In case you haven't seen it yet, today's New York Times Arts and Leisure section contains an article with the title "Cameras Roll, and Faith Hasn't a Prayer." It's about a new movie, "Religulous," and features Bill Mahre of HBO. The Times article says of the movie that it is "a sometimes funny, sometimes cheap attack on organized religion." On the basis of what I read, I would say Mr. Mahre and Larry Charles, the film's director, have gone after easy targets. They interviewed members of the Truckers Chapel in North Carolina, the man who plays Jesus at the Holy Land Experience theme park in Florida, and an Islamic rapper named Popa-Gandhi. There is no mention of pastors or members of churches like this one. In the Times article Bill Mahre is quoted as saying, "to be religious at all is to be an extremist, is to be irrational." That seems to be his justification for interviewing the people I mentioned rather than mainstream pastors or members.
I'm sure the people behind the movie hope for protests from church, synagogue, and mosque groups, for demonstrations that will draw television cameras and provide lots of free publicity. Personally I haven't decided whether to spend the money to see the movie, which opens on Friday in New York, but I have no interest at all in protesting it. Two thousand years ago Jesus of Nazareth did a pretty good job of protesting organized religion, and I firmly believe a lot of organized religion should be protested. I'm just not sure Bill Mahre is the best person to do it.
I remind you and myself that I see my preaching responsibility as connecting Biblical faith with the realities of contemporary life. I further remind you that I offer you the results of my work with the Biblical texts and the relevance or irrelevance of those texts to modern life. You then can consider what I say, think about it, and decide what to keep and what to throw away. For me the realm of faith involves both thinking, which Bill Mahre labels rationality, and feeling, which he seems to label irrationality—not a term I accept. If I were to use a term for the relationship of feeling to reason, I would prefer non-rational instead of irrational, because non-rational implies outside of or beyond reason, while irrational implies against or contrary to reason.
Against that background I want to say two things that come under the broad umbrella of "At the Front of the Line," the title of this morning's sermon. The reading from Philippians contained the well-known "hymn to humility" as it is sometimes called. Scholars generally agree that the Apostle Paul used a poem or hymn that was in use at his time and wove it into his letter to the Church in the Macedonian city of Philippi. It is a beautiful poem, expressing the idea that Jesus humbled himself in dying before God exalted him in raising him to life.
Paul says to his readers, "Let each of you look not to your own interests, but to the interests of others." In 2008 I would change it slightly to read, "Let each of you look to the interests of others as well as to your own interests." Similarly I would change "...in humility regard others as better than yourselves," to say, "...in humility regard others as worthwhile as yourselves."
Taking Paul's teaching in these verses literally has led to what I call a doormat understanding of Christian humility. Too many Christians, I among them, have grown up hearing that they should always put other people ahead of themselves, that they should in effect maintain a low opinion of themselves. For many of us, it took a lot of money in therapy to work through important issues of self-worth, self-care, and the setting of healthy boundaries while helping other people. I learned when to be courteous and let someone precede me in line and when not to do that.
In nineteen eighty-seven Nancy and I skied for a week at Chamonix in the French Alps. Until then I had skied mostly in New England and Colorado, where the crowds are polite for the most part. In Chamonix we took a large cable car from the town up to the ski trails on the slopes. We got in line for one of the chair lifts, and to my amazement people skied over my skies to get ahead of me in the line for the chair. In the line itself a few people tried to get ahead of other skiers by using elbows and hips like hockey players. I quickly deduced that the aggressive skiers were a lot younger than I and that I might end up lying on my back if I tried to match their force with my force.
Three or four young men from the same European ski club were the worst offenders. They were wearing identical ski hats. When I got to the place where we got onto the chair lift, I told the attendant what I had experienced and I described the elbowers and what they were wearing. Some people behind us heard what I was saying and added their similar stories. I later learned that the ski lift operator had taken the offenders out of line and made them wait three or four minutes while other skiers got onto the char lift ahead of them. I'm not sure they learned anything about courtesy, but I know I learned a lot about speaking up for myself and not being a doormat in the name of humility.
I read Paul's words about humility as meaning "Don't have an exaggerated or inflated opinion of your own importance, and don't see yourself as inferior to others. Show consideration on the basis of strength rather than from weakness, but be intentional about showing consideration to others. Know when you deserve to be toward the front of the line and when you may want to let others be there."
The verses I read from Matthew's Gospel say something about places in line also. In those verses, Jesus is in Jerusalem for the Passover. He is in the Temple, where the chief priests and elders of the people confront him. They try to trick him into saying something that will give them reason to ask for his death by execution. They hate him; they despise his teaching. But they know he is popular with the people, and so they plot their course carefully.
They question him about his authority. If their question had been an honest one, it would have been appropriate. It is still appropriate. Is Jesus just another wise teacher, or does he have wisdom and understanding that come from the heart of reality—from what people of faith call God?
What I want to say this morning in this abbreviated format is that Jesus knew the history of Israel, the history of his people. He knew that even the Law of Moses, which became so important to an understanding of God's purposes, was given in a context of grace. The prophets tried over years and centuries to keep the law within a context of justice and mercy. In time a religious establishment grew up, whose mission was to know the law, enforce it, and point out other people's failures to obey the law.
Against that background Jesus came and said that the essence of godliness is not about keeping the law, but rather is about loving God and loving neighbor as self. The religious establishment, or what Bill Mahre and others call "organized religion," didn't like Jesus' simplification of godliness. They tried to shut him up, but people responded to his life of love and his message about love.
That's why when the religious leaders tried to trick him and failed, Jesus told them that prostitutes and tax collectors are ahead of them in the line to enter God's kingdom. Can you imagine their fury?
Apart from the dramatic impact of Jesus' startling words, I keep thinking about them and what they mean for Christians in 2008. Why did Jesus say that people often shamed for the way they earn their living will enter the Kingdom of God before people who consider themselves to be the epitome of respectability?
For me at the heart of Jesus' statement is the truth that while we need to have a healthy sense of our worth as persons, we can avoid the trap of self-righteousness that sometimes goes along with high moral standards and a commitment to spiritual realities. Many people I talk with inside the church and outside the church tell stories of being shamed and humiliated by someone or "someones" from the religious establishment. I'm sure you have your stories. I know I have mine. Sometimes the shamers and humilators were well-meaning, doing what they thought was right according to the light they had at the time.
But they were wrong—oh so wrong! You and I have the privilege of getting out the good news about God's love; about fullness of life; about the responsible enjoyment of our bodies, our minds, our spirits. That's why I want this church to be as focused on outreach as we have been on benevolences and social justice. I want us to hear more moments for mission like we heard from Stacey Kim, who told us how her life has been enriched by one of the programs we operate here in the name of God's love.
The ministry and mission of this church can be the clearest refutation of what Bill Mahre and Larry Charles are trying to say about faith communities and about religion. We don't need to picket the theaters where their movie is showing. We don't even have to send them emails or letters, although that might be constructive. We just need to keep doing what we're doing, proclaiming a gospel of inclusive, affirming love, welcoming anyone who walks through our doors, and getting out the word about who we are and what we do.
I can get excited about that. Can you?