What's really on the ballot

We are coming to the end of a long election season. Honestly, in the United States, it feels like we are in a never ending election cycle these days. As a priest, I've often been criticized for being "too political" and my critics tell me "Jesus was not political." To be clear, I have never been "partisan from the pulpit." I do not endorse candidates from within the walls of the church. To do so is a violation of the Johnson Act and as a Jeffersonian constitutionalist, I believe in the separation of Church and State. However, I do not believe the Church is to be silent on matters of Christian ethics which, inevitably, means being political.

The word politics derives from the Greek words polis (city) and politikos (citizen). It refers to how we organize our public life together and Jesus, following the tradition of the Torah and the Hebrew prophets, had a lot to say about how we organize our public life. His primary concern was the same as God's concern spoken to Moses and the prophets: "Love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength" (Deuteronomy 6:5) and "Love your neighbor as yourself" (Leviticus 19:18b).

Love of God is not complete without love of neighbor. Many of us feel we can separate these two commandments - as if there's an "or" implied. There are many who say they love God, but their actions have no regard for the well-being of their neighbors unless the neighbors literally live next door and look, think, and act like them. Love your neighbor demands far more than that!

The prophet Isaiah speaks the word of the Lord which says that even eunuchs and foreigners who keeps the commandments and observances of God are to be included in the covenant community (56:4-7). The sign of God's covenant people is how they embrace and care for those who are not like them. This ethic is foundational for the teachings of Jesus.

Throughout his ministry, Jesus reached out to Samaritans (hated foreigners) and showed compassion for the hurting and marginalized. Jesus was neighbor focused in obedience to God. He gave us a vision for how to organize our public life together. It was an ethic of loving God by loving neighbor because they are inseparable.

What is really on the ballot in this election is not partisan - it is Christian political ethics. We live in a country that is far too privatized where individualism has become a false, idolatrous god we worship. "What's in it for me?" is the overriding American ethic and it is deeply offensive to God. To paraphrase Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., we must learn to live together as family or we will perish together as fools. Individualism is not a Christian ethic - care for community is.

As Christians, we cannot shirk what Jesus taught: Love God and love neighbor. Rather than asking "What's in it for me?" each of us needs to ask "What's in it for you?" and by you, I mean people with whom God is concerned:

• Widows and orphans - including the orphans our government has created with the separation of migrant children from their families
• Sick and Disabled - including millions who are suffering from COVID-19 who have fallen ill because of bad policy, those who suffer from lack of economic opportunity and live in fear of losing their health care
• People of Color - who suffer from systemic racism, poverty, and violence
• Women - who suffer sexual and domestic violence at far higher rates than men and whose dignity to make medical decisions is under threat
• Poor - who are often working but not paid a living wage and are blamed by society for being poor
• LGBTQ+ persons - who live in fear of violence and losing hard won rights for dignity

These are our neighbors whose life and their dignity matter to God. Their life and dignity need to matter to us too. This is what is really on the ballot.

Maundy Thursday 2012

Today marks the beginning of the Triduum - Latin for Three Days. For Christians, this is the most holy time of the year and marks the three days from the Last Supper, through the arrest, trial, crucifixion, burial and resurrection of Christ. Experiencing the Triduum is at the heart of what it means to be a Christian.

Tonight we'll hear the Gospel of John where Jesus washes the disciples' feet and gives them a new commandment: "Love one another as I have loved you."

St. John of the Cross said that when we die, God will ask but one question of us: "How well did you love?"

Love is the ability to both give of ourselves fully and completely as well as to receive the gift of others with grace and gratitude.

How well do you love?

What is Truth?

Christ the King Sunday is this coming Sunday. It's like New Year's Eve in the Church ... except we don't play Auld Lang Syne as the closing hymn. The following Sunday is the first Sunday of Advent and a new church year (Year C for those of you following the Lectionary's three-year cycle of Scripture readings).

Speaking of the Lectionary, there's something interesting in how the Sunday Gospel readings are structured from All Saints Day to Christ the King Sunday. We travel back to Holy Week for the Sundays between these two festivals. When we encounter Holy Week at the end of Lent in the spring, we focus intently for a seven day period on the events leading to the crucifixion, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ. It's an intense seven day period and the readings focus on what happens to Jesus during this time. In the fall, we return to Holy Week but not to focus on what happens to Jesus, but rather to focus on what Jesus taught during that week. So we heard warnings about the Scribes who "devour widows" and the widow who gave her mite (her "whole being") and the fortelling of the destruction of the Temple. These are all things Jesus said during Holy Week ... the kinds of things that push the buttons of the establishment and can get a guy crucified.

On Christ the King Sunday, we hear a portion of the reading from John 18 where Jesus is being questioned by Pontius Pilate. Some call this a "trial" but it really wasn't one. It was an interrogation into a minor matter as far as the Roman Procurator was concerned. But it was far more than Pilate or Jesus' accusers had ever imagined.

The lectionary text ends just before Pilate utters the question, "What is truth?" I plan to extend the reading to include that question ... precisely because it is the wrong question. When we fall into the trap of asking Pilate's question, "What is truth?" we can begin to believe that truth is something we can grasp - a thing to be possessed. The real question is "Who is Truth?"** and the answer to that question stands in front of Pilate - Jesus Christ is Truth. Jesus is the embodiment of the Truth of God and John tells us this at the beginning of his Gospel:

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. ... And the Word became flesh and lived among us, and we have seen his glory, the glory as of a father's only son, full of grace and truth. (John 1:1,14)

And what is the nature of this truth? It is found in the new commandment Jesus gives his disciples:

I give you a new commandment, that you love one another. Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another. (John 13:34-35)

Loving one another requires Christians to be in relationship - not just with other Christians, but with the whole world. When we live in loving relationships, God gives us the grace to become more honest and authentic with ourselves and others. Through the grace of honesty in relationships we come to know the Truth of God's love.

**(N.B. In the Greek, Pilate's question to Jesus in verse 38 is actually a bit more ambiguous. The Greek phrase "Ti estin alhyeia," "ti" can be translated as either "what" or "who." English Bible translations have historically rendered this as "What is truth?" but suffice it to say we cannot know for certain what Pilate intended.)

My own peace I leave with you

Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you; I do not give it to you as the world does. Do not let your hearts be distressed or lacking in courage. (John 14.27)

On the final night of Jesus' earthly life, he blesses his friends with these words of peace. In the Church, we speak of God's peace as that "which passes all understanding." It doesn't make sense.

We are very rational people steeped in a culture grounded in scientific facts and knowledge. We have trouble with things which are not rational. Somehow, we've mistaken rational for real. If something doesn't make rational sense, it must not be real, right?

Wrong!

I tell folks I've tried rationality and found it's overrated. Truth is, there are many things irrational which are very, very real. The most obvious one is love. Anyone who has been in love can tell you there is a lot about love which is irrational. It isn't logical and doesn't always make sense.

Grace is irrational too. Why would God pour out grace on us? More specifically, why would God pour out grace on sinners ... especially the "really bad sinners" (of course I don't believe in gradations of sin so that makes us all "really bad sinners" ... but that's another post for another time).

Peace isn't rational either. Most people define peace is an absence of conflict. I'm not sure that's truly what peace is. Conflict is a means for change and transformation, so the absence of conflict is stagnation. I think peace is when we can be in the midst of conflict, but do it in such a way that allows us to see Christ in another with whom we disagree ... and in such a way as to honor their humanity which, in turn, honors God.

This week is Holy Week. It's the "high water mark" of the Christian year. It's not rational at all. The idea of a crucified God is pretty weird ... not at all rational. But God doesn't have to be rational to be real ... and neither to we.