preaching as framing thinking about faith and politics

i preached last sunday at st. paul's evangelical lutheran church in old saybrook, ct. i'm reading george lakoff's new book called something strange like don't think of an elephant. in it, lakoff--who is a professor of linguistics--talks about the power of framing. a great example is how the republicans framed tax cuts as tax relief, and how that language became common parlance, and implied a whole set of associations, including the obvious one that taxes are an affliction from which we need relief.

so i tried to do this, at least in an initial way, and it was received pretty well as a sermon that did two things. first, it raised the problem of the divide between blue states and red states and the political divisions that are implied but did not take sides. second, it tried to reframe the division for christians who are called by the gospel to a ministry of reconciliation and not division. read on if you're interested (no fear--i preach short):

December 5, 2004
St. Paul’s Lutheran Church, Old Saybrook, CT
Isaiah 11:1-9
The Rev. Christian Scharen

Let me begin by setting the context for these reflections on God’s word. After the presidential elections in November, many pundits declared that we are now two Americas, one red, and one blue, and the knife that cut us apart is our differing values. The war in Iraq looms large in the midst of all this. Some say, “President Bush is right, so support the troops in pressing forward in Iraq,” while others say, “President Bush is wrong, so support the troops by bringing them home from Iraq.” Loosely, they could be described as the ‘war’ and ‘peace’ camps. I don’t think Christians ought to fall for this kind of division, in politics generally, or in relation to something as important as war. Let’s turn to the prophet Isaiah as we seek a Christian response to this problem of the two American politics.
1. On wanting Isaiah’s vision to be reality—My first impulse is to want Isaiah’s vision to be reality! I named my son, my first born, Isaiah, in part because of the deep hope embodied in this text. The passage is a vision of shalom, a great biblical term that means ‘everything is put right.’ It is an image we’ve seen depicted as ‘the peaceable kingdom’ in fine art, in Christmas cards, and in children’s bibles. It is a vision we remember as ‘lions laying down with the lambs.’
a. Replacing lambs: reminder text is not reality—The problem is that, as Martin Luther pointed out, when the lions lay down with lambs in this world, the lambs have to be replaced frequently. We do not live in the reality of Isaiah’s vision of a world where ‘everything is put right.’ But we’re all weary of that kind of news. We read every day in the paper about lions roaring, about lambs being eaten. The cliché of the news is all too true: if it bleeds, it leads. And the reporters need not look far for their blood because it seems that Iraq alone supplies the needed daily horror stories.

i. We read 6-9 blissfully, but forget 4b—Well, I don’t’ know about you, but given how awful the world can be, I’m tempted to want the church to help get me in the spirit of the Christmas with stories of angels and babes in the manger, of lions and lambs laying together, of a world where ‘everything is put right.’ I love this time of year—the family time, the traditions, the pageantry, the goodies, and if we’re lucky, a bit of snow to top it all off. Isaiah’s wonderful vision of the peaceable kingdom where ‘they will not hurt or destroy on all my holy mountain’ fits right in to my vision of the Christmas season as a silent night, a holy night, where all is calm, and all is bright. It is a vision of peace on earth that I want to say ‘yes’ to with all my heart.
ii. But when we remember 4b—Unfortunately, we have this season called Advent that is more about stirring up than smoothing over. Even this apparently blissful first lesson from Isaiah requires some significant stirring up before we get to the smooth part. Remember that before the nice ‘lion and lambs’ part, in verse 4, Isaiah says, “The One who is coming will judge the needy with righteousness, and decide for the meek of the earth with equity. He will strike the land with the rod of his mouth, and slays the wicked with the breath of his lips.” Not sugarcoated, is it? No wonder that in verse 9 Isaiah can say ‘they will not hurt or destroy on all my holy mountain’! All the wicked who might be expected to hurt or destroy are dead by the end of verse 4! The dire prediction of Isaiah about the fate of the wicked is echoed in our Gospel when John the Baptist says, in verse 10 “even now the ax is lying at the root of the trees; every tree therefore that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire.”

b. On the Necessity of Protecting Lambs—The point, then, of remembering this unsettling section of Isaiah’s otherwise very beautiful picture of peace on earth is so that we remember we don’t yet have peace on earth. That we don’t fully have peace on earth means some very concrete things for our life together. First, it means that we live in a time, as did Isaiah and Jesus, when the world is wracked by corruption, hatred, and violence. Despite all the progress of modern society, we seem to have no more ability to live together in peace and justice than did ancient peoples. You didn’t need me to tell you that, but there it is. Second, because we live in a corrupt and violent world, we need means of protecting the lambs from the wolves. It is too simple to say, as some do, that we should just love one another. We Christians, especially, ought to know the measure of wickedness present in the world. We Christians ought to know how much we need government and its use of law and force for the protection of those who might become prey for lions and wolves. Third, and most importantly, Christians live as people who were created for peace and who are called to peace, and so our presumption is always to seek God’s peace. We Christians ought to know that we only with great sorrow employ the powers of law and force, and then only as exceptions, as temporary means to restore peace, and for no other purpose.
2. Isaiah’s Vision and God’s Promise—So now I can return to my initial desire for this powerful vision of Isaiah to be reality. In fact, God’s promise IS reality. Reality in the most profound sense, the sense that such a vision of shalom, of ‘all things being put right’ is what God created in the beginning. It is what God will bring into being at the end of all time. And Jesus, whose birth we celebrate at Christmas, offered a vision into God’s way of working to transform the world. Jesus faced the wolves of this world as a defenseless lamb, but God’s power made weak in his death was transformed through his rising to life, forever defeating the ultimate power of violence and evil. God’s promise of life is our past, our future, and our deepest reality now as we make our way through this world of ecstasy and sorrow.

So Isaiah’s vision, and the season of Advent generally, remind us that we as Christians we have two modes of politics. And let me assure you they are not the politics of the ‘red’ states versus the politics of the ‘blue’ states. Rather, it is a politics of the “now and not yet.” In the one mode of politics, the ‘now’ moment, we hear proclaimed in God’s Word, and we see offered in as bread and wine in a common meal around the table of the Lord. Here is a politics where we see a communal vision of shalom, of things ‘put right.’ When we leave here, we join that other mode of politics—a ‘not yet’ politics that often seems far from a communal vision of shalom, of things ‘put right.’ So rather that the response to easy to adopt in our society just now, that snap judgment of a ‘thumbs up’ or ‘thumbs down’ in relation to our government and its policies, we are called to work with them as far as possible, seeking ways to live ‘as if’ the lion could lie with the lamb. Amen.

Comments

[Joshua]

I enjoyed your sermon and especially the way you thought about framing the question. I strongly think that one of the most urgent tasks in preaching is offering new ways of thinking about the same old questions. suggestions, hints that push us toward the way of the Lord rather than the paths of culture. My only question is this...does your closing about here is the politics of the table and there is the other politics, leave open the (mis)interpratation of Luther's two kingdoms?

[Michael]

A followup to Joshua's comment:

Yesterday I read and reread a piece regarding the mantra of "Jesus' ministry of peace and justice" and that it is a mantra that is often misused in contemporary Christianity. The piece was written by Ed Schroeder, former professor at Concordia Seminary and then Seminex. The gist of it, as I understood it, is that when we see Christ's ministry as one of social justice and political peace, then we misread what Christ was up to and confuse the work of God's left-hand kingdom and God's right-hand kingdom, as Luther might put it.

I don't know, Christian, whether that was the direction you were going, but Joshua's comment got me thinking about that.

For anybody interested, here's an address for Ed Schroeder's piece: http://www.crossings.org/thursday/Thur120904.htm