And I don’t know if I can do it

Oh no, I’ve said too much

I haven’t said enough

Losing My Religion (R.E.M.)

I was sitting on a large black shale rock by Lake Erie with a friend. 

It was the middle of summer, we were both bored, and there was no such thing at that time as smartphones with Snapchat or Tick-Tock. So in order to entertain ourselves, we applied something which was quite popular at that time called “conversation.” Conversation is where one friend asks a question to another friend and they begin to talk about their personal ideas and opinions. It used to be the thing to do when I was a teenager. 

The topic we decided to talk about was church. He went to a small local Baptist church in town, it had a roof like Pizza Hut on it, so people called it Pizza Hut Baptist. I went to a large Catholic Church called St. Raphael’s. It was a massive church with a vaulted cathedral ceiling. It was so beautiful the bishop of our area would hold important masses there. So I asked my friend what he did at Pizza Hut Baptist, and he said, “Not much, we sing a few songs, pray a few prayers, take the offering and then listen to a long sermon. After that, we go home.” 

I said, “That is it?” “Yep,” he said, “That is it…how about you?” I then said,  “Well at my church, we do a lot of standing and sitting. We also have multiple priests who wear long white robes, old grandmas will light candles to pray for the dead, a 25-foot crucifix of Jesus hangs above the altar, I am on a team of altar boys that rotate each week. We get to carry giant crosses, ring golden bells, and present the massive holy bible to the priest to perform the liturgy. During the mass the choir sings, the congregation recites the Apostle’s creed, there is a missalette we read from with responsorial singing, we have a professional organist who can play Phantom of the Opera, nuns in blue habits playing guitars and whole families bringing up water and wine, and of course, we have the eucharist.”

“Wow,” he said, “Sounds like you guys do it right.”

After our conversation, I never thought of it before, but he made me feel pretty good about my religion: We “did it right.”  In my mind my religion was like the major leagues because we had it all, we even had the pope himself who occupied the famous Vatican in Rome. All my friend’s religion had was a tiny church that looked like a cheap restaurant, and sang a  few old dusty songs while having to listen to a long-winded sermon. Who wants to listen to an hour-long sermon, we had a ten-minute homily, and that was quite enough for me. 

“We did it right”, I secretly thought to myself, “God must be proud of me.”

It has been thirty-seven years since that conversation, and over the years I have thought about it often. Thirty-seven years ago I didn’t know God, I thought I did, but he was nothing more than a vague idea. My naive perspective was focused simply on the outward pomp-and-circumstance of the church – candles, crosses, and incense. But my inner life was dead. 

In my ignorance, I thought Christianity was something you measure and compare. It was all about looking and sounding holy by doing holy things. I had no idea that true religion was knowing Christ. 

Hosea 6:6 is the heart of the matter because it pinpoints what God wants from his people, and how they wanted to give him something different. “For I desire steadfast love and not sacrifice, and knowledge of God rather than burnt offerings.”  Ritual verses relationship. This same verse is quoted a dozen other times in scripture, Isaiah 1:11-16 hammers on it, and Jesus quotes it directly in Matthew 9:13, “Go and learn what this means, ‘I desire mercy, and not sacrifice.’ For I came not to call the righteous, but sinners.”

So, we need to learn what this means. Ask yourself, how do you see your life with God? Is it all based on an outward performance of following “rituals, traditions, and service times” or is it a life-changing encounter with a dangerous Lion who must first tear you up and rip you to pieces in order to heal you as Hosea 6:1 says?

How Religion Works

Verse 6 is very clear, the people of Israel were religious. They did offer continual sacrifices and offerings but they missed the point of it. From a legal point of view, they did things “right”; they brought their animals before the priest as was prescribed in the book of the Law and offered them as an act of obedience. Leviticus 1:2-3 is very clear that this was required, “Speak to the people of Israel and say to them, When any one of you brings an offering to the Lord, you shall bring your offering of livestock from the herd or from the flock. If his offering is a burnt offering from the herd, he shall offer a male without blemish. He shall bring it to the entrance of the tent of meeting, that he may be accepted before the Lord.”

So it seems, if following God is about performance, they did exactly what was written. But for some reason, here in verse six, God clearly does not seem pleased. But why? They were doing what they were supposed to be doing. Is that not what he wants?

The problem lies in the nature of the human heart, not religion. If you are not careful you will substitute doing for knowing. Rituals ask very little from you while making you feel like you have done more than enough to please God, without really even knowing God.

In some ways, being a religious person is like being an avid sports fan. It is easy to buy the jersey and banner, to walk to the stadium or watch the game on TV, it is easy to cheer and be sold out for your favorite player because you have no skin in the game. You are not shedding your own blood on the field. It is easy to act like you win when your team wins, but you had nothing at all to do with it, and those who hold up the trophy, in the end, have no idea who you are. In the exact same way, if your view of religion only focuses on the outward ritual, you will not be in the game. Real faith requires you to wrestle with the person of God. It is all about your heart.

Galatians 4:8-11 says it like this, “Formerly, when you did not know God, you were enslaved to those that by nature are not gods. But now that you have come to know God, or rather to be known by God, how can you turn back again to the weak and worthless elementary principles of the world, whose slaves you want to be once more? You observe days and months and seasons and years! I am afraid I may have labored over you in vain.” 

My Story

I am going to try to describe in a very honest way, how “outward religion” inoculates a person from knowing God. Religion worked its illusionary magic on me for the first 23 years of my life.

“Growing up in a loving religious home I truly loved the beauty and pageantry of the church: the smell of the incense, the golden light of the sun shining through the multi-colored stained glass windows, and the votive candles flickering in the dark recesses of the spacious church cathedral. These sights and smells formed great early memories for me. When priests would walk down the aisle to eerie organ music with their flowing white robes wearing pious faces they seemed holy, I thought, “They must know God and they alone possessed the deep secrets of heaven.” I was even told by my Grandmother, that “they were especially blessed.”

“Sunday was God’s day”, at least for a good hour it was.  Our large family would put on our best clothes, grump to the station wagon, pile in and drive to church. Once we entered the building our whole demeanor changed: it was show time so we began the proceedings by splashing holy water doing the sign of the cross. We then entered slowly into the sanctuary which demanded silence and reverence because we were now in the presence of God, no giggling, whispering, or hitting your sister. I noticed the really holy people genuflected before they sat down. As a kid, I felt awfully small and God seemed to me to be untouchable and distant. Also, he seemed too big and important to care about a small boy like me.

I followed the lead of the older people, they really seemed to know what they were doing. And they were so serious as they uttered memorized prayers and sang the same ancient songs week after week. For me these prayers and songs meant nothing, but they sure sounded divine, so I said them. If I could endure this hour of dry boredom while wearing an itchy sweater that my mom made me put on, and had my hair spit combed. I figured that God had to be pleased with me. He had to be! So I did my duty.

Then came time for the eucharist, this is what it was all about! I was told and warned that Jesus himself was in the bread. A bell was rung, some mysterious Latin was chanted, and in hushed dulcet tones, the priest handed out “the body of Christ”. I often wondered to myself, “How could Jesus Christ be wrapped in a thin round stale wafer?” But no worries, once I ate it, I was free from God’s anger and disappointment. I was assured that he would ignore all my recent sins and agreed to forget them. I wasn’t too sure about that though, I still felt like he was holding some animosity against me because I was going to sin the next week. So I just followed the crowd, ate the wafer with a prayerful face, and dutifully said, “Amen”. Once back to my seat it was about over….ah yes…the hour was almost over!

Once out the door it was time to “go and sin some more” in good conscience. I know that going to church was not the intent that a person could go and sin again, but it was the result of doing a duty that never really engaged my will and heart. And the older I got, the less I felt like I needed to go. But I went, even if I sinned badly the week before, I still received the eucharist calmly believing God would forget. I never personally knew the priest, nor did he know or care about me. He just was there to administer a wafer. Over the course of years in this religion, I learned how to say the right words at the right time, I learned how to use special beaded necklaces and chant memorized prayers to ward off bad luck and stop menacing demons from giving me trouble. 

But if you were to ask me, who was God and was he pleased with me? I had no idea. For me, he was an untouchable being who lived far away, and in truth, I wanted him to stay that way. The farther away he was the less he would get in my business, and I was banking on the rituals of the impersonal mass was keeping him far away. I figured the more I went to mass, the more credit I earned. The more credit I earned the holier I felt. The holier I felt, the higher up “the stairway to heaven” I must have climbed. And as compared to my complacent friends who skipped mass often because they were hungover from the night before, I knew I was a whole lot farther up the staircase. So I continued to do my duty each Sunday: I kneeled, I sang the responsorial songs, I acted reverently. I thought I knew God, but I had no idea who he was.

 

This is religion. But is this what God really wants?

 

Something about the whole religious thing started deeply troubling me. I knew that God of the Universe could care less if a person wore an itchy sweater or t-shirt to church. Why would he notice silver crosses hanging on gold chains? Isn’t placing black ashes on a white forehead, or sprinkling drinking water from the faucet before you enter a building on your heart, just for show? Why would God be thrilled over someone mumbling over a string of beads, if I was bored to tears, wouldn’t he be? And I don’t think he would really care if a person would shed a tear because a ray of sunlight streamed through a colored stained glass window? Anybody can cry at the sublime, but that doesn’t mean they know God. I knew that this silly show is not what God wants, but this is what my religion has me believing for 23 years.

The Religious in Metaphor

In Hosea 7, God describes religious Israel by using three illustrations. They perfectly describe what the heart of a religious person is like. The three pictures are Hot Ovens, Half-flipped Cakes, and Silly Doves. Let’s look at them quickly…

 

• Hot Ovens (7:4-7): Simply put, this means that outward religion cannot stop the hot passion of lust that burns on the inside. If you simply focus on the outward rituals, you never take the time to examine the heart. And it is the heart where the problem lies. You know you are religious when you go to church acting holy on Sunday but Friday night and Saturday you burn with lust. Sure, pray like you mean it Sunday, but if you drink and swear and lust like a fiend the rest of the week, I’m not sure God will hear you. And as verse 6:7 says, the old Adam is still in control.

 

• Half-Flipped Cakes (7:8): Have you ever made pancakes when the doe is cooked on one side but it is raw and uncooked on the other? That is the picture here. A religious person is fickle: When they are with the people of God they act holy, when they are with the world, they get raw and raunchy. They are, as Revelation 3:16 says, lukewarm. Hosea 6:4 describes the religious person’s lukewarm heart perfectly, “Your love is like a morning cloud, like the dew that goes away early.” You know you are religious when you won’t really commit your life fully to God, but you are good at acting like you are.

 

• Silly Doves (7:11-15): One writer puts it like this, “Have you ever been dove hunting? A dove with a nest with eggs or little ones in it will act as if she has a broken wing and tries to get the predator very close to her to give her help, but this move isn’t smart because it brings the predator closer to the nest. So she endangers herself and the nest by putting both in harm’s way. Now here in this passage, Ephriam refused to run to God for help but went back and forth to Assyria and Egypt seeking help like a silly dove.” Religious people will try anything to look like they are seeking God’s help: Whether it be saying silly prayers, kissing statues, getting food blessed, putting ashes on their foreheads, crying and acting pious on a holy day, fasting from meat, looking for signs in the sky or even wearing gold chains to ward off bad luck. They will try every foolish outward ritual while never really turning to and trusting in God. You know you are religious when you fall for anything just because someone says it is the spiritual thing to do.

God doesn’t want your religion!

What God Wants

So what does he want? Look at Hosea 6:6 again. It is super clear: Steadfast love, mercy, and the knowledge of God. He wants you to know him and love others. Hosea keeps beating this same drum. So does Jesus, look at what he says in Mark 12:28-33. Listen…

“One of the teachers of religious law was standing there listening to the debate. He realized that Jesus had answered well, so he asked, “Of all the commandments, which is the most important?”

 Jesus replied, “The most important commandment is this: ‘Listen, O Israel! The Lord our God is the one and only Lord. And you must love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul, all your mind, and all your strength.’ The second is equally important: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ No other commandment is greater than these.”

The teacher of religious law replied, “Well said, Teacher. You have spoken the truth by saying that there is only one God and no other. And I know it is important to love him with all my heart and all my understanding and all my strength, and to love my neighbor as myself. This is more important than to offer all of the burnt offerings and sacrifices required in the law.”

But how do I get there? And as a religious person, my natural question is “What must I do to get there?” That is the problem, religion always looks for some man-made road, some secret path, some stairway to heaven to climb. But there is nothing you can do to achieve or deserve to be in the holy presence of God. All of us fall short of his glory. 

So in order to know him, we need him to come to us. And this is where it gets scary.

Look at how Hosea describes encountering God in 5:13-6:3. The remedy for religion is not in “doing” but is in “acknowledging and admitting guilt.”  This is not religious nor is it ritual, it is surrendering before an encroaching lion knowing full well he has every right and the might to tear you pieces. He is a white fanged sharp-clawed lion who has come to claim you.

In the context of the story, Israel may have been religious, but they were rotten to the core. And in their rottenness, God needed to let them first experience their rottenness. He did this by letting them go and reap the rewards of their rebellion.  They needed to see how sick they were on the inside: Their guilt!

This is not religion, this is not following a set of rituals, this is simply a face-to-face confrontation with the Living God, the Lion of the Tribe of Judah. Listen closely to Hosea 6:1-3 and let it sink in.

The difficult thing about knowing God is that he is the main actor: he initiates, he hurts, he heals and he alone revives. You are the sick patient, unable to help yourself, and he is the Good Doctor. This does not play well for the religious person because there is nothing he can do but admit and then turn from his sin. There are no steps, no stairway, no “you can accomplish anything you want, all you have to do is try”, and there is no “believe in yourself and reach for your dreams.” This passage only says, turn. So I have no steps or things for you to do. I have nothing impressive to give you, just the truth that you are sick and you are dying.

 

And God is the only one who can help!

 

If I had the coronavirus, I could not get rid of it by being a good person. I could not exercise more, I couldn’t take supplements and vitamins, or think positively to get rid of the negative. I need a real cure, a vaccine to stop it. Or if I choose to I can try to suffer through it,  let it do it’s nasty work on me, throw me on a bed of pain until it works itself out in my body in a week or so. 

Sin is the sickness that God addresses here in Hosea. Rebellion against God. Religion won’t fix it, in fact, it can cover over it which actually makes it worse. So you have two choices, (1) let sin do its work in your life and destroy you, but the problem is that it takes an eternity of suffering to fully work it out. The wages of sin is death, eternal death. 

Or (2) you can access the vaccine. What vaccine? It is indirectly hinted at in this passage, the wording of Hosea is odd and it is more than coincidental, I think it is intentional. Let me read it and explain, “After two days he will revive us; on the third days he will raise us up, that we may live before him.”

 

After three days, what do you think that could be referring to?

 

1. One historical interpretation is that Israel had been taken out of the promised land three specific times for punishment: Egypt, Assyria/Babylonian Captivities, and the scattering by Herod after rejecting the coming of Christ. After the full payment for Israel’s rejection of God, they will finally be restored.
2. Or, it could be to this statement by Jesus in Matthew 12:40, “ For just as Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of the great fish, so will the Son of Man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth.” Full restoration for sickness was accomplished at the cross. Jesus died a horrible death, he was torn to pieces for your sin and my sin, was buried for three days, and on the third day, he rose again to bring us to God. So we could “live before him.”

 

This is not religion, this is realizing a person died for me. God allowed his Son to be torn up so I could be healed. Instead of looking at candles, stained glass windows, and silver crosses on golden chains, look to the broken and bloodied man hanging on the wooden cross, that was meant for you. There is nothing you can do, because by that death everything has already been done.

Your sin put him there. You are guilty. Admit it.

The End of My Story

When I was 23 I was tired of playing religion, in fact I was warn out. It was at that time that I knew I had to decide: Was Jesus and his death real or not? Did he rise again from the dead or not? I figured, if the answer was no then all my years of “doing” religion was an empty show. Going through motions to look holy. If the answer was yes, then his suffering was my fault. I was guilty. I was responsible for the death of the perfect man.

I had to let that sink in. All of us do. Jesus Christ was painfully killed because I was nothing more than a half baked cake and silly dove. It was all my fault.

I am no longer religious. I am both ashamed and grateful. Are you?