Sunday, July 03, 2005

Sunday, July 3, 2005 - Piety

Zechariah 9:9-12

Romans 7:15-25a

Matthew 11:16-19, 25-30

Piety. Now there’s a word you don’t hear every day. If we use the word "piety" at all, it’s almost always connected with religion, and it tends to reflect an Old World, old-fashioned way of thinking. But piety is neither Old World, nor old-fashioned. It means, according to the Merriam-Webster Dictionary, "dutifulness in religion." In other words, piety means a person’s devotion to their religion. Piety is how a person lives out their faith. A pious person is someone who is very devoted to living out their faith. In religious circles, we sometimes use the word to describe how a group of people operates in a religious manner - we might talk about Norwegian piety, or Puritan piety, or Baptist piety.

Now, you may not think to use the word piety when you’re talking about religious life, but I’ll bet the concept is there. Each one of us has some kind of picture in our head about how we’re supposed to live as good Christians. For just about all Christians, their most basic piety includes going to church at Christmas and on Easter. Some Christians’ piety requires them to go to church at least once a month. Or even every Sunday. Some Christians’ piety includes reading the Bible every day, saying grace at every meal, or blessing their homes when they move in.
But there are other Christians whose piety isn’t quite like that. For some Christians, their piety doesn’t require them to go to church every Sunday, but it does require them to give change to homeless people. And for some Christians, their piety doesn’t require them to do anything at all. They live out their faith by just living.

Well, our Gospel reading today makes references to two different practices of piety by referring to John the Baptist and to Jesus.

Some would describe John the Baptist as very pious. He lived out in the desert wilderness of Israel, shunning any and all kinds of comforts, including the comforts of comfortable clothes. Instead, he wore nothing but camel hair skin wrapped around him and tied with a leather belt. Not very comfortable, but that wasn’t the point. He ate grasshoppers and honey, and that was it. No lamb, like everybody else, or bread, or anything like that. John the Baptist was what we call an ascetic. He was highly self-disciplined, he overcame any weakness of his body like hunger or cold and hot. His piety, his way of living out his faith, was to focus solely on God and to ignore everything else, including himself. John’s piety also included preaching about the wrath of God. His way of being devoted was to remind people about how far they had fallen from God’s eyes and to warn them to shape up or face the axe. Like prophets from the Old Testament, John’s piety was severe and unforgiving - he shunned and even verbally abused the Pharisees. In Jesus’ parable, John belonged to the children sitting in the marketplace who wailed and invited people to mourn.

And then there was Jesus’ piety. And Jesus’ piety, his way of living out his faith, was almost exactly the opposite. Jesus didn’t live in the desert - instead, he travelled from town to town. He feasted with all kinds of people, from prostitutes to those whose piety was pretty much nonexistent, wining and dining to the extent that he earned the reputation of being a "glutton and a drunkard." Jesus’ piety required him to preach healing and love to people, rather than warnings like John. In his parable, he belonged to the children in the marketplace who played the flute in the hopes that people would dance.

Now the thing about having different types of pieties is that, like with all things, we tend to start comparing them. We compare the piety of the older generation - who go to church every Sunday, dressed in their nice clothes, with the piety of the younger generation - who go to church less often, dressed in their jeans. We compare the piety of the conservative Baptists - who don’t allow drinking or dancing - with the piety of the Anglicans - who enjoy a nice bit of scotch when they get together. We compare the piety of those church members who sit on church committees and diligently attend every church event with the piety of those who just show up for Sunday and slip away right after.

And in that comparing, we usually put ourselves in one of the two camps, and then the judging begins. We either judge those whose piety is different from ours, wondering why they don’t live up to our standards of faith-life. For instance some of you, I’m guessing, are wondering where everybody is this morning, and frowning over how people just don’t come to church in the summer. We judge the piety of those Christian MPs in Parliament who voted in favour of the same-sex marriage legislation and we judge the piety of those who voted against it. Or we even judge ourselves, wondering if maybe we should be more serious about our faith, judging whether our piety matches up to what’s expected.

Now, it’s a common reaction - the Pharisees did it to both John and Jesus, saying that John’s piety was so severe and restricted that he must have been possessed and saying that Jesus’ piety was so lax and easygoing that he was a no-good partier. And even John the Baptist and his followers did it a little bit when, after a particular feast, Jesus was asked why he didn’t fast like they did. And when John was imprisoned for his faith, after hearing news of Jesus’ goings-on, he sent a message to Jesus asking him if he really could be the Messiah. After all, what kind of Messiah lived out his devotion to God by eating and drinking? We are constantly comparing the piety of ourselves and others, wondering who’s measuring up to the right standards.

So who is? What is the best way to live out our faith life? Which piety has the recommendation of God, so to speak? Well, interestingly enough, none of them. What I mean is that none of our pieties, none of the ways of living out our faith, are explicitly advocated by God. Not the going to church every Sunday nor the staying home and having brunch with family. Not the asceticism of John nor the feasting of Jesus. And that’s because, according to Paul, we are all of us sinners and that means that all of our pieties are insufficient. None of them are good enough. We may try and try and try to live the proper life of devotion, but ultimately, we will fail. We do things that we know we shouldn’t; we don’t do the things we know we should. And so Paul asks the critical question, "Who will rescue me from this body of death?"

His answer? "Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord!" Our rescue comes from above. In other words, thanks be to God that our salvation and our forgiveness aren’t based on our pieties, but on Jesus Christ dying and being raised for us. God doesn’t forgive you based on how you live out your faith life, but solely on Jesus Christ having died on the cross and wiped out your sins. God doesn’t grant you new life based on how often you attend church or read the Bible, but solely on Jesus Christ being raised from the dead with new life for all.

And that means that we are free to practice whatever piety we like. We can be as disciplined as John if we like, if we are strong enough, which not all of us are. Or we can take on the piety of Jesus, who encouraged us, actually, to take his path, saying that his yoke is easy and his burden is light. Because Jesus’ death and resurrection frees us from having to worry about our own salvation, we are freed to choose that piety that fits who we are personally. Whether that means dressing up for church or wearing jeans, whether that means worshipping God at the cottage or in church, whether that means showing our devotion to our faith by living a strictly disciplined lifestyle like John or by relaxing and hanging out with friends like Jesus, we can freely choose, since through Jesus God is no longer using our piety as a guideline for acceptance.

Every Christian has one kind of piety or another. That is, every Christian lives out their faith life one way or another. Whether we are conscious of it or not, our piety affects how we dress, what we do with our spare time, what kind of people we spend time with, what kind of car we drive - every aspect of our life, actually. And if God judged our piety the way we judge others’, you can be sure that all of our pieties would fall short. But, as you’ve heard, because of the cross, that’s no longer what God does - instead God accepts us, and the way we live out our faith life, without reservation. So - however you choose to practice your piety this summer, do so freely with a clear conscience, trusting that by the grace of God it is sufficient. "Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord." Amen.

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