With the results of the
recent election, I find myself questioning what Christians believe. I find
myself questioning what book we are reading. I find myself questioning what
people are hearing from their pulpits. I find myself questioning what I preach,
because what the majority of Christians apparently practice leave me asking,
“What is written in the Bible? What do you read there? (Luke 10:25)”
I think that pastors,
generally, have become too afraid to preach a message that their parishioners
might regard as “political.” One of my colleagues recently told me a story of a
parishioner who came to his office Monday morning, per usual, to offer his
commentary on the sermon. “Pastor, that message was just too political.” After
listening for a while, the pastor opened is Bible and said, “Larry, those words
weren’t mine. They were Jesus’.” It seems that Christians have forgotten more
about Jesus’ message than what we remember.
We forget that Jesus’ message
is political: it got a man crucified. It is a message that proclaimed the power
of the powerful is only of penultimate consequence. It is a message that holds
that God is present alongside and in the voices of the weak and
disenfranchised. It is a message that upholds the voices of the oppressed and
the voices from the margins that society attempts to silence by force. It is
the message that finds its way to the lips of a poor teenaged girl who finds
herself pregnant outside of wedlock:
My
soul magnifies the Lord,
and
my spirit rejoices in God my Savior,
for
he has looked with favor on the lowliness of his servant.
Surely, from now on all generations will call
me blessed;
for
the Mighty One has done great things for me,
and holy is his name.
His
mercy is for those who fear him
from generation to generation.
He
has shown strength with his arm;
he has scattered the proud in the thoughts of
their hearts.
He has brought down the powerful from their thrones,
and lifted up the lowly;
He
has filled the hungry with good things,
and sent the rich away empty.
He
has helped his servant Israel,
in remembrance of his mercy,
according
to the promise he made to our ancestors,
to Abraham and to his descendants forever.
Christians are the innkeepers, who
continue telling God that there is not room for the divine in our
power-grabbing schemes. Rather than insisting on God’s preferential option for
the poor, we insist that God is most apparent in the accrual of money and
success. Bonhoeffer offers a
chilling reminder of the our call as Christians: “Christianity stands or falls
with its revolutionary protest against violence, arbitrariness and pride of
power and with its plea for the weak Christians are doing too little to make
these points clear rather than too much. Christendom adjusts itself far too
easily to the worship of power. Christians should give more offense, shock the
world far more, than they are doing now. Christians should take a stronger
stand in favor of the weak rather than considering first the possible right of
the strong (Sermon on 2 Corinthians 12:9)”
For too long, we preachers
have softened the message of Christianity, removing from it its teeth in order
to make the message more palatable, in order to make Christianity give less
offense. We remove from the message its teeth in order to cover the sins of
indifference, suspicion, apathy, hatred, and fear, finding for ourselves a
ready scapegoat in our fears of the accusation that the proclaimed word is
political. And preachers have heeded the warning, lest we become the scapegoats
instead.
With the increasing public
hatred of groups at the margins, we can no longer justify our apathy by saying
“it isn’t us,” as the temptation of Christians to distance themselves from the
hatred that has been seen in the past week. Mainliners do not have the luxury
of point out the log in the eye of 81% of Evangelicals who voted for someone
whose platform entails hatred and suspicion of refugees and the oppressed; 60%
of Protestants voted for the candidate as well. Perhaps the candidate listened
to the voices of those who felt unheard, but I wonder if we pastors were listening.
I wonder if any of us have been listening to anyone whose views challenge our
own. It seems this election season bespeaks a failure to listen to the voice of
Scripture and the voices of those around us. And, in my view, worse: It seems
this election season bespeaks a failure in preaching the truth. The truth is
that the message of the Gospel is deeply political. It is a message that causes
offense. But it is also a message that brings life and hope. It is a message
that waits with the oppressed and brokenhearted for the tender mercy of our God
to bring the dawn from on high, to give light to those who sit in darkness and
in the shadow of death, to guide our feet into the way of peace” (Luke 1.78-79).
It is a message that proclaims the structures of power in this world are of
penultimate consequence. Perhaps we—as preachers—should take a long hard look
at ourselves, who seem to have bought into the temptation to preach a gospel
with no teeth that saves no one. Let us not cry “Peace” where is no peace, and
let us preach the truth: the message of Christ is political, it has in its
sights those whom society has forgotten (or whom society would prefer to
forget), and it refuses us the luxury of apathy.
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