"A Blessing for the Tsar"
September 30, 2007: 18th Sunday after Pentecost, Year C
The Rev. John MacIver Gage, senior minister
United Church on the Green, UCC: New Haven, CT
www.UnitedChurchontheGreen.org
Scripture:
1 Timothy 2:1-7
First of all, then, I urge
that supplications, prayers, intercessions, and thanksgivings be made
for everyone, for kings and all who are in high positions,
so that we may lead a quiet and peaceable life in all godliness and
dignity. This is right and is acceptable in the sight of God
our Savior, who desires everyone to be saved and to come to
the knowledge of the truth. For there is one God; there is
also one mediator between God and humankind, Christ Jesus, himself human, who gave himself a ransom for all—this was attested at the right
time. For this I was appointed a herald and an apostle (I
am telling the truth, I am not lying), a teacher of the Gentiles in
faith and truth.
Friends, God is still
speaking to world. May our hearts be opened to listen and respond. Amen.
Sermon:
When first I read this morning's
passage from Paul's First Letter to Timothy several weeks ago, as
I was scouting out the biblical territory ahead in the lectionary that
guides our Bible reading, one image leapt immediately to mind. It's
a brief scene from Norman Jewison's 1971 film version of the musical
Fiddler on the Roof. Of course the film takes place in the old world
village of Anatevka, a settlement of Russian Jews living daily under
the threat of pogrom and exile. One day, a student from the tiny local
yeshiva brings the rabbi what he is sure will be a real stumper.
"Rabbi, Rabbi!" he says, nearly breathless with anticipation, "Tell
me: Is there a proper blessing...for the Tsar?" The wizened old man
chews on the question for a moment before answering: "A blessing for
the Tsar? Of course! May God bless and keep the Tsar... far away from
us!"
This
is the scene that scrolled through my head when first I read Paul's
instruction to Timothy that he should offer "supplications, prayers,
intercessions, and thanksgivings... for everyone, for kings and all
who are in high positions.": "Rabbi, Rabbi! Tell me: Is there a
proper blessing... for President Bush?" "For President Bush??
Oy! Because, to tell you the truth, I'm not too excited to pray
for Our President and his minions—I mean, members of his administration—not
if by "praying" you mean that I should wish them l'chaim,
long life, happiness, and success in their every endeavor. I mean, don't
get wrong: I pray a lot about the President and Vice President... and
the Supreme Court, and the Pentagon, just not generally in that particular
mode.
I suppose this is a moral failing
in me, what a former colleague used to call more kindly, "one of my
less redeemed moments." And there are many. I'm as human as any
and more so than many, I suspect. Which means that I have a hard time
adhering to that all of Christ's Great Commandment at once. "Loving
God with all my heart and soul and strength and mind"?—I don't
do too bad. "Loving myself"?—definitely better, definitely,
but not 100%. And "Loving my neighbor"?—welll...
Two out three ain't bad, right? Still, I feel convicted when Paul,
in the Spirit, urges us to "pray every way you know how, for everyone
you know," even the people we don't like very much and who may very
well not like us, either. That's hard for me to do. Some days, it's
just plain impossible.
But then I remember that, hey,
this is only Paul, right? And Paul was not without his own "unredeemed
moments." Romans 1:26-27, for instance, where Paul condemns homosexual
sex as "degrading" and "unnatural." Or 1 Corinthians 7:8-9,
where he makes pretty much any sex sound immoral. Or that whole
part about wives being subject to their husbands (Ephesians 5:22) and
women not holding authority over men (1 Timothy 2:12). In fact, that
bit occurs just after our reading this morning. So, maybe I shouldn't
feel so bad, and maybe I don't have to listen to Paul. After all,
he's not Jesus, and Jesus certainly didn't say anything about having
to pray for our enemies...
Oh, wait. Um, yeah, he did.
In the Sermon on the Mount, in fact, Matthew 5:43, "You have heard
that it was said, 'You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.'
But I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute
you." And it's not like Jesus was some sort of Pollyanna. He knew
a thing or two about having enemies—real, flesh and blood enemies—who
misunderstood him and mistreated him. But Jesus put his money where
his mouth was, and prayed for his persecutor even from the cross to
which they nailed him: "Father, God, forgive them, for they do not
know what they are doing" (Luke 23:34).
Which of course sort of puts
my own definition of "enemies and persecutors" into perspective.
"Impossible"? Maybe not, but still, pretty damn difficult. To pray
God's blessing on a president that has consistently acted to curtail
my civil rights and legislate my love away, all while spending my tax
dollars on a war I believe to be illegal and immoral? That's not easy.
Just as it's not easy to pray blessing on a network of terrorists
seemingly hell-bent on bringing our nation to its knees. And of course,
things don't get any easier as they come closer to home. How do we
pray for a boss who fired us, a lover who left us, or a friend who betrayed
us, or, God help us, even for an abusive parent, or a parent who did
nothing to prevent that abuse? What do you have to say to us then, Mr.
"Saint" Paul? You have no idea...
Only he does. Paul does have an idea, he does know what that's like, how hard it is. We're reading in 1 Timothy, chapter two, this morning, but there is a chapter one, you know, and that gives us some of necessary set-up for Paul's instructions here. Listen to this:
I urge you, Timothy,
just as I did when I was on my way to Macedonia, to remain in Ephesus
so that you may instruct certain people not to teach any different doctrine, and not to occupy themselves with myths and endless genealogies
that promote speculations rather than the divine training that is known
by faith. But the aim of such instruction is love that comes
from a pure heart, a good conscience, and sincere faith. Some
people have deviated from these and turned to meaningless talk, desiring to be teachers of the law, without understanding either
what they are saying or the things about which they make assertions. Now we know that the law is good, if one uses it legitimately. This means understanding that the law is laid down not for the
innocent but for the lawless and disobedient, for the godless and sinful,
for the unholy and profane, for those who kill their father or mother,
for murderers, fornicators, sodomites, slave traders, liars,
perjurers, and whatever else is contrary to the sound teaching that conforms to the glorious gospel of the blessed God, which
he entrusted to me. (1 Timothy 1:3-11)
Whoa! That's pretty harsh,
right? Murderers, fornicators, liars, slave traders...? I mean,
I... Wait a minute, I get it! Paul is writing to his good
friend Timothy, and, by extension, to us, about praying for difficult
people because Paul's dealing with some difficult people in his own
life. It seems there are some folks in the Ephesus church, a church
Paul founded and whom he loves dearly—somebody back there is trying
to spoil everything we worked so hard to build with their fanciful philosophies
and theological speculations that distract the church from the only
real essential of faith, love: God's love for us and our love of God,
neighbor, and self, as Jesus taught. And Paul is peeved. We tend
to think of Paul as a kind of prima donna, always bossing people around—some
of those Bible verses I mentioned earlier may even have earned him a
place on our own personal "difficult to pray for" list.
But maybe Paul's really just trying to work it all out for himself, out loud, in his own life and relationships. Maybe he's just like us, only without the benefit of 2000 years of Christian hindsight to help out. And he got written down. So, given the benefit of the doubt, how does he do? Chapter 1 doesn't end there, with his angry tirade, so, what else does Paul say? Does he manage to practice what he preaches? Let's listen in. Paul goes on:
But
I am grateful to Christ Jesus our Lord, who has strengthened me, because
he judged me faithful and appointed me to his service, even
though I was formerly a blasphemer, a persecutor, and a man of violence.
But I received mercy because I had acted ignorantly in unbelief, and the grace of our Lord overflowed for me with the faith and
love that are in Christ Jesus. The saying is sure and worthy
of full acceptance, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners—of
whom I am the foremost. But for
that very reason I received mercy, so that in me, as the foremost, Jesus
Christ might display the utmost patience, making me an example to those
who would come to believe in him for eternal life. To the
King of the ages, immortal, invisible, the only God, be honor and glory
forever and ever. Amen. (1 Timothy 1:12-17).
Oh. My. It seems we may owe
Paul an apology, if only this once—I'm still letting that "wives
be subject to your husbands" thing go. But here, with these words,
Paul is doing just what he's urged us to do. He's subjecting
his own sense of frustration and hurt and very real anger at those whom
he believes have wronged him and the church, for the sake of "God
our Savior, who desires everyone to be saved and to come to the knowledge
of the truth" no matter what sort of jerks they are, no matter how
they've trampled all over us along their life's journey. Paul struggles
to turn his own personal anguish over to Christ, in the same way, from
the cross, Christ turned his over to God, because God's grace covers
us all—a fact of faith Paul knows all too well: Paul, who was "formerly
a blasphemer, a persecutor, and a man of violence," in his own words,
the very "foremost of sinners." And yet... and yet... Even Paul
received mercy from God, if only, he adds—and I can't help but smile
here—so that God could use him to show just how far God's patience
really goes, all the way to Paul and back.
Believe it or not, it's Paul's sense of humility, shown here, and his awareness of the power of grace in his own life that moves him to urge us to pray every way we know how, for everyone we know, even for rulers and their governments, even for jerks and their jerkiness, and for assorted other unlikely and unlikable people, because God, "the King of the ages, immortal, invisible," the God of honor and glory in God's infinite, unsearchable, crazy wisdom, wants good things for all God's children, not just those few who manage to behave. Jesus puts it this way, in that real-life, street-smart way of his:
"Listen, if you love
those who love you, what reward do you have? Do not even the tax
collectors do the same? And if you greet only your brothers and sisters,
what more are you doing than others? Do not even the Gentiles do the
same?"
No, he says:
"Love your enemies
and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be children of
your Father in heaven; for God makes the sun rise on the evil and on
the good, and sends rain on the righteous and on the unrighteous."
(Matthew 5:45-47)
I'm reminded of something
that happened to me once while I was in seminary back in Austin. It
was late on a springtime Saturday morning, and I was sleeping late,
because... because I had been out late studying with friends the night
before, when there came a knock on my front door. <Knock knock
knock> Bleary-eyed—from studying—unshowered, unshaven, uncoiffed,
very nearly unclothed, clad only in some ratty sweat pants and my tattoos,
I stumbled to the door and opened it, only to discover: Mormons. "Oh,
great," I thought to myself, as they launched into their spiel, "Nothing
like being woken at the crack of noon on a sleepy weekend by people
whose faith is adamantly opposed to everything I stand for and my very
existence."
I stopped them halfway through
the first index card. "Listen you, guys," I said, "Thanks, but
no thanks. You see, I already have a church; in fact, I'm in seminary
training to be a minister." Well, given my state of dishabille,
it took them a moment to process that. But, God bless 'em, they came
back for more, and their response took me aback. They said, "Well,
then, can we pray together?" I had to think about that one. Could
we, or rather, could I? Could I pray with these folks who were so very
different from myself, who indeed were enemies and persecutors of folks
like me and mine? Well, as a follower of Christ, how could I not? And
so there in that doorway, we prayed. I made sure I got to say for what:
that God would lead us all to the truth. Well, how do you like that?
I didn't know it then, but it turns out I was quoting Paul from this
very passage today.
And so we pray, in the name
of our God "who desires everyone to be saved and to come to the knowledge
of the truth." We don't forget what's gone before. That would
be foolish. We don't pretend there's nothing wrong, if there is.
That would be unhealthy. We don't even forgive, really, not yet, if
we're not ready to. That would be disingenuous. And we don't pretend
not to have our own hopes for how people and situations will be changed,
for how things should be. Of course we do.
But as difficult as it may be for us to literally let it go and let God, like Paul, we pray in the name of a God and a Christ who are so much bigger than we are: that God would lead us all to the truth, that God would give us all a broader vision of God's purposes on earth, that God would share abundant life with all persons everywhere. At the end of the day, we bless 'em all, and let God sort 'em out. Even the Tsar. Even us.