Playing at Religion

Matthew 117; 7-19
Septemher 21, 1969
John M. Buchanan

Once upon a time two explorers came upon a clearing in the jungle. In the clearing
were growing many flowers and many weeds. One explorer says: 'Some gardner must tend
this plot.' ‘he other disagrees: ‘There is not gardner.' So they pitch their tent
and set a watch. No gardner is ever seen. ‘But perhaps he is an invisible gardner,'
“So they set up a barbed wire fence. They electrify it. They patrol it with blotd-
hounds. But no shrieks ever suggest that some intruder has received a shock. No
movements of the wire ever betray an invisible clinber. The bloodhounds never give
acry. Yet still, the "Believer" is not convinced. ‘But there is a gardner, invisible,
intangible, insensitive to electric shocks, a gardner who comes secretly to look
after the garden he loves.' At‘ last the Sceptic despairs: 'But what remains of
your original assertion? Just how does what you call an invisible, intangible,
eternally elusive gardner differ from an imaginary gardner or even from no gardner
at all?' [Martin C. D'Arcy, S.J. in Varities of Unbiiicf,M. Marty p. 49]

That story, attributed to a Frency theologian, is a parable of the spiritual
predicament of modern man. Indeed we have pitched our tents and built our fences
and retreated behing endless collections of theological jargon. But the relentless
press of modern science, modern thought, has not abated, and the general tHeoy of
the times is that the gazdner is either totally non-exi;tant, or else an imaginery
figment that ought to be preserved for. the security and health of human life. In
either case the articulate Christian is confronting a rather serious challenge to
his integrity and to his fadith. *

The story of civilization can be described as a man's show but steady emergence
from dependency on God to a state of independence. "Secularism" is the word for
it, and we are living in an age where it has come to-full fruition. At some point
in the last century the scales were tipped. Up until that point the idea of God
played a determining role in the affairs of mengGod the ruler and controller of
nature; God the providential mover in history God the protecter of good men and
the judge of evil men. But the scales have been tipped; the process is reversed.
As one writer put it: "We don't pray for rain anymore = we build irrigation
systems: we don"t pray for deliverence from.a plague, we invent a yaccine." In
our time men have “come of age" and learned to do for themselves many of the things
once attributed to God. And the regult is a severe theologic al predicament.

Alfred North Whitehead observed that:. "Each age has its dominant preoccu-
pation, and during the three modern centuries the cosmology derived from science
has been asserting itself at the expense of older points of view with their origins
elsewhere." [Ibid p.135] And Walter Lippman: "The radical novelty of modern
science lies precisely in the rejection of the belief, which is at the heart of
religion, that the forces which move the stars_and atoms are contingent upon the
preferrnces of the human heart." [Ibid p. 135]

Science tipped the scale. We have learned that heaven is not “up there"¥
that certain atmospheric conditions gave girth to Hurricane ‘Camille, not the
wrath of God: and that people get lung cancer because they smoke - not because they
offended the Heavenly Father. A perceptive person will realize that science has
done “Christian faith a great favor by precipitating a crisis; by

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making it impossible to get by with muddy thinking! by forcing
Christians to dig deeply for their theology, But, in fact, most
Christians have not bothered. Bit by bit they have witnessed the |
erosion of religions certitude « and the result is secularism,

John Courtney Murray said it.well: "One would have to say that
modern bgt man is characterized by his ach, to understand and
explaining the world without God." (Ibid, p, 50)
Some of us may have been inspired by the success of Apollo 11%
Some may be stimulated to deeper faith by the awesome phrase "foot~
prints on the moon." But I have a hunch that the total effect will -
be a further shaking of an already unsteady popular theology. We
live in an age when the reality of God is simply no longer being
taken very seriously.

And yet, in the midst of all this secularitr = this theological
"credibility Bap” ~ religion is not only surviving but thriving
quite nicely. We're not quite as strong statistically as we were
ten years ago, but still the vast majority of Americans look with
favor on things religious - (even Johnny Carson thought it was
"nice" that Tiny tim chose December 25 as his wedding date), and
a good percentage of the American people make a regular practice
of worshipping their God - what: -er they believe or disbelieve
about him. Thus a strange »aradox ~ a culture that is godless -
and people who go right on practicing religion. How is it vossible?
It's possible only if a lot of these people are just "olaying at
religion" + going through the notions for some reason or are :
but not taking themselves very seriously while they are se aged,

My text this mor7ing is that ineident recorded in the 1
chapter of Matthew. Jesus was lefending John the Baptist. e
people had flocked to John to hear his preaching. But they rp
hadn't taken him seriously. In fact, their shallowness was indigated |
by their criticizing John for being too severe, Likewise they were
attempting to quem ty their apathy about Jesus by rea him a
glutton and a drunkard. They reminded him of slaying children
who couldn't agree on a game,

It was a wry eeasete © but brutally honest, ‘veryone had
seen children playing, favorite games were "Wedding" and “funeral.”
Children imitated the demonstrative ritual which aecompanied both
public events - weddings were characterized by loud singing and
dancing; a funeral procession included nrefessional mourners wailing
and throwing themselves on the ground, And so the children played
the games ~ and they a: ied about which to play and sometimes their
childishness resulted in no gaiie at all,

The people around him were like that, Jesus said, And to
understand what he meant we must make two observations about the

et of "playings’ First of all, to play like a child is to oretend,
tt is to placa ritual over reality. We have two large sewer pioes
in our back yard - at least in my eyes they are sewer »ines, t
to children they are horses, or stage coaches, or mysterious .
caverns, And what they become depends entirel on the ocartioular
ritual chosen by the child, Reality is irrevelant.

In the second place, to olay is to go through the motions in
the security that ones actions will have ne lasting effect, Thus
in olay it is quite possible to kill your good friend - or your
brother - without any repercussions. In fact, an interesting thing
about play is that it 1s impossible when one player begins to mean
what he is doing. Play ends in frustration around our house when
one boy takes seriously the ritual of being killed all morning by
his brother,

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Jesus was saying that his contemporaries were like children
at play in their practice of religiosity, As in child's play
ritual counted ore than reality. Observing the sacrificial daw
was more important than actually living grateful lives, As in
child's play - no one really exsected the results of the exercise
to be of any consequence. So one could go through the motions of
devotion to the God of Justice and then steal money from one's
tennants. Fis co “emporaries were "playing at religion" and I
wonder whether the prevonderence of religion today - in a culture
that has totally rejected the os -lity. of God is not evidence
of the same situation. I worder if we are not playing at religion.

Recent studies of American church goers have revealed among
other things that there is as muc” bigotry and racial prejudice in
the church as there is in the non-churched portion of the population.
That, I would suggest, is utterly impossible, unless a lot of those
church-goers are just »laying at their religion. We are reminded
every sar at about this time that the Lord who demands total self-
giving, actually gets about 2% of our treasure as an exoression of
our faith, and I would suggest that that too is sossible only if
a lot of us are just "playing a game."

Someone recently asked James Fore‘ian why he brought his demands
to the church - instead of General Motors or I.Beli. His answer was
that General lotors and I.3.M. never said their nuroose was to feed
the hungry, and help the poor, ani liberate the oopressed = but the
church has said that. Mr. Foreman’s marxist ideology and violent
rhetoric is most offensive to me, But he has done this - he has
caught us in the act of "slaying at religion." For there would be
no James Foreiman today, no racial revolution if the Church of Jesus
Christ, ani the Christian people of this nation had been doing
something other than playing for the last two hundred years.

You and I are part of the secular culture of the 20th century.
We are part of the Church of Jesus Christ of which Ishave been so
critical. We are able - you and I - to engage in an exercise of
eriticism such as this ~ but it is no more than exercise until we
focus. You and I, specifically, are related to each other through
this congregation of Christians. And so let's look here, Are we
"Dlaying at >ligion" in Bethany -resbyterian Church?

There are many aspects of the life of this congregation that
might be examined in light of this question, But one thing we all
dot one activity is at the center of our exnerience as a congregation,
and that is corporate worship. In my conversations with you - and
in my personal reflections upon our Sunday morning @xverience I sense
a rather vague feeling that worshin is not really too important. I
sense that we are most vulnerable at this point to the charge of
Dlaying - placing ritual over reality, not really expecting anything
of consequence to result,

While I was thinking about this topic last week I cane across
an article in Ihe Christian Century (9/17/69) by Ir. Browne Barr,

a very effective pastor, which was quite heloful, Or. Barr proposes
that crisis in worshio today 1s at the point of preaching. Congre-=
gations are deluged with what he terms "Pop Sermons" which, like

Pon Art, are "so negligible as artifacts that all which remaing for
the critic (or worshis,er) is to talk about, around, beliind and
across it." len are not moved by such. ar, they simply discuss it.
So, men are not moved by such sertons, they merely discuss them,

I was both humbled and stirred by his description of a real
sermon: "It is an instru-ent by which the great hand of the eternal
grasps us, peodle and oreacher alike; a hand which leads or drives

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us out to the perinhery of life...; a hand which shakes us out of
complacency and knocks the carefully nurtured dust off our ease."

But this is not the case. And I am suggesting it is not the
case because we are merely playing at religion. Or. Barr concludes
by blaming both oreacher and pesple: "The sermon which is not
prepared by the 9sreacher and anticipated by the peovle in the
exoectation that God can and will use our discourse to reveal him-
self is not sermon at all." I would add to that my conviction that
a service of worship that is not entered in the common anticivation
that we will bef> rgiven and given new life, that God's word will
somehow be communicated to us = verhaos in snite of the voreacher
that we are going to confront the living God.in the company of s
people, that we are going tobe renewed and picked uo and healed
and given strength for the next week - worshio that is not »receeded
by a sure anticivoation of that is not worship at all. It is "playing
at religion."

f I would suggest to you that worship will continue to be sterile,
and faith rather empty, until we stop olaying and commit ourselves
to the life and death seriousness of what we are about.

Albert Outler speaks to our crisis: "Now the reality of God
becomes the central issue once more, and the obvious task of a new
generation is t. convince men of the reality of God, his presence
and his Brare, in a world come of age and gone to pot." (Ibid. C,
That, I believe, begins here, in this sanctuary, as we forget
the game of religion we have been trying to slay, and pst our lives
on the living God, It begins when we risk ourselves in commitment
to Jesus Christ; when we op-~ ourse ses to his redeeming and henewing
Love.

It is time for that. It is time to stop playing and to start
being serious. St. eaul said it extremely well: "When I was a
child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child - but when I
became a man I gav2 ux childish ways." Amen,

Almighty God, forgive us for slaying at religion. Forgive us for
closing our minds and hearts to the reality of your presence, the
imperative of. your love and the urgency of your call. Grant us the
maturity to live lives of trust and devotion, through Jesus Christ
our Lord. Amen.