K. Dean Myers, interim pastor
Fairmount Presbyterian Church, Cleveland Heights, Ohio
Sunday, January 8, 2012 – Celebrating Epiphany

Based on Isaiah 60:1-3, Psalm 72, Matthew 2:1-12

Isaiah 60:1-3 (C/W)

1Arise, shine; for your light has come,

and the glory of the Lord has risen upon you.

2 For darkness shall cover the earth,

and thick darkness the peoples;

but the Lord will arise upon you,

and his glory will appear over you.

3 Nations shall come to your light,

and kings to the brightness of your dawn.

Psalm 72

1 Give the king your justice, O God,

and your righteousness to a king’s son.

2 May he judge your people with righteousness,

and your poor with justice.

3 May the mountains yield prosperity for the people,

and the hills, in righteousness.

4 May he defend the cause of the poor of the people,

give deliverance to the needy, and crush the oppressor.

5 May he live while the sun endures,

and as long as the moon, throughout all generations.

6 May he be like rain that falls on the mown grass,

like showers that water the earth.

7 In his days may righteousness flourish

and peace abound, until the moon is no more.

Matthew 2:1-12

1In the time of King Herod, after Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judea, wise men from the East came to Jerusalem,2asking, ‘Where is the child who has been born king of the Jews? For we observed his star at its rising, and have come to pay him homage.’3When King Herod heard this, he was frightened, and all Jerusalem with him;4and calling together all the chief priests and scribes of the people, he inquired of them where the Messiah was to be born.5They told him, ‘In Bethlehem of Judea; for so it has been written by the prophet:

6 “And you, Bethlehem, in the land of Judah,

are by no means least among the rulers of Judah;

for from you shall come a ruler

who is to shepherd* my people Israel.” ’

7 Then Herod secretly called for the wise men11 and learned from them the exact time when the star had appeared.8Then he sent them to Bethlehem, saying, ‘Go and search diligently for the child; and when you have found him, bring me word so that I may also go and pay him homage.’9When they had heard the king, they set out; and there, ahead of them, went the star that they had seen at its rising, until it stopped over the place where the child was.10When they saw that the star had stopped, they were overwhelmed with joy.11On entering the house, they saw the child with Mary his mother; and they knelt down and paid him homage. Then, opening their treasure-chests, they offered him gifts of gold, frankincense, and myrrh.12And having been warned in a dream not to return to Herod, they left for their own country by another road.

I

Permit me to start with one more brief biblical text – the text that begins the “historical” reminiscences of our scriptures. In Genesis 12 the Bible moves beyond mythic stories of beginnings to legendary ones; something recognizable as history begins to be recorded:

Now the Lord said to Abram, ‘Go from your country and your kindred and your father’s house to the land that I will show you. I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you, and make your name great, so that you will be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you, and the one who curses you I will curse; and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed.’

So Abram went, as the Lord had told him…

The story of God in human history begins here, and that beginning is recognized by Jews, Christians, and Moslems alike. God commands a man to leave his family and move from one land to another in order to create a nation that will bless all the families of the earth.

Ours is a historical faith, founded upon the conviction that God is revealed and known in the ways nations and peoples live within their own compounds and borders and with other nations and peoples. Any “inner” voices that speak to God’s people most often prompt political and social changes, even revolutions.

One step along the way of this history is the creation of kingship in ancient Israel. The God of history expects Israel’s king to do the kinds of things Psalm 72 suggests: to judge God’s people with righteousness and God’s poor with justice (the poor are the God’s as much as anyone else!), to preside over prosperity for all, to defend the cause of the poor, deliver the needy, and crush oppressors and oppression. God gives the king clear political mandates: “may righteousness flourish and peace abound, until the moon is no more.”

A wider step is taken when the “Wise Men” visit the baby Jesus and his family. They are “from the east,” beyond Israel, for this Jesus is to be “a light to the nations.” He will carry in his very body the promise given to Abraham that the nation he was about to create would bless all the families of the earth. This baby challenges the kingship and kingdom of Herod, and ultimately wins out, though at great cost.

The biblical story – and the same thread could be followed using many other texts – forces the attentive reader to ask, “Given all that talk of God and ‘the nations’ in history, how can anyone suggest Christianity has nothing to do with politics, that the church has nothing to do with the state?”

Yet that is what many say – many of us, perhaps. Many of us isolate our religious/spiritual lives from our political/material lives, as if they are from two different creators. We gut-react to political talk in the church, even non-partisan talk, with “keep the church out of politics,” or “church and state don’t mix.” Yet, there they are, through the Bible and through all of history to the present day, sometimes in cahoots, sometimes in conflict, most often simply confused.

We Presbyterians have a particularly dramatic history in this regard. Consider the three “Johns” of our past: John Calvin, who ran a theocracy in Geneva; John Knox, who turned Scotland into a reformed, not a Catholic or Anglican, state; and John Witherspoon, the only clergy person to sign the Declaration of Independence (imagine what his congregation said to him when he did that!), and who also resisted attempts to impose any religion, including his own, on the emerging United States. I wouldn’t like to face any of them with the claim “religion and politics don’t mix!”

II

I could go in many directions in this sermon…directions that would leave many of us confused ourselves. Let me try to keep the exceedingly complex and controversial topic of “Church and/or State” or “Religious and/or Politics” straight by suggesting a continuum of possible positions on the vexing question of the relationship between the two. My purpose is to ask you, as you listen, to think about where you stand on the continuum, and about where Fairmount Church stands, or should stand, on that continuum. Toward the end, I will tell you why I am going through all of this today.

Let’s consider five possible ways to express how church and state, religion and politics, relate to each other:

1)    “The church should have nothing to do with the state because religion and politics have nothing to do with each other.”

Such might be the position of pietist Christians, for whom faith is a completely inner affair that expresses itself in righteous personal living but has little or no impact on the surrounding culture. Christianity has little to offer the secular, social world, even in terms of ethics, and so has no reason to try to engage it. Such persons likely have a very “low” concept of the church itself, finding it at best convenient, but not necessary, to gather for worship and learning with other Christians. “Jesus and me” is all they seem to need to fulfill their religious obligations.

2)    “The church may encourage individual Christians to be involved politically, but without any expectation about how they should be involved or for what ends.”

This viewpoint might go so far as to say it’s a good thing to vote, maybe even to hold office, but offers no guidance or hints about how to vote, what to think about issues, what programs those who hold public office should advocate. It would want them to be honest, but otherwise leave them unencumbered from social or political expectations. Encouraging participation without direction goes hand-in-hand with a sort of “God and Country” mentality. God and Country are mutually supportive of each other (“God defends Country and Country honors God”), but neither challenges the actions or convictions of the other. To me it’s a sort of safe, feel-good way of relating church and state to one another.

3)    “The church should educate and motivate Christians to political involvement so they – as individuals – will work with others to achieve what the church believes is God’s will in the world.”

Church educational events and preacher’s sermons give guidance on the moral and ethical questions of the day, and prepare adherents of the church to get involved outside the church in affecting them. For example, hunger: the church may help educate folks about issues related to hunger with a view of getting them fired up to change laws that have to do with feeding the poor. It may even encourage them to join with others outside the church to effect change, but beyond some very basic hands-on work like preparing meals at North Church, important as that is, the church itself does not provide the vehicle for changing the way our political and social system makes food available to all.

4)    “The church should organize for political involvement so that political world will know where the church stands on issues facing that world and have to respond to it.”

This approach says the church itself, either by itself or in concert with other churches, organizes to lobby for and otherwise influence legislation. A church that does this, for example, may take a position or at least lend its name to those seeking changes in farm bills to make it easier for low-income people to access healthy or locally-grown foods. In doing this it may find itself at odds with entrenched and well-funded agricultural and business interests. Such advocacy on behalf of non-partisan but politically-loaded issues can draw a church closer together or tear it apart. But when it works it can change the world, as the Civil Rights movement did in the ’60’s, in large part because of the work of churches and synagogues.

5)    “The church should dominate the political world, seizing the reins of government so that the nation and world will conduct their business and individuals will live their lives the way the church understands God desires.”

This is the “theocracy” position that claims to be so sure it knows what God wants that the church claims the right to exercise complete control over the social and political affairs of the state. Think of radical Islamic regimes in places like Iran, or the extremely orthodox Jewish elements in Israel. Extreme factions in the religious right in our country sometimes sound as if complete domination is what they seek. This position combines the full power of religious conviction with the full power of the modern state, and allows little room for freedom or personal choice outside its control.

There is one more position I didn’t mention because it is easy to dismiss it out-of-hand. This is advocacy for particular candidates for public office. Few churches openly do that in this country, though some come pretty close, because a church can lose its tax-exempt status if it is caught.

My purpose is to invite you to think about where you stand on that continuum between complete separation of church and state, of religion and politics, on the one hand, and total melding of the two of them together into theocracy on the other. I suspect 90% of us are somewhere in between; at least that’s my experience with Presbyterians over the years.

And where should Fairmount Church be on the graph? Should Fairmount be bolder than it is in advocating positions on social and political issues? You have a pretty good reputation for involvement and even influence. Historically Fairmount welcomed African Americans and advocated for fair housing in the 1960’s, and you certainly have stood for the full inclusion of gays and lesbians in the church and in society as well. And you know what you do in regard to feeding folks at North Church and Bethany Church and offering shelter to homeless families through Family Promise. But can Fairmount build upon that today and take a more active and public role in influencing the laws and structures that stand in the way of many people’s full participation in the blessings of our land? What role will Fairmount play in moving the marker forward on God’s march through human history?

III

Here I come to the reason for this sermon this morning, and that reason will be fully laid before us next Sunday. Briefly, to celebrate Martin Luther King’s birthday next weekend, our services will try to do a little more than has been done in the past to introduce us all to Greater Cleveland Congregations.

We think this is a creative and appropriate way to celebrate Dr. King’s legacy because GCC concerns itself with the very kinds of things that he grew to understand were intimately related to his efforts for civil rights: hunger, jobs, education, and so on.

Greater Cleveland Congregations has been created to provide a vehicle for people of faith to come together to influence political policies and legislation. It depends, as do all organizations that hope to effect political and social change, upon warm bodies, numbers of warm bodies, enough numbers of warm bodies to say to the powers that be, “Here we are in significant numbers; you have to deal with us.”

Fairmount joined GCC about a year ago, put significant money into it, and has offered a small but dedicated number of our members to it. But our personal involvement has not been what was hoped at the time, and as we come to a decision point about future funding, session needs to know where Fairmount’s heart is with regard to it.

Meantime, this week, think about what I’ve asked today: where should Fairmount Church be on that continuum of positions (and maybe you have a favorite variation of one of them that you prefer)? Interestingly, the question is a good one for us not just because of GCC, but also because of the time of transition we are in. It is also good as we prepare to welcome Jim Wallis to our church in a couple of months…a man who combines evangelical faith with political action in a way that can give fits to both the left and the right. Where do we stand? Where does Fairmount stand; where should we together stand on the continuum between no involvement or interest and domination?

IV

The “Great Ends of the Church” – you may be familiar with them. They come from a Presbyterian formulation of the purpose of the church of just over a century ago, in the early years of the 20th century, which was hoped to be “The Christian Century.” They start with evangelism and end with social righteousness and the kingdom of heaven. Let’s stand and say them together as an expression of how God may still be known in our secular, material, political world.

Amen.

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