November 19, 2006

Hebrews 10:1, 10, 15, 17-25

It was a revival meeting. Testimony time.

And to his feet rose a man in a weathered suit, with a weathered face, and a weathered voice.

"Brothers and sisters," he began, "y'all know that I haven't been what I otta have been.

I been drunk. I been stealin' hogs. I been tellin' lies. I been losin' all my money gamblin.'

And I been spittin' an  cussin in places where I shouldna been.

But I'm here tonight to tell ya that through it all, there's been one thing I ain't never done.

I ain't never . . . lost my religion!"

So what's religion?

Well, here's a quiz.

Which of the following four items is NOT a religion?

A: Faith in nutrition.

B: Faith in education

C: Faith in financial investment

D: Faith in Jesus

Which one is not a religion? And here's a hint   There's only one.

You got it right if you picked

D: Faith in Jesus

Faith in Jesus is not a religion. Not a religion? No.

So I ask it again: "What is a religion?" Well here's one definition:

"A religion is an attempt by human beings to establish a right relationship between themselves and something beyond themselves an attempt to establish a relationship which they think to be of life-giving significance."

So according to this definition, a religion is a human attempt to get a handle on the key to life.

A human attempt to get a handle on what leads to meaning in life on what leads to a sense of self-worth, of joy in life.

A human attempt to get a handle on what it is that is life-giving.

Be that good health, be that good status in the community be that good financial resources . . . or whatever it is that is significant for that person's life, in terms of renewing the sense of reason for being.

That's one definition of religion.

 So, it can be the focus on fibre in one's diet for the purpose of hedging one's bets in relation to longevity.

That can be a religion.

And it can be the fixation on only certain philosophy or theology in order to stay removed from the challenge of other thinkers whose ideas may cause us to re-think, to look at life in a new way.

That can be a religion.

And it can be the focus every morning on the financial pages in the paper, meditating on the implications of the TSE average for one's life, along with one's vitamin's and coffee.

All sorts of people are religious. But religious in a way that differs greatly from the life of faith in Jesus.

Even some Christians.

Religious in a way that differs greatly from the life of faith in Jesus.

So many Christians put their faith in the Bible.

Not the same as faith in Jesus!

Religions all have creeds. All have cultic activities.

All have certain standards of belief and conduct.

And some are much more difficult to get it right than others.

Take the "difficult to get it right" religion  . . .of . . . golf.

After you have mastered the nine iron, and the five iron, and the driver, you look in your bag, and there is the putter staring at you, demanding that you get that one right, as well. In the golf religion, there's no end to the challenge of "getting it right."

And that challenge turns out to be a trait common to any religion we can identify.

Wherever there is a creed, a cultic activity, a code of conduct you've "gotta get it right" if you are going to achieve your rightful place in the universe   or at least in that community or so it seems and what is common to every one of them is that the outcome, the benefit, the grace bestowed, is always dependent . . . on us.

It's always up to us! We are the ones who've "gotta get it right!"

But we can't!

No matter what we do, no matter how much margarine we eat, there's always someone telling us we otta go back to butter.

And no matter how many cups we wash instead of using polystyrene, there's always someone telling us that only if the cup is used three times before we wash it with detergent is there an actual benefit to the environment.

Wine is bad for you. Wine is good for you.

We can't get it right.

A million people in Greater Vancouver still under a 'Boil water' advisory this weekend.

And the United Church now has an official policy frowning on the use of bottled water.

How does that work in the Vancouver situation?

Is drinking bottled water now a sin?

Even if everything else is dirty?

We can't get it right!

In our discussion here on Tuesday evening with guests from the Ahmadiyya Muslim community, the response of Jesus arose in this regard:

(the sabbath made for man, not man for the sabbath) "Human beings, we agreed, were not created so that there would be people to obey God's rules.

God's rules were created for the sake of the well-being of the people."

But if we buy into religion itself only for the sake of buying a ticket into heaven, we surely waste our effort. Because the harder we try, the more conscientious we become, the more fanatical, the more desperate the more we end up being impressed with how we got it wrong.

With how we didn't get it right.

We can't possibly ever get it perfectly right.

Take the marks we once got on our exams in school.

The grading of tests it actually originated in Cambridge University in England, toward the end of the 18th century.

But as every teacher knows, the numerical mark on the test paper affects the experience, affects even the meaning of the learning, sets up a competition.

And leaves us knowing there's always room for improvement.

I have been taking a course in photography this fall.

And this coming week there is a test. And I don't care how I do on the test.

But the college requires it. What I do care is that I succeed in learning new skills in the use of digital images, for the sake of our ministry here.

Grading provides an "objective" measure of human performance.

But it creates an illusion that the calculations made have something to do with worthiness.

When I was in South Africa, 16 years ago, I was privileged to spend an hour in private conversation with a former moderator of the Dutch Reformed Church there that church being the one vilified by the rest of Christendom for providing theological support for apartheid.

Johan Heyns was the moderator's name. And he impressed me with his words of assurance that he was actually also working against apartheid, but from within that church.

A crusader inside. And it was difficult to know to what extent to actually believe him.

Until the final evidence was presented to the world.

Not long after, he was assassinated in his own home, in front of his wife and his grandchildren.

Shot to death by a group from his own church.

Charging their former moderator with being a traitor to his race.

Charging him with getting it wrong. And doing it in the name of God.

We human beings are visual animals, and so we notice things like each others' skin colour. But anyone who does their homework knows that genetic differences between the so-called races of human beings are so minute that they are basically unworthy of considering.

Researchers presented findings this week in relation to the genetic secrets of a leg-bone fragment of a Neanderthal man who died 38,000 years ago.

99.95% identical to human DNA. And yet a different species.

Compare that with 98% similarity for chimpanzees.

And yet people are so fanatically religious about racial difference even in this supposedly enlightened country of Canada.

Well, our text today, in the letter to the Hebrews in the Bible, declares that Jesus came to put an end to that sort of oppression.

And especially to the oppression of religion. To put an end to the thinking that "we gotta get it right."

That we gotta somehow maintain the purity. That we gotta somehow defend the name.

That otherwise we won't have the proper relationship with God.

That otherwise we won't go to heaven.

That otherwise we're bound for hell.

Unless we get it right.

Our text declares that the message of Jesus is intended to put an end to that kind of thinking. The thinking of judgement and condemnation.

And the writer is remembering the prophet Jeremiah, who lived, of course, before Jesus, and who jeered at the ineffectiveness of the Temple activities, and who looked forward to the day when life for the Hebrew people would no longer be dependent on the priest getting it right. Looking forward to the day when things would be set right in a way that they'd stay right.

And the writer is announcing that that day did come in Jesus.

That Jesus is the 'Adam' of the New Creation.

That the Event of Jesus represents God's declaration that we are forgiven, that our sin is pardoned, that we don't "gotta get it right."

That God still loves us even when we get it wrong.

That the Event of Jesus represents God's declaration that we are counted as worthy, counted as perfect in the eyes of God.

No matter what WE think about our worthiness or our perfection.

We don't even gotta get that right.

That the Event of Jesus represents God's declaration that we don't need religion, that we only need faith, that we only need faith in Christ, in other words, we only need faith in Divine Love, and the amount of that faith need be no greater than the amount of a mustard seed, than the amount of the most minute seed we can imagine.

God still wants us in paradise even if we are an unbaptized thief on a cross.

Our life, then, is not for the sake of maintaining a religion.

Our life, then, not for the sake of being fanatically correct in what we are eating, or thinking, or investing, or doing on any given day.

Our life is for learning and for teaching that the Mystery beyond us is beyond us all and yet enveloping us, enveloping us all, and lifting us and watching over us and defending us guarding us and guiding us and doing so in love and in affirmation, without condition.

Our life is for the learning and teaching that God is with us, and for us, within us, and between us, around us, and beneath us.

That God is in love with us, and that God therefore wants only the best for us would never ever want hell for us, and has a place already set for us at the heavenly banqueting table.

The price of our admission already paid for us.

And God has done everything that could ever be needed to initiate, establish, sustain and maintain relationship with us, right relationship with all of us, for eternity.

Even if we manage to get it all wrong.

My father served as a soldier in the Second World War.

That war ended in 1945 when I was one year old.

I personally made no contribution to the liberation of Europe by means of that war.

But so many on both sides gave so much have lived my life in the arms of the benefit of that struggle. That's why Remembrance Day matters so much . . . to me and to so many on both sides.

The benefit is mine even though I made no sacrifice.

And that is the very mindset that is to be in us in our walk with Jesus.

The benefit is ours because of the sacrifice of others.

Because walking with Jesus is not a religion. Having faith in Jesus is not a religion.

Trusting Love is not a religion.

It is a celebration!

Our gathering here on a Sunday is a celebration!

A celebration of the amazing good news of God that we are free now from the laws that would hold us down, free now from the laws that would keep us in the bondage of believing that God won't love us as long as we keep getting it wrong.

And, Yes, we sing, with everyone else, "better watch out . . . better not pout . . ." 'cause Santa Claus is comin' to town, but we don't for minute think that has anything to do with what God requires!

We don't gotta get it right to get God's goodies.

So that's why we praise God here in Centenary.

That's why we espouse hope here in Centenary.

That's why we affirm each and every one of you here, why we accept each and every one of you here, even if you are heterosexual and white and anglo-saxon and protestant like I am.

And even if you're not.

And why do I tell you this?

Because, after a lifetime of involvement with the study and the practice and the oppression of religion, I believe in my deepest place that this is God's gospel.

That this is God's good news.

And on the Sunday of the year when we focus on God's judgement, this is God's best news.

We don't gotta get it right!

Says God, "My child, I love you." And God need say nothin' more.

So, I say to you, "Thank you for being with us in this ministry," And "Keep on being with us in this ministry," and "Help us continue in this ministry, with your ideas, with your abilities, with your connections, with your prayers.

Because we need you with us.

We need you to help us to live this divine message of acceptance, to live this divine message of hope, for the sake of the world out there that doesn't know God's good news that we don't gotta get it right.

And we need you to be brave with us in the face of fear.

We need you to be confident with us in the face of contradiction and confrontation.

We need you to be at peace with us in the face of ignorance and stupidity and repudiation, and rejection.

Our security is not in the world's acceptance of us.

Our security is in God's love for us.

And we need you to gather with us to be thankful with us for the opportunity to use all the resources God has given us to enable life to blossom in all its fullness for every human being, for every creature, and for every living thing.

The Letter to the Hebrews again "Let us be provoking one another to love and to good deeds, not neglecting to meet together . . .and let us be encouraging one another with the Gospel the affirming, hope-filled word of God!"

Thanks be to God.

Amen.