I will talk about God and religion anywhere with anybody, something that drives those around me a little crazy at times. I do this not so much as to evangelize (although I think having a spiritual connection with the Holy is healthy), but because people need to hear a version of faith that, maybe, they have never heard before. I don’t get defensive or insulted – as a pastor, I have to have a thick skin – and I listen to their stories. Too many people have rejected religion because people of faith are too ignorant or hard-hearted to hear them out. I try to not be those things, but I am still working on it.
Last night, one very bright and funny man asked me, “Why does religion have to be so complicated?” He, and the two others he was with, all told stories about asking questions and being told to believe and stop asking questions. I told them that was code for “I have no idea what to tell you.” So, they asked me those questions, and I answered them the best I could. The guy who asked the first question said that he had learned more in the last hour than in his many years in Sunday school and church. While it made me glad that I was able to shed some light, it made me sad that he had been turned off from religion because people could not or were unwilling to answer his questions. It would be so easy to be better at our faith – all it takes is a little time to read our Scriptures and think and pray and talk to others about what we believe and why. It takes just a little patience and compassion to mature on our own faith journey.
We get hung up on the nitpicking aspects of faith, and if we dig in our heels, we turn people off. If the answer to life is that God is love, and that God loves us, does most of what we struggle over matter all that much? Does it matter how long a day in the story of creation is? Does it matter if God is One in Three? Is the Trinity our way of controlling and limiting God? Is it my responsibility to judge someone who has questions about the Virgin Birth? I don’t care what flavor of religion you practice as long as you treat all people as children of God worthy of love. I don’t care if you get baptized by being dunked or sprinkled as long as you leave the judgment of people’s eternal destination to God. Religion shouldn’t be simplistic or limiting; it should be deeply connected to a God that can unify and forgive all of us. Jesus said that loving God, neighbor, and self is the greatest commandment, and that all the prophets and law are filtered through that three-part rule. If we can begin there, we might actually figure out how to live with each other in peace. It really isn’t, in reality and practice, all that complicated.
Prayer – Holy God, help us to see You in the eyes of others. Maybe we would treat them better. Amen. Today’s art is “Angel of Acceptance” by Alma Yamazaki.