ACT OF WITNESS
Matthew 21:12-17; Ephesians 6:10-20

A sermon given by the Rev. Richard H. Taylor
October 24, 2004 / Twenty-first Sunday after Pentecost

Today I want to raise with you the question: what did Jesus say? What is the Gospel about?

I want to raise this question with you because an election is coming up. Christians of all varieties will enter the polling booth and be asked to make an act of witness. God will witness your vote, and God will witness your mind, and God will witness you heart.

I have no comments for you on the candidates, but I do have comments on issues. Every Christian should have issues that burn in their hearts. In America we can not throw all praise or blame for what happens in our country onto a dictator or an absolute monarch. We have a role to play. Decisions rest on our shoulders. We must witness to what we believe.

But what do we believe? What is most important?

I have been startled that some religious groups have been able to boil Christianity down to one or two issues; as if there were some litmus test to identify Christians. I have also seen a list that has five absolutes on it. What is surprising to me about the list of five things is that some of the issues of the people who have written those lists are barely mentioned in the Bible. On one list a litmus issue is denying rights to homosexual couples. Jesus never even mentions homosexuality. How did that get to be a litmus issue?

Think about what Jesus actually said. You have heard a list this morning. How often did he talk about providing healing for the sick? How often was he concerned about feeding the hungry? How often did he lament over cities about the things that make for peace? How often did he drive out the robbers and the money changers, and instead devote miraculous efforts to heal the blind and the lame? Take a score of what issues are really important in the Gospels. Then witness to Jesus' issues.

In preparation for your witness let me remind you of some truths of the world we live in.

This summer the World Alliance of Reformed Churches had a meeting in Accra, Ghana. This is the international confessional family that our Church, the United Church of Christ belongs to. Now recently the international Episcopal family, the Lambeth Conference, has gotten a lot of publicity. I'm sure you know what issue is on their mind. But the media paid no attention to our confessional meeting, even though ours is as large a fellowship as the Anglicans. The main statement that came out of our family meeting was this: "We reject the current world economic order of global non-liberal capitalism."1 Let we repeat that, "We reject the current world economic order of global non-liberal capitalism." When our sister churches from Ghana, and the Philippines, and Brazil, and Europe and America came together their chief interest was changing economic realities to meet the needs of the poor.

This is the world we live in:

Approximately eleven million children in sub-Saharan Africa are orphaned because of AIDS. That disease kills 6,000 Africans a day. Twenty-three million people in that part of the world alone are infected with this disease.2 This is our world. What is your witness?

When Google's Initial Public Offering a few months ago made its founders billionaires, federal tax subsidies contributed more than nine million dollars (one-eighth) of their immediate seventy-two million dollar profit.3 We can give nine million dollars to Google owners, but we can’t build housing in Providence. This is our world. What is your witness?

In Sweden the percentage of children living in poverty is 2.4%. In France the number if 7.2%, in Canada it is 13.9%. But in the United States of America the percentage of children living in poverty is 20.3%.4 This is our world. What is your witness?

The current biggest development project in Africa is the $3.1 billion dollar Chad to Cameroon oil pipeline. When the World Bank supported this project it promised that revenues would help the local economies, education, and health care. Our sister Church, the Presbyterian Church in Cameroon, says nothing is happening. They have called upon us to pressure Exxon-Mobil and Chevron-Texaco to find out where the dollars are going.5 This is our world. What is your witness?

In the United States one third of American women are low income. Of people over fifteen years of age on Medicaid – health aid for the poor – 70% are women.6 This is our world. What is your witness?

What actually did Jesus say? What issues did he spend his life talking about? What is your witness?

Let me now give you my witness. I would like to join publicly with a petition assembled by Sojourners magazine.

"I believe God is not a Republican, or a Democrat."

I also believe that Christians can not be single-issue voters. Here are some issues that I believe are central to the commitments of Christians:

"[I] believe that poverty – caring for the poor and vulnerable – is a religious issue. Do the candidates’ budget and tax policies reward the rich or show compassion for poor families? Do their foreign policies include fair trade and debt cancellation for the poorest countries?

"[I] believe that the environment – caring for God’s earth – is a religious issue. Do the candidates’ policies protect the creation or serve corporate interests that damage it?

"[I] believe that war – and our call to be peacemakers – is a religious issue. Do the candidates' policies pursue 'wars of choice' or respect international law and cooperation in responding to real global threats?

"[I] believe that truth-telling is a religious issue. Do the candidates tell the truth in justifying war and in other foreign and domestic policies?

"[I] believe that human rights – respecting the image of God in every person is a religious issue. How do the candidates propose to change the attitudes and policies that led to the abuse and torture of Iraqi prisoners?

"[I] believe that our response to terrorism is a religious issue. Do the candidates adopt the dangerous language of righteous empire in the war on terrorism and confuse the roles of God, church, and nation? Do the candidates see evil only in our enemies but never in our own policies?

"[I] believe that a consistent ethic of human life is a religious issue. Do the candidates' positions on abortion capital punishment, euthanasia, weapons of mass destruction, HIV/AIDS – and other pandemics – and genocide around the world obey the biblical injunction to choose life?"7

I make this act of witness.

I encourage you to make your act of witness in conversation and in the voting booth. Jesus was not afraid to tell us where he stood on the pressing issues of human survival. Do not twist his words or forget his actions. Make your own act of witness this month.

Let me end with some words from the Nicaraguan poet Marianella Corriols Molina:

"!Quiero un orden Nuevo!
Para inundar el mundo
con risa, cantos,
escuelas, pan, poemas,
ninos que no pasen hambre,
jovenes sin Guerra."

"I desire a new world order!
To flood the world
with laughter, songs,
schools, bread, poems,
children who don’t go hungry,
youth without war."8

Amen.

1 – "God 1, Mammon 0", Sojourners, vol.33,#10, October, 2004, p.11.
2 – "Bling for a Better World", Sojourners, vol.33,#11, November, 2004, p.11.
3 – "Google Green"' Sojourners, vol.33,#10, October, 2004, p.11.
4 – “Rags in the Midst of Riches", Sojourners, vol.33,#9, September, 2004, p.11.
5 – "Accounting for the Poor”, Sojourners, vol.33, #10, October, 2004, p.11.
6 – "Sick and Tired", Sojourners, vol.33, #9, September, 2004, p.13.
7 – "God is Not a Republican. Or a Democrat.", Sojourners, vol.33, #10, October, 2004, p.35.
8 – "Be Part of the Movement", Sojourners, vol.33, #10, October, 2004, p.51.