The Reverend Dr. Frank G. Kirkpatrick
June 1, 2008
The Third Sunday after Pentecost
Proper 4, Year A

Genesis 6:9-22; 7:24; 8:14-19
Deuteronomy 11:18-21,26-28
Psalm 31
Romans 1:16-17; 3:22b-28, (29-31)
Matthew 7:21-29

I’m sure by now all of us are familiar with what has become known as the Jeremiah Wright affair which has dogged the campaign of Barack Obama.  Mr. Wright has preached sermons in his predominantly African-American church denouncing the complicity by the nation and its government against African-Americans.  It is remarkable enough that a preacher’s sermons have not only stirred up his congregation (most clergy would die for this kind of response) but even more remarkable gotten the attention of politicians and the press who normally ignore religion as completely inconsequential.  Now, what I have to say on the meaning of this issue for us today has nothing whatsoever to do with the political campaign of Mr. Obama or even, for the most part, with the actual accusations made by Rev. Wright.  Instead, I want to explore an aspect of this issue that directly affects the role of religious communities in the context of American society.  I want to question the claim that is being made by many people, not least by the press, that sermons preaching God’s judgment on the sins of a nation are fundamentally unpatriotic, a violation of the tax-exempt status of the church, and a cause for alarm among the electorate.  The reaction to the Wright sermons raises serious questions about how Americans regard the role of churches when they dare to address moral issues which have a social and political dimension.  These questions are troubling regardless of the particular content of this or that particular minister’s sermons. Whether it is Jeremiah Wright, the late Jerry Falwell, Pat Robertson, John Hagee, or Jim Wallis, the right of clergy and, frankly, of all Christians to speak about moral issues in American society from within their churches is a right that is central to our existence as a free people whose constitution protects the right to the free exercise of their religious convictions.  The Internal Revenue Service has already gone after All Saints’ Church, Pasadena, California, because an Episcopal priest, George Regas, preached a sermon there in 2004 entitled “If Jesus Debated Senator Kerry and President Bush.”  The IRS contended that in permitting this sermon, which it believed had political implications, the church violated its tax-exempt status.  Now, I don’t want to go into the arcane world of tax law here, but Fr. Regas explicitly said that he was not telling congregants for whom to vote but that he had a moral responsibility to address what in his opinion were the pressing moral issues of American society as determined for him by his reading of the Biblical and historic Christian teachings on social ethics.  If, as Jeremiah Wright’s critics claim, it is unpatriotic to try to bring God’s word to bear on the issues that affect our lives, especially when that produces criticism of some of the political, economic, and social policies and practices of our country, then we are all in very deep trouble. 

It is true that religion must do its best to comfort the afflicted in mind, heart, and body.  But it is equally true that it must, as Reinhold Niebuhr once said, also afflict the comfortable.  Religious communities sacrifice their reason for being if all they do is bless whatever social, political, and economic policies are presently in vogue.  We look back today with shame at the fact that the Episcopal Church blessed slavery and relegated women to subordinate places in all the important spheres of public life, and today some within our Church are trying to keep gay and lesbian persons from exercising their baptismal rights as full members of the Christian community.  If the Church, or at least some of its more courageous members, had not spoken out against these unjust social practices it would have failed in its mission from God to bring both healing and justice to the victims of injustice.

Of course, when some portion of a congregation finds the words of its preachers or leaders uncomfortable or unacceptable (as some have certainly found mine over the years), they have the obligation and the freedom (and many of you have exercised this freedom) to call the preacher to task, to talk with him or her about what was said, and to engage in Christian conversation about their disagreements.  But the press has assumed in these recent flare-ups that congregants need to separate themselves entirely from those with whose views they are in disagreement.  This notion of separation based on disagreement is profoundly unchristian.  It assumes that the expression of the moral conscience of Christians is fine as long as it’s kept private and restricted only to non-controversial matters.  What then is a preacher supposed to do with this morning’s words from Deuteronomy?  God says he is setting before the people both a blessing and a curse.  And the curse will be enacted if the people do not obey the commandments from the Lord but rather follow other gods.  If the faithful Christian thinks his nation is, in fact, following other gods such as the prosecution of an unjust war, or a selfishness so deep that it is not willing to sacrifice anything to help pay for the medical care of others, or an individualism that will not contribute to the welfare of the common good, then what is that Christian supposed to do?  If someone believes that it is okay to ask God to bless us all, cannot he also, if the circumstances call for it, ask God to damn those practices that are perverting the cause of justice and compassion?  Jesus, in this morning’s gospel, warns his hearers that it is not by uttering the words, “Lord, Lord” that one will enter heaven, but rather by acting upon God’s moral commandments.  It is not enough to reassure the nation that as long as it affirms itself as Christian it will be blessed by God.  The nation, as long as it is receptive to the voice of the Christian, must be prepared to hear a challenge to its present practices if they are perverting the will of God, as that will is discerned by those grounded in the Christian faith.

The attacks on Jeremiah Wright suggest a very dangerous view toward the role of religion in society.  It’s interesting to note that his first name comes from the prophet Jeremiah, who went out of his way to castigate the moral failures of his own nation when they departed from the will of God.  In Puritan New England sermons which called the society to account when it was acting in immoral ways were called jeremiads.  And the Bible is filled with the moral condemnation of and a curse on the very nation in which the prophets found themselves.  As Amos says, “You that trample on the needy and bring ruin to the poor of the land, I will send a famine on the land, and you shall wander from sea to sea.”  Amos was a threat to the religious complacency of the people of Israel and today would be considered a threat to the security of America for preaching uncomfortable words expressing God’s displeasure with his chosen people for perverting the cause of justice.  But the preacher must be subject, not to the popular view, but to the word of God.  And we, as God’s people, must be subject to the will of God as found in the teachings of Jesus and the Bible.  It is not our words, comforting or not, which will save us, but what we do for others.  But what we must do is the work of justice.  And justice cannot be done unless injustice is first identified, exposed, and denounced.  This may be profoundly unsettling especially for those of us who have been privileged by our positions of authority in this country.  But to avoid unsettling ourselves and others is to avoid the full implications of the Gospel of Jesus Christ which, as Jesus himself has said, will set mother against daughter, son against father, and a family against itself.  Speaking truth to power can be divisive, but the truth will admit no compromise with evil no matter how disturbing to our ways of doing things that truth may be.

© Copyright 2008 by the Reverend Dr. Frank G. Kirkpatrick