Losing My Religion

“I don’t need to go to church. I have a personal relationship with Jesus.”

How many of you have heard this before in your lifetime?

I know that I certainly have. It was kind of the hallmark of the late 90s early 2000s cultural shift away from organized religion that has shaped the current religious landscape of America.

The most recent polls show that around 70% of Americans would self identify as “Christian” — but that only 45% of that 70% attend church with any regularity.

That means that 55% of all of the people who say that they believe in Jesus are not connected to the church in any meaningful way.

In 1991 a rock band called R.E.M released a song with a chorus that began we these words:

That's me in the corner That's me in the spot-light Losing my religion

Lead singer Michael Stipe has described the song as being about obsessive love that does not feel as if it is returned. The narrator is confronting vulnerability, self-doubt, and frustration in the face of a relationship that isn’t going the way they hoped. The lyrics explore themes of longing, self-questioning, and the struggle to communicate and understand one's own emotions in the midst of rejection.

I often wonder how many of the people who have walked away from the communal body of the church have experienced these types of feelings. Like they have at some point given their effort, their love, their expectations over to an institution that didn’t return the love. It seems to be a common story, perhaps it is your story at some point or another.

So what is it that was lost for so much of our population? What has caused us to seek the solitary spiritual journey and to “lose our religion?” What was missing?

One word. Joy.

We are now, oh my gosh, in week 3 of our Advent sermon series called “The Crown” where we are looking at all of the themes of Advent and how certain Kings of Israel embodied those themes. Ultimately we are seeing how Jesus is the ultimate fulfillment of all of the hopes and dreams that Israel had for their kings, and how we can live these themes out in our own lives today while we wait for the return of Christ.

Today we look to the theme of Joy, and to the third king of Israel: King Solomon.

Solomon was King David’s son, and was a man who instantly won the affection of the people as well as the adoration and respect of God.

You may know Solomon for his most famous attribute: his wisdom. You see when he first became king he was approached by God. God offered him anything that he wanted. And Solomon asked God for wisdom — a gift that was granted and that served Solomon well as he served God and served Israel.

But that was not the only grand achievement of Solomon. Solomon also completed one of the most magnificent feats in human history: the construction of the Temple in Jerusalem.

You see ever since the exodus all the way through the reign of King David, the people worshipped God in a mobile tent called the Tabernacle. It was something that they could transport as they lived their nomadic life in the wilderness and navigated the turmoil of their early years in the land of Canaan.

After the kingdom was united by David, the time came for a permanent center of religious life to be established in the capital city of Israel. But this temple wasn’t just a building, it was the place where God’s presence dwelt among people.

The construction of the temple signaled the beginning of a new age for Israel. It began the religious golden age of Israel. When the construction was complete, Solomon dedicated it to God and then the writer of 1 Kings offers us this scene:

1 Kings 8:62–66 NRSV

Then the king, and all Israel with him, offered sacrifice before the Lord. Solomon offered as sacrifices of well-being to the Lord twenty-two thousand oxen and one hundred twenty thousand sheep. So the king and all the people of Israel dedicated the house of the Lord. The same day the king consecrated the middle of the court that was in front of the house of the Lord; for there he offered the burnt offerings and the grain offerings and the fat pieces of the sacrifices of well-being, because the bronze altar that was before the Lord was too small to receive the burnt offerings and the grain offerings and the fat pieces of the sacrifices of well-being. So Solomon held the festival at that time, and all Israel with him—a great assembly, people from Lebo-hamath to the Wadi of Egypt—before the Lord our God, seven days. On the eighth day he sent the people away; and they blessed the king, and went to their tents, joyful and in good spirits because of all the goodness that the Lord had shown to his servant David and to his people Israel.

Basically: Solomon threw a massive party. A party large enough that it took 22,000 oxen and 120,000 sheep to feed every one. But it wasn’t just a party for the sake of having a party. It was a party that observed the religious traditions and stipulations that God had handed down through Moses. It was a party that coincided with a festival called the Festival of Booths, which was a 7 day festival celebrating the deliverance of Israel from the hands of slavery in Egypt. It was held at the end of the agricultural year, and so while it celebrated and remembered the joy of freedom from slavery in Egypt, it also celebrated the immediate joy of the end of the working year and the provision that God had given them through the harvest.

But this year it was particularly meaningful because the the festival was held to celebrate those things as well as the end of the massive construction projects of the royal palace and of course the Temple. The people came together to celebrate that God had a permanent home on earth, and that it resided within their borders. They came together to celebrate the fact that their religion now was now symbolized and embodied by a physical building of Rock and stone — the symbols of permanence and steadfastness.

And the response of the people was blessing the king with joyful spirits because of what God had done. And this is super important because because it shows us the point of religion then and the point of religion now.

For many, the idea of religion or organized religion for that matter is shackled to the notion of rules. Which is really a shame but not a surprise. I mean there are 4 books of the Bible basically dedicated to spelling out 613 “laws” that God gave to Moses. When we read most of the New Testament letters it seems as though all that the apostle Paul is doing is spelling out rules for how people are called to live. And what we’ve interpreted this all to mean in practice over the course of millennia is that you’re allowed in if you promise to behave the way that we expect you to behave.

Which, don’t get me wrong, isn’t always a bad thing. It becomes a bad thing when we place unrelenting importance on rules while under-stressing the fundamental truth that God loves all people and is interested in having a relationship with them. Probably the greatest criticism of Jesus’s people is that we are judgmental. And typically people walk away from the church because they have experienced this type of reality in a way that caused them harm.

The point is that people should experience Joy when we gather, people should experience joy as they encounter the community of God called the church, and people should experience the joy found in the presence of God in worship. I don’t think that people have a problem with religion. People have a problem with human systems masquerading as the voice of God that deny the heart of God for the purpose of trying to control how they live and the self worth that they carry by telling them that the messiness of their human existence is a problem for God somehow.

This is what has happened to our churches in America. This is what happened to the religious life of Israel by the time that Jesus showed up on the scene. Jesus saw the way that the religious structure of the day burdened people. He saw the way that the temple had become a place of economic disparity and how the law had been so strictly enforced that it kept people from experiencing the transforming love of God in the community of faith and he rejected it. He went out and taught people things like

Matthew 11:28–30 NRSV

“Come to me, all you that are weary and are carrying heavy burdens, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me; for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.”

Before facing the cross, he threatened to tear the temple down. What was once the site of great joy had become a place of weeping, and God would have none of that. The temple, the site of the presence of God would not be mocked. And so now, the presence of God was unleashed on all of the world — first in the person of Jesus Christ and then in the presence of the Holy Spirit which permeates the world and empowers us to live with Joy, to gather for the purpose of finding joy, and to live together in a community of love and joy.

I’m going to close with this story. On Thursdays we have an afterschool club at FK Sweet Elementary school. The other week we played a game and when the game was over stood in a circle and I prayed for our time together. And then one by one, 3-5th graders volunteered (unasked) to pray too. And they just kept praying one after another. And with each kid who prayed the level of joy in the room was elevated. These kids, for maybe the first time, experienced the joy of being in the presence of God with the community of God. They experienced the height and the point of Religion.

So how do we bring those who have wrestled with and “lost their religion” re-find it? We keep the joy alive. We remember why we are here. Not to be a heavy burden but to be a source of love and life. To be a deep well of joy to draw from. And when they come back, they will see what they thought was lost. They will see what they wanted and never found here before. They will find the Joy of the Lord.