Religion 2.0: Making the Shift to a New Kind of Faith

Psalm 40:1-11
I Corinthians 1:1-9

Do you believe all the same stuff you believed twenty years ago?  I hope not. 

Do your habits of spirituality and prayer look the same as they did ten years ago?  I hope not. 

Do you read the Bible and understand the good news the same way you did when you were younger?  I hope not. 
 
Consistency is great if you're manufacturing precision made parts.  But it's actually a problem if the goal of life with God and others is continual transformation.  Consistency is great if you’re baking a soufflé that has to come out just right.  But it’s not very helpful if the goal is to embark on a life of change and growth.

They don't teach you how to tie your shoes in college.  And they don't teach Algebra to kindergartners.  When kids are growing through life, we expect them to develop and mature through a number of different phases.  And we do our best to meet them at each level of development with learning goals that are appropriate for their stage of life and learning.

Unfortunately, as adults many of us grow content after we are finished with our earlier years of formal schooling.  We plateau in terms of development.  We assume that the work of growing and learning is done.  But the truth is that the good news of Jesus Christ calls all of us to life-long transformation, growth, and development.

I titled this sermon Religion 2.0.  So let me say a word about Religion 1.0.  Is Religion 1.0 a bad thing?  Should we figure out who is still stuck at level 1.0 so that we can judge and shame them and so that we can feel superior to them?  No, that’s not the point.  Religion 1.0 is beginner religion.  It’s a place to start, and all of us have to start somewhere. 

Religion 1.0 is about the basics; it’s like the beginning of a school year when you’re getting your bearings and learning new skills and a new expectations.  There’s nothing wrong with it.  And in fact, I want to make sure that you hear this today – being a beginner is cause for great joy.  To let God pull us into a path of love and compassion and generosity and courage is always something to celebrate.  It can happen at any point in our lives.  We might start this journey at 8 or 28 or 78.  And no matter when and how we get started, Religion 1.0 is where we begin.

There aren’t any rules about how long can you stay at the first stage of Religion 1.0.  The only guidance I can give you is that the goal of our beginning life of faith is to discover that the life of faith is a life of continual unfolding, of a never-ending movement deeper into our baptisms, a non-stop voyage further into God’s love for us and for all others.  So it isn’t an arrival.  It’s more like the recognition that there is no arrival, and that we will never arrive.   Life with God will involve our desire for the things of God to grow more intense and to burn more clearly.

The problem is that many people stay stuck in Religion 1.0 and take it for the whole thing.  While it’s a good place to begin, it’s not a good place to stay.  The religious life and all of its practices – from singing to praying to giving to serving and caring – are only doing their work if they help us develop, mature, and grow into a new kind of life.

So where are you?  Are you at Religion 1.0 or 2.0?  I have no idea.  You may not either.  That’s ok.  All I want today is for you to begin thinking about the life of faith as a life of forward movement and growth.  There is no simple measuring stick, no grade card that could help us determine whether we are living near the top range of our possibilities.  God’s grace fits each of us in just the right way.  God’s love meets us where we are and gently invites us to stop clinging to what we know so that we can move toward somethig new.  The point is movement.  We want to be moving from a beginning religious life into an always richer and more beautiful expression of God’s grace and love in our lives.

As you’ve probably discovered by this point, I don’t put much stock in these 1.0 and 2.0 categories.  They’re just a little metaphor meant to direct our attention to the movement that is essential to the life of faith.  But our readings from Holy Scripture do suggest several things to look for in our own lives.  So here’s what the movement might look like in your life . . .

Moving from self-sufficiency to vulnerability
The Psalmist prays in language that is tender, open, and vulnerable.  The Lord “turned to me and heard my cry.  The Lord “lifted me out of the slimy pit, out of the mud and mire; he set my feet on a rock and gave me a firm place to stand” (40:1-2).  This is the only way to truly begin.  In some fashion, we confess that we have fallen down and gotten stuck in the mud.  And that we need help getting up and getting going again.

You could argue that the best model for church would be an AA or an NA meeting.  No one pretends they’re “ok” or “fine” at an AA or NA meeting.  Everyone is there because they have a problem and they need help.  They don’t waste any time posturing.  You just say, “Hi, I’m Jared and I’m an alcoholic.” Or “I’m addicted to drugs.”  And then you get on to figuring out with others how to get through another week.  People who know that their life is in the grip of some powerful and destructive forces don’t want to be entertained.  They want help.  They want freedom.  And they let go of all the poses designed to protect and shield themselves.

This move into a life of vulnerability – and this might surprise you – means that we give up the habit of seeing the world as populated by two groups of people: those who are religious and those who aren’t.  As the writer David Dark says again and again (and I strongly encourage you to follow his Twitter feed): everyone is equally religious. 

Everyone is equally religious.  That is, everyone organizes their lives around a cluster of commitments and values.  And to be honest, it doesn’t much matter what you “say” you believe, or what box you check in terms of religious affiliation.  Either we are learning to organize our lives around the new way of life opened to us in Jesus Christ – a life of mercy, compassion, healing, humility, and service – or we are organizing our lives around something else – a political party perhaps, or a career, or family reputation, or pleasure, or comfort.  When we are moving towards more vulnerability we begin to loosen our grip on some of the loyalties that no longer serve us.

Moving from fragmentation towards integration
Again, the Psalmist’s prayer can offer guidance.  Here is part of the astonishing prayer – “Sacrifice and offering you did not desire . . . “  Now wait a minute, what??  This is a Jewish prayer, and the Hebrew Bible is full of very detailed instructions about the kinds of sacrifices and offerings that God demands on a variety of different occasions.  In a way, Jewish religious life was sketched out as a life lived in rhythms of these practices of sacrifices and offerings.  And yet here is the prayer, “Sacrifice and offering you did not desire . . . burnt offerings and sin offerings you did not require.  Then I said, ‘Here I am, I have come . . . I desire to do your will, my God; your law is within my heart” (40:6-8).

When we begin the religious life, we need categories and boxes.  We need clear expectations and black and white rules.  We need to know what we can do and what we can’t.  We need specific advice about which behaviors and harmful and which might bring healing.  And so we learn to compartmentalize – these are the religious things, and everything else must not be quite as religious.

So we label certain parts of the week religious: church worship, or Bible study and prayer.  And the rest of the week feels a little less religious.  And we label certain parts of our lives religious: our private feelings, our sentiments, our careful discipline or our hard work.  But the other parts of our lives – our intense desires, our creativity, our need for freedom, our frustration and anger, our laughter and our play, our views about public policy and the way we earn a living – get left out of that picture.

The Psalmist recognizes that God isn’t up there or out there somewhere, throwing commands and expectations at us from a distance.  No, “I desire to do your will, my God; your law is within my heart.”  In other words, we can begin to move towards a way of life that is integrated and holistic; a life where all of us is taken up into God’s desire for a new world re-made in love; a life where all the different parts of who we are get in the game and play a role; a life where all the different ways we spend our energy can be gathered up as an offering of praise.  As we grow and mature in the faith, fewer and fewer parts of our lives, less and less of the world we know, is left out or left behind. 

Moving from obedience to playfulness
When Paul writes to the followers of Jesus at Corinth, he emphasizes their strength and their capability.  In Jesus Christ, he writes, “you have been enriched in every way – with all kinds of speech and with all knowledge . . .  Therefore you do not lack any spiritual gift as you eagerly wait for our Lord Jesus Christ to be revealed. . . . God is faithful, who has called us into fellowship with his Son, Jesus Christ our Lord.”

When we begin the life of faith, we begin with some categories for understanding ourselves in relation to God.  Usually the categories that get our attention are those that emphasize God’s largeness, God’s glory, God’s authority.  And so we learn to relate to God like a parent.  Yes, parents at their best are loving and supportive.  But as every child knows, sometimes parents are demanding and punishing.  And often we learn to relate to God like an employer.  Yes there are good employers who empower and support those who labor.  But as every employee knows, at some level your job is to do what you’re told.

We never fully leave these categories behind, of course.  But as we grow and mature, we begin to enrich our picture of ourselves and our place in the world with other images of God and of God’s ways of relating to us.  And here as elsewhere in Scripture Paul’s primary image is “fellowship” with Christ, a vision of solidarity, of teamwork, of friendship even.  This image invites us to graduate from a sense of “doing what we’re told” by a distant God to a more playful sense of friendship.  We have been welcomed into a new community where power is shared and all are encouraged to develop and unfold in ways that cultivate our wonderful strengths.  We begin to pray in a new way when God is no longer the authority figure “out there,” but instead becomes the inner strength and joy that enables us to relate to others and meet the challenges of our lives with creativity and grace.

So what do you think?  Are you at Religion 1.0 or 2.0?  Wait, don’t bother with that question!  It doesn’t really matter.  What matters is that God is patient and caring.  God will meet us wherever we are, whether we’re excited beginners or tired veterans.  And God’s love will pull us out of the muddy pit so that we can begin moving forward again.

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