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| 106 North Bench Street, Galena, IL 61036 Phone: (815) 777-0229 (voice & fax) |
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Ordinary 24
by Jim McCrea Mark 8:27-38 Rev. Eric Folkerth tells of an incident that happened in the first church he ever served. When he was in seminary, his District Superintendent asked him to fill the pulpit for the summer at the Copeville (Texas) United Methodist Church while the pastor was recovering from surgery. He was told that on his first Sunday morning, he would be met by a Mrs. Watson, who was the heart of that little church. She would show him around the building and help get him situated. So he packed the first sermon he ever wrote and drove out to Copeville, where Mrs. Watson met him and began a whirlwind tour. He says it went something like this: "Well, we're sure glad to have you. Now, over there is the study that is yours to use if you wish...And over here are the bathrooms...and over here are the classrooms... and, oh, did I tell you yet? Well, my son was one of the Manson family killers...and off this way is the fellowship hall...and down here, is the...." Folkerth says, "I didn't hear anything else she said. 'What!?' My brain wondered if I'd heard correctly. I couldn't decide whether I should ask her for a clarification or not. I couldn't decide whether she was crazy as a loon, or whether she'd just told me the most painful secret of her life, in the same sentence where she told me how to find the coffee filters. "And so, too chicken to check it out, I actually went home and went to the library. [...] And, sure enough, there is was in all the books: One of the Manson family members...the one who it is believed most used the knife during the deadly killing spree...[was] Charles "Tex" Watson...born and raised in Copeville, Texas." Over the course of that summer, Folkerth got to know the Watsons pretty well and discovered that they were quite willing to talk about their son. He has apparently had a jail cell conversion and now runs a non-profit prison ministry. Of course, skeptics believe he's doing that just to look good for the parole board, while others believe he's had a genuine change of heart. But in any case, the thing that Folkerth most remembers is Tex Watson's description of what Charles Manson did to get him to take part in that murderous rampage. He talks about the day Charles Manson took him aside, looked him straight in the eye, and asked him, "Would you die for me?" That is essentially the same question that Palestinian leaders are asking potential suicide bombers and Al Quada leaders are asking potential terrorist recruits. Jesus essentially asks his followers the same question as well when he says that anyone who would be his disciple must deny themselves, take up their cross and follow him. However, there's an obvious difference between the question posed by Charles Manson and the terrorists versus the question posed by Jesus. What those others are asking is whether their followers are committed enough to cause destruction and perhaps even kill for their cause. Jesus, on the other hand, is asking all of us whether we are committed to him enough that we would be willing to live our lives as he lived - that is, giving ourselves in humble service to others and being willing to be rejected and suffer on behalf of God's kingdom. But that's not all. If we are called to suffer, we're also called to absorb the hatred thrown against us rather than responding in kind and then forgive those who persecute us. Those are incredibly steep expectations to have to live up to. The reality, of course, is that in this country, few of us will ever have to suffer for our faith. Yet our faith does place other demands on us that pull us from our comfort zones and cause us to stretch in ways that may not be comfortable. That's because Jesus doesn't want us for just an hour on Sunday morning, he wants our entire lives; he doesn't want us to be on our best behavior in church, he wants our best behavior everywhere we are; he doesn't want our financial stewardship to consist of whatever we place in the weekly offering, he wants it to control how we spend all of our income - both what we keep and what we give away. Jesus said, "From everyone to whom much has been given, much will be required...." (Luke 12:48) and, in terms of the world's standards, we have all been given much. Here's how Mark Whittaker explains it, "If you have never experienced the danger of battle, the loneliness of imprisonment, the agony of torture, or the pangs of starvation... you are ahead of three billion people in the world. If you can attend a church meeting without fear of harassment, arrest, torture, or death...you are fortunate; more than four billion people in the world can't. "If you have food in the refrigerator, clothes on your back, a roof overhead and a place to sleep...you are richer than 75% of this world. If you have money in the bank, in your wallet, and spare change in a dish someplace you are among the top 8% of the world's wealthy." The other day, I was in Dubuque on my way to Cedar Falls to visit my Dad. At one of the intersections, I happened to see a car proudly flying a Chicago Bears flag. There was just something about that that got me thinking. We tend to expend so much energy and enthusiasm in support of our favorite sports teams or our favorite entertainers. What would happen if we would demonstrate that same depth of loyalty to the heart of our faith? And yet, far too often we give our faith short shrift and focus on superficial matters. A perfect example may be found in the events in Alabama during the last couple of weeks. The news has been filled with reports of the state Supreme Court justice who put a two-and-a-half ton monument to the Ten Commandments on court property in the dead of night, only to be ordered to remove it by another court. Because the monument was a symbol of faith, it became a rallying cry for large groups of Christian protesters who felt that their faith was being exiled from the legal system. The reality was that nothing of the sort was happening. Instead, the court was simply upholding the separation of church and state that protects all of us from governmental interference in the way we worship and protects individuals from having someone else's faith inflicted on them for good or bad. But interestingly enough, Alabama was the battle ground for another faith issue this past week - one that had far deeper implications than merely protecting a symbol. Instead, it had implications for how those commandments are lived out. It all begin when Professor Susan Pace Hamill of the University of Alabama School of Law wrote a thesis on the implications of the Christian faith found on the Alabama tax code. Due to the polarized nature of modern politics, I suppose I should mention that she is a political conservative who decided to attend a very theologically conservative seminary on a sabbatical from law school. During her studies, she discovered some things about the Alabama tax code that surprised her, even though she had spent her career in business law. She discovered that even though her state was in the heart of the Bible Belt, the tax burden had been shifted from the wealthy to the poor, with those in the upper tax brackets paying about four percent of their income in taxes, while those in the lower brackets paid over 20 percent. She was shocked at her findings. She said, "It was beyond awful. It was unbelievably awful. I couldn't imagine that you could put together something so unfair and so inadequate and so outrageous." So she ultimately wrote a book about her findings with the backing of the Beeson Seminary faculty. She says, "At Beeson, you've got conservative, very conservative, and super-size conservative. This is not liberal stuff. This is basically reading the Scripture honestly, reading it fully, using divine command ethics, which is the most conservative approach you can have, based on inerrancy of the Scripture. "The question is not what does it say, because what it says is clear; the question is, what does it mean to us today, which certainly has to be developed. What I develop is that these principles are ironclad - that you can't abuse the poor or your community is not godly; it's something else. It's based on Mammon, based on market values that only value money, based on values that are not Christian." The Republican governor of Alabama agreed with her and put forth a proposal to make the tax code more equitable. The result was a referendum held last Tuesday in which the governor's proposal went down to roaring defeat and the governor's future political career has been placed into jeopardy. But that was a price he was willing to pay because he felt that his proposal was a matter of basic justice. That stand has become the political cross he has had to bear for his faith. Clearly, not all of our faith-inspired actions will have such dramatic implications. For example, no one objected when the group of us cleaned the church yesterday nor will they object when we serve food at the Dubuque Rescue Mission this afternoon. No one will object when we elect someone to serve the remainder of Brian Davis' term on the Trustees nor when the person elected serves that term. No one will object when we gather for worship or for our Christian education activities. We do all these things because, when Jesus asks us, "Who do you say that I am?" we know that if we answer "You are the Christ!" that it has wide-ranging implications for our lives. In a culture that would deflect that commitment into something bland but tasteful, let's have the courage to pick up our crosses and truly follow Christ wherever he may lead. Amen.
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