November 4, 2018 All Saints Sunday John 8:31-36

            Election day is Tuesday and I’ve never encountered this much hype over the mid-term elections.  Democrats are seeing it as a must win in order take some control of the congress and thus have a check on what the president does.  Republicans see it as a must win in order to keep the president’s agenda clear.  To everyone’s misfortune the public debate has become so polarized that people can’t and won’t listen to each other without prejudgment and practical application has gotten lost.  Many of the struggles and problems of our society will not be solved if one party or the other gets to have their way unopposed.

            While our president’s statements and agenda are in opposition to scripture and our church’s social statements, the secular humanist ideology behind the Democratic Party is also at odds with our core understanding of humanity.

            Perhaps it is easiest to just disengage from it all.  We’ll deactivate our Facebook and Instagram accounts.  We won’t vote.  We’ll just keep our heads down, do our work, get our paycheck or Social Security check, and let other people fight out the problems.

            However, we don’t have that option.  Living in a true democracy is both a privilege and a responsibility.  If we didn’t have representative government maybe we could just ignore it all.  But if you have the privilege of getting a say in your leaders then you also have a responsibility to be active in the political process.

            In an ideal world we wouldn’t have to worry all that much about politics.  We could simply say I’ll focus on my job – whether it is to produce things in a factory, or management, or offering care or services, or being a stay at home parent – and I’ll trust the elected leaders to focus on their jobs, and it’ll all work out for the best.  But that’s not the case.

            I think the roots of all of it are fear, power, and greed.  All of them are age old sins of humanity.

            It’s All Saints Sunday.  Today’s theme and Bible verses have a lot to say about the current state of our country.  Let’s start by naming and avoiding the mistake Christians make all too often when they read Revelation 21:1, “Then I saw a new heaven and new earth; for the first heaven and first earth had passed away, and the sea was no more.”

            Too often people interpret this to mean that the earth and our present reality are of no real importance.  God will wipe them out completely and start over.  And so, if it’s all going away, who really cares?  Who cares about environmental destruction or exploitation of people or all sorts of things?  Just keep your head down.  Suffer when you must.  And know that God will make it all okay.  Basically saying, “Life sucks and then you die.  Deal with it because it’ll all come out okay in the end.”

            That can be a tempting thought, but it’s not biblical.  And it’s not what Revelation 21 intends to teach.  This earth, this creation, is vitally important to God.  God is not going to just chuck it out and start over.

            Christians make a huge mistake in their faith when they think life is just a test to see if you’re worthy enough to go to heaven.  Then God judges who is and who isn’t.  Those who are good enough get to go to the new heaven and those who aren’t, well, we don’t talk about that.  But, “To hell with them,” I suppose.

            In this way of thinking Jesus just came to be a good example to us of how to live in order to make God happy with us.  And the crucifixion is just Jesus being caught in bad circumstances, but since he was such a good guy God raised him from the dead on Easter.  Easter then becomes the center of this escapist way of thinking.

            But if you’ve been hanging around a Lutheran church for a while you know Lutherans take a far more biblical approach.  All four of the gospels in the Bible do this same thing.  Long before we get to Holy Week and Good Friday the shadow of the cross starts to loom over the story line.  We know it’s coming.  The whole story builds towards it.  The gospels climax at the crucifixion, not Easter.  And when all of them get to Easter, they are still pointing back to Good Friday.

            What does John 3:16 say?  Does it say, “For God so loved the world that he raised Jesus from the dead?”  No!  “For God so loved the world that he GAVE his only Son…”

            Perhaps the greatest teaching of the crucifixion we often overlook is the way it shows just how deeply God is committed to this world.  The world’s other religions don’t have that.  If we were Islamic we could just sit back and say: be good, do good works, act in love, and let God take care of the rest because heaven will be better.

            Christian teaching is that God deeply loves this world.  This world is God’s creation and humans have special abilities and responsibilities.

            I’ve never actually heard a parent say this, but I’ve seen it in movies and TV shows, when a parent disowns a child.  A father or mother breaks off ties to a child, disinherits them, and maybe never sees or speaks to them again.  It makes for good drama, and it happens in real life too, but it is rare.  And I’m sure even the parent who does disown a child still thinks about the child and worries.

            Will our loving God disown us or this world?  Not a chance.  God is deeply committed – so committed as to not only put his imprint into history in the form of Jesus but to also die to save it. 

            That’s all been a roundabout way of saying that if God is so committed to this world, so are we.  If God were not committed to this world the story of Lazarus would have a different ending.  Jesus would have said to Lazarus’ sisters Mary and Martha, “I know this is hard but wait for the resurrection from the dead to a new heaven and a new earth.  Then you will see your brother again.”  What does Jesus do?  He goes to the tomb, prays, and then yells out, “Lazarus, come out!”  He calls Lazarus by name and restores him to life.

            God cares about this world.  God cares about our joys.  God cares about our sorrows, even when we are not like Mary and Martha and do not see miraculous fixes to our problems.

            So let’s take the upcoming election, and the cross of Christ, and the theme of All Saints Day – which is death, and God’s love for the world and put them all together. 

            I think these words from Lutheran theologian David Lose sum it up well, “For on this day we do not merely acknowledge death, but we also place it in its proper context.  After all, we gather to worship the One who was given power over death; the One who raised Lazarus to life; the One whose own death and resurrection gives witness to the trustworthiness of the promise made.  In is from the light of Easter Dawn that we confront the darkness of death.  And it is from the other side of Christ’s resurrection that we gain the courage, not to deny death, but to defy it – to defy its ability to overshadow and distort our lives.  For the Risen Christ has promised us that death does not have the last word.  And this means two things for us and for our people.  First, death no longer terrifies us.  Promised a share of Christ’s resurrection, we can look death in the eye and not blink.  Second, and perhaps more importantly, life no longer terrifies us either.  For our whole life is now sanctified – that is, made holy and given a purpose – through God’s promise to be with us and for us and to use us to God’s own glory.”
            And so for Monday, and Tuesday when we vote, and Wednesday when hopefully all the political ads will be over – at least for a short while – and every day after, we are people made holy and given a purpose by God.  Because we can look death in the face and not blink we can live with boldness and confidence.  We do not let political parties define us.  We do not let them define how we will understand the world’s problems and issues.  We do not trust them to solve the world’s problems for us.  Vote yes, but then with the sight God provides see the broken world God loves and realize that God is tirelessly working to fix it. 

            We too can listen, build relationships, restore to health, and bring about God’s kingdom on earth.  Political agendas, party lines, and national policies solve nothing.  That’s not how God solves things.  God came to be with us face to face.  We go out and bring about wholeness and restoration the same way.