Reflections from a sermon for the sixth Sunday of Eastertide given at the United Church of Acworth, NH on May 5, 2013
There is no manuscript for today's sermon.
It was mainly focused on Lydia and how she encounters Paul while praying down by the riverside in Philippi.
Lydia, if we project a little bit, is a bit like many nowadays who consider themselves "spiritual but not religious." Who want to worship God and seek out the wisdom of God through reading, conversation, nature (going to riversides), prayer and meditation; but who do not feel like they can identify with one particular organized religion.
Many criticize these individuals, but Diana Butler Bass helps to show in her book Christianity After Religion: The End of Church and the Birth of a New Spiritual Awakening that this movement has something to teach those who are part of an organized religion. There is something to be learned.
Lydia is receptive to Paul because Paul is willing to go to where she is, and pray with her, converse with her and the others by the river. Paul and his companions sit on the grass and join Lydia and her other seekers. Again it's not fair to make Lydia into a contemporary and see her as identical to modern religious seekers. But there certainly seems to be an example we can find in Paul's willingness to sit in the grass and engage Lydia where she was.
For whatever the reasons, Lydia was not able to worship God within the forms of the Roman imperial cult or the Jewish synagogue so she was praying by the river. Many today find themselves unable to make their spiritual home in a church or synagogue. Bass thinks this has something to do with how modern religious people have come to understand belief.
Bass argues that belief has been misused in modern religion. Rather than its original sense of trusting and relating to God, "I believe in God" has become a flag to mark out territory and beliefs have been used to distinguish "us" from "them." When the purpose of belief is renewed relationship with God, renewed relationship with our neighbor -- much of organized religion has used "belief" intentionally or unintentionally as a means of excluding the other from the fold.
Bass writes about the history of "belief":
“'To believe' in Latin (the shaping language for much of Western theological thought) is opinor, opinari, meaning 'opinion,' which was not typically a religious word. Instead, Latin used credo, 'I set my heart upon” or 'I give my loyalty to,' as the word to describe religious 'believing,' that is, 'faith.' In medieval English, the concept of credo was translated as “believe,” meaning roughly the same things as its German cousin belieben, 'to prize, treasure, or hold dear,' which comes from the root word Liebe, 'love.' Thus, in early English, to 'believe' was to 'belove' something or someone as an act of trust or loyalty. Belief was not an intellectual opinion.” (Bass, p. 117)
For Bass, one of the things Christians can learn from the spiritual seekers of today is that the how of belief is more important than the what. It's a belief that is experiential, not intellectual, focused on right opinions. It is belief which leads to restored relationship with God and others. But it's not that the what doesn't matter:
“What is not necessarily being replaced by how; the what of religion is being redefined by the how. When belief springs from and is rewoven with experience, we arrive at the territory of being spiritual and religious: experiential belief.” (Bass, p. 116)
It's that authority does not rest in the one who can make a knock-out logical, historical case for the superiority of their belief claims.
“Authority springs from two sources: one, relationship, and two, authenticity. People trust those with whom they are friends or feel they could be friends – thus the presidential election question, 'With which candidate would you rather have a beer?' Authority comes through connection, personal investment, and communal accountability, rather than submission to systems or structures of expertise. Related closely to friendship is the test of authenticity. Something is true and trustworthy because it springs from good motives and praiseworthy intentions, with results that prove to increase happiness and make peoples' lives better. Practicing what one preaches is a mark of spiritual truth, and humanity and humility foster trust.... In the emerging spiritual culture, what matters much less than who is sharing the news, and the messenger has become the message” (Bass, pp. 115-116)
If the messenger has become the message, or perhaps always was the message, then we can perhaps see why Lydia was so interested in Paul's spirituality. I can imagine him telling his story of conversion how he was once such a violent defender of his Jewish faith against the Christians, even imprisoning and executing Christian leaders in the name of God. And how Christ, the risen Christ had appeared to him and changed him and forgiven him and made him a messenger of God's grace in the Greek world.
For Paul, religion used to be about control. But after his encounter with Christ on the road to Damascus, religion and the beliefs that were an integral part of the faith became about renewal by grace. These beliefs were not about being right or wrong, in or out. They were about engaging in a new and living relationship with God through Jesus the Christ. There's a spiritual energy in belief when belief is for the sake of relationship with God.
“When creeds become fences to mark the borders of heresy, they lose their spiritual energy. Doctrine is to be the balm of a healing experience of God, not a theological scalpel to wound and exclude people.” (Bass)So I hope that we can relate in a new way to our beliefs about God -- seeing them as offering a healing renewal of relationship with God and our neighbors.
Follow this link to view a conversation between Diana Butler Bass and Ross Douthat about the Future of Faith.
I hope to show this after coffee hour some Sunday in the near future so that we can have a conversation about spiritual renewal in Acworth, and how our church can bring the best of the Christian tradition into the 21st century.
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