The Rev. Frank Logue
King of Peace Episcopal Church
Kingsland, Georgia
September 7, 2003

The Good Kind of Religion
James 1:17-27 

Religion. That one word, all by itself, brings up hosts of associations—some good, some bad. That range of associations is probably fair though in that some religion and religious practice is good while other religion and religious practice is bad. How do we know good religion when we see it? 

For some folks, there is no such thing as good religion; they want nothing to do with religion of any kind. Others are opposed only to organized religion. For the record, I am not particularly fond of organized religion myself. Organized religion can come between a person and God if they don’t watch out. I made my peace with organized religion by realizing that organized religion beats disorganized religion in a lot of ways as long as we take our relationship with God more seriously than our relationship with religion.

According to pollster George Gallup Jr, religious faith is broad but not deep, with many Americans holding strong beliefs but see little impact that religious faith has on individual lives and society. An opinion poll project conducted by Gallup and the University of Pennsylvania recently highlighted the significant gap between belief and action. The poll found, for example, that 76 percent of Christians agreed completely with the notion that all people, regardless of race, creed or wealth, are loved by God and therefore they should love all. But just 44 percent said the notion that “God calls me to be involved in the lives of the poor and suffering” applies completely to them.[1] As a concept, love for all people is wonderful, but there is no real action tied to that bit of head knowledge.

I think that this lack of religion making an impact in the lives of the faithful is what folks on the outside of faith looking in find so problematic. The contemporary Christian music group DC Talk has a sound clip from a sermon on one of their CDs, which really stands out to me. The preacher says, “The greatest single cause of Atheism in the world today is Christians who acknowledge Jesus with their lips, but deny him by their lifestyle. That is what an unbelieving world simply finds unbelievable.”[2]

Society in general looks to the lives of Christians and sees little or nothing to recommend the Christian faith. We Christians are about as likely to cut folks off in traffic or talk bad about someone behind their backs as any one else. This may be why a lot of spiritual seekers are sure that Christian churches do not have the answers to their spiritual quest. Christianity can come across as religion in the bad sense of that word without any uplifting sense of spirituality and connection to the divine.

What I want to do is look through the eyes of a First Century Christian and forget about what is to see what can be. The Book of James offers a hard look at religion and James is not so sure he likes what he sees. James is clear that some religion is worthless. Interesting, isn’t it, to find the adjective worthless applied to some religion in the Bible.

The Bible doesn’t prefer the word religion anyway. The word religion is used in two passages in the Old Testament and two passages in the New Testament, both times in ambivalent terms. As far as the Bible is concerned, religion is a take or leave it kind of thing.

A look at the word religion shows something of why that is so. The word “religion” today means a set of beliefs and practices. The word comes from the Latin religare, meaning to tie or bind. Our religion and religious practice bind us to God and to others who worship God as we do.

In New Testament Greek, the word is Thraskeia. Thraskeia is derived from the island of Thrace, which had a reputation for religious fanaticism and superstition.[3] In the Greek, the word carries more of the connotations of our word “religiosity,” which “is an excessive devotion to religion.”

From a biblical standpoint, relationship with God is the main thing. Religion itself can easily go to far. Religious practice can be more concerned with devotion to the practices of faith than to the faith itself. This can be seen in Jesus’ ongoing controversies with the Pharisees, whom Jesus in his calm casual way once chided saying, “You blind guides! You strain a gnat but swallow a camel!” (Matthew 23:24) Jesus said they were so concerned about getting religion right that they missed the larger concerns of justice, mercy, and faith (Matthew 23:23).

In our second reading this morning, the Book of James tells us to be doers of the word, rather than merely hearers. James has a word for outward show while inwardly deluding yourself about what you really believe: that word is religion, but for James this religion is mataios religion, meaning vain, empty, useless, dead religion. If you give lip service to belief without backing it up, you are just wasting your breath.

Now let’s pause here for a moment. I think we’ve got the gist of the thing now. James says we are to be doers of the word, instead of being merely hearers of the word. We can get the point that unbelievers look to Christians and see people whose actions are not in synch with the beliefs they profess. There are a few wrong turns I want to avoid.

First, the main reason why people in church behave about like people who don’t attend church is that we Christians are imperfect, fallible people like everyone else. We get it wrong all the time. We know how we should act and then don’t follow through on it all the time, even though we mean well. We are on a journey and along the way we make mistakes. Yet, I am convinced that all Christians could be wrong and Jesus could still be right.

A second possible wrong turn comes if we think of everyone in church as having his or her act together. We have to admit that many folks in church are really on the fringes trying to decide what they believe, if anything. That is perfect, church isn’t the private enclave of saints anyway. Church is a gathering of sinners trying to sort out what we believe and how it intersects with our daily lives. We gather to be in God’s presence together, retelling the stories of our faith, and praying that God will help us to make sense out of our lives. Christians and non-Christians alike sit side by side in church wondering how what we hear has anything to do with our lives. Fortunately, we do this in God’s presence, praying that God will meet us in our worship.

Finally, any time you start to talk about how you have to act on your faith for that faith to be real, it can start to sound like earning God’s love. The Bible is very clear on this point, you can’t earn God’s love, but that’s just fine because God loves you even when you don’t deserve it. God loves you right now, wherever you are, as you are. God wants what is best for you and that includes living out your faith. But you don’t put faith into action to impress God. You put faith into action, because that is the natural response to letting your faith seek deep into your bones.

Now, let’s look at the good kind of religion. James addresses the believers, not those on the fringe to tell of religion, which is pure and free from contamination in God’s eyes. True religion, James writes, is to care for widows and orphans in their distress and to keep yourself unstained by the world. This is a two-part declaration about the good kind of religion.

First, true religion expresses itself in actions on behalf of the needy. In First Century Palestine widows and orphans were two groups with little or no standing in the community. There was no one to take care of them or speak on their behalf. In comparison to religious observances, which do not help others, the pure kind of religious observance is more practical. It puts love your neighbor into action.

Second, James tells us to remain unstained by the world. The image is a strong one if you imagine stain going onto a piece of wood. Unlike paint, which stays on the surface, stain permeates the wood, sinking into its pores. In the Book of James, kosmos, or world, is the opposite of theos or God. The things of the world compete with our time, energy and money for the things of God. James knows you have to be in the world, he just wants to make sure that you don’t let the world seep into your pours and stain you.

James challenges us to consider what we really believe. There is no point in trying to hide behind religion or religiosity. Looking pious and devoted won’t fool James. There’s a saying, “Your actions are speaking so loudly, I can’t understand a word you’re saying.” The question the Book of James asks this morning is, “What do your actions say about you?” If you consider yourself a person who believes God’s word, then do you also do that word, or are you a hearer only.

Yesterday, I saw a glimpse of true religion. A few dozen people gathered on a Kingsland back street to put their belief into action with Habitat for Humanity. At 8 a.m., there was an empty concrete slab fronted by stacks of building materials. By noon, the walls were up for a new home for a mother and her three children. The workers included teachers, policemen, servicemen and women, retirees, the mayor and even a preacher or two. We were quite a mix of age, gender, race, socio-economic background and those other dividers of people.

For a few hours, working with a common purpose transcended those unimportant distinctions as construction workers gave orders to people accustomed to the role of boss.  I’m sure there were many individual reasons, some self-serving, that brought people out in the threat of rain yesterday. But the reason Habitat builds houses is to put Christian beliefs into action, to make love real. And in that diverse group working with a common desire to build a decent affordable home for a neighbor in need, I could get a glimpse of the Kingdom of God. It was a practice of true religion rather than religiosity and a chance to work loose some of the stain of the world.

I suspect that if we opened our eyes to see other people as God sees them and to hear the still small voice of God speaking in our hearts, we would find that each day presents opportunities to put our faith into action. That’s the good kind of religion.

Amen.