"A GOD WHO VOTES"
Sermon Preached by
The Rev. Dr. Andrew Stirling
Sunday, November 12, 2000
Text: Exodus 3: 1-12
"God's Call To Moses"
Scripture Reading - Text:
"The Lord said: I have seen how my people are suffering... now go to the King! I am sending you to lead my people. " -Exodus 3: 7& 10.
Prayer: God who comes to us wherever we are, may your Word now be spoken, may your Word now be heard, may we discover your will for us in Jesus Christ. Amen.
In 1972, when I was Minister of St. Andrew's United Church in downtown North Bay, I had one of those epiphany, life-changing, never-to-be-forgotten experiences.
A prominent City businessman by the name of Bruce Goulet decided to run for Mayor. He and I had worked together on a community outreach project for transient young people, who were traveling the Trans-Canada Highway which ran right by the front door of our Church. The morning after Bruce became a candidate for Mayor, he asked be to join his six member campaign strategy team as his moral and spiritual advisor. I wondered what I could possibly bring to the task. Five mornings a week for six weeks running, we met over breakfast at his home.
It was a unique privilege. I learned many things! I learned that our historic separation of Church and State, does not necessarily mean the separation of Christian faith from political decision-making. I learned about God's call to politicians and about the sacrifice of public office. I learned about integrity and honesty on the campaign trail and about the delicate and precious relationship between politics and religion. Although I had studied theology in academic circles for several years, for the first time ever, I began to think about what a political theology might look like if I had one? And clearly, the most important thing that I learned was that we worship a God who votes.
And hasn't it been some week! It started off last Sunday morning with several reporters hiding behind the bushes at Stomaway to get a picture of Stockwell Day going off to Church again on his day off, and with the front page news that a "Higher Power" had helped George W. Bush to give up the bottle.
At this point, it looks like our friends south of the border have managed to elect two Presidents at the same time. Maybe, like so much of the world today, they could become a working team! There are so many elections signs on our street, and political pamphlets on our hall table, that I have lost track of which race is which. With so much election fever in the air, I thought that you might appreciate some theological and biblical reflection on the God who votes.
1. A GOD IN POLITICS !
The first thing that I would like you to consider is that God is in the midst of all good political process. If God is the Creator and the Source of all morality and goodness, how could it not be so?,/p>
In the third chapter of the Book of Exodus, there is this compelling story which takes place in Egypt where God's people were slaves to King Pharaoh. One day, Moses was at work, looking after his father-in-law's sheep and goats. On Mount Sinai, he saw a bush which was on fire. The strange thing was that the bush didn't bum up. It was like the Spirit of God -burning brightly yet not consumed.
As Moses came closer to the bush, his experience and understanding of God began to expand. His God had been too small! He realized that there is Divine Reality not just here - in obvious holy places like where we worship on Sunday mornings - but also, out there in the world of work, politics and power.
"I am here," said the Lord. "Where you do your work and make your living. Take off your shoes, this too is a sacred place. I have seen the cruelty of the Egyptians to my people. Moses, you must go to the King." ,
(Exodus 3: 4, 5, 7, 10)
Did this story really happen? Was there really a bush that would not stop burning? It doesn't much matter. Whether or not a biblical account literally took place at some point in time, the 4sdom of the story is still there - we worship a God who is at the center of our political life. That's the truth to be understood!
Theologian Hans Kung says it so well as he offers us this biblical yet contemporary understanding. God is not a supreme being or a retired reigning monarch, who lives in a physical heaven above and beyond the stars, he says, "God is in this world, and this world is in God. God is, in fact, the infinite in the finite, the transcendence in immanence, the absolute in the relative, sustaining, maintaining and escorting the world. God is the all-embracing and all-permeating most real reality in the heart of things, in humanity and in history." 1 Or as Dietrich Bonhoeffer once said: "God is beyond in the midst of our life."2
2. HOW DOES GOD VOTE?
But, how does God act? How does God vote? In the case of Moses, God decided to call out hi^ leadership. (That's what happened to my friend Bruce in North Bay.) "I will bring my people out of Egypt into a country where there is good land, rich with milk and honey," said the Lord. "I am sending you Moses, to lead the people out of Egypt. I will be with you and you will know that I am the one who sent you." (Exodus 3:8,10,12) That's how God votes - through us!
For those of you who instinctively dislike the thought of mixing politics and religion, you might be tempted to dismiss this text as just an isolated Judaic story from long ago. The problem is that God's call to Moses ushers in a truth that runs like a thread through the whole Bible.
Remember Joseph and his multi-coloured coat? God called this shepherd slave into politics. He rose through the ranks to become Administrator of the King's Household, Head of the Royal Granaries, and still later, Head of State.
Consider also that Saul and David were Kings. Isaiah was a politician. Amos, Hosea and Jeremiah were Main Street preachers of politics and religion. The Bible tells us that Solomon, despite all his glory, couldn't assume power without wining and dining his people. Samuel tried to stay out of politics but finally realized that he had to become King Saul of Israel.
The life of Christ is also saturated with political overtones and involvement, with his parents travelling down to Bethlehem for the tax-time census, with King Herod feeling the threat of God's coming, with Jesus himself challenging the politics of his day, to the point of execution on a Roman cross, and then, three days later, being raised up victorious by the power of God, to bring hope to the world, to defeated followers like Mary and Martha, Peter and John, who, miraculously, once again had the courage to proclaim their faith to the political leaders of their time. And the story of this God who votes travels on through time to this new millennium.
Remember the Korean carol...
"On a day when we were counted. God became the Son of Man, that God's name in every census should be entered was the plan God, the Lord of all creation, humbly takes a creature's place; God whose form noone has witnessed has today a human face."3
The face of God has changed, of course, from Moses and Joseph to Solomon and Samuel to Jeremiah and Jesus, to Christians in every century, to Bruce Goulet, and now to you and to me.
The Apostle Paul understood the God-given relationship between politics and religion. Listen to his letter to the Church in Rome.
"Only God can give authority to anyone, and he puts these rulers in their places of power. People who oppose the authorities are opposing what God has done... they are God's servants, and it is their duty to help you." (Romans 13: 1,2 & 4)
If, as Christians, we ignore the political arena to which God has called us, the Divine Will is silenced. God votes when we vote! Voting in any political election can become like worship, a sacred and holy activity.
3. WHY DOES GOD VOTE?
But why does God vote? What is the purpose of God's involvement?
"I have seen how my people are suffering," said the Lord. "They are being mistreated. I feel sorry for them. I have heard them beg for my help. I have come to rescue them." (Exodus 3: 7 & 8) This from the Book of Exodus is the core of all religious involvement in the political process. It's called Christian compassion. This is why God is there! But what does it mean?
In the Hebrew scriptures from which Jesus read at Synagogue, and in Aramaic, the language he spoke, the word for compassion is the noun that means "womb". For Jesus, God is like a mother who feels with, and is moved by her unborn fetus, and who gives birth to new life, as in his own resurrection. 4 Jeremiah expresses this image of God when the Lord says of his people -"you are my own dear children,... I want you to be near me, so I will have mercy on you ..." (Jeremiah 31:20) Yahweh has heard the cries of humanity. Thus, St. Luke is led to write - "be compassionate as God is compassionate." (St. Luke 6:36)
But how does this work out in real life politics? If you have discovered, like Moses, that your God is too small, hear what American theologian Marcus Borg has to say:
"In the midst of our modem culture, it is important," he writes, "for those of us who would be faithful to Jesus, to think and speak of a politics of compassion, not only within the church, but as a paradigm for shaping the political order. A politics of compassion as the paradigm for shaping our national life would produce a social system different in many ways from that generated by our recent history."5
This is why Jesus said: "make your light shine, so that others will see the good that you do and will also praise God. (St. Matthew 5:16) This is why St. Paul said: "shine like lights among the people of this world, as you hold firmly to the message that gives life." (Philippians 2: 15) We worship a God who votes when we vote with compassion.
The bush was burning but it was not consumed. "I am here also, said the Lord. This too is holy ground. I have heard my people cry. I am sending you. Go to the King. Lead my nation to a land of milk and honey!"
KEY REFERENCES:
- Hans Kung, Does God Exist? An Answer For Today. The Crossroad Publishing Company, New York, NY: 1978. p. 185.
- Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Letters and Papers from Prison. SCM Press, London: 1967. p. 155.
- The Hymn Book of the Anglican Church of Canada and the United Church of Canada. 1971. p. 406.
- Marcus J. Borg, Meeting Jesus Again for the First Time: The Historic Jesus and the Heart of Contemporary Faith. Harper Collins Publishers, New York, NY: 1994. P. 46-48.
- Ibid, p. 60.
This is a verbatim transcription of the original sermon.