Address given at Templederry and Nenagh on Sunday 7th June 2015, the 1st after Trinity, Year B
“There are
three things I have learned never to discuss with people...religion, politics,
and the Great Pumpkin.” So says Linus in the
Peanuts comic strip.
Well, I’m on dangerous ground, because
today I’m going to talk about all three!
First, do you know about the Great Pumpkin?
Every Halloween night Linus sits in a pumpkin patch waiting for the Great
Pumpkin to appear. Every Halloween the Great Pumpkin fails to appear. Every
Halloween a humiliated but undefeated Linus stubbornly vows to wait for him
again the following Halloween. The Great Pumpkin is a symbol of faith and
persistence.
So,
on to religion and politics.
The OT reading (1Samuel 8:4-20, 11:14-15) is
about a momentous change of government for the Israelites.
From the time when Joshua led them across
the Jordan into the promised land of Canaan, right up to Samuel’s day, the
Israelites lived in a fragmented, tribal society with no central authority and
shifting allegiances. They were loosely held together by their common ancestry as
‘Children of Israel’, and also by a shared sense of covenant with the Israelite
God Yahweh. But they prized their independence. They saw no need for a king –
surely Yahweh would protect them better than any human king!
But they lived alongside other peoples who
did have kings, the original Canaanites and neighbouring peoples – Moabites,
Midianites, Ammonites and Philistines. When disputes arose with their
neighbours, the Israelite tribes came together in alliances under charismatic
leaders whom the Bible calls Judges. The Judges led them in sporadic wars
against their neighbours - we remember some of their names, like Gideon,
Deborah and Samson, but others are less familiar.
Samuel is the last in the line of these Judges.
Times are changing. The tribal elders have come to recognise that without
central leadership the tribes will lose their independence. Samuel is too old
to lead, and his sons are wastrels. So they come to Samuel and say, ‘you are old and
your sons do not follow in your ways; appoint for us, then, a king to govern
us, like other nations’.
Samuel holds to the old tribal values. He
dislikes the very idea of kingship. He consults Yahweh in prayer, but Yahweh’s
reply surprises him: ‘Listen to the
voice of the people… They have not rejected you, but they have rejected me from
being king over them… only – you shall solemnly warn them and show them the
ways of the king who shall reign over them’.
Samuel understands the nature of the
contract between a ruler and his subjects: in exchange for protection from
enemies, the people must give up some of their freedom. He tells the people how
a king will behave: “he will turn your
sons into soldiers, your daughters will become his servants; he will take a
tenth of your possessions and give them to his supporters; and you will be like
slaves”. That remains the contract between government and people today –
though government takes rather more than a tenth of peoples earnings in tax
these days.
But the people refuse to listen: ‘No! …we are determined to have a king over us’,
they say, ‘so that we also may be like other
nations, and that our king may govern us and go before us and fight our
battles.’ Despite his reservations Samuel leads the people to make Saul
their king. From that time forward until the Babylonian defeat and exile the
Israelites are ruled by kings - some good, some not so good, and some down
right bad.
The
moral of the story is this, I think.
God does not decree any particular form of
government for us – he leaves it up to us to decide. That implies that it would
be wrong for me – or for anyone else for that matter – to pretend to tell you from
this pulpit what political choices you should make.
But we must take our responsibility seriously.
As Christians that means trying as best we can, prayerfully, to make political decisions
which align with God’s will and promote his kingdom. Such decisions will often
not be black and white, but between shades of grey. We may feel uncomfortable
about this, but Christians cannot withdraw from the political world – God is in
the world of politics as much as he is in everything else.
We
are blessed to live in a democracy in which we collectively choose who governs
us.
We have just experienced the democratic
privilege of voting in two referendums. The referendum on Equal Marriage was
passed by a large majority – the other we’ve probably already forgotten! Wisely
I think, the Church of Ireland did not call explicitly for either a ‘Yes’ or a
‘No’ vote, leaving individuals to vote according to their conscience. Our
Church, including the House of Bishops, is deeply divided on the issue. The
people of the Republic have spoken clearly. Now it is time for all the churches
- including ours - to adjust to a new reality, as Samuel did when he led the
people to crown Saul as king. But I won’t hold my breath for any early change
to the Church of Ireland’s doctrine of marriage.
We’ll have another chance to visit the
polling stations soon, as the General Election to Dáil Eireann must be held by
April 2016, and may come sooner. With the referendums out of the way
politicians are once again starting to wind up their campaign machines. Our
Christian duty when the election comes is to engage with the issues, reflect prayerfully
on what will promote God’s Kingdom and cast our votes accordingly. Only after
counting of votes and negotiations will we know for sure who is to govern us.
Then we will pray for them in the words of the BCP, ‘O Lord, guide and defend our rulers – and
grant our government wisdom’. Amen that they be granted wisdom!
But we may well be faced before long with another
critical decision which will determine how we are governed for generations to
come. The project for ever-deepening European Union is under stress due to economic
and financial pressures and competing nationalisms. The British electorate has
been promised an in-out referendum with an uncertain result. Just as the Israelites
decided despite Samuel to appoint a king – just as our forbears decided 90
years ago to establish this State separate from the United Kingdom - so in our
own time European states including Ireland will need to decide whether to join
in a much deeper financial and political union, in effect a United States of
Europe, or whether to go our different ways.
Let us pray that the Irish people and our
friends in Europe may be guided by the Holy Spirit to make wise decisions.
