Preaching Politics

When I was in college and there was all the attention to Civil Rights and Anti-War, the stories were constantly coming about preachers who got fired from their pulpits because they preached "politics." That meant they were preaching for the end of segregation and against the war. Nobody ever got fired that I heard of preaching for segregation and for the war. So now there are Churches preaching for the Tea Party, urging the election of Republicans, protesting the passage of Health Care Reform and nobody is being pushed out of their pulpit. But where preachers are raising concern about the gap between rich and poor, where preachers are defending the right of labor to organize and bargain, where preachers are asking questions about immigration and the need for reform, where preachers are talking about religious tolerance and allowing mosques, you hear all kinds of complaints about preachers messing in politics. It is rather obvious that it is not that one preaches politics that is the problem. It is the politics one preaches that is not welcomed. It is the politics that runs counter the politics of the people in the pews that gets one kicked out. It is the politics of the gospel of Christ that will not be listened to patiently. The Christ who urges us to love our enemies, pray for those who attack up, care for the poor, heal the blind, care for the sick, give hearing to the deaf, help the lame to walk, provide decent medical care for the broken soldiers who come back from unnecessary wars. It is the preaching that expects what is said on Sunday to affect what is done on Monday. That the scripture read on Sunday morning will be lived during the week. There is not a single verse in Scripture that say "God bless the USA." But there is a line that says "God so loved the world." Whenever the preaching of politics tries to preach an inclusive vision that conforms to that love, that preaching will be resisted and refused. It is not preaching politics that will get you fired, in fact preaching the right kind of politics: Americanism, Free Enterprise (whatever that is since we have never seen it); and Individualism, will gather you a great congregation. Whenever you hear somebody say they do not want the preacher to preach politics, you may know that you are hearing that the preacher is preaching what the speaker does not want to hear.

Hell?

There is the story in our newspaper and apparently all over the Internet about an evangelical preacher who has written a book. That is not the news. The news is that this preacher is raising questions about the existence of Hell. Or maybe about how long one stays in Hell. I have not read the book. The stories report that this preacher does not believe that a loving God would consign people to eternal hell fire and damnation. Nothing a person could do would deserve eternal punishment.

Our local paper carried the story because a local pastor, a student at Duke Divinity school, who was preaching at a small Methodist church in our area lost his job because he posted on the Internet his agreement with the evangelical preacher. The local Bishop claims that this was not the only thing that caused the young preacher to lose his job, but it was a major piece of it. His congregation could not accept that their preacher may not believe in Hell.

Certainly Hell has played a major part in Christian history and theology. If there is a Heaven for those who are good, then logically there is a place for those who are bad. Jesus says that the thief on the Cross with him will be with him in paradise. There are a number of references to an after life, a paradise, a glorious setting for the faithful and redeemed. There are images of a painful, burning punishment for those who have unfaithful and evil. The Scriptures do have a number of passages that speak of a glorious place for the redeemed and a painful place of sorrow for the lost.

Heaven and Hell have been significant and powerful images that satisfy our human desire that there is some final reckoning that "makes things right." The cliche that "Life is not fair" is so obvious that we all hope that there is some place where those who have suffered so much here on earth get some "reward," some compensation, some extra that they did not get on earth. There is also the great desire that those who have been selfish, cruel, evil, mean, and indulgent will somewhere finally "get theirs" They will receive the kind of punishment for their evil that they never seemed to get here on earth. "Why do the wicked prosper?" It is a good question and the only hope we have is that somewhere they will have to "pay" for their evil. Everybody thinks Hitler ought to never get out of torment.

But like so many doctrines we can get rather dogmatic about what we do not know. I remember one minister who came into Presbytery and during the examination, when asked about eternal life, would only say,"In life and in death, I believe in God." He said he knew nothing about what would happen after this death, but he believed he was in the hands of the God who made him and would trust that God to do what was loving and just for him and for all others.

When I commented once that God would have to answer a lot of questions for us in the next life, another of my friends asked, "Do you really think that these questions you have now will matter in the next life?" That so many of our concerns and our complaints against God will dissolve and become completely forgotten in whatever that new condition is.

But right now, here in this world, Yeah, I hope that there is some kind of accounting and sorting, judgment and compensation for those who have had to suffer and struggle in this life. There is a sinful part of me that does hope that the bad guys get it in the neck in the next world. But whether Dante or Milton are right about the nature of hell, whether Heaven has gold streets, I do not claim to know and do not expect others to be certain either.

What a Horrible Mess

What is that old joke. They told me to cheer up because things could be worse. I cheered up and things did get worse. I have something of that same reaction every time I turn on the news about Japan. What an incredible nightmare is being lived there. The pictures and the stories are like the dollar figures of the national debt, they are so big, so horrible, so complicated that it is hard to get one's mind around them. The historic irony of more nuclear horrors after being the country that endured the atomic bombs. The historic irony of being the most earthquake prepared and ready country on earth. The awesome size of the tsunami which extended its destruction miles pass the warning signs that claim to be the limits of where a tsunami would come.

Perhaps it is an old lesson that we as humans keep needing to learn. The oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, the earthquake in Haiti, the flooding of New Orleans by Katrina, and now this painful suffering in Japan. The hard lesson that none of our imaginations and our technology, none of our human efforts can assure us of protection against the forces of nature. All of our best intelligence and our best construction techniques, all of our projections and forecasts of possibilities are just not able to prepare us for the "worst case" event.

One is reminded of the story of the Tower of Babel where the human spirit wanted to use all its technology, skill and power to build a tower up to Heaven and to summit with the Almighty. The human confidence in its ability to take over and to control creation. They did not make it. And we have not accomplished it. All of the Nuclear Regulations and Authorities who approved the plans for the reactors, all the studies that showed that the reactors could withstand all of the possible calamities that could happen were wrong. Nothing we build, nothing we design, nothing we create will be able to be guaranteed as indestructible. When BP or Exxon tells us their wells are safe, we must always ask them how they are prepared to respond to the failure. When Duke Power requests permits for more Nuclear plants, there will have to be plans made for melt downs and radiation leaks. And when the committee votes to give approval they should have to tell us that they are taking risks; they are taking a gamble and they hope it is worth it.

Robert Bruce, a Scottish poet, reminded a group of us one winter, that the fisherman's prayer is always, "O God, my boat is so small, and Your waves are so big, Be thou my harbor." Our Nuclear Reactors are so small, and the waves are so big, we must never be so confident in our abilities that we think we can withstand the waves. "frail creatures of dust and feeble as frail"

Our Wilderness Temptations

There is the story of Jesus, immediately after his baptism, being driven into the wilderness to be tested. It seems to me that we can discover a lot about the nature of the testings we will endure as people of faith in the Holy by looking at those temptations.

I think that there is great warning to us that the temptations come immediately after a dramatic and glorious event. Jesus was baptized and heavens opened, and birds flew and voices spoke. Our temptations are likely to come immediately after some wonderful and triumphant event. There is always talk about "let down" after big wins.

There is that period of forty days. Long, boring, dull, ordinary average days. There is nothing special, interesting or inspiring reported in those 40 days. It is the long, tedious, boring days when we are most vulnerable to temptations. As Jimmy Buffet sings about "A chance to brighten up a boring day." The temptations will come during the long, steady stream of average, daily obligations.

The temptations come as questions, "If you are the Son of God, or if you are a disciple of Christ, or if you are a faithful Hindu, or if you are a child of David, then why are you stuck here in this mess. Don't you deserve better? Would the Holy, would God really want you to be stuck here with dirty dishes and a screaming baby, tun your faithfulness into something good for you. Turn these stones into bread. Turn these friends into customers, Turn you devotion into a marketing campaign. The temptation if you are a good and righteous person, shoudn't it pay off? It is the temptation offered by the prosperity gospel of many of today's pulpits.

Well, if you are the Son of God, if you are a citizen of the Holy Kingdom, if you are going reign in glory, should you be able to get that done in an easier way? If you are the Son of God and going to rule the whole world, why not just get it done in worshipping what the world worship? Why have to suffer and go through all that sacrifice stuff? If you are a child of David, why do you have to keep kosher and do all that difficult stuff, there is bound to be an easier way. All the Kingdoms of this world, available just for doing it the way the world says. Who needs all that cross and crucifixion?

The long, tedious, daily, boring job of being faithful and living a discipline live of faith in the routine of life brings that last temptation to try to put a little hype into it, to make it a little more peppy, to attract the crowd by spectacular events. Throw yourself off the tower and let God catch you. Draw crowd by claiming you can raise the dead. Get on TV like Benny Hinn by claiming to heal people every night. The temptation comes to deny the importance of day in and day out faithfulness in the long ordinary average days and make it all about dramatic special event.

It was only after the long boring ordinary temptations came and were met by the words of Scripture that Jesus had learned in his childhood that the angels came. I am not sure why we think we will get more help more often than Jesus got.

For the sake of a few worthless beads

There are some things we know about human nature, and yet when we see them in real life they still startle us. I know the story of the sell of Manhattan by the native Americans for a few beads. I have watched people at state fairs spend lots of money to win Teddy Bears for their sweethearts. I know the competitive nature of human beings, but I was still shocked and disgusted at the pure passion and inhumanity of the quest for beads in New Orleans and the Mardi Gras parades.

The first experience was standing behind the barrier, watching the parade go by, and being leaped on from behind by a middle aged man in a nice sweater and pants, in order to try to catch a string of beads thrown by one of the characters on a float. He continued to push, shove, jump over the top of people in front of him for the entire parade. It did not matter to him whether they were elderly, women, children, or disabled. He was going to gather and get as many strings of beads as he could.

Later the same day, there came a second parade and I was next to a young black woman who told me this was her first time at the Mardi Gras celebrations. She was going to get herself some beads. I was waving and cheering and catching whatever came my way. Since she was next to me, those beads were coming near her. She started to complain that I was taking all her beads so I stopped trying to catch beads and let her catch what came near us. At one point she and another woman caught the same string of beads, and this young woman ripped them so hard from the other woman that the string broke. Then the young black woman lost interest in that string of beads and let them drop to the ground. This young woman did not seem to understand the parade. When the marching bands came by, she would yell at them with great hostility, "Where are your beads?" as if the bands were supposed to throw beads as well.

This passion for beads was only preparation for the scene on Bourbon Street where some women in the street are so eager for strings of beads that they will expose themselves to the people on the balconies who will then give beads as a reward.

In the play A Man for All Seasons, when Thomas More is being lead off to be beheaded, he says to the man who lied to convict him, The Scriptures say that we are to be pitied if we gain the whole world, and lose our souls. All you got was Wales. In New Orleans it was amazing to me to see how quickly and all consuming the passion could become for beads that people would lose their common courtesy and humanity for a few beads that are absolutely worthless. To gain a handful of beads, and lose all sense of value, respect, courtesy and dignity. (Oh, and it is not necessary, one can gather up a nice collection of beads just by hanging around.) I enjoyed the parades, the shouting and waving and trying to catch the flying "throws" so I am not against the fun, and there were others who did kind things like give the stuff animal throws to small children, but it is scary how all consuming the passion for something worthless could become.