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The scripture this week follows last week and is fitting
for all that has transpired in our national government:
Jesus was driven from his home synagogue
for saying good things about foreigners and non-Jews,
and Paul’s famous words about love.
So first I will speak of things we need to hear
and then I will share some good news for our future.
I will not talk about politics this morning,
but one of our politicians has distinguished himself
by speaking out on the gospels and the teachings of Jesus.
This is my territory.
I have free reign to respond to Vance on issues where I have expertise.
JD Vance said,
“You [should] love your family and then you love your neighbor
and then you love your community
and then you love your fellow citizens and your own country,
and then after that you can focus and prioritize the rest of the world.
“A lot of the far left has completely inverted that.
[He says that those of us who do not agree]
“seem to hate the citizens of their own country
and care more about people outside their own borders.”
You know this is wrong.
Religious leaders have objected, and I join them.
They write: We lift up the parable of the good Samaritan
After Jesus tells a lawyer that you should ‘love your neighbor as yourself,’
the lawyer asks him, ‘And who is my neighbor?
“In response, Jesus tells the story of a Jewish man
who has been beaten by robbers and is lying by the side of the road.
The man is helped not by those closest to him (a ‘priest’ and a ‘Levite’),
but rather by a Samaritan.
At the time, Jews and Samaritans
would have considered one another enemies.
“So Jesus’ fundamental message is that everyone is your neighbor,
and that it is not about helping just your family or those closest to you.
It’s specifically about helping those who seem different, foreign, other.
They are all our ‘neighbors.’
So when JD Vance says “The idea that we love family first,
is “the simple concept of America First,”
this is what most of us call “Christian Nationalism.”
This is the idea that Christianity is the dominant religion in the world and
that other religions must be kept out, put down, even eliminated.
Sometimes it means that Jesus cares more about the US
than any other country.
It is closely linked to White Supremacy and authoritarianism.
This means Whites are superior to others and we ought to have kings or
CEO’s who are smarter, more competent,
and more deserving than the rest of us.
All of this is closely connected to our myths of money, success, and power.
We have been bamboozled to think that successful, rich people
are smarter and more deserving,
and should be allowed to rule over the rest of us.
Our declaration of independence says that all people are created equal;
The Bible says everyone is a child of God.
Each of us has some disability, and so we must help each other through life.
Unfortunately, some of us take evil paths and must be restrained
and kept from open society.
JD Vance may have talents, but he is not to be respected
as a teacher of religion or Jesus.
Vance is Catholic and part of a movement within Catholicism
that seeks to overturn Vatican II reforms from the 1960's.
He disregards historic Catholic social teaching and opposes Pope Francis.
Jesus said disturbing things about our families:
Someone told Jesus,
“Your mother and brothers are standing outside, wanting to speak to you.”
He replied to him, “Who is my mother, and who are my brothers?”
Pointing to his disciples, he said, “Here are my mother and my brothers.
For whoever does the will of my Father in heaven
is my brother and sister and mother.” [Mt 12]
Even more troubling, Jesus said we should love our enemies,
but that is another sermon.
We have learned the golden rule,
“Do to others as you would have them do to you.”
The street version, the cynical version of this teaching, is
[“Do to others before they do to you.”]
The really terrible idea of what “golden rule” means:
[“Whoever has the gold, rules.”]
These alternative rules tell us how the world really works,
without reason and without Jesus.
Helping others doesn’t help you get ahead.
Thinking of others first just puts you behind.
These rules imply that Jesus is a wimp and his teachings are for losers.
The value here is not love, but survival, and dominance.
The way to survival and dominance is not the value of giving, but greed.
The goal here is not compassion, but competition and winning.
The values supporting competition and winning are animosity,
even meanness, and cruelty, if they are necessary to get ahead.
The famous love chapter by Paul tells what love is not
and then extols what love is:
Love doesn't envy.
It doesn't boast.
It doesn't bluster.
It doesn't make a scene.
It doesn't look after its own interests.
It doesn't throw fits.
It doesn't dwell on the negative.
Love takes no pleasure in injustice, but is delighted by the truth.
Love upholds everything,
trusts in everything,
hopes for everything,
endures everything.
We must above all, hold on to these truths.
In the 1st letter of John, where we read that “God is love.”
I asked my theology professors why we could say “love is God,”
They were horrified,
but I am now convinced that what we mean when we speak of God
is Love, social Justice, and Peace.
But Christian nationalists will say that “love” is a weak, naïve, idealistic,
and impractical response to the current political moment.
If you can take your eyes off the current president and vice president,
and Putin and Orban for a few minutes,
you can think again of Jesus, MLKing, Mandela,
Solzhenitsyn, Dostoevsky, Lincoln, Jefferson, Madison
and others who had larger visions
for a much greater way of life.
We are told that MLKing’s birthday and Black History Month
will no longer be observed by the dept of defense or the dept of state.
Such observance and every mention of diversity as a positive,
or equality or equity may be removed.
But they will return.
Because love and openness only move in one basic direction.
We have heard that
“The arc of the moral universe is long but it bends towards justice.”
We see that often a step backward is taken
when two steps forward have been achieved.
Jesus may have been crucified, but we still remember him and his teachings.
And I think something wonderful is happening to Christians in America.
Yes, I have good news.
I see that more and more people in more and more churches
are recognizing that we have misunderstood Jesus and Christianity.
Much of the history of the church has been about power and control.
Now we see more clearly that the teachings of Jesus
are more important than the things we were taught about Jesus.
We are finding that Jesus wasn’t about salvation
or making us feel better when we are facing ill health or death.
Jesus was a Jew, and Christianity like Judaism
is at root a religion of Ethics not salvation.
Jesus didn’t come just for me or you.
Jesus didn’t come to make us feel good.
He came to set us free.
