July 12, 2009
God and Uncle Sam - 2 Samuel 5:1-10
Pastor: Luke Maybry
DownloadIt looks like South Carolina Governor Mark Sanford is finished. He might still technically be the governor, maybe even for another year and a half, but after all his escapades lately, his political authority is finished forever. Former North Carolina Governor Mike Easely is also finished. Fortunately for him, and us, his term is also finished. If the allegations against him are right, then he behaved a little less than ethically during eight years as governor. Jim Black, former speaker of the house in North Carolina, wishes he was finished with his federal prison term. Fortunately for us, he is finished politically for taking bribes in a bathroom in a bar in Raleigh. Former North Carolina Senator and presidential candidate, John Edwards, is finished. He cheated on his wife who at the time was dying of cancer (how nice), and he allegedly paid a former friend of his and his mistress hush-money out of his campaign coffers. He also allegedly did other things that would be inappropriate for me to even mention here. In a last ditch effort to keep from being finished, Former North Carolina Senator Elizabeth Dole accused her opponent, Kaye Hagan (who is an elder in the Presbyterian Church), of being an atheist (how classy). Sen. Dole has admitted that she was desperate at the time, but has refused to apologize.
Regardless of the state, or the political party, politics is a very ugly business. And just to get this out on the table, politics has always been ugly. The notion that somehow our politicians have gotten worse, and that once upon a time we had angels up in Washington, or Raleigh, is simply not true. Politics is just a nasty thing. This may be an admission of sorts, maybe even a confession. Don’t worry, it’s not that bad, but I even wanted to be a politician at one time. I loved politics, and a sick part of me still does, and I dreamed one day of holding office and playing with the big dogs. But then I went in the army, and I worked for a few big dogs, and I saw just how ugly politics is, and I not only walked away, I ran away.
Politics is a very ugly business, so ugly in fact that most people in church think that we (Christians that is) should stay out of it. In theory anyway, we Christians are good people. We stand up for what’s right for a change. We might can gain the whole world, but if it costs us our soul, we won’t pay it. We love one another, even our enemies. We are faithful in our marriages. We don’t lie to one another. We don’t hide our sins. In fact, we confess our sins, publically every Sunday, and privately every day. We do not care one little whit about appearances. In fact, our God is completely blind to outward appearances, but looks solely to the heart, and that’s what concerns us the most. All of that is polar opposite to politics. So why in the world would any decent Christian, much less any decent Christian organization, much less the church get involved in politics? What use do we have for that ugly and awful mess?
Well, as it turns out, we have lots of uses for politics. You could look at 1 & 2 Samuel and 1 & 2 Kings as one big history book. It could even be a political history book. And like every political history, it’s not always pretty. We praised David last week for mourning Saul’s death in 2 Samuel 1. What we failed to mention, though, is that at an initial glance, it looks like David’s public mourning of Saul is nothing more than political posturing. It’s like George Bush and Bill Clinton acting like they’re long lost buddies. We skipped over four chapters to Chapter five this morning. In case you’re interested in what happened in between, I’ll give you the low-down: violence, political power-grabs, war, rape, and lots and lots and lots of bloodshed. 2 Samuel 2-4 is Israel’s Civil War, which in many ways was bloodier and longer than our own Civil War.
During all of that time, David somehow or other managed to rise above the fray. By the time he takes power in the 5th Chapter, we are certain that he is just clean as a whistle. But if you come to church any in the next two months where we talk about David, you will very quickly learn that he does not stay that way. In fact, he doesn’t even stay that way in this very passage. What’s David’s problem with the “blind and the lame” that he would refuse to allow them in “his” city? David’s hands get very dirty in the political game very quickly. In fact, I have preached on David a couple of times before and on one occasion, amother told me that my sermon was a little more than “G” rated. Politics is dirty.
So why can’t we just leave all that stuff up to God? It is God’s world, isn’t it? God created it, and God alone will save it, and bring it completion one day. We don’t do any of that. Our job as Christians is simply to “glorify God and enjoy him forever,” right? So forget Washington. Let Governor Palin resign, and let Governor Sanford go to wherever he went on our tax dollar and do whatever he did, and let Governor Easely hook his wife up with a cush job at NC State. Let Obama run trillion dollar deficits. We’re Christian. We’re not Republicans or Democrats or capitalists. We’re not even Americans, for that matter. We are first and foremost Christian, and we worship God. Politics is dirty, God is God, so let God deal with all that stuff. It seems to me that if these stories in 1 & 2 Samuel & Kings pose any question at all, it is this: Why should we care about politics?
Well, these stories also tell us that God cares about politics. God is God, alright, and God did create this vast universe. But God also cares about us, everyone of us. God even cares about the sparrow. God cares about the grackle. Grackles are those annoying birds that hang out in the parking lot of Wal-Mart and make that awful noise. God even cares about them. God even cares about the grass of the field. God cares about us and all of creations, and politics – like it or not – deeply affects God’s beloved creation. So just because God is God and we aren’t, and just because this is God’s world and not ours, that doesn’t get us off the hook. In fact, because God loves each and every one of us so much, because God has even the hairs on our heads all numbered, that puts us on an even greater hook.
This past Friday was John Calvin’s 500th birthday. I attended a conference on John Calvin this week in Montreat, and I learned there that Calvin wanted to stay in France to teach in the university. Calvin had a great mind, and he was in hot demand, and could have ended up in a great job. But his friends told him that some of his followers were in Geneva and they needed him there, not for academic work, but for administration, for politics. So, sure enough, John Calvin left his ivory tower and went to Geneva, Switzerland where he became a pastor and a mayor. Now John Calvin was one of the most influential figures in Church history. So you would think, then, that he would never lower himself to be a mayor. And even if he did, you would think that his first act would have been “churchy,” you know like making church attendance mandatory. But do you want to know what this premier theologian and preacher did the very first thing as mayor of Geneva? He fixed the sewer system. The sewer system leaked sewage all over town and became a major health hazard. How could people learn anything about God if they and their children were dying of dysentery because of open sewage all over the place? So Calvin, instead of bothering himself with the presence of Christ in Communion (which was vitally important to him) focused initially on sewer systems.
I know that the Church has gotten a little too cozy with politicians. I very much appreciate the dangers of the Church and state being one and same. Jesus tells us in Luke 15, though, that our God is a woman who turns the whole house upside down looking for a coin, and a farmer who leaves his ninety-nine sheep to look for only one, or a father who breaks his back searching for this long-lost, loser son of his. That’s the kind of God we worship. Nothing happens outside of God’s concern. Nothing is too small or trivial or messy for God not to act on it. God must care very deeply, then, about the 46 million people in this country who don’t have health insurance, and who often can’t afford routine health screenings. God must care very deeply with our spend-now-and-pay-later approach to finances, and what that’s going to do to the next generation. God might have something to say about us aborting just shy of 1 million perfectly healthy fetuses every year. God might have something to say that a man of color in this country has a greater chance of going to jail than to college. Something is desperately wrong with that picture.
Now if God cares about all that stuff, then so must we. So what should we do? Maybe we can start by reading the paper. I wonder what difference it would make if everyone who claimed to be Christian got involved and knowledgeable about what was happening in the world. One of the things that you have to say about this country is that whatever government we get, it’s only because we elect them. So if we have a rotten government, and by most accounts we do, it’s only because we, the people, put them there, and did not demand anything more. It’s only because good, Christian people sat passively by and didn’t do anything.
So we have to get our hands dirty. Sure, we’re going to mess it up sometimes. We’re going to make wrong decisions. We’re going get our priorities out of whack. If we play with political fire, we’re going to get burnt. There’s just no way to eliminate that threat. But God is doing something incredible in the world, and little Luke Maybry, little Central Steele Creek gets a chance to be a part of it. God cares deeply about us and all the issues of our day. You cannot separate God’s Kingdom from what happens here on the ground. Our faith calls us, like David’s faith called him, to get involved in that stuff, to get our hands dirty in the muck and mire of human existence. We’re certainly not going to usher in the Kingdom, or defeat evil, or achieve the illusive idea of world peace. Only God can do that. And God is doing that. These stories about David are really about God, you know. God was the chief actor here, but God called David to get involved in the wellbeing of God’s people. So don’t worry about getting your hands dirty, or saying something controversial. Why is politics so taboo, so off-limits to so many of us in the church? God and Uncle Sam are indeed different. This is God’s world, and not ours and not Uncle Sam’s. But God has a vested interest in this place, in this world, and God is working to redeem it. God can use a lot of things and a lot of people to do just that, even David, even us, even Uncle Sam.
In the Name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, Amen.
