That We All May Be One

From the first lesson from scripture in the daily lectionary for this, the Feast of St. Barnabas: “The rich person toils to amass a fortune, and when he rests he fills himself with his dainties. The poor person toils to make a meager living, and if ever he rests he becomes needy.”

“One who loves gold will not be justified; one who pursues money will be led astray by it. Many have come to ruin because of gold, and their destruction has met them face to face. It is a stumbling block to those who are avid for it, and every fool will be taken captive by it.”(Ecclesiasticus 31:3-11)

I wrote yesterday that there is an interaction between “Politics and the Kingdom of God” and that people of faith should really look very carefully at the positions and policies of candidates and parties before casting their votes. The verses above from the Apocrypha are just one more example of God”s “preferential option for the poor” which one can find throughout the entire Bible — Old Testament, New, and (for those Christians who read it) the Apocrypha.

St. Barnabas, whom we remember today, is known by two things primarily. First, he was a wealthy man but apparently also quite generous since the book of Acts tells us that, shortly after he was called into the ministry of apostleship, he sold a piece of property and “laid the money at the apostles’ feet.” In other words, he was generous in sharing what he had for the good of all. Secondly, Barnabas was called a “son of encouragement” because of his bridge building efforts between the apostles and his ability to bring people together.

Very few of our politicians today are — or ever have been — poor. Unfortunately, it takes a certain amount of money and privilege to afford the kind of education necessary to be qualified for political leadership and certainly it takes way too much money to mount political campaigns. Candidates have often made a good deal of money before they every hit the campaign trail and others make money by writing books and going on speaking tours for which they are remunerated handsomely.

For example, both Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton are, by any standards, wealthy people. The question is, how did they obtain that wealth and how did they use it once possessing it. No doubt, there will be scrutiny of all this during the next five months of the political process. To get us started, one measure of how one’s wealth has been accumulated and how is has been distributed, in our day, is the information contained on a federal tax return. One presidential candidate in this year’s race has released volumes of tax returns and information. The other has not.

Guess which is which.

I wonder why?

A beautiful picture of Barack Obama and his elder daughter, Malia, appeared on Facebook yesterday with a caption something like, “The daughter of the first black President will cast her first vote for the first woman President.” I commented “Just in case you think we are not moving ‘in the right direction’.”

Jews and Christians look forward to a mysterious time in the future when God will establish, once and for all, something the tradition calls “The Kingdom of God.” In our more inclusive day, many are likely to refer to it as “The Realm of God” or even the “Commonwealth of God.” Let us understand these to mean the same thing.

And that “thing” is a future in which the world will finally be put to rights. When there will indeed be complete justice and everlasting peace, when the hungry will be fed and the naked clothed, when no one will take advantage of another and when sickness, pain, and even death will be no more. Jews often associate this coming blessed age with the arrival of the Messiah, Christians with what has been called “the Second Coming” of our Messiah, Jesus the Christ.

As New Testament scholar N. T. Wright reminds us often, we are not going to build the kingdom of God on our own. God will, in God’s good time, establish it. But, Wright asserts, we are to build for the kingdom of God. Get the distinction? We are not going to build the kingdom of God, but we are to build for the kingdom of God. And that means, at the very least, every effort we make here to move the world a little closer to a world which resembles that blessed future will not be lost.

When we work for justice, peace, equality, an end to poverty  and disease, we foreshadow that which God will one day establish. And we give people in the here and now a glimpse of what that final Divine Commonwealth will look like.

That is where the intersection of politics and religion takes place. When Jews, Christians, Muslims, Buddhists, Hindus, Sikhs, and others cast their votes in a political season, what they should be thinking about is how closely the positions, policies, and proposals of the various candidates and parties resemble those “kingdom values” already enumerated — justice, peace, equality,  healing, human flourishing and abundant life for all.

No one political candidate or political party can be identified as having a monopoly on those values. But, as people of faith, it is our responsibility to compare their positions and platforms with the qualities of God’s Reign.

And, to vote accordingly.

Integrity: “the quality of being honest and having strong moral principles.” Sadly, not many politicians of either political party in the United States these days are often described by this particular word. But on this Wednesday after the last Super Tuesday of the primary season, I can point to at least three. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, Mark Kirk of Illinois, and David Johnson of Iowa.

Lindsey Graham, the US Senator who failed in his bid for the Republican nomination this year, quickly denounced Donald Trump’s clearly racist criticism of the “Judge of Mexican heritage” who is presiding over the law suit concerning Trump “University.” Not only did this conservative, southern lawmaker call the comments what they are — racist — but declared his unwillingness to vote for Donald Trump in November. “I understand why others will still support the presumptive nominee,” he said, “But I just can’t.” Integrity.

A similar declaration was made by Republican Senator Mark Kirk of Illinois. Even though he is in the fight of his life for his Senate seat, Kirk said this, “Donald Trump’s latest statements, in context with past attacks on Hispanics, women and the disabled like me, make it certain that I cannot and will not support my party’s nominee for President regardless of the political impact on my candidacy or the Republican Party.” Integrity.

Iowa State GOP Senator David Johnson has actually suspended his membership in the Republican Party to protest “the racist remarks and judicial jihad” of Donald Trump. “I will not stand silent if the party of Lincoln and the end of slavery buckles under the racial bias of a bigot,” Johnson said on Tuesday. Integrity.

If these three men, elected legislators of a political party for which I have lost nearly all respect, are not examples of the noble quality of integrity, I don’t know who is these days. I hope none of them will have to pay the ultimate political price for their courage. Even more, I hope that they may hold out some hope that the leadership of a once-great Party can come to their senses before it is too late.

Perhaps uniting to change the rules and stop Trump, even now, from receiving the formal nomination of the Republican Party is too risky and likely to bring even more chaos into the system from Trump’s mindless supporters. But at the very  least, these leaders should call Trump on his outrageous statements at every turn and seek to “hedge him in” with advisers who can try to steer him on to a saner and less dangerous course.

Even if this fails, these three men have shown that it is possible to speak and act with integrity in the midst of a political season which has shown far too little of it.

Tomorrow is election day. Well, it’s one more of those many “election days” stretching seemingly endlessly across the primary season. Much attention will be placed on California and whether Hillary Clinton wins big enough to clinch the Democratic nomination for President or whether Bernie Sanders will win big enough to continue his relentless march toward what he calls a ‘contested Convention.’

But there are importance races to decide up and down the ballot in many places. Here in Iowa we have to choose the best Democrat to run against the perennial Republican Senator Charles “Chuck” Grassley. The two front runners are Rob Hogg, a youngish Cedar Rapids attorney and state legislator who as the endorsement of the Des Moines Register and Patty Judge, a former Iowa Secretary of Agriculture and Lieutenant Governor in the last Democratic Administration in the state.

I have supported Hogg in a letter to our Quad City Times published on the same day that same paper endorsed Judge. Hogg is the more progressive of the two candidates, extremely strong on the environment and with a proven record of bringing together farmers and environmental activists to find common ground and get things done.

Judge is, in my opinion, much too much in the pocket of “agribusiness” and is also (I know, this is ageism!) is in her 70s and wants to be elected at least to a six year term as senator and presumably would have to serve much longer than that to work her way up to any position of influence in the Senate.

But I encourage any and all to turn out to vote on June 7, and every time we have a chance to make our voices heard at the ballot box. Many have died to give us that privilege. Thousands stand in line in developing countries just for the joy of being able to cast their first actual vote. There is even a theological principle behind the system known as democracy:

That is: the dignity and worth of each individual. Paul says in First Corinthians, chapter twelve  that “there are a variety of gifts but the same spirit.” And that those gifts are given for the common good. Elsewhere, he describes the church as a body with many members and those members, when working properly and working together, helps build the body up in love.

It is not all that different in any community. Power, concentrated in the hands of a few, will inevitably become destructive. But leaders elected with consent of the governed, and presumably, held to account by those same folks, will most likely reflect the values of the community and work for that same common good.

But the system only works if we do.

Our political system is only as effective as we participate in it.

So, vote on June 7.

And every time you are given the privilege.

I went to see my spiritual director yesterday. Actually, she is technically my “former” spiritual director, a 95 year old School Sister of St. Francis whose name is Mary Dingman. When I was elected Bishop of Iowa, I knew that I would need a spiritual companion, preferably one who was “outside the system” of the Episcopal Church. I had been in intentional spiritual direction for over a decade and knew how important such a relationship could be.

One of our priests introduced me to Mary who, at that time, along with a Jesuit colleague ran a small retreat house and spiritual direction ministry in downtown Des Moines called “Emmaus House.” We hit it off immediately and, for the thirteen years I was Bishop of Iowa, we met on a monthly basis, often coupled with a day of reflection on which I would show up at Emmaus House early in the morning (usually on a Wednesday) check into a small room on the second or third floor of the old house), spend the morning in prayer and study, have a simple lunch of bread and soup, spend an hour with Sister Mary in conversation, and wind up the day just before supper time when I would return home.

These days were life-giving for me. Mary saw me through crises of diocesan ministry (including painful instances of disciplining clergy for sexual misconduct), agonizing wrestling with how I would cast a vote at General Convention on some of the most vexing and controversial issues facing the Episcopal Church in those years, and finally walking with me through painful family issues including the death of my first wife in 2000.

Mary  always listened carefully, cared deeply, and was able to bring out of her storehouse of a lifetime of prayer and Bible study just what I needed to hear and learn on a given day — whether that was advice, encouragement, challenge, or counsel simply to “wait on the Lord.” I do not believe I would have been able to survive those difficult years, at least spiritually but perhaps even physically, had it not been for this faithful friend.

She is frail now. And she met me at the door of the modest home next door to a beautiful Roman Catholic Church in the rural village of St. Paul, Iowa where she lives in retirement with her sister. She was wearing a nasal catheter attached to the oxygen supply she now requires after congestive heart failure last year.

But she is as sharp as ever, and we spoke of my life in retirement, the state of ecumenical relations these days, our shared horror at the political situation in our country today, the breath of fresh air Pope Francis is breathing across the church and world, and what it is like to grow old. She said, “You know, one of the hardest things for me entering the convent at 25 was giving up being with my family and living on the farm in southeast Iowa.”

Now, with permission from her order, she is living with her own sister in a tiny community only a mile from the old family farm which her nephew and niece still own and work. “At the end of my life,” Mary said, “God has given it all back — family and the quiet rural life I so loved. Isn’t that amazing?”

“And, you know, even serious illness brings new occasions for prayer, ” she observed, gently touching her oxygen tube, “Before this, I never thought to give thanks for the air.”

Perhaps not, dear Mary, but I have never ceased giving thanks for you.

We’ll see a lot of flags out on this Memorial Day. The houses on our streets are lined with them (a service provided for a small fee by a local service organization on major national holidays like this). I must confess I love our flag. I used to argue that we should carry it in civil rights and anti-war processions in the 60s because we shouldn’t let “them” have sole possession of the flag.

I don’t even mind flags displayed in the sanctuaries or naves of our churches (I know, heresy!). Of course, there are limits. When I was a curate, the parish I served processed the flags (US and Episcopal) right after the cross and torches on Sunday mornings and the acolytes would even flourish them after the first hymn while we sang the fourth verse of “America.” Now that’s over the top!

But I am not ashamed of our church’s role in the nation. Our “mother” Church of England is an established national church. I don’t agree with that polity because I think a certain separation of church and state is important at least in this country.  Yet, the Episcopal Church functioned as a quasi-national church for decades supplying more than our share of congressmen, judges, and even a few presidents.

I even believe that the Episcopal Church is a national church despite our last Presiding Bishop’s insistence that we not be identified as such because we have a presence in many countries around the world (even though we have always encouraged these formerly missionary dioceses to attain independence as autonomous parts of the Anglican Communion as soon as they can). Even our diocese in Europe is showcased by the “American Cathedral” in Paris. Oh, and isn’t our cathedral in Washington DC known as “the National Cathedral?”

I prefer the traditional designation Episcopal Church (USA) to the more-recent and to my mind presumptuous “The” Episcopal Church — as though there were no others, i.e. The Scottish Episcopal Church. What? A national designation? Shocking! I’m even OK with the preferred title in our Canons — The Protestant Episcopal Church in the United States of America (PECUSA)

So, call me a conservative, but I’m fine with churches becoming incarnate in a particular national heritage and identity. I think that’s what the Anglican Communion is all about. As long as that identity doesn’t numb us to our responsibility to be critical of our nation and government when gospel principles call for it.

In fact, that’s part of what it means to be a truly “national” church!