St. Paul’s United Church Sunday,
September 23, 2007
Friends and Foes in High
Places – Rev. David Mundy
Jeremiah 8:18-9:1
1 Timothy 2:1-7
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If you watch television, you have probably seen the series of what are
called attack advertisements which have emerged in the provincial election campaign.
In a matter of weeks we will be going to the polls and electing the next
government of Ontario. The ones I have noticed are quite captivating with the
premier’s past promises shattering like glass and tumbling down.
As always in a provincial election there are many important issues for
us to ponder, including education and health care and the environment yet from
the outset we have seen the different parties take what is – dare I say it?– a
very American approach of negativity. After the television debate the other
night I’ve decided I’m
going to vote for Steve Paykin, the moderator.
Times have definitely changed. Our respect for figures in positions of
authority, including clergy, has lessened through the years and everyone is
subject to public criticism these days. That may be a healthy thing in our
desire for honesty and integrity in our leaders.
When I was a child in church we prayed every week for the queen (the
same monarch who reigns today) as well as the prime minister (many have come and
gone since then) and others in roles of leadership. I’m so old I can remember
when children went to church for the entire service! When we were praying for
our leaders, more often than not we were praying for churchgoers because in those postwar, baby boom days it
was good for one’s image to go to worship and to be involved in a congregation.
Make no mistake, politics probably included just as much as much
behind-closed-doors skullduggery and mudslinging back then, but at the very
least the appearance of respect was maintained. There was also a sense that
political leaders were aware of the influence of religious institutions such as
the church.
One of the reasons it was common for there to be prayers in many
churches for those in high positions is because the bible says we should. We
listened to a passage from another of the letters of the New Testament, the
first letter to someone named Timothy. Eugene Peterson has written a paraphrase
of the books of the Christian scriptures and I like the way he rewords some of
the passage
The first thing I want you to do is
pray. Pray every way you know how, for everyone you know. Pray
especially for rulers and their governments to rule well so we can be quietly
about the business of living simply, in humble contemplation. This is the way
our Saviour God wants us to live.
Although we aren’t
sure who wrote this letter – it probably wasn’t the apostle Paul – the
recipient, Timothy, was a young man who accompanied Paul on at least one of his
missionary journeys. The first letter to Timothy is a general epistle while the
other is quite personal in its character.
The passage we
heard a few moments ago points out one of the brutal realities of the first
century church. The earliest Christians had to learn how to carefully navigate
their way through the most powerful military regime that had existed to that
point in history, the Roman empire. When we read the
books of the Acts of the Apostles, we discover that even Roman citizens such as
Paul were beaten and thrown in prison for their religious convictions.
Proclaiming Christ was a risky and even deadly choice and so it was important
to pray for those in
positions of authority and power.
We live in a very
different time and even though we sometimes feel that religion is marginalized in Canadian life we can assemble for worship
without fear. Some might think it a bit odd that we do this, but it is hardly
persecution.
So what do we think
about praying for others, including our political leaders? Do we actually
believe that in a general prayer such as “Thy kingdom come on earth as it is
in heaven,” as well as in our specific prayers, God pays attention?
When we pray as
Timothy and his Christian family is encouraged to pray there is the reminder
that God is vitally active in the world and does not abandon us. Prayer is also
a call to determined and creative action on our part.
The phrase which
caught my attention in Eugene Peterson’s paraphrase is ”pray
every way you know how.” Prayer is what we do as we drift off to
sleep at night. Prayer is what we do within our service of worship when we
bring before God the concerns of our hearts for those close at hand and around
the world. Prayer can also be what happens after we have come here for comfort
and challenge on Sunday mornings and head back into our daily activities.
The Christian
community has always struggled to discern what it means to be in this world but
not of it, to carry on the often uneasy relationship between what we think of
as the secular and the sacred. Years ago there was a cartoon in the New Yorker
magazine which showed an older minister offering advise
to a much younger newcomer to life as a “man of the cloth.” The caption was “if
you want to get ahead in the world never talk about religion or politics!”
Well, our
United Church has a long tradition of yakking away about both and a habit of
sticking its nose into political situations and circumstances of social action.
Some folk love us for this. Some hate us for it. We have this notion that if we
pray about something on Sunday morning we should be willing to say something
about it and hopefully do something about it come Monday and during the rest of
the week.
While this has
often been associated with the churches which have a liberal bent, even the
most conservative Christian camps have learned to take their prayer out into
the marketplace. You may have heard this past summer that the Rev. Jerry
Falwell, the high profile religious leader in the United States, went to his
eternal reward. Falwell regularly drew media attention for his controversial
statements. He was the one who told his congregation that Tinky Winky, one of
the Teletubby characters, was gay and that they should keep their children from
watching the show. No one was sure how Falwell came to this conclusion but the
late night comedians loved it. And in
the aftermath of the terrorist attacks on the United States in 2001 he
proclaimed that this was God’s judgement on a sinful nation.
Falwell will always
be best known for being the driving force behind an organization called the
Moral Majority. The coalition of conservative religious leaders began to
realize the importance of taking prayerful action beyond the pulpits of their
churches and into the political arena. Liberals were highly critical of this
organization because of the conservative agenda but in some respects the Moral
Majority was beating them at their own game. For a time they were highly
effective.
Wherever we may be
on the theological spectrum, we can recognize that every time we bow our heads
for what we now call the “prayers of the people” we are entering into that
exchange with God which is the beginning of something new. I love the words of
the great 20th century theologian Karl Barth who urged us to believe
that “To clasp the hands in prayer is the beginning of an uprising against
the disorder of the world.”
When we pray for
our friends and our foes in high places we are making a statement that the
world can become a better place, a holier place because that it God’s
intention. When we pray we also remind ourselves that we not simply acting in
our own strength, no matter how earnest we are. We are saying that evil may be
real but it cannot prevail because Christ has come.
Yet we don’t stop
here. When we enter the polling station on any election day and mark our ballot
we are making a prayerful statement about our freedom to make informed choices
When we watch the
news, we can do so in a way that moves us to response in Christ’s name.
When we become
involved in a cause
that we feel has implications for the well-being of our community, including
the community of non-human creatures we are carrying our prayer into the world.
And when we join in
prayer we can be mindful that many Christians in our world continue to invoke
God so that governments and rulers will let them live peaceably. The prospect
of religious persecution still looms large for millions of our sisters and
brothers in Christ.
This week I chatted
with a colleague I hadn’t seen since living in Northern Ontario. He was originally from Sri Lanka and emigrated with his family to Canada twenty years ago to
escape the volatile and dangerous political climate of that country. He told me
that when he came here he asked the church to send him some place that was
relatively warm because of their background and in its wisdom they were sent to
Timmins!
He said that it had
been the right decision to come here. There were twenty-six graduates from his
seminary class and all of the other twenty-five are dead. At times he feels deep
guilt that he is the only survivor and that he lives in the prosperity and
security of this country. I pondered what it would be like to be the only
remaining member of my graduating class.
A couple of years
ago we had two guests from the Philippines at our annual meeting of Bay of
Quinte Conference. They told us about the persecution of Christian leaders who
spoke out about issues of the poor. During the weekend one of the women
tearfully told us that they had received word of a church leader who had been
forced off the road in his car and executed. She asked us to pray for them as
they returned to their homeland because they might be arrested at the airport
for coming to Canada and telling the truth of the plight of Christian
activists.
I could tell you
many more stories which are strong reminders that to be a follower of Christ is
still costly today, even we are gathered in this place of worship. As we hear
them we can pray that these become our stories, that when we become aware of
suffering in other parts of the body of Christ we will do everything possible
to bring about healing.
In all of this we
remember that in life, in death, in life beyond death God is with us, as we
repeated in the creed today. We will pray for friends and foes in high places
in confidence that the God of justice and peace hears and answers.