This is not the sermon I had earlier this week. There is nothing like a prayer day to change one’s mind. As the sisters at Mt. Angel and I discussed over lunch the debate in Congress, the sermon began to change. How I understood what was going on in Washington was strongly colored by what I understood to be going on in the Sunday lectionary. Since Congress passed the measure the President asked for, it is high time the Church asked what role it is supposed to play. There are so-called “peace churches,” denominations with a history of opposition to war of any kind-Mennonites, Quakers, Amish-which have already made a categorical decision about the role of the Church in any war. But what is the role of mainline churches, like ours? If we limit the answering community to Presbyterians, my cynical response might be to say our role is to debate the subject for a long time, then to form a Task Force to look into the matter. But I think there is a more practical, concrete, response we can make. The first thing we need to do is to look to scripture.

What we have to work with today is Israel’s worship of a golden calf, Paul telling one congregation that it’s nicer to get along, and Jesus telling a really scary story. We should look to scripture for guidance, but we need to look at the whole scope of scripture before we see specific passages, and when we do that, we are reminded of the Six Great Ends of the Church. You remember those. I talked about them last week, putting them in everyday language. They are: to tell everyone about Jesus, to worship God, to teach others “how” to be a Christian, to stand for the truth, to work for the welfare of others, to be an example of God’s light in the world. In the apostle Paul’s nutshell, the job of the church is to reconcile the world to God. The Six Great Ends that I just listed are the “how to” of the job of reconciling.

Reconciling is hard work, especially when we remember that we are in as great a need of reconciliation as everyone else. Reconciling is about telling the truth in order to express remorse and to do repentance. There is a whole lot of Old Testament theology about God being the only fully justified warrior, but the Christian Church has also held a theology of “just war” since at least Augustine in the 4th century. A “just war” is not one in which humans delight in death. Among other characteristics, a just war is only defensive, it is never “preemptive.” In a “just war,” even as vengeance, taking human life causes “remorse,” since all life belongs to God. Jesus reminded his followers pray for their enemies. This continues to be part of the Church’s job: to repent the violent death of others, to pray even (especially?) for enemies.

Another part of the Church’s job of reconciliation is to provide hospitality. OK, this understanding came to me while I was staying in a Benedictine house, so maybe my sensitivity was amped up a bit. Benedictines claim hospitality as a charism; receiving others, providing them room, hospitality practiced in such a way that it is a spiritual gift. But think of what Paul said to the church at Philippi. It wasn’t just that he was telling the disagreeing parties to get along because it’s nicer. He was telling them to come to grips with the fact that people will disagree, especially if they are in community. But the Church should be a place where people can safely disagree and work toward being “of one mind,” because they have already agreed what is really important. Who knows? Maybe in constructive disagreement, the Church provides a model to the world for dispute resolution. Think of South African Bishop Desmond Tutu as apartheid was dismantled. Think of Jimmy Carter, the newest Nobel Peace Prize winner, for his work on Middle East peace. Remember all he has done since leaving office, especially for human rights and democratic elections. People of faith all over the world-but especially in America-must bring the spiritual gift of hospitality into everyday life. We can’t literally provide the room in which Al-Qaeda and Iraq and the US resolve their disputes. But by showing respect for others, by providing room for God to work in the world, we are offering all people-even our enemies-a place to grow into God’s way in the world.

What is my justification for saying this? Today’s parable. Think about the guest without the appropriate clothes. The king sends his servants out to collect everyone from the street to attend-good or bad, bring them in! One guest is without the right clothes, the king questions him, but the guest remains speechless. He refuses to join the party. The Church needs to continue to set the table, prepare the banquet, invite the guests (good and bad), and let God decide who is and who isn’t fully participating. By making a place for reconciliation, we are doing the work of the Church. We are letting God do the rest.

This week, Erin Roden and I were working on project together. She brought to our conversation her knowledge of theater. As she talked about a prop she needed, Erin said she would make “a practical lamp.” As opposed to an impractical lamp? Erin said that on stage, a “practical” prop was one that really did the job. For instance, if you had a backdrop on which was painted a fence, that picture was a fence as far as the cast and the audience were concerned. But if you had a fence on the stage you could lean against and walk around, that was a “practical” fence, a fence that was useful. What I’m talking to you about today is “practical” faith. In Philippians, the apostle Paul gives the church practical advice. His advice invites the church to be the church in terms of concrete behaviors, things that people can actually do. This is called “ethics.” In Genesis, the people of Israel practice a religion like that fence painted on the backdrop. Sure, the golden calf is concrete-much more concrete than Adonai Elohim (the Lord our God), with whom Moses has been conversing on the mountaintop for 40 days. This calf is something you can see and touch and put your tongue on. You can manipulate it and spin it around and dance in front of it, and really feel like you are doing something. Kind of like debating points of law in Congress. Points of law are things we can really get our teeth into. Points of law are abstractions, but they are the operating rules of the game in this country. The problem is, points of law are kind of like the golden calf. They are humanly concocted ways of addressing and solving problems. Points of law-especially when applied to deciding whether to wage war that involves killing human beings-points of law are not God. The people of Israel, by donating their earrings and finery, were fundamentally saying they didn’t trust the providence of God to get them out of the wilderness. No one really believed the golden calf was the god they were worshiping. But at least it was a depiction they could relate to. Like ourselves, they believed their own rhetoric and took “providence” out of God’s job description and put it in front of the golden calf. “Providence” as in “give us this day our daily bread.” “Providence” as in “save us from the time of trial.” “Providence” as in “there is only one God, and it isn’t us or what we do.”

Here’s the deal, friends. We have been invited to God’s banquet. Good and bad, we’ve been taken in to the banquet hall. Space for hospitality. But are you wearing a wedding robe? The “sin” is to refuse to participate in the feast, to resist God’s call to righteousness and growth. Give us this day our daily bread. Give us our growth. Even at this banquet table. Grow us to be righteous people. Amen