“My father, my father, the
chariot of Israel and its horsemen.”
Of all the far out spiritual
experiences in the Bible,
Elisha’s vision at the Jordan River easily makes the top
five.
Who wouldn’t want a rush like
that?
But I’m not sure this event was
really so great.
Our story may in fact be a
splash of cold water
in the face of what we think religion is even for.
A great theologian named Paul
Tillich
used to
talk about “the sin of religion.”
Today’s lesson is about the sin
of spirituality.
When I call it a “sin” I don’t
mean it’s dark or evil.
The word “sin” in the Bible is
an archery term.
It literally means “to miss the
mark”
-- and
that’s what we’re doing.
We have gotten our religion off
course.
We are missing the mark.
Here’s what I mean:
Most of us want spiritual
experiences.
We assume religion is the way
to do that.
We just differ as to what kind
of experience we want to have.
Evangelicals want to feel
remorseful for their sins,
then enormously relieved to be forgiven.
Pentecostals prefer a delirious
ecstasy.
Contemplatives meditate
themselves into a zone of serenity and peace.
Our own renewal movement likes
to work up a sentimental affection.
Maybe we get a little
experience, but it fades.
Then life is pretty much like
it was before.
So we go back to get ourselves some
more spirituality,
but this time it doesn’t feel quite the same.
We keep trying to have the same
experience but can’t quite get there.
We make a religion of trying to
repeat old spiritual rushes.
A church is as good as its
ability
to help us get into whatever zone we like best.
Well we aren’t gonna outdo
Elisha.
He saw God as a fiery chariot
in the sky.
“My father, my father, the
chariot of Israel and its horsemen.”
But let’s look at the rest of
the story that comes after today’s reading.
Elisha eventually went on to do
a few good things.
He also did some magic tricks
like making a stone ax-head float.
But as he was bopping back from
the Jordan River,
still
in the new glow of his spiritual high,
some kids
made fun of him for being bald.
So using his new his spiritual
super powers, Elisha summoned bears
to maul 42 little boys.
What kind of a religion is
that?
And where did he go from there?
Elisha’s mentor Elijah had been
a defender of the people
challenging the kings for abusing their power
and neglecting the poor.
Then he put a sniveling
bureaucrat
up to murdering the old king of Syria
by smothering him with a pillow on his sick bed.
The moral is that a spiritual
rush
doesn’t always make for a better person.
It can even make us worse.
So what are we doing here?
What is this religion thing all
about?
Christians trust in the
unconditional grace
of a loving God.
So we aren’t here to earn our
way into God’s favor.
But we do have a spiritual
challenge.
Sure God loves us,
but are we capable of taking that love in
--
especially if taking it in means loving God back
--
especially if God shows up in the guise of each other?
William Blake said,
“We are put on this earth a little space
that we might learn
to bear the beams of love.”
Great teachers from many
religions have agreed
life is an opportunity to grow, to learn, to change.
We don’t change in order to
make ourselves acceptable to God.
We change to grow our capacity
to accept God
-- to
bear the beams of love.
But how does that happen?
How do we let our souls be
shaped to make us fit for heaven?
A spiritual experience of one
kind or another
may help
like a nutritional supplement.
But it isn’t the main diet.
Paul said to the Ephesians, the
point of life is
to
“grow into the mature body of . .. Christ.”
How do we do that?
Paul answers:
“Be humble and gentle,
bearing one another in love.”//
We learn “to bear the beams of
love” as Blake says,
through the arduous spiritual discipline of
“bearing one another in love” as Paul says.
Now this “bearing one another”
has a double meaning.
It means to carry each other,
to help each other out.
But it also means to endure
each other, to put up with each other.
That’s what the Greek word Paul
used really means.
In our gospel lesson, Jesus was
passing through Samaria
and hoped to get a meal, maybe stay the night.
But they had that sign up we used
to see a lot in the South
and still see some places.
You know the one: “We reserve
the right to refuse service to anyone.”
The disciples wanted to call
down fire on the jerks,
like Elisha sic’ing bears on bad boys.
But Jesus said,
“Good Lord no! Where were you raised?
That’s not how we
spread the gospel.”
“Bearing one another in love”
means enduring other people
-- putting up with them --
when they are not exactly bearing us in love.
It’s “turn the other cheek.”
It’s Proverbs 15:1 – “a gentle
answer turns away wrath.”
The heart and soul of Christian
life
isn’t working ourselves up into a feel good state.
We can do that. It may even help now and then.
But the heart and soul of
Christian life
is the discipline of how we treat each other.
It isn’t “do what comes
naturally.”
It’s “do what comes
supernaturally with God’s help.”
For years, I searched the Bible
for a spiritual technology
to get myself into a zone.
Sit cross-legged. Hold your
hands just so.
Repeat this mantra.
But what I found was the Sermon
on the Mount.
If you’re on your way to
worship and remember
your brother is angry at you, stop and make peace
with your brother before you talk to God.
I found Paul saying:
“Be gentle. Be humble . . .
In your anger, do not
sin.
Do not let the sun go
down on your anger.”
At the ripe old age of 66, I
figured out: this is it.
God comes to us in the form of
other people
-- and not just when they are being agreeable.
Sometimes we have to look deep.
Harper Lee said,
“You never really understand another person,
until you climb into
his skin and walk around in it.”
That’s how we find God.
That’s what we ritually enact –
and hopefully learn to do –
whenever we celebrate the Holy Communion.
The main purpose of all our
church activities
is to practice the art of Christian relationship
so we can take those skills into our homes, our workplaces,
and public life – including our politics.
Enduring each other in love
isn’t a rule for being good.
It’s how we shape our souls for
the Kingdom of God.
