What is a King?

The scriptures referred to are Daniel 7:9-10,13-14; Psalm 93; Revelation 1:4b-8 and John 18:33-37.

It doesn't take a Bible scholar to figure out what theme runs through our 4 lectionary readings today. They are all about kingship. Our Old Testament reading is Daniel's vision of one “like a human being” (in the Hebrew, literally “like a son of man”). He is given an everlasting kingdom over all people and nations. In the Psalm we sing of God as king. The two New Testament passages explicitly call Jesus king. In Revelation he is called the ruler of the kings of the earth. In John 18, Pilate, the representative of the Roman emperor who called himself “king of kings,” asks Jesus if he is the king of the Jews. Jesus explains that his kingdom's source is not earthly.

This coming together of the texts is not accidental. This Sunday is the Feast of Christ the King. It falls on the last Sunday of the liturgical year and makes for a perfect transition to the season of Advent. It is a recent addition to the church calendar, having come from Pope Pius XI in 1925. It was in part a reaction to the rise of Benito Mussolini, the fascist dictator, who in turn inspired Adolph Hitler to become the strong man leader of Germany. The pope wished to remind Christians that their ultimate allegiance is to Christ.

Today, though, it brings up several questions: What is a king? Do we need a king? What kind of king do we need? And in what sense in Jesus Christ our king? We will not get to all these questions today and so we will be looking at these topics throughout Advent. Today we will look at what a king is and what he does.

The word “monarch” comes from the Greek and is simply the combination of the words for “one” and “leader.” While monarchy has evolved over the years, during the times of the Bible it meant that the supreme power of the state was wholly invested in one individual who ruled for life. In an absolute monarchy the king rules by decree. His word is law. An individual with such power is outside the experience of most people living in the U.S. unless they previously lived in a monarchy. Even so, most monarchies today are either limited or constitutional, where the king or queen has few powers or is a figurehead, as in the U.K. Only if you have lived in Saudi Arabia, Brunei, Oman or Qatar would you know what an absolute monarchy is like.

Perhaps the best way to understand this form of monarchy is to contrast it with our form of government. While most monarchies are dynastic, with the king or queen being succeeded by their offspring, some countries do elect their kings. We elect our presidents but they do not have absolute power. The checks and balances built into our system by the founding fathers means that each branch of government has certain powers over other branches. So our president cannot declare war; only Congress can. He cannot make laws; only Congress can. He cannot spend the nation's money in whatever fashion he wishes; only Congress can. If he breaks certain laws, he can be held accountable by Congress.

Obviously a politically powerful president can try to get around such restrictions, as we have seen. He can't declare war but if the country is under attack or a serious external threat, he can, as commander in chief of our armed forces, order them into action. Still he is under the War Powers Resolution and Congress must grant him special powers in time of war. He can't pass laws but he can issue executive orders which are as binding on federal agencies as laws are. He can send drafts of laws and proposed budgets to Congress and then lobby hard to get them passed. But if Congress resists him, they can severely hamper him in doing certain things.

In addition, our president is still a citizen and subject to the constitution and the laws of the land. He can be removed for “Treason, Bribery, or other High Crimes and Misdemeanors,” according to the Constitution. In an absolute monarchy, however, there is an absolute division between the ruler and everyone else. He is not under the law; his word is law. The rest of the government just exists to carry out his will. If that scares you, that's understandable. So how did the idea of giving one person so much power develop?

Back when we were wandering family groups and tribes, a tight, nearly military kind of organization was important for survival. The tribe was solely responsible for its own food, shelter and security. Nothing was provided by anyone else. Nothing was taken for granted. Even if it was a group of hunter-gatherers, questions had to be decided, like when will the group go out for food, in what direction, how far and for how long. Who stays behind to guard the camp, the women and the small children? What should the group do if it encounters another group? Should they fight? Flee? Make peace? The most efficient way to organize this was around an individual who had proved himself to be a good leader. In perilous times, a warrior might be best. In peaceful times, a wise judge might be preferred. Hopefully, you got a combination of the two: someone who kept the group safe from external threats and who also kept the group working together smoothly.

Even a chieftain who held his position due to his strength and strategic intelligence as lead warrior had to be good at dealing with the tribe's internal conflicts. After a while, certain problems had arisen often enough that he could articulate certain principles and make them laws. The laws dealt with everything—property rights and ownership, respecting others, who could marry whom, how to determine and punish guilt, etc. You can see examples of this in the Torah, beginning right after the Ten Commandments in Exodus 20. Of course, laws are general and in specific instances, conflicts might involve a clash between two principles, as when someone defending himself murders another person. Tricky situations and possible exceptions meant the chieftain not only made the laws but had to judge individual cases. When the group was relatively small, this was possible without taking too much time away from his other duties. And if the chieftain was wise enough to be impartial in these matters, it made things consistent.

Usually the chieftain was the father or alpha male of the group. This is simply because if you didn't have a wise and effectively protective father, the family or tribe either died out or was taken over by another tribe, often as captives and slaves. While we do know of tribes led by women, like Boudica, chieftains were typically male. He was leader by virtue of his wisdom and prowess, or by taking over from a weaker leader. If you had a good chieftain, your tribe was safe, prosperous and peaceful, at least among yourselves.

As tribes grew, intermarried, merged, developed farming, settled down, built towns and cities, established trade and gained control over larger areas and diverse peoples, the position of the King emerged. He was formerly a tribal chieftain, so strong militarily that he could fend off invaders or conquer neighboring tribes, and so good an organizer that the peoples under him prospered. If he was wise, he allowed former chieftains to be his vassals, ruling their peoples or lands for him. Thus we got an aristocracy, powerful lords who are not the king but who act as his representatives in ruling parts of his kingdom.

The king was not only the leader of the people politically but religiously as well. This probably went back to the time of the chieftains. The patriarch not only organized the security and work of the tribe, he not only made and enforced the laws, he also acted as the tribe's representative to the power or powers who ruled and organized nature, ie, the gods. He expressed thanks for the regularity of seasons, harvests, the migration of herds, and all the things outside human control upon which the tribe relied. The patriarch led the prayers, made the sacrifices, read the signs, and asked for blessings on events in the life of the tribe, like births, maturity, marriages and deaths.

Eventually kings might claim to be divine or to be descended from gods. Even Israel used the title “son of God” for the Davidic ruler. (Psalm 89:26-27) Because of their fierce monotheism it did not mean the ruler was literally divine but that God had adopted him as his own. (2 Samuel 7:12-14) The ideal was always David, a man after God's own heart, who represented God's strength, wisdom and justice. (1 Samuel 13:14)

So ideally a king was a person strong enough not only to protect his people from external threats but to ensure that the group lived and worked harmoniously so as to secure their continued survival and prosperity. He made just laws and acted as judge, resolving disputes and balancing the competing claims of justice and peace. He represented the people before God, giving thanks, asking forgiveness and securing blessings for his people. Good kings were beloved. It is interesting to note that the word “king” comes from the same word as “kin.” At least in the early days, before large nation-states, he could literally be the father of his people.

Those of us raised in the democratic tradition may find our hackles rising in response to the idea of one human being having that much power, especially if his main qualification was his physical or military might. It's why we separated the power to make laws and to judge cases from the presidency and gave them to Congress and the courts. We have the advantage of looking back at history and seeing all the flaws in human monarchies. Yet we can also see how kingship arose and why it was seen to be needed at that time. It is, in some ways, more efficient than democracy. And, when facing a military threat, we also give our president added powers to fight our enemies. Yet we have seen how our system also has flaws. And the Bible itself is not blind to the flaws in kingship. We'll talk about that next Sunday.

Today we celebrate Christ as our King. But what does that mean? We will get to that and other questions in the coming weeks. And this week I am going to leave you with some questions to ponder. Use them as the focus of your prayers and devotions this week.

Ask yourself: if Jesus is my King, how does that affect my relationship with him? How should I treat his words? How does this affect my loyalty to other things?

Use Jesus' words from today's gospel as a jumping off point: “My kingdom is not from this world.” Note that Jesus does not say of this world but from it. What difference does that make?

Next week we will examine the question: Do we, in the 21^st century, need a king? Or would he just be a royal pain?

First preached on November 22, 2009. It has been revised and updated. 

What Hasn't Changed

The scriptures referred to are Daniel 12:1-3 and Mark 13:1-8.

We've heard a lot of language recently that makes it sound like we are facing an apocalypse. Unfortunately, we use the word “apocalypse” wrongly. The Greek word means “unveiling,” a revelation of heavenly secrets. But the most sensational aspect of apocalyptic literature, like the books of Daniel and Revelation and today's passage in Mark (cf. Matthew 24 and Luke 21), is God's supernatural breaking into history, when he brings the current evil age to a close and inaugurates his kingdom. So the word “apocalypse” has come to be associated with the end of the present world order and that's all it means to most people. It is not even an exclusively religious term these days. After the world saw the power of the atomic bomb at Hiroshima and Nagasaki, it realized that God's wrath was not the only thing capable of bringing about such destruction. Now any worldwide catastrophe is called apocalyptic. It is routinely faced by fictional heroes in TV, movies and in science fiction and fantasy novels. In one episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Giles, Buffy's source of information on demons, announces solemnly that the world is going to end. Buffy and her friends look at him in amazement and say, “Again?” In another episode, her boyfriend says he's going to have to learn the plural for “apocalypse.”

Living in the shadow of a nuclear world war that hasn't yet come to pass, we have become a bit jaded and we make jokes. But the fact is that apocalyptic literature arose from a grim situation for God's people. After Solomon's reign, the kingdom of David split into two nations. The northern one kept the name Israel and the southern one, ruled by David's descendants, called itself Judah after David's tribe, though it also included the tribe of Benjamin. Surrounded by much larger neighbors, the two kingdoms were frequently threatened and sometimes were vassals of the empires that contested for control of the Middle East. Then the Assyrians conquered Israel's capital at Samaria and took its royals, nobles, and other elites into exile. The Assyrians resettled other conquered peoples in their place. These people intermarried with the poorer Israelites left behind and became known as the Samaritans. Israel was no more.

You can imagine the shock to the people of Judah. One of the kingdoms of God's people had been obliterated. Their cousins were swallowed up by the Gentiles and they never returned. They became the legendary “Ten Lost Tribes of Israel.” Then, nearly 150 years later, the successor to the Assyrian empire, the Babylonians, did the same thing to Judah, just as the prophets had warned them. It felt like the end of the world for God's people.

The Jews spent 70 years in exile. Then Cyrus the Persian conquered Babylon and let the Jews return home. Scholars think that it was during and after the Babylonian captivity that many of the historical books of the Bible were edited and put into their final form. Examining their history, the Jews came to agree with the prophets that their downfall could be attributed to their spotty record of only occasional faithfulness to God and obedience to his word.

Empires came and went. Syrian king Antiochus Epiphanes, the descendant of one of Alexander the Great's generals, conquered Judea and tried to make the Jews adopt Greek culture. He forbade circumcision and observance of the Sabbath. He commanded that all copies of the Torah be burned. He demanded that the Jewish priests make a sacrifice to Zeus and then he had a pig, the ultimate unclean animal, slaughtered on the altar of God's temple. This was the appalling desecration prophesied by Daniel and which was later used by Jesus as an archetype of a future abomination. (Daniel 11:31; Matthew 24:15) The very existence of Jewish faith and worship were threatened. This is the environment that gave birth to apocalyptic literature.

Apocalyptic literature was a successor to the prophetic writings. In the absence of prophets, religious writers put down visions of how the present evil age would be interrupted by God's judgment in his own good time. Evil would be defeated and those people who remained faithful to God would be rewarded. These visions were meant to encourage and comfort God's suffering people, who were living in a culture that didn't merely disapprove of them but was aggressively intolerant of them. Society rejected them so in apocalyptic writings God rejects that society. Apocalyptic literature rarely offers ethical instruction because they portray the gulf between the faithful and sinners as being too vast.

Because they come out of and depict times when God's people were persecuted and even killed, apocalyptic writings appeal to those who identify with these martyrs. I'll bet they resonate most strongly with our Christian brothers and sisters in Asia, Africa and the Middle East, where persecution of the church still exists. But there are Christians in the developed West who also see our culture as hostile to Christianity and who show a keen interest in the Last Things. Some of them show too much interest. Because I see the true danger of our current times as not one of confrontation with those who want to destroy our faith but of dealing with those who want to co-op and corrupt our faith. Our culture is not trying to wipe out the gospel but to dilute, tweak and amend it. Our problem is not that of being asked to denounce Christ and bow instead to certain idols but of being asked to invoke Christ to bless certain non-Christian ideas. It is an altogether subtler temptation.

This temptation started when the emperor Constantine the Great endorsed Christianity. But he only made it a legal religion, albeit a favored one. When Theodosius 1 made it the official religion of the empire the church acquired political power and authority which corrupted its moral power and authority. It condemned heretics to death and eventually split into factions. In trying to serve both God and the emperor, it confused which things it should give to God and which it should give to Caesar. (Mark 12:17) And it lost its independent voice.

In ancient Israel there wasn't any separation of church and state. But there were schools of prophets who criticized both kings and priests for not acting in accordance with God's word. The twin themes of the prophets were holiness and justice. They were just as concerned with the people's conduct before God as they were with the way they treated the poor. The two are connected. You show respect and love for God by also showing respect and love for the image of God in yourself and others.

Our founding fathers made sure we had a separation of church and state by putting it in the very first amendment to our constitution, along with freedom of speech, freedom of the press and freedom to assemble with others of like mind. They knew that European countries had official state religions and they wanted to make sure the United States did not. The concern, said James Madison, was for the freedom of religion. He remembered Baptists and Quakers being thrown into jail for preaching their beliefs in the days before the constitution. The government should not be able to tell anyone how to think about God, let alone punish them for following their conscience on the matter. People could not be persecuted for their faith, Christian and non-Christian.

So people with dissenting views have the right to express them. They may voice, print, broadcast and stream their viewpoints. I may not legally shut them up, let alone threaten them with harm. I must tolerate them expressing their views. But I do not have to approve of their views. I can in turn voice, print, broadcast and stream my views. We must tolerate the expression of all views but we needn't approve of them. No one has the right to approval.

This is something that has been forgotten in this country. Ours is a diverse land. We have people of every race, national origin, political view, and sexual orientation. The constitution gives each the right to their own views and the freedom to express those views. Our national unity is not based on uniformity but on mutual commitment to the constitution and the rights it guarantees. That does mean, however, that our unity has been tested by extreme views. At times we have even done things that contradict our stated beliefs in individual rights and freedoms. The Sedition Act, the Dred Scott decision, the forced relocation of Native and Japanese Americans, the House UnAmerican Activities Committee and other regrettable actions have gone against the principles upon which this country was founded. But we usually recover our senses, prodded by those who call us back to those basic principles. We have survived and corrected many of those mistakes.

Both parties in the recent election have made it sound like the other side winning would spell the end of the world as we know it, or at least the end of the country as we know it. This is not the first time an election has been spoken of in apocalyptic terms. So it is important that we listen to our Lord in regard to such things. In our gospel passage today he says, “When you hear of wars and rumors of wars, do not be alarmed; this must take place, but the end is still to come. For nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom; there will be earthquakes in various places; there will be famines. This is but the beginning of the birth pangs.” Really bad and scary things will happen, Jesus says, but this is not yet the end. And we can take comfort from that.

Just 40 years after Jesus said this, the nation of Judea rose up in rebellion against Rome and was defeated. The temple was destroyed, Jerusalem was burned and its walls were demolished. The Jewish historian Josephus estimates that over 1 million people died from violence and from starvation. To the Jews it must have felt like the end of the world. Yet the Jewish people survive to this day.

When Abraham Lincoln was elected, the southern states left the union and the Civil War broke out. Historians estimate that 1.5 million Americans died in that war, more than have died in any other American war and in fact more than have died in all the other American wars combined. The US, however, survives.

Jesus warns us not to confuse him with other false Christs who will arise. And we must not confuse the kingdom of God with our country. As Jesus tells Pilate, his kingdom does not come from this world. (John 18:36) As evidence, he cites the fact that his disciples were not fighting to save him. In fact, when Peter pulled out his sword to save Jesus from arrest, Jesus rebuked him, saying, “Those who live by the sword will die by the sword.” (Matthew 26:52) And then Jesus healed the man whose ear Peter had cut with his sword. (Luke 22:50-51) That is the hallmark of Jesus' kingdom: healing, not violence. Peacemaking, not war.

Will things change after this election? Undoubtedly. But you know what will not change? Our duty as Christians to love God above all and our neighbor as ourselves. (Mark 12:28-31) Our duty to love our enemies and do good to those who hate us. (Luke 6:27) Our duty to feed the hungry, give water to the thirsty, clothe those who need it, care for the sick, visit the imprisoned, and welcome the foreigner. (Matthew 25:34-40) Our duty to help women who have lost their husbands and children who have lost their fathers. (Jeremiah 5:6) The commandments not to murder, commit adultery, steal, say false things about others, or want things that belong to others. (Exodus 20:13-17) The commandment to go and spread the good news of God's love and forgiveness and to make disciples of Jesus. (Matthew 28:19-20) None of those have changed. It's not the end of the world. And even if it is, when Jesus returns he wants to catch us doing those things, the work he has given us to do. (Matthew 24:45-46)

For the first 300 years of its existence, the church lived under emperors, some of which persecuted Christians. Yet they prayed for the emperor and showed him due honor, as both Peter and Paul instructed them. (1 Peter 2:17; 1 Timothy 2:1-2) Whether it was Nero, Caligula, Decius, Valerian, or Diocletian, they were to acknowledge him as emperor. But Jesus was their King. They lived by Roman law. (Romans 13:1-7) But if there was a clear conflict between the laws of men and the law of the Spirit, they obeyed God rather than men. (Acts 5:28-29)

We are Christians who happen to be American, not Americans who happen to be Christian. Our ultimate allegiance is to Jesus, who is not American. He is our King. We are his ambassadors. (2 Corinthians 5:20) And our King commands us to love one another. (John 13:34) We are to love our neighbors, which is anyone we encounter, and we are to love our enemies. So there is no one we can hate. And we must remember that this country, like every country, will one day pass away. Heaven and earth will pass away. (Matthew 24:35) Jesus' kingdom will never pass away. (Daniel 7:14) So let us not put our trust in mortal rulers. (Psalm 146:3) We trust in Jesus Christ alone.

First preached on November 15, 2003. It has been revised and updated.

The Story of the that Saints

It's as if Christmas Eve eclipsed Christmas Day: Halloween has become better known than the holy day it's named after. Halloween is just a contraction of “All Hallow's Evening.” It refers to “All Hallows' Day,” the old name for All Saints Day. Celebrated since the late 4^th century, All Saints Day reminds us of how important the saints used to be. Statues and icons of them were found in most churches. Prayers were made to them. The saints became specialized, with each having an efficacy over certain areas of life. Thus if you wanted protection against fire or lumbago, you prayed to St. Lawrence of Rome. If you were a sailor, you might pray to St. Elmo. If you had disappointing children you prayed to St. Clotilde. Pilgrims went to shrines of saints. Bits of their bodies were venerated. How did this state of affairs come about and why do we on the 1^st of November have a holy day devoted to all the saints?

The word “saint” in the Bible meant someone set apart by God for his purposes. So in the New Testament, all Christians are called saints. (Acts 9:32; Romans 1:7; 1Corinthians 1:2; Ephesians 1:1, etc) All were saved by Christ and set apart by God to live by his Spirit and spread the gospel. But as time went on, the apostles were considered saints with a capital S, especially since most of them became martyrs. “Martyr” is just the Greek word for “witness,” someone who testifies to the truth. In the early days of the church, testifying to the truth of Jesus as the risen Messiah and Savior could, in times of persecution, get you killed by the authorities. So the term martyr took on the added meaning of someone who dies for the truth. You can see how the first Christians, those who died for the faith, came to be honored as superstars of the church.

Not only were many of the apostles martyred, but so were many of their successors, whom they had appointed to oversee the church. The Greek word for “overseer” is episkopos, from which we get the word “bishop.” Originally a bishop was one of many elders of a house church. He was chosen to preside over the Eucharist (Communion) and baptisms. As the faith spread and the number of churches in the bishop's city grew, so did his jurisdiction. But he couldn't visit all of them every Sunday so he ordained (which means “listed”) elders to act in his stead. The Greek word for elder is presbyteros, which eventually became the word “priest.”

One of the most famous martyr bishops was St. Ignatius of Antioch. Antioch was the site of the first major church founded outside Judea. It was the church that sent Paul out as a missionary. (Acts 11:26; 13:1-3) Under the emperor Trajan (reigned 98-117 AD), the first one to make Christianity an illegal religion, Ignatius was arrested. As he was transported to Rome, a trip that took months, Ignatius wrote a series of letters to various churches. Seven of those letters still survive. In them he offered encouragement and corrected theological errors and contemplated his approaching death. What is remarkable is his anticipation of his martyrdom. He even writes to the church at Rome not to try to prevent his execution, which will deliver him to God. This is alien to us but Ignatius was not alone in seeing martyrdom as a glorious goal. It was seen as following in the footsteps of Jesus, the ultimate form of discipleship. The alternative was to deny one's faith or hide it from others. So Ignatius embraced his martyrdom. One can see how this heroic stance impressed other Christians.

So the first capital S saints were martyrs. And not all of them were bishops. Ordinary people who stood up for their faith and were executed were also designated saints. However, when the emperor Constantine made Christianity a legal religion in the year 313, martyrdom was largely a thing of the past, unless you were a missionary to the barbarians. So the term “saint” was bestowed on any extremely holy or charitable Christian. Such a person was held up as an example to other Christians. As the faith spread, every region could boast at least one superstar Christian who was designated a saint by local churches and bishops.

When the faith spread outside the cities, it came to the pagans. The word “pagan” originally meant a rural peasant, just as “heathen” used to simply mean someone who lived on the heath, or uncultivated land. Since Christianity first spread from city to city along the excellent roads of the Roman empire, the first Christians were usually urban. Rural people were considered, then as now, less sophisticated and, at that time, more barbaric. (Which is why “villain” derives from the word for a farm servant, one who works on a villa.) Rural people were also more conservative, not willing to change their ways, which meant still holding onto the polytheistic faith of the old Roman pantheon. Agricultural life is hard and they had a difficult time giving up reliance on the gods of the harvest and the rain and fertility. How could one God do it all?

Rural folk also saw the spiritual realm as set up in much the same kind of hierarchy as the empire, where the local landlords and officials were the only contacts one had with authority. Most would never lay eyes on the emperor. In the same way, there may be one supreme god like Zeus or Jupiter, but you usually dealt with the lesser gods who were in charge of the particular departments of life that were your everyday concerns, like safe childbirth or good weather. The idea of having direct access to God Almighty was a strange and probably a frightening one. It would be like a local matter going all the way to the emperor himself. The idea of going through intermediaries was more comfortable. So the form of Christianity that developed in those parts was one where the saints took over for the old gods and took up specialized oversight for the common concerns of the peasants, who vastly outnumbered city dwellers.

Sometimes it was a stretch to connect a saint with some activity, illness or profession and so their lives were ransacked for any link, however tenuous. So if you were a wheelwright, a craftsman working with wheels, your patron saint was St. Catherine of Alexandria, presumably because she was sentenced to be tortured and broken on the wheel. If there wasn't an appropriate saint for the occasion, a pious legend might supply one. My favorite is St. Wigglesfoot the Unencumbered. There were many tales of Christian virgins who prayed to God to protect them from lustful pagan princes. In the case of St. Wilgefortis, God supposedly caused her to grow a mustache and beard overnight. The next day was to be her wedding day but she was rejected by her groom. So St. Wilgefortis, whose name devolved into St. Wigglesfoot, became the patron saint of women who wanted to get rid of their troublesome husbands!

It is said that sometimes a popular local deity was merely “baptized” and reborn as a saint, so to speak. St. Brigid of Ireland may have been a pagan princess converted by St. Patrick. Or she may have been the powerful pagan goddess repurposed. Or the attributes of the goddess and the real woman might have been mixed together in popular lore. In this and other alleged instances of pagan gods turned into saints, it's tough to know for sure since the stories predate writing in most cases. Often our knowledge of certain pagan gods are only available to us because they were written down by Christians in the same way the story of Beowulf was. We know that pagan shrines were often cleansed and repurposed as churches. Was the same done to the former object of worship?

Another reason for the mixing up of at least the functions of the old gods and those of the saints was the incomplete conversion of barbarian tribes. Often what happened was that the missionaries managed to convert the king or tribal chieftain, who would then decree that all his subjects were to be baptized and become Christians. The average member of the tribe was not doing this out of personal conviction and often was in near total ignorance of the tenets of the newly mandated faith. Again, letting go of familiar gods was hard and so the saints were substituted for them in the hearts and minds of these new “converts.” Certainly the spirit of Christianity was often lost when the outer forms of the faith were adopted by tribes whose chief characteristics were the virtues of warriors, not peacemakers. A lot of the problems of the so-called “Dark Ages” did not originate with the church but with the breaking up of the Roman empire into a roiling mass of warring tribes who did not care much for learning the gentler teachings of Jesus.

Eventually the cult of saints degenerated into regional veneration of certain persons whose bodies were considered to be imbued with holiness and miraculous powers. Though some saints were merely great teachers or preachers or charitable souls who helped the poor and suffering, miracles became the primary signature of sainthood. And if the saint didn't display any wonder-working power in this life, then he or she might suddenly manifest this ability after death. He could do this by granting cures to those who pray to him. Or he might do this by simply refusing to rot. If you wish to see how powerful this phenomenon was, google “incorruptible saints” and look at the images. They aren't creepy because they look like they are merely sleeping. At a time when the art of embalming was lost, you can see how a body that did not decompose inspired awe.

The problem was the saints were superstars and like Elvis and Graceland, they attracted pilgrims. And pilgrims brought money. People would pay good money to see and have their prayers offered to a saint. There weren't enough saints to go around so monasteries and churches competed for relics, which were often bits of the saint's bodies.

The cult of the saints became a prime target for the Protestant reformers. The trafficking in saints literally commercialized the sacred, cheapened the idea of God's grace and put a price tag on answers to prayer. In addition, saints were seen, at best, as the objects of superstition and at worst, as objects of idolatrous worship. The whole idea that through Christ we have access to God was lost when people's primary religious devotions were directed at secondary figures of the faith. The church even said that asking a saint to pray for you was akin to asking a fellow Christian to pray for you. Of course, it was felt that since a saint was extraordinarily virtuous, this was like having cash in the heavenly bank, and being continuously in the presence of God gave the saints a much better chance of getting what they asked for than just having your neighbor pray for you. To the reformers, the cult of the saints was basically paganism redux. In addition, people like Henry VIII found it very profitable to denounce the practice and to seize the property and money of monasteries who made a mint out of the saints. Many beautiful works were destroyed in the zeal to purify churches. And few Protestant churches are named for saints, nor do they talk about them much. Unfortunately, that means they don't tell the stories of some truly remarkable Christians.

If we look at the saints as they were originally seen by the early church, as exemplars of Christian living, we can find a lot to appreciate. A former slave, St. Vincent de Paul started organizations for the poor, nursed the sick, and found jobs for the unemployed. St. Rose Venerini founded and oversaw 40 schools for girls despite violent opposition to them being educated. St. Richard Pampuri was a doctor who treated the poor for free, even setting up a dental clinic for them. St. Bridget of Sweden was the mother of 8, one of whom became a saint as well, and yet Bridget found the time to be a counselor of theologians, popes and royalty. St. Raymond of Penyafort gave up law and refused to be made an archbishop to do parish work instead and to start a school teaching the culture and languages of Spain and Northern Africa to missionaries. The first book written in English by a woman came from St. Julian of Norwich, who was widely recognized as a spiritual authority and who wrote of God's love at a time when the world was rocked by the Black Death and peasant revolts. St. Francis of Assisi was a spoiled rich kid and soldier who renounced his inheritance and tried to end the 5^th crusade by going to Egypt and speaking to the sultan. There is a wealth of stories of heroic faith to be had here.

So let us reclaim the saints, their extraordinary lives and the lessons in faith and service they can teach us. But let us also remember that we too are saints, people saved and sanctified by God. We too serve him, even if we don't always get noticed. The hallmark of saints is not miracles but humility. The greatest of the capital S saints would admit that they could accomplish nothing without the grace of God. They all realized that they were ordinary sinners, rescued by God and called to imitate Jesus Christ and continue his work. If they are different from us it is perhaps the extent to which they put God before self and the needs of others before their own. To paraphrase Dag Hammarskjold, saints are those who say “Thanks” to God for all he has done and “Yes” to all he will do. To be a saint, then, is to decide which voice to listen to, your own or Christ's, and which you will obey.

What is Jesus saying to you right now, right here? What are you going to do about it? 

Who Do You Trust?

The scriptures referred to are Psalm 146.

I worked at a radio station in Brownville, Texas for a couple of years. I was the Production Director, which means I wrote, recorded, edited, and kept track of the commercials which provided the main income for the station. The company that bought the station spared no expense at improving it. We moved from a shack out on a rutted rural road to a suite of offices and a brand new studio taking up most of a floor in a nice building in town. They hired DJs who took us from the 12^th rated station in the Rio Grande Valley to the 6^th highest rated. So you would think it was a meritocracy. You'd think they would reward their best ad salespeople.

But by the end of my first year there I could see that there was a preference for the salesmen over the saleswomen. And that was despite the fact that our top 3 salespeople were women. But slowly the women realized they weren't valued, quit and moved on.

There was one guy they made the top salesman, despite the fact that his method was to sell the client on a remote broadcast from their business, like a grand reopening or sale, and give them as many free promos for the event as the ads they bought, effectively selling them our airtime at half price. I couldn't understand why the General Manager and Sales Manager favored this guy, who was always asking for advances on his salary. But he was a great salesman—that is, at selling our bosses on the idea that he was a great salesman. The station was going downhill when I took a job at a radio station in the Keys. The station in Brownsville has since changed ownership, format, location and call letters several times.

Aristotle called man “the rational animal.” The Greek philosopher was giving us way too much credit for using our brains in a rational manner. Or else it would be true that people who make it to the top of their profession would be the best at what they do. But we all know or have worked for bosses who made bad decisions for reasons that made no sense. And yet somehow they achieved or were given positions of leadership. And people under such a boss often talk about him as if he were a genius, even though deep down they know he's not. As Upton Sinclair said, “It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends on him not understanding it.”

Our psalm today begins by praising God and then tells us, “Put not your trust in rulers, nor in any child of earth, for there is no help in them.” I don't know what prompted the writing of Psalm 146 but it contrasts earthly rulers with God, “who keeps his promise forever; who gives justice to those who are oppressed, and food to those who hunger. The Lord sets the prisoners free; the Lord opens the eyes of the blind; the Lord lifts up those who are bowed down; The Lord loves the righteous; the Lord cares for the stranger; he sustains the orphan and widow, but frustrates the way of the wicked.” Since we are to imitate God, a godly ruler should do these things as well. (Ephesians 5:1)

Of course, no one can live up to God's standards, not even David or Solomon. But that's no excuse for them not to do their best. Few athletes win the gold at the Olympics but that doesn't mean they shouldn't aim for that. So let's look at what Psalm 146 says about God's kingship and see what an ideal ruler would be like.

First, we are told that God “keeps his promise forever.” Rulers promise a lot. They often promise things they can't deliver. They cannot magically make other countries do what they want them to do. That takes diplomacy. And it takes allies who can put pressure on rogue nations. Despite what they say, earthly rulers cannot make the economy boom. They cannot make people buy more goods and services, not if the people lack the money or desire for them. They cannot make companies hire more people, not if the companies don't need them or if they can replace them with automation. They can make policies that make the rich richer, as we've seen. Wall Street has become a casino for rich people betting on companies to earn investors more money. Why we've made it a measure of how the average person is doing is beyond me. Nevertheless, rulers can enact policies that help the average person have enough to live on, as FDR did during the Great Depression.

Which leads to the fact that God “gives justice to those who are oppressed.” The Hebrew word for “oppress” means literally “to crush.” And the words “oppressed”, “oppression”, “oppressors” and their variants appear in the Bible 118 times, almost twice as often as adultery. Jesus kicks off his ministry by reading a passage from Isaiah that says he was anointed to, among other things, “set free those who are oppressed.” (Luke 4:18) So according to God's word this is a major concern for him. The Hebrews themselves were once oppressed in Egypt. So God tells his people “You shall not oppress one another, but you shall fear your God, for I am the Lord your God.” (Leviticus 25:17) And they should fear him because God is just. Justice, which is also translated righteousness in some contexts, appears 157 times in the Old Testament alone. According to Psalm 37, “The godly speak wise words and promote justice.” (Psalm 37:30) A godly ruler should seek to give justice to the oppressed.

Next we are told that God “gives food to those who hunger.” God made the world with abundant food sources. Experts say we can feed everyone in the world. Yet as many as 733 million people in the world still go hungry. Why? Poverty is one reason. 35% of the world's population can't afford a nutritious diet. Conflict is another reason. 85% of people facing hunger live in areas affected by conflict. Conflicts can keep food from getting to people in war-torn areas. And the climate crisis is causing temperatures to rise and weather to become more extreme, causing droughts and famines. (You can learn more at actionagainsthunger.org.uk) We waste and throw away a lot of food as well, costing the global economy $1 trillion a year. In France, grocery stores are legally required to donate unsold, edible food to charities and food banks. Remember, Jesus fed 5000 people, the only miracle recorded in all 4 gospels. And what was left was not thrown away but gathered up in baskets. A godly ruler would work to reduce poverty, end food waste, resolve conflicts and work to keep the climate from getting hotter.

Next we are told, “The Lord sets the prisoners free.” There are 11.5 million people in prison worldwide, with 25% of them, around 2 million, in the US. That's the largest total number of any nation, followed by China, Brazil, India and Russia. The countries with the highest rate of incarceration (prisoners per 100,000 citizens) are El Salvador, Cuba, Rwanda, Turkmenistan, and American Samoa, in that order. Obviously, some people do things so bad they must be removed from society to protect it. But just as obviously with such large numbers and the fact that humans are imperfect, there must be a lot of people who should not be there. Even if the justice system was right 99% of the time that would still mean it was wrong in 20,000 of the cases. And we know that for many people the main barrier to being free is lack of money. The reason Bernie Madoff and Jeffrey Epstein were the focus of so much news coverage was that, in addition to the scope and nature of their crimes, there was the novelty of seeing very rich people kept in jail. And again in his mission statement, Jesus said he was sent “to proclaim release to the captives.” Both he and his cousin John the Baptizer were falsely imprisoned. A godly ruler would work for reform of our justice system so that the innocent would go free.

The Lord “opens the eyes of the blind.” This is something Jesus proclaimed at the beginning of his ministry and he healed many who were physically blind. And there are many Christian ministries which help the blind and which work to reduce preventable causes of blindness and visual impairment. But this verse could also mean the spiritually blind. Jesus said, “For judgment I have come into this world, so that those who do not see may gain sight, and the ones who see may become blind.” (John 9:39) It's clear he was talking about spiritual blindness, the inability to see God at work in him and to discern between God's values and the world's values. In his Sermon on the Mount Jesus repeatedly contrasts the world's values with God's. He says that the blessed are not those the world would see as such. He condemns anger, hatred, adultery, retaliation, hating your enemy, passing judgment on others, and worshipping money. Jesus also condemns being a hypocritical follower of him. (Matthew 5-7) A godly ruler helps the disabled and makes sure that he himself is not spiritually blind but does what Jesus tells us to do.

Next we are told “the Lord lifts up those who are bowed down.” In the previous psalm, there is a parallel line: “The Lord upholds all those who fall and lifts up all who are bowed down.” (Psalm 145:14) So this seems to apply to those who are bowed down by misfortune. As it says in Psalm 34, “The Lord is near the brokenhearted; he delivers those who are discouraged.” (Psalm 34:18) Jesus said, “Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke on you and learn from me, because I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy to bear, and my load is not hard to carry.” (Matthew 11:28-30) God comforts and encourages those who suffer and are weighed down with troubles. A godly ruler does what he can to help the helpless and to give hope to the hopeless.

Next we are told “The Lord loves the righteous.” Remember the Hebrew word for righteous also means just. So the Lord loves those who are just and act in fairness. The book of Proverbs says, “If a king judges the poor in truth, his throne will be established forever.” (Proverbs 29:14) It also says, “The one who acquits the guilty and the one who condemns the innocent—both of them are an abomination to the Lord.” (Proverbs 17:15) But the Lord is also a God of mercy. Jesus said, “Blessed are the merciful for they will be shown mercy.” (Matthew 5:7) Proverbs says, “Mercy and truth preserve the king and his throne is sustained by kindness.” (Proverbs 20:28) A godly ruler will be both just and merciful.

Next we read, “the Lord cares for the stranger.” The Hebrew word translated “stranger” means “alien, foreigner, immigrant.” From the beginning God anticipated that foreigners would immigrate to Israel. In the Ten Commandments, the commandment not to work on the Sabbath applies even to the “resident foreigner who is in your gates.” (Exodus 20:10) And just 15 verses after saying, “love your neighbor as yourself,” Leviticus says, “The foreigner who resides with you must be to you like a native citizen among you; so you must love him as yourself, because you were foreigners in the land of Egypt. I am the Lord your God.” (Leviticus 19:34) Foreigners are mentioned over 200 times in the Bible, so this is not something trivial in God's mind. And in Jesus' parable of the last judgment he says, “I was a stranger and you welcomed me.” (Matthew 25:35) A godly ruler would not wrong or oppress immigrants and resident aliens. (Exodus 22:21)

Then we are told that God “sustains the orphan and widow.” Technically the word translated “orphan” means a “fatherless child.” Widows and the fatherless were usually the poorest people in the Bible. And even today 56% of those living in poverty are women. And 1 in 3 single women with dependents are living in poverty. The widow and the fatherless are often grouped with the immigrant as people God especially cares about. Deuteronomy says, “For the Lord your God is God of gods and Lord of lords, the great, mighty, and awesome God who is unbiased and takes no bribe, who justly treats the fatherless and the widow, and who loves the resident foreigners, giving them food and clothing.” (Deuteronomy 10:17-18) This was done through an offering of a tenth of the people's produce that was collected every 3 years. It was given so that the landless Levites as well as “the resident foreigners, the orphans, and the widows of your villages may come and eat their fill so that the Lord your God may bless you in all the work you do.” (Deuteronomy 14:29) James says a mark of true religion is taking care of widows and orphans. (James 1:27) A godly ruler would make provision for widows and single women with dependents to have enough to live on.

Finally, we are told, almost as an afterthought, that God “frustrates the way of the wicked.” I say, as an afterthought because all of the other ways in which God is superior to earthly rulers is in how he treats the disadvantaged, the destitute, the diseased, the disabled, the despised, and the discouraged. Only at the end of this list is God's treatment of the wicked mentioned. Most people think God's number one priority is punishing bad people. But, no, it is helping those who need help, those the world considers losers. God champions the underdogs of society. And anyone who calls themselves a godly ruler should do the same.

This Tuesday we can do something Jesus wasn't able to do: vote for our earthly ruler. And of course, none of those running are perfect matches for the godly ruler. But neither do all people who win the gold at the Olympics get scores of perfect 10s. The judges look for the one in the contest who best matches the Olympic ideal. We too must prayerfully consider who is closest in making God's priorities of helping the oppressed, the hungry, the prisoner, the blind, the bowed down, the resident foreigner, the widow and the fatherless their priorities.

In Jeremiah God says to his people, “You must change the way you have been living and do what is right. You must treat one another fairly. Stop oppressing foreigners who live in your land, children who have lost their fathers, and women who have lost their husbands. Stop killing innocent people in this land. Stop paying allegiance to other gods. That will only bring about your ruin. If you stop doing these things, I will allow you to live in this land which I gave to your ancestors as an inheritance.” (Jeremiah 7: 5-7) If he says that to the Israelites, why would we think he not would want us to do the same?

We like to say we are a Christian nation. If so, shouldn't we act as Jesus says we should? Jesus said that not serving the hungry, the thirsty, the alien, the naked, the sick and the imprisoned is the same as not serving him. (Matthew 25:31-46) Do we think he was joking? If we take Jesus seriously, we must do what we can to help those whom he told us to help. And we should use our right to choose our leaders to make sure that, when it comes to people in need, their priorities are as close to God's priorities as we can get.