Summertime
Renewal
Sermon by Jeff
Van Orden
June 22, 2003, Presbyterian Church of Chestnut Hill
2 Corinthians 8: 7-15
Matthew 25: 31-46
Welcome to summer, everyone. That’s right, yesterday – or to be precise
yesterday at 3:10 PM, when the Sun was farthest from the equator, or directly
overhead at noon on the Tropic of Cancer– summer, that most laid-back season
of the year, officially began. Traditionally, this weekend marks the
Summer Solstice, a festival in some cultures and – for reasons that I’ll
talk about in a moment – pretty much a non-event in ours. In ancient
Rome there was a special ceremony at the Grove of Diana on the Summer Solstice
– celebrating the death of a god as best we can tell – and bringing new
life into the world. In Swaziland, this festival marked the beginning
of the new year – focused on demonstrating the energy and potency of the
King. People who celebrate the Wiccan religion make a big deal out of
the Solstice, with interesting sexual and fertility overtones. Certain
Native American tribes often worshiped the sun and so marked the solstice
with ceremonial dance and ritual. Little wonder, then, that you don’t
find a bunch of hymns in the Presbyterian Hymnal that have margin notations
recommending them for use in this festival. Christians, it seems, don’t
see much of a reason to recognize the Summer Solstice – maybe out of a fear
that we will seem, well, Pagan. My friends, I’m going to suggest that
we celebrate the Summer Solstice this year at PCCH. Not to worry. I
don’t plan to suggest any chanting or incantation this morning – I am certainly
not suggesting that we begin to worship the sun, or stand and face it, or
anything like that – and while I think that fertility can be a positive
thing, I don’t think it has any place in our worship experience. What
I am suggesting is that this Summer Solstice would be a really good time
for each of us, as members of this Church – more importantly as Christians
– to think seriously about turning over a “new leaf” if you will. A really
good time to recommit ourselves to a principle that is central to the Gospel
message – and disturbingly absent from the present-day ethos of American
culture. In short, a time for summer renewal. You see, I am terribly
troubled by a tendency I see in our beloved country. It is a tendency that
has been building for some time, actually, but it is a tendency that has
become almost unmistakably obvious lately as we struggle as a nation to
turn around a weak economy and deal with the impact of the worst three-year
market decline since the Great Depression. Simply and poignantly put
– in an editorial in the current issue of The Christian Century magazine
– we have moved, in this country, from a political climate in which war
can be declared on poverty to one in which war can be declared on the poor
themselves. Our current administration’s economic policies do not give
us much reason to think otherwise. President Bush’s first tax cut put 40%
of the benefits in the hands of the richest 1% of the taxpayers and his
latest cut does nothing to reverse that trend. In fact, the centerpiece
of the current tax reduction package, the reduction or elimination of tax
on dividend income, is focused on the richest 10% of Americans who hold
90% of the shares of all stocks or mutual funds. Economics, for better
or for worse, defines us as a country. We talk about freedom a lot – we
even named the recent war Operation Iraqi Freedom - but what we mean when
we say freedom is really free enterprise. For example, sticking to Iraq
for a moment, if the Iraqi people freely vote for a Socialist system of
government do you think for a moment that America will be happy with that
outcome? Should that happen, our government will undoubtedly conclude that
that government was not freely elected at all and declare it to be invalid.
Because freedom, in the lexicon of US politics, is as much free market as
it is free people. The economic system we call capitalism or free enterprise
is not a bad thing. Most of us – my family included – would not enjoy the
life we live without it. It is a huge contributor to the fact that our nation
is the only superpower on the planet. Free enterprise also has appeal
in philosophical terms. In our Western culture, anyway, an economic system
that gives an individual the ability to take a stab at anything he or she
wants to do – a system that rewards risk taking and innovation and makes
Horatio Alger stories possible – feels right when we think about it.
On the other hand, free enterprise without a soul is a dangerous thing.
It fosters policies that favor the strong and the few while turning a blind
eye toward the weak and the many. And the soul of free enterprise must be
provided by the Church – by people of faith. Reinhold Niebuhr writes
in his classic Moral Man and Immoral Society that economic power
is the most significant coercive force in modern society. And, Niebuhr points
out, nations can never achieve the highest moral ideal – justice – without
what he calls the ultrarational hopes and passions of religion. The vision
of a just society, he continues, can be approximated only by those who do
not regard it as impossible – namely, the Church. Free enterprise without
a commitment to meeting the needs of the poor is, in Niebuhr’s words, immoral.
And the Church, by leavening the idea of justice with the ideal of love,
can prevent rationalizations like the ones we hear coming out of Washington
and Wall Street from directing our nation farther and farther down the path
toward complete moral self-centeredness. This morning’s Gospel lesson
conveys a message that is crystal clear on this subject. In this passage,
which is unique to Matthew’s Gospel, Jesus talks about the last judgment
–the last separation of the sheep from the goats, metaphorically speaking–
and points out that those receiving an eternal reward and those receiving
eternal punishment will indeed be separated. And how will they be separated?
They will be separated on the basis of their service to those in need.
This is the last parable recorded in Matthew, coming right before the passion
narratives – the narratives of Jesus’ death and resurrection. It is essentially
Jesus’ last message to his followers – his last word – the capstone of his
teaching. Matthew writes: “When the Son of Man comes in his glory, and
all the angels with him, then he will sit on his glorious throne. Before
him will be gathered all the nations, and he will separate them from one
another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats…” “I was hungry
and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me drink, I was a stranger
and you welcomed me, I was naked and you clothed me, I was sick and you
visited me, I was in prison and you came to me.” How, you ask, did you
do all these things? “As you did it to one of the least of these my brethren,
you did it to me.” You will notice, if you listen carefully, that Jesus
talks about nations, not about individuals. His message not only calls us
as individuals to be charitable in our personal lives but calls our nation
to be responsible for what he calls the “least of these my brethren” as
well. My friends, there are plenty of ambiguities in Scripture. This,
however is not one of them. It doesn’t matter how you feel about the whole
notion of eternal damnation and eternal paradise, the Biblical message is
that God expects those who follow him to be advocates for the persons who
society has passed by. The hungry, the naked, the imprisoned, the homeless.
When you and I walk through the doors of this Church and, by so doing declare
our commitment to the values of this community of faith, we are saying that
we will be the Soul of the free enterprise system – that we will be the
moral men and women in this immoral society – that we will, above all else,
care for the poor and the weak and the hungry. So, on this longest day
of the year – this Summer Solstice – let’s you and I renew our commitment
to this clearest of biblical messages. Here is my proposition: As
some of you know, I make my living in the world of investments. In that
highly regulated world, every firm has a person – or sometimes a whole department
– responsible for “compliance.” This individual is charged with the task
of seeing to it that all of the activities of the firm are in compliance
with the securities regulations and the various provisions of the investment
advisor act. My modest proposal is this: From this Summer Solstice going
forward let’s every one of us require of our government – local, State and
National – that the policies and programs proposed and enacted be Matthew
25 Compliant. Let’s make the Church – starting with this congregation –
the Matthew 25 Compliance Department for our society. Please understand,
I am not saying that our church should be partisan, or support a particular
ideology – republican, democrat, libertarian, even liberal or conservative
– if you don’t think the government should be in the business of directly
establishing programs to feed the poor, house the homeless or provide healthcare
for the sick, fine. Just make sure that the plan you do support accomplishes
that goal. If not, then we are not being Matthew 25 compliant. If, for
example, I say the government should provide health insurance for every
American and you disagree – and I know some of you disagree – because you
believe in small government, then tell me how your small government plan
will assure that every child in the country will receive the best possible
medical care. Not 40% of the children or 50% - all of them. If your plan
doesn’t do that, then it’s not in compliance with Matthew 25*. If I’m
being naďve and idealistic, so be it. But wouldn’t it be a wonderful thing
if every time our leaders set out to pass a bill or elect a candidate or
nominate a judge they had to consider the interests of the Matthew 25 compliance
department? If the people of God were as strong an influence over the society
as the NRA or the AARP or any other any other organized body that succeeds
in helping to set the direction of our society? So again, welcome to
summer, my friends. And may this summer be the one where we are mindful
of the of our calling to work for the day when we will be counted among
those nations who will be told “Come, O blessed of my Father, inherit the
kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world… for you, as a
nation, above all else, cared for the least of these my brethren. Amen.
* See “What Would Jesus Do? Jesus Would Send All These Right-Wing Pseudo-Christians
Straight to Hell (And Liberals May Not Be Far Behind)” An essay by Jack
Clark
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