Religion is more about waking up than cleaning up

​For a long time, I think I unknowingly saw my evolution as a Christian rooted in this idea:

I need to use my religion to clean up my life so I'll be more credible and effective at helping other people clean up their lives.

Then one day it hit me - our lives are never cleaned up. They are always messy. It hit me that I can spend my whole life sweeping my kitchen floor - and hand you a few brooms along the way to clean up your floors - and still, my floor and your floors are always going to have yesterdays cheerios or coffee grounds on them. (Welcome to my kitchen floor...🙂🤷‍♂️).

Somewhere along the way, my evolution as a Christian became rooted in the discovery that my religion is found IN the mess, not in cleaning it up.

More and more, I find myself drawn to people's messes. And not because I'm interested in selling them a cheap broom, but because I've discovered there is something beautiful that happens when you start sharing messes with one another instead of arguing about who needs the biggest broom.

It's when we share our messes that we can wake up to the reality that religion, at it's best, is a shared compassion, a shared love, found at the intersection of our shared struggles, and not at the intersection of our tangled and often combating brooms.

You know, one of the greatest mysteries of my personal faith is this idea of three persons in one - the father and the son and the holy spirit. The trinity. Most days I don't get the whole idea of ME - just this one me - let alone trying to imagine THREE of me in me!!

Richard Rohr says this about that trinity relationship:

"The names of the three “persons” of the Trinity are not as important as the relationship between them. That’s where all the power is—in the 'in between'!"

From the very beginning, like long before the first human relationship ever formed, God was living this idea that religion is what happens between us, and not how effective we are at cleaning up what is all around us.

God didn't need a son and God didn't need a holy spirit - but God wrote them into the story of life so we'd know relationship IS life. And religion is relationship.

We miss that when we make religion about cleaning up our lives.

We miss that when we use religion as a way to demand that someone else cleans up their lives.

I like to picture God and Jesus and The Holy Spirit having morning coffee. They are strategizing their days. I think I used to think those huddles looked like three people figuring out the best way to go clean up Keith today. But this morning, I picture them talking about how they can go love Keith today in the middle of his messy kitchen floor.

And I think that's what they want me to think about this morning with my coffee. They want me thinking about how I can go love someone else in the middle of their cheerios and their coffee grounds.

Because today I see my religion as a chance to wake up to the love that is found in sharing messes, not cleaning them up.