We were sitting around a campfire at a work project just north of Jellico, TN. A very colorful bearded local man was regaling us with stories about life in the mountains. Somehow the conversation came around to a recent shooting that had taken place in the area. The shot man had died. The shooter got off. Someone asked how that could be – a murderer set free?
“Well,” answered the mountain man, “in these parts there’s a difference between a murder and a killin’. And that boy needed killin’!”
Now that’s a rather troubling definition of the law. I’m not sure I buy it, although I have to say that when it comes to things other than people, some stuff really does need killin’.
Like religion.
And even spirituality.
I have a lot of friends who like to say they are “spiritual”, but not religious. But spirituality can be just as religious as religion. And I think God has both religion AND spirituality in mind when He kills it. Oh yes, it is GOD who does the killin’, and you can read all about it in the 58th chapter of Isaiah.
God instructs Isaiah, “Shout it aloud! Don’t hold back! Declare to my people their rebellion!”
This is the religious equivalent of, “Wait ‘til your father gets home!”
And here’s the problem: the people are very religiously – spiritually – devout! Day after day they pray and seek God. They eagerly want to know God and God’s ways. They cry out to God for their needs, and pursue a close personal relationship with God. And they practice spiritual disciplines like worship and fasting and meditation. They do all the things people think they should do to deepen their connection with God or Truth or Spiritual Grounding. They practice a religion – or a spirituality – that they hope will bring them into close communion with the Source of Life. They embrace all the established forms of religion and spiritual practice.
And then…some of them… just go home…and do as they please. They quarrel and fight and take advantage of others. Or even worse, they do nothing at all but sit around meditating on their bellybuttons. They do not put their faith into action. It’s all about what goes on inside here. It does not find its way out of the heart and into the world.
And God says, “I’m not interested.”
Fred Craddock tells of a church he once served, not too far from here. It was over by Oak Ridge which was just a bitty town in those days. But when the atomic energy came, the town began to boom almost overnight. Every hill and valley and shady grove had recreational vehicles and trucks and things like that. People came from everywhere and pitched tents, even lived in wagons. Hard hats from all over, with their families, and children paddling around in the mud of the trailer parks. Their church was not too far away. And it was a beautiful church – a white frame building, 112 years old, with an old pump organ that Ms. Lois played. Fred once said ol’ Ms. Lois could play those hymns just as slow as anybody.
The church, he remembered, had beautifully decorated chimneys, and kerosene lamps all around the walls, and every pew was hand-hewed from a giant poplar tree that had once grown nearby. After church one Sunday, Fred asked the leaders to stay. He said to them, “We need to launch a campaign in all those trailer parks to invite all those people to church.”
“Oh, I don’t know,” said one of the leaders, “I don’t think they’d fit in here. They’re just temporary construction people, you know. They’ll be gone before you know it.”
Well, there was some discussion, and finally it was decided to vote on it next Sunday. So next Sunday, right after service, they had a meeting. “I move,” said one of the leaders, “that in order to be a member of this church you have to own property in the county.” Someone else said, “I second that.” They called for a vote. And the motion passed. Fred voted against it, but someone reminded him that he was just a kid preacher, and besides, he didn’t have a vote.
Years later, when Fred moved back this way, he took his wife Nettie over to see that little church over near Oak Ridge. The roads had changed, of course, and when the Interstate came in, the geography got kind of mixed up so the church was hard to find. But he finally found it. Down the state road, and onto the county road, and then finally down the little gravel road they drove. And there it was –that pretty little white building – back among the pines.
Fred was surprised when he saw it. It was different! The parking lot was FULL! Full of motorcycles and trucks and cars parked all over the place. And out front was a big new white sign.
BARBECUE – ALL YOU CAN EAT!
The church had become a restaurant. So he and Nettie went inside. The now unused pews were pushed back against a wall, and the organ that Ms. Lois used to play as slow as anybody was still there, tucked back in a corner. But in the middle of the church there were all these aluminum and plastic tables, and people sitting there eating barbecued pork and chicken and ribs, and lickin’ their fingers, and listening to Country music from the jukebox. ALL kinds of people, said Fred.
Fred turned to Nettie and quietly said, “Nettie, it’s a good thing this is not a church anymore. Otherwise, these people couldn’t be in here.”
The New Testament book of 2 Timothy complains about people who practice the form of religion, but deny the power of it.
And that’s why God – through Isaiah – kills religion – at least, as many people practice it.
And in its place, God gives birth to righteousness.
Listen to what God says: “Here is the kind of religion – the kind of spirituality – I want: to loose the chains of injustice, and relieve the burdens people carry, and set the oppressed free, and cut people a break, and share your food with the hungry, and provide shelter to the wanderers, and clothe the naked, and take care of your family always.”
This is what it means to be righteous.
One of my former parishioners was a police officer who often had traffic duty in front of a local church. He told me about a very prominent citizen who used to show up at church every Sunday, go in through the big front doors, and seconds later come out the side door. On his way back to his car he said to George, my policeman parishioner, “If anybody asks, tell them you saw me go to church today!”
His religion, you see, was about earning points with God – and people. In the same way, many folks pray simply to feel close to God. Or – as we see in many contemporary worship services today – people lifting their hands in the air, praising and singing love songs to God. Oh, it’s true, that kind of worship make us feel so alive and good! But Gloria Gaither who – with her husband Bill – are among the best contemporary songwriters and composers – once observed at a music conference, “In worship, if all you want is a good feeling without commitment, you’re just participating in the world’s oldest profession.”
Worship, prayer, fasting – all these spiritual practices – mean nothing unless they lead you to go out in God’s strength to love the world. The most beautiful example of this is in the life of Jesus who, after baptism, went out into the desert and fasted for 40 days. When it was over, he returned and for the next three years gave away his life in love to others. That’s worship that’s followed-up with commitment!
Only religion that leads to righteous service is true religion. And when you step out into that world, God says in Isaiah 58, you’ll be surprised by the connection that will form between you and God. You can read about it in Isaiah 58. He promises that your light will break forth like the dawn, and your healing will quickly come, and you will call and God will answer, and you will cry for help and God will say, “Here I am!”
One day long ago, Jesus went up onto a mountaintop and started teaching his disciples. That body of teaching – found in the 5th through 7th chapters of Matthew – is better known as the Sermon on the Mount. These words are considered to be the heart and soul of Jesus’ teaching.
And here’s how Jesus explained the importance of righteous religion, the kind of religion that sends you out to bring God’s goodness to others:
“(Then) people will see your good deeds,” Jesus said, “and praise your Father in heaven.”
In other words, you’ll give God a good reputation, and people will want to turn to him.
Think of it this way: when you practice righteousness – lifting the downtrodden, helping the poor, feeding the hungry, sticking up for those being picked on, healing the broken, loving the unloved – the world is given a taste of what God is like – and the character of God will be illuminated for all to see.
“You are the salt of the earth,” Jesus said. “You are the light of the world.”
People will taste God through you! People will see what God is like!
In James 1:27 we read: “Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world.”
Religion that dies to self and is born to others.
The birth of righteousness.
I wonder if you are sensing the tug of God on your heart today? Is there some one, or some cause that God is calling you to reach out to with Christian compassion and mercy?
If you are hearing a call like that – follow it!
Because God is giving birth within you to a kind of righteousness that will change your life forever, and bring miracles into the lives of those you touch! And give God a good reputation besides!
“You are the salt of the earth! You are the light of the world!”
Yes, YOU!
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