Comments for Jim

Sunday, December 6, 1998

Rev. James A.Todhunter

"THE SEARCH FOR AUTHORITY"

ISAIAH 11:1-10 ROMANS 15:4-13 MATTHEW 3:1-12

In this year of political scandal, one of the stranger developments is that opinion pollsters tell us President Clinton’s job performance rating is very high; but when assessing him on personal trustworthiness, he scores very low. It is a strange disconnect, and I think it is somehow at the heart of the disagreements regarding impeachment. On the one hand, there are those who say, "Who cares about the man’s personal character, as long as he gets his job done well?" On the other hand are those who insist that it is impossible to separate personal character from the capacity to lead. I don’t know enough about polling techniques or the history of the American presidency to say whether such a discrepancy between character and performance is unusual or not. It would seem that the current rethinking of the character of Thomas Jefferson deals with some of the same issues: capacity to lead and inspire, personal morality and public proclamation, the ability to articulate a vision, and so on. So maybe it is a new and old issue at the same time.

The scripture from the Book of the Prophet Isaiah is about the longing for authoritative leadership. This is one of those great scriptures about the Messiah. This person will be like a mighty warrior king who will overthrow those who are oppressing the people. In other words, he will be politically powerful. But he will also be righteous, establishing justice in the land. This vision that the Hebrew people called Shalom, a reign of justice and peace, will become a reality. And he will have integrity and personal trustworthiness. His counsel shall be wise, he shall be incorruptible, he shall decide with equity, and he shall care for the poor. How will all this be possible for one human being? Because the "spirit of the Lord shall rest upon him." Now it should be noted that this Messiah will be a descendant of King David, and that his reign will be an earthly one. Judaism is not essentially an other-worldly religion at all. The Messiah will usher in an age of true justice and peace. And he will do so because he is God’s anointed and the spirit of God will rest upon him. This would seem to be a profile for an ideal candidate (from an age and culture that never heard of democracy); a leader that beleaguered people in that any age would yearn for.

Where do such yearnings originate? There is a longing in us for strong leadership especially in difficult times. And when things are bad enough, a strong leader can come to be seen as a savior. The political abyss following the Treaty of Versailles brought the world Hitler and Mussolini, each of whom retained tremendous devotion from the masses almost until the end of their lives. It was the Civil War that created the context for Lincoln’s greatness, and the Great Depression that called forth the charismatic gifts of Franklin Roosevelt.

What makes for authority we can trust, leadership that we can follow? I think a great leader can recognize the pain of the present moment, articulate a vision for the future, and show how to make the vision a reality. His or her authority is in how the vision is embodied, and we are invited, by associating ourselves personally with the leader, to participate in that vision. Somehow that is what charisma means. For the Hebrews in bondage that compelling and inviting vision was the dream of a realm of justice and peace. And it would take God’s anointed one to accomplish this.

In the scripture from Matthew’s Gospel this morning, we enter a different era, but one with the same yearnings. John the Baptist is the ultimate outsider, offering a vision of hope that carries with it a condemnation of the status quo. John the Baptist accosts those who come down from Jerusalem, to join with the poor who seek to be baptized by him in the Jordan. Why was John so enraged by their presence? Shouldn’t he have been happy to have them respond to his baptism for the remission of sin? The Pharisees who came to him represented the religious and political system that had reached a kind of accommodation with the Roman occupiers. They had sold out in order to survive and get by. They professed the vision of justice and peace but didn’t believe it in their hearts. John saw the shallowness of their belief, the insincerity of their convictions. If they wished to repent, they would have to bear the fruits of repentance. And John had a following among the poor. He was seen by them as one with authority; one who spoke the truth. Both he and Jesus had a kind of authority that attracted others. Like all prophets, their authority came from their identification with the poor, and their allegiance to God’s vision of justice. And that authority set them against the authority of the powers that be.

Both John and Jesus said that the Kingdom of God was at hand. They each proclaimed that God’s reign was coming not in the far-off and distant future, but very, very soon. And they believed that this onrushing reign of justice and peace would be so dramatic and overwhelming, that it would seem like the end of the world. The Kingdom of Heaven will be so radically different as to be a new world entirely. All this gave voice to the yearnings of the people with a powerful intensity and immediacy.

Some have criticized Christianity for being too otherworldly, as guilty of stressing the joys that await in heaven over the dealing with the sufferings of the present to create a better world. Such critics charge that Christians turn their backs on life itself, fleeing the challenges, complexities and real joys here; rejecting the possibilities of living fully now. It is a telling criticism. One of Christianity’s most articulate and relentless critics, the German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche, wrote that in Christianity:

Nietzsche’s criticism hits home for a certain style of life-denying Christianity. Christians need to recover and reaffirm a Christianity that is not afraid of this world, one that does not reject life; a Christianity that recognizes the tensions, ambiguities, energies and living actively, of being engaged with the world. Christians cannot flee the demands of the arena of life for some presumed peace and tranquillity elsewhere. I would argue that true biblical Christianity is closer to our Jewish roots in the matter of this world and the next. Marx and Freud, along with Nietzsche, reacted to a Christianity that tended to offer the best rewards in the afterlife for those who would suffer in silence in this life. The Pharisees that John condemned were not unlike those powerful political leaders who are also devout Christians in some parts of Latin America today. They will affirm for the poor a Christianity about suffering poverty and want now in order to prepare for a happy life in heaven. Even as they proclaim this vision to the helpless, they themselves benefit from the riches and power of this world to the fullest. It is to people like this that Jesus directs his story of the Rich Man and Lazarus. Jesus turns the tables on the rich by saying that if you affirm an after-life for the poor that is a just reward for their suffering, you must then also accept for yourselves an afterlife that is a just reward for your wealth and greed. But then they weren’t sincere about this in the first place.

The Messiah that Isaiah speaks of, and indeed the Messiah that Christians have come to accept as Jesus himself, is first and foremost a bringer of life into this world. For the Messiah, life takes place in communities of love and justice, compassion and righteousness. For Jesus, the model of this was the lively, even raucous dinner party.

Like the Hebrews in captivity, like the people of the time of John and Jesus, we, in our time, are called to understand our lives as living between yearning and fulfillment. On the one hand, we are called to face squarely into the realities of injustice and suffering and oppression, especially for the poor of this world. We are called to, as best we are able, stand with them. And at the same time, we are called to trust a vision of hope that the world can and will change. Advent is really about waiting in the midst of this yearning. Whether it be the yearning for a Messiah or the coming of the Christ Child or the Second Coming of Christ, it is the yearning for God to enter our lives with power that makes a difference.

But I believe that a healthy yearning is not for God or some leader to rescue us, as it is the yearning for us to feel within ourselves and our communities the power that such a Messiah symbolizes; that is, to be feel empowered; empowered to make a difference now in our world. Helplessness and hopelessness go hand in hand. Power and hope are inseparable. We have the power to contribute to the mitten tree. We have the power to give toys to poor children through Help of Silver Spring. We have the power to write a check for the victims of flooding in Honduras. We have the power to help support long term economic development in Nicaragua. We have the power to empower the homeless in our communities. We have the power to equip the Shaw Ministry in the District of Columbia. We have the power of the Friends in Action program of family mentoring. We have that power, and so much more, right now.

I am currently the co-chair of the search committee to call a new executive director for Community Ministry of Montgomery County, someone to replace the Rev. Lon Dring, who will retire next spring. Sometimes I think our committee is looking for the Messiah, someone who will take over and tell the organization what to do and lead us into the future. But there really isn’t any such person out there. But there are many fine people who can inspire, empower, and lead this organization.

I began by talking about President Clinton. American electoral politics in the 20^th century doesn’t produce many true messiahs. And that is, no doubt, a good thing. Hopefully, we have moved beyond the age when kings and queens were believed to be anointed by God, including some of the worst, at that. And hopefully, we are not so susceptible to modern demagogues. There are no modern saviors out there. But, this said, I believe the church is called to be a community a leadership in which we truly believe that we are empowered by the spirit of God, the spirit of Jesus Christ. For we know that Jesus himself made a poor demagogue. He turned out to be a disappointing messiah to the people of his day. He did not use force. His followers were a disorderly lot of riff raff. And judging by the disciples’ perpetual confusion, Jesus may not have even been a great communicator. He himself led no mass movement. But yet his spirit brought a special kind of power, an inexplicable power really, the power that literally split the calendar. A power that brings us together today. It is that power that awaits us in our yearning. Amen.

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