May 15th, 2007

Being Real

Read James 1:16-27

"Religion that God our Father accepts as pure

and blameless is this..." vs. 27

Speaking with a friend of mine yesterday, we were discussing the emptiness of the things that the world has to offer, and asking ourselves, "Why does there exist such a temptation to return to the things that will inevitibly turn out to be empty in the end." Now we were explicitly speaking about drugs and alcohol, but we could add to the list money, prestige, and position. His response was, "Tragically, a lot of people find their religion (their faith in Christ) as empty as they do that other 'stuff' and the truth is that other 'stuff' is easier." How unfortunate...How heartbreaking...If that is true, somehow people have failed to capture the complete abundance that God makes possible for us in Christ Jesus.

Could it be that we have simply turned Christianity into a mere reflection of the world's pursuits. Much Christian teaching in our society today has to do with the individual drive for happiness and prosperity. Is that what the Christian faith boils down to in the end...fulfilling our own individual desires? Perhaps the emptiness people experience in their Christ journey is because we have failed as a church to offer them something different than what the non-believing world offers.

In the text that we have chosen to read today, James writes that the real religion of God is a religion that has complete concern for the orphan and widow. As many times as the orphan and widow are mentioned in the scripture, you might wonder if God loves them most. I will say this, God extends a certain kind of preferential treatment to the oppressed, broken, and vulnerable. In our society today, minus the handicap population, there probably isn't a more vulnerable and easily exploited populace than the widow and the orphan. According to James, being a Christian requires a looking beyond ourselves and our pursuits and into the lives of those who have nothing. To be real as a Christian has everything to do with reflecting the heart of God in this world...a heart that denies self and willingly encounters the cross. This is the religion that God accepts as pure and blameless.

So perhaps...our emptiness of faith is because we have become increasingly polluted, contaminated with the message of the world which makes our existence primarly about 'self.' Perhaps, we experience abundance and reject the empty temptations of the world as we begin to be consumed with the heart of God which moves us beyond ourselves and into serving and offering ourselves to others. Perhaps...a remedy to emptiness, despair, and even depression is ministry...seeking to give our lives away to those who have even less than we do. And maybe...maybe abundance can only be experienced when we stop seeking to be filled up and instead concern ourselves with being poured out. Then we find that pure and blameless religion. Then we live in such a way as to reject the pollution of the world which will inevitibly draw us back to a pursuit of individual desires and selfish happiness.