Purpose of religion

St. Christopher’s homily: What is the purpose of religion?

How many times, especially in the world we live in today,
have you heard the question: What is the role or purpose of
religion? Should religion actually be a private refuge or a public
presence? Is it to be an us versus them?

It seems in the gospel reading this morning that is exactly
how the disciples viewed their religion: “Teacher, we saw
someone driving out demons in your name, and we tried to
prevent him because he does not follow us….he does not follow
us.” They were telling Jesus that these people were not a part of
their group: So they should be stopped.

But Jesus rebukes them, don’t stop them He says. “For
whoever is not against us is for us.” Jesus is saying basically,
“Hey guys, we are out here to build a movement, not a club. We
are not looking for enemies, we are looking for allies.” Jesus was
promoting the idea of bringing people together, NOT splitting them
into rival groups. In other words: we need to be inclusive not
exclusive.

There is an old Vietnamese folktale that says there is only
one difference between heaven and hell: In hell, they have
chopsticks three feet long and the people can’t eat. In heaven
they have chopsticks three feet long, but the people feed each
other. Perhaps that helps us begin to realize what Jesus was
striving for.

Indeed, the purpose of our Christian faith is not to protect us
from our world. The purpose of our Christian faith is to change
the way that we live in this world, and not for our own sake, but for
the sake of others. As true Christians Jesus demands this of us.
Unfortunately for some reason or another, we often miss this
point. We are more inclined to want a religion that comforts us
rather than challenges us. But yet Jesus frequently, as he is
doing in this gospel reading today, challenges us to think and
reflect about our lives; to think about what we do, and what we
should do in our lives as his disciples and most importantly as
Christians. In doing so, Jesus is portraying being a Christian is
not an easy thing — indeed quite the contrary.

As He states in the second half of the reading, the enemy is
not people “over there” but rather the enemy is inside you. Thus
“if your hand causes you to sin, cut it off… If your foot causes you
to sin, cut if off…If your eye causes you to sin, pluck it out” I
mean WOW…that doesn’t sound too easy to me to be a disciple
of Jesus, but indeed was it meant to be easy?

What basically was Jesus asking his disciples — what is he
basically asking us — you and me ~ that would prove to be so
hard, so difficult a thing to do?

I have tong suggested that Jesus, throughout his ministry
had but one overriding message to his followers and that was
his message of LOVE. To love one another as He has loved us.

However, while the ability to love is perhaps one of the
greatest abilities God has given to the human species, it is
perhaps the most difficult as well. To love our neighbors as
ourselves — to love our neighbors regardless. This is where this
discipleship thing gets hard — indeed, not just hard but sometimes
downright impossible especially when we realistically consider the
society and culture that we live in today.

To have a living faith today one must at some point in his or
her life make a deep, private act of faith — An act that is
unfortunately very difficulty because again of the very forces that
have helped erode our sense of a cultural communal faith.

What are these anti-faith forces? Ironically, they are not the
product of some conscious conspiracy of godlessness. They are
instead, all those things, good and bad, within us and around us
that tempt us away from prayer, from self-sacrifice, from being
more communal, and from mustering up the time and courage to
be all-inclusive in helping our neighbor.

Hence, they are not abstract, foreign forces. What blocks faith in our
lives are those innocent things within our ordinary, normal lives which
make our lives so comfortable: our laziness, our self-indulgence, our
ambition, our consumerism, and our greed.

We are so blessed here at St, Christophers to have a variety of
spiritual and service groups that serve our community and people
who are in need of personal attention and love. I encourage you all
to check out the various groups and perhaps our acts of faith will be
a return to communal acts of kindness, generosity, and civility—to
love our neighbors as ourselves, to love our neighbors regardless.
For as Jesus emphasized to his disciples, we not be building a club
but rather we will be starting a movement.
God Bless