On "Political" Preaching and the Election Cycle

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.

-->

"Tell all the truth but tell it slant." Or "The Upside Down Economy of the Kingdom of God."

To be honest, I would rather stay away from the text for today. I want to back away, shake my head no, and reprimand Jesus for being so blunt and so confusing all at the same time. Hating and following Jesus don’t belong in the same sentence. Is this the same person who preached the parable of the sower, who tossed seed willy-nilly all over creation, not bothering to plant it all on a carefully tilled plot? Isn’t this the person who forgave sinners and promised that those who were meek would inherit the kingdom? I spend a lot of time trying to convince myself and others that loving one another is the chief expression of our faith.

"Whoever comes to me and does not hate father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters, yes, and even life itself, cannot be my disciple.” We attempt to wriggle free from what Jesus is saying because it sounds too awful to be real. He doesn’t really mean to hate family members, does he? Probably not. As many commentators, pastors, and most of us would point out – he probably means that following God must be our first priority, above all else. We tell ourselves that God has that priority in our lives, but how often do our lives bear evidence of this? We’re more likely to hate our family than to put God first. God is more often than not relegated to an afterthought: a quick prayer after a near miss or an expression of thankfulness when unexpected blessings come our way. We live as the center of our own worlds, struggling to put anything besides ourselves first. We list all the ways that we defer our own wants and needs, counting the cost at every turn.

Carrying the cross is a costly business. It is a lonely business. Or so we think. We say “it’s my cross to bear” when we receive bad news, when we experience illness, or when struggles refuse to let us go. When we talk about carrying the cross, we jump to carrying our own suffering. Still focused on ourselves, all we can see is our own suffering or hardship. We see ourselves as carrying our crosses, somehow thinking they form an exchange with Jesus: we carry our crosses and our suffering, and, through our suffering, we are redeemed. That from which we have been made free – sin and death – seem to be the crosses we still carry.

We are so good at counting the cost, what following Jesus costs us, and Jesus plays into our hand today. We calculate whether we have enough money to build our proverbial towers or have enough troops to go to war. This part of faith we can do. We can make our tally marks of right and wrong, of good and bad. We can count how many people come to church each week and how much money is put in the plate, but will it measure our faith? What Jesus doesn’t tell us in this passage is that the poor slob who wants to build a tower never seems to have enough money, and the foolish king who doesn’t have enough troops still goes to war. What Jesus doesn’t tell you is that faith is really really bad at math. It costs a person his or her life, but it gives a person his or her life. It places God in first place and in last place at the same time. Jesus preaches a grace so costly we have to receive it for free. Free, however, is not to be confused with “cheap.” Bonhoeffer elucidates this famously in his The Cost of Discipleship:

Cheap grace is grace without discipleship, grace without the cross, grace without Jesus Christ, living and incarnate.

Costly grace is the treasure hidden in the field; for the sake of it a man will go and sell all that he has. It is the pearl of great price to buy which the merchant will sell all his goods. It is the kingly rule of Christ, for whose sake a man will pluck out the eye which causes him to stumble; it is the call of Jesus Christ at which the disciple leaves his nets and follows him.

Costly grace is the gospel which must be sought again and again, the gift which must be asked for, the door at which a man must knock. Such grace is costly because it calls us to follow, and it is grace because it calls us to follow Jesus Christ. It is costly because it costs a man his life, and it is grace because it gives a man the only true life. It is costly because it condemns sin, and grace because it justifies the sinner. Above all, it is costly because it cost God the life of his Son: "ye were bought at a price," and what has cost God much cannot be cheap for us. Above all, it is grace because God did not reckon his Son too dear a price to pay for our life, but delivered him up for us. Costly grace is the Incarnation of God.

This grace is the grace you can’t afford. You can’t carry enough crosses. You can’t build a tower tall enough to peer into the heavens. For all your wars, the peace of which Christ speaks you cannot negotiate. When we envision ourselves the ones powerful enough to achieve our own salvation, when our crosses become the crosses that save us, we miss entirely what it means to follow Jesus.

How do you count the cost of discipleship, when it costs more than what you have? It costs ultimate allegiance in a world where everything vies for your allegiance. It is the cost that cannot be weighed against others because the math of the Kingdom of God doesn’t work like a checking account or the economy. It doesn’t work with notions of supply and demand, but rather, of gift and grace. It costs too much and too little at the same time. It costs too much because it costs our lives. It costs too little because it is the way in which we discover what it is to truly live. In a world that counts the cost of everything, you are invited to live in the upside-down economy in which the poor receive the kingdom, the hungry are filled, and those who weep begin to laugh. The cross that you are called to carry is the cross of freedom. It is the cross that unbinds our brothers and sisters from whatever keeps them bound. The cross you carry is not the cross of sickness or struggle, reminding you that death is all around you, but rather, the cross of life, that reminds you death’s power has been undone.

Jesus doesn’t answer his question of who would build a tower without estimating the cost or who would go to war against someone with a superior army. Who would tell a man well into his geriatric years that he and his wife would have a child? Who would have a man with a speech impediment negotiate with the Pharaoh? Who would choose an adulterer and a murderer to be the king of Israel? Who would choose the poor to inherit the kingdom? Who would choose sinners to be the ones God would save? You get the idea. As we sit here, counting the cost, trying to decide whether or not it is worth it to follow Jesus, God refuses to count the expense of being human. God refuses to count the cost of human sin, knowing it would take and take and take and take because that is how sin works.

This grace, this cross, this love, is not cheap. It costs everything. In the messed up math of the Kingdom of God, somehow, you all come out ahead. In losing your life you gain it. In taking up the cross, you let go of all the things that bind you. It is a kingdom in which the poor receive what they could never purchase, the hungry have the best seats at the feast, and the mourners laugh so hard tears stream down their face. God is both first and last. Jesus is both host and the one who serves. So maybe discipleship is not really about how well you can count; maybe it’s about the way you count. Faith is either that which costs you everything, or that which gives you everything. If you count the former way, you’ll never have enough; if the latter, there’s more than enough to go around.

Luke 12:49-56
12:49 "I came to bring fire to the earth, and how I wish it were already kindled!
12:50 I have a baptism with which to be baptized, and what stress I am under until it is completed!
12:51 Do you think that I have come to bring peace to the earth? No, I tell you, but rather division!
12:52 From now on five in one household will be divided, three against two and two against three;
12:53 they will be divided: father against son and son against father, mother against daughter and daughter against mother, mother-in-law against her daughter-in-law and daughter-in-law against mother-in-law."
12:54 He also said to the crowds, "When you see a cloud rising in the west, you immediately say, 'It is going to rain'; and so it happens.
12:55 And when you see the south wind blowing, you say, 'There will be scorching heat'; and it happens.
12:56 You hypocrites! You know how to interpret the appearance of earth and sky, but why do you not know how to interpret the present time?

“Thanks be to God.” Really? Division, persecution, hardship, and death… this week, it seems the news is bad. In a world that hungers for some good news, again and again, the news we hear is so often bad. Again and again, we are drawn into the bad news that seems to plague humanity – news of another person killed, news of hatred, news of people who do not recognize the humanity of others, news that reveals how little evidence we seem to find that this world has been redeemed. It seems a week that invites us to despair, beckoning us to buy in to the news that is bad, and even Jesus has decided to throw his lot in with those who are divided, father against son and son against father, mother against daughter, daughter against mother, mother-in-law against daughter-in-law, and daughter-in-law against mother in law. Though it was a long time ago, we do not need to look too far down the street to find evidence that this division happens even in churches.

And often, if we’re being honest, we become divided over things that are rather arbitrary. Though at the time they might seem important, and so we stand our ground, watching relationship crumble as we revel in our righteousness, we become estranged from those whom we have been given to love. Nobody makes the first move, convinced that we are not in the wrong, convinced that it is more important to be right. Brick by brick, we build walls around our hearts, to protect them, to keep them safe, to prevent them from being vulnerable. Strangely, as we build these walls to protect our hearts, it has the opposite effect. Our plans backfire.

We are like the castle owner, who wanted to prevent others from scavenging rocks from its great walls, and so ordered that a wall be built to protect the castle. He hired the help, and before long, a 6-foot wall had been built out of the finest stone. Upon hearing that the walls had been completed, the castle owner returned to inspect the finished project. Sure enough, he found a wall as he had instructed, but there was no castle. Livid, he approached the person he had hired, who responded, “You said you wanted a castle built out of the finest stone, but what finer stone could I have found than that of the castle?” Now nobody will scavenge stones from your castle.

As we build the walls around our hearts, as we sow division, as we live striving to be right, we fail to live with courage, we fail to love with our whole hearts, and we live fearfully, fearful of loving, fearful of trusting, fearful that we will be hurt. And being hurt stinks. It is no wonder we want to protect ourselves. Brick by brick, we destroy the treasure we attempt to protect. As we become more isolated, as we decide to not let others in, as we decide it is safer for us to just take care of ourselves, to look out for ourselves, to do it ourselves, we forget that we were meant to live in relationship. Our hearts become frail. Having long forgotten what we were divided over, or even perhaps remembering why we have been divided, taking the grudge with us to the grave, we are convinced that living in the right, that winning an argument, is more important than loving one another.

Jesus came to bring fire to the earth, and we sit around the fire with Peter, warming our hands. We, who would never desert Jesus, seem to find convenient ways to avoid the things we have been asked to do, loving one another, caring for one another, justifying our lines in the sand and our failures to love our neighbor as ourselves. We find ways to say “I do not know the man” when Jesus proves too inconvenient for us, when loving our neighbor means loving people who do not seem to deserve it. Faith is rarely convenient, and love is rarely easy. Both require us to show up, to live fully, to muster all the courage we can to face another day, to bind up the brokenhearted, to care for the sick, to patch up the ragamuffin band that God has decided to call God’s children. We are a ragged lot, with hearts that are easily broken, with pride that is easily bruised, with faith that remains until the wind shifts, losing our nerve as the waves grow tall and we begin to sink.

As we warm our hands by the fire, as we watch Peter swear he does not know the man, as we watch Peter become divided from his lord, from himself, from his confession of who Christ is, I think we learn more about the fire that Jesus came to kindle and the baptism of which Jesus speaks. It is never quite what we expect.

Jesus speaks of division, division he bore in his own body. Jesus carried the weight of our hatred, of our refusal to love, of our desire to always be right and to never say “I’m sorry” first, and, with outstretched arms, the message to those who would divide against themselves and each other, “Be made whole, even as I am broken.” I think that Jesus’ words about division are descriptive, not a prescription of how the world ought to be. Jesus came to this world, as it is, to save humans, as we are. The fire may be the fire of judgment, but the fire of judgment is not Christ’s judgment, but our own judgment of Christ. It is our judgment of a savior who would ask us to love difficult people. It is our judgment of a savior who would appear weak according to human standards. It is the judgment of a savior who did not save himself because he was so bent on saving you. And so you have been made brave in a scary world. You have been made bold so that you might hold each other. You have been made free that you might free each other. You have been made courageous so that you might love each other. And, dear brothers and sisters, you have been made light and fire so that you might set the world ablaze.

Too Busy Digging to Love

“We are not to simply bandage the wounds of victims beneath the wheels of injustice, we are to drive a spoke into the wheel itself.” – Dietrich Bonhoeffer

For all the times we didn’t speak up, for all the times we are silent in the face of injustice, for all the times we breathe a sigh of relief that it wasn’t in our backyard, we forget that injustice seeps through our society, infiltrating good people and making them ambivalent, complicit in the schemes of evil. The forces of evil prevail, and we have been called to stand in their path, we have been called to place a spoke in the wheel of injustice, many of us lose heart and refuse. We wait for someone else to act, we wait for someone else to behave justly, we figure that someone else is going to be the Good Samaritan. And so we do nothing. Preachers say nothing.

But we cannot be silent. The Holy Spirit is convicting us, that in the past six weeks, we read the text of Bathsheba and the “Sinful Woman” the week of the Brock Turner sentencing, and we read the Good Samaritan during the week in which two black men needlessly lost their lives. Philando Castille was shot less than a mile from where I went to seminary, his girlfriend by his side, and her child in the back seat of the car. What are we going to say to this four year old, when she asks? What is society going to tell her? What is the church going to tell her?

Just then, a lawyer stood up to test Jesus, “Teacher,” he said, “what must I do to go to heaven?” He said to him, “What is written in the Bible? What do you read there?” He answered: “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul, and with all your strength, and with all your mind; and your neighbor as yourself.” And he said to him, “You have given the answer; do this, and you will live.” But wanting to justify himself, he asked Jesus, “and who is my neighbor?” Jesus replied, “A man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho. Though it was the only road between Jerusalem and Jericho, some people decided that he had no business being on that road. They asked him where he was going and why he was going there. He told them that he was going home from Jerusalem. They asked him for his information, for proof he was who he said he was, and, as he was looking, the people shot him, and went away, leaving him half dead. Now by chance a pastor was going down that road, and when she saw him, she passed by on the other side. So likewise a council president, when he came to the place and saw him, passed by on the other side. But a person who was traveling along the same road came near him, and when he saw him, he was moved with pity. He went to him and bandaged his wounds. Then he took him in his own vehicle, brought him to a hospital, and took care of him. The next day, he gave the hospital his credit card, and said “Take care of him, and when I come back, I will pay the rest of his bills.” Which of these, do you think, was a neighbor to the man who fell into the hands of those who hurt him? He said, “The one who showed him mercy.” Jesus said to him, “Go and do likewise.”

We’re down here in this ditch, Lord, digging as fast as we can, because if we can bury the man by the road, if we can hide the evidence, if we can ignore the truth, maybe you won’t ask us what we’re doing here in this ditch. We talk about black lives mattering, about blue lives mattering, but most of us just want to save our own skin. Most of us care only so far as it is convenient. Most of us pay attention only so long as it glitters. We look closely, too closely, we watch the videos, and then we pass by on the other side. Again and again, we pass by on the other side.

When Jesus said “go and do likewise,” he didn’t say for white people. He didn’t say for straight people. He didn’t say for worthy people. He just said go and do likewise. But we’re too busy justifying guns and violence. We’re too busy trying to find a way to exonerate our complicity. We’re too busy looking up criminal records that don’t exist. We’re too busy making ourselves look like we’re doing the right thing – “Look busy, Jesus is coming,” that we’d rather frantically dig graves in the ditch than heal the wounds. We yell at the ground, from which our brothers and sisters’ blood is crying, telling it to shut up so that we don’t have to listen.

But it cries out, and you hear it. And when you ask us why our brothers and sisters’ blood cries from the earth, that their lives matter, that their blood is on our hands.

Where is the good news? The good news is that we have not yet arrived at the end of the story. The good news is that we are still here, still able to go and do likewise, still able to love our neighbors as ourselves. It will not bring back Alton Sterling or Philando Castille or the officers shot in Dallas or others whose lives have been needlessly lost. But it will mean we can say to a four year old little girl who witnessed the death of a good man in her life, “He taught us to stand up for what is right. He taught us to stand up for justice. We’re sorry he died, and we’re sorry we left him by the side of the road.”

Dear brothers and sisters, we are here in the ditch with the women and men who are shot, with the women and men who are raped, with those who are the victims of hatred, of fear, and of oppression. We are in the ditch with them because they are our brothers and sisters. We are here because this is where Jesus shows up. We are here because of the cross. We are here because Jesus promised us abundant life and sent us into the world to make that abundant life possible for our neighbors. God loves the world, and Jesus has conquered the world, and we have been called to live in the world for the sake of our neighbors, to whom are to show mercy: mercy without regard for skin color, mercy without regard for past sins, mercy that knows only that the person in the ditch is our brother, is our sister, is us, waiting for and dependent on the mercy of Christ.