Sermon given by Rev. Shawn Coons on January 22, 2023

Last week we started our series on embracing progressive Christianity, and we discussed a little bit about why do we have to label our Christianity? And we said, yes, we are all Christians and we all have some common unity. But since the beginning of Christian history, we have interpreted Jesus' teachings in different ways and that it can actually help us to articulate, and sometimes when appropriate, use labels to talk about our similarities and our differences.

We talked a little bit about what is progressive Christianity, and we used one major metaphor of windows. We talked about how God is beyond our sight, God is beyond our comprehension. But God and God's graciousness has been revealed to us in a number of ways. And we have windows onto God, windows onto the divine, and it shows us just a little bit of God, each window does, or some more than others. Just like different windows show us different views, different windows in our faith, whether they come from the Bible, whether they come from our own spirituality, whether they come from church tradition, give us a little bit more of a view of God. Some windows are better than others and some may be even a little distorted, but they all can be helpful and we honor the views of all of those windows.

We talked about the Bible as one of those windows, actually a collection of windows. The different passages and different parts of the Bible provide insight, provide a view of God and we can see different things. And sometimes some Bible passages are more helpful than others, but we don't throw out any part of the Bible. We don't throw out any passage of the Bible just because we don't like that view.

Today we're going to talk a little bit more in depth about how we approach the Bible, how progressive Christianity approaches the Bible, and we're going to do that by looking at one particular window, if you will, one particular passage. Second Samuel starting with chapter six, verse one, and this is in Israel's early history when David was king. And we're reading about transporting the Ark of the Covenant, a very holy relic for the Israelites back into Jerusalem.

David again gathered all the chosen men of Israel, 30,000. David and all the people with him set out and went from Baale-Judah to bring up from there the Ark of God, which is called by the name of the Lord of hosts who is enthroned on the cherubim. They carry the Ark of God on a new cart and brought it out of the house of Abinadab, which was on the hill. Uzzah and Ahio, the sons of Abinadab, were driving the new cart with the Ark of God and Ahio went in front of the Ark and David and all the House of Israel dancing before the Lord with all their might with songs and liars and harps and tambourines and casted nets and symbols.

When they came to the threshing floor of Nacon, Uzzah reached out his hand to the Ark of God and took hold of it for the oxen, shook it. The anger of the Lord was kindled against Uzzah, and God struck him there because he reached out his hand to the Ark and he died there beside the Ark of God. David was angry because the Lord had burst forth with an outburst upon Uzzah." So that place is called Perez-uzzah to this day.

I'm willing to place a small bet that you are not familiar with Uzzah, the son of Abinadab, that this is not a Sunday school story you grew up hearing. This is Uzzah's only mention in all of scripture. And so it's understandable if this is an unfamiliar story, if we didn't know that God killed Uzzah because he reached out and touched the Ark of the Covenant, because he tried to steady it.

Let's go into a little bit more detail. What is the Ark of the Covenant? At this point in Jewish history, there were no temple. There were really weren't synagogues. There weren't established places that people gathered for religious purposes. And so the Ark of the Covenant was all that the Hebrew people had as a physical symbol of where God dwelled. And the Ark of the Covenant was made just shortly after the Hebrew people left Egypt and there are very detailed instructions for how it was to be created, so much so that we can kind of render what it would look like.

This was an important thing for the Hebrew people. This was, important isn't even the right word, sacred for the people of Israel. In some ways they believe God's presence, dwelt in and among the Ark in a unique way. And so this was a very important day, bringing the Ark of the Covenant into Jerusalem. And this was quite a procession. We heard there were 30,000 of the chosen men. There would've been others besides those chosen men as well, and they're dancing and they're singing and they're playing all these instruments. There's another part of scripture that says every six paces they stopped to sacrifice a cow or an oxen. So it did not move very quickly either. This was a really big deal.

Uzzah and his brother, Ahio are in charge of leading this team of oxen, leading the Ark on this cart, pulling it along the road into Jerusalem. There were not paved roads at this point. There were well worn roads, but they're not going to be exactly smooth and they're going to be some sections that are bumpier than other. And they come across one of these sections, and out of concern for the Ark, this holy relic of the Israelites. When it's bumpy and the Ark looks like it's maybe going to fall off, Uzzah reaches out his hand to steady it, a very natural thing to do, very protective thing to do, and as he does, God strikes him dead.

Why? I mean, what do we do with that? There are several answers that scholars have offered throughout the centuries. A traditional answer is under the category of holiness. That there is a holiness about the Ark that is the holiness of God. God is holy in such a way that God can't stand impurities. It's like a physical impossibility for impurity to be in the presence of God. And Uzzah was not ritually prepared to interact with the Ark. And so it wasn't that so much that God chose to kill him that, but that the holiness killed him at that moment.

Another explanation is that Uzzah should have known that God would protect the Ark, that the Ark needed no protection from mortal hands and Uzzah's reaching out shows Uzzah's, lack of faith, lack of trust in God.

I don't know about you, but I'm not happy with either of those answers or the variations that show up there. It does not sit right with me. Why would God kill someone for lack of faith or lack of trust? If that is the case, please don't stand too close to me on certain days. God doesn't find someone who's struggling and doubting and punish them for that. There are plenty of other places in scripture where God honors people's doubt and struggles. The Bible's full of these stories. Moses doubted God. Miriam doubted God, Abraham and Sarah the disciples. Jesus even has a moment or two of questioning God. So what about this holiness thing? Well, if it's like anti-matter and matter kind of, if you're in that sci-fi Star Trek world and the two can't meet otherwise they annihilate each other. I don't think God is a property like that. Where sin is one physical substance and God is another physical substance, and when they come together in any way, shape or form, there's this reaction and there's obliteration.

How do we make sense of this today? And I think this is where we're going to come back to the Bible as a collection of windows, as different passages of scripture, different accounts of scripture, different books of the Bible even show us a certain window of God, a certain view on God of how the people at that time viewed God and how God was revealing God's self to them. So we ask ourselves if this is a window of view on God and it only shows part of the picture, but we honor nonetheless, what can we see through this window? What can we honor through this window?

Before we go further, I want to name a truth, a truth about biblical interpretation for progressive Christians, and actually not just progressive Christians but many Christians across other traditions. We don't always take every story in the Bible, every word in the Bible as 100% accurate, 100% historically accurate. We don't believe that the Bible is the dictated words of God. That God said to someone or God said to a number of people, “write this down word for word. Don't change a thing. These are my exact words. This is exactly how everything happened.”

When we say the Word of God in our tradition and we use a capital W, Word of God, we mean Jesus. We heard Richard read just a moment ago from John chapter one, "In the beginning was the word and the word was God, and the word was with God." There's some Greek going on there and interaction with some Greek philosophy of the day. But when we say Word of God and we capitalize that word, we mean Jesus Christ. That Jesus Christ is the ultimate revelation to us of who God is, that if we want to know most clearly who God is, we look to Jesus. Now, that's tricky because our best understanding of Jesus comes through the Bible, and so sometimes we will say word of God with a lowercase w and we'll be talking about the Bible, but we don't mean in progressive Christianity that it is the dictated, 100% accurate, perfect, without error word of God, but it still shows us the window. It's the best window we have on God. It is the best collection of windows we have on Jesus.

If you've studied the Bible, you realize these windows on God, the various parts of the Bible, they don't always agree with one another. There aren't huge discrepancies, but there are some things, Amy-Jill Levine puts it this way, "In some churches today there's a problem. People are hesitant to voice questions, to say, this doesn't quite cohere. In Matthew and Mark and Luke, the Last Supper's a Passover meal, but in the Gospel of John, it's not, did something go wrong? What about, did Jesus cleanse a temple at the beginning of his ministry? That's in John, or did he do it at the beginning of the passion like in Matthew and Mark? Or maybe he did it twice and it didn't take the first time."

It's true. The Gospel of John has the cleansing the temple three years before Matthew and Mark have it. We can use this. We can do two things. We can do one thing and say, well, which one is right and which one is wrong, and I need to find the right one. Or we can say, you know what? The author of the Gospel of John put that event in Jesus life in his narrative at this point for a reason. I wonder why he did that. The author of the other gospels, they put it at the end of Jesus ministry, say, I wonder why they did that. Let's look at the narrative truth, even if it's not the historical truth. Let's look at the narrative truth and say, why did whomever put this in the Bible, put this story together? Why did they do that? What does that tell us about their understanding of God?

The Jewish people told the story of Uzzah, the son of Abinadab who was killed by God for touching the Ark. We can affirm that we don't think God would do that, but at the same time we can say, well, I wonder why they told this story. I wonder what truth they are trying to share. I wonder why they found it so important to record it. First, pass it on told orally, and then writing it down as part of their holy scriptures.

Now we can continue to use this tricky word “true”, what is true. We can ask if a passage may not be historically true, but is there narrative truth? Can we believe that God did not kill Uzzah for lack of faith? Can we affirm maybe even that God did not kill Uzzah, period, but also affirm that this story shows us a holy truth about the nature of God, something beyond us, something other than human? Can we affirm a view through this window that shows us a powerful God, a God beyond our comprehension, deserving of our awe?

For me, when I start to ask questions like this, there's a voice in my head because of how I was raised in the faith in a little bit different tradition, there's this voice that says, "Shawn, does that mean the Bible isn't true?"

There's a wonderful quote I want to read you here from William Placher suggesting that maybe “is the Bible true” isn't the question we should ask, but maybe “can we trust the Bible?” Placher writes, "Trust provides a good category for thinking about the special attitude Christians take to the Bible. When we trust people, we recognize their jokes as jokes, their metaphors as metaphors, their fishing stories for the tall tales that they are. We also recognize the things they say that really matter, that they won't lead us astray. So it is with the Bible, with all the qualifications duly noted, we can still think that as a guide to Christian faith and life, the Bible won't lead us fundamentally astray. Turning the question, is the Bible true to a question of trust is faithful to the Bible itself. For the Hebrew word we translate as truth carries that connotation of trustworthiness, steadiness, faithfulness, the true person in Hebrew is the one you can trust. So is the true book as well."

The trustworthiness of the Bible relies not on the specific words in scripture, not on the historical details of the story. It relies on the character of God. We trust the Bible because we trust God. So then, it is fair to ask, okay, well, which scriptures are trustworthy? Which passages are jokes and metaphors? And which one can we say, okay, maybe that didn't happen exactly the way? I'm just going to brush through these, but I'll reference where I can find some guidelines for interpreting scriptures from a book I come back to over and over again, probably maybe more than any book that I have in my ministry called Christian Doctrine by Shirley Guthrie. And Dr. Guthrie leaves us with these kind of guidelines.

Scripture is to be in interpreted in light of its own purpose. It's a book of faith. It's a book about God. We don't read the Bible to learn astronomy or biology or economics or philosophy, we read it to learn about God and faith. Scripture finds its fullest expression in the person and works of Jesus. If we read conflicts or tensions or contradictions in the Bible, we look to the life, to the death, to the resurrection of Jesus for clarity. The witness of Christ is the lens that helps us see the rest of scripture clearly.

The Bible is best read in a community. We certainly want to read the Bible in our own personal lives, but not just that, we understand God's words best when we hear other voices helping us interpret.

All of the Bible, all of what we take from the Bible should reflect the rule of love. Love your God and love your neighbor. A trustworthy interpretation of scripture will never promote hatred or anything else but love towards everyone in every situation. And as best we can, we need to understand the time and the place and the context of where scripture was written. Those are those windows into God and into God's people.

So maybe a little bit of homework for you in closing. Maybe sometime today, maybe sometime this week, find 10 to 20 minutes, go somewhere we can relax and not be disturbed. Pick up a Bible and just read from it a little bit. You can read just to a random spot, I would suggest maybe being a little more intentional. Start with one of the gospels or some of the Psalms, maybe a favorite story or passage you have. But just spend some time with reading the Bible. Reading and studying the Bible opens windows into how we view God, it opens windows into our own lives where the spirit can work within us. So I invite you this week and going forward to let God work through you in this way.

Sermon given by Rev. Shawn Coons on January 15, 2023

We are beginning a new sermon and worship series this week called Embracing Progressive Christianity. Immediately with the title there are a couple questions that are fair to ask. First, what is progressive Christianity? Second, why embrace it? We're going to cover both of those this morning in this intro. Then for the following several weeks we'll dive into specific areas of what different parts of faith, different parts of our Christian walk look like with progressive Christianity.

But the first question I want to tackle is actually the second question I just asked. Why do we embrace progressive Christianity, or why do we have to label our Christianity at all? We live in a time, many will say, of increasing dividedness, of increasing polarization. There are many ways that we divide ourselves and there are many camps that we put ourselves in, whether that's political, values, religion, even sports.

There are just so many ways we divide ourselves these days. It's a fair question to say, why can't we just be Christian? Why do we have to say I'm this kind of Christian, or I am that kind of Christian? Well, we’ve always done that. In the history of Christianity, when Jesus first started teaching and he had just a couple disciples, maybe there was a unity among them, but I'm willing to bet even then maybe Peter said, "Well, I kind of see what Jesus is saying this way." One of the other disciples, "Well, I kind of think about it this way." Certainly if we go to Paul's letters, and Paul's letters in the New Testament are the earliest New Testament writings we have, we see that Christians had already started to divide themselves.

Paul writes, "I have heard that some of you follow this teaching. I have heard that there's a group of you who understand the Lord's supper to be this way." We see early on in Christian tradition and Christian history, there are different ways of understanding the teachings of Jesus. There are different denominations, there are different traditions. There are all sorts of different churches these days.

When we say we're going to articulate what it means to be a progressive Christian, we are not creating a division, we are not creating something that didn't exist before. We are articulating what this particular group of Christians may believe. Even within progressive Christianity, there will be different opinions.

I'll go one step further and I will say that this is helpful and not divisive. It is helpful when we can respectfully articulate who we are and what we believe.  Whether you're a progressive Christian, whether you're evangelical Christian, whether you're an evangelical progressive Christians (they exist). Whether you're Muslim, Buddhist, atheist, for us to have a respectful dialogue,
“I believe this and I understand spirituality this way.”

“Well, I understand it this way.”

Even if we disagree, if I learn about you and you learn about me, we're not dividing ourselves. We're coming to understand one another. I think about this in this way. Our family recently took a trip to Ethiopia just a couple weeks ago. It's a different country and they do a lot of things differently than we do. We could have pretended those differences didn't exist. But we didn’t.

We would say to our guide, "Solomon, I'm noticing this and this is the way you do it here in Ethiopia. Well we do it this way in America." He's like, "Oh, that's interesting." We talk about those differences and he would learn about America and we would learn about Ethiopia. So articulating the differences didn't create them, instead it brought us closer together.

I hope maybe I've given you at least some leaning into why it's good to talk about what we believe and sometimes even to label what we believe. So now let's jump to what is progressive Christianity? First and foremost, we want to emphasize the Christianity piece. Progressive Christianity is Christian. At its center is Jesus Christ. At its center is Jesus Christ the Son of God. We follow his example, we follow his teachings and we see those most clearly in scripture in the Bible, the Bible for progressive Christians - for most Christians, I hope all Christians is central. It is authoritative, but progressive Christianity will also say God continues to reveal to us.

God didn't stop when the Bible stopped. God continues to work through the Spirit. God continues to work in many ways, speaking to us, speaking to others, speaking through the church. I want to show an example of this, of how God goes beyond scripture using today's scripture passage. We're going to read from Matthew 5:17-20, 38:44

As you listen to the scripture today, listen for Jesus going beyond scripture. For him, relying on scripture, using that as a base, as a foundation, but then adding a new revelation to it.

Do not think that I have come to abolish the law or the prophets. I have come not to abolish, but to fulfill. For truly, I tell you, until heaven and earth pass away, not one letter, not one stroke of a letter will pass from the law until all is accomplished. Therefore, whoever breaks one of the least of these commandments and teaches others to do the same will be called least in the kingdom of heaven. But whoever does them and teaches them will be called great in the kingdom of heaven. For I tell you, unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.

You have heard that it was said an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth. But I say to you, do not resist an evil doer. But if anyone strikes you on the right cheek, turn the other also. If anyone wants to sue you and take your coat, give your cloak as well. If anyone forces you to go one mile, go also the second mile. Give to everyone who begs from you and do not refuse anyone who wants to borrow from you. You have heard that it was said, "You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy." But I say to you, "Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you."

“You have heard it said, but I tell you,” Jesus begins this passage by saying, "I'm not here to get rid of the laws. Get rid of the scripture that we as Jewish people find holy. Not here to give or to get rid of what God has given us. I'm here to fulfill it.” But then Jesus goes on. "You have heard it said, but I tell you."

In essence, Jesus is saying, “You've heard it said. This is what God gave us back in Israel, back a number of centuries ago when we were wandering the desert. This is the law that we get us when we were first settling in this land and getting started. This is what God told us in this time and place, and it was a gift from God and it worked. It did what it was supposed to in that time and place, but now it's different. We're moving forward, so we hold that scripture and we add to it and we sometimes even go beyond it.”

Jesus acknowledged the value. Jesus acknowledged the truth of what had been given by God before. But in the same breath, Jesus says, "We're also ready for an additional truth, for a new truth." You have heard it was said, "An eye for an eye, tooth for tooth." That's in scripture, that's in our Old Testament. “But I say to you, do not resist an evil doer. Turn the other cheek. Go the second mile.” Progressive Christianity takes this approach that Jesus takes here with biblical accounts, with biblical passages.

It doesn't pit them against each other. It doesn't say, "Okay, here's one thing in scripture. Here's another thing in scripture. Which one is right? Which one is better? Let's listen only to that one and let's get rid of the other one. Forget it ever existed.” It honors the truth of God's word given to God's people for the time and place it was given. It honors why did God give this to God’s people? Why did God say this? What purpose did it honor?

But it also asks the question does it serve the same purpose today? Sometimes the answer is yes, it does. Sometimes the answer is, well, it functions a little bit differently today and we need to honor that. It takes each of these moments in scripture, each of the passages of scripture and uses them as a window onto God, as a window onto God's purposes. Progressive Christianity understands biblical accounts and passages, church tradition, the world, our own experiences, all as windows upon God and God’s world.

Different windows are going to provide different views. Let's think about literal windows right now. You can have a really big window and you can see a lot out of it. You can have a really small window and not see as much. I'm looking in our sanctuary right now. I can see here in the back and I can see out across the street through the windows on the door. I can't see through that opaque window right there to the street there. Those windows provide different views. Some windows are big, some are small. That is how we view different passages of scripture. That is how we view different teachings of church tradition.

They all provide us a window on God. They all help us see God a little more clearly, but some more clearly than others and some might even be a little distorted or colored. The Bible is a collection of windows, and it's not that one is not a window, and the other is. It's that they show different views and together taking them both into account, we can see God more clearly. For some people though, for some Christians, the Bible isn't so much windows on God, as a glass box that we peer into. Everything that we need to know about God and everything we need to know about humanity is in this glass box of the Bible. If we just look enough, if we just can see enough, then it's there and it's all clear-cut. It's all black and white. It's all the answers we ever are going to need can be found in scripture. It all makes sense together. It's not different windows, it's one clear picture.

For example, some Christians will look at Genesis chapter one and Genesis chapter two, the creation story or some would say the creation stories. In Genesis chapter one that's in the beginning. God said, "Let there be light." And there was light. That was the first day. On the second day, God says, "Oh, separate the water from the land." Now we have land and it goes through six days of creation. Eventually there's animals and birds and things that swim. On the sixth day, God makes humans, male and female. No mention of Adam and Eve by name at this point.

Then we get to Genesis chapter two, and it's a different order to creation. The very first thing that is made is Adam. Then all sorts of animals and creatures to find a companion for Adam. Finally, Eve is made at the end of this story. It's a different order of creation. Some Christians will say, actually, it's not a different order. They'll, in my opinion, perform some mental gymnastics to reconcile the two stories. Say it's just two accounts of the exact same story.  They’ll say it happened literally like that in six 24-hour days about 6000 years ago.

For progressive Christians, many Christians will look at these stories and say they're poetry, they're fables. Not in the sense that they're untrue, but they're not meant to teach us like a textbook how the world is created. They're meant to show us truth about God and humanity. They're both windows and they show different views of God and God's world. We can't necessarily reconcile them and we can't make them into one consistent story, but that's okay.

Progressive Christianity is comfortable with multiple images, multiple understandings of God, including ones that cannot be easily reconciled. Sometimes the easiest example is this division we make, it's not quite a fair division, but I'm going to use it. We say there's God in the Old Testament, and God in the Old Testament is angry. God in the Old Testament wants Israel to wipe out all their enemies. God fights on behalf of Israel. God kills people and armies in the Old Testament.

In the New Testament, God is loving. We hear, turn the other cheek, love your enemies, forgive. We don't see the angry God in the New Testament. We don't see the loving God in the Old Testament. That's not true. I can show you examples the other way, but let's stick with that for the moment. Even if that were true, progressive Christianity says, okay, let's use each on a window and go about God and not try and put one against the other. Is God either an angry God or a loving God? Let's see what each one tells us about God and the time that God revealed these stories and accounts for us. Let's hold them up together. Seeing what each window tells us, even if it brings up more questions, even if we can't answer those questions.

There's a story told by Jaroslav Pelikan of a rabbi who's challenged by one of his students. His student says, "Why is it rabbi that you Rabbis so often put your teachings in the form of a question?" To which the Rabbi replies, "So what's wrong with the question?"

Frustrating, but that's where we are as Christians sometimes. It's not that we don't want the answers to questions. It's not that progressive Christians don't want all our questions answered. Often we do, of course we do. But we realize that may not come and we realize that's okay. We realize it's still okay to ask and name the questions.

As we go forward in this series, that's the one most important thing I want you to hold in your mind about progressive Christianity is these windows into God. We don't think that if we just look through the right window, we will see and know everything there is about God. We keep looking through different windows and keep describing and naming the view we see through each window, even if they look different to us. Even if we can't reconcile two different views, we don't throw one out versus the other.

Progressive Christianity does this with other windows on the world. The easiest example is science. Progressive Christianity says that science can teach us things about the world and how the world works, that our faith may not be able to.  We will honor science and what it can teach and what it can provide. It's another window on the world. Other areas of expertise, mental health, for example. We'll honor mental health professionals, physical health professionals.

We take this concept of windows, especially windows on the divine, into our understanding of other faiths. Progressive Christianity honors other faiths. We have limited views of windows on the divine, and it's possible that other faiths have their windows on the divine too. Maybe looking through their windows, we can learn some things about our Christian faith. This is not the same as saying all religions are the same. This is not the same as saying, we all have our own paths to God and they're all equally valid and they're the same.

As a Christian, I find that offensive. If I was here talking with a Muslim or a Buddhist, I would guess many of them would find that offensive too. Each of our faiths, each of our religions has distinct values and aspects of it that make it beautiful and unique. To say and equate that all religions are just the same, dishonors all religions.

Two final points, and we're going to build on these in Sundays to come. Progressive Christianity lifts up biblical values of peace and justice, care for the environment and inclusion. These are the themes that are going to be stressed heavily by progressive Christians. Along with those values of peace and care for the environment and inclusion, a lot of those are based in action, as much as they are in belief.

Progressive Christianity definitely is a lived faith. It's not just about what we intellectually ascent to. It's not just about a correct set of doctrines and beliefs. Progressive Christianity is heavily invested in what does your faith lead you to do? How does your faith lead you to show God's love in the world? How does your faith lead you to care for the world God has provided? How does your faith lead you to include all of God's children?

I hope you will join us on the next four Sundays as we continue to explore these topics. Specifically, we'll talk about progressive Christianity, salvation and other faiths. We'll talk about the environment, we'll talk about inclusion, we'll talk about progressive Christianity and politics, and we'll talk about progressive Christianity and the Bible. I look forward to learning more alongside you.

October 25, 2020

Voting is a moral act that shapes the lives and well-being of the people in our nation and potentially around the world.  We talked about this last week as we worked to understand that as Christians we are called to seek God’s will in all areas of life. We are called to love, have compassion, and seek justice and safety for all people, and one way of doing this is through our vote and our political activity.

I think Christians from many traditions and perspectives can agree that our faith should influence our politics.  But where we may start to disagree is when our faith calls us to act, how we are called to act, on which issues, which position, and which candidate.  For churches, often the rule of thumb has been that the church should stay out of politics unless it involves something that we can all agree on.  Maybe we shouldn’t involve our faith in the controversial, hot-button issues, but stick with things that we can all agree on, like ending hunger.  So we choose to be political only when it’s safe, and it doesn’t cause waves.

But I’m not so sure this is the right approach.  If we wait to act on an important issue until everybody agrees on it, is there much point in acting?  Isn’t the point of speaking out to make a statement that can help guide and lead people?   Shouldn’t our faith guide us to be shapers of public opinion rather than followers?

Let me bring this morning’s second reading into this conversation.  We’ll be reading a passage from Luke 4:14-30.  This is near the beginning of Jesus’s ministry as it is recorded in Luke.  Jesus has just started teaching, preaching, and working some miracles in a few cities.  Then he comes to Nazareth, his hometown.

When Jesus came to Nazareth, where he had been brought up, he went to the synagogue on the sabbath day, as was his custom. He stood up to read, and the scroll of the prophet Isaiah was given to him. He unrolled the scroll and found the place where it was written:

‘The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to bring good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.’

 And he rolled up the scroll, gave it back to the attendant, and sat down. The eyes of all in the synagogue were fixed on him. Then he began to say to them, ‘Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.’ All spoke well of him and were amazed at the gracious words that came from his mouth. They said, ‘Is not this Joseph’s son?’ He said to them, ‘Doubtless you will quote to me this proverb, “Doctor, cure yourself!” And you will say, “Do here also in your home town the things that we have heard you did at Capernaum.” ’

 And he said, ‘Truly I tell you, no prophet is accepted in the prophet’s home town. But the truth is, there were many widows in Israel in the time of Elijah, when the heaven was shut up for three years and six months, and there was a severe famine over all the land; yet Elijah was sent to none of them except to a widow at Zarephath in Sidon. There were also many lepers in Israel in the time of the prophet Elisha, and none of them was cleansed except Naaman the Syrian.’

 When they heard this, all in the synagogue were filled with rage. They got up, drove him out of the town, and led him to the brow of the hill on which their town was built, so that they might hurl him off the cliff. But he passed through the midst of them and went on his way.

 You’ve heard the expression “and the crowd turned on him.” This passage is a stark example of that.  Jesus is reading and teaching in the synagogue and at first the passage says they were amazed at the gracious words that came from his mouth. That’s pretty impressive, but a short time later his words filled them with rage, and they tried to throw him off a cliff.  I’ve had some bad sermons in my 20 years of ministry, and I’ve made some people angry on occasion, but thankfully I’ve never had an angry mob turn on me to throw me off a cliff.

 There’s a very quick turnaround in the crowd’s attitude towards Jesus. For anyone who has ever given a speech or a talk that hasn’t gone over well, you know when it’s not working by seeing the reactions of your audience.  I imagine Jesus first saw a couple raised eyebrows, “What are you talking about Jesus?”  Then probably some scowls, maybe a couple loaded glances between people in the crowd.  And I’m guessing eventually it became audible: People shouting out “Enough!’ or “Shut up!”

But what did he do or say that got that reaction? Why did they get angry? There are a couple of possibilities. It might have been what he said. He read from the book of Isaiah proclaiming release to the captives, sight to the blind, letting the oppressed go free, and proclaiming the year of Jubliee – when debts are forgiven.  Captives in prison were often put in jail because of debts they owed but couldn’t repay.  Maybe the crowd didn’t like the idea of debts being forgiven without being repaid.  Maybe they wanted to hear more about themselves and less about the poor and the captives.

It’s also possible that they got angry because they heard Jesus was performing signs and miracles in other towns, but for whatever reason, he refused to do so here in his hometown.  Then there are the two Old Testament stories he referenced where the prophets Elijah and Elisha worked miracles for foreigners instead of for Jews.  Was Jesus saying, “I may be Jewish, but I’m here for the outsiders, not just us Jews?”

Whatever the specific reason for their anger and rage, it probably had something to do with Jesus disappointing them.  He didn’t say or do what they expected him to say or do.  They went to hear Jesus expecting him to validate their expectations, to agree with them, to confirm their beliefs, but that’s not what happened.

One lesson we can take from this in regards to faith and politics is that God, the Bible, our faith – they aren’t always going to conform to our politics. Put another way, (pic 1 - gospel) the gospel will not always confirm your positions or politics, if it does then it’s not the gospel.  There is a saying about the Bible, “Sometimes it comforts the disturbed. Sometimes it disturbs the comfortable.  (end pic 1) There are times in our lives, circumstances we are in, where we are the disturbed in need of comfort, but there are other moments when we are the comfortable in need of disturbing.  For white America this summer’s Black Lives Matters protest and movement was one of those times where many of us were far too comfortable and needed disturbing.  If the protests were not comforting to us and we turned to scripture for comfort, a true reading of the Bible would not bring us the easy comfort desired. Instead we might be disturbed to find we had ignored the Bible’s call to stand up for and stand with the marginalized and the oppressed.  Our faith should have been a call to action not a pacifier to soothe us.

Given this, there are questions that you need to ask of yourself. “What are you going to do when the gospel doesn’t tell you what you want to hear?”  What are you going to do when your beliefs, your personal politics, is not supported in scripture.  Are you going to listen?  Are you going to think about it, learn about it, pray about it?  Or are you going to look for the nearest cliff?  If we aren’t willing to be disturbed sometimes then we better find a new faith.

As Christians, God disturbs us from comfort sometimes.  And…there are also times when we are called to be the ones doing the disturbing.  That’s what Jesus did in today’s passage. He disturbed that crowd something fierce.  David Lose, professor at Luther seminary writes this about this passage:

You see, it really is all Jesus’ fault – he goes and does the one thing you’re never supposed to do, even to strangers, let alone to friends and neighbors: He tells them the truth, the truth about their pettiness and prejudice, their fear and shame, their willingness, even eagerness, to get ahead at any cost, even at the expense of another. And so, they want him gone in the most permanent of ways.

And let’s face it; that’s pretty much the way it usually is. Because this text, and Luke’s whole gospel for that matter, isn’t about Jews or Romans, it isn’t about Nazarenes or Jerusalemites. No, it’s about every race and nationality, about all the crowds of every time and place who, when they meet one who tells them the truth about themselves, will go to almost any length to silence the messenger. For from the prophets of Israel to our own prophet, Martin Luther King, Jr., it’s not just the keepers of the dream that get rejected, beaten, and shot, but the tellers of the truth as well.

Martin Luther King Jr. was a teller of truth, Jesus was a teller of truth, we are called to be tellers of truth, even if it’s not a popular truth, even if it disturbs people.  I wonder - if someone isn’t trying to hurl us off a cliff every now and then, are we really living the gospel and speaking the truth, or are we just after our own comfort, like the people in Nazareth?  We know what happened to the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., when his faith led him to stand for justice and equality for Black Americans, but he wasn’t alone. 

(pic 2 – statue) This statue, entitled “Three Ministers Kneeling,” is in a park in Birmingham, AL.  It depicts the moment when three ministers, John Thomas Porter, Nelson H. Smith and Alfred D. King, kneeled to the ground to pray when confronted by Public Safety Commissioner Bull Connor and the Birmingham police.  The ministers and others were there to protest the jailing of civil rights leaders including Martin Luther King Jr.  By kneeling, they took a stand as Christians.  With the help of their faith, they disturbed the peace, because justice needed to be done.

Now we should never set out simply to make people angry, just to disturb people, it should always be for a purpose.  We speak out and sometimes act up when other means of advocating for change aren’t working.  Our passage today begins with Jesus following the customs and traditions of the day.  It was the sabbath, and Jewish men were expected to go to synagogue, expected to read from the scriptures when asked to.  They were expected to stand to read and sit to teach or comment. Jesus did all these things, he got along with people…until he didn’t. And when he didn’t, it was because the matter at hand needed to be addressed, even if it was difficult or made people angry. 

There is a time and a place where our faith calls us to stand up, speak out, take to the streets, or call a congressperson.  The hard part is knowing when we are called to do so.  The highest governing body in the Presbyterian Church is the General Assembly, made up of hundreds of ministers and church members from across the country,  In 1958 the General Assembly met and affirmed a statement on the need for the church to speak out and confront difficult issues, and when it is necessary to do so.

(pic 3 – GA) The General Assembly “affirms its conviction that neither the Church as the body of Christ, nor Christians as individuals, can be neutral or indifferent toward evil in the world; affirms its responsibility to speak on social and moral issues for the encouragement and instruction of the Church and its members, seeking earnestly both to know the mind of Christ and to speak always in humility and love; reminds the churches that their duty is not only to encourage and train their members in daily obedience to God’s will, but corporately to reveal God’s grace in places of suffering and need, to resist the forces that tyrannize, and to support the forces that restore the dignity of all men as the children of God, for only so is the gospel most fully proclaimed; . . .” (1958 Statement – PC(USA), p. 537). (end pic 3)

This statement gives us guidance and help for understanding when it is important to stand up and speak out.  If staying silent means being indifferent or neutral to evil, then it’s not a time to be silent.  When the values of our faith - love, compassion, justice and safety for all - when those values provide guidance on social and moral issues, then we should speak humbly and offer that guidance.  If political action can be taken to address suffering and need, especially of the most marginalized, then it is our time to act.  The church is called to be at work to support forces that restore the dignity of all and resists forces that tyrannize.

Forces that tyrannize.  In the mid 1930’s in Germany the Nazi Power and Adolf Hitler were on the rise.  Their government pressured the churches to “aryanize” there congregations by expel any of their members of suspected Jewish ancestry. Churches were also pressured to accept what was called, “the Fuhrer Principle,” which, stated simply said: Hitler is Germany and Germany is Hitler. Hitler alone can save Germany and whatever he does is right and successful.  The Fuhrer Principle even went as far as to say that Hitler has a divine blessing from God.

Many Christian churches in Germany went along with this, but some churches led by theologian Karl Barth, pastor Dietrich Bonhoeffer, and others did not.  They wrote The Barmen Declaration which rejected any claim of leadership of the church other than God and Jesus.  The Barmen Declaration spoke against those German churches that yielded to and even endorsed Hitler’s plans which were clearly against all that Christ stood for.  Bonhoeffer and others who wrote and endorsed the Barmen Declaration, stood up and stood against Hitler and the Nazi party.  For that, they were imprisoned and executed in concentration camps.

Today, our lives are not in peril if we speak out, but we are still called to take a stand for the dignity of all people, and like the Barmen Declaration we reject calls to put our ultimate faith and hope in any candidate or party, especially if they claim they are the only one who can save us.  Our ultimate hope lies in Jesus.

Election day is nine days away.  I ask you to be in prayer for our country, in prayer for all its elected leaders and candidates for office, in prayer for us as citizens.  And when you vote, I pray that your vote will be an act of faith. Expressing all that God wants for our country and for our world.

Let us pray: God, we thank you for the freedoms we have in our country, including the freedom to determine who will govern us.  Guide us and help us discern how to serve you in all areas of our life.  In your name we pray, Amen.

Sixteen days from now is election day.  Millions of Americans have already voted by mail and by early voting.  There are stories of polling places all across the country where people are waiting hours in line to cast their vote.  Here in Indianapolis over 50,000 voters have already cast their votes by mail or in person. I saw a video on the Indy Star website of the downtown polling location.  The camera started at the front of the City-County building and took several minutes to follow the line back hundreds of people and several blocks until it reached the end.  Thankfully, next Saturday, the 24th, several more early voting locations will open.  You can visit vote.indy.gov/early-voting to learn more.

Every presidential election is important, but for many this year’s election seems even more crucial and momentous.  We are electing the president for the next four year, but there are many other offices on the ballot. U.S. Senators and Representatives, state legislatures, governors, and mayors.  We are in the middle of a deadly pandemic that has killed hundreds of thousands of Americans. Many people’s financial and employment situations are tenuous at best.  This election also takes place amidst a time of great division in our country, where people can’t even agree on basic facts and everyday reality.

Anxiety about the election is very high right now.

Given how much the election is dominating our thoughts right now and looming over much of society, it makes sense that we talk about it as a church and as Christians.  What is the role of the church in an election?  What is the role of a Christian during an election?  Or as the title of this message says, “How Do You Vote Your Faith?”

Some people believe that religion and politics should be separate.  But politicians on all sides of the aisle are very explicit about bringing faith into the election. Trump has declared that he has saved Christianity, has gone out of his way to be seen with religious leaders, and had a controversial photo op in front of a church in Washington D.C. holding a Bible.  Joe Biden’s campaign has emphasized Biden’s Catholic faith and practices. Each night of both Democratic and Republican conventions included opening prayers as part of the program.

Candidates have brought their faith into politics, but we only have to turn to the Bible to see that the scriptures themselves are not silent about politics, and neither was Jesus.

We’ll be hearing from Jesus in our second reading this morning, which comes from Mark 12:13-17.  This passage is one of three similar passages that all take place in the Temple, where certain religious and community leaders of the day try to trick Jesus into saying something damaging to his movement by presenting him with situations with no easy answers.

Then they sent to [Jesus] some Pharisees and some Herodians to trap him in what he said. And they came and said to him, ‘Teacher, we know that you are sincere, and show deference to no one; for you do not regard people with partiality, but teach the way of God in accordance with truth. Is it lawful to pay taxes to the emperor, or not? Should we pay them, or should we not?’ But knowing their hypocrisy, he said to them, ‘Why are you putting me to the test? Bring me a denarius and let me see it.’ And they brought one. Then he said to them, ‘Whose head is this, and whose title?’ They answered, ‘The emperor’s.’ Jesus said to them, ‘Give to the emperor the things that are the emperor’s, and to God the things that are God’s.’ And they were utterly amazed at him.

It was an impossible question: “Is it lawful to pay taxes to the emperor or not?”  Now when they said “lawful” they didn’t mean according to civil law, Roman law.  They meant according to Jewish law.  “Does God want us to pay taxes to the Romans?”  They were basically asking him, “To whom should our allegiance be, to God or to Caesar?”

If Jesus says, “Yes. We should pay taxes,” then they can get him into trouble with some of his followers.  There were some groups within 1st century Judaism that thought paying taxes broke Jewish law, specifically two of the ten commandments forbidding worship of other gods and making idols.  The coins, as we see later in the passage, had the graven image of Caesar on it. Often the coins had inscriptions that attributed some form of divinity to Caesar.  We don’t know which exact coin Jesus was shown in this passage, but this is a coin of similar value from the 1st century. On it is inscribed the image of Caesar Tiberius on one side and his wife, Livia, on the other – depicted as the goddess Pax.  Inscribed on Caesar’s side is, “Caesar Augustus Tiberius, son of the Divine Augustus.”  So Some Jews believed that paying taxes with these kind of coins was the same as worshipping other gods.

If Jesus says that taxes should be paid, he could be alienating part of his followers.  To use a modern political analogy it’s like trying to get Joe Biden on record saying that he won’t support the Green New Deal or universal healthcare, because if he doesn’t support those he may alienate potential voters.

Well, what if Jesus just says that Jews shouldn’t pay taxes to Rome?  Well, then he gets in trouble with Rome, right?  He’s advocating sedition!  There’s no good answer. They are going to use his words against him either way.  What is Jesus to do?

Well, like many great teachers, he doesn’t give a simple yes or no. Instead he asks to see a denarius, a common coin.  He asks whose image is on it, and when they answer, “Caesar,” he says a phrase that we are now familiar with, “Give to the emperor the things that are the emperor’s, and to God the things that are God’s.”

And in my opinion, this is one of the clearest statements that Jesus gives about the relationship of the church to government, the relationship of faith to politics.  “Give to the emperor the things that are the emperor’s, and to God the things that are God’s.”  With this statement Jesus declares that there are things that are the jurisdiction, the responsibility of the government, but there are also things that are the jurisdiction, the responsibility of God, and as people of faith we have responsibilities to both.

Although it’s interesting to note that Jesus doesn’t specify what things belong to Caesar and what things belong to God…or does he?  Let’s take a closer look.  Jesus says that the coin, which bears the image of Caesar belongs to Caesar, so then it makes sense that those things that bear the image of God belong to God.  That could be confusing because Judaism explicitly forbids making images of God.  There are no coins, no currency that are printed with God’s image.  Where do we find God’s image?  Where do we find God’s image?

Then God said, ‘Let us make humankind in our image, according to our likeness; and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the birds of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the wild animals of the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps upon the earth.’ So God created humankind in God’s image, in the image of God they were created; male and female God created them.

“In the image of God they were created.” Caesar may get all the coins, but humanity belongs to God.  There are things that are Caesar’s and there are things that are God’s.  This is one of the tenants of our faith when it comes to how we deal with politics. Our Presbyterian tradition has affirmed that the church and the government each have their roles and appropriate functions, and we would do well not to confuse them.  But our highest allegiance is not to our government, not to a flag, not to our nation, but to God. 

What functions belong to the government and what functions belong to the church?  Our tradition teaches us that the government makes laws and enforces them.  It is not up to the church to determine what is legal and what is not, even if we’d like something to be a law.  Blue laws are a good example.  Not too long ago many cities and states had laws against businesses being open on Sunday, because Sunday was the Christian sabbath – a day for worship and honoring God.  That may seem like a good thing, and it is to many Christians. But the Christian church should not be part of making laws that force people who aren’t Christian to follow Christian teachings. No church should be able to do that.  How would we feel if businesses were closed from Friday evening until Saturday evening to observe the Jewish Shabbat?

In a similar fashion the government shouldn’t make laws restricting the practicing of Christian faith, or any other faith.  There are countries around the world that forbid wearing religious clothing or symbols, or symbols or clothing from certain religions.  Our tradition says that that is the government overstepping its role and moving into things that belong to God. 

Of course, these matters aren’t so simple sometimes.  There are times when the government has good reason to restrict the practice of religion.  We are living in one of these times right now.  It is appropriate for the government to restrict in-person worship services in the time of a pandemic, as they restrict other gatherings of people.  And there are times when the church, and individual Christians, should be trying to shape laws or advocating for particular issues.

As Presbyterians we do draw a clear line at not endorsing, supporting, or opposing candidates for elected office.  One reason for this is that to do so would be violating the requirements we have as a tax-exempt religious organization, but we do it for a more important reason as well.  If the church becomes partisan - simply attaching itself to one political party or another, then we have traded God’s guidance and will for a party platform.  There is no one party, or single candidate, that speaks for God.

But that being said, Bishop Michael Curry, who is the Presiding Bishop in the Episcopal church, shared some powerful words in a sermon he gave on the role of the church and Christians in the time of an election. He said that “Partisan neutrality does not equal moral neutrality.” 

Partisan neutrality does not equal moral neutrality.  (end pic 4) Bishop Curry goes on to say that an election, especially for president, is a contest of ideas about how to shape the future of a nation, and to some degree that future of the world.  It is a contest of moral values and their relationship to public policy.  Think about it; the results of an election will shape the lives and well-being of millions of people.  That means that voting, that means that your vote, is an act of moral agency.  It matters who we elect to make and enforce our laws.

When we vote, when we advocate for public policy and specific legislation, we are acting on our faith.  Christian faith teaches love, justice, and compassion. Jesus calls us to seek the good and the welfare of all people, even the stranger, and even our enemies.  And sometimes, often, we can’t love our neighbor or love the stranger, without advocating for just and compassionate laws and lawmakers on their behalf.

Several years ago, Matthew Tully wrote an Indy Star article on School 93 and the new principal there, Nicole Fama.  He wrote about the first day of school and one child in particular.  Tully wrote:

On Monday morning, a first-grader walked into the building and got a hello from Fama, who noticed that the boy’s new basketball shoes were on the wrong feet. “Sweetie,” she said, “let’s fix your shoes.” He did and walked away, toward his classroom, not saying a word. A minute later, though, he was back. And now he was sobbing.

“I want to go back home,” he said, tears streaming. “I want to see my mom.”

For the next several minutes, Fama brought the boy back from his sadness. She assigned him to be her helper, giving him her iPhone to watch, even letting him read text messages for her. She asked him to walk a kindergartener to class at one point and later told him about her two dogs. It’s all about building relationships and trust, she said later.

Within minutes, the student was calm and sharing his story. Here it is: This 7-year-old boy, on the first day of school, got up by himself, got dressed by himself, looked for something to eat by himself, and then walked to school. By himself. All without seeing his mom or another adult.

“Can you imagine?” Fama asked.

I can’t.  That story breaks my heart and brings tears to my eyes each time I read it.  But do you know what’s going to help the first-grader, and other students like him?  It’s not enough if we volunteer our time in schools like his.  It’s not enough to support great programs like our REAL reading program at School 43.  What is going to help him and the hundreds of thousands of children in similar situations is your vote as an act of faith and a moral act.  Your vote that supports lawmakers and laws that work to help those in need. Your vote that supports lawmakers willing to acknowledge and address the racism that has been part of our society and government for centuries.  Your vote that helps to create laws that enable accessible jobs that pay a living wage, so single moms don’t have to work two jobs to barely have enough money for rent.

What is the role of a Christian during an election? What is the role of the church?  It certainly isn’t to “stay out of politics,” because voting isn’t simply a political act, it’s a moral act, and it’s an act that expresses our love for neighbor and stranger.  It is an act that expresses how strongly we believe in God’s call to love, compassion, and justice.  Beliefs are shown more strongly in actions than they are in words, and what we do in the voting booth shows what we really believe.