This
command that I give you today is not mysterious
and
remote. You do not have to search the heavens or
cross the
sea looking for it. No, it is very near to you.
It is in your
mouth and in your heart. You only need
to carry it out.
Deuteronomy 30
Some of us, who bother with
religion these days, often feel like the great prophet, Jeremiah. Jeremiah
tried his best to be faithful, tried to do what God had called him to do, but
he ended up so frustrated with all this “God-stuff” that he screams at God in
frustration, “You suckered me into this stupid mess and I fell for it!” If he
had been a country music writer, he would have surely written the famous Johnny
Paycheck song that goes, “Take This job and Shove It. I Ain’t Workin’ Here No More!”
Like many other saints, before and after him, Jeremiah was close enough to God
to get up in his face and vent his frustration. St. Theresa of Avila, patron
saint of liberated women, is said to have let God have it in her convent chapel
one day after returning from a disastrous trip! She screamed at the tabernacle,
“Listen, God, if this is the way you treat your friends, no wonder you don’t
have many!”
She was feisty, and her trials were many, so I believe she probably did that
pretty often, but she still ended up being a beloved saint!
Over the years, many believers
have worked through their frustrations with religion and remained faithful, in
spite of their deep disappointment. Many have gone on to become great reformers
in the church. Others have been God’s “fair weather friends,” dropping out and
moving on when the going got tough. Sadly, many, among us, don’t even give God the time of
day!
Jesus, himself, was known
for his frustration with the organized religion of his day. The ancient Jewish
religion, that he knew and loved, had become so tedious, so complicated, so twisted
and so burdensome that he actually went on a rampage outside the temple in
Jerusalem, whip in hand, kicking over the tables of the money-changers and screaming
in frustration.
In another place, looking at
how worn-down the average God-loving person of his day was, Jesus cried out,
“Come to me, all you who are weary and find life burdensome and I will refresh
you. For my yoke is easy and my burden light.” The “yoke and burden” he was
talking about was the “yoke and burden” of an overly complicated religion that
was crushing the people that it was supposed to lift up. “The ease and
lightness” that Jesus offered, in contrast, was the “ease and lightness” of a
heart given completely to God and the simple service offered to one’s
neighbor. Just
what had happened to the religion that Jesus knew and loved? Where did it take
such a wrong turn? Let’s see if I can
explain it a little!
Let’s start with the fact
that the Ten Commandments were the heart of the Jewish faith. Jesus’s spiritual
ancestors, the Jewish people of old, had struggled to live by them for
centuries. However, over time, living them in community had led to an immensely
complicated set of rule books, guidelines and ethical codes. When Jesus
was asked which of all those rules and regulations was the most important, he
cut through all those layers of complication and said, “love your God and your
neighbor as yourself with your whole heart! If you do that, you will fulfill
the whole law.” In other words, if you live those basics, you don’t need so many
detailed laws.
Sadly, the Scribes and Pharisees
are back in our lifetime! Today’s self-styled “reformers” are not calling us to
heart-felt conversion and they are not calling us back to the basics, they are
simply pulling out old religious costumes and furniture out of the closet. dusting
off the old rule books and straining gnats while swallowing camels! They don’t
even seem to know what the real basics are!
Jesus was right! Pope
Francis was right! What the Church needs right now is not more gnat-straining legalism!
We need inspiration and that inspiration will only come from a church focused
on living the essentials of our faith. I cannot stress the need
for living the essentials enough. Personally, I am more interested in
inspiring people to live the ten commandments than defending a marble
replica of two stone tablets on a courthouse lawn by people who do not always themselves live them! The problem is not that we have too few copies of the Ten
Commandments around. The problem is that building shrines to the Ten
Commandments will never substitute for living them. If we as a church were
living them, they would be enshrined in us – “in our hearts” as the first
reading today puts it!
In our first reading today, God
tells Moses, the People of God and us, “My commands are written on your
hearts. All you have to do is carry them out.” We keep forgetting that - over
and over and over again!
There is an old story, a
favorite of mine, one I have told many times. It is similar to the Adam and Eve
story about losing the Garden of Eden. In my story, the first man and woman
lose the secret of happiness. As punishment, three angels meet to decide what
to do with the secret of happiness so that human beings would never find it
again. One angel suggested that they hide it among the stars. The idea was
rejected out of fear that someday humans would go to the stars and find it. A
second angel suggested that they hide it deep in the earth. That idea was
rejected, as well, out of fear that someday human would dig down and find it.
The third angel suggested that they hide the secret to happiness deep within
human beings themselves. The idea was agreed on because the angels knew that
human beings would never think to look there! And so, even to this day, the
secret to human happiness remains undiscovered within human beings
themselves.
Jesus did not come to
destroy organized religion, but to reform it, one heart at a time. The “church,”
no matter how defective it is sometimes, can never become an enemy for
Christians because it is the Body of Christ in the world. Christianity will
always be messy because it is a communal religion. Those who choose the “just
me and Jesus” brand of religion do not actually know Jesus all that well. Jesus
told the assembled church when he left this world, “I will be with you always
and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it!” The church is one, holy,
catholic and apostolic, and yes, because it is made up of human beings, it is “always
in need of reform.” The reform of people is always about calling them back
to religious basics. The reform of church structures begins with the hearts of
people changing first! – not the other way around! Changed people, change things! Changed people,
change things! Changed people, change things!
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