Sermon -- 01/23/2022
Is religion giving way to spirituality?
This is a hotly debated question these days and it is an accurate descriptor of what we talked about in a recent week-long, Zoom-based class undertaken in my determined march toward the acquisition of a Doctor of Ministry degree.
Overall, the 40 hours of Zoom presentations did little to lend an answer to this complex question. However, some of the readings and perhaps more importantly almost all of our class conversations caused me to reorganize my way of thinking about this heated discussion. A discussion that centers on the apparently failing church, the emergence of alternative spiritualities, and the not so new class of “nones” – those with purportedly no religious or spiritual affiliation.
Meeting this question head-on, Robert Withnow in his book After Heaven, writes, “At the start of the twentieth century, virtually all Americans practiced their faith within a Christian or Jewish tradition…Now, at the end of the twentieth century, growing numbers of Americans piece together their faith like a patchwork quilt. Spirituality has become a vastly complex quest in which each person seeks in his or her own way,” (p. 2)
Heelas and Woodhead in their book The Spiritual Revolution summarize by stating, “We are interested in the idea that the great historical bond between western cultures and a Christianity whose characteristic mode is to make appeal to a transcendent authority is rapidly dissolving, and that in its place we are seeing the growth of a less regulated situation in which the sacred is experienced in intimate relationship with [the person].” (p. 10)
These interpretations of today’s church represent only two out of the many expressed in the diverse books and articles required as reading for the course. However, they do summarize the central argument: Organized religion may very well be giving way to personal spiritual seeking. In other words, worshipping God through a hierarchical religion is being overtaken by seeking spiritual peace through self-directed activities.
This approach is too black and white. It allows for no shades of grey. It becomes one versus the other – either this or that. Three separate groups are formed – religious, spiritual, and nones.
Class discussion was also black and white in approach – God-seeking ways versus the spiritually seeking ways that are attracting those who have “fallen away” from church. Yoga, spiritual direction, counseling, nature walks, crystals and tarot card reading – the list goes on forever.
In the end however, these discussions revealed that even class members, five priests and me – utilize at least one, if not several, of these spiritual/self-directed outlets in combination with hierarchical religion to help us find some kernel of peace as we encounter the stresses of everyday life. As the week went along the boundary between religion and spirituality grew fuzzier. In the end, we wondered: who is seeking what and from whom and how?
It seems evident that at this moment in time we are all seeking no matter which group we identify with. We are all wandering in the desert, a landscape massively transformed by an entrenched Covid19 pandemic, the increasing globalization of our economy and supply chain, digital tsunamis that threaten us in multiple ways, and the divisiveness of a highly politicized world that is focused on power and discord not love and inclusion.
Perhaps we have moved beyond the simplistic black and white classifications of religious vs. spiritual vs. nones. Perhaps we have now entered a time in which it is of critical importance that we allow artificial boundaries to fall away and work together to be united with the God of peace and love whom we are all so desperately seeking.
Pondering this question, I thought of Desmond Tutu and his use of Ubuntu as a way for us humans to become a community reconciled with God. Archbishop Tutu recognized that human beings are called to be persons in community precisely because we are all made in the image of the triune God – three persons in one… Tutu believed, “God says, it is precisely our diversity that makes for our unity. It is precisely because you are you and I am me that [God] says, ‘You hold on together.’…It is absolutely necessary for us to share certain values. Otherwise discourse between us would be impossible for we would be without common points of reference.” (p. 29-30, Battle, Ubuntu)
Rowan Williams says it quite simply, “How do we build a common life with those with whom we believe we have nothing in common? Learning about the world depends on conversation.” (YouTube – How to Change the World)
That brings us to Paul who writes to the Corinthians, “For just as the body is one and has many members, and all the members of the body, though many, are one body, so it is with Christ. For in the one Spirit, we were all baptized into one body—Jews or Greeks, slaves or free—and we were all made to drink of one Spirit. Indeed, the body does not consist of one member but of many.”
And to Jesus’ proclamation in the Nazarene synagogue, “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to bring good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free, to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor."
And finally, to the Collect of the day: Give us grace, O Lord, to answer readily the call of our Savior Jesus Christ and proclaim to all people the Good News of his salvation, that we and the whole world may perceive the glory of his marvelous works; who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.
Jesus calls us to acknowledge the other and to be in healing conversation with them. Paul makes clear that in our one body we are a diverse many that must be recognized and honored if we are to make the body whole. The collect calls us to alert the whole world of God’s marvelous works.
None of these tasks can be done if we continue to define the world in black and white terms. Healing of the world cannot possibly be accomplished without acknowledging that we are all persons through the triune person of God. We are because of God.
I am because WE ARE, and we are because I AM. Ubuntu.
As I reflect on my week of study, I am more certain than ever that it is critical to see the world, our neighbors, through the concept of Ubuntu and to recognize that we are all seeking. And perhaps more importantly that we are all persons created and loved by God. That is what we should be focusing on, not which way or where we worship to seek spiritual peace.
To do this means that we must take time to reorganize our thinking about religion and spirituality based on the realities of 2022 – a world far different from the 50s, 60s, 70s, and 80s. Decades in which many churches still find themselves. Old paradigms are not necessarily relevant any longer. Do we have the courage and imagination to design new paradigms of seeking God that are inclusive and build and sustain communities?
Paul’s words are important - the
body has many parts; however, they manifest themselves, but the body is ultimately
one in God. We have much to learn from and give to the other - if we can be in
conversation. If we can understand that each in our own ways are all seekers of
God’s grace. It would be much the best for the world if we understood it and lived
it as the work of one body created by God. I in you and you in me. AMEN
