“Pure
Religion”
James
1:17-27; Mark &:1-8, 14-15, 21-23
“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.” James
1:27
At the interfaith dialogue held at Temple B’Nai Israel
a few weeks ago, where we had a conversation
between Jews, Christians, and Muslims, during the time for questions one person
in the audience, who seemed clearly confused and a little distressed after
listening to the discussion, asked something along these lines: “So which is the right way? Which is the way that will get you to
heaven? Isn’t that what this is all
about? That is what I thought we have
been taught all these years.” It was a good
question, I felt, because it did sort of summarize what a lot of people regard
as the point of it all, the point of religion.
Isn’t that what it is all about?
Getting to heaven?
That certainly seemed to be the point when I was
growing up, unless I misunderstood. We
were taught that without Jesus in our hearts, we would spend eternity in hell,
and the same was true of every human being.
It was our job, therefore, to spread the word, to tell people about
Jesus, to proclaim the Gospel.
And at that time, and in that setting, it seemed
pretty clear to me that we were among the chosen few who were in possession of
the true Gospel of Jesus Christ. There
were a lot of other churches out there and a lot of other religions, but it was
us, those in our church, and others like us, others who read the Bible as we
did, rather literally, who had the straight skinny. Catholics, Unitarians and a whole host of
others, including even certain Presbyterians of a different stripe (like that
bunch up the street who stood outside on Sundays smoking cigarettes before
church) didn’t have it straight.
And as for people of other religions, they may have
been sincere in their beliefs, but we were taught that they were sincerely
wrong. They needed to hear the message of
the Gospel as well. They needed Jesus in their hearts if they were going to
escape the fires of hell and enjoy the riches of heaven. As most everyone here knows, that is not the
understanding I have now. But that is what I was taught and what I grew up
believing.
So I understood the perplexity of the questioner that
evening. As a matter of fact, this
person was probably expressing the sentiments not only of a fairly broad
spectrum of Christians, but also of a good number of people in other faiths who
feel that that is the point of their religion as well – to get to paradise.
Those Islamic fundamentalists who were holding the Fox
News journalists as hostages, and who, before releasing them forced them at
gunpoint to convert to Islam, probably had some political motivation for doing
that. But, I wonder if they didn’t also
see themselves as doing these men a favor by forcing them to convert, and thus
putting them on the right path to paradise.
(Of course, true Muslims would not consider that a valid
conversion. Conversion, as the Imam that
evening pointed out, cannot be coerced.)
But if their captors were motivated even partly by a desire to save the
souls of the Fox journalists, then what they did was not much different in
spirit from what Christians have done in the past, with forced conversions and forced
baptisms carried out during the various inquisitions in Medieval times and
later.
So, as the questioner asked, “isn’t that what it is
all about?” How do you answer such a question? At the time, I think I answered that that
wasn’t what it was all about for me. And
there seemed to be general agreement from others on the panel that there was
more to religious faith than simply escaping hell and getting to heaven, that
whether you believed in heaven and hell or not, religious faith is something
that is supposed to make a difference in how a person lives.
That viewpoint appears to be validated by at least one
Biblical writer. The Epistle of James is
not appreciated by everyone. Martin
Luther famously calls it “an Epistle of straw,” mostly because James, he felt,
spent too much time talking about works that Christians ought to be doing,
rather than about the grace of God. The
writer of James does place a lot of emphasis upon how a person’s faith
translates into how that person lives.
He is very practical minded. What
good is it, he says, for a person to say that he or she has faith if that
person doesn’t do anything to demonstrate that faith. And here, in our text for this morning, he
makes religion a very practical matter.
Listen again:
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.
Religion that is pure and undefiled is to care for
orphans and widows, to look out for the ones in the society who are the
vulnerable ones? That is what it is all
about? At least according to James that
is a pretty important part of it.
Our other text this morning is from Mark. It is one of the many controversy stories so
common in the Gospels. This time the
controversy centered around the fact that some of Jesus’ disciples had eaten
without washing their hands. The issue was
not cleanliness or sanitation. The
washing in question was a ceremonial washing.
A very precise ritual was prescribed in which water had to be poured
first over the hands with the fingers pointed upward, and then with the fingers
pointing downward. It was a ceremony of
purification that a religious Jew was obligated to perform before each meal and
even between the various courses of a meal.
It was one of hundreds of little acts of religious observance that
distinguished the religious person from the non-religious person in the Jewish
culture of the time.
The Pharisees, of whom we hear so much, were people
who had dedicated their lives to the strict observance of all of these many
rituals. This was important to the
Pharisees, for not only were they dedicated to observing all of the rituals,
but they were also dedicated to associating only with those who did the same. Defilement could come either through failure
to observe the rituals, or through association with those who failed to observe
them. For them, this is what it was all
about – observing the rituals, keeping yourself pure.
Jesus, obviously, did not fit into that view of
religion. He would have been regarded by
the Pharisees as one of the amme ha-arez,
or “people of the land,” common people, part of the masses, the religiously
negligent Jews “who either did not know the scribal laws, or who, knowing them,
were indifferent to their observance.” (Harry
Emerson Fosdick, The Man From
So they come to Jesus and ask him why his disciples
would eat without first ceremonially washing their hands in order to keep
themselves ritually pure. And Jesus ends
up by making the broad statement that it is not what happens on the outside
that keeps a person pure, but rather that it is a matter of the heart.
Well, you know it is fun to pick on the Pharisees. They are an easy group to criticize, first of
all because they are not here to defend themselves, and second of all because
criticizing them appears to have not only the sanction of the Gospels but of
Jesus himself. They are one of those
groups of people over which we have been given permission to feel superior. So that when we hear or read about the
Pharisees acting like hypocrites, we are able to say to ourselves: “Well, at least
I am not like that! I may not be the
best Christian in the world, but at least I’m not a hypocrite. I am not
legalistic like they were.” And thus the
Pharisees have helped many churchgoers over the years to leave worship on
Sunday feeling a little better about themselves, a little more like they have
true religion, a little more righteous, a little more…Pharisaic.
So what is pure religion? Or to put it in the words of the questioner
that evening, what is it all about? (I
will refrain from adding the word, “Alfie.”)
If it is not all about observing certain rituals, and if it is not
finally about who gets to heaven and who doesn’t, what is it all about? Jesus seems to say that it is about what
happens in a person’s heart. James says
it is about taking care of orphans and widows, the vulnerable of the
earth. But both of those seem very
similar to me.
At the risk of sounding like I really know, I will
offer my opinion. Being apophatic by
nature, one who feels more comfortable saying what God is not rather than
saying what God is, it is also easier for me to say what it is not all about,
rather than what it is all about. And at
least for me, it is definitely not all about finding the magic combination of beliefs
and practices that guarantee one’s getting into heaven. Nor is it, for me, all about ritual or
ceremonial purity.
From Jesus I get the idea that it is something that
begins in the heart, and from both Jesus and James I get that it doesn’t mean
very much if what happens in the heart doesn’t end up having some sort of an
effect upon what happens in how we live.
I like what Fr. Lioi said that evening in answer to the question I referred
to earlier. He said that how we live is
in response to what God has done for us.
It is in gratitude for God’s love and grace.
So no, for me what it is all about, pure religion, the
essence of it, is not about making it to heaven. If when we die God welcomes us into some sort
of other existence, that is wonderful.
But it seems so self-serving and so antithetical to everything Jesus
stood for that our religious experience should be all about that. Jesus, I think, tried to get people to focus a
little more on others and a little less on themselves. I like what James says about taking care of
orphans and widows, the vulnerable of the earth. And I like the idea that it is
in the heart, and that we live out our faith in gratitude for what God has done
for us. I don’t know if that is it
entirely, but I think it may be pretty close to pure religion.