A Sermon preached on
Sunday, June 10, at St. Augustine’s, Wiesbaden
1 Samuel 8:4-11, 16-20, 2 Corinthians 4:13-5:1,
Mark 3:20-35
It seems a little ironic to have what sounds
like an anti-monarchy reading on the day when we celebrate the Queen’s
birthday. That is not something that the authors of an international,
ecumenical lectionary can consider of course. Now, HM the Queen cannot be
accused of any of the things that Samuel warns the Israelites against: she has
not been known to take your sons and appoint them to her or as her horsemen, let
alone to run before her chariots. Nor will or has she taken your male and
female slaves, or to my knowledge the best of your cattle and donkeys and put
them to work. And you will certainly not be her slaves. Of course, this does not
apply to all of her ancestors.
And so, both in the USA, which rebelled
against a supposed tyrannical king over 240 years ago, and in the UK, which had
its own revolutions while keeping the monarchy, we have checks and balances and
controls that are supposed to prevent the rise or recurrence of tyrants,
whether crowned or elected. If course these controls don’t work on their own,
they require active and watchful citizenship, or they will fail, especially if
the people believe they need a “strong man.”
Why did the Israelites want a king, why did
they ask Samuel to “appoint for us, then, a king to govern us, like other
nations?” (1 Samuel 8:5) For most of the time since their return from Egypt to
the Promised Land the tribes had governed themselves, occasionally coming
together as a nation under a judge, a leader, some male, some female, selected
by God to help them in an emergency. Most recently the leaders had also been the
chief priests like Samuel. But it had not been easy. Other nations also laid,
often violent claim, on the promised land. Israel found it difficult to live up
to the standards of being the Chosen People, and frequently fell short both in
worship and justice. They also felt threatened by their neighbors and were therefor
frustrated, disappointed and afraid. Being special was just not working out. They
even seem to have lost their trust in God. As God says to Samuel: “they have
not rejected you, but they have rejected me from being king over them.” (8:7) And
so, the Israelites do not heed Samuel’s dire warnings: “No! but we are determined to have a king over
us, so that we also may be like other nations, and that
our king may govern us and go out before us and fight our battles.” (8:19-20) We
want to be like others, they said, even in what they do wrong!
Just last week a major new Pew Research Center
survey of religious beliefs and practices in Western Europe[1]
was published. It contains some good news and some bad news. Secularization
continues, and yet most adults surveyed still do consider themselves
Christians, even if they seldom go to church. Across Western Europe an
astonishing 91% say they were baptized, 81% were raised Christian, 71% identify
as Christian … but only 22% are active, defined as regular church attendance. And
as we can assume that only a portion of the 71% identifying as Christians will
raise their own children that way, the proportion of religiously unaffiliated
adults, or “nones” will continue to increase. The study also looked at the religious,
political and cultural views of the groups surveyed. As it turns out, active
Christians are not always as different in their attitude to the general
population, as they should be.
Most church-attending Christians say they
believe in the biblical depiction of God. That is good! And although many
non-practicing Christians say they do not believe in God “as described in the Bible,” they do still believe in
some other higher power or spiritual force. That is something we can use. After
all, we do not just offer “the God as described in the Bible.” We offer the
living God whom people can experience in their lives. Not surprisingly, a clear
majority of religiously unaffiliated adults do not believe in any type of
higher power or spiritual force in the universe.
Both church-attending and non-practicing
Christians believe that churches and religious institutions serve society by
helping the poor and bringing communities together. And interestingly, observant
Christians are more likely to participate not only in religious groups but also
in other charitable or volunteer organizations and community groups.
Now for the bad news. Christian identity in
Western Europe is also associated with higher levels of negative sentiment
toward immigrants and religious minorities. On balance, self-identified
Christians – whether they attend church or not – are more likely than
religiously unaffiliated people to express negative views of immigrants, as
well as of Muslims and Jews and to express nationalist views, i.e. to say that
their culture is superior to others and that recent immigrants are not and
cannot be fully part of their nation. The concept of neighbor is understood in
a very narrow sense indeed! Like the Israelites in Samuel’s day, Christians seem to feel threatened
by their new neighbors, neglected by their peers, and afraid.
It does make me wonder, what are they being
taught at church? While it is wonderful that the Christians interviewed say
they believe in the God as described in the Bible, they, like the Israelites in
our OT passage, do not seem to be quite so interested in what that God has to
say or, for today’s Christians, in what God lived and died for as God’s
incarnate son. The Old Testament God says, “You shall also love the stranger,
for you were strangers in the land of Egypt.” (Deuteronomy 10:19). Jesus says,
Love your neighbor as yourself. (Mark 12:31)
God does not want lip-service and empty
ritual. God wants a real and genuine change in how we behave and think and act
as a result of our turning to God and accepting the relationship God has to
offer. In the words of the Collect of the Day we prayed earlier, God wants us
to not only think those things that are right, but also by God’s merciful
guiding to do them. God wants us to be
different, but by living God’s values, and not national, particular and selfish
ones.
In the Gospel passage we heard this morning,
Jesus has not been behaving “normally,” he has not done or said what is expected
of him by his family, people, and religion. Instead he has been rocking the
boat. Last week we heard him redefining the Sabbath laws, making clear that we
serve God best when we serve God’s people, even if that means breaking a few
rules. This week the focus is less on new teachings, and more on his defense
against attacks.
Because of his “abnormal” teaching and
actions, all sorts of people are out to get him. His own family, including the
BVM, is embarrassed by him. The neighbors have been complaining and so the only
explanation is that Jesus must be mad to do these things! “He has gone out his
mind.” (Mark 3:21) The religious authorities represented by the scribes from
Jerusalem feel threatened in their power and privilege. And as they are so sure
that they know what God wants and that only they have the authority to define
God’s will there is only one explanation. He must be possessed by demons or possibly
even worse, Jesus is in league with the devil.
Hardly, Jesus says. How can I drive out the
devil if I was his ally? You see me helping people and ridding them of their
demons, and yet you accuse me of having an unclean spirit? You really don’t
know who I am, do you? And he is not very patient with his family either. Who
are my mother and my brothers, he asks? “Whoever does the will of God is my
brother and sister and mother.” (Mark 3:35) That is a radical redefinition of
family, clan, tribal and national allegiance. The Israelites who want a king to
help them defeat other nations, to grow bigger at their expense have not
understood that God wanted a chosen people as a beacon, as a positive example
of loving service to God and one another, and not as another power-hungry
nation. The Christians who think their country and culture are superior to
others have also just not understood that the love of Jesus Christ transcends all
barriers and that our primary allegiance is to Him.
On this and our other national days, there is
nothing wrong with us celebrating the nations we belong to and live in, as well
as their leaders. But we must not forget that to follow Jesus is to declare
allegiance to a new universal family. The ties that hold this family together
are not blood or color or tradition, but the invisible bonds of faith, hope and
love. As followers of Jesus, our role is not to become more like the nations we
live in and serve, but to change them: by preaching and teaching God’s word as
revealed in Jesus Christ, and by how we live that word in our daily lives.
Amen.
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