Love One Another
“Owe no one anything, except to love one another; for the one who loves another has fulfilled the law.” — Romans 13:8.
I am sure I have told this story here once before. I want to repeat it in the hope that it illustrates a larger point.
As many of you probably know, I worked behind the scenes in professional theater and as all of you probably do know, work of any kind in theater is sporadic at best. Hence, more years ago than I care to name I did a temporary stint with The Harris Poll in a year they were doing surveys for a presidential election.
One call I made was to Alabama. When I got to the demographic questions: age range, income range, etc., etc., the question for religious affiliation read this way: “Are you Catholic, Protestant, Jewish or other?” The person responded: “I’m a Baptist.”
Now, in order for an individual’s response to be counted, the person needs to answer all the questions with their words but they did need to respond only in the categories with which they were presented. Having not heard one of the aforementioned categories, I asked the question in a different way.
“Now,” I said earnestly, “historically many people would say Baptists fall under the category of Protestant. ‘Are you Catholic, Protestant, Jewish or other?’”
“I am a Baptist.” Try as I might, I could not get this person to chose the Protestant category.
I was reminded of that story because of a small brouhaha, a kerfuffle— whatever this thing is— which developed this week when Lillian Daniel, a United Church of Christ pastor at a large church in a suburb of Chicago, well known as a writer with a couple of books under her belt, wrote something which was widely circulated— at least among pastors it was widely circulated— online. In this brief piece she addressed how people call themselves “spiritual” but not “religious.”
She told a story about someone who sat next to her on an airplane. The person discovered she was a pastor and spent the entire flight telling Lillian about how he was “spiritual” but not “religious,” in part because of all the churches to which he had belonged and which had damaged him in some way.
Reverend Daniel writes (quote): “...when I meet a math teacher, I don’t feel the need to say I hated math.... when I meet a chef, I don’t need to let it be known that I can’t cook.... I keep that stuff to myself. But everybody loves to tell a minister what’s wrong with the church— and it’s usually a church that bears no relation to the one I serve.” [1]
While I hesitate to reduce Lillian’s writing to a couple of words, I think the essence of what she then said is this: to be “spiritual” rather than “religious” is a common claim these days. This approach insists if one can see God in a sunset one can, therefore, eliminate the need for church.
That line of thinking, however, does nothing but place a person as comfortably normal within the self-centered American culture. And indeed, it is within the self-centeredness of American culture where people often find religion dull but, on the other hand, often experience themselves uniquely fascinating.
Lillian insisted the place where real spirituality is found is within a religious community. She said those who join a community are brave enough to encounter God with and among other real human beings in that community.
Now, I’d be the first to say that Lillian’s approach was a little snarky, sarcastic and impertinent. It was irreverent in tone. And, yes, she had used a sharp knife.
Of course, therefore, she offended some people. And some of them, probably most of them, were pastors. They responded, as you can these days— online. They took umbrage to both her sharp knife and to her calling them out.
You see, many pastors claim that ‘spiritual’ label as their own. Indeed, some of pastors, despite the fact that they serve the institutions of religion— churches— themselves question a need to be ‘religious.’
Clearly, what Lillian was trying to do was to make the case that if one is outside of a community of faith being ‘spiritual’ is not an easy claim to make. You see, historically, a claim about being aware of the presence of God insists that those same people who are aware of the presence of God are called by God to live in community.
Indeed, even those who live in cloisters and hermitages rely on the greater community for survival. Those who live in solitude do not hate society. They are the first to acknowledge, if it was not for the support of the greater community, they could not do what they do. (Slight pause.)
And these words are from the work known as Romans: “Owe no one anything, except to love one another; for the one who loves another has fulfilled the law.” (Slight pause.)
So, this argument about ‘religious’ or ‘spiritual’ was the hot topic which bounced around the Internet among pastors this week. What crossed my mind as I watched that discussion develop is that among most Americans this was not a hot topic.
I am quite sure the hot topic around the water cooler was not what it means to be ‘spiritual’ or what it means to be ‘religious.’ The hot topic was more likely to be ‘who are the new contestants for that popular television program Dancing with the Stars?’
Now, this may surprise you, but to my mind the interesting discussion was not the discussion about ‘spiritual’ or ‘religious.’ The interesting discussion this week was about Dancing with the Stars. (I see a couple of faces going ‘What?’)
Why? Why would I think that? I think this heated argument among pastors was a little like the person from Alabama who would not place Baptists among Protestants. The real issue is one of categories.
To my mind ‘spiritual’ and ‘religious’ are both very, very, very secular categories. For me they are, therefore, not particularly pertinent, not particularly interesting. Indeed, they are not categories with which I am comfortable and, unless I was using some kind of shorthand— maybe that’s what Lillian was doing— these are not categories I would normally use.
So, why do I think these categories are inadequate? They are self referential. This is how these categories are most often spoken about [the pastor speaks in a haughty tone:] “I am spiritual, you know.” Or [the pastor speaks in a gruff tone:] “I am religious— go to church— you know what I mean?” These categories, hence, address self— what you do. They do not address the reality and the presence of God.
If God is brought directly into the mix of the discussion you get a very different approach. Here are a couple of questions about God which I think should be in the mix and which I think, therefore, pushes out those two categories: ‘Is God one?’ ‘Are there many gods?’ ‘Is God— as we Christians claim— three “persons” in One God?’
Then there are the slightly more personal and more self referential questions which arise from that but God is still at the center. ‘Did God create us?’ ‘Did we create God?’ ‘Did the gods create us or did we create the gods?’ ‘Are we in God?’ ‘Is God within us?’
And then there are the most self-referential questions in this group, ‘What is your experience of God?’ and ‘How can you share that experience with one another without being self-referential. A final question presents itself and this is: ‘how do you acknowledge the reality and the presence of God not just for yourself, but for others— not just for yourself, but for others?’
I think Paul addresses all of these God questions in this passage. Paul, you see, understands God calls us to a community of love. Paul understands loving one another produces true faithfulness. Love— love of both God and neighbor— is what produces community.
Last, I suppose what all this says is categories are both created by us and those categories can be dangerous. They simply break people into tribes. Creating categories does nothing but create tribalism.
I, for instance, am always wary of that commonly used category: ‘churched’ and ‘unchurched.’ ‘Churched’ or ‘unchurched’ by whose standard, by what church?
So, I agree with Paul where this is recorded in Romans (quote): “...the one who loves another has fulfilled the law.” Paul, you see, here merges categories: love... law. And, as far as I can tell any category we create is probably too small for God, except one. And that is the category called love. Amen.
09/04/2011
United Church of Christ, First Congregational, Norwich, New York
ENDPIECE: It is the practice of the Pastor to speak after the Closing Hymn, but before the Choral Response and Benediction. This is an précis of what was said: “We live in an era, in a world where we sometimes struggle for struggle for self-identity. Perhaps people seek to break things into categories such as ‘spiritual’ or ‘religious’ because they are seeking some kind of identity which sets them apart, individualizes them. But that is the interesting and wonderful thing about love. It both joins us together as one and sets us apart as individuals. Indeed that is the interesting and wonderful thing about God. The Christian claim has always been that God sees us as individuals and sees us in community.”
BENEDICTION
Let us go forth in the Spirit of Christ. Let us seek the will of God. Let us put aside ambition and conceit for the greater good. Let us serve in joyfully. And now hear this is prayer of Melanesian Islanders: May Jesus be the canoe that holds us up in the sea of life. May Jesus be the rudder that keeps us in the straight road. May Jesus be the outrigger that supports us in times of trial. May the Spirit of Jesus be our sail that carries us through each day. Amen.
[1] http://christiancentury.org/article/2011-08/you-can-t-make
Note: this is the full writing. The piece which got the most response was a cut-down version of this. This is the cut down version:
http://www.ucc.org/feed-your-spirit/daily-devotional/spiritual-but-not-religious.html
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