Thursday Thoughts

“When my religion tries to come between me and my neighbor, I will choose my neighbor. . . Jesus never commanded me to love my religion”^[1]

I’ve never really liked the differentiation between “religion,” “spirituality,” and “faith.” I especially don’t like it when someone says, “well, I’m spiritual, but not religious.” At the same time, I do think someone could be “religious” and “not spiritual”! Maybe this is my West Coast independent streak - I mean, I really hate checking identity and rating boxes. I think most of the time the categories aren’t helpful or particularly accurate, and they certainly feel confining. Perhaps instead one could say, “well, I’m not part of any organized faith community, but I do have some beliefs.”

I think what I don’t like about the distinction between “religion” and “spirituality” is how it can be used to put people in the “other” category down. Real life is so much more complex than categories - especially regarding anything related to faith - and life is hard enough to get through without critiquing others.

BUT, I happen to love the sentiment in Barbara Brown Taylor’s statement above. This comes out of a book she wrote after teaching a world religions course at Piedmont College. In Holy Envy she recounts visiting various religious communities with her students and her growing awareness of how God was at work in all those religions.

Friends, that is a bold statement to make when religions have relied on the belief that they are the only true religion. I don’t want to dissect ultimate truth right now, but rather to express appreciation for the fact that she reminds us that our own Christian faith leads us to love our neighbor no matter their religion/spirituality/faith.

Mark 12:29-31 contains Jesus’ answer to a religious teacher’s question about which commandment is the greatest:

The first is, ‘Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one; you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind, and with all your strength.’ The Second is this, “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no other commandment greater than these.’

Friends, the problem is not that our religion and our neighbor are pulling us in opposite directions, but rather that we have forgotten that central to our religion is our neighbor. So, perhaps if our religion is asking us to choose it over our neighbor, we need to evaluate whether our religion is centered on Jesus.

This week I pray that you find ways to live out your Christian religion/faith/spirituality through loving your neighbor! Perhaps take them some zucchini from your garden or find a way to fix an old argument. 

Blessings,

Pastor Amy

^[1] Barbara Brown Taylor, Holy Envy: Finding God in the Faith of Others.

In this week’s sermon prep, I am spending time with the hotly contested 1st chapter of Romans. While you are going to need to join us for service to hear those thoughts, my attention has been caught on Romans 1:16-17 (which, I am proud to say, I still have mostly memorized from my teen years):

For I am not ashamed of the gospel; it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who has faith, to the Jew first and also to the Greek. For in it the righteousness of God is revealed through faith for faith; as it is written, ‘The one who is righteous will live by faith.’

What really caught my attention was that Paul starts off by telling folks that he isn’t ashamed of the Gospel he lives by and preaches. Paul had it kind of rough at times, with multiple stays in jail in cultures that placed heavy emphasis on shame and honor. It certainly wasn’t good for his reputation to be imprisoned, but is there more going on here than him salvaging his reputation?

While Paul wasn’t asking the same questions we ask about shame, he might still help us with our own. We don’t live in the same context of shame and honor, but we know quite a bit about living with or avoiding shame. You know shame - it can be that heavy feeling of not-enough-ness that can lodge in your chest and weigh your shoulders down.

Lewis B. Smedes, in his book Shame and Grace, reminds us that feelings of being flawed are natural “because we are in fact flawed. Our shame may be a painful signal that we are failing to be the person we are meant to be and may therefore be the first hope of healing” (31). He goes on to differentiate between healthy and unhealthy forms of shame, but before doing that he wants his readers to accept that some shame is good for us. Ouch.

Sometimes we feel shame because we aren’t living as our true self. Perhaps we feel shame because when we should have been kind to others we were harmful. Perhaps we feel shame because when we should have lived with integrity we divided ourselves between our public and private lives. We often split ourselves in two, and shame can be the feeling that calls us to heal.

But, sometimes feelings of shame are something else altogether, arising from the broken parts inside of us. Shame sounds like lies that prevent us from knowing our goodness and strengths.

The problem is that both healthy and unhealthy shame are often tangled up together.

So, back to Paul. Paul writes a lot about how other folks needn’t be ashamed of him. But, I suspect that the mere fact that writes about it so often is a sign that he is wrestling with his own mixed up voices of shame. After all, Paul was human too.

As we sort through where our shame is calling us to heal ourselves and our relationships and where our shame is actually preventing us from doing so, let us keep our eyes on the Gospel. Because the good news that Jesus came and loved all, upsetting power structures and freeing both oppressor and oppressed, and offering grace to folks caught in harmful shame (such as the man born blind) and courage to folks caught in helpful shame (such as Zaccheaus, the wee little man, who needed to make amends), is still good news for us! And one quick rule of thumb: if others were harmed by our actions, the shame we feel is likely (at least in part) healthy shame.

Friends, this week may your healthy shame call you toward personal and relational healing and may your unhealthy shame dissipate a bit more in the light of God’s grace.

Blessings,

Pastor Amy

Safe travels, and may God bring us safely back together on the other side!

Blessings,

Pastor Amy

For the Traveler

Every time you leave home,

Another road takes you

Into a world you were never in.

New strangers on other paths await.

New places that have never seen you

Will startle a little at your entry.

Old places that know you well

Will pretend nothing

Changed since your last visit.

When you travel, you find yourself

Alone in a different way,

More attentive to now

To the self you bring along,

Your more subtle eye watching

You abroad; and how what meets you

Touches that part of the heart

That lies low at home:

How you unexpectedly attune

To the timbre in some voice,

Opening a conversation

You want to take in

To where your longing

Has pressed hard enough

Inward, on some unsaid dark,

To create a crystal of insight

You could not have known

You needed

To illuminate

Your way.

When you travel,

A new silence

Goes with you,

And if you listen,

You will hear

What your heart would

Love to say.

A journey can become a sacred thing:

Make sure, before you go,

To take the time

To bless your going forth,

To free your heart of ballast

So that the compass of your soul

Might direct you toward

The territories of spirit

Where you will discover

More of your hidden life,

And the urgencies

That deserve to claim you.

May you travel in an awakened way,

Gathered wisely into your inner ground;

That you may not waste the invitations

Which wait along the way to transform you.

May you travel safely, arrive refreshed,

And live your time away to its fullest;

Return home more enriched, and free

To balance the gift of days which call you.

~ John O’Donohue, To Bless the Space Between Us: A Book of Blessings, pp. 53-55