Prophetic Confrontation, The Reverend Wilson R. Carter, Pentecost XII--Year C--August 19, 2007

There is a certain freedom which comes from being a visiting preacher.  It is the freedom to speak one’s mind with perhaps a bit less restraint … less consideration for the effect one’s thoughts and words might have upon the hearers, and the consequences which may ensue.  After all, I don’t have to meet with a Vestry every month, nor account for myself in quite the same way as does a rector.  My contractual relationship with you has a predetermined beginning and ending.  That being the case, you may rest a little easier knowing that you must suffer me only so long.  And I can take solace in the fact that, should you run me off, my livelihood is not at stake.

With these assurances in place, we are presented with what could turn out to be a genuine opportunity to engage important matters openly and honestly to the benefit of all.  From my vantage point the pulpit seems a logical place to begin this conversation.  Admittedly, it provides me a decided advantage since, customarily, the preacher is the only one who gets to talk.  I suppose if I became too provocative, you could boo and jeer, and heave a few prayer books in my direction.  But since I doubt that will happen, since both you and I have been taught from childhood to mind our manners.  Let’s get down to work.

You and I tend to think of our Christian faith first and foremost as comforting and reassuring.  After all, the word “gospel” means “good news,” does it not?  Jesus died for our sins, and by his grace we are saved... right?  Yes, these things are true.  One of my favorite hymns sums up this aspect of our faith – Hymn 470 vs. 1  -  There’s a wideness in God’s mercy like the wideness of the sea; there’s a kindness in his justice, which is more than liberty.  There is welcome for the sinner, and more graces for the good; there is mercy with the Savior; there is healing in his blood.

But there is also a confrontational theme running through Christianity.  There is a prophetic strain in our tradition which faces down the principalities and powers of this world, naming and exposing their dishonesty and hypocrisy.  There is a longstanding practice within our faith of uncovering and indicting the vested interests in the world which dominate and abuse the poor, the powerless and the vulnerable.  Christian prophetic activism lances the wounds inflicted by cruelty and injustice, cleansing them and promoting healing and health.

It all began way back in the Old Testament.  Fully six hundred years before Christ, a boy perceived that God was calling to him:  “Then the Lord put out his hand and touched my mouth; and the Lord said to me, ‘Now I have put my words in your mouth.  ...I appoint you over nations and over kingdoms, to pluck up and to pull down, to destroy and to overthrow, to build and to plant”  The boy was Jeremiah, and he went on to become a thorn in the side of the degenerate, corrupt kings of Judah.  He warned them of their certain and inevitable destruction at the hands of the Babylonians.  He was persecuted and imprisoned, but his prophecy was borne out in time.  The Babylonians destroyed their temple and carried them off into slavery.

Now, fast forward 600 years.  The temple worship in Jerusalem was once again a hollow sham, enriching the already rich and impoverishing the already poor.

This time the thorn in the establishment’s side was one Jesus of Nazareth, an itinerant rabble-rouser who hung around the synagogues in the small towns of Palestine teaching and preaching to audiences of mainly common poor folk who assembled to hear him.  Repeatedly, he embarrassed the wooly-minded leaders of the synagogues by revealing their blatant hypocrisy and ignorance.  Once, on the Sabbath day - the day when Jews were supposed to do no work -  Jesus healed a poor woman of a longstanding affliction.  When the priests and scribes and Pharisees accused him of breaking the Sabbath law, Jesus bluntly called them a bunch of hypocrites.  That was the kind of head-on confrontation which eventually led to his crucifixion.  That’s the background.

Now... recognizing prophetic intervention as a legitimate, even mandatory, feature of Christian faith, where do we go from here? How do we apply the principle of exposing evil wherever it exists to our own time and place?  Where do you suppose the prophets of our day would show up?

Since Jesus chose to discomfort the church of his time, why not begin there?  Here we have the Anglican Communion, that venerable institution of moderation and civility, on the verge of rending itself asunder over the question of whether or not to ordain homosexual persons as priests and bishops.  It is very easy to lose oneself in this debate, which seems on the surface to be urgent indeed... so urgent that some people are even willing to create a schism in the church over the outcome.  Bishops and other church dignitaries are holding special meetings in far flung places to consider the quandary.  I wonder how many tons of wheat might be purchased for the cost of air fares, jet fuel and hotel rooms.  Hundreds of thousands of words are being committed to the solemn deliberations, and hundreds of thousands of pages to record them.  I wonder how many bags of rice could be purchased for the cost of the paper...and how many trees might have been spared...trees which consume carbon dioxide and produce oxygen for an already overheated world.

Speaking of trees, just stand back far enough to see the forest.  Quibbling over who should be ordained and who should not be ordained is not very different - if at all - from quibbling over what one may do on the Sabbath day and what one may not do on the Sabbath day.  It’s all intramural stuff, mutually destructive squabbling, which has little or nothing to do with the mission of the church to the world, and which distracts the church from its real business.  It is irrelevant to the well-being of the eternal souls entrusted to the church’s care, and unrelated to the health of millions of people who live in squalor and hunger under the church’s nose.  It is fiddling while Rome burns, and, if it persists, will hasten the church’s demise.

Speaking of Rome, which collapsed under the weight of its own splendor and excess, the American empire is looking more and more

to be following in its footsteps.  Overbuilding within our boundaries and overreaching beyond them, America has become mired in wars

which we began for selfish and self-serving reasons, wars which we cannot win...wars which are sapping our human and material resources and breaking our national will.  Worshiping at the feet of materialism, our people want too much, expect too much, spend too much and consume too much...threatening to pull down and smash the very idol before which we kneel.  To make matters worse, the people to whom we entrust the authority of government have become either so politically paralyzed or morally corrupt - or both - that government is no longer able to identify, much less serve, the greater or common good.  What kind of nation are we, anyway, that we deny medical care literally to millions of our own citizens?  What kind of nation are we, anyway, that we spend hundreds of billions of dollars on the weapons of war but claim we have insufficient money to care for the poor and needy in our midst?  What kind of people are we, anyway, that you and I cash out hundreds of dollars every month to fill up the gas-guzzlers of our choice and see no relationship between that and the sick and starving children in Darfur or Ghana or the Congo?

If we are not deeply disturbed – even outraged by these realities, then we are morally comatose  Jesus said,  “I was hungry and you gave me no food, I was thirsty and you gave me no drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me not, naked and you gave me no clothing, sick and in prison and you visited me not.” [1]  If those words seem remote to you or to me, our souls are in big trouble.  For we are all in this together.  The evil in which we participate is systemic and involves us all.  As the prophet Isaiah said, “Woe is me!  I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell among a people of unclean lips.” [2] 

Because the evils in which we participate are indeed systemic, there is very little you and I can do individually to remedy them.  What has to occur is a change in the consciousness of many people...a new awareness of our collective contribution to and responsibility for the woes of the world.  If this sermon challenges anyone here today,if it expands your consciousness in any way, then I will have made my small contribution.  Likewise, if you carry that quality of consciousness into the world with you...if you do what you can to bring a prophetic word to those with whom you come in contact...if you become a witness to that prophetic word by what you say to others, by how you conduct your life, by how you spend your money by how you fashion your lifestyle...that is all you should demand of yourself.  Gather strength from others of like mind and leave the rest to God.  I close with these words:  Lo! The hosts of evil round us  Scorn thy Christ, assail his ways!  From the fears that long have bound us  Free our hearts to faith and praise.  Grant us wisdom, grant us courage for the living of these days.  Cure thy children’s warring madness, Bend our pride to thy control; Shame our wanton selfish gladness, Rich in things and poor in soul.  Grant us wisdom, grant us courage, Lest we miss thy kingdom’s goal. [3]

Amen.

[1] Matthew 25:42-43
[2] Isaiah 6:5
[3] "God of grace and God of glory," Harry Emerson Fosdick (1878-1969, 1984 Hymnal, Hymn #595.