Thank God the election is this week!  A couple weeks ago, Rick complained that this election had been going on since 1965.  He meant “2005,” but it sure felt like he was right about this presidential campaign lasting 40 years.  Feeding my election-based cynicism is the Christopher Buckley book I’m listening to, Boomsday, a fictional account of the political and economic upheaval that occurs when 77 million Baby Boomers become eligible for Social Security.  In Buckley’s world, a near-miss to our current situation, cynical and opportunistic politicians live by the credo that saying a thing often enough makes it true, and spinning it well enough lets you control the truth. 

            Jesus takes the opposite tack with his opponents, the Pharisees.  What they say is more true than what they do.  And he doesn’t mean it as a compliment.  The flaw, Jesus says, isn’t in what they teach, but in their preach-but-don’t-follow.  Their judgments of others assume a financial well-being beyond the reach of a 1st century Joe the Plumber.  The religious observance the Pharisees required needed more time and resources than Joe could devote to the enterprise and his wife, occupied with keeping body and soul together for the family, needed a staff to maintain the home infra-structure that would have been necessary for Joe’s religious habits, had he followed the Pharisees’ teachings.

             Jesus makes these comments in the last week of his life, having come up to Jerusalem proclaiming the Kingdom of God.  His servant leadership style gave him a double-digit lead in the polls to be Israel’s next leader.  The Kingdom he proclaims was anticipated with Joshua’s priestly stand in the middle of the Jordan River as Israel crossed into the Promised Land.  Their crossing anticipated a new order, and they carried a revolutionary constitution that established God as Ruler.  Jesus’ stump speeches come out of this tradition, describing God’s radical alternative to the socio-religious institutions Pilate and Caesar had at their disposal to enforce an unholy collusion of religion and Empire. 

               Interesting texts for the Sunday before the presidential election, on what the Presbyterian worship planning calendar designates “Christian and Citizen Sunday.”  It’s common knowledge that the US Constitution was framed by men trained in Presbyterian schools.  These men used their knowledge of church polity to shape the government’s balance of power.  When they amended the Constitution, it was to guarantee “freedom of religion” not “freedom from” religion.  That’s a distinction which, believe it or not, has a bearing on the decision you will be making next Sunday.  Not Tuesday.  It’s a distinction that has to do with financial stewardship. Perhaps like me you grew up in a household that observed two deeply-held American taboos.  We never spoke of how we voted or what we earned.
 
            Our Founding Fathers guaranteed freedom of religion because, having suffered too much “taxation without representation,” they were suspicious of a State Church.  It was the best Christian discipleship move they made.  In the 4th Century, Constantine linked Church and Empire with taxes, and many European countries still follow this custom, using taxes from citizens to support the State Church.  The Kingdom of God does not collect “taxes.”  I’ve run across letters from 19th-century European immigrants to America who discovered that the church prospered without taxation . Reference 1  People give money to churches without the coercion of taxation, they wrote in amazement.  The consequence (as they saw it) was a laity with a stake in their congregations, building and maintaining them, carrying on their missions.  If you remember American history, you will know that frontier schools and hospitals were started by churches.  Christians grew in their faith because they took financial responsibility for the Church’s mission.

            The Presbyterian Book of Order notwithstanding, Jesus did not envision the Kingdom of God as a representative democracy.  The framers of the U.S. Constitution had not even hear  Ref 2 of the Pledge of Allegiance with its phrase, “one nation under God” (that came 150 years later).  The pledge of allegiance Christians make is the Apostles’ Creed.  Joshua’s priestly gesture in the middle of the River Jordan was a matter of “we’re doing something new here.”  Jesus’ politics were also about doing something new.  John Howard Yoder describes Jesus as one who lived as he preached, proclaiming the Kingdom of God by embodying it.  He writes, “Jesus gave them a new way to deal with offenders—by forgiving them.  He gave them a new way to deal with violence—by suffering.  He gave them a new way to deal with money—by sharing it.  He gave them a new way to deal with problems of leadership—by drawing on the gift of every member, even the most humble. He gave them a new way to deal with a corrupt society—by building a new order, not making the old. He gave them a new pattern of relationships between man and woman, between parent and child, between master and slave, in which was made concrete a radical new vision of what it means to be a human person.”Ref 3 

              Jesus’ “new way.”  This is the Kingdom of our Real Citizenship, an alternative kingdom, to be sure.  In proclaiming that Kingdom, Jesus was not concerned about being relevant.  His concern was to make disciples, drawing us into a community that embodies life-giving politics.  He made this possible by his life-death-resurrection.  Jesus wasn’t in the business of making us safe, but he does offer freedom from our self-inflicted anxiety and fear.  He didn’t come to make our lives more meaningful, he invites us to lives of renewed purpose lived out in shared community  Ref 4

            This story takes place at a coffee shop drive through and begins with a lady who over-pays for her drink by saying, “I’ll pay for the person behind me.”  The barista is a little surprised—it’s a drive through, it’s not like people are standing in line, yakking and getting to know each other.  The woman says that the previous week someone had done the same for her, and it just made her day.  When the next car pulls forward, the barista hands out the drink with the words that it is already paid for.  The customer laughs with delight but still hands the barista money with the words, “Then I want to pass it on.  This is for the person behind me.”  The line moves up and the barista is feeling kind of a glow from the generosity.  As he hands the drink out to the customer, he says for the second time, “This has already been paid for by the person in front of you.”  The customer is shocked but replies, “I guess it’s my lucky day.”  And drives off without a glance to see if there is someone behind to receive his generosity.  The barista mulls this over.  Why didn’t the man want to pass on the gift he had received?  Would his lucky day be ruined if he offered to pass it on?  Ref 5

                We function under the myth of scarcity.  It’s not just at Starbucks.  Political debates assume there isn’t enough while candidates throw barbs about “redistribution of wealth” and entitlements.  But we are citizens of an alternative Kingdom, one not based on scarcity.  By virtue of our citizenship in God’s Kingdom, because we claim to be followers of Christ, we are freed from that myth of scarcity.  Would it ruin our lucky day to pass on the generosity we’ve experienced?  Year after year, we put together our church budget, wondering if we’ll have “enough” to do what we want.  All October I’ve been telling you that God does not ask us to do what we cannot.  A better budgeting question, a better stewardship question might be, “What is God calling us to do?”  Because, friends, in the Kingdom of God it’s not taxation.  It’s passing on the generosity you’ve already received.

References:

1.  “Upbuilding the Saints,” by Dr Walter Sundberg, quoted in Luther Seminary Stewardship Resources
2.  Stanley Hauerwas in “Following Jesus in America,” Presbyterians Today, October 2008.
3   John Howard Yoder, The Original Revolution, p 29 as quoted by Stanley Hauerwas in “Following Jesus in America,”   Presbyterians Today, October 2008.
4.  Stanley Hauerwas in “Following Jesus in America,” Presbyterians Today, October 2008.
5.  As told in Stewardship for the 21st Century, stewardship@luthersem.edu, April 28, 2008