Public Righteousness vs Public Religion

Below is my sermon that I wrote for Ash Wednesday this year. Sickness kept me from the church that day, for the first time in my priestly ministry, but I hope they are still helpful words as you begin your Lenten journey.

In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, Amen.

In these final days of Christendom, as the edifice of a Christian empire and the illusion of a Christian nation are finally falling down, as church attendance and membership shrinks across the board, and as few people are anymore terribly interested in what the church has to say about anything… in these days, Christianity can at times resort to jumping up and down and shouting to make its voice heard. Whether it is evangelists on television who promise prosperity if you follow their guides or Christians on social media who trumpet their own righteousness by calling out all those who disagree with them, in all sorts of arenas religion can at times become a rather noisy thing and many of the times we wish there was a mute button—to say nothing of an unbelieving world who finds noisy and showy Christianity devoid of any attraction or draw.

So, when we hear Jesus say in the Gospel reading today, “Beware of practicing your piety before others in order to be seen by them; for then you have no reward from your Father in heaven,” many of us breathe a sigh of relief, grateful that Jesus is telling noisy Christians to quiet down and focus more on practicing their religion than talking about it. He says your gifts of treasure should be done quietly an in secret, that your prayers should be simple and done in the quiet of your room, and that when you fast you should make it impossible for anyone to tell by looking at you that you are fasting. He reminds his listeners that wherever your treasure is, there your heart will be also, and that if your treasure is being seen by others as righteous, your heart will only ever live there… it will be far from the God who desires you.

There is a slight difficulty, though, with the quiet “yay” whispered by the average Episcopalian upon hearing this Gospel text. Don’t get me wrong, Episcopalians love the idea of a quiet religion, one that doesn’t stir anything up. It’s like the old joke, when a Baptist asked an Episcopalian if they had a personal relationship with Jesus and the Episcopalian responded that this seemed like a remarkably private intrusion! 

So, just to make sure we are all on the same page, let’s be clear: Jesus is not telling you in this story that you need to keep your Christianity private and to yourself. If he was, then other verses in this Gospel would make no sense, verses where he sends out his disciples to preach the good news and do public acts of justice and healing. Verses like 10:37, where he tells his followers, “What I say to you in the dark, tell in the light; and what you hear whispered, proclaim from the housetops.” Indeed, if this text was about keeping your Christianity private, then the whole great commission at the end would make no sense, where Jesus tells us all to “Go therefore and make disciples of all nations.” I’m reminded of St. Peter’s advice in First Peter 3:15, “Always be ready to make your defense to anyone who demands from you an account of the hope that is in you; yet do it with gentleness and reverence.”

Absolutely, showy and vapid religion that is all about being seen is far from the Christianity of Christ. However, keeping your religion private, not sharing with those around you the good news of God’s love and grace you have experienced, that is also far from the Christianity of Christ. Each and every one of us must learn how to give our elevator pitch, our brief articulation of how God’s love has touched us. Each of us must learn how to invite others in—because there are many broken people in this unbelieving world who are in need of an experience of grace… people who won’t have that experience unless you get brave and invite them in.

So, no. You cannot use this text as a get out of evangelizing free card. 

After all, what Jesus warns about is not practicing your religion before others in order to be seen by them (after all, he did a lot of public religious acts precisely so people could see and believe). What he warns against is practicing your “piety” before others in order to be seen by them. The Greek word there is “δικαιοσύνην.” This word is usually translated as righteousness, meaning right conduct before God. That is, these are the good acts that you do, the righteous choices you make. It is your righteousness Jesus cautions against flaunting publicly.

Which raises some very interesting questions about the ashes each of you are about to have placed upon your forehead. Because, if these ashes are a symbol of your righteousness, of the fact that you came to church in the middle of a busy week, of the decision you are making to fast and practice a righteous and holy lent… then you might want to consider wiping those ashes off before you exit the doors of this church—because publicly flaunting how righteous you are is precisely what Jesus warns against in this chapter.

But what if these ashes are a symbol of something else? Because when the ashes are blessed, we ask God to make them a sign of our mortality and penitence.  They are a sign of the fact that we know we will all die in the end. They are a sign of the fact not that we are righteous, but that we know we are sinners who have fallen far from the mark. 

And I wonder what it might mean if we took that prayer seriously, if we saw wearing ashes on our forehead as the equivalent of the Scarlet Letter of Nathaniel Hawthorne, a public statement that we have sinned and failed. What if more Christians were public not about how good they are but about the fact that they know they are sinners saved by grace—and that they found that grace here, in the sacraments celebrated in their faith community? What if Christians started being more open about humility, penitence, and contrition? I have a feeling the world might see us differently. 

The problem with self-righteousness, the problem with showy Christianity where you make sure everyone know how right you are and how wrong others are, is that not only does it actually drive people away from the church, but it also disconnects you from God. As one author notes, “It is so easy to back away from that precipitous edge of longing for God and settle into being satisfied with being religious.” Being religious is important, acts of righteousness and discipline are what help draw us closer to God… but it is easy to substitute self-righteousness and contentment with our religious acts for true pursuit of God. 

The humility and penitence of Lent, however, are a sharp sword meant to cut our selfishness and sin away so that we can move ever closer to love of God and love of neighbor. And it is when people see someone who lives a life of true humility, someone who is quick to forgive when someone fails and quick to repent when sin overcomes, when people see that… then they begin to want to know about the salvation you have found, a salvation which is clearly much more about God’s love than it is about your righteousness. 

What will these ashes mean to you? What will this holy season of Lent mean to you

Will it be some simple religious actions to distract you from the real sin in your life, from your true need to turn back from God?

Or will this Lent be about an honest giving up of yourself, a true turning from sin, and a willingness perhaps even to start being a little more public with your humility, a little more willing to be vulnerable and invite someone into this place where you find God’s grace?

Because if your treasure is in heaven, if your heart is set upon the blessed vision of God and the restoration of all creation, your life should look like it. Amen. 

On Banning Books: Remarks to the GHAPS Board of Education

Below are the remarks I gave at the public comment portion of the Grand Haven Area Public Schools Board of Education meeting tonight.

Thank you, Board of Education, for the opportunity to share a few thoughts with you. My name is Jared Cramer. I’m a class of 2000 graduate of Grand Haven and for the past ten years I have been the priest at St. John’s Episcopal Church here in town. In just a couple years I look forward to enrolling my young daughter at Rosy Mound elementary school.

I’d like to start by sharing a story with you. When I was a child, probably no more than eight years old, I decided I would read through the Bible from cover to cover. Much of it was familiar. I read through the familiar creation stories, Adam and Eve, Cain and Abel, Noah’s ark and the great flood, Abraham and Sarah… But then I came across a story I hadn’t heard in Sunday School. I read how after Sodom and Gomorrah, Abraham’s nephew, Lot, went to live in a cave with his daughters. His daughters thought they would never have children and so both of them got their father intoxicated and then slept with him, trying to get pregnant.

I came into the kitchen and told my mom about this strange story had I just read in the Bible. She said, “That’s not in the Bible.” I handed her my paperback New International Version and she read the story herself, her face flushing. She then told me that maybe I should wait until I’m a little older before I read Scripture for myself.

I share this story to underline two key points. The first is that there is a good amount of literature that has some sexual content—including some much more graphic content in the Bible, as I later discovered!—and only reading a few lines of any work does not give you a sense of context, of how those lines function in the larger narrative arc. Yes, the Bible contains some content which is the garbage of humanity… But it also tells the story of how God can always redeem even the garbage of this world. Second, my mother did what any parent should do: she took an active interest in what I was reading and, when she thought I was reading something beyond my years, she made a decision for me, her child.

I was distraught a few weeks ago to receive screenshots of posts from a Facebook Group called “Grand Haven Conservative Parents.” One of the leaders of that group posted on December 20, 2019, how someone went through the school library catalogs to come up with a full list of LGBTQ-themed books at every school in our district. From that list, some books were pulled out which have some more explicit portions and those books are now being used to argue for censorship and restrictions over literature in our district libraries.

A few things I would encourage the Board to pay attention to. Note where this began—with a concern about LGBTQ content. This began with a list of books that included something as simple as a child having two dads—a story a kid in our district who might happen to have two dads deserves to read in their school library. The book by Michael Barakiva from which selections have been read is not the smut it has been made out to be through the quotation of a few sections. it is a book that has been praised by numerous serious reviewers of young adult literature. Would the content be appropriate for all ages of children? Of course not. Children mature at different rates. For teenagers who are trying to understand who they are as a gay person, though, it has been reviewed as a deeply meaningful book.

There is already a professional organization who helps parents and librarians determine the appropriate age for children and young adult literature. It’s called the Children’s and Young Adults’ Cataloging Program (CYAC) at the Library of Congress. They use experts in the field of children’s literature and evaluate many aspects of that literature to help with cataloguing, including identifying the proper age of the audience. Our school librarians are also trained in knowing what literature is appropriate for which age group. We need to trust our professionals.

I want to applaud the options being offered by the district at this meeting, where parents can see any books their child has checked out, either through a weekly email or logging into their account. Parents can give a list of books they don’t want their child to checkout. All of these underscore what is truly essential—parents must take responsibility for engaging with their own kids (just like my mother did with me). They should talk with their kids about the books they read, what is in them and what their kids think about it. Lord knows, when my daughter is older, I would much rather she goes to the library to read literature with sexual content than some of the other options out there. Banning books from curious teens only sends them to other darker places.

But most importantly, a small group of parents must not be allowed to make these decisions for other children and teenagers by insisting that their standards should supersede those of library professionals. No group of parents should have the ability to say that stories that feature LGBTQ characters making out are somehow dangerous to teenagers—particularly when those books can be a lifeline to a queer teenager who feels alone and marginalized.

Furthermore, even though it might raise a few eyebrows, we need to be clear that sexual content in young adult literature—gay or straight—helps adolescents form a healthy and positive sense of their sexual identity. Judy Blume, for example, has been named one of the most frequently challenged authors of the 21st century by the American Library Association for their inclusion of content including menstruation, wearing a bra for the first time, and masturbation... and yet her books have meant the world to young adolescents. Authentic portrayals that teens can relate to when it comes to healthy sexuality as an adolescent are already hard to find. We shouldn’t make it worse.

I hope the school board will continue to empower our librarians. And I hope that parents that are concerned won’t take the path of banning books—even for their own kids. Instead, I hope they’ll focus on engaging more deeply with their own kids as they grow and develop. Thank you.