To read this week’s lectionary texts, please click here.
It would be very easy to walk away from today’s readings
with the understanding that religion in general
—and religious ritual in particular—
are bad things and to be avoided by those who are truly spiritual.
At first blush, the Gospel seems to show Jesus mocking religious leaders
for “observing the tradition of the elders”
by ritually washing their hands of physical and spiritual impurities before a meal,
a practice which was not strictly required by the Torah
but which had developed over the centuries
and, by the time of Jesus, had become virtually part of the Law.
And the reading from James appears to be scathing in its critique of religion:
If any think they are religious, and do not bridle their tongues but deceive their hearts, their religion is worthless. Religion that is pure and undefiled before God, the Father, is this: to care for orphans and widows in their distress, and to keep oneself unstained by the world.
At first pass, one might get the impression from these readings
that the Most High would be displeased with what we’re doing here this morning.
After all, there is an awful lot of ritual involved here.
(Not as much ritual as some of us would like, but that’s another matter…)
There are some Christians who would read texts like the ones that we’ve read
and hear Jesus and St. James railing against ritual,
against liturgy,
against all the smells and bells
and quote-unquote trappings of religion.
One of the phrases bandied about in my evangelical youth was:
“Christianity: it’s a relationship not a religion”
And there are certainly folks who believe that,
who believe that liturgical Christianity
—Lutherans, Anglicans, Roman Catholics, some Methodists—
are deluded in our thinking
or insincere in our faith
or even hypocritical
by having the “stuff” of religion,
by having robes and chalices and pews and organs and all that stuff.
Some walk away from these texts
believing that the only thing that matters is “me and Jesus.”
While others on a different political wavelength might walk away from these texts
with the belief that we basically don’t need church and Sunday mass and fancy rituals
because all of those things do is distract us from the work of social justice in the world,
from the “care of orphans and widows in their distress” as St. James puts it.
And, to some extent, both of those critics would be right.
At least, partially right.
Jesus does desire to have a relationship with us.
Each of us does have our own walk with God,
a walk and a relationship which sometimes transcend religion.
If you asked ten people here what God or the faith means to them personally,
you’d get about 13 answers.
And on the other end, St. James is pretty clear:
‘Be ye doers of the word and not merely hearers…’
Jesus’s life and his teachings are grounded in the Hebrew prophetic tradition,
a tradition which is eminently concerned with the poor and the marginalized,
with the care of the widows and orphans.
The issue that we encounter here this morning is not this or that.
Religion or relationship.
Religion or spirituality.
Religion or social justice.
The issue that we see here
—the thing that Jesus and St James are both calling out—
is the separation of the two,
the separation of religion and relationship,
religion and spirituality,
religion and justice.
Jesus is pushing back against the notion that purity flows necessarily from external rites
by saying that one’s interior disposition
—one’s love and kindness and mercy—
are what God desires most
and what lead to right social and ethical action.
After all, St. James does not say:
Religion is garbage and the only thing that matters is activism and social work.
And Jesus does not say:
Your ritual hand washing and adherence to the law are dumb
and oughta be tossed out entirely.
No, St. James says that religion which is pure and undefiled is this:
to care for orphans and widows in their distress.
Not ‘spirituality’ which is pure and undefiled
or relationship which is pure and undefiled
or even activism which is pure and undefiled.
He says religion which is pure and undefiled.
Ritual and belief and doctrine and liturgy
which is pure in God’s eyes leads to the care of orphans and widows,
leads to the care of the poor and marginalized,
leads to ethical and moral behavior.
Be ye doers of the word, not merely hearers.
The word—Scripture, the tradition, the law—is not tossed out.
But it must become an active thing,
something which is done and not merely listened to,
something which leads to ethical action and not merely pious thought.
Listening to a preacher’s sermon
or sitting around at Bible Study
and then going back out into the world unchanged,
—unmoved by the plight of the last, the lost, and the least,
still committed to wealth and capital and power and privilege,
still trading in gossip and judgment—
that is what would upset Jesus,
not us using the Book of Common Prayer
or wearing robes and standing at an altar.
The grounding thing about religion
—about tradition and ritual and custom and observance and doctrine—
the good and grounding thing about religion is that it asks something of us.
It requires action in the way that a ‘me and Jesus’
—or ‘a sitting in the forest on a Sunday morning’—
approach simply doesn’t.
“The word ‘spirituality’ is a bit amorphous for my taste,”
writes Nick Cave, the noted Australian punk rocker
—two words I never thought I’d say in church.
“It can mean almost anything whereas the word ‘religious’ is just more specific…
Religion is spirituality with rigour, I guess, and, yes, it does make demands on us.”1
Religion makes demands on us.
Be doers of the word, not merely hearers of it.
Religion which is pure and undefiled is the care of widows and orphans.
We don’t get to sit comfortably in our pews
surrounded by beautiful stained glass
and listening to stirring music
and not be concerned about the poor and the marginalized.
We don’t get to sit here and be unconcerned with genocide and apartheid.
We don’t get to sit here on Sunday and judge the panhandler on Monday.
Religion—that is, pure and undefiled religion—moves us to action.
What we do in here
—in these four walls, in this Eucharistic liturgy—
what we do in here matters.
It points us toward God in the most real and defined sort of way.
Spirituality unattached from religion
tends toward romanticism and kitsch,
toward being self-referential and even a little bit saccharine.
As the editors of Love’s Redeeming Work, an anthology about Anglican theology, write:
A doctrine-free spirituality risks descending into sentimentality, to the level of what makes us feel generally better about ourselves or reminds us in a wholly unsystematic way of the mystery around us; it is a weak support for resistance to the political and cultural tyrannies of our day.2
If we want to resist the political and cultural tyrannies of our day
—if we want to work to end homelessness and violence and oppression—
sitting alone in the Arb on a Sunday morning and having a ‘sPiRiT oF nAtUrE’ moment
isn’t likely to bring that about.
But sitting in church,
surrounded by a diversity of people
—by people who are financially well off and by people who struggle to make ends meet;
by people who have wonderful experiences of organized religion
and by people who have been hurt by the church and still show up;
by gay people and straight people and transpeople and nonbinary people;
by people who voted for your guy and people who think that voting is pointless;
by people who bristle at references to God using the masculine pronoun
and those who bristle when using the feminine pronoun;
by those who have studied at Yale
and those who have studied at the School of Hard Knocks;
by those who can approach the Most High with great ease
and those who wrestle with the Most High’s existence at all—
by sitting here in this place with these people and doing what we do
—by singing the great hymns of the faith,
by remembering before God the whole world,
by sitting in the same pews and kneeling at the same altar,
by eating from the same loaf of bread and drinking from the same chalice
and sitting together at coffee hour and at Bible study and in choir,
by sharing our resources rather than hoarding them,
by placing our trust in the community, in the collective
and not in one individual alone;
by having a vestry and layleaders
rather than a Father-Knows-Best approach to leadership—
by doing all of this, we are modeling the Kingdom of God,
we are prefiguring and preparing for God’s reign.
As we pray in the Lord’s Prayer,
for ‘Thy kingdom come, on earth as it is in heaven.’
Don’t get me wrong
—religion for the sake of religion,
religion that is more concerned with aesthetics than ethics,
religion which cares more for exotic vestments
and historic buildings
and keeping up with the Joneses—
religion for the sake of religion is as unhelpful as anything.
But what we do here week in and week out
—when we’re clear on why we’re doing it
and for Whom we’re doing—
what we do here is a powerful protest against the individualism of our age,
against the notion that individualism
—me, myself, and I
or me and mine before all others,
myself, my family, my religion, my nation, my race, my tax bracket
first and best and only—
what we do here is a protest against that notion.
It is a declaration that we need one another,
that God has called us to be together
in this place and at this time and with these people.
bell hooks writes in her book All About Love:
All over the world people live in intimate daily contact with one another. They wash together, eat and sleep together, face challenges together, share joy and sorrow. The rugged individual who relies on no one else is a figure who can only exist in a culture of domination where a privileged few use more of the world’s resources than the many who must daily do without. Worship of individualism has in part led us to the unhealthy culture of narcissism that is so pervasive in our society.3
If all I’m concerned about is how I experience God,
about how I walk through the world,
about what feels right to me and me alone,
then I can’t possibly have time or motivation to worry about others
and especially not those dwelling on the margins,
those with whom I might not have occasion to interact.
If, however, I am kneeling next to my neighbor
—my rich neighbor, my poor neighbor
my Black neighbor, my white neighbor,
my gay or straight or trans or non-binary neighbor
my neighbor whom I might not naturally choose or prefer or even like—
if I’m kneeling next another person
and stretching my hands out next to them
and having a moment of Communion with the Most High God next to them,
well, then I can’t possibly not care for them.
I can’t possibly not be concerned about them.
When I realize that my humanity and their humanity are tied together
—that I cannot purport to be a good person or an observant Christian
while they struggle to put food on the table or care for their young
or to navigate a cruel and sometimes sterile world—
when I realize all of this, I can’t help but be moved into action.
I can’t simply hear the Word of God.
I must do the Word of God.
I can’t merely listen to Jesus
and to the great tradition
with it’s spaces and rituals which enable that interaction,
which, frankly speaking, force that interaction.
It is here in this place
and while doing these things
—these traditions of the elders,
where physical things are made holy
and holy things are made physical;
where the wisdom and love of ancestors is given voice—
it is here where all is shared and nothing is hoarded,
where all are equal,
where all are welcome,
where all are loved,
where all are challenged,
and where all are called.
As Pope Francis preached just a few hours ago in Rome:
Let us ask ourselves, then: do I live my faith in a consistent manner, that is, what I do in church, do I try to do outside in the same spirit? By sentiments, words, and deeds, do I make what I say in prayer tangible in closeness and respect for my brothers and sisters? Let us think about this. And may Mary, Mother most pure, help us to make our life, in heartfelt and practiced love, worship pleasing to God.”4
By God’s own grace, may it be so. Amen.
Nick Cave and Seán O'Hagan, Faith, Hope and Carnage (New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2022.)
Geoffrey Rowell, Kenneth Stevenson, and Rowan Williams, Love’s Redeeming Work: The Anglican Quest For Holiness (Oxford: OUP Oxford, 2003).
bell hooks, All About Love: New Visions (New York: William Morrow Paperbacks, 2018.)
Pope Francis, “Angelus” (speech, St. Peter’s Square, Vatican City, September 1, 2024) <https://www.vatican.va/content/francesco/en/angelus/2024/documents/20240901-angelus.html>