In the name of God- Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
Amen.
This
sermon is a matter of national security. Well, maybe not quite that serious,
but it is about the nation and security. Both our Old Testament and Gospel
readings beg the question “whose are we?” and “where do we find security?”
Those are two questions that we still struggle to answer today- to whom do we
belong, who rules over us; and were does our safety come from, what allows us
to sleep soundly at night?
Some context in each story is helpful. The
Israelites have come out of Egypt and settled in the Promised Land. Their first
form of government was a series of judges who judged cases, but weren’t quite
rulers. But as you might expect, the judges became corrupt and the people were
unhappy with the situation. Samuel became God’s appointed prophet. When we pick
up the story there is a lot of tension in the air, as people are worried about
the future, and so they ask for a king.
The context of Mark is
important as well. We’re early in Mark, just at chapter 3, but remember, Mark
is the Reader’s Digest version of the gospel, it moves quickly and tells the
story straight. So thus far, Jesus has been baptized, called his disciples,
cast out demons, healed several people, forgiven sins, eaten with tax collectors
and sinners, had a run-in with the Pharisees, and taught some lessons. At one
point the text says that “fame about Jesus had begun to spread.” But it wasn’t
necessarily a good kind of fame, you might better read it as “Jesus was getting
a reputation.” Jesus was known as a rebel-rouser, a blasphemer, and as we see
in this reading today, a host for demons. So when the text says that they came
together, and the disciples couldn’t eat, it was because they were so crowded
that there was no space for a meal. So Jesus’ family gets wind of what’s going
on, and they go out to stop him from making more of a fool of himself, or the
family. To the family, Jesus was that crazy relative who seems to be off his
rocker at Thanksgiving dinner.
So with these two
backgrounds in our minds, I’d like to explore the question of where our
security comes from. The way I propose to do this is to consider the reasons
why Israel wanted to have a king. First, I’ll introduce a thesis, which
represents Israel’s thinking. Then I’ll offer an antithesis, explaining why they
are wrong. And finally, I’ll offer some synthesis showing that Jesus is the
best source of security we can have.
The first reason why
Israel wanted a king was to keep up with the Joneses. Israel looked around them
and they saw the other nations, all with their kings. And with those kings came
all the trimmings of royalty. Just look at what’s been going on in England the
last week with the celebration around Queen Elizabeth. Brits have been honoring
the royal family, having parades, and all sorts of festivities. And to be
honest, it looks sort of fun. Now their politics aren’t great, their economy
struggles just as ours does, but I wonder what having that sort of national
unity and pride for a week might do for our country and our bitter partisan
divide. So Israel saw these other nations having thrones and parades, and they
committed one of the most basic sins- the sin of saying “I want.”
Israel saw that their
neighbor had something that looked neat, and they wanted it. Forget the fact
that they had the Lord on their side, forget that God had made them God’s
chosen people, they wanted more. Even to the point that they wanted what was
bad for them. It’s a problem we know all too well. We fill ourselves with
things that we don’t need, whether it be junk food, pornography, or stuff that
fills our attic. In America we, too, care far too much about having the latest
and the greatest. We covet. We covet our neighbor’s wife, we covet their new
car, and we despise them when they get things that we can’t have.
We also like the quick
fix, as did Israel. They thought that coronating a king would solve their
problems. They hoped it would fix their economic system, give them a powerful
army, and would make their neighbors respect them. And they thought all of this
would happen overnight. In Washington,
we see people all the time talking about tax reform as the way to fix the
economy, or hydraulic fracking as the solution to our energy crisis. They say
if we would just vote for their candidate, things would be better already.
People complain that Obama hasn’t fixed the economy in 3 years, even though it
took about 15 years to build the crumbling foundation. We ignore the fact that
we’ve been on a path towards environmental destruction for 150 years since the
Industrial Revolution, but we want a solution to energy tomorrow.
I even see this at St.
Francis- there are some people that want to look for the silver bullet in
getting more people to attend Sunday School and the forum. We want to say that
if we could just change the service times to imitate some other model, then we
would find success. But we ignore the fact that culture has changed and church participation
doesn’t mean what it used to. As much as we want a quick fix, we can’t get
around the fact that discipleship is a long journey.
The point is this- Israel wanted to have a king to
imitate other nations, because they thought it would be the quick fix to their
problems. But in reality, a king only added to their problems, as each and
every problem that Samuel mentions came to pass. The antithesis here is that we
shouldn’t imitate others because that is taking a step backwards. We already
have someone to imitate, and that is Jesus.
In his classic work Christ and Culture, Richard Niebuhr
talked about different paradigms for how the church should relate to culture.
He said that Christ can be against culture, of culture, or above culture. And
he explains that each of these has its issues. When Israel tried to imitate
others, it was trying to be of the culture. When people go live in compounds
such as the Branch Davidians, they are against culture. People who think this
world is worthless and are waiting for the Rapture would be those who say
Christ is above culture. The last model that he recommends is that Christ
transforms culture. You might say that this is the group that says our proper place
is in culture, but not of it.
But this isn’t easy, to
stay in the world, but trying to transform it. It means fighting an uphill
battle, it means trying to move immovable structures. This is not a quick fix,
and our neighbor will think we’re a bit crazy, but Christians are in the
business of transformation.
The second reason why
Israel wanted a king was security. Kings were also the generals of the army,
and without a king, you can’t have a good army. Israel wanted protection, they
wanted to be safe, and the only way they thought this would happen would be to
have a king leading them. After all, they thought, God is good, but God doesn’t
ride a horse in armor as we go into battle. Israel was struggling with the same
age old question that we do- it’s the balance between divine providence and
self-sufficiency.
We all want to trust in
God to provide and protect, but on the other hand, we all know that if we just
sit around and wait for God to act, we’ll be waiting a really long time. One of
my favorite lines in theology is that God gives us maximum support, with
minimum protection. If you are sick, there is very little chance that God will
heal you if you don’t also ask a doctor for some help. If faith healers were
legitimate sources for a cure, we’d have more people here today than there are
at Moses Cone, but we all know that it just doesn’t work that way. God won’t
take care of the hungry if we don’t plant and harvest any crops. Now this isn’t
to limit God, or to deny miracles such as loaves and fish, or manna from
heaven, but I think we can all agree that if you don’t go to the grocery store,
God isn’t going to fill your refrigerator with food.
Israel recognized this
fact. And as they looked around, they saw that their land was indeed a land
flowing with milk and honey, it is a fertile land that has great sources of
water, which are especially important in the Middle East. Israel knew that other
nations, those with kings and big armies, also saw these things. They were
afraid, and so they turned to a king to protect them. Just as God had given
them the Promised Land and blessed them during the journey there, God promised
to continue to be with them. But they couldn’t ignore the storm clouds on the
horizon, they decided to turn their back on God and went with a king. And we
know how the story ends, Israel would be overrun by a series of other nations-
the king didn’t give them the protection they sought.
But if I’m right, that
God does give maximum support with minimum protection, how should we live? If
God is going to give us minimum protection, shouldn’t we seek some sort of
backup protection? To borrow a line from St. Paul’s 2nd epistle to the Corinthians,
“For we know that if the earthly tent we live in is destroyed, we have a
building from God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens.”
Security all comes down to how you define it. If security means never being
hurt, never being poor, never being in danger- God will not protect us. But if
security means knowing that no matter what happens to our earthly tent, we will
always have house with God- then we indeed are secure.
It’s sort of what happens
when you graduate from college. You go out, you are free to have fun, to live,
and to make mistakes. And good parents let you do these things, they let you
fall, they let you stumble, but they let you live. And when you get into
trouble and need a place to stay, they always welcome you back home. But just
as we need to maintain relationships with our parents, we also need to maintain
our relationship with God. God will grant us security, just not safety.
And the final reason
Israel wanted a king was because the wanted to protect the status quo. The thing about kings is that, like
career politicians and lobbyists, they tend to be easy to corrupt. Again, the
news gives us all the examples we need. Both the Occupy Movement and the Arab
Spring have arisen because the 1% and monarchy or dictator are dominating the
world. When someone gets absolute power, they aren’t going to let go of it
easily. So we see corporate CEOs fighting to keep their bonuses and jobs, and
we see Bashar al-Assad killing his own people in Syria. Those in power wanted a
king, because it meant the king would keep them in power. The question here is
the same question that we have today. What is the role of government in our
lives? What is our mission?
Now I’m not talking about
the Hamiltonian versus Jeffersonian debates of the 18th century, but
rather, why are we here? If everyone did what was right and cared for their
neighbor, we wouldn’t really need government, or at least not much of one. But
we all know that without taxes, a lot of people would keep their money to
themselves; without laws, people would do as they please with little regard for
others; without social welfare programs, the poor and needy would be utterly
helpless.
Government exists to
protect the interests of the people. But we all know that different people have
different interests. Those in power, whether 2,500 years ago in Jerusalem, or
right now in DC, want to make sure their interests are the ones that are
protected. The problem with this is that Jesus doesn’t call us to protect the status quo. In fact, he calls us to turn this world
upside down so that the Kingdom of God might come on earth as it is in heaven.
Look at the reading from
Mark. Jesus is protecting the interest of those who are not protected by the
ruling elite. He’s healing the sick, feeding the hungry, giving good news to
the downtrodden. Until the status quo is
love at its fullest expression at all times and in all places, the job of the
Christian will be to stand up against government, against rulers, against the status quo. Until our prisons are empty, until no
one eats at soup kitchens, until soldiers only respond to natural disasters,
until no home is foreclosed on, until the unemployment rate is zero, until
slavery is a part of history, until hatred knows no home in our hearts and
minds, until that day, the status quo
must be challenged.
So those are the reasons
Israel wanted a king- to imitate others, to have security, and to protect those
in power. But as that thinking didn’t work out for Israel, neither will it for
us. Instead, Jesus is the place we turn to for all authority, leadership, and
security. As Jesus is accused of harboring demons and being a vessel for Satan,
he reminds us that a house divided cannot stand against itself. As Israel
learned, we cannot seek the things of kingship and follow God.
Now to be clear, this is
not easy; Jesus was ridiculed for what he did and said. He was mocked,
scourged, and killed. His family tried to silence him, some of his own
disciples deserted and betrayed him. But we’re all here on this Sunday morning
because we know that he was right. Jesus was right to fight the powers of his
day, he was right to realize that death wasn’t the worst thing that could
happen to him, he was right to focus on God instead of his own safety, he was
right to proclaim the Kingdom of God over the kingdoms of Rome or Israel.
Instead of a king, Jesus is worthy of our
imitation, as his way leads to eternal life, both on this side and the other of
death. Jesus is our security, not from all danger, but from living a life
devoid of meaning. And Jesus invites us to participate in the status quo of the Kingdom of God-
taking part in its love, its peace, its justice.
And I do want to leave
you all with a sense of security to do this demanding task of following Jesus.
At the end of the Marcan reading, Jesus’ family came and called to him, and he
says “here are my mother and my brothers! Whoever does the will of God is my
brother and sister and mother.” This is a radical statement. It’s not that
Jesus is disrespecting his family, or disowning them, but he is redefining
family. Jesus is saying that if we accept God as our father instead of the
rulers as our king, then we are family to each other. If we are all citizens of
the Kingdom of God, we all are under the same leader.
Jesus invites us to consider
the question- “what does your house stand for?” I ask you to take that question
home with you- “what does your house stand for?” And in answering, “we stand
undivided for God” then we are given a great sense of security. Jesus says
“look around. If you are with me, you will have brothers and sisters who do not
disown you or call you crazy, but who support and love you. You might not share
DNA with them, but they are your brothers and sisters indeed.” Relying on God
to be our king is not an easy task, but we are given security by being
surrounded by family.
So my brothers and
sisters, let us stand together and do the work of our Father in Heaven, doing
the work of transforming this world into God’s Kingdom. Amen.
