“It has been a crazy week in politics. And you were probably
hoping for, or even expecting, an article here that would finally be a break
from all the political talk.” This is a statement to members of the United
Church of Christ from their Iowa judicatory office and you know that after this
opening there comes a huge “nevertheless…” “The Gospel,” the letter goes on to
say, “is political.”
I would add that it becomes even more so when it is the
treatment of people that is at stake –
for who they are rather than for what they have done. As our lectionary
begins to sweep us deep into the heart of Jesus’ understanding of God and God’s
people, and how we are to be together – in the Beatitudes and the Sermon on the
Mount – I urge you to resist the
temptation to separate your experience in worship from the images being
provoked by the stage being set by the new political agenda. Think through the
implication of Jesus’ words about treatment of the ‘other,’ especially those
considered to be enemy. Realize that he took the concept and made it the theme
of his own Inaugural address. The congregation in Nazareth spoken of in Luke
chapter 4, were riled by Jesus’ implying that Gentiles were also agents of
divine blessing – that “the other” was
as much at the center of God’s loving vision as God’s own chosen.
We are in the end chosen or blessed to be a blessing as the
song goes. We are chosen to share the honor with all made in the image of God.
And that has profound impact on the shaping of how our nations live in the
family of nations.
I still remember the amazing celebration of the turn of the
Millennium as captured on TV, beginning with the quiet pushing of a boat
carrying a father and his child symbolizing the ongoing future of humanity off
a small South Pacific island. It was a simple ceremony. It was followed by the
fireworks and exuberance of larger cities like Sydney, Moscow, Cape Town,
Paris, London. By the time we reached the United States we had pretty well
covered the range of human racial and ethnic expression. And there – in the
diversity of our population – all peoples, tribes and nations were celebrating
together in a kind of “reprise” of what we had just seen. This is our gift, and
it is our joy. It has been built out of human actions both cruelly dark and
courageously good.
At the recent inauguration, God was cited upfront and
central, as a chief endorser of America First. And who has the ear of God? And
represents God’s voice? Jesus, the Incarnate Word, appeared before the
disciples in the upper room. He paid the ultimate price of proclaiming a
Kingdom bigger than his contemporary society could stomach; and he overcame
death at its own game. Having paid the ultimate price what else could anyone or
thing throw at Him? And so the road of a new, fuller humanity, later signified
in the outpouring of the Spirit who gave tongues for all nations to understand
the Gospel, lay open before us. Just before that day of the Spirit’s coming,
John wrote: “Jesus (The Risen Lord)
breathed upon them (in that upper room) and said: ’receive the Spirit.
Whosoever’s sins you remit (release, forgive), remit, and whosever’s sins you
retain, retain’.”
It’s not usual that we consider what it means to be
“retaining sins,” but we may well be moving into such an era. “The Gospel is
political.” Jesus breathes His power upon us and in so doing passes on
responsibility to love God with all your heart, mind and soul and to love your
neighbor as yourself. This is the Church’s task and executive order. In John’s
Gospel chapter 12, verses 27, Jesus says “Now my soul is troubled. And what
shall I say – “Father, save me from this hour?” No, it is for this reason I
have come to this hour. Father glorify your name.”
As the people of St Luke’s Cedar Falls are reminded and
asked each Sunday: “where, this week, did you act in love; where did you show
courage and where did you encounter Jesus unexpectedly?”
In the peace and love of Christ,
+Alan
The Rt. Rev. Alan Scarfe, Bishop of Iowa
