Life has gotten pretty tough in America over the last several years. Six years of war, trillions of dollars of deficits, our economy is in free fall, our moral stature among the nations is laughable, our schools are failing, the fabric of our families falling apart; and global warming threatens to kill us all. Then, just in the nick of time, the One came to us a gift from heaven. “And he shall be called Mighty Counselor…Commander in Chief…President Barack Obama!”
He’s good looking, he’s cool, he’s smart,. He’s got a beautiful family. He reads books. He shoots threes. He’s black. He’s white. He’s African. He’s Indonesian. He’s American. He’s Kansas. He’s Chicago. He’s Yale. He’s Harvard. He’s University of Chicago. He’s Christian. He’s Muslim…well, he might not be muslim! He’s not intimidated by the deep doo-doo in which we are mired up to our necks. He can jump start the economy. He can restore our moral standing in the world. He can end wars in the Middle East. And when he talks…wow! His speeches rebuild the ozone layer. He speaks in complete sentences. Surely he can show us a new way. He can move us past partisan politics of the past. He’s change you can believe in…can’t you?
How many of you watched the inauguration today? We knew we were in for something special when the heavens opened and we saw the Spirit descending like a dove onto President Obama’s shoulder. Did you see him walk across the water of the Tidal Basin? It was frozen. Did you see that miraculous airplane landing on the Hudson River? That was probably Obama’s magnetic personality that eased it down.
We’re funny about making our leaders out to be saviors. My guess is that part of what this is all about is that everyone else is just shooting blanks…out of answers on the economy, out of answers on the Middle East, out of answers in Iraq. Our new President has given us this big blank canvas called “hope.” And on this canvas we are busy drawing out all our problems, and pegging him as the man who can provide solutions.
Don’t get me wrong. I love so much of what I hear this guy say. I’ve certainly got my own wish list I want him to work on...end this terrible war, restore justice to our system of detentions, abandon torture, restore respect for the Constitution, figure out the healthcare, poverty issues. I’ll also have some real disagreements with his policies...particularly when it comes to his policies on the lives of the unborn. You have your own list, your own hopes, your own worries. On this day, let’s be thankful we live in a country where presidents don’t rule for life. On this day, let’s be thankful we live in a country that can elect a man of color to the highest office in the land. On this day, let’s be thankful that someone without means from a broken home can run for president. Let’s be thankful someone with an Arabic sounding name, someone from completely outside the mainstream of the power brokers can rise to the highest office in the land. And let’s be faithful to pray for him, praying that he becomes a great president who governs us well.
But let’s be honest. Maybe we drank a bit too much of this guy’s Kool-Aid. One person isn’t going to take care of all our problems. We’ll pray for the guy, as our president and as a brother in Christ, but surely all our hope is not in Barack Obama.
Our scriptures for this evening speak about the dilemma of hero worship. John the Baptist thought this Jesus guy was the One…the Coming One…the Christ of God…The Anointed…The Messiah. But when it came right down to it, he got all wobbly and doubtful when the Messiah didn’t act like he thought Messiahs should act. John would later send his disciples to Jesus with the question: “Hey, I thought you were the savior from God we were waiting on. Why aren’t you thumping our enemies? Why am I still in jail?”
Andrew thought he knew who this Jesus was too…he told his brother: “We’ve found the Messiah!” He brought his brother, Peter, along to meet this hot shot rabbi, Jesus. Over the next three years, Jesus was to prove to them in a hundred different ways that they didn’t really know what a Savior from God would look like.
Christians are still looking for political Messiahs. How many Christians anointed George Bush as something special from God because he used the lingo? After seven years of war and torture and enriching the rich and not doing much about the poor at all, 27% of the people still think he’s God chosen instrument. Wow. Now we’ve got a guy who is headed an entirely different direction and many of us are ready to put the crown of righteousness on his head too.
John the Baptist and Andrew and Peter and Nathanael all had ideas about the big time leader God was going to send to save the people. It took Jesus about three years of dragging them along as he walked with the poor, healed the sick, disavowed riches, rejected the myth of redemptive violence, looked out for the little guy, shunned power and prestige…and finally laid his life down for his friends before the disciples began to get a sense of “what kind of Messiah” Jesus was.
We have drunk deeply from the national well today, and we’re ready to believe that this time things will be different. This time, things will be better. Our evening text from I Peter seems to indicate that it makes a lot more difference who is sitting in your chair than who is sitting in President Obama’s. Peter writes:
But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s own people, in order that you may proclaim the mighty acts of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light. …Beloved, I urge you as aliens and exiles to abstain from the desires of the flesh that wage war against the soul.
Here, around this table, is where we learn how to be a chosen race…a holy nation…God’s own people. Today we all worshiped at the altar of the United States. God asks us to not take that altar too seriously, finding instead our citizenship here at this table, where bread and wine await…where the towel of service waits…where the sacrifice of our Lord teaches us that violence is never the answer, instead, we must give of ourselves on behalf of others. Just as Jesus took those first disciples under his wing to teach them what kind of a society the Messiah came to create, so he takes us under his wing here to teach us important lessons that we cannot learn at the national altar. Might does not make right. Killing can never bring in the Kingdom of God. The love of money can never serve as a foundation on which we can build our lives. Humility, sacrificial love, emptying ourselves, giving up our rights are the strange and wonderful ways of this kingdom. As we meet around this table tonight, does our citizenship belong to America, or to the Kingdom of God? nvc
