Jeremiah 31:27-34
The days are surely coming, says our God, when I will sow the house of Israel and the house of Judah with the seed of humans and the seed of animals. And just as I have watched over them to pluck up and break down, to overthrow, destroy, and bring evil, so I will watch over them to build and to plant, says our God. In those days they shall no longer say: “The parents have eaten sour grapes, and the children’s teeth are set on edge.”
But all shall die for their own sins; the teeth of everyone who eats sour grapes shall be set on edge. The days are surely coming, says our God, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and the house of Judah. It will not be like the covenant that I made with their ancestors when I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt—a covenant that they broke, though I was their husband, says our God. But this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, says our God: I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts; and I will be their God, and they shall be my people. No longer shall they teach one another, or say to each other, “Know the LORD,” for they shall all know me, from the least of them to the greatest, says our God; for I will forgive their iniquity, and remember their sin no more.
Psalm 119:97-104
Teach me, O God, the way of your statutes.
O God, how I love your law!
It is my meditation all day long.
Your commandment makes me wiser than my enemies,
for it is always with me.
I have more understanding than all my teachers,
for your decrees are my meditation.
I understand more than the aged,
for I keep your precepts.
I hold back my feet from every evil way,
in order to keep your word.
I do not turn away from your ordinances,
for you have taught me.
How sweet are your words to my taste,
sweeter than honey to my mouth!
Through your precepts I get understanding;
therefore I hate every way that is false.Luke 18:1-8
Then Jesus told them a parable about their need to pray always and not to lose heart. He said, “In a certain city there was a judge who neither feared God nor had respect for people. In that city there was a widow who kept coming to him and saying, ‘Grant me justice against my opponent.’ For a while he refused; but later he said to himself, ‘Though I have no fear of God and no respect for anyone, yet because this widow keeps bothering me, I will grant her justice, so that she may not wear me out by continually coming.’” And the Lord said, “Listen to what the unjust judge says. And will not God grant justice to his chosen ones who cry to him day and night? Will he delay long in helping them? I tell you, he will quickly grant justice to them. And yet, when the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on earth?”
Opening Prayer
God of all time, your purposes and hopes for the universe will never be thwarted. Remind us of your persistent love and of your continual grace toward us. Give us hope and perseverance. Amen.
As you might imagine, the coming elections are a hot topic among my colleagues these days. My friend Beth in California wrote a sermon called HOW WOULD JESUS VOTE? In it she made an interesting point. She reminded people that Jesus is not of a particular political party—he is not Democratic, Republican or Green; he may if anything be considered an Independent—but she pointed out, none of that matters because,“Jesus would not be able to vote at all. Not because he isn't terribly concerned about people and issues—he is of course. Jesus wouldn't be able to vote because he was condemned as a criminal. Criminals are not allowed to vote. Even if he hadn't been arrested and killed, he might still have been unable to vote because he had been declared mentally incompetent. People all over thought he was nuts. In this country if you have ever been declared mentally incompetent by a professional, you are not allowed to vote. There were no professionals in Jesus' day so chances are good, popular opinion would have won out.” Jesus would not have been allowed to show up at the polls on November second. But if you are 18 or older, a legal citizen of this country, mentally competent and not in prison, you are eligible to vote, and today I am going to talk about why our faith implores us to do so.
When I was growing up there were three things I was taught never to talk about at the dinner table: money, God and politics. I know now that those are three of the most important conversations families can have. They relate to faith, stewardship and social justice, all of which at their best are interrelated. But you see there were reasons these topics were off limits. For starters, my mother’s family is from the South and my father is a Yankee. We had all kinds of weird fights at our dinner table about which cultural norms were superior. But that was small potatoes compared to the really big differences between my parents. My mother is what my father called a bleeding heart liberal, an educator, feminist and champion of the underdog. My father is a dyed-in-the-wool Republican, a self avowed capitalist who spent his career in management with one of the leading pharmaceutical companies in the nation. Round about election time my brother and I used to get kind of a kick out of winding them up and watching than go at it. All that changed when I was old enough to think about voting myself. I began to realize that the battles being waged at the dinner table were not just abstract concepts or lofty ideals: they were debates about policies that shaped our country, policies that had a direct effect on the lives of other people. I realized that I lived with two people who I adored equally but who had completely opposing views on issues of great importance to me and to my country. That was a tough one to work through as a young person—it’s still a tough one for me to work through. Needless to say, I know better than to bring it up at the dinner table.
Now, I do not recall making the connection between faith and political matters until well into my twenties. In hindsight, I secretly wish I had been part of the Webber family. Their dining room table, as Adam describes it, looked like a Who’s Who and a What’s What of socio-religious politics. Adam, tell us about your dining room table at home.— From what I understand, Kelly’s table didn't look much different. It is not a wonder they ended up together.
But that isn’t the background from whence I came. The most radical thing I did as a teenager was to shop at Nordstrom's when most of my friends shopped at Macy’s. Oooh, pretty edgy. If my parents did little to encourage my understanding of politics, the church did even less. There was absolutely no effort made to establish the intersection of social conscience and political activism. In fact what I took from my family and the church in which I was raised, was that it was better to keep my thoughts to myself and my mouth shut. That is why I love the passage from Luke this morning. Listen:
Luke 18:1-8
Jesus told them a parable about their need to pray always and not to lose heart. He said, “In a certain city there was a judge who neither feared God nor had respect for people. In that city there was a widow who kept coming to him and saying, ‘Grant me justice against my opponent.’ For a while he refused; but later he said to himself, ‘Though I have no fear of God and no respect for anyone, yet because this widow keeps bothering me, I will grant her justice, so that she may not wear me out by continually coming.’”
The Widow: she rocks! She is without a doubt one of the most forthright and gutsiest broads in the Bible. She does not take no for an answer. She is not worried what people will think of her, or if she might be perceived by the judge as a pest. She knows what is right and she keeps after him until he grants it to her. So the question is, how do we know what is right? How do we know what is worth fighting for? How, based on our beliefs, are we to judge what is right for us and for our country in the coming elections? Well, fortunately, scripture offers us some guidelines.
The passage from Luke offers us insight into the importance of fair policy making. Now the tough thing is that the judge doesn’t make his ruling because he has seen the light and was doing what he felt was right; he makes his ruling on the side of justice for the sole purpose of shutting the widow woman up. But you know, sometimes that is how change happens. In it’s telling of the story, the Gospel of Luke implores us to pay special regard to those who suffer injustice and have little or no power in the community. A little background here: Disputes involving widows and orphans were not uncommon in Israel (Psalm 82:3-4; Jeremiah 5:28-29). The law did not allow widows to inherit wealth or property. Upon the death of a husband, his property was passed to his sons or brothers. If those relatives did not act with justice and honor toward their father's or brother's widow (as was the case in today’s story) a judge was called in as the widow's final and only hope.
Politics have a direct effect on people’s lives. Women in this case are not treated with fairness—not so different from the struggles women face today around the right to choose what is right for their own bodies and the right to earn equal pay. Women of Jesus’ day struggled to maintain property and wealth that by every right should have belonged to them in the first place. And there we have the basis for the Gospel of social justice. We as Christians are called to stand up for policies that treat all people fairly.
Sometimes this is a lonely camp to be in, right? I mean, this widow woman was alone facing down this judge. She knew in her gut what she had to do and she wouldn’t give up. For those who hope to see for peace and justice become a priority for our government, both things can seem a long time in coming. However, the prophet Jeremiah reminds us, "The days are surely coming." He instructs us to pray always—not lose heart and not lose heart, but to pray always. While we may not be able to see it readily, God is slowly and steadily at work, even in Government.
So, who are we this morning? In the scenario of the Judge (the one with all the power) and the widow (with seemingly nothing but faith on her side), who are we? Pair up for just a second here and decide who you can most relate with in the face of these coming elections. Are you feeling like the widow, and if so what does this scripture compel you to do? Or are you feeling like the Judge, and if so how does this scripture compel you to behave?
If we are in the widow woman’s shoes, the words to us this morning are to go to the mat for our convictions: learn our cases well and argue them with ferocity and courage, no matter who tells us that what we believe to be just is just plain silly. And if we are the judge—and all of us are a little of both, because we live in the wealthiest country in the world, and the decisions we make affect the entire globe—if we are the judge, this morning’s scripture compels us to understand the issues well and to act wisely and fairly with the power we do have.
In your bulletin you will find a little yellow hand-out. Sometime today or tonight I want you to sit down by yourself or with someone else and try to prioritize these 10 issues. They are all important, but I want you to list them from the most to the least critical. Once you have done that I want you to ask yourself, How much do I know about this issue? Do I know enough to make an informed decision at the polls in two weeks, or do I need to find out some more about where the candidates stand on issues of war and conflict, urban decay, foreign policy, economic justice, racial justice, environmental justice, immigration, health care, criminal justice and public education and children’s services?
If we put ourselves in the role of the Judge in this scenario, in addition to prioritizing the importance of the issues, we must also ask ourselves who benefits most from each position taken by the candidates for president. Who will bear the cost of the choices that are being made in the coming election year? What are the immediate and long term implications of those decisions? And what must we be willing to give up or sacrifice in order to pursue the positions that are most in line with the teachings of our faith? As the judge, surely we are going to have to be willing to give up some of the power we have over the widow woman, if justice is truly to be served. You see, there is an intersection between what we are taught by our faith, and how we are called to act out of that faith in the world.
It should be noted that on two of the hottest topics of the election, abortion and homosexuality, Jesus never said a word in the Gospels about either issue. But Jesus does say a great deal about loving your enemies and caring for the poor.
It should also be noted that currently the gathered power of pervasive economic and political force throughout the globe, of which the US plays a significant role, serves to reinforce the catastrophic division between rich and poor. We as Christians are dealing with a real faith crisis. How can we say we believe that God is the God of all life and not stand against all that denies the promise of fullness of life to the whole of creation? These are serious issues to consider.
We have all heard the depressing statistics. Five million new Americans have entered the ranks of poverty in the last four years, forty-five million Americans have no health care, and the nation is today mired in a war that most military experts no longer believe is winnable, unless this nation is willing to commit hundreds of thousands of troops and to sustain enormous casualties. These are daunting statistics. It is easy to become cynical and glaze over with apathy. But Jesus says, “Listen to what the unjust judge says. Will not God grant justice to the chosen ones who cry to God day and night? Will God delay long in helping them? I tell you, God will quickly grant justice to them.” While it doesn’t always happen quickly, as anyone who has ever had anything to do with public policy will tell you, the key is consistency. Jesus is saying, do not give up; you know what is right in your hearts, fight for it, educate others, let people know that justice is a faith matter. Justice is a matter of faith.
Friends, no matter what the results of the November election are, God is with us. Seen or unseen, God works through every circumstance. God will work through whatever administration is in place; but we are the human effort that is required to accomplish God’s law, the new covenant. It is a matter of faith to remain informed about decisions that are being made, however the administration shakes down. Like the widow woman and the unjust Judge, it is always up to the people to voice their opinions about what is justice-led and what is not. It is our job, like the widow woman, to participate in rallies, lectures, letter-writing campaigns, and education; to protest and support, by what ever means necessary. It is our job to see to it that the law that has been inscribed on our hearts is made manifest locally, regionally and nationally.
"The days are surely coming," says the prophet. Regardless of how devastated and hopeless things may seem in the present moment, there is a time coming when liberty and justice for all will be the prevailing truth and guiding principles of Government and its policies. The call is to not lose heart—be true to the separation of church and state, yes, but let our faith inform all that we do. Now is the time to align ourselves with all that we know to be just, true and based in love. Align ourselves with it and, like the widow woman, speak out for that which we know to be just. Friends, even now, in the final countdown to the vote for the presidency in the year 2004, God's hopes for creation are palpable. Listen and be led by your conscience and your heart. Listen and be led by your God to do justice, love kindness, and walk humbly with one another and with the Creator.
Amen.