Spiritual or religious - 7 October 2011

It seems trendy these days to claim to be spiritual but not religious. Religious apparently means going to church and doing religious things, so that’s a no-no. But spiritual is such a handy word in the contemporary climate because it can mean anything, like whatever I want it to mean. And also spiritual, whatever it is, can be done without messing up all the other things we might want to do.

Well, it might be quite important to be neither of these things. Labelling, in any case, usually isn’t helpful or specially informative, and in a mature faith we require less and less of labelling of ourselves or others, because it always obscures the truth.

Jesus didn’t invite his followers to become spiritual or religious. He invited his followers to leave self behind, and that is another pathway altogether. When he did employ any labelling it was in a negative sense -- don’t be like the pharisees. And what was the matter with the pharisees...? They were deeply aware of self, ego, image, reputation. They had official selves. They were role-models, visible, important. The pharisee Jesus pictured in the temple actually thanked God that he was not like other people. He was very spiritual and religious, and quite exemplary. I am sure he was also sincere. Jesus invites us to say goodbye to whatever vestiges of the pharisee are in us, large or small.

So, what we experience in contemplative life and prayer, as time goes by and the life of stillness builds, is the steady enfeebling of the ego. Our official self, what we hope is our visible self, even if it is widely admired, is not the same as the self God made and sees, knows and loves. Love, in the disciplines of stillness and silence, but actually wherever we find it, somehow attenuates the ego in ourselves and even in others, as we begin to see the truth more clearly.

Love and truth are always intimately related, and it is the true self which God made and which Jesus brings to birth, always, as we are still and consenting. This is never something we strive for. The best we can do is be still. God’s breath of creation does it in us.