just self-serving
True – Religion can certainly can be self serving. Religious institutions and roles of power can become means to serve one’s own power and control. Actually any influence we have can be used to serve or be served. Religion has the added potential to draw on connection to God. It would seem that whatever position of power one holds… whether that of love in family relationships… that of money in work relationships… or any other… the issue comes down not to simply removing all such roles….but renewing the proper nature of their responsibility.
> Jesus is the most transforming influence on the nature of leadership… as he restores the true nature of responsibility through serving and sacrifice.
Stories:
• When some of his team argued among themselves as to who was the most closest to the center of power… Jesus told them that the first shall be last and the last shall be first.
• Washing feet - In one of his final gatherings…. The arrived at a home…. And when normally the servant of the house would then wash the feet of the sandal wearing dirty footed travelers… Jesus took up a towel and basin and proceeded to wash their feet… and then explained that should do the same in their leadership.
This is where Christ transcends religion most….
More than just a servant… Christ explained that he came to die for all… not just some… not just those who were good… or even agreed with him.
He was crucified to fulfill what religion never could or can.
He rose and sent his Spirit to dwell in all who receive him… that through sharing in his death and then receiving his new life… we may have true and eternal life in us.
> God acted toward us… in a way that seeks relationship through response.
Jesus has come to break through our religious nature with grace.
God is not looking for the best stock…the perfect person… but the responsive heart.
Illustration - WELL BRED DOG (that doesn’t obey… won’t respond) VERSES RESPONSIVE DOG
CONCLUSION:
Jesus has transcended the confines and corruption of “religion” from the moment he entered our realm and he always will. The question at hand is… will we?
