Pray for God’s Justice
First Congregational Church of Evanston
January 6, 2008 (Epiphany Sunday)
Matthew 2:1-12
Psalm 72:1-7, 10-14
Rev. James E. Roghair, Interim Pastor
Children’s Story
The story we read from the Bible about the wise men coming to visit baby Jesus doesn’t tell us too much about these wise men. We’ve heard them called kings, but they weren’t kings. We’ve heard that there were three of them and they were named Caspar, Melchior and Balthasar. But we don’t know that for sure. Today I want you to imagine that Balthasar is talking to you:
My name is Balthasar. I study the stars, night after night. You might call me an astronomer. But astronomers in your time are scientists. Maybe it would be better to calls astrologers. My friends and I study like the scientists, but when we study stars, we expect the stars to tell us important things – things about our lives and about God.
Before we came to Bethlehem, while we were still in our homes in Persia – the country you would call Iran – we saw something amazing. It seemed like a huge new star – maybe your scientists would call it a planet or say it was a group of stars. But remember we didn’t have telescopes and we hadn’t yet figured out the difference between planets and stars. We were just sure this new star meant somebody special had been born in the world – a new king. And the path of the new star told us to go to Judea, the home of the Jews, and find a baby king.
It was a long way, and a hard one, to go to Judea. But we got supplies we would need to cross the desert, and then we went. When we got to Jerusalem, we went to the government – to Herod the King. We asked about this new baby king. We were sure he would know. But the king seemed surprised, and really upset. He didn’t answer us right away, but make us come back another day. We were surprised!
But when we came back, we found out that Herod had talked to other people who studied things, like the way we studied stars. But the ones he talked to studied the old Jewish scrolls – books you call the Old Testament. And they decided that the place for us to look was a little town called Bethlehem. So he sent us there. Crazy thing, he didn’t come with us. Instead he asked us to come back and tell him about the little king. He said he wanted to worship him.
When we came to Bethlehem and we found a house where a carpenter and his wife had a new baby. Someone told us the night this baby was born some shepherds came saying they had seen an angel, too, but people don’t pay much attention to shepherds. We believed this baby was the one the star told us about. So we gave him very expensive gifts – the best we had brought from our country: Gold, insense and spices.
And then just when we were about to head back home, one of my friends had a dream. An angel said we should go back to our country another way because Herod was going to do something bad. So we went on a back road.
We never heard much about that baby after that. He never traveled to our country. We’ve heard that grew up to be a wonderful person, but that he was killed. We have heard that some people are called Christians because of this baby. But we don’t really know what Christians are. Maybe you know more of the story than I do. Well, thanks for listening to my story that’s about all I know about the baby.
Praying for God’s Justice in the King
Epiphany – the last day of Christmas – three kings day in Latin America – a day for remembering that the light of God rises on the whole earth – that Jesus is the light of the world, and not of just his own clan, the Jews.
The Psalm reading today is one of the Royal Psalms, perhaps used in coronations. It is designated as a Psalm of David and is named for Solomon. However, it may come from a later time. But whenever it was written, this Psalm is a meaningful prayer for the king, that he may rule in with God’s justice and righteousness. It is not a prayer that God endorse whatever the king decides to do, but that the King will be motivated by God to do the things that God is concerned with. And so the prayer asks God to help the ruler offer justice to the poor – care to the needy.
Herod the Ruler
Herod the first century King of Judea, Roman puppet that he was, was certainly not the Jewish ideal of a king. For Herod did not protect the vulnerable. Indeed when he had even the slightest inkling of a threat to his own position, Herod killed. Herod executed anyone he suspected of wanting his throne, and that included his wife, his best friend, and three of his own sons. So when Persian astrologers asked about a new king born Herod “was frightened and all Jerusalem with him,” the Scripture says. I can imagine so! And when the Persians didn’t get back to Herod with the whereabouts of the newborn King, Herod killed a whole generation in the town of Bethlehem, just to make sure!
So in the midst of their sorrow, the parents and grandparents of Bethlehem might have longingly prayed to God that Herod would fulfill the role of the ideal King. They might have sung the words of this Psalm. And a poignant prayer it is even for our day. Whether we are talking about a monarchy or a democracy, it offers a glimpse of the ideal role of civil government. If we take it seriously, this Psalm lifts high the bar even for our own political leaders.
Coincidence of Epiphany, Caucuses and Primaries
What an unusual coincidence we have this year. We have just finished the Christmas holidays, a time when it is our custom to remember the needy. We have celebrated New Year (perhaps with good resolutions). But now before we even got to Epiphany (today), Iowa has already had its caucuses last week, and early this week New Hampshire will have its primaries.
What an appropriate time to consider the biblical view of the ideal civil leader! How does our faith affect the decisions we make in our voting booths? What expectations does our faith give us for the candidates? And what expectations does faith place upon us? In our day of democracy and affluence, you and I may at least in part be in the position of the rulers of old. We are an elite people in God’s world.
Richistan
I have only read a review of the book, but it sounds challenging, written by the “Wall Street Journal’s” Robert Frank, Richistan: A Journey Through the American Wealth Boom and the Lives of the New Rich. The theme of the book is that wealthy Americans are a nation unto themselves. He calls it “Richistan.” By 2004, he says the wealthiest 1% of Americans earned more annually than the national income of France, Italy or Canada. And he compares what these wealthiest Americans have done as setting up their own country, with their own health care system (concierge doctors) and their own travel networks (destination clubs). They have an army of personal servants, and an air force of personal jets, and a navy of luxury yachts. I suggest that these folks are like a new kind of royalty to whom the prayer of the Psalm should be raised.
Now, it is easy for us to get concerned about what the very rich do. But of course wealth is a relative term. It doesn’t take a million dollars to be rich in this world. For if you have $2,200 in assets you have more than half the people in the world, and having $61,000 in assets puts you in the top 10% in the world, but $500,000 makes us in the top 1% in the world. Whether we feel like it or not, nearly all, if not all of us are among the elite of the world. And if we are among the elite – the royalty of the world – how do we perform? (Much of this section depends on Homelitics/January 2008)
Our Royal role
If we are Christians – people of faith – then we are people with special responsibility. First Peter 2:9 calls us, the members of the body of Christ, a “royal priesthood, a holy nation.” If we are, doesn’t that make the prayer of the ancient Hebrews in Psalm 72 asking God to make their king accountable for the poor and needy a prayer for us and for our neighbors, too? And is it not a prayer for our church? How can we be the protectors of the poor God calls us to be? How do we Offer salvation to the needy? (Salvation is very practical and earthy in Old Testament language.)
The Political Leaders
We want our political leaders to do what is right. Are we holding them to the embodiment of the ideal civil leader prayed for in the Psalm? And who are the poor and needy we expect them to uphold and protect? Are they not our friends and our enemies in Iraq or Afghanistan? Those in Pakistan or Iran? Are they in Kenya or Darfur? Or on our own streets?
When we vote for a candidate for the office of President of the United States can we broaden our sights to rest of the world? To those 50% of the world’s residents who do not have $2,200 in assets, or the 90% who have less than $61,000. How will the knowledge and the wealth, the food, the clean water and air of the earth be shared among all God’s people?
You and I, elites of the world, God challenges us to have the well being of the poor in our profile. For you and I, and millions of our neighbors, make Barak Obama or Hillary Clinton or John Edwards – we make Mit Romney or Mike Huckabee or John McCain – who they are. Not only by our votes, but by our financial contributions, even by our attitudes and the values we espouse.
Epiphany for the World
So on this Epiphany, this day that we celebrate the glory of God to all the world, as we pray with the ancient Hebrews for just and righteous leaders, we are challenged as individuals and we are challenged as the Church to be on the side of the world’s needy. What we do makes a difference.
Here are some statistics that I discovered this week:
The United States leads the world in levels of charitable activity. The pattern runs from the rich, steeped in a long tradition of philanthropy, to the poor. [But] Those making $20,000 or less a year give away more, as a share of their income, than do higher income groups.
Americans donate their time as well as their money – some $150 billion worth annually (measured by using an estimated average value of $18.04 per hour).
...The urge to make a difference, and to take satisfaction in it, outweighs monetary considerations.
For example, a survey of 945 ultra-rich individuals released [in 2006 found] that slightly more than half would give the same amount regardless of whether the estate tax of deductions for charitable giving were repealed.
None of this means that tax policy is trivial for charitable giving. But the survey suggests that Americans’ penchant fort giving isn’t driven primarily by tax breaks. (Quoted in Homelitics/January 2008 from Mark Trumbull, “America the charitable: A few surprises,” the Christian Science Monitor, November27, 2006)
So where do you and I, we upper 50% – probably at least upper 90% – maybe even upper 1% in the world – where do we fit in? Not only how do we give to the church, but what are we doing for the rest of God’s world?
And finally what are you as a church doing to make a difference beyond the walls of the church and beyond the boundaries of the affluent community?
A few faithful people keep a warming center open once a week for a few hours for the homeless. That is very good. Our mission committee gives a few thousand dollars to various programs that help the needy. That is very good. A few people cook meals at Hilda’s place. That, too, is very good. Are you called to do more? What is it? Ask your new pastor to work with you to discover what you are called to be and do?
Echoing the Psalm it is easy to pray: ‘Give the president your justice, O God, and your righteousness to the members of the Congress. That they may offer your justice and righteousness to the poor.’ But the words come back to us too. We are the leaders and rulers of God’s world. How do we fulfill God’s expectations for us?
Jesus Christ is revealed as the salvation of the world. He is revealed as God’s presence in our midst. Not as a conquering hero, but as a homeless refugee, a pawn in the hands of the ruler, who was afraid for his own position.
May the presence of God in Christ, the champion of the poor, show us how to always be faithful to what we are called.
Amen.
Last Updated: Wednesday, February 6, 2008