Words for Worship

Ministry Today

Back in old cold war Russia days a story did the rounds.

 

And it was that Andropov,

the then

chairman of the KGB

collected jokes

about

the General Secretary

of the Supreme Soviet.

 

And when someone asked - Comrade Chairman

how many Brezhnev jokes

do you have –

he replied

Oh about two camps full.

 

But people

have always made jokes

about their governments

and politicians.

 

However, politics

is not always

a laughing matter.

 

After all,

it can

if we are not careful

effect real folk’s lives.

 

For example,

in just over a week,

our American cousins

will have elected

their next president.

 

Now of course,

this vote

is hugely important

to a nation

desperate to put

the failures

of the current administration behind them.

 

But it is also

very important to us

as well.

 

Because who can doubt that the commander in chief

of the world’s

premier superpower

can influence

all our lives.

 

And so,

in

on the interface

of religion and politics.

 

A talk that

nevertheless

would debunk

the myth

that religion

should be kept out of politics and vice versa.

 

However

the continuing financial crisis and a few things

I heard on the radio

convinced me

that something

more in your face

was called for.

 

It all started

with a radio interview

with a Virginian

deep in

the US’s God & guns belt.

 

He said

that they would always vote

for God and guns

because that was all

his government

had left him with.

 

But, then

it was revealed

that the speaker

was a member

of that unspoken 1%

of US society –

that ethnic group

called Native Americans;

The very ones

that countless cowboy films showed being killed

whilst shooting arrows

and wearing feathers.

 

It struck me that

they of all people

would be have been

far better

without the guns

we Europeans

brought

to subjugate them.

 

But then

is not all

our personal politics

usually a strange amalgam?

 

On the face of it

we try to maintain

a rationality

and fairness of mind.

 

Yet with a bit of honesty

we have to admit that

pet theories

and prejudices,

even broucht –up-nesses

soon intrude.

 

Few of us

are fully coherent

in our political beliefs.

 

Maybe that is why

true Christianity

shouts out to us

time and time again –

hoi

where is the logic

in that utterance?

 

Why are you supporting

that political line

when this other party

is talking more sense

on the issue?

 

Moreover,

our inner voice

often whispers

in judgement

when we vilify

someone

of a differing opinion

who is trying his best

for everyone.

 

 

A Sunday school teacher

was trying to teach

her class

the difference

between right and wrong,

using the

Commandment

“Thou shalt not steal.”

 

“All right children,

let’s take another example,” she said.

 

“If I grabbed

a man’s walle

t with all his money,

what would I be?”

 

One little boy raised

his hand

and shouted,

“You’d be his wife!”

 

Well this week

I read a sermon

that would not

even be worthy

of a children’s address.

 

Once again

it dealt

with the American presidential election.

 

It asked

how would Zeccheus

have voted

in the polling booth?

 

It then concluded

that you either vote

for the tax collector

or Christ.

 

Well I suspect

that you know

which candidate

that is written

in support of.

 

But more interesting

perhaps

is this sermon’s reasoning behind its conclusion.

 

And it was that

a candidate needed

to be held

to political values

that are Bible based.

 

The snag is

no matter

how you search scripture

you will not find

a definite statement

on how to achieve

global peace;

that escape

from the historic nightmare of war, aggression

and terrorism.

 

Nor is there anything precise whether culpable bankers should be bailed out

on the grounds that

if not –

the rest of us

will find

the cash machines

aren’t working;  

A nightmare scenario

That

I believe

we were

a mere 2 weeks away from.

 

In fact, there is

no specific judgement

on the family

who has overspent

in the good times

and now rueing it

in the bad ones;

a nightmare

that

for many

is happening

here and now.

 

And the reason

for your fruitless search

is that Christ

never intended to tell us

how to answer

every political decision

in the succeeding 20 centuries.

Rather he gave us

a conscience

to find

the answers within ourselves; Answers that are

not only logical

but also honourable;

not only sensible

but compassionate;

not only non-prejudicial

but tinged with

a greater quality of humanity than our baser instincts

would demand.

 

And it was just this point

that

the Inimitable Rabbi Lionel Blue made on

Monday’s thought for the day.

 

In it he related

his own family’s hardship during the great depression.

 

He then gave

a warning about

not listening to our consciences during

the horrible financial problems of today.

 

Because this very same type

of crises

once manured

a great evil indeed.

 

For in the 20’s,

Germany faced defeat in war, the loss of an empire

and eye watering inflation.

 

It was then

that the tsunami

of the great depression hit.

 

And at that point

an out of work painter

with a talent for radio

joined up

people’s bitterness.

 

He anesthetised

their conscience.

 

 He killed their sense

of decency.

 

And this perversion

of economic woes

turned into a hunt

for scapegoats.  

 

Blue now tells a story

of the ensuing madness.

 

One day

a Nazi rabble-rouser

was shouting out

his poison

when he asked –

and you know who

is responsible –

a Jewish man

shouted back

the Jews and the biker riders.

 

The Nazi was perplexed –

why the bike riders?

 

The reply came back –

why the Jews?  

 

Rabbi Blue finished

by shocking

our consciences back to life with the questions –

whose turn is it

to be a scapegoat

this time round?

 

Yours or mine?

 

He then shivers and says –

play it again Sam!

 

 

There was a famous governor of a southern state

in American.

 

He had been elected

on the promise

of reducing state taxes.

 

But the moment

he got into power,

he told his officials

he was going to raise taxes.

 

His spin doctors

rushed in

and demanded

what they should tell the electorate?

 

To which

the politician

calmly replied –

tell them I lied!

 

Well to the contrary,

both senators

Obama and McCain

seem honest, able

and honourable men.

 

However, Barack Obama

as a senator

for Illinois

is the more interesting.

 

For, he reminds

of another senator

from that state.

 

He was

of course

Abraham Lincoln.

 

Here was a man

driven by politics

guided

by the very conscience

of Christ himself.

 

Since he fought

the American civil war

on one issue alone

and that was on slavery –

an overbearing iniquity

upon humanity

that easily equals

the holocaust

and which Britain

played a key part.

 

Now Lincoln

saw this

and undertook

a struggle

that would last 4 years

and cause

over a million casualties.

 

Yet at the end

of this first war in history

over the rights of others

we see the foundation

of that great

and inspirational country

which is the USA;

a nation indeed

whose current crowning glory

is that

an African American

after centuries of oppression can aspire

to the highest office

in the land.  

 

There if elected –

to rule on behalf

of all that land’s peoples.  

 

Now that too

is good politics

and good religion

reinforcing

and complimenting each other.  

 

There indeed

is the case

that politics and religion

are inseparable

with the former

listening to the latter

and the latter

being the conscience

of the former.

 

Because

that most generous people

are showing no signs

of being tempted

into scapegoat politics despite

their current difficulties.

 

Rather they are upholding

their

founding father’s political beliefs.

 

For the first line

of the American declaration

of independence

proclaims in all conscience:

 

 

 

  We hold these truths

to be self-evident,

that all men are created equal, that they are endowed

by their Creator

with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are

Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.

 

 

During the American civil war, Lincoln dedicated

the military cemetery

at the Gettysburg battle field.  

 

Beginning

with the now-iconic phrase "Four score and seven years ago...",

 

Lincoln in the Gettysburg address went on

to describe the ceremony

not only as

an opportunity

to consecrate the grounds.

 

It was also to dedicate

the living

to the struggle

to ensure that

the "government of the people, by the people,

for the people,

shall not perish

from the earth.

 

Well this weekend

we all stand

at a planetary cross road

whilst surveying

the graves

of so many political ambitions of the past

and economic storms

of the future.

 

Yet we are not

without a sign post.

 

And that is given

by the spirit of Christ.

 

That spirit to see

other political points

and love their speakers

for them;

the spirit to find

a way forward

for all the people

and the spirit

to scapegoat none

but our dangerous bitterness.

 

Because you may not agree with Donald Soper

when he said

that the church

must be up to its neck

in politics.

 

But let us

at least

agree that

if politics

is to amount

to anything at all –

it must be founded upon, bounded around

and be in over its head

in the conscience

of Jesus Christ.

 

Because that alone

will ensure

for all humanity

the lofty aims

of the American constitution.

 

For that is the politics

to establish Justice,

promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings

of Liberty to ourselves

and our Posterity.

 

Amen

 

Religion & Politics