An unusual thing happened this last week: the masses made their voices heard.

And it didn’t happen through voting, though that is one way this happens more regularly in the world (when voting restrictions don’t keep people away from the polls).

And it didn’t happen in a courtroom.

It happened on Wall Street, and it is so rare there that it actually brought the beast to a little bit of a halt this last week.

If you’re not up to speed, you can find an extended story here. If you want a basic (very basic) version, this is basically what happened:

To make easy money on the market, some entities do some fancy footwork to play the system. It’s set up to be played, by the way, but only if you know the right moves…and usually only the very wealthy can afford (literally) to know the right moves.

Basically, you bet that a stock will fall, so you borrow securities, trade them on the open market, and assume you’ll be able to buy them back at a lower price. You payback what you borrow, and you get to keep the excess.

This last week the market recoiled after a group of small (in terms of Wall Street) investors decided to bet on nostalgia and bought up shares of GameStop, you know, that place in the mall where they sell (and buy back!) video games.

What’s a mall, you ask? It’s that place where the elderly walk in circles and pass by stores no one goes in anymore. But, I digress…

The reason they bought these stocks, though, was because hedgfunds were using GameStop (and other entities like it) to “buy short” as they call it, betting that the stocks would fall and wanting to make some quick cash.

The influx of GameStop buying sent the stock soaring, causing a number of short-buying investors to lose millions. Billions, even.

Seriously.

And it was largely done because a bunch of little investors using no-fee sites like Robinhood, a place where people can trade small amounts just to dabble in the market. In fact, Robinhood even shut down for a bit to stop the blood loss for the billionaire class because this collective buying by small-time investors was working so well at beating the game by playing the game.

It’s all pretty fascinating. Popcorn-eating fascinating.

But what I’m most confused about is not how it happened (I think it should happen more! The market should be risky for everyone, not just the little investor!). I’m more confused about why Robinhood, a site that says it is dedicated to getting small investors in the game, shut down when the billionaire class became imperiled because other users figured out how to play the game better for once.

Isn’t Robinhood supposed to encourage that kind of enagement?

I mean, it’s named ROBINHOOD. You’d think it would be happy to live up to it’s name, right?

Oh, what’s in a name…?

The truth is that Robinhood, and other sites like it, were instrumental in transforming the system, if just for a moment. But, unlike it’s name would suggest, it turns out it wasn’t interested in transformation, but rather in just propping up the system so that nothing changes at all!

And this, Beloved, is where critique of religion comes in because, I have to be honest, religion, too, doesn’t often live up to it’s name.

Religion literally means “connect again.” “Re”-back and “ligio”-ligament, actually means to re-bind or re-connect, and at its core should be invested in life transformation through a connection to the Divine.

But honestly, on both ends of the operation, this is usually not the goal of most religion as it we currently find it.

If you think that’s not true, just talk to the number of pastors frustrated because they can’t get people to invest in a deeper spiritual life through dedicated spiritual practices. They’d rather have their Spring Picnic and Youth Car Wash and

Or, if you think that’s not true, talk to the thousands who never darken the door of a religious building anymore (accept on a tour) because “nothing happened” for them in those walls.

On the participation side and on the facilitation side it seems like religion isn’t really too interested, most days, in living into its name.

You know, kind of like how the elite Wall Street investors and the sites like Robinhood weren’t too interested in transformation, but only in paying lip-service to getting people into investing and embracing risk.

Systems that live for self-preservation are not interested in making a difference in your life, but rather only interested in propping up their own lives.

This is why I think that for every religious institution the question of “should we sell our building” be on the table, every year. The building can become an idol, Beloved, and if it’s not working for the mission, it’s working against it.

This is why I think that most every team of a church should be ad hoc, by and large. Why have a team if there’s no reason to? The Spring Picnic Team should only be convened once it’s clear that there is a good, missional reason to have the Spring Picnic! And, yes, a time to gather and get to know one another is absolutely a great reason for a Spring Picnic, but if all you have are a bunch of Spring Picnics under different names, then, well, you need to reevaluate your purpose.

Good religion needs to live into its name, or else it is no better than Robinhood: inviting people in but, once they have been transformed and want to do something differently because of it, shutting them out or down because, well, “that’s not how we do things around here…”

Invest in places that are interested in both being transformed and in helping you transform, Beloved. They are out there, both in the market place and in the halls of religion.

But it doesn’t seem to be the norm.

So make sure they’re living into their name…