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Ninth Sunday after Pentecost

Ephesians 3
14 For this reason I kneel before the Father, 15 from whom every family[a] in heaven and on earth derives its name. 16 I pray that out of his glorious riches he may strengthen you with power through his Spirit in your inner being, 17 so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, 18 may have power, together with all the Lord’s holy people, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, 19 and to know this love that surpasses knowledge—that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God.
20 Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us, 21 to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, for ever and ever! Amen.


I guess you might say I’m religious but not spiritual.

Okay, I’m spiritual too, but like many I tire of the ‘spiritual, but not religious’ argument. And this tiredness found its voice in a rather snippy blog published by the Rev. Lillian Daniel in 2011 entitled “Spiritual But Not Religious: Please Stop Boring Me.”

What she describes is a situation most clergy and even some lay people have found themselves in. Trapped beside someone on a plane, some small talk, the inevitable question ‘so what do you do?’ and the equally inevitable response from your seatmate: ‘A minister, eh? You see, I’m spiritual, but not religious.’

What follows—brilliantly captured by Rev. Lillian—is a brief theory that God is always present in sunsets and never present in church. I don’t actually think the person knows how incredibly rude this is—but I long ago learned that when the conversation turns to religion, the normal social rules go out the window. And ‘spiritual, but not religious’ is a better response than getting yelled at for the past abuse perpetuated by the church—which is always disconcerting when you meet someone for the first time.

I suppose we will all need to get used to the ‘spiritual, but not religious’ paradigm, since somewhere between a fifth and a third of people surveyed claim the same SBNR orientation. Some call it the ‘rise of the nones,’ people who profess some form of belief but are careful not to label it religion. Like the words ‘government’ or ‘bureaucracy,’ the word ‘religion’ went from positive to negative in the common mind, and there is little chance it will revert back.

But the word spirituality has its own baggage, with an increasing sense that something so vague and so instantly appealing can be exploited for crass purposes. Spirituality is a marketer’s dream, with everything from niche travel to Lululemon pants linked to spirituality. Here is just a small sample from a group called Beliefnet, who coined the term ‘metrospirituality:’

From clothes to food to lifestyle, metrospirituality is about being hip and holistic while seeking inner bliss. A kinder, gentler post-Yuppie, metrospirituals treat the earth and native cultures with respect, connect with their inner source and inspiration, test their body and expand their mind with ancient physical practices—and do it all with serious style.

I think I just threw up a little in my mouth. The great thing about religion is you can’t really market it—you just have to explain it. You have to explain that like everything in this world, religion can be a force for good and bad, that you can’t judge all based on the actions of some, and whatever you think you know about a particular tradition is very likely incomplete.

And this problem is not new. St. Paul faced the very same tension when he spoke to the church at Ephesus: you need to be both spiritual and religious. But before I say more, I need to remind you that Jesus didn’t invent Christianity. You might call him the founder, and he is certainly the inspiration for our religion, but not the inventor. That role belongs to St. Paul, who takes the various threads and weaves them into a religious system that appears largely the same then as now.

And the problem he confronts still lives with us now. How do you take a collection of believers and transform them into a unified whole? How do you create a community of faith when the original spark of belief begins in the heart of an individual? And the answer is best described in the chapter that follows the chapter that Judith read this morning:

3 Make every effort to keep yourselves united in the Spirit, binding yourselves together with peace. 4 For there is one body and one Spirit, just as you have been called to one glorious hope for the future. 5 There is one Lord, one faith, one baptism, 6 one God and Father of all, who is over all, in all, and living through all.

Four verses and the word ‘one’ is repeated seven times. Clearly something is rotten in the state of Ephesus. And the answer is found in Acts 19. Paul ventures to the city, then the capital of the Roman province of Asia (much of modern day Turkey) and begins to quiz them: ‘Did you receive the Holy Spirit when you first believed?’ Then the trouble starts:

“No, we haven’t even heard that there is a Holy Spirit.” So Paul asked, “Then what baptism did you receive?”
“John’s baptism,” they replied.
Paul said, “John’s baptism was a baptism of repentance. He told the people to believe in the one coming after him, that is, in Jesus.” 5 On hearing this, they were baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus.

But that didn’t solve the problem. People who didn’t follow in the Way tried healing the demon-possessed saying ‘In the name of the Jesus that Paul preaches, I command you to come out.’ That guy who said that got beat up.

Then there was the famous silversmith riot, where the followers of the goddess Artemis attacked the church for ruining their trade in silver figurines, saying “Great is Artemis of the Ephesians!” and ‘ignore the guy who says gods made by human hands are not gods at all.’

It was all a bit of a mess. Eventually Paul had enough and decided to move on to Rome, but some time later he wrote back, and tried to share a message that might help the church. And while doing this, he did something extraordinary: he spoke to individuals. He set aside the message of unity and creating a common life, and spoke (just for a moment) to the heart of the individual believer:

I pray that out of his glorious riches he may strengthen you with power through his Spirit in your inner being, 17 so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, 18 may have power, together with all the Lord’s holy people, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, 19 and to know this love that surpasses knowledge—that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God.

Paul was both spiritual and religious, speaking to the corporate and the individual, speaking to the body of Christ and to the heart of faith: a solitary encounter with the indwelling power of God. This power is mediated by the Holy Spirit, made known through the love of Christ, and demonstrated through the common life of believers. He said “I pray that you, being rooted and established in love (spirituality) may have power, together will all the Lord’s people (religion).”

From nearly the first day, people have been saying ‘the church was great until it was ruined by...’
The church was great until it was ruined by Paul (very ironic, since he invented it).
The church was great until it was ruined by Constantine (which is unfair, since his watchword was tolerance, not state control).
The church was great until it was ruined by Augustine (also unfair, since he gave the church an identity apart from the crumbling Roman Empire)
The church was great until it was ruined by Luther (which is kinda true from the perspective of Rome)
The church was great until it was ruined 19th century liberal theologians (only true until evangelicals began to study them too)
The church was great until it was ruined by post-war optimism and the baby-boom (it would take more than that).
And finally, the church was great until it was ruined by Sunday shopping, minor-league hockey and the SBNR crowd (wrong, wrong, and really wrong).

The church was great until we lost confidence in the church, lost confidence in organized religion because someone, somewhere suggested that we are at the root of everything that is wrong with the world. The reality of human sin is that every time we try to organize ourselves into something—anything—we generally fail.

But human failure does not define the church, because God says ‘repent, and try again.‘ Paul says ‘I pray that out of God’s glorious riches God may strengthen you through the Spirit in your inner being so that Christ may dwell in your hearts in faith.’ In other words, ‘repent, and try again’ because God is with you, and the Spirit is through you, and Christ is in you. May it always be so. Amen.

posted by michael jacob kooiman @ 3:59 AM