Joyfully Giving Thanks
John Wilkinson Third
Presbyterian Church November 21, 2004
Colossians 1:9-20
There are many things for which we, and I, are grateful these
days. And I would even hesitate to put Ohio State’s convincing,
upset victory over Michigan on that list!
I am thankful for the very strong initial response to our stewardship
efforts. The preliminary numbers are printed in your bulletins,
from mid-week of this past week. If you have not yet pledged,
why not do so this morning? Pledge cards are available in the
friendship pads. Thanks to all of you who have done so already,
and who have responded so positively.
I am thankful also for our ministry of music, whose gifts are
made manifest in many ways, including this evening at 7:00 here
in the Sanctuary for a hymn festival featuring singers and ringers
of all ages. On the liturgical calendar, today is the last Sunday
of the liturgical year, Christ the King Sunday. Tonight’s
festival will focus on “Images of Christ.” I hope
you may be present this evening.
And I am thankful, as thankful as one can be, I hope, that
in life and in death we belong to God. Therefore, I am thankful
for the life of Raiford L. Claxton, Bonny’s father, my
father-in-law, Kenneth and Ann’s granddaddy. Raiford Claxton
died this past Friday in Florida, and while we are quite sad,
we are also quite grateful, grateful for his life and grateful
for the prayers of support from this community.
* * * * *
This morning in a Midwestern town, a friend of mine will be
preaching a sermon in a congregation very much like this one.
That congregation will sing some of the Thanksgiving hymns that
we are singing here this morning. We actually compare hymns
from time to time, an occupational pathology! Outside the building,
though, things will look a little different. For reasons that
are not entirely clear, that congregation will be picketed this
morning, by a group from a church from another town, another
state.
How this group chose this church, as I said, is not entirely
clear. Our profiles are similar; they could just have easily
chosen us, if we weren’t four or five states away.
The nature of the protest is the charge of theological liberalism,
of apostasy, a serious charge, of wandering away from God’s
proper teachings and even of condoning sinful behavior, particularly
around one issue.
That particular congregation is committed this morning to worshiping
with integrity and joy, even knowing full well what is gong
on outside their front door. They are prepared. They are committed
not to engage in hostile debate as they escort their children
to Sunday school. I joked with my friend that if they disrupt
worship, then they should be offered a pledge card.
I mention this episode for two reasons, the first, that we
be in solidarity with these brothers and sisters this morning
and the second that we consider this episode somehow as emblematic
of the larger moment in which we find ourselves.
This is not to be a blue-state, red-state post-mortem on the
election, now not quite three weeks old. It is to be a consideration
of one of the dynamics. I have received at least 100 e-columns
based on the phrasing of one exit poll question that has now
taken on life of its own. “Moral Issues” is the
phrase, and it appears that 22% of the people who cast their
ballot the way they did, did so because of the “moral
issues” issue, and of those 22%, 80% or so voted for President
Bush.
That is fine. What is not so fine, or so it seems to me, is
the assertion driven by columnists and talk radio, that somehow
one political party has a corner on the moral issues debate,
and therefore, and this is even more problematic, on morality
itself.
There are people in this room this morning who voted for President
Bush and those who voted for Senator Kerry. That is fine, and
good, and the democratic process at work. And yet those on the
so-called “religious right” worked hard to define
the so-called moral issues, and defining those issues specifically
and narrowly as matters such as choice, and stem-cell research
and gay marriage particularly, with 11states placing that issue
on their ballots and voting a certain way.
Even that is all fine, to a certain extent, the democratic
process at work. What is not fine is the insistence that good
Christians could vote for only one candidate, that one platform
had exclusive rights to morality, and that to vote otherwise
was not only to make a bad political decision, but an unfaithful
one.
What is not fine is one group of Christians demonstrating at
the worshiping gathering of another group of Christians to insist
that they are not Christian, or perhaps even anti-Christian.
We may be right on some issues, we may be wrong on others.
I never presume that when we gather for worship here or anywhere
that we are ever of one mind on any issue. On the issue that
has been so important to this congregation over the years, mainly
that of human sexuality, I do presume some broad consensus,
if not precise unanimity. On that issue, clearly we have work
to do. Though I believe deeply that God’s justice will
some day come, in the church and in society we are clearly in
a minority, religiously and politically.
Clearly there is work to do. There is work to do in being honest
and realistic. There is work to do in being clear about what
we believe, and why. To be strong in our articulation and witness.
To be strong in our faith. To keep hope alive. To be strong
in our efforts to build unity. To build bridges to faithfulness
and justice, to build bridges to those who would disagree with
us even when they are not so sure that such a bridge even needs
to be built.
Clearly there is work to do.
But it is not work without its opportunities, and it is not
work without its gifts and graces. Scholar Andrew Lincoln insists
on these connections in the Apostle Paul’s Letter to the
Colossian church: connections between our union with Christ
and our search for reconciliation with one another, connections
between cosmic powers and the earthly realm, connections between
what we believe about Jesus and how we relate ethically to one
another. (New Interpreter's Bible)
For Paul, in Colossians, belief in what Lincoln calls the “cosmic
Christ” means that Christ reconciles everything in the
world, in the here-and-now, diverse, complex world.
Reconciliation is more than a lovely notion; it is an ethical
demand. Our relationship with Christ has implications for our
relationships with others. To me, that is probably what feels
most disheartening at the moment, in church and society. We
will not agree on everything, ever, in the church or in the
culture. So the question that keeps presenting itself is the
manner in which we disagree. The ways we seek unity in the face
of diversity and difference. The ways that we do not let disagreement
turn into division. The ways that reconciliation serves as the
central vision allowing differences not to be smoothed over,
or to disappear altogether, but to be dignified through debate
and discourse, because Christ has already claimed us as his
own.
It is the challenge in the church right now. I fear I talk
about the Theological Task Force on the Peace, Unity and Purity
of the Church entirely too much. How can we maintain the dignity
of our difference, the integrity of our perspectives—biblical,
theological—faithful to the tradition—all the while
maintaining the authenticity of our relationships with those
who hold differing claims with equal zeal?
Or, how do we as political people hold to our positions, with
clarity, humility, affirming as best we can even a political
position that we claim to be moral, and live as neighbors and
fellow citizens with those who hold alternate beliefs.
It is not easy, and it is not particularly trendy. Spinning
apart, splitting apart, seems so much easier than holding together.
Dissension is such the easier path than reconciliation. And
yet Paul writes to the Colossian church—“may you
bear fruit in every good work.” “May you endure
everything with patience…while joyfully giving thanks…because
Christ has rescued us from the power of darkness.”
The hope we experience is not the result of human effort, thank
God. Our salvation is not based on a political debate or a theological
argument. That does not mean that such things do not matter—it
means that they matter greatly in that they work out the reconciliation
that we have already experienced in Jesus Christ.
The ethical implication of reconciliation is enormous, but
never in the sense that it earns us, or loses us, our salvation.
Rather, we joyfully give thanks to God because we have been
given the gift to live this reconciliation out in the world,
in the messy, complex, broken world. A
And though we hold out truth claims—political and theological—firmly,
we hold them gently and humbly as well, never willing to give
up because of polling data or the need to play nice, but because
God is about the business of reconciliation, whether we know
it to not, or always want to believe it or not, or even like
it or not.
My greatest concern at the moment, therefore, is not about
diversity of opinion. It is about when one opinion becomes so
ideologized that there is not room for debate, and that not
only is there no room for other opinions, but that those who
hold them are somehow beyond the pale politically and outside
the body of Christ. That would seem to me to reject the reconciling
gospel of Christ, which is ironic at best, harmful at worst,
and certainly causing pain to the body of Christ and sadness
to the God who reconciles us all.
So what do we do? Anne Lamott, who seems to be saying a lot
to me these days, says that there are only really two prayers:
please and thank you. Please and thank you. It would seem that
we are called to both these days.
Please allow us to move through this challenging time. Please
give us clarity of vision and humility in its pursuit. Please
allow us to understand those with whom we disagree and those
who seem to strongly to disagree with us.
And thank you. Thank you for this ultimate gift—redemption
and reconciliation. And thank you for opportunities to make
this reconciliation known every day.
One hundred forty years and two days ago, at Gettysburg, Abraham
Lincoln pleaded that “this nation, under God, shall have
a new birth of freedom, and that government of the people, by
the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.”
Just a month before, Lincoln proclaimed the holiday that we
will mark in a few days, “fervently imploring the interposition
of God’s Almighty Hand to heal the wounds of the nation
and to restore it as soon as it may be consistent with the divine
purposes to the full enjoyment of peace, harmony, tranquility
and union.”
Lincoln’s prayer, our words. May it be so—hearts
filled with thanks, and lives committed to living out the reconciliation
for which our thanks will know no end. Amen.
