Scriptural Sermons

One thing about being a pastor is that when I tell people what I do for a living, it evokes some strange responses. Sometimes it’s an explanation of what they have against the church. Sometimes it’s an excuse why they don’t attend church. Most often though, it’s, “You’re a pastor? You don’t seem religious.” I am not sure what to make of the response that I don’t seem religious. I don’t seem religious? My father was a pastor and a theologian; my mother the church musician. I was raised in the church. It was a second home to me. At college I majored in Religion. I went to seminary and became a pastor. Moreover, per the apostle Paul, I am not ashamed of the gospel. I make so secret of my faith. I witness to it every way I can every opening I get. My express central focus in life is to be a disciple of Jesus Christ. So I wonder why it is that I don’t seem religious. Perhaps it is the case that people have a preconceived notion of what religious is, and I don’t fit it. Though come to think of it, few in the Bible would probably fit it either. The prophet Elijah? The prophet Jeremiah? The prophet Ezekiel? Job? Ecclesiastes? John the Baptist? Sarah, Rebecca, Rachel, Leah? And while we’re on women, certainly not Esther from our Old Testament lesson. Esther was the wife and queen of the Persian King Ahasuerus. Esther’s rise to that position reads like the story of a fairy tale princess, complete with all the twists and turns, all the foils and villains. King Ahasuerus had originally been married to Queen Vashti, but Queen Vashti fell out of his favor. The king had thrown a week long banquet that was lavish to say the least. It was certainly lavishly supplied. The drinking was, to quote, “by flagons and without restraint.” Needless to say, by day seven the King Ahasuerus was deeply in his cups. In this state he summoned Queen Vashti in order to show her off to his fellow inebriants. Being a modern woman 2,500 years before her time, she refused to come. King Ahasuerus was humiliated and enraged, yet quite at a loss as to how to respond, so he consulted his sages. They advised that Queen Vashti be deposed, but not for reasons had to do with king’s dishonor. They feared that if word got out that a wife disobeyed her husband, other wives would follow suit, and then what? What would happen if wives were suddenly given to realize they could disobey their husbands? It would mean anarchy. It would mean the downfall of society. An example had to be made of Queen Vashti, and so she was indeed deposed. It was probably the happiest day of her life. But then of course, Queen Vashti had to be replaced. Accordingly, all the beautiful virgins of the kingdom were brought to the palace for the king to select from among them; after, that is, they submitted to, again to quote, “cosmetic treatments….six months with oil of myrrh and six months with perfumes and cosmetics.” The king clearly had a penchant for fragrant women. Esther was among the beautiful virgins selected. The odds were that with all the beautiful virgins of the kingdom as competition she would be cosmetically treated and released. But no, King Ahasuerus chose Esther to be his wife and queen. As I said, the story of a fairy tale princess, but not a particularly religious fairy tale princess. In fact not a religious fairy tale princess at all, because there’s more to it. Esther was a Jewess. And after she was selected by King Ahasuerus, she was fearful to divulge it because she had not divulged it earlier. And so, she didn’t. She kept her religious identity entirely a secret. One may wonder at this point why the book of Esther is even in the Bible. The answer is that it is in the Bible because from Esther’s precarious station, she was positioned, when she stumbled upon a plot to annihilate the Jews, to thwart it. And, though it nearly cost her her life, thwart it she did. It is in the Bible precisely because it teaches that those who do not seem religious often are. For mainstream Judaism at the time Esther was written had developed a fixed view of what religiousness was. Religiousness was adherence to the law; strict adherence; adherence down to its very letter. It mattered little the religious became inflexible, legalistic, spiritless, technical, separatist, and even xenophobic. In fact the book of Esther is in the Bible for a reason beyond that it teaches that those who do not seem religious often are. It teaches too that those who do seem religious often aren’t. You know, come to think of it, Jesus himself might not fit people’s preconceived notions of what religious is either. He certainly didn’t fit the people of his day’s preconceived notions of what religious was. Consider this morning’s gospel lesson. Mainstream Judaism had by Jesus’ time changed very little from Esther’s time in its fixed view that religiousness was adherence to the law. If anything, it had grown worse, as the Pharisees proliferated law upon law upon law in their attempt to contemporize the law of Moses. A chief area of their preoccupation was, unsurprisingly, Sabbath Day observance. The word Sabbath in fact means rest, so they undertook to delineate the meaning of rest. They arrived at thirty-nine general categories of conduct that could give rise to infractions. You certainly couldn’t harvest a field on the Sabbath. But as Jesus and his disciples made their way through a grain field one Sabbath, the disciples plucked heads of grain and ate them. The Pharisees demanded an explanation. Jesus merely referenced David, whom the Pharisees and everyone else hoped Jesus would be more like. David and his companions wouldn’t have fit their preconceived notions of what religious was either. They didn’t adhere to the law. They ate bread that had been sanctified for the priesthood. And so, Jesus concluded, over against the thirty-nine general categories, “The Sabbath was made for humankind, not humankind for the Sabbath.” Jesus too would seem to be suggesting that those who do not seem religious often are, and those who do seem religious often are not. And this is no isolated example of Jesus’ views on the matter. Consider the Sermon on the Mount from Matthew’s gospel. “Beware of practicing your piety before others in order to be seen by them…Whenever you give alms, do not sound a trumpet before you as the hypocrites do in the synagogues…Whenever you pray, do not be like the hypocrites…whenever you fast, do not look dismal like the hypocrites….” And later in Matthew’s gospel he really gets going, “Beware of the …scribes and Pharisees; they do not practice what they teach. They tie up heavy burdens, hard to bear, and lay them on the shoulders of others….Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, for you tithe mint, dill, and cumin, and have neglected the weightier matters of the law -- justice and mercy and faith….Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! You are like whitewashed tombs, which on the outside look beautiful but inside are full of bones of the dead and all kinds of filth….” Jesus is clearly concerned that those who seem religious, especially those who take pains to seem religious, can even be masking inner unrighteousness. And so perhaps we should reconsider our own preconceived views of what religious is. And despite the thousands of years between the Bible and us, our preconceived views of what religious is may not be all that different. Religiousness is still adherence to the law, or perhaps better laws: not those of Moses or course, but laws none the less. Those who are religious don’t drink, don’t smoke cigars, don’t dance, don’t gamble, don’t joke to much or laugh too freely, don’t listen to loud music, disregard scientists and secularists, dress conservatively, cut their hair, keep respectable company, and are scandalized at the lawlessness of others. But the Bible exposes these preconceived views as false. And so, what is the true view, the biblical view, of what religious is? The Bible doesn’t agree on everything, but it agrees on this. And its very simple. The religious are those who are given to know that laws are not at the heart of religion, that at the heart of religion is just that – heart -- heart that loves God and heart that loves God’s people. In short, heart that loves. This is the only kind of religious we need to be. Amen.