Sunday 4th March 2007LENT II
Fr David Cherry
Genesis 15 : 1 – 2 & 17 – 18 ; Philippians 3 : 17 - 4 : 1 ; Luke 13 : 31 – 35
“…grant that we may eschew those things that are contrary to our profession, and follow all such things as are agreeable to the same.” Words from today’s collect.
When we go to an art gallery we are not invited to believe that a piece of art exists. Rather, we are invited to allow it to address us, to speak to us, to take hold of us. This is believing IN.
Lent is a time for auditing our faith; a process of sifting and
eschewing those things which do not reflect our profession of believing
IN Jesus. So it is about becoming aware of where my faith is
placed, becoming aware of what it is about and what it is like.
Today I offer a scattering of thoughts which arise from our Lent Group
using extracts from some of the books I have recommended for Lenten
Reading.
To help us set the context in the Lent Group on Thursday we thought
about the difference between Religion and Spirituality. Religion
is seen and experienced as something objective while spirituality is
subjective. Religion can be experienced as a dead hand or weight
on human lives, formal, boring, necessarily communal, with
tradition. Spirituality has a lighter, vaguer feel. It is
personal, encourages feeling, works at an individual level, is
something that it is more to do with me. This was our starting
point. The project is to discover how they are related.
Broadly speaking many people are more inclined to say that they are
spiritual than religious. And those who are inclined to
self-define as religious are rather suspicious of feelings, subjective,
individualism of those who claim to be ‘spiritual’.
One can be fixated, stuck in religious observance at one end of the
spectrum, while at the other end one can be so individualised in
one’s spirituality that one is inhabiting little more than
one’s own emotional fantasies. Truth is what you want it to
be. There are many other permutations which can be made from the
two lists we drew up.
Listen to Richard Rohr on religion:
I heard a very telling quote recently
from the Dalai Lama. When asked by a young person how he could begin a
spiritual life, he answered him in a most honest and foreboding way. He
apparently said, "If you can possibly avoid a spiritual path, by all
means do so! It will take your whole life away." He got it! I believe
that most religion, however, is an attempt to feel spiritual and
superior in a very measured and culturally correct way, largely by
emphasizing one or two mandates or one or two rituals. This cleverly
allows us to avoid discovering and surrendering our "whole life". No
wonder religion is so popular. No wonder piety sells. It is a great
bargain. Join, attend, perform, obey here and there—and you can
basically live your life unchanged. "Whoever would save his life, must
lose it", as Jesus put it. But none of us want to lose it.
Institutional Christianity, and the
Papacy in particular, will give you intellectual arguments, enchanting
rituals, grand historical sweep, a fine belonging system, and a clear
morality to give you pleasing ego boundaries. This will hold you
together quite well. It works at deep and good levels. It can create
the real beginnings of spiritual desire, as it did for me. But just
remember, it can also give you just enough of God to quite effectively
inoculate you from any need or search for the real thing. This is the
normal pattern, in my experience. "I have no need for inner experience.
I have outer assurances". In fact, I find a rather clear correlation
between one's preoccupation with outer forms and one's lack of any
inner substance.
“O Jerusalem, Jerusalem”, cries Jesus lamenting over
Jerusalem. The revelation entrusted to her has been
debased. Jerusalem has become a great centre of power, politics,
mingled and supported by a religious system of coercion and
conformity.
“O Jerusalem, Jerusalem which killest the prophets and stonest
them that are sent unto thee….” If you want to
keep your religion pure you need to exercise power over others and
expel those who don’t think the same way.
Giles Fraser in a short article in the Guardian a few weeks ago writes
how this is happening in the Anglican Communion. We can speak of
a Sacred Violence which excludes those who don’t fit it.
On last week’s mass paper I put an extract from James
Alison’s latest book Undergoing God. In his chapter
‘True Worship in a Violent World’, he distinguishes between
the Nuremberg rally kind of worship and True worship. Nuremberg
rally kind of worship is about bringing uniformity, minimising
difference between individuals by whipping people up to a converging
desire and enthusiasm – usually about being Victims or the
Chosen-elect (as opposed to anyone else) pointing to a glorious future
of vanquishing the enemy.
By contrast with this Nuremberg kind of worship James Alison writes:
….our liturgical celebrations
are all automatically skewed from the start as regards any attempt to
produce unanimity, a feeling of togetherness, a shared group narrative.
… And there is, and should be, no attempt at all to affect the
subjectivity of those involved, to whip them into any sort of
uniformity of feeling.
When people tell
me they find Mass boring, I want to say to them : it’s supposed
to be boring, or at least seriously underwhelming. It’s a
long term education in becoming un-excited, since only that will enable
us to dwell in a quiet bliss which doesn’t abstract from our
present or our surroundings or our neighbour, but which increases our
attention, our presence and our appreciation for what is around
us. The build up to a sacrifice is exciting, the dwelling in
gratitude that the sacrifice has already happened, and that we’ve
been forgiven for and through it, is, in terms of excitement, a long
drawn-out let-down.
Religion and Spirituality. We begin to see how religion can be
debased: a mere outward and cultural glue in society; or a means of
excluding others or whipping people into a common identity.
Where Might you be on this spectrum?
Abbot Jamison in his book ‘Finding Sanctuary’ (extract in
the Mass Paper next week) helpfully makes the point that we are all
religious because we all worship or idolise something – whether
it be money, status, a pop-idol, or film-star, the arts. We give
ourselves over to something. Our compulsions are a kind of
worship. Such attachments (even to religious observance) are a
‘believing IN’ someone or something.
When we go to an art gallery we are not invited to believe that a piece
of art exists. Rather, we are invited to allow it to address us,
to speak to us, to take hold of us. This is believing IN.
Abbot Christopher goes on to say that spirituality is about becoming
aware that the things we naturally worship are signs of a deeper
longing to believe IN God, echoes of a ‘more’, inviting a
re-orientation to believe IN God; inviting us to be lead beyond created
things to the Creator? Spirituality is about noticing this and
deepening this awareness; sifting the strands of attraction, finding
their source in God.
So the conversation goes on in the Lent Group….
Here in today’s gospel Abraham is the recipient, not of a
sealed-up religion, delivered once and for all. Rather he is the
recipient of a God calling him into relationship. It is intensely
personal and the beginning of a spiritual journey which is, in fact,
the beginning of the revelation of a different kind of God through and
in the story of the Jewish people which will culminate in Jesus.
Jesus is that hen who will be torn to shreds by that fox. His gathering, you and I, are invited to find shelter in all our brokenness, under his wings. He calls us. And his call is not about wanting us to do something for him – it is not primarily because he wants us to serve a useful purpose.. His call is, first of all, just a ‘wanting of us’, wanting us to believe IN him and be united with him, to share in the freedom of the life of God.
So we come to Holy Communion so that his life may take shape in you
and me; so that this sifting process may happen in us and come to the
sheer joy and freedom of living in God.
Grant that we may eschew those things that are contrary to our
profession, and follow all such things as are agreeable to the
same. Amen