Private and Public Religion John M,. Buchanan
Matthew 61:6, 16-2] Broad Street Presbyterian Church
February 17, 1985 Columbus, Chico

How to live like a Christian in the secular city? How to be intentionally
and specifically Chratian in a world which, on the subject of public religion
is particularly ambiguous? What does religious behavior lock like?

The question, which scema fairly parochial at first, has been much in the
news recently. Pope John Paul IJ] was on the cover of Time several weeks ago -
the feature article wags on Discord in the Church, and it well could have been
written about the entiré ecumenical, Christian family. Across the breadth of
the whole church there is a widening diversity between thoge who believe that
devotion to Jesus means political activism, such as harboring Central American
refugees, or participating in military revolution - and those who, for the
same devolion ta Jesus, regard appropriate religious behavior in terms of
traditional piety: prayer, penance, going to Massa or worship, reading Lhe
Bible.

Ordinarily, the topic is discussed in terms of whether the job of a
Christian is to make converts, or to change society. But there is another way
to discuss the issue: it may be more meaningful because it is more personal.

it is suggested by the text this morning..private veligion, or public
religion.

What does a religious act look like? It is difficult to resist one of my
favorite apocryphal stories at this paint, so I won't. An airliner, at cruise
altitude, lost one engine. The pilot’s voice on the intercom expiained the
predicament. One of the passengers said in a loud voice: "“Guick, somebody do
something religious.” And so the Baptists on board started to pray, and the
Methodists sang their favorite hymn, the Catholic passengers reached for their
rosaries, and the Presbyterians took up an offering.

The time was, of course, that within the Christian family, the Roman
Catholics could be counted on to Know what religious behavior looked like. I
knew from watching the Shaughnessy children two houses away that it meant
confession on Thursday, cheese sandwiches on Friday, Mass on Sunday, and
creasing yourself at the free-throw line. From the Baptist Friends beside us
1 learned that it meant carrying the Bible to church a lot, twice on Sunday,
prayer meeting Wednesday night: ij meant playing Parcheesi instead of
Pintochie, and saying things like “Judas Priest and Hely Toledo“ when you
elearly meant something else,

As a fledgling Presbyterian, growing up between that, | knew only thai my
own church did not have much by way of prescribed religious behavior. Only
later did | learn that Reformed theology, with its sensitivity to Auman sin,
and its openness to the insights of depth paychology, knows a bit about human
complexity: thal human motives are rarely simple: that reHgious pride is

not uncommon ard that thers is a closeness between passionate religious
conviclion and intolerance.

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We are, in America, a religiously pluralistic society. My neighborhood was
& microcosm. Built into the foundations of this country is a studied
neutrality about sectarian religion. It is one of the lasting geniuses of our
experiment. And yet, over the years, we continue to value public piety. de
Tocqueville was the first outsider to note the deep religiosity of the
American people. Visitors from nations that have established religions,
express surprise at the universal practice of public piety here. We pray
publically at the drop of a hat: for banquets, meetings, the opening of - Creo

Congress, conventions, and football games. _ We ‘a hing prble Synlict, m Dallas

Because of that, the corruption of public piety has been a_ topic of
consistent fascination with us. John Updike in A Month of Sundays and
Frederick Buechner in a series of novels, tackle the question. ger Gantry.

loathed dishonest piety and wrote about a clergyman named Elmer Gantry. Even
John MacDonald’s penchant for lively suspense turned up a novel about the
religious empire of a suspiciously familiar sounding ‘Florida television
evangelist. The classic, however, is Graham Greene’e The Power and the Glory.
An alcoholic priest, itinerating through the villages of Southern Mexico enda

up in a bar, drinking up the money he has made baptizing babies. Greene
wrote, trenchantly, "It was appalling how easily one forgot and went
back...The brandy was musty on the tongue with his own corruption. God might
forgive cowardice and passion, but was it possible to forgive the habit of
piety?" (p. 227-228)

It is one of the functions of religion to define religious——-behavi6r: The
religion of Jesus had an elaborate system for the purpose, and it was a good
one from which we can still-learn much. As is the case with all religious
systems, it could:be corrupted - and was. But Judaism, in the first century
at least, knew what religious behavior looked like when it saw it.

It was, first, allgegiving.<! the money a religious person gave, mainly for
the support of the poor. Alms were in addition to the tithe, the return of
one tenth of everything a person had: to the Lord. Trumpets sometimes were
sounded in the streets for special festival occasions. The allusion Jesus
made in our text this morning suggestea that if one was creative, one could
manage to do one’s alms giving at the right time, when the trumpets were
blowing, for instance. A substantial contributor could approach the Synagogue
with a bulging purse and with good timing be rewarded with the admiring
attention of everyone else who was there. Now there is a dimension_to_ this
that can allude us. Eastern culture openly approved the-straight forward

seeking of public admiration. It's not_a bad idea, actually. If the culture
values generosity, for instance, which Jesus’ culture did, then a system which
rewards generosity with public admiration is a sensible device. In this
context, then, what Jesus said about almsgiving in private, not letting the
right hand know what the left is doing, is rather radical. It is also
consistent with the best and highest teaching of the Rabbis. He was

criticizing the corruption of the system - not the system itself.

Judaism knew that religious behavior included prayer. The devout stopped
three times during the day, turned in the direction of Jerusalem, and prayed.
There is great and profound wisdom in the discipline of Jewish mysticism. We
have much to learn from what our spiritual ancestors knew about spirituality
but none of it adapts well to the public arena, Broad and High at rush hour,
for instance. That is the allusion, in the text. Again, with a bit of
forethought, one could arrange to be in the marketplace at the designated hour

for prayer and could be rewarded, again, with the approval and admiration of
other people.

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Religion alao meant fasting...and in my more whimsical momente I ponder
God’s amusement at our obsessive weight watching, and the fact that the only
thing that works is a regimen with all the characteristica of a religious
discipline. l can imagine God enjoying the fact that American affluence and
the fast food industry have taught us something we failed to learn from three
thousand years of religious restricting and that is if you want to loose
weight you must fast with the discipline of a religious zealot. in any event,
the devout fasted. Everybody was supposed to fast on the day of Atonement.
But the zealous, in Jesus’ day, fasted twice a week, in addition —- Monday and
-Thureday. It was customary to announce that one wae feasting by rubbing asghear
on one’s cheeks, or by wearing shabby clothes, or by frowning a lot - which
isn’t hard to do if you haven't had anything to eat all day. In the text this
morning Jesus takes his disciples far beyond the boundries of religious law
and custom and suggests that they should anncint their faces when they fast,
which ig what you do to convey joy and feativity...and here, I believe, we
begin to see the depth and importance of Jesus’ emphasia. Religious behavior,
by his lights, is the way a person reaponds to the goodness and mercy of God.
If you said "I love you" to someone on Valentine’s Day, and meant it, you
didn't do it very publically. On the contrary, it was a private and pergonal
gesture, and its reward was in the very act of expressing it. When you love
someone, it ia a good thing to express that love. And so desua taught that
the purpose of religioua behavior is to asy "I love you" to God, and if it is
done so as to earn the admiration of any public, it will be lesa than an

honest expression of love for Gad. Its reward will cone from the applause of
the gallery.

The trouble with public piety in Jesus’ day, and in our own, 18 that it
can become a ubstitute for the far more difficult task private Piety -
praying in your.closet; rewarded by no applause, perhaps not even being
answered, and public faithfulness which ia not aften Popular and can get a
person crucified. Thus, Jesus reserved his most scathing criticiam for those
people for whom public displays of religion became a subatitute for authentic
Hving in covenant with the God of love and justice. That was alwaya the
genius of Judaism. The prophets consistently called Ged’s paople to account
for substituting religious ritual for Justice, which is the religion. God
warts. Jeausa did not condemn structured religion: in fact, clearly, he
practiced it. He prayed, gave alms, and fasted on assigned days along with
his people. What he condemned was ‘the popular . practice of substituting the
private discipline for public faithfulness,

Christianity is not simply a new and better piety. In fact, built into
the fabric of the Goapel is a tension: a paradox - between our Lord's
ingistance that discipleship happens in the worid, ancl therefore very visibly,
and his warning that when the visibiliily becomes the point, we have ceased to
pleases God. In the Sermon on the Mount Matthew reporie that he said, "Beware
of practicing your piety in order to be seen,” and, “let your Hght so shine
that people will see your good works.

Christianity is not a new and better piety: and yet Jesus would not
understand a religion with no demand. There ia ea hunger - a famine for
spiriluality in our culture today. High demand churches are meeting ai real
need and the continuing appeal of the new evangelical churches ia that it

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costs something te belong, while mainline Protestants continue ta dispense
what Dietrich Bonhoeffer called cheap grace. You can, in fact, belong to most
churches with far leas effort, discipline, or expense than you can belong to
any service club, or fraternal organization in society. The remedy, in our
tradition, is not the superimposition of a new religious diaciplina. The
Presbyterian preference is for self~imposed religious discipline born of love
for God, It is born of our experience that when people commit themselves
voluntarily to a diacipline: to Bible reading, Bible atudy, prayer, worship —-
their spirits do deepen, and faith is strengthened. That, by the way, ia what
Lent ia for - and I commend to each one & covenant of Lenten discipline
consisting of the Bible study program, worship every Sunday, and new and breve
commitment to give sacrificially ~ without being prodded.

The uniqueness of Jesus was that he taught a religion thet must be both
private and public. it is the combination which is specifically Christian:
the counterpoint of prayer and action; private almegiving and political
responsibility. I sincerely believe the moral majority has it wrong. Prayer
in the public schools is not the point. The valuea of Jesus ~ who loved
children and gave them life and wholeneas, have far more to do with the
quality of education those children receive in the classrooms: and the
willingness of the community to be responsible for that quality; and beyond
the classroom to the sacial services, the health care, and day care, and aid
to dependant children which a community decides to afford ~ or not to afford -
its children...When Jesus Christ is Lord those are the things that matter -
and saying a prayer in the classroom looks a lot like a amokescreen.

When public piety gets in the way of faithfulness and responsibility and
strong love for the world God loves, it trivializas the whole enterprise.
And, according to Jeaus, it becomes an end in itself - its own reward.

That’s the shame. Because the point is God’sa love, God loves us. God
haa loved the creation into being. God has loved it into wholenesa and peace |
in Jesus the Christ. God wants his great love for you to get through. And as
C. S. Lewis once observed, “He can’t give it to you if you’re too busy
elevating yourself with your own piety." (Mere Christianty, p. 94)

The subject of the whole enterprise is the love of God. The bearer of
that love - its incarnation, Jesus, taught a new way of being réligious, In
Jesus’ religion, piety is essentially private and faithfulness is public. He
promised that God ig pleased with it: that when it is lived by men and women.
God rewards it: that to live it ig to know a new Hfe of integrity and
wholeness and peace and joy..that, in fact, when you and I have the
disciplined courage to live it - a bit of God's kingdom begina to live in us...

Praise and glory and wiadom and thanksgiving and honor and power and strengh
to our Ged for ever and ever. Amen.