Sunday, October 20, 2024
1.
There was a photograph in yesterday’s Boston Globe that first made me chuckle, and then (when I looked at it a second time) made me wince, and then (when I went back and looked at it a third time) made me angry. It’s a picture of a woman in Wisconsin, at a political rally in a contentious district, a so-called ‘swing’ district; and she’s looking longingly, even worshipfully, at the candidate on stage. But it’s her bright red t-shirt that caught me, that unnerves me even a day later as I recall it for you now. There’s a cross on her t-shirt, and it’s shiny white, and it’s set against an American flag. Above it, “Jesus is My Savior.” And below, “Trump is My President.” Jesus is My Savior. Trump is My President.
We can and we should disagree, in this country, about all kinds of moral concerns, political trends, and national priorities. We can and we should be represented by elected officials from a variety of parties, holding a broad range of views, espousing markedly different beliefs. That great marketplace of ideas is a beautiful, even a necessary thing. But the conflation of one presidential candidate with Jesus, and that candidate’s brazen celebration of that claim, represents a dangerous, dangerous moment in our history. That a particular kind of Christian community sees that candidate as a chosen figure, as a triumphant figure, anointed by God to restore fundamentalist Christianity to its rightful place at the heart of governance, is a matter of urgent discernment and care for you and me.
This kind of nationalism—we’ll call it “Christian nationalism”—this kind of nationalism is central, essential to the coalition that may well elect Donald Trump a second time next month. And while it’s easy enough to dismiss it (and I often do) as an anti-intellectual movement, or a just plain crude one, we do that at our own peril. For “Christian nationalism” (so-called) has already sunk its claws into our courts, state assemblies, school boards and on and on and on. So that picture then: she’s wearing that t-shirt, she’s committing to him her vote, but she’s also licensing him to do all the things he’s promised to do. Undoing voting rights that we’ve worked generations to enshrine. Undoing reproductive rights, women’s rights, that we’ve worked decades to protect. Creating systems of intimidation around gay kids and trans kids and any kids who challenge what so-called Christians think of as normal and right. Rejecting climate change and encouraging mindlessness and the destruction of habitats, ecosystems and futures. All under the banner of Christianity. “Christian nationalism.” I know I’m not the only who finds this not just grim, but perverse. “Jesus is My Savior.” “Trump is My President.”
1.
We can and we should disagree, in this country, about all kinds of moral concerns, political trends, and national priorities. We can and we should be represented by elected officials from a variety of parties, holding a broad range of views, espousing markedly different beliefs. That great marketplace of ideas is a beautiful, even a necessary thing. But the conflation of one presidential candidate with Jesus, and that candidate’s brazen celebration of that claim, represents a dangerous, dangerous moment in our history. That a particular kind of Christian community sees that candidate as a chosen figure, as a triumphant figure, anointed by God to restore fundamentalist Christianity to its rightful place at the heart of governance, is a matter of urgent discernment and care for you and me.
This kind of nationalism—we’ll call it “Christian nationalism”—this kind of nationalism is central, essential to the coalition that may well elect Donald Trump a second time next month. And while it’s easy enough to dismiss it (and I often do) as an anti-intellectual movement, or a just plain crude one, we do that at our own peril. For “Christian nationalism” (so-called) has already sunk its claws into our courts, state assemblies, school boards and on and on and on. So that picture then: she’s wearing that t-shirt, she’s committing to him her vote, but she’s also licensing him to do all the things he’s promised to do. Undoing voting rights that we’ve worked generations to enshrine. Undoing reproductive rights, women’s rights, that we’ve worked decades to protect. Creating systems of intimidation around gay kids and trans kids and any kids who challenge what so-called Christians think of as normal and right. Rejecting climate change and encouraging mindlessness and the destruction of habitats, ecosystems and futures. All under the banner of Christianity. “Christian nationalism.” I know I’m not the only who finds this not just grim, but perverse. “Jesus is My Savior.” “Trump is My President.”
2.
But Jesus himself—in texts like this one this morning—Jesus himself warns us against the very kind of faith flexing its muscles in American politics today. When James and John seek privilege and power in a regime that makes permanent one religious vision over all others, Jesus says, No, No, No. “Whoever would be great among you must serve and minister.” No, No, No. “Whoever would be great among you must be slave of all.” In other words, the God of this text is not interested in regime change, and the God of this tradition is not beholden to zealous candidates and narcissists whose narcissism is fueled by religious pride. The God Jesus loves is strangely but deliberately hidden in patterns of service, and ministries of mercy. The God Jesus loves is strangely but deliberately hidden in faithful commitments to justice, liberation and the common good. “Even the Human One,” Jesus says, “came not to be served but to be a servant.” You see, “Christian nationalism” suggests that the point of Christianity is power, coercive power, power to enforce a particular and (let’s be honest) ungodly morality. But the gospel—the teaching of Jesus, the example of Jesus, the life of Jesus—encourages sacrificial love, sacrificial service, habits of mercy and compassion many times unseen and very often hidden in beloved communities of faith. “You know,” Jesus says, “that among the nations of the world the great ones lord it over the little people and act like tyrants. But that is not the way it will be among you.”
I stumbled across a line from the great Fred Rogers this week, Mr. Rogers, who was talking to a group of educators decades ago and responding to a question about anxiety, and living through difficult times. He had a knack, Fred did, of getting to the nub. And he said to them, “When I was a boy and I would see scary things in the news, 'Look for the helpers, Freddy. Look for the helpers. You’ll always find people who are helping. Just look for them.' ” And what he was saying, I think, is this: Faith is about watching for where mercy moves. Faith is about bearing witness to the generous things that others are doing. Faith is about finding one of those projects, just one, and joining the team. “Look for the helpers, Freddy.” There will always be voices—and egotists out there—promising some kind of political apocalypse, trading in the symbols of faith to bring glory and honor to their own kind. But the good news is to be found, God’s grace is to be found, where love is building bridges. The good news is to be found, God’s mercy is to be found, where human touch is healing wounds. “Look for the helpers, Freddy. You’ll always find people who are helping.”
I stumbled across a line from the great Fred Rogers this week, Mr. Rogers, who was talking to a group of educators decades ago and responding to a question about anxiety, and living through difficult times. He had a knack, Fred did, of getting to the nub. And he said to them, “When I was a boy and I would see scary things in the news, 'Look for the helpers, Freddy. Look for the helpers. You’ll always find people who are helping. Just look for them.' ” And what he was saying, I think, is this: Faith is about watching for where mercy moves. Faith is about bearing witness to the generous things that others are doing. Faith is about finding one of those projects, just one, and joining the team. “Look for the helpers, Freddy.” There will always be voices—and egotists out there—promising some kind of political apocalypse, trading in the symbols of faith to bring glory and honor to their own kind. But the good news is to be found, God’s grace is to be found, where love is building bridges. The good news is to be found, God’s mercy is to be found, where human touch is healing wounds. “Look for the helpers, Freddy. You’ll always find people who are helping.”
WATCH RACHELLE FARRELL'S SONG FOR AMERICA
3.
So let me offer this today. Three weeks out from an election that worries us all. We need not despair. That’s just not us. It’s not who we are.
God’s love—even the seeds of divine revolution—are hidden in patterns of service and compassion. “Whoever would be great among you,” says Jesus, “must serve and minister.” God’s love is buried in habits of solidarity and mercy, habits sown into the daily choices we make, and the prayers we say, and the courage we manifest in dangerous seasons of crisis and conflict. “Whoever would be great among you,” says Jesus, “must be slave of all.” God’s love, then, is the generous hand of the World Central Kitchen volunteer—who’s ladling soup into bowls for hungry families in Gaza, Sudan, Ukraine. God’s love is the nun in Missouri who walks a single woman into a clinic, through a crowd of picketing zealots, to get the abortion that will save her life.
And this too. Closer to home. God’s love is every one of you, carefully directing drops into the eyes of our friend George Estes, because he can’t do it for himself these days. God’s love is passed along, from hand to hand, as little Mabel makes a new friend, a watchful, protective friend, and her mother is freed up to extend grace and courage to some of our most vulnerable neighbors. God’s love is in the tear-stained eyes of the sweet friends keeping watch by the bedside of our dear friend, Hannah Earle, this morning. Friends, who’ve been there, with Hannah, every night, through every dark and difficult night, these past two weeks. Stroking her cheek, holding her hand. Singing hymns.
And I’ve got to tell you. I hear God’s love every Thursday afternoon—when Lorna Ellis gathers her children’s choir for rehearsal downstairs. Lorna’s gentle encouragement in the midst of what sounds—to me, at least—like chaos. You know, and I know, the stress that so many of our children are experiencing these days, the unnerving stress that weighs on their beautiful spirits. And Lorna’s kindness lightens that load every Thursday, for a little bit, anyway; and makes it possible for them to make music, to praise God in their own sweet ways, and sing together.
In the Gospel this morning, Mark is teasing out the difference, I think, between the kind of faith that leads with argument and conviction, and the kind of faith that reveals what’s true (even what’s necessary) in kindness and service. Jesus, of course, is building a movement, a nimble movement of friends committed to divine love and mercy, and the most inclusive kind of hospitality and justice imaginable. He's inviting in those friends a fearlessness of purpose, and an attentiveness to prophets of liberation, like Miriam and Moses, Ruth and Naomi, Jeremiah and Isaiah. And he’s asking you and me to join the team, to look for helpers, to love the helpers, to be one of the helpers. And in that way, to radiate hopeful love and healing mercy and God’s grace in a world of hard edges and blustering tyrants.
4.
When we come around to our annual pledge drive—as we inevitably do, each bright October—we find ourselves reflecting on the covenant we’ve made in this particular community, at this particular time. In a sense, the covenant we celebrate each fall joins us as helpers, as collaborators in Jesus’ movement. He asks, “Will you be my servants? Will you be my ministers? Will you learn from me and go with me?” And we say, with our commitments, with our pledging, with our presence, “Yes. We will serve with you. Yes. We will minister with you. Not as the tyrants do. Not as the know-it-alls do. Not as the nationalists do. We will ladle the soup bowls and hold the hands of the dying and stand in the way of genocide and hatred. We will be your helpers. We will be your church.” In this particular community, at this particular time.
Our ancestors—Jewish, Christian, all of them—recognized that our generous sharing of resources, our commitment of resources to a common cause, is essential to the building up of that kind of community and that kind of ministry. And we stand today, as we do every fall, on their shoulders. And according to their example.
If we understand ourselves to be part of a single body, if we resource the church as a dynamic body of many members, interdependent and deeply, profoundly interrelated, then we will provide for one another a ministry where helpers are inspired, where young and old are loved into courage and service, where faith isn’t argued but manifested in love. We will—with sacrificial giving—provide for one another a ministry where children learn to sing songs of joy, where Mabel makes a new friend every week, and where George gets the eyedrops he needs when he needs them.
As for Kate and me, we’re at a point in our lives where, each year, we can joyfully pledge a tithe of our family income to this ministry—a ministry of peacemakers and faith-builders, a ministry of composer-believers and teen-mentors that we love, that we believe in and cherish. Now tithing is just another number, really, ten percent, nothing magic about it. You could easily pick another. Four, five, six. Start somewhere. Try to bump up a percentage point or two each year. Reach for ten, if you can.
But know, my friends, that our commitments—every one of them, and all of them together—our commitments breathe life and purpose into this community of helpers, this community of leaders, this community of musicians, teachers, dear friends and prayer warriors. Because you dig deep and pledge bravely, we continue to offer the world a vision of Christianity that defies so-called “Christian nationalism” and manifests instead the gospel of mercy for a wildly diverse and evolving America, and a wildly diverse and evolving world. Jesus is asking, “Is this community your community? Is this ministry your ministry? And if it is, if this is yours, what can you do, what will you pledge to embolden one another, to inspire one another, to build bonds of hopefulness and courage as we serve God together in this place? Jesus is asking. It’s on us to answer.
Amen and Ashe.
3.
So let me offer this today. Three weeks out from an election that worries us all. We need not despair. That’s just not us. It’s not who we are.
God’s love—even the seeds of divine revolution—are hidden in patterns of service and compassion. “Whoever would be great among you,” says Jesus, “must serve and minister.” God’s love is buried in habits of solidarity and mercy, habits sown into the daily choices we make, and the prayers we say, and the courage we manifest in dangerous seasons of crisis and conflict. “Whoever would be great among you,” says Jesus, “must be slave of all.” God’s love, then, is the generous hand of the World Central Kitchen volunteer—who’s ladling soup into bowls for hungry families in Gaza, Sudan, Ukraine. God’s love is the nun in Missouri who walks a single woman into a clinic, through a crowd of picketing zealots, to get the abortion that will save her life.
And this too. Closer to home. God’s love is every one of you, carefully directing drops into the eyes of our friend George Estes, because he can’t do it for himself these days. God’s love is passed along, from hand to hand, as little Mabel makes a new friend, a watchful, protective friend, and her mother is freed up to extend grace and courage to some of our most vulnerable neighbors. God’s love is in the tear-stained eyes of the sweet friends keeping watch by the bedside of our dear friend, Hannah Earle, this morning. Friends, who’ve been there, with Hannah, every night, through every dark and difficult night, these past two weeks. Stroking her cheek, holding her hand. Singing hymns.
And I’ve got to tell you. I hear God’s love every Thursday afternoon—when Lorna Ellis gathers her children’s choir for rehearsal downstairs. Lorna’s gentle encouragement in the midst of what sounds—to me, at least—like chaos. You know, and I know, the stress that so many of our children are experiencing these days, the unnerving stress that weighs on their beautiful spirits. And Lorna’s kindness lightens that load every Thursday, for a little bit, anyway; and makes it possible for them to make music, to praise God in their own sweet ways, and sing together.
In the Gospel this morning, Mark is teasing out the difference, I think, between the kind of faith that leads with argument and conviction, and the kind of faith that reveals what’s true (even what’s necessary) in kindness and service. Jesus, of course, is building a movement, a nimble movement of friends committed to divine love and mercy, and the most inclusive kind of hospitality and justice imaginable. He's inviting in those friends a fearlessness of purpose, and an attentiveness to prophets of liberation, like Miriam and Moses, Ruth and Naomi, Jeremiah and Isaiah. And he’s asking you and me to join the team, to look for helpers, to love the helpers, to be one of the helpers. And in that way, to radiate hopeful love and healing mercy and God’s grace in a world of hard edges and blustering tyrants.
4.
When we come around to our annual pledge drive—as we inevitably do, each bright October—we find ourselves reflecting on the covenant we’ve made in this particular community, at this particular time. In a sense, the covenant we celebrate each fall joins us as helpers, as collaborators in Jesus’ movement. He asks, “Will you be my servants? Will you be my ministers? Will you learn from me and go with me?” And we say, with our commitments, with our pledging, with our presence, “Yes. We will serve with you. Yes. We will minister with you. Not as the tyrants do. Not as the know-it-alls do. Not as the nationalists do. We will ladle the soup bowls and hold the hands of the dying and stand in the way of genocide and hatred. We will be your helpers. We will be your church.” In this particular community, at this particular time.
Our ancestors—Jewish, Christian, all of them—recognized that our generous sharing of resources, our commitment of resources to a common cause, is essential to the building up of that kind of community and that kind of ministry. And we stand today, as we do every fall, on their shoulders. And according to their example.
As for Kate and me, we’re at a point in our lives where, each year, we can joyfully pledge a tithe of our family income to this ministry—a ministry of peacemakers and faith-builders, a ministry of composer-believers and teen-mentors that we love, that we believe in and cherish. Now tithing is just another number, really, ten percent, nothing magic about it. You could easily pick another. Four, five, six. Start somewhere. Try to bump up a percentage point or two each year. Reach for ten, if you can.
But know, my friends, that our commitments—every one of them, and all of them together—our commitments breathe life and purpose into this community of helpers, this community of leaders, this community of musicians, teachers, dear friends and prayer warriors. Because you dig deep and pledge bravely, we continue to offer the world a vision of Christianity that defies so-called “Christian nationalism” and manifests instead the gospel of mercy for a wildly diverse and evolving America, and a wildly diverse and evolving world. Jesus is asking, “Is this community your community? Is this ministry your ministry? And if it is, if this is yours, what can you do, what will you pledge to embolden one another, to inspire one another, to build bonds of hopefulness and courage as we serve God together in this place? Jesus is asking. It’s on us to answer.
Amen and Ashe.
