You can listen to this reflection here. Sunday's gospel reading is here.
As we have dug down into Jesus’ parable about the two men praying in the temple, I have not been very tolerant of the self-righteous Pharisee. Neither was Jesus. But let’s give him a little regard. He was motivated to please God in the way he knew best – by following the rules and upholding the whole system that made the rules important. Perhaps the rules, the Law, had become his object of worship, obscuring the offer of relationship God gave along with the Law – “You shall be my people, and I will be your God.”
We might say that the Pharisee represents Religion – capitalization intended, as befits an abstraction. And the tax-collector represents faith. Religion can be a wonderful vehicle for faith – but we should never mistake it for the God it purports to worship. Uncompromising allegiance to words of Scripture or church tradition can blind us to the movement of our Living God. These are God-given gifts – but when we focus on the gifts rather than the Giver, we miss the next new thing God is doing. And our God is always doing a new thing.
I don’t think human beings can get away from religion, hard as we might try to just be “spiritual.” It is human nature to create structures that allow us to feel good, and to repeat a profound experience, and to stay in community with others who have shared that profound experience. Before you know it, we’re gathering at the same time every week, using the same words or songs or rituals that “worked” last week to mediate an encounter with God. If they don’t work as well this week – maybe we double down and get even more rigid.
Meanwhile, God is saying, “Over here, guys – I’m here now.” God is rarely in the last place we saw Him. She’s almost always on the move, doing a new thing, singing a new song, revealing a new facet of her identity.
Today, in prayer, let’s do another set of lists. Name one list “Religion” and the other “Relationship.” What activities of yours would you classify “religion?” Which ones are life-giving? Which ones are stale, or like trying to wear someone else’s clothes, that no longer fit, or feed your faith.
Now, what activities would you name as “relationship building,” that enhance your relationship with God? How would you characterize your relationship with God, on a spectrum from distant to intimate? Is there anything on the first list that gets in the way of the second?
The other day the great REM song, Losing My Religion, ran through my head. Doesn’t have much to do with religion*, but it’s catchy as all get out, and a great theme song for us as we seek to unfetter ourselves from all that is human-made about our interaction with God, and open ourselves to the new winds of the Spirit.
The greatest gift we can give ourselves, and each other, is to lose our “religion” and open our arms wide to the relationship with God that Christ made possible for us through the Holy Spirit. All religion will pass away – but that relationship is ours for eternity.
*According to Wikipedia, band members said "losing my religion" is a southern US expression for losing one's temper or composure.
© Kate Heichler, 2025. To receive Water Daily by email each morning, subscribe here. Here are the bible readings for next Sunday. Water Daily is also a podcast – subscribe to it here on Apple, Spotify or your favorite podcast platform.
Showing posts with label relationship with God. Show all posts
Showing posts with label relationship with God. Show all posts
8-14-23 - Inside Out
You can listen to this reflection here.
This coming Sunday’s gospel reading has two sections. Most of this week’s Water Daily will focus on the second. But today let’s look at the first part (printed at right). It appears to be a technical discussion of religious law, but in it we see Jesus radically reinterpret the religious understanding of his people, and dismiss the leadership of the teachers and leaders. No wonder they wanted him gone.
It begins with a seemingly harmless statement: Then he called the crowd to him and said to them, “Listen and understand: it is not what goes into the mouth that defiles a person, but it is what comes out of the mouth that defiles.” What’s the trouble with that?
Well, his disciples tell him, religious authorities took offense at that, presumably because it undermined rules about food and ritual cleansing. Jesus responds by further insulting them: He answered, “Every plant that my heavenly Father has not planted will be uprooted. Let them alone; they are blind guides of the blind. And if one blind person guides another, both will fall into a pit.”
Now he’s in deep – not only are these leaders not authorized by God, he says, they are the blind leading the blind. When the disciples ask for further clarification, Jesus explains that the impurity that should concern us is not whether our food is kosher or our hands ritually clean. Rather it is the negative and destructive thoughts, words and actions that come from inside our hearts that defile us. He is not dispensing with the Law of Moses, but he is reinterpreting it and, if you will, spiritualizing it.
This is key to his message of Good News, that the realm of God is not about rules and rituals, but is an invitation to dwell in the reality of God, in relationship with our heavenly Father. The human heart is a complicated place – capable of great love and generosity and grace, and also the source of such pain and petty, mean-spirited behavior toward ourselves and others. It’s our hearts that matter in the long run, more than bodies or behavior – and if we align our hearts with God, our behavior and bodies will reflect that alignment at our core. The movement is inside out, not outside in.
What does this ancient debate have to do with us? Perhaps it’s not so ancient, as our ongoing “morality wars” remind us. It is human nature to privilege rules and rituals that make us feel ordered, when what God asks is a reformed heart and a renewed spirit.
This passage tells me to look at my own heart to discern my motivations before I adopt “behavior modification” techniques to help me better regulate my life. It invites me to connect with God early in the day so that what I do flows out of that renewed relationship. It reminds me to notice when I seek external “fixes” instead of internal renewal.
This teaching also reminds us as a society to treat the whole person with honor and dignity, even if he or she is a “problem,” rather than treating symptoms and trying to impose regulation from without. Then each one can function out of their wholeness and we get a more whole community.
It’s not what we eat that’ll hurt us – it’s the distaste we harbor for our neighbor and the disrespect with which we sometimes treat ourselves. And Jesus can help us with that.
This coming Sunday’s gospel reading has two sections. Most of this week’s Water Daily will focus on the second. But today let’s look at the first part (printed at right). It appears to be a technical discussion of religious law, but in it we see Jesus radically reinterpret the religious understanding of his people, and dismiss the leadership of the teachers and leaders. No wonder they wanted him gone.
It begins with a seemingly harmless statement: Then he called the crowd to him and said to them, “Listen and understand: it is not what goes into the mouth that defiles a person, but it is what comes out of the mouth that defiles.” What’s the trouble with that?
Well, his disciples tell him, religious authorities took offense at that, presumably because it undermined rules about food and ritual cleansing. Jesus responds by further insulting them: He answered, “Every plant that my heavenly Father has not planted will be uprooted. Let them alone; they are blind guides of the blind. And if one blind person guides another, both will fall into a pit.”
Now he’s in deep – not only are these leaders not authorized by God, he says, they are the blind leading the blind. When the disciples ask for further clarification, Jesus explains that the impurity that should concern us is not whether our food is kosher or our hands ritually clean. Rather it is the negative and destructive thoughts, words and actions that come from inside our hearts that defile us. He is not dispensing with the Law of Moses, but he is reinterpreting it and, if you will, spiritualizing it.
This is key to his message of Good News, that the realm of God is not about rules and rituals, but is an invitation to dwell in the reality of God, in relationship with our heavenly Father. The human heart is a complicated place – capable of great love and generosity and grace, and also the source of such pain and petty, mean-spirited behavior toward ourselves and others. It’s our hearts that matter in the long run, more than bodies or behavior – and if we align our hearts with God, our behavior and bodies will reflect that alignment at our core. The movement is inside out, not outside in.
What does this ancient debate have to do with us? Perhaps it’s not so ancient, as our ongoing “morality wars” remind us. It is human nature to privilege rules and rituals that make us feel ordered, when what God asks is a reformed heart and a renewed spirit.
This passage tells me to look at my own heart to discern my motivations before I adopt “behavior modification” techniques to help me better regulate my life. It invites me to connect with God early in the day so that what I do flows out of that renewed relationship. It reminds me to notice when I seek external “fixes” instead of internal renewal.
This teaching also reminds us as a society to treat the whole person with honor and dignity, even if he or she is a “problem,” rather than treating symptoms and trying to impose regulation from without. Then each one can function out of their wholeness and we get a more whole community.
It’s not what we eat that’ll hurt us – it’s the distaste we harbor for our neighbor and the disrespect with which we sometimes treat ourselves. And Jesus can help us with that.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)