Pentecost 20, September 28, 2008
Matthew 21:23-32
I think it’s time we did some talking about which candidate good Episcopalians should vote for in the uncoming election. As the pastor of this congregation it is my responsibility to try to help you make a sound decision as you approach such an important choice.
You may have heard about the pulpit initiative that is to take place in churches around the country this morning. Some fifty pastors are going to stand in their pulpits and endorse a candidate in a challenge to the 501(c)(3) law that prohibits churches from being partisan and non profit. Well it seems a shame to miss out on a chance to plug my candidate. And my candidate is a reasonable man; who knows, he might support a change in the tax law, especially if it helps get him elected. I hate to deprive you all of my great wisdom on the subject of which candidate would do a better job. But......having not discussed with the vestry the pesky details of how we would operate without our tax free status, I guess I’ll have to keep my candidate’s name under wraps. I almost said I’d have to keep my opinions to myself, but we’re not talking opinion here. There’s really only one candidate. Which makes it such a mystery to me why anyone in their right mind would.........oh never mind.
Of course you know I’m pushing this a little right? I mean, we all know that good sensible people, people who care deeply about their country and their neighbor will be voting for both the candidates on November 4. We know that. Yes?
But the kind of talking I was just doing is getting to be more the rule than the exception as we get closer to the election. If you want to hear from people who are absolutely certain they are right, and just as certain everyone else is wrong, just call an election. I really do harbor strong feelings about the election, enough that I am always a little surprised when I hear people in interviews say they haven’t decided yet. I know so many people--on both sides--who are so certain about who is right for the country. I know people who are so certain they are right that they get a little miffed at friends or relatives who are for the other guy. They say things like, “I thought I knew him. Were did she get these crazy ideas? Who is this person?”
Sometimes we can be so sure of what is right, what is important. We know that we know the answer. It is as if everything in the universe, our upbringing, our experience, our teachers have all set us up to know what is right in a particular situation.
I was at a meeting several years ago with twenty other priests and one guy really wanted us to dig into a discussion of the latest controversy in the church. No one wanted to debate or even discuss. In frustration he said, “but it is so clear, if you’d look at this with me you’d understand.” Of course, after that people were even less likely to enter into a discussion where someone would have the opportunity to straighten them out. The guy was so sure he was right and most of the rest of us were wrong that he really was in pain over our inability to understand. I could almost hear him thinking “How could anyone in their right mind think the way these people do?”
Being right can be painful as it was for that guy, and it can also be blinding. I tend to be suspicious of people who are that sure they are right. Unless of course it’s me, but that’s different. When I’m that sure I’m right I probably don’t have enough sense to know I should be suspicious of my own opinions.
Which is just one of the many reasons I’m glad I’m a Christian. Jesus is so good at helping us break through our certainties so that we can discover our truth.
Take for example the story we heard a few minutes ago.
So.........Jesus refuses to be drawn into an argument. He wriggles out of it by raising an internal argument among his opponents. I’ll answer your question if you answer mine. He poses a question about which they have strong and differing opinions and then sits back to watch. When they can’t give him an answer he tells a story about, oh....some other people....nobody who has anything to do with us. He tells the story of two brothers and how their actions do or don’t match their words. One is faithful and the other is not. The chief priests and elders have always considered themselves faithful servants of God, but the story of the two sons suggests that things are not always as they seem. I get this image of Jesus walking away and the chief priests and elders gathering in a little huddle to figure out what just happened and someone saying “wait a minute. was he talking about us? Hey!”
What those people probably didn’t realize was that they had just received one of the best gifts Jesus had to offer. One of the things he gave people as he traveled through the villages was the chance to see themselves as flawed and fragile, and the chance to discover that some of the things they were most sure about might still be open for some discussion. He gave this great gift of wisdom sometimes by surprising people with a new truth they had never considered about themselves, and sometimes by eroding their confidence in what they had thought was true, as in today’s story. “Was he saying,” they must have asked, “that we are like the son who only gave lip service to doing what his father wanted?”
Hearing the truth from Jesus wasn’t always easy, but when the truth landed on fertile ground it could be life changing. When the righteous townspeople were about to stone the woman caught in adultery Jesus stopped them by putting them in a position to question their own opinion of themselves. You know the story. “Ok,” says Jesus, “the one who is without sin can go first.” When Martha asked Jesus to tell Mary to get to work, she was surprised to hear that her sister’s contemplative practice was as valid a response to Jesus as was her own busyness. When Peter told Jesus that walking into certain death was crazy and that Jesus should turn aside from that path, Jesus told Peter he was like a devil tempting him away from his duty. There is a great old gospel song, Jesus is the answer, for the world today, above him there is no other, Jesus is the way. Well that may be true, but in the stories, Jesus seems to scatter a lot more questions in his path than answers.
I don’t believe Jesus would think much of this pulpit initiative business. Of course, that’s just my opinion. I suspect Jesus would have preachers do what they have always done, remind people of their responsibility to God and neighbor and let them decide which candidate seems best. I think too, that standing up in front of Jesus and saying I know for sure there’s only one possible answer about anything is dicey.
I’m not saying it doesn’t matter whom you vote for in November. I’m not saying you shouldn’t be passionate about your candidate. This election process could use more passion, more people who care deeply about the outcome of the race. I’m just saying that no matter how good your candidate is, he’ll only be as good as his ability to open himself to new possibilities, new solutions. The recent past has taught us that the near future will likely present challenges no one has ever anticipated. I hope to goodness the next president doesn’t have all the answers. Instead, I hope the next president is in relationship with--somehow in touch with---the best wisdom available, wherever that wisdom may be found.
And that kind of brings me back to Jesus and his messing with people’s comfortable answers. Upsetting people’s certainties really is one of the best gifts Jesus has to give. In place of those brittle answers Jesus offers himself. He offers a walking, talking, day-to-day relationship with God. God told Israel way back at the beginning; the prophets told the kings; and Jesus tells us, that right answers won’t carry us into the promised land. The way to get there is to travel in the company of one who is known for creating new responses when new questions arise. And here of course, I am referring to God. You’ll have to make up your own mind about the candidates.
JB