Isaiah 58:5-9a

June 29, 2008

Mark S. Bollwinkel




It would seem that renouncing your pastor is fated to be one of the themes of this year's election cycle. Candidates from both major parties have had to renounce a preacher. Whether having attended a church for twenty years or just visiting a church once both major candidates have had to distance themselves from what's been said in a pulpit; and understandably so, you certainly can't blame them.

Now if there is anyone here who plans on running for president, senator or dog-catcher it would probably be better to renounce me as soon as possible rather than waiting for it to become a crisis issue in your campaign. Don't worry, I won't take it personally.

Preachers get used to being renounced....that's why we have "I Wish..." cards. As careful and as graceful as a preacher tries to be it just seems that one can't help offending people every now and then. It can be inadvertent.

Ralph came to our church in Clovis every week with his wife. They rarely missed a Sunday. Ralph was one of those men who sat up attentive and participating in all aspects of the service until it came to the sermon. As soon as I stood up in the pulpit, Ralph would fall asleep. As soon as I said "amen" at the end of the sermon he would wake up. I wasn't the only one who noticed this, everyone knew about Ralph and his sermon naps. But we all loved Ralph and we just figured he was tired.

One Sunday I did a dramatic, first person presentation as if I were Zacchaeus the tax collector in the gospel of Luke story (19:2-f) and everyone loved it. When Ralph and his wife came through the greeting line at the main door, everyone was congratulating me on such a fine presentation, including Ralph's wife. In good spirits I said, "Yes, even Ralph stayed awake!" Well, she took such great exception to me saying out loud what everyone knew that she and Ralph left the church the very next day, never to come back while I was pastor there.

As it turns out they returned to the church soon after I left and I am very happy that they did. I certainly did not mean to offend them.

As strange as that may sound there are some times when a preacher has to risk offending.

You'll remember back in the election of 1994 Californians were considering Proposition 187 which would have restricted public services such as hospital emergency room care and public school education to the children of undocumented aliens. It would pass by a large majority and was adroitly used by Pete Wilson to be re-elected governor although it was quickly ruled unconstitutional and never re-introduced. I preached a sermon in Clovis...right there in the heart of the San Joaquin valley.... suggesting that Proposition 187 was in conflict with values of the Holy Scriptures. A hand full of parishioners got up and walked out during the sermon in protest, two families left the church, one gentleman accosting me at the door arguing, "You preachers are killing the church, you should just preach the bible!" All I could say to him was to repeat the Old Testament reading for that day, "God, mighty and awesome, shows no partiality...He defends the cause of the fatherless and the widow and loves the alien, giving him food and clothing and you are to love those who are aliens for you yourself were once aliens..." (Deuteronomy 10:18-19)

That same sermon was also the occasion for the best compliment of my preaching I have ever received in my 32 years of ordination; "Well, Mark you are wrong again but I love the way you say it!"

Preachers have an unfair advantage in a pulpit with the assumption of divine inspiration and the expectation...at least for most Methodists....that a sermon isn't a dialogue. We sit quietly and politely during a sermon even when the preacher is way off base. Difficult and complex social issues should be discussed and debated not pontificated to a congregation by a very fallible clergy person.

When we agree with the opinions of the preachers we proclaim them prophetic. That wasn't the case when Martin Luther King, Jr. or James Lawson first preached against racial discrimination in the 1950's and 60's but as we look back we now consider them saints. That is how we feel about the United Methodist pastors in Zimbabwe, some of whom have lost their lives in the last few weeks, preaching out against the tyranny of Mugabee.

But when we don't agree with the opinions of the pastor we charge them with mixing politics with religion.

In general, we North American Protestants want our pastors to leave worldly concerns like church and social politics to the laity and stick with "spiritual" matters.

What do we do then with scripture lessons like ours this morning from the prophet Isaiah:


Isaiah is suggesting that true worship isn't simply what we do in the sanctuary with our heads bowed and our eyes shut. One aspect of true spiritual formation is performing acts of justice and righteousness, especially for society's most vulnerable. John Wesley, founder of the Methodist movement called performing acts of justice one of the "means of grace".

Micah echoes this same theme comparing temple sacrifices to true worship when he writes (Micah 6:6-8):



Over and over again the bible suggests that social justice is a spiritual matter.

One day a rich and pious leader came to Jesus and asked, "What must I do to inherit eternal life?" He had followed the commandments all his life and was sincere in his quest to grow closer to God. Jesus answered, "You lack one thing. Sell all of your possessions and give the money to the poor and then follow me." (Luke 18:18-23)

Jesus says the greatest commandment is to "love God and love your neighbor as yourself" (Matthew 22:37-39).

It's no accident that the mission statement of LAUMC is "Touching Heaven, Changing Earth." We can't separate spirituality from our social life.

Such a notion is at the heart of what it means to be a United Methodist. John Wesley's guiding call to the people called Methodist in 18th century England and North America was to "spread scriptural holiness and reform the nation".


This is why United Methodists work hard at crafting our Social Principals. Many are not aware that such a document even exists until some outlandish thing is written in the press or quoted in a 'hit piece' sent by one of the Methodist caucuses to your mailbox.

The Social Principals of our denomination are added, edited and/or deleted every four years at our General Conference. Local churches elect delegates to the regional Annual Conference, where General Conference delegates are elected to consider all sorts of resolutions of social concern at the national level. These Principals are non-binding admonitions for faithful people to consider about a whole host of issues facing our world, from climate change, to worker rights, to human sexuality, to personal habits of gambling and alcohol and tobacco consumption. I'd direct you to our denominational website umc.org to read them all in their latest version. Some are prophetic and true, others seem irrelevant or at times just plain wrong but they are all valuable for learning and discussion one way or the other.

In our denomination, which emphasizes God's presence in human reason, diversity of opinion is not only expected, it is encouraged. We do not endorse candidates or any one political party's platform. No bishop or pastor can tell you how to think or to vote but we'll always encourage every citizen to vote as a way of putting one's spirituality into social actions. No Methodist preacher will suggest that their opinion is closer to God's than your own and yet at the same time, they are called to make us all think about what we are doing in the world and why.

We can't separate spirituality from our social life. How we treat each other is how we treat God.


Today we are observing Peace with Justice Sunday and the important work of the United Methodist Board of Church and Society. Our own Bishop Beverly Shamana has been President of the Board these last four years. Although we could all find something to disagree with some of the stands they take, we can admire that they are a constant prophetic voice against war, poverty and the exploitation of women and children and a strong and consistent advocate for the justice and peace we all seek.

Justice and peace cannot be separated. Peace is not merely the absence of war, as important as that is. Along with the suspension of violence "peace" is also the restoration of relationships and that takes time and justice.

NATO military forces have bravely and effectively policed the end of bloodshed in Bosnia Herzegovina this last decade, buying time for the people to find a way to live together. But as we saw with the declaration of independence of Kosovo in February violence will still break out in a moment until the underlying conflicts between these people are resolved. And that requires justice.

While serving in the San Joaquin Valley I volunteered with the Mennonite Victim Offender Reconciliation Program and was trained to facilitate reconciliation covenants between victims of crime and their juvenile offenders. In one instance I mediated an agreement between a 12 year old who was the lone offender caught in a group of boys who vandalized an elementary school, breaking windows and computer screens. He was a first time offender and his family was poor and had no means to pay damages.

I sat down between the school principal and the boy and his parents and worked out an agreement for him to work with the custodial crew of the school, taking out trash, cleaning off blackboards, one hour each day for a year to make amends for his crime. His other option was to go to lock up at juvenile hall which would have simply made this particular kid a more serious offender in the future.

At the end of the meeting he cried as he apologized to the principal for the vandalism and sincerely promised never to do anything like that again. The principal gave him a hug, wiped his tears with her finger and said "great...then you can start to help our janitors right now" and sent him out into the hall to begin picking up trash.

Remember the bumper sticker a few years back:


In the end social concerns have everything in the world to do with our spirituality. After all how we treat each other is how we treat God. Preachers are here to remind us of that, and hopefully they do it with grace and humility and with the integrity of their own lives.

Amen.


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