Belief in God feeds our soul with the promise of a spiritual life beyond our mortal existence. We are forced to value the spiritual over the material. Our physical existence is less important because it is finite and imperfect. Our bodies tempt us with sin and confound us with suffering, potentially endangering our spiritual immortality. Our possessions can be lost or destroyed in the blink of an eye. Our sacred texts frequently remind us to keep our eyes on the spiritual prize.
There is a seduction that often goes unnoticed. If all God wants from us is belief, avoiding the temptation to hurt others, and teaching others to do likewise, then spiritual practice can be rather passive. It is the promise of reward with minimal responsibility. And anything that goes haywire in this world is due to human predisposition to sin and not our responsibility to fix it.
Rabbi Artson reminds us that passive spirituality is not what God has in mind. The tradition in Judaism is for God being present in our imperfect physical existence and working through us.
"It is the crowning glory of the Torah, and of the rabbis (who were not themselves students of Plato, and therefore weren't really aware of this dichotomy), to focus Jewish life not in people thinking together, but in deeds of holiness. It is what we do in a world that presents the venue for God to enter the world. Suffering is not an interesting theological problem; it is a call to action. Do you know someone who is hurting? Help them. Do you know someone who is lonely? Welcome them."The impulse for passive spirituality comes from us. It ignores injustices and allows us to be self-centered. The evil that exists in this world is God's problem, not yours.
"I believe that splitting body and soul into separate camps also ultimately trivializes issues of social justice: Don't worry that there are people starving, because after all, this world is already a degraded place, and we need to focus on what is spiritually pure. How petty politics becomes when you are promised an eternal life with no corporeality whatsoever.
And, finally, understanding God's perfection to be of another world, this mundane and ephemeral world need not occupy much of our attention. The fact that we are melting the ice caps and incinerating the ozone layer, that species are becoming extinct in an accelerated rate, need not occupy our attention. From the perspective of a physical/spiritual dichotomy, these unfortunate events constitute corporeal trivia. Focus instead on eternal salvation!"Two thousand years ago, a rabbi named Jesus taught that we are to love others, which means attending to their needs and suffering as much as our own. And if you are self-centered, you are part of the problem rather than the solution. He dismissed loving your family and friends as generosity of spirit, nothing that even evil people do that. Your family includes all the children of God. You are to treat strangers and even your enemies as friends and neighbors. In other words, stop fantasizing about your spiritual reward, roll up your sleeves, and get busy loving others and caring for God's creation.
Immature, self-centered faith gives religion a bad name. It gives the privileged an excuse to do nothing and tells those in need to focus on their spiritual reward. It is not simply lazy, but fertile ground for evil. It deifies injustice. Remember what Karl Marx said about religion?
"Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world, and the soul of soulless conditions. It is the opium of the people".That criticism is valid when it refers to faith without action. Dead faith (James 2:14-17):
What good is it, my brothers and sisters, if someone claims to have faith but has no deeds? Can such faith save them? Suppose a brother or a sister is without clothes and daily food. If one of you says to them, “Go in peace; keep warm and well fed,” but does nothing about their physical needs, what good is it? In the same way, faith by itself, if it is not accompanied by action, is dead.Rabbi Artson reminds us to revel in living faith.
"This is a more integrated view which understands that the world around us is not nearly a source of degradation and temptation, but, in fact, one of God's greatest gifts to us. We are invited to delight in the senses we have been given and in the world into which we have been born. And because of that wonderful gift, this integrated view of embodied soulfulness urges us to recommit ourselves now and throughout the years to the renewal of God's creation, to the repair of a broken world -- one body at a time, one person at a time."Amen, Rabbi. Amen.
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