[Propertalk] Proper 17 b

[robertpmorrison at charter.net]

This is on the editor's table now ...

Happy weekend to you.

Bob

THE EPISCOPAL CHURCH OF ST. ALBAN, ALBANY 		      THE FOURTEENTH SUNDAY 
AFTER PENTECOST
SONG OF SOLOMON 2:8-13 									       PROPER 17 B RCL
JAMES 1:17-27 										2nd SEPTEMBER, 2012
MARK 7:1-8, 14-15, 21-23 									      PSALM 45:1-2, 7-10

There’s a familiar debate that’s been running around for several years 
about people’s feelings about God and how these should influence our 
lives. It usually goes something like, “Oh, I’m spiritual, not 
religious.”

Just what does that mean? It sounds good. Some people may be impressed 
by it. To others, though, it may sound like a glib way to sidestep the 
issue and get out of the discomfort of having to talk specifics about 
daily life, about what motivates people or means so much to them.

An acquaintance, a Roman Catholic priest, for whom this is a hot button 
issue, responded in a strong but humorous way several months ago. He 
wrote, “Saying you’re spiritual but not religious is like saying you 
love food, but hate cooking. Let’s take it further.” He said. “You love 
food but hate cooking? That means you can’t be bothered to learn to 
cook. You can’t be bothered to study food and a meal and how it all fits 
together. You can’t be bothered to read cookbooks and learn how to make 
a recipe. You’re not willing to give it a try and burn something and be 
embarrassed. You’re not willing to burn your fingers, make a mess and 
have to clean it up.

“You’re not willing to invite friends, plan a dinner party, take a risk, 
spend some money and cook for them.” 1

Maybe this says something about the people with whom you usually gather. 
Maybe this says something about an incident in the past. Possibly you 
were scared by a talking spatula, or an overbearing adult in the 
kitchen. Perhaps someone made fun of some dish that you prepared and 
you’ve never been able to look a stove or an oven in the eye since.

All of these could be considered good reasons. No one likes to fail. No 
one likes others to laugh at him or her. I don’t want the reputation of 
not being able to boil water – a frequent joke that’s tossed around with 
such ease that the person being described begins to believe it.

Make a shift from kitchen to church building – not such a stretch when 
you consider that both places are supposed to be used to nourish us and 
our guests – shift this to any congregation of your choice, and you can 
find similar possibilities. I don’t have to go too far into my relatives 
to find people who’ve been so severely hurt by congregations that they 
no longer attend, either that denomination or any other. Maybe they were 
laughed at because they thought the Song of Solomon was way too erotic 
to be included in the Bible. It is, and it’s not – it is highly erotic, 
but it most definitely IS in the Bible. Perhaps they were looked down 
upon because they didn’t shop at the same stylish stores at which the 
rest of the regular Sunday folk shopped. Maybe Uncle Joe was doing 20 to 
life in the Federal Penitentiary, and that didn’t sit too well with the 
BAC.

Who knows – there are as many ways to be discouraging and unhelpful, 
even downright cruel, as there are people. The great news, however, is 
that the majority of people in church aren’t really that bad, and that 
most make others feel welcome, and not only tolerate diversity, but 
celebrate it.

That priest wrote that the folk who’ve left, or who don’t accept an 
invitation to attend a congregation’s worship and become part of a 
religious community may be because, “They have dismissed religion before 
they have even seriously considered it or studied it, and even if they 
have had a chance to consider it, what kind of religion have they been 
offered to consider? The state of Christianity in the United States is 
so dire, I’m not surprised any kid with half a brain rejects it.”

We all know youth and adults who say, “‘I can love Jesus without going 
to church. Church doesn’t matter.’

But, “If it is only about me and Jesus; if it is only about me and my 
‘personal relationship with my Lord’ what is the point of going to 
church?” “Church” is all about relationships – our relationship with 
God, yes, but, as Jesus pointed out, at exactly the same time, it’s 
about our relationship with those beside us in both our religious and 
our civil communities. The one without the other is only half a faith. 
Every word we hear; all the joy we receive from singing; whatever words 
and actions we express within the building have to be both the strength 
to go out into the world around 11 o’clock and also the guide for our 
everyday behaviour.

There an old Scottish story, not funny at all, that talks of the school 
teacher who goes to church “religiously” – there’s that word! – who 
prays to God to give him strength to murder the kids on Monday.

That doesn’t convey anything of the ecstasy of the person described in 
the first reading who revels in the joyfully, lovingly devoted 
relationship symbolized as the way in which we are to be at one with 
God. That’s the sort of attitude which Jesus condemned when He was 
accosted by some of the Pharisees. “Be really worried,” He responded, 
“if you’re so hung up on external appearances that you ignore the 
character you are and the personality which defines you.”

I don’t know the circumstances addressed by James, but they grew out of 
what Jesus said. Put your faith into action. “Religion,” he wrote, 
“religion that’s true to the Gospel is that which compels you to take 
care of everyone, regardless of who they are; compels you to be moved by 
anyone who can’t pay their bills, or find a health care provider to 
accept the Oregon Health Plan, whose benefits have run out – for 
WHATEVER reason any of these may have happened. It’s not about whether 
or not the individual or family made some bad decisions. It’s about 
meeting the immediate need at the same time as trying to set up a 
pattern of behaviour or some sort of a plan to try to prevent the 
situation worsening or being repeated. Again, it’s not an either/or. 
It’s a both/and life that we’re called to live. But the first call to us 
as Christians is to meet the immediate, personal need.

Another cleric said, “If we conduct church business in a particular way 
because it (was) how they did it back in 1995, it’s worthless.

“If we maintain our buildings for the sake of maintaining our buildings, 
then it’s worthless.

“And it’s not that traditions are bad or religious structures like 
church buildings are evil. But, rather, James exhorts us, that if we do 
not consider why it is that we do certain things and have certain things 
then, we really shouldn’t call this faith. We should call it religion 
for all we are doing is maintaining the framework of what has led us to 
God in the past but is not necessarily what is going to lead us to God 
in the future.” 2

Does this get us in trouble? You bet! SHOULD it get us in trouble? We 
should be famous throughout Albany and Linn County for being those 
crazy, responsive Episcopalians who take Jesus’ Gospel seriously. We 
should be in trouble every day, every where.

There was an editorial in the Democrat-Herald this past week. 3 It was 
about bus shelters. Well, it wasn’t really. It was about people and 
about how bus shelters should be places where everyone may sit down to 
catch her or his breath. They should be places where some shade from the 
forecast ninety degree sun may be offered to those who don[‘t have air 
conditioned cars or homes, or from the rain that’s bound to come, sooner 
or later.

THIS could be straight out of the letter of James. THIS is about making 
the Gospel leap off the page and develop arms and legs, hearts and 
minds, hands, and eyes, and ears.

There was a somewhat blunt expression stuck on car bumpers about thirty 
or more years ago. It may have offended some, but then the writers 
quoted in the Bible weren’t always acceptable either at most of the 
parties in town. The bumper stickers read: “Don’t Californicate Oregon.” 
Yes, it’s a huge generalization. Yes, it wraps every Californian in the 
same blanket. But it points out that we can take every single one of the 
vices Jesus listed and exercise them in multiple ways, ALL of which are 
offensive to Jesus.

You know, we should really have such a terrible reputation in Albany 
that the City Council, and the Planning Commission, maybe even the 
Animal Welfares Officers should want to shut us down, because we attract 
strays of every imaginable stripe, and we encourage them to come in and 
spend time here so that they can teach us to be more effective outside.

THAT’S how we should be religious. THAT’S how we should be filled and 
running over with faith. THAT’S how ecstatic we should be because God 
sends us such direct, energising love letters.

There was a very sad story in a newspaper some years ago. It was about a 
congregation who shut down the food share programme in their building. 
Why? Because, the Board said, it was attracting the poor. 4

Good grief! Let’s practice lavish, off-the-wall, twenty-four-hour-a-day 
hospitality. And just maybe that will help some folk around here to “get 
religion”!

NOTES:

1 “Spiritual but not Religious?” January 17, 2012 Fr. Dwight Longenecker 
http://www.patheos.com/blogs/standingonmyhead/2012/01/spiritual-but-not-religious.html

2 “I’m Spiritual but Not Religious: James 1:17-27” 
http://preacherontheplaza.wordpress.com/2012/08/19/im-spiritual-but-not-religious/

3 “The squatters at bus shelters”: Editorial by Hasso Hering, Albany 
Democrat-Herald, Tuesday August 28th, 2012. 
http://democratherald.com/news/opinion/editorial/editorial-the-squatters-at-bus-shelters/article_d89ea8e4-f08b-11e1-86c8-0019bb2963f4.html

4 “Church closes food bank because it attracts poor people” CBC News, 
Monday, February 21, 2000 
http://www.cbc.ca/news/story/2000/02/21/church.html


Robert P Morrison
Interim Vicar
The Episcopal Church of St Alban
PO Box 1556
Albany OR  97321   541-921-1076 (cell)