Faith Beyond Superstition

 

Sermon text   John 11:32-44

        There is a story of a man in the 1950s taking his grandson to see his first ever professional baseball game. The little guy was fascinated, soaking up every detail of the afternoon. He noticed that one of the players went through an elaborate ritual each time he came to bat. He would scrape the dirt at the back of the batter’s box five times with his  foot, take his stance, pound the dirt off his cleats, tap the plate with his bat, adjust his cap and both shoulders of his uniform and then make the sign of a cross before he faced the pitcher.

            The little boy asked, “What does it mean when he makes that sign?”

            Grampa’s gruff answer: “If he can’t hit, it doesn’t mean a thing.”

 

             I cite the story because it straddles the line between Christianity and superstition. Was that sign of the cross a demonstration of faith or a good luck charm? To be honest, over the centuries it’s often been hard to tell the difference between faith and superstition. When I think about the Reformation that we celebrate today, it seems to me that perhaps the greatest contribution Martin Luther gave the world was to free Christianity from the chains of superstition that had held it captive. 

 

            I wonder who the first person was back in the hunting and gathering days of humankind, to decide that there was an alternative to letting the chips fall where they may. That there were cosmic creatures in control of everything that happened, and that these creatures could be bought off.  That these gods of the universe were very powerful but quirky, obsessive-compulsive characters. That humans were basically playthings of the gods, and had no choice but to satisfy their whims or suffer the consequences of their wrath.

 

            Superstition grew out of the belief that the gods were spoiled tyrants whose main interest on earth was to run a protection racket, and the only way for humans to survive was to meekly submit to the shakedown and cough up the fee.

 

            Complicating matters was the idea that the gods operated in a market economy. Your enemies were just as desperate as you were for protection and favors. Therefore, you not only had to pay the going rate for divine muscle, you had to outbid the competition. You had to be more pleasing to the gods than the tribe across the river. The basic premise was that happiness and success was for sale to the highest bidder.

  

            That was the system people were trapped in. It was a hard, cruel world, and there was no way out. You either play the game or you’re dead. 

 

 

 

 

 

            The trick was to figure out exactly what these cosmic bullies wanted in exchange for protection or favors. There seemed to be no rational way of predicting what the gods favored and what they didn’t. Hence, the rise of a random, trial-and-error method of discovering what the gods want. Based on a combination of wild guesses and anecdotal evidence, humanity came up with a bizarre and colorful list of payment options that were acceptable to the gods. These options are what we call superstitions.

 

            Superstition determined that the gods have a very weird craving for 4-leaf clovers, horseshoes, rabbits’ feet, the smell of burning meat and incense, chain letters, and people who do not shave, bathe, or change clothes during a winning streak. They just cannot get enough of groveling in the dust, salt thrown over the shoulder, the rubbing of bald heads, inverted visors on rally caps, knuckles knocking on wood, pennies in wishing wells, and all kinds of personal good luck charms.

 

            Superstition determined that the gods have an irrational aversion to the number 13, cracks in the sidewalk, black cats, ladders, and visual contact between bride and groom on the wedding day. They really get upset at any mention of a no-hitter while it is being pitched, opening an umbrella indoors, and broken mirrors.

 

            Now most of us today view this stuff as rather silly. It certainly has nothing to do with religion, right? And particularly not Christianity.

 

            Actually a great deal of religious practice has never been able to break away from superstition—the idea that God can be bought. Our own tradition has, at its roots, many elements of superstition. The folks we encounter at the beginning of the Old Testament tend to be a superstitious lot. We see elements of child sacrifice and of buying God off with carefully prescribed sacrificial recipes and elaborate rituals that amuse God enough so he is inclined to grant favors and protection.

            Thanks to the Old Testament prophets, who hammered home the truth that the currency God deals in is justice and not burnt sacrifices, this attitude diminished over time.

 

            But the notion that God is a quirky, obsessive-compulsive gatekeeper who demands payment for favors and protection continued to flourish. The only difference was that what God now seemed to demand in payment from God’s people shifted from a bunch of strange and irrational rituals to a set of moral behaviors. Certainly that was a step in the right direction, but it was still based on superstition: the idea that God grants success and happiness to those who pay the asking price, and allows misfortune to fall on those who do not or cannot.

 

 

 

 

 

 

            The idea of earning God’s favor, and therefore success and happiness, by obeying a lengthy list of rules remained at the heart of Christianity into the 16^th century. Martin Luther, who took a backseat to no one in obsessive-compulsive behavior, began his religious career as a devoted follower of Christian superstition. He was determined to do everything he could, to follow the rules to the letter, to be absolutely perfect in his actions, in the hope that God would spare him from punishment and reward him with eternal life.

            Although he devoted every waking minute of his life to following the rules, he found he couldn’t do it. His failings were often microscopic, yet he knew they were there. He would obsess and fret and stew and beat himself up over every imperfection. The priest to whom he confessed his sins finally told him, “Go away and don’t come back until you can come up with a sin that’s worth confessing.”

 

            Luther knew there was something wrong with the system, but he couldn’t quite put his finger on it. What crystallized the issue for him was the matter of indulgences. The universal Christian church was in the middle of a massive building program. The pope was determined to construct a monument to God--a cathedral in Rome that outshone any structure ever built. The church, however, was a little short on cash. In order to come up with the funds, it turned to the tried and true method of indulgences.

 

            Representatives of the church went around Europe declaring to people that their deceased loved ones were suffering, writhing in agony in a place called purgatory. These poor souls were barred from entering heaven because they did not pay the going rate for eternal life; the going rate being perfect obedience. The alternative to being perfect was cold cash. People could save their departed family members from anguish by buying indulgences from the church. So what if you did not have enough money to feed your family, you’d better cough up or it would be your fault that grandma was being tortured in purgatory.

            Basically, indulgences were a ransom you paid to God so that he would release those hostages he held in purgatory.

           

            This shameless exploitation of believers showed Luther what was wrong with the whole idea of earning your way to heaven. He could not help but think, “What kind of God would operate under that kind of a system? What kind of God would enslave all of humanity and force them to dance to his tune and jump through all kinds of hoops in order to gain his favor? What kind of God would hold over their heads the threat that if they didn’t perform exactly to his specifications that they would roast in hell?

 

            That is not the God we read about in the Bible. That isn’t even close to the God who selflessly poured out love upon humanity, who suffered and died that we might live.

 

            Luther found two huge flaws in the Christian superstition that said you had to follow God’s rules to be saved:

 

 

            The first was that it was impossible to do. As we read today in the letter from Paul to the Romans, all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. All. Everyone.

We cannot meet the standard, the price is just too high.

 

            Modern exploration into the science of human behavior backs that up. In his book, The Tipping Point, Malcolm Gladwell describes an experiment with a group of seminary students.

 

            The implications of this are frightening. The experiment reveals that all of us, even the best of us, are not just susceptible to conditions outside our control; to a large degree we are slaves to those conditions. Slaves to sin, just as Jesus declares in today’s Gospel. There are factors that even the most sterling character and the most genuine compassion and the most rigid discipline simply cannot overcome. Given the right circumstances, each one of us could well be the kind of derelict or deadbeat that society scorns.

 

            There is no denying the existence of sin or the impossibility of avoiding it. We are all, to some degree, trapped by our mortality. Strange, isn’t it, that you cannot have true relationship without free will, and that the only way free will can exist is in the presence of fallibility that leaves us slaves to sin? 

 

            The second flaw Luther found in Christian superstition that said you had to follow God’s rules to be saved was that it simply wasn’t true. The Bible clearly states that Jesus came to earth to save us from having to do what we are incapable of doing. From paying a price that we cannot pay. As Jesus says in John 8, he came to set us free. Free from the tyranny of having to please God in order to catch a break. 

 

            In studying the Bible, Luther found a simple way to distinguish between Christian faith and Christian superstition. Superstition is all about what we do to try and influence God.  Faith is all about what God does for us.

 

            The Gospels tell us something so astounding that few Christians today seem to believe it. They tell us that praising God, praying regularly, keeping the commandments, going to church faithfully, giving money to the church, helping the poor and powerless, feeding the hungry, reading your Bible—none of that will get you one step closer to heaven than you are now.

 

            The pressure is off. We are free from that staggering burden. Our ticket has been punched; we’re in.

 

            All that is required of us is one thing: we have to believe that it is true.

 

            Does that mean we don’t have to praise God or pray or keep the commandments or go to church or give money to the church or help the poor or feed the hungry or read our Bible?

            Yes, that’s exactly what that means. All you have to do is believe.

           

            And if you truly believe that God has poured down love upon you, that Jesus suffered and died so that you could have life even though you don’t deserve it, that Jesus is the light that shows the path to true life, that the love of God is the only hope we cling to in an uncertain world:

            You will not be able to keep from praising and thanking God

            You will want to stay as close to God as you can through prayer and worship

            You will want to get to know God better by reading the Scriptures.

            You will want to do those things that make God smile, that make God believe this  whole human experiment was worth the effort. You will want to share what you have and accept God’s offer to join in the wonderful creative process of making this world all that it was meant to be.

            In short, you will be what God was hoping you would be.

 

            If we truly believe in the miracle of love that God has showered on us, we will want to do these things. If we don’t want to do them, it’s a pretty strong indication that we do not really believe.

 

            In her book, The Preaching Life, Barbara Brown Taylor describes her agony over a career choice. She struggled to figure out what it was that God wanted her to do with her life. Seminary? Teaching? Business?

            As she tells the story:

            “One midnight I asked God to tell me as plainly as possible what I was supposed to do.

            `Anything that pleases you.’ That is the answer that came into my sleepy head.

            ‘What?’ I said, waking up. ‘What kind of an answer is that?’

            ‘Do anything that pleases you,’ the voice in my head said again, ‘and belong to me.”

            That simplified things considerably. I could pump gas in Idaho or dig latrines in Pago Pago, as far as God was concerned, as long as I remembered whose I was. With no further distress, I decided that it would please me to become a priest.

            “If you continue in my word, you will know the truth,” promised Jesus in John’s gospel. Truth, not superstition. And the truth will set you free.”

 

            Let’s not go back to the old Christian superstition. We’ve struggled so long and so hard to get past that and into the freedom of that Christ gives.

           

             “Free at last! Free at last! Great God Almighty, we are free at last!”