"Faith and politics: voting God's values," 10.28.12

Matthew 25:31-45

³¹“When the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him, then he will sit on the throne of his glory. ³²All the nations will be gathered before him, and he will separate people one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats, ³³and he will put the sheep at his right hand and the goats at the left.

³⁴Then the king will say to those at his right hand, ‘Come, you that are blessed by my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world; ³⁵for I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me, ³⁶I was naked and you gave me clothing, I was sick and you took care of me, I was in prison and you visited me.’

³⁷Then the righteous will answer him, ‘Lord, when was it that we saw you hungry and gave you food, or thirsty and gave you something to drink? ³⁸And when was it that we saw you a stranger and welcomed you, or naked and gave you clothing? ³⁹And when was it that we saw you sick or in prison and visited you?’ ⁴⁰And the king will answer them, ‘Truly I tell you, just as you did it to one of the least of these who are members of my family, you did it to me.’

⁴¹Then he will say to those at his left hand, ‘You that are accursed, depart from me into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels; ⁴²for I was hungry and you gave me no food, I was thirsty and you gave me nothing to drink, ⁴³I was a stranger and you did not welcome me, naked and you did not give me clothing, sick and in prison and you did not visit me.’ ⁴⁴Then they also will answer, ‘Lord, when was it that we saw you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or naked or sick or in prison, and did not take care of you?’ ⁴⁵Then he will answer them, ‘Truly I tell you, just as you did not do it to one of the least of these, you did not do it to me.’ ⁴⁶And these will go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life.”

Romans 13:1-10

Let every person be subject to the governing authorities; for there is no authority except from God, and those authorities that exist have been instituted by God. ²Therefore whoever resists authority resists what God has appointed, and those who resist will incur judgment. ³For rulers are not a terror to good conduct, but to bad. Do you wish to have no fear of the authority? Then do what is good, and you will receive its approval; ⁴for it is God’s servant for your good. But if you do what is wrong, you should be afraid, for the authority does not bear the sword in vain! It is the servant of God to execute wrath on the wrongdoer. ⁵Therefore one must be subject, not only because of wrath but also because of conscience. ⁶For the same reason you also pay taxes, for the authorities are God’s servants, busy with this very thing.

⁷Pay to all what is due them—taxes to whom taxes are due, revenue to whom revenue is due, respect to whom respect is due, honor to whom honor is due. ⁸Owe no one anything, except to love one another; for the one who loves another has fulfilled the law. ⁹The commandments, “You shall not commit adultery; You shall not murder; You shall not steal; You shall not covet”; and any other commandment, are summed up in this word, “Love your neighbor as yourself.” ¹⁰Love does no wrong to a neighbor; therefore, love is the fulfilling of the law.

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             I’m doing something a bit dangerous, this next couple of weeks. I’m preaching about faith and politics. Last night with a group of people I mentioned that was the sermon topic for the morning and you’d have thought I threw a grenade. Everyone had something to say; some were excited, others worried, surprised or even angry that I would do such a thing. Don’t worry: I’m not going to tell you who I think you should vote for. This is not going to be a partisan sermon, or a rant, or a scolding. It doesn’t matter to me who you vote for, but it does matter to me that you vote, and that you take your faith with you into the voting booth.

My job as a Christian is to grow as a disciple of Jesus Christ. When I say Jesus is Lord, what I mean is that I want to obey him in my life. That’s supposed to mean my whole life. Of course, saying it and living it are not exactly the same. I’m human, so I am not perfect. But I hope each day to bring my actions closer to my intentions by spending time in prayer, reading the Bible and practicing my faith consciously. Each day I should get better at seeking and following Christ’s direction in everything I do.

In the same way, my goal as a pastor is to help you grow in your discipleship and to help Laurelton get better at nurturing people for their spiritual growth. I want us to get better at living our faith together. I want this community to reflect Christ’s love more clearly each day in how we treat each other and how we treat our neighbors. I want us to get better at following God in everything we do, which includes thinking about our faith as we decide how to vote.

Politics is how a community lives together and governs itself. Elections are part of that, but so is how we spend our money and time, how we interact with our neighbors, how we raise our children,. Right now when we think about politics, we think especially about the community we call the United States of America, and the upcoming elections for President and many other offices. But ultimately, politics is less about who wins this election and more about what kind of country we want to live in, what kind of country we want to build together.

Next week we’re going to focus on loving each other when we disagree. This week we’ll focus on what our faith tells us about life’s priorities and the role of government.

Let’s start with priorities of life and faith. I chose this passage from Matthew because it gets at the core of what our faith is about. Jesus tells his listeners what will happen at the end of time when he comes in glory to rule and judge the nations. We’ve read this together recently, so I’m not going to pick it apart in detail. The point is: when Jesus judges us the question that will matter isn’t how often we went to church, how much we pledge, whether we taught Sunday school or smoked cigarettes, or read the Bible. Instead, the question Jesus will ask is how we treated the hungry, the naked, the sick, the lonely and those in prison. The question that Jesus thinks is most important is how we treat those people who are easiest to ignore. Jesus calls them, “the least of these who are members of my family.”

Neither of our presidential candidates talks much about “the least of these.” Neither one talks about the people on the margins of society, even though most of us realize that we could be right there with a few unlucky breaks. We know that if we lose our job at same time we have a major medical problem, we will be headed for financial catastrophe very quickly. That’s not the priority of our political parties. People living in poverty don’t contribute much money to political campaigns and they are not as likely to vote as people with higher income.

Both of our presidential candidates, in fact all of our candidates, talk a lot about the middle class, but not much about the poor. Jesus talked about the poor a lot, and never mentioned the middle class. Don’t get me wrong; supporting the middle class is important. A strong middle class has been one of the keys to the stability of US society from the beginning of our nation. But as people who follow Jesus, caring about the poor is not optional; it is the thing Jesus tells us we will be judged on when the world ends.

bearing fruit

Romans 8:1-11

¹There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. ²For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has set you free from the law of sin and of death. ³For God has done what the law, weakened by the flesh, could not do: by sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and to deal with sin, he condemned sin in the flesh, ⁴so that the just requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not according to the flesh but according to the Spirit. ⁵For those who live according to the flesh set their minds on the things of the flesh, but those who live according to the Spirit set their minds on the things of the Spirit. ⁶To set the mind on the flesh is death, but to set the mind on the Spirit is life and peace. ⁷For this reason the mind that is set on the flesh is hostile to God; it does not submit to God’s law — indeed it cannot, ⁸and those who are in the flesh cannot please God.

⁹But you are not in the flesh; you are in the Spirit, since the Spirit of God dwells in you. Anyone who does not have the Spirit of Christ does not belong to him. ¹⁰But if Christ is in you, though the body is dead because of sin, the Spirit is life because of righteousness. ¹¹If the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, he who raised Christ from the dead will give life to your mortal bodies also through his Spirit that dwells in you.

Matthew 13:1-9, 18-23

¹That same day Jesus went out of the house and sat beside the sea. ²Such great crowds gathered around him that he got into a boat and sat there, while the whole crowd stood on the beach. ³And he told them many things in parables, saying: “Listen! A sower went out to sow. ⁴And as he sowed, some seeds fell on the path, and the birds came and ate them up. ⁵Other seeds fell on rocky ground, where they did not have much soil, and they sprang up quickly, since they had no depth of soil. ⁶But when the sun rose, they were scorched; and since they had no root, they withered away. ⁷Other seeds fell among thorns, and the thorns grew up and choked them. ⁸Other seeds fell on good soil and brought forth grain, some a hundredfold, some sixty, some thirty. ⁹Let anyone with ears listen!”

¹⁸“Hear then the parable of the sower. ¹⁹When anyone hears the word of the kingdom and does not understand it, the evil one comes and snatches away what is sown in the heart; this is what was sown on the path. ²⁰As for what was sown on rocky ground, this is the one who hears the word and immediately receives it with joy; ²¹yet such a person has no root, but endures only for a while, and when trouble or persecution arises on account of the word, that person immediately falls away. ²²As for what was sown among thorns, this is the one who hears the word, but the cares of the world and the lure of wealth choke the word, and it yields nothing. ²³But as for what was sown on good soil, this is the one who hears the word and understands it, who indeed bears fruit and yields, in one case a hundredfold, in another sixty, and in another thirty.”

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            Ok, who are the characters in this story Jesus tells?

            Who do you think each of those characters is in this room?

            Today Scott, Taylor and I are sowing the word and we are all the soil. We don’t normally think of soil as active, but in this story the soil is very important. Jesus talks about four different kinds of soil. He talks about the path where the seed can’t sink in but instead gets eaten by the birds. There’s some rocky soil where the seed grows quickly, but doesn’t have enough soil to grow strong. Then there’s soil where there are thorns that choke out the grain. Finally, there’s good soil where the grain grows plentifully and multiplies.

            There are lots of things that can interfere with the growth of God’s word. One of the obstacles Jesus specifically mentions is understanding. The Bible can be hard to understand and as someone entrusted with sowing the word, one of my most important jobs is helping you understand it. Without understanding the seed can’t sink in and grow.

A farmer doesn’t just plant seeds; he or she also takes care of them and nurtures them. Preparation, care and tending the soil and the new growth are just as important as sowing the word. But it’s not just my job; the elders of the church are responsible to help develop educational opportunities so we can grow in understanding. And each of us is responsible for actively engaging in our spiritual life, for understanding and applying the word to our life. The soil isn’t just a passive part of the story; Jesus calls us to work on being better soil.

The first question the passage has for us is what kind of soil we are and how we can be better. How can we become good soil to receive, nurture and grow God’s word in us? What gets in the way of that growth now and how can we remove those obstacles to growth?

             Let’s take a few minutes to discuss these questions in groups. We aren’t just one type of soil. We are partly good soil, and partly choked by thorns. We’re partly so short on understanding we can’t grow and partly enthusiastic but too shallow to endure. If one of these kinds of soil really resonates with you I invite you to move to that group. Like I said, we are all responsible for engaging with the word, so whichever group you think is going to help you most is the place you should be. If you stay where you are, that’s fine too, since we each have each kind of soil in us.

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            Our role in becoming better soil and my role with other teachers and worship leaders here in sowing the word is only the first part of the story. You are not just soil to receive the word; when you receive the word it grows in you and the grain that grows is an important part of the story too.