True Religion

Over the last three weeks I have attended a funeral, a wedding dinner, a preaching service (to hear my nephew preach), and a MLK march in Brunswick, GA. Then, Friday night I attended a concert of the American Spiritual Ensemble at the University of Florida. I have heard them sing many times and count as personal friends many of the artists. One, in fact, is coming to Greenville to adjudicate a music event at Furman University, and I have invited him here to sing on March 10.

In their concert, they included a song titled, “You Must Have That True Religion.” It featured the great soprano Angela Brown of Indianapolis. Listening to her sing this old slave song inspired me.

That is what I wish to speak about today: true religion, as described and commanded in the holy Bible. There is too much religion in the world that is not true religion; there is too much Christian religion that is not true religion. For centuries, prophets, preachers, and reformers have urged religious people to examine themselves to determine whether they have true religion. This is one of the great themes of the life and teaching of Jesus. He called his people to true religion; he calls us to true religion.

Here is the heart of true religion, and I read from the first letter of John, in the New Testament. “Dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God.  Anyone who loves is a child of God and knows God. But anyone who does not love does not know God, for God is love. God showed how much he loved us by sending his one and only son into the world so that we might have eternal life through him.  This is real love—not that we loved God, but that God loved us and sent his son as a sacrifice to take away our sins…. No one has ever seen God. But if we love each other, God lives in us, and God's love is brought to full expression in us.”

I.

Religion takes many other forms: sanctuaries and institutions, doctrines and decrees, councils and committees, art and organization, even pastors, preachers, and professors. This service of worship today is one form that religion takes. But none of these things constitute the core of true religion. They are the outward shell of an inward reality. True religion is none of these things. Yes, true religion can express itself truly and faithfully in some of these outward forms. But do not ever mistake a confession of faith or a doctrinal creed with true religion; do not confuse the institution called the church with true religion; do not make the mistake of thinking these outward forms of spirituality are the real thing.

Except, of course, that hymn we sang this morning, the one that I wrote. That is the real thing, right?  No, it might express what we think and feel and embrace, but it is not the real thing; it might cultivate in us a love for God and a love for each other, but that song itself is not the real thing. I can write that song without having true religion in my soul; you can sing that song without having true religion in your life.

One of the common ways in which true religion gets distorted is when it takes the form of violence and revenge. We get angry with people and assume that God is angry; we get righteously indignant and presume that God shares our disgust with some person, some thought, some deed.  Too often, religion becomes the pretext for violence. When the Hebrew people sacked the city of Jericho, when Saul chased David, when Saul of Tarsus set out for Damascus to punish the Jews who had fallen in with Jesus: these are biblical examples of religion being used to condemn and kill.

The rise of the idea of hell is nothing more than a religious mind finding a way to punish people in the name of religion. The last book of the Bible—The Revelation of Jesus Christ to John—is interpreted by many as a prediction of God’s vicious revenge upon all ungodly people and nations. One of the reasons it has become such a popular book in some Christian circles is precisely this: that it is seen to justify this spirit of revenge and violence, death and destruction. All in the name of God.

This is a perversion of true religion.

II.

We turn to Jesus to help us understand true religion. This is what we mean when we say, we interpret the Bible through the life of Jesus. There are many things in the Bible, done by religious people, that are inconsistent with the life and attitude of Jesus. “You have heard it said,” he declared, “but I say unto you….”  By which he meant, there are others who will tell you that true religion is shunning this person, condemning that person, engaging in this behavior, avoiding that behavior, but I tell you that true religion is loving God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength, and loving your neighbor as yourself.

Jesus was quoting his own Hebrew Bible. It illustrates again how a true and faithful tradition can be corrupted into false and selfish religion. When he described his contemporaries as “this wicked generation” he was talking about his own religion peers, people who had been through bar mitzvah and bat mitzvah, people who memorized commandments and tithed to the temple. They knew these two verses quoted by Jesus, both from the Torah, one from Deuteronomy and one from Leviticus. But they had allowed other things to get in the way: things like racial prejudice and social status; things like rabbinic traditions and institutional values; things like feelings of superiority and distain for those who did not share their social values. Maybe even people who voted for the other party or attended the other church or, God forbid, adhered to another religious tradition.

God is love. God loves all people. Many centuries ago, the psalmist understood true religion. He or she put it like this, in what we now call Psalm 145: “The Lord is merciful and compassionate. The Lord is slow to get angry and filled with unfailing love. The Lord is good to everyone. The Lord showers compassion an all creation…The Lord helps the fallen and lifts those bent beneath their loads. The eyes of all look to God in hope; God gives them food as they need it. The Lord is righteous in everything. The Lord is filled with kindness.”

III.

God loves all of us, in this very room, and around the world. “God love the world so much … “ the gospel of John reminds us. Not just us, not just Christians, not just Americans. God loves the mother in Ecuador fleeing violence for a promised land. God loves the children of Gaza hiding from the bombs of war. God loves the poor of London begging on the street. God loves the addicts under the bridge in Texas. God loves the diplomats who gather at the United Nations. God loves the soccer players on the dirt playgrounds of Africa. God loves the Japanese who have never heard the name of Jesus. God loves the natives of South Sea Islands. God loves the Hindu scholars of India and the rabbis of Orthodox Judaism in Mea Sharim. God loves the religious and the secular, the gay and the straight, the young and the old, the saint and the sinner, the Democrat and the Republican. God loves those who vote for Biden and those who vote for Trump. God sent Jesus to live and serve and die for all of us. God loves the whole human race.

God is broken hearted by the violence and death and destruction in the world. God shakes his head when he hears, as we do also, leaders invoke God to justify killing and war and condemnation and judgment. Leaders use religious language and religious doctrine and religious history to justify their killing. Islamic warriors cry “God is Great” as they lob a grenade into a building. But Jewish warriors and Christian warriors have done the same. Wickedness often comes dressed as religion.

God is love everywhere. God cares about all people, every person. Jesus is as interested in the business women of South Africa as God is interested in you. When we pray for them, we join in the work of God. We take up the passion of God, the love of God, and make it happen in the world.

Next week, I will take up the rule, "Love your neighbor as yourself." That is the most expansive command in all the Bible. You remember, the response to Jesus was this question, “Who is my neighbor?” That is next week, but this week we know that no person can answer that question and obey that command that is not first, filled with the love of God, and second, loving God with heart, head, and hands.

Loving God is a passion, a feeling, an affection, a deep and settled disposition of the soul. Loving God is an affection, Jonathan Edwards famously said three plus centuries ago from his pulpit in western Massachusetts. “Guard the heart,” Jesus said, “for out of it is the course of life.” He was quoting Proverbs 4:23, and we all know it is true. What we love shapes what we do. Find a person’s affections and you will discover their values.

We want to love God with heart, with mind, with soul, and with strength. So that we might love each other after the manner of Christ.