Saints Alive: Christians Vote Their Values!

You’d think, since we’re living in a Christian nation, that All Saints day would be a national holiday. Since the day isn’t a national holiday, maybe all this talk about the United States being a Christian nation is just that, all talk.

You’d have a challenge on your hands trying to prove that to an alien from another planet today. How would you justify folks applauding one of the most inspirational quotes, from one of our most recently popular presidents (Ronald Reagan’s, “Mr. Gorbachov, tear down this wall!”) and many of the same folks applauding the authorization of a fence between the U.S., and Mexico by one of our least popular presidents? How would you explain, in Christian language, the contradiction between the Statue of Liberty in New York harbor and the soon to be built wall near the Rio Grande? How would you claim that this Christian nation, overflowing with milk, honey and saints, puts up with – no – bases its political thinking and decision-making on these negative television ads? How would you explain that so many members of congress, elected based on their dedication to Christian values, have resigned from office because grand juries have indicted them?

What is it that the saints – we saints – and those who’ve gone before us – also touched by God – have in mind, heart, and voice when we make those sorts of claims? Are we Americans first or Christians first? Does that matter? To whom might it matter? How would anyone else, Christian or not, know that it matters?

What test, or tests, would the saints – we saints – and those who’ve gone before us – also touched by God – make and carry out to prove that this is a Christian nation? On what would we base such tests? Would we use, as benchmarks, our priorities and values, or should we use Jesus’ priorities and values?

That’s exactly what’s revealed in this dialogue between Jesus and this scribe in Mark 12:28-34. It’s right here, implied in the question. You always have to pay attention to the questions. The scribe asks, “…which is the first commandment.” (My Greek text seems to imply that the word protos, as in prototype, means foundational or primal command.) The answer is already in the question. The question says there is a hierarchy of God’s commands – what are those priorities. Jesus, if he disagreed with that conclusion, would have said, “Sorry, Charlie, every command of God is of equal value.” But he doesn’t. Jesus joins the scribe’s conclusion and delivers his own understanding of God’s priorities and values.

Now at one level, there’s nothing new here. I didn’t do all the research, but if you need me to do that, I will. There are many places, especially in the writings of the prophets and in the psalms, where the bible says God is much more interested in the status of our everyday hearts than the works of our occasional religious rituals. At the same time, there is quite a bit new in Jesus’ list of God’s priorities.

Let me say this clearly, so that if you want to disagree, or join in, you read me accurately. I believe Jesus is saying that his God, and he himself, are most interested in declaring and affirming a “sanctity of living,” than making any other claim. The “sanctity of living” is a priority over the sanctity of life, of marriage, of peace, of x, y, or z. Moreover, the “sanctity of living” springs from and leads toward the holy priority of holy loving. That means, when push comes to shove, the command to love trumps every other command.

Now, the truth is, we know exactly what that means. Most of us are willing to say that Jesus’ answer to the question, “which is the first / foundational /pivotal commandment – love God and love your neighbor as yourself,” is both clear and compelling. By that, I mean, simply, we get it and we want to do it.

This is exactly one of the texts that Mark Twain had in mind when he said something like this, “It’s not the bible verses I don’t understand which bother me, it’s the ones I do understand which bother me.” See, it’s not that we don’t get what Jesus says here; it’s that we have such a difficult time living up to it, or rather, living into it.

So we spend a whole lot of energy giving ourselves “free passes.” We build missionary ventures and ministerial opportunities to open our checkbooks without opening our hearts. We offer folks band-aids not justice. We deliver food baskets but fail to construct social systems that help them get what we have – love them as we love and care for ourselves - like cars that worth the price of the time-payment, insurance that’s affordable, schools that get all Hoosier kids through Core 40 classes, police protection so that the little money they have doesn’t have to be misspent on steel storm doors and burglar alarms. We lend our religious authority to a society that puts more faith in the just war theory than we put into the theory of evolution. What’s up with that? The abstract, conceptual, philosophical evidence for killing each other is more persuasive than the scientific knowledge about the origin of the universe; you buy that?

Jesus and the scribe, declaring a “sanctity of living” as God’s highest priority, offer us the good news, the freedom from living under the rule of a God whose motives are “gotcha” and whose methods are “getcha.” Do you see what that means? In that order of living by loving – living as loving – who’s excluded? Who’s left behind, called out, thrown out?

And where would we be, each of us, if God were a despot. If this congregation were run by and for those who always live up to a despot’s demands? If we, here, were to decide to run-off all the sinners, all the hypocrites, all those whose family values, Christian values, weren’t up to par, who’d be here today – down in our sanctuaries, or up in our pulpits?

Jesus begins his response to this sagacious questioner by quoting from Deuteronomy 6:4-5, “Hear, O Israel…,” before he links it up with Leviticus 19:18, “…love your neighbor as yourself.” There are, it seems, THREE commandments. The first is: Hear, as in “keep on listening!”

That’s why, then as now, God gathers God’s people together in worship spaces; so, together, they can maintain and encourage the acuity and alertness required to fathom the rest, that is, the “sanctity of living” expressed in the command to love! We come here because, on our own, we put stuff between that word and our hearing / listening – and together we can re-tell and clarify what we have seen and heard. We come here because stuff happens that muffles the gentle, beckoning sound God whispers as command to all those God loves - when we find ourselves amidst the shock waves that world detonates and culture explodes to raise some folk up and to keep other folk down – and together we can re-tell and clarify what we have seen and heard. We come here because together we are led to stay, at least, “close to the kingdom of God.”

That’s right; only staying close. I don’t know why Jesus doesn’t affirm that this non-threatening scribe isn’t “in” the kingdom of God. Even reasonable speculation about that comment is just that.

Looking at Mark’s larger context does reveal this much. The scribes Jesus argues with before this conversation and those he describes after this encounter are, at least, passionate, albeit for the wrong things. This guy seems most dispassionate. For him the conversation about God and God’s greatest commands is a head-trip, not a heart trip. He appears out of nowhere and moves off in the same direction. Keen as his mind is, what he knows and believes doesn’t seem to move the fourteen inches from his brain to his heart.

Locked out of that space, what the scribe knows and believes doesn’t spawn compassion – that wombingness God has in God’s mind and God’s heart for all the ongoing creating, saving, and blessing God works and wills for all God’s children.

Imagine if we saints, like those who’ve gone before us – also touched by God – were alert and acute for the kingdom’s “sanctity of living” breaking into our everydayness. Imagine what could happen to us, to our communities, to our churches, in and for our world every day, and, especially, on Election Day in the USA!