The story of the Prodigal Son has a lot to say about how God views religion.  The younger son asks for his inheritance and spends it on wild living.  The older son plays it safe.  He is dutiful, knows right from wrong, and has a high opinion of himself.  When the younger son returns, the elder son has anger, jealousy, and little love for his brother.  We could say he captures the religious spirit of the day.  Religion plays it safe and in the process lacks the stuff that is pleasing to God.  We could say that the religious spirit is lukewarm and as such God will spit him out of his mouth.

            Jesus did not always play it safe.  When the disciples leave him to get food Jesus engages with a woman at the well, a woman who Jesus tells us has had five husbands and the man she is now living with is not her husband.  Rather than fear his reputation being damaged, Jesus breaks the custom of the day to save a soul.  His boldness with this woman so captured her attention, she became our first evangelist.  Or take this for an example.  Jesus is dining with the Pharisees and a woman begins to kiss his feet, wash his feet with her tears, and wipe them with her hair.  His dining partners view this transgression as condemnation thinking that Jesus would allow a sinner to touch him.  He tells his diner guests that he who is forgiven little loves little and he who has been forgiven much loves much and he forgives the woman of her sin.  Rather than being motivated by his own personal evaluation and playing it safe, Jesus risks his reputation to save a soul.  The story of Jesus clearing the temple, consumed with zeal for his Father’s house certainly is not playing it safe.  The present feeling of modern scholarship points to this event as the straw that broke the camel’s back and sealed his fate. 

                The difference between religion and spirituality is vast.  Religion is sealed in stone.  It is concrete, full of judgment, pride, and superiority.  Spirituality is fluid, flows from the spirit, and is not quick to condemn.  Spirituality seeks to unite while religion divides and separates.  Religion is conceptual, analytical, and rigid.  Spirituality finds life in faith, hope, and love.  It is moves in God not man made law.  Religion will not get one to heaven.  Works will not get one to heaven.  Willpower will not overcome the flesh.  Only the grace of God is sufficient for the predicament man finds himself in.  Only by grace through faith are we saved not conformity to law, rules, and ritual.

            God esteems the salvation of a soul of greater importance than our reputation.  He doesn’t always want us to play it safe.  There is a measure of risk involved at times to see if we really love God and our fellow man above personal considerations.  Jesus did not play it safe over and over again.  He touched lepers and he touched the dead, neither of which were in keeping with the law.  He lived the gospel of love not condemnation and judgment.  If the Spirit prompts you to love will you value your personal reputation or will you follow the Spirit?  Be like Jesus!

Amen