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SERMON PREACHED ON PENTECOST 22, 11.5.6,
My 50th high school reunion was a trip back in time, as well as a trip back to Oklahoma, a poignant time as we remembered those years, all that had happened since May of 1956, remembering our teachers, calling the class roll, each one present standing with his or her spouse, ringing a bell for the 17 classmates who have died, 17 out of 76, some very dear friends from way back then – an Oklahoma version of “A Prairie Home Companion,” lots of hugs, laughter and tears, back to roots, to the formation of my life. Then we came back to reality, to tackle the lessons appointed for today’s Eucharist: Deuteronomy and Mark, wrestling to find something relevant for November of 2006 coming out of another set of roots: the creed that every man, woman and child who ever bore the name, Hebrew, can recite: “Shema, Israel. . .” Hear, O Israel: The Lord is our God, the Lord alone. You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your strength.” So important that when a scribe challenged Jesus to name the first commandment he repeated that creed: “Listen, Israel: the Lord our God is the one Lord, and you must love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your mind and with all your strength.” Note that one word threaded through the creed: “all” - the word that most gets us in trouble: all your heart, all your soul, all your strength – your emotion, your essence, your energy, all of it. The challenge of those words became evident through the lenses of an amazing book brought to me by Trevor Pitt, accompanied by his quiet, British-understated comment, “You may find this of interest.” It was my “airport book” between flights, probably the most clarifying book I’ve read in a quarter century, a British historian’s look at our country’s tradition separating church and state, religion intertwined with economic and political power at their roots. Michael Northcott’s An Angel Directs The Storm, Apocalyptic Religion & American Empire (I. B. Tauris, London/NY 2004)hit me straight between the eyes. I read with interest the role of religion expressed by our Founding Fathers, the role of the Bible through American history, and the way various interpretations of scripture impacted – still impacts - our domestic and foreign policies, calmly unflinching in its view of Democrats, Republicans, and all the presidents each of us has lived through. Biblically sound, well documented historically, I must confess that it disturbed my soul. Northcott writes of millenialists – people who belief the end of the world is coming soon, and there is nothing anyone can do to impede or stop it. (It reminded me of the cartoon showing two men in white robes holding up a sign, “The end is near.” Cars would zip by, followed by a screech of breaks and splash. Finally one man turns to the other and says, “Maybe the sign should read, “Bridge Out.”) Northcutt explained: The Puritans who fled persecution in England to settle the ‘wilderness’ of America believed that they were enacting the final era of human history, and they justified this belief by extensive references to scripture. America was the new Canaan, and on this land would emerge the fabled millennium of peace foretold in the Book of Revelation. That vision was the cradle of the American vision, influencing the preaching of Jonathan Edwards which provoked New England revivals in the 1730s and 40s. Edwards dated the Millennium around the year 2000. Suddenly I found myself living, experiencing that millennium context in our own time. As Deuteronomy says, ”Listen” – carefully - because it ties together today’s scripture. I think his words reflect the Gospel of Jesus Christ in a fresh way. By the very nature of the Church as body, and as assemblage of bodies, it is not possible to hive (separate) off parts of the bodies of Christians – the military parts, the tax-paying parts, the voting parts – from the worshipping and believing parts. But this is what the civil religion of America and its alliance with millennial evangelicalism seems to require. I see this happening in our own denomination as certain evangelicals protest the Investiture of our new Presiding Bishop because she is a woman and stands for inclusion of all people. Northcott continues: The body of Christ, if truly it is the ecclesial embodiment of Christ, will therefore resist all definitions of religion or Church as private or personal, and of State as public and political, because the body of Christ is itself a polity and its first responsibility is not to baptize American values, or America’s imperial wars. . . . . This Or, in the words of Deuteronomy and Jesus, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your mind, all your strength,” not dividing personal piety from corporate responsibility. The first and great commandment is to integrate all things, corporate and private in the presence of God, not to divide. With legitimate diversity of opinion on all we’re facing, these are not easy words to say because they are so timely. But if the preacher cannot touch reality in the Spirit of Christ, the sermon is an emasculated waste of time having nothing to do with reality or religion. Whatever your stand on the various issues swirling around in your city, our state and nation, whatever your opinion on people running for office, it is the duty of every Christian to vote. It is the blessing and responsibility of liberty. Otherwise we abdicate the future. Why? In conversation last week on the website for bishops and deputies to General Convention, our presiding officer, George Werner, quoted these words which I had never heard, written years ago (It Can’t Happen Here, 1937) by Sinclair Lewis: “When fascism comes to the United States, it will come wrapped in a flag and carrying a cross.” Jesus, who would not use violence to avoid death at the hands of the Roman state, said, “The second (commandment) is this, ‘you shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no other commandment greater than these.” Then the scribe said to him, “You are right, Teacher; you have truly said that ‘he is one, and besides him there is no other;’ and to love him with all the heart, and with all the understanding, and with all the strength,’ and ‘to love one’s neighbor as oneself,’ – this is much more important than all the whole burnt offerings and sacrifices.” When Jesus saw that he answered wisely, he said to him, “You are not far from the kingdom of Ernest W. Cockrell
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