How Christians Should Treat One Another in the Midst of Political Turmoil

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Things are heating up politically here in Wisconsin. Republicans against Democrats. Democrats against Republicans. State senators “hiding” in Illinois, the governor answering prank calls, tens of thousands of people protesting in Madison, yes, the political machines are moving, and there isn’t any sign of it slowing down soon.

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What I have been observing on all sides of these issues is hatred, vitriol, and presumptions about motivations that are certainly uncharitable, and very often slander or worse. And we are not talking about the “other” people. I am talking about Christians, even members of our own congregation. The conversations happen in bible classes, on the phone, on Facebook or Twitter, and really anywhere that people gather. I’m quite certain I have been as guilty of it as anyone.

All of this begs the question: what does it mean to be a Christian in these times? How am I to treat someone with whom I disagree? What if I believe their behavior is not only wrong politically, but is sinful? How am I to interact with them?

The Scriptures are quite clear on this. Let’s start with the Eighth Commandment and Explanation:

You shall not give false testimony against your neighbor.

What does this mean?

We should fear and love God so that we do not tell lies about our neighbor, betray him, slander him, or hurt his reputation, but defend him, speak well of him, and explain everything in the kindest way.

Note a couple things from this commandment and explanation:

  1. This is not about faith or lack thereof. This commandment is how we are to treat fellow human beings, always and everywhere. Period. There is really no such thing as how we are to treat fellow Christians versus how we are to treat unbelievers. Love does not see political or racial divisions. It does not discriminate between believers and unbelievers. God did not come into our flesh to save those who agreed with Him. He came to save the lost, the rebelling, the haters and backbiters. He came to save us. And because of this, how we treat one another is a reflection of what we believe about how God should treat us.
  2. This is not about motivation. I’m sure this will come as a surprise to some, but people can be jerks. Politicians can lie. So can unions. So can political action groups (either organized or self-appointed). So can Christians. So can I. So can you. If the commandments only applied when the other person had proper motivation, the world would be an even more wicked place than it already is.
  3. This is not about reciprocity. Anytime we are talking about the Law, there is always a tit-for-tat sense about it in our minds. “I will not do this, if they won’t, either.” That’s not Christian. It’s tempting, but it’s not right.
  4. Slander means speaking about another person in such a way that hurts their reputation. This applies to presidents and governors, labor and management, men and women, parents and children, siblings, friends and the like. If my goal is to hurt another person, then I am in the wrong. Please note, I am not saying anything about the issues or the content of the arguments at all. I am simply saying that if my goal is to hurt another person, that is against God’s Word, regardless of any political motivation or affiliation.

So if this is what we are not supposed to do, what are we supposed to do? Again, the Scriptures have the answer for us:

Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence, if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things. Philippians 4:8

This is not a blanket “always look on the bright side of life” approach on the part of St. Paul. What he is saying is the positive side to the 8th Commandment. Rather than focus on the negative, why not look to the good? You will live longer, and will be much more at peace in the process. Here’s another:

But take care that this right of yours does not somehow become a stumbling block to the weak. 1 Corinthians 8:9

As a Christian, we are not to flaunt our rights in such a way that others may fall away from the faith. How I say things and approach issues in the political (left hand kingdom) realm speaks volumes as to what I believe about God and how He works in the world. And again:

Open your mouth for the mute, for the rights of all who are destitute. Proverbs 31:8

None of this is an argument for quietism, or political head-in-the-sandedness. We are obligated to look out for the well being of our neighbor. I am my brother’s keeper. How I go about showing love to my neighbor may be different than how you go about it. But make no mistake about it: that is your job as a Christian, and mine. I am not speaking politically here in terms of social welfare state versus free market, or anything else. I am simply saying that I have a responsibility as an individual to care for those around me, to speak up and defend those who cannot defend themselves, and to show mercy to my neighbor, because God has had mercy upon me.

Finally, I would be deeply suspicious of anyone that argues “the bible says we must side this way” in a nice, simple and unambiguous fashion. How we are to treat one another is clear in the Scriptures. We are to love one another. What is not at all clear in the Bible is how that translates into political practices in a representative democracy (republic) such as ours. We can disagree. We may have deeply divergent views on the political future of our state. That is okay. The Church is big enough. We can take it.

So in summary, this is how I would commend you as fellow Christians to behave in our time of political turmoil:

  1. Don’t concern yourself with motivations, secret plots, conspiracies and the like. Human beings will always operate in these ways, and today is no different than a hundred years ago.
  2. Do concern yourself with what the issues actually are, and not the personalities involved.
  3. Remember that Christians of goodwill can disagree on how love is to be shown to the neighbor. This does not mean someone who disagrees with you isn’t a Christian. It means that they understand things differently that you do.
  4. Our unity in faith is immeasurably more important than our unity in politics. If you have found that political agreement is more important to you than who you will be spending eternity with (or where!), then I would suggest your priorities are out of whack and need serious examination.

I hope this is of benefit to you. God bless us all in in these interesting times.

 

Pastor Todd A. Peperkorn, STM

Thursday of Sexagesima

March 3, 2011

On the Generosity of God (Parable of the Workers in the Vineyard, Matthew 20)

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Matthew 20:1-16

Septuagesima (Feb. 20, 2011)

Rev. Todd Peperkorn

Messiah Lutheran Church

Kenosha, Wisconsin

Septuagesima2011.mp3

TITLE: “On the Generosity of God”

Grace to you and peace form God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. Amen. Our text for this morning is the Gospel just read from St. Matthew chapter twenty, the parable of the worker, His wages, and the generous master.

First of all, let’s be clear that I didn’t pick this text. This is just the text that came up for this Sunday in the church year. So don’t blame me; blame the lectionary.

There are a number of elements to this parable from our Lord which seem to tug at issues facing our community today. We’ll touch on some of these, but more importantly,we will get to the point that our Lord is trying to make in delivering this parable to us.

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So just to set the stage, let’s rehearse the events in our text again. The master of the house goes out into the marketplace the first thing in the morning to hire laborers for his vineyard. He finds the men and offers them a denarius for the days labor, and they go in work. He then goes out again at nine, at noon, and at three in the afternoon. Each time he goes he offers them a denarius for their days work. Then at the eleventh hour, virtually the end of the day, he sees a group of men again in the marketplace, asks them why they are idle, and offers them a denarius a day for their work. Everyone works until the end of the day. Then at the end of the day, the foreman calls the workers into the office and gives each of them a denarius for their days work.

Now it doesn’t take a labor expert to figure out what is going to happen next. The ones who worked all day long are angry at the master, because he paid them the same amount as the lazy slobs who only worked an hour. The text ends with this:

And on receiving it they grumbled at the master of the house, 12 saying, ‘These last worked only one hour, and you have made them equal to us who have borne the burden of the day and the scorching heat.’ 13 But he replied to one of them, ‘Friend, I am doing you no wrong. Did you not agree with me for a denarius? 14 Take what belongs to you and go. I choose to give to this last worker as I give to you. 15 Am I not allowed to do what I choose with what belongs to me? Or do you begrudge my generosity?’ 16 So the last will be first, and the first last.” [1]

Now there are a number of things that are disturbing about this text, and frankly, it is easy to take our current situation regarding the Wisconsin budget and try to apply it back to this text. It would be easy to say that the master is being unfair, and if these workers had, uh, bargained collectively, they would have all benefited from the process. It would also be easy to say that the money and the work that the master does is his own. Let him pay people like he wants. It’s his money.

While we can see arguments for both sides on that, looking at the parable this way ultimately is unsatisfying, because we can easily miss the point that Jesus is trying to make in this parable. This is why I am always suspicious of people who want to take the Bible and try to make a nice, clean, straight application from there to here. We have to be very careful in studying God’s Word that we remember it is GOD’S WORD, not ours. What is His point? What is He intending to teach us and give us? That has to be the question.

So to answer that question, we have to learn a little context. The Jews in Jesus’ day -and this peculiar group of Jews called the Pharisees especially- they believed that God had chosen them above all others. They were, after all, the chosen people, called through Abraham out of Ur of the Chaldees to possess the land and to be God’s people. God had reiterated this through Moses and the Exodus out of Egypt back to the promised land. Even after the return of the Exiled from Babylon, the Jews firmly believed that they were special.

Now make no mistake about it. They were special, but not for the reasons they though. They were special because through them the Son of David would be born, who would take away His people’s sins. Through Abraham all the nations of the world would be blessed. Yes, these people were special, but they were special because they had something to give away, not because they had something to keep to themselves.

And that brings us around to the point of the parable. The kingdom of heaven is like this. Is it fair that one man works 12 hours, another works 1 hour, and they both get paid the same? Nope. Certainly not fair. It’s not reasonable at all. Now stop thinking about Madison here and start thinking about the Kingdom of God.

Saint Paul writes in Romans three that the wages of sin is death. All of us like to think that we are good people. I am moral, I am upright. I haven’t killed anyone or stolen from anyone. And yet what is abundantly clear from God’s perspective is that because of your sinfulness, because you are riddled with evil and impurity from start to finish, what you deserve is death, eternal death. That’s fair. That’s the Law, and the Law makes no exceptions, it doesn’t care about extenuating circumstances or what kind of childhood you had or who your parents are or what you do at church or anywhere else. You are defined by your sinfulness. So if we were to be fair, we would all die eternally. For remember, James in his epistle says that whoever has kept the Law at every turn but failed in one point is guilty of it all.

If God is about fairness, we are toast, every one of us. But God is not about fairness. He is about generosity, as our text puts it, or grace as St. Paul puts it (Eph. 2:8-9). God’s generosity means that whether you have been a Christian for an hour or a lifetime, it doesn’t matter. God is not going to give you what you deserve. He’s going to give you what Jesus deserves. He gives you eternal life, forgiveness of sins, salvation and hope in His name.

We are not about fair in God’s Kingdom. We’re not about rights, at least not in the political sense. By God’s grace, we are about mercy. God is merciful to you, not fair. God wants only to place you in the vineyard, so that you may live under Him in His Kingdom in everlasting righteousness, innocence and blessedness.

Today turn away from your own views of fairness and turn to the mercy of God. God has big plans for you in His Son. He is going to use you in all sorts of crazy ways, to give out His mercy to a world in desperate need of help. Listen to Him. Hear His Word, believe, and live as though God matters most, and that He has given you an abundance of gifts to give away for His sake. Believe it for Jesus’ sake. Amen.

[1] The Holy Bible : English standard version. 2001 (Mt 20:11–16). Wheaton: Standard Bible Society.

St. Luke’s Episcopal Church, Racine, Wisconsin

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My congregation is in the midst of celebrating its fiftieth anniversary this year.  In conjunction with that, we are having a thank offering for sanctuary remodeling.  In preparation for that process, we are doing a series of “steeplechases”, that is, going and looking at area churches and looking at the art and architecture of the space.

The second church we looked at is St. Luke’s Episcopal Church in Racine.  The congregation is 164 years old.  It was built using (now historic) Milwaukee cream city brick.  Here is a link to some of the pictures.  You can click on any of the images to see them in a larger format, or you may look at them on Flickr, where they live:

[flickr-gallery mode=”photoset” photoset=”72157625829339723″]

This is really a remarkable space.  The woodwork is stunning, the risen Christ in Judgment is beautiful and warm, the stained glass  is rich and vivid.  I have a couple of critiques of the space:

1. The lighting isn’t sufficient for the space.  It looks like the nave lighting is 20-25 years old, and it shows.

2. The baptismal font(s) are really off center.  When you’re looking through the space, you have to look hard to even find it.

All in all, though, it is a gorgeous church, and I’m sure one of the most beautiful in Racine.

-Pastor Peperkorn

Undercover God (Transfiguration 2011)

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The Trasfiguration of our Lord

[This sermon is slightly more inclusive of pop culture references than usual for me.  My wife tells me that the reference to The Court Jester didn’t work, but the rest of it was all right. -LL]

Transfiguration2011 (Audio File MP3)

Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. Amen. Our text for this morning is the Gospel just read, the Transfiguration of our Lord from St. Matthew chapter 17.

Undercover Boss is a TV show about rewarding the hardworking employees of a business and watching the bad employees get what’s coming to them. The premise is pretty simple. The CEO or executive of some big company masquerades as a new employee. By losing the trappings of his office, people no longer tell him what he wants to hear. Instead he gets the real story of what it is like to be in the trenches, working day in and day out at his company.

This is really a play on a common theme in literature of what I would call the story of the hidden king. The king or prince conceals his identity in order to gain insight into the workings of his kingdom, to win the princess, or to understand his own business better. His true identity isn’t known to anyone except a few trusted servants. A couple stories that use this basic idea are Beauty and the Beast and The Little Mermaid. Or you could go a little further off the beaten path and think of a classic comedy like Trading Places or The Court Jester to get the idea. Maybe even a better example would be The Lord of the Rings with King Aragorn.

There is something about the idea of a great person hiding himself that is appealing to all of us. The notion that somebody amazing or important or unusual sitting in our midst hits the child in all of us. What will happen when the boss reveals he’s the boss, or when the beast becomes the prince, or the mermaid regains her voice? What will happen when the king reveals himself for who he truly is?

It shouldn’t take a lot of imagination on your part to see where I’m going with this. You can imagine the scene we have before us on Mount Tabor. Peter, James and John go with Jesus up the mountain, away from the crowds and the lookeyloos and the pressures of the day to be with Jesus. They have had glimpses of Jesus’ glory, hints of His true nature up to this point. It’s not really that He is keeping things a secret, so much as they can’t fathom that God would become man and dwell among them. A prophet? Yes. Even a great prophet. But God Himself? That seems a bit of a stretch, don’t you think?

But our Lord is more than a vision, or prophet, or great teacher. He is God in the flesh, very God of very God, as we pray in the Creed. He is no myth, no fairy tale king. Peter, James and John got a little wider look at Jesus glory. They were overshadowed by a bright cloud, the kavod, or glory of God as we saw descend upon the Temple in the Old Testament, and again at Jesus’ baptism in the Jordan river. The cloud enveloped them, and they saw Jesus for who He truly is: God’s beloved Son, the One who is come to save the world from their sins.

In their fear they are struck by the wonder of the event. Let’s live up here forever, Peter exclaims! We’ll make three tents, one for you, one for Moses and another for Elijah. We will be your eternal fan club, up here and away from the sorrows and troubles of the world.

But while they are basking in reflected glory, a voice speaks from heaven, “This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased. Listen to Him.” Now it’s one thing to see a couple great prophets and shiny clothes. It’s quite another to have the voice of God resounding in your ears. They fall to the ground, terrified.

When you and I are caught in the presence of God, there is a similar feeling. I had someone ask me not long ago why bother to go to confession. The answer to that question is basically this: if you are not in awe and fear at the presence of God in this place, then you probably don’t recognize your own sinfulness. Peter, James and John did. They knew they were not worthy to be in God’s presence. Neither are you or I.

But God, who is rich in mercy and grace, does not blast us away with the holiness of His presence. The cloud departed. The light dimmed back to normal. They saw only Jesus, and He said to them, “Rise, and do not fear.” As amazing as it is, God wants you to be in His presence. He hides Himself and the fulness of HIs glory, so that you may receive Him. He comes as an infant, as a child, a young man, as the prophet, as the Son of God who died on the cross. Our hymn this morning puts it well:

Glimpsed and gone the revelation,

They shall gain and keep its truth,

Not by building on the mountain

Any shrine or sacred booth,

But by following the Savior

Through the valley to the cross

And by testing faith’s resilience

Through betrayal, pain and loss. (LSB 416:2)

God gives you this picture of His glory for a very special purpose. You see, you are baptized in Him. His glory in the cross is your glory. The hidden king now hides in you by Word and Spirit. You are now the prince that is cloaked, giving mercy to the world because of Him. The world around us does not know or understand the wonder and glory of His Word and work for them, but you are now in their midst, shining the light of His glory to people near and far who desperately need to be redeemed from their sins. The author to the book of Hebrews put it like this:

“Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight, and sin which clings so closely, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us,” (Hebrews 12:1 ESV)

The cloud surrounds us even now. Angels and archangels and all the company of heaven, here and now in our midst. We look to the cross and death, and shine its message to this dark world. Rise, and don’t be afraid. Believe it for Jesus’ sake. Amen.