My Presidential endorsement with reference to 3 fictional characters (Part 2 of 3)

         I just want to clarify something. I am doing this 3-piece endorsement as a private citizen, not as Pastor of St. Stephen, or as a representative of the ELCA.

         You might remember back in 2014 an organization attempted to bribe me to endorse candidates from the pulpit. And again, this year, representatives from one of the two main political parties in Middlesex (it’s local folk so I don’t really want to get anyone in trouble) have encouraged me to cede my pulpit to local candidates, which I have not done… for all the same reasons I didn’t endorse people from the pulpit in 2014.

         So again, this endorsement is not my church’s position, it is mine alone. So, onward and upward.

Pedro for Hillary

         I am endorsing Hillary Clinton because of Pedro. Not because Pedro, and Latinos everywhere are less likely to be demonized under a Clinton administration than under a Trump administration, though that is potentially a thing.

         No, I’m endorsing Hillary because Donald is promising to “make our wildest dreams come true,” but won’t deliver. He’ll promise anything to anyone.

Trump promised me healthcare, but not really

         For example, I had such a hard time figuring out what Trump will do with healthcare, because he’d promised the socialists a socialist policy, the libertarians the complete erasure of government involvement in healthcare, and then he had his actual policy.

         On healthcare he promised to make all of our wildest dreams come true.

Trump is offering Memberberrys

         I mean, think about his campaign slogan itself “Make American Great Again.” A great dream, especially if you don’t think America is currently great, but you remember the good old days when everything was coming up roses. But the question is, how do you even do that? Short of inventing a time machine you can never go back, “You never step into the same river twice.” It’s like the “memberberrys” that become sour grape in South Park. You can’t go back and trying will be pretty horrible.

         But let’s look at a few more of Trump’s “Make America Great Again” promises.

He makes all kinds of promises, most pretty out there and unworkable

         His biggest campaign promise, the Wall, will not actual be a wall, despite him describing it growing in size and so on. And if he builds the wall he’ll have to capitulate to Democrats on all kinds of issues (hey, maybe that’s how I’ll keep my health coverage).

         He also promises that he has a secret plan to defeat ISIS, America is going to take away ISIS’s oil, General Patton is going to lead the Army again, we’re going to use nuclear weapons again, China will invade North Korea for us so they’ll give up their nuclear weapons, and our alliances across the globe are going to be changed into a protection racket.

         On top of that, we’re going to ban all Muslims, build the Wall, renegotiate ALL our trade deals, force American companies to work only in America, and everyone is going to say Merry Christmas instead of Happy Holidays!

It is a compelling vision and story

         I really do see some of the appeal of this dream. ISIS gets a good kick in the teeth, no more stalemate wars like Iraq and Afghanistan, money flows back to the US of A to fix our potholes and pay for our debt, gas is back down to under a dollar a gallon because we're taking it from Terrorists, people will receive good money for good work again. (Clearly I also recognize a land war in Asia, kneecapping NATO, nukes going off, citizens being denied entry into the country based on their religion, etc, would be nightmarish).

         I get why people are buying into this dream, they distrust elites.

         “Look,” they say, “during World War 2 a bunch of non-elite farm boys got together and defeated Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan, then came home and created the best job market ever known, so,” they could rightly ask, “why can’t these elite folk do a few simple tasks like defeat a pocket of religious radicals and revive the manufacturing sector?” Then they’d go on, “Well, if they aren’t doing these things, it must be that they’re corrupt, that they are benefiting from our suffering!”

         And along comes Trump, “You’re right, Crooked Hillary and Elitist Obama are getting rich at your expense! I myself have soaked in this corruption, but now I’ll do the relatively simple task of fixing everything. It’s actually really easy, I’ll have it done by next week.”

         I want to believe it myself. I want all my dreams to come true!

But having concrete policies made for the real world is important

         But I also recognize we live in the world as it is, not as we wish it to be. I believe Hillary Clinton’s plans for America will make America safer, more prosperous, more united, and more dominant on the world stage than would the empty slogan, “Make America Great Again.”

         So, because Hillary has policies and Trump has a slogan please give Hillary Clinton a second look.

Up next Cartman.

Sermons from the last two weeks

What if Roles were Reversed?

Sermon at St. Stephen's Pet Blessing

My presidential endorsement with reference to 3 fictional characters (Part 1 of 3)

Walter White for Hillary

         I’m endorsing Hillary Clinton because of Walter White.

         Yes, Walter White, the Chemistry Teacher who gets cancer, can’t pay his medical bills, and breaks bad by selling meth, becomes the drug king “Heisenberg” and ruins the lives of almost everyone he loves in the process.

My Own Experience

         I have a pre-existing condition, Pulmonary Atresia with VSD (a heart condition). This means, before the Affordable Care Act was law insurance companies would do everything that could to not pay for my medical expenses. For example, while I was on internship I had a check-up and found out my insurance company at the time refused to pay for anything that involved my heart, and cast the widest net possible in defining what involved my heart. I actually had to enlist Governor Martin O’Malley and the Attorney General to help me fight for basic healthcare!

         So, in my experience, without the Affordable Care Act, a basic check-up that is required for someone with my condition costs over $10,000 and I have to pull every trick I know how to do, and figure out some I don’t, just to make sure the free market doesn’t swallow me whole. After the passage of the ACA it costs $2-4,000.

         When (not if) my valve will need replacement under the ACA it will be very difficult to pay off my medical expenses, but with hard work and perseverance I’ll get it done. If my valve needs replacement, and the ACA is not in place, I won’t be able to pay my medical bills.

This shapes the lives of over fifty million Americans

         This is not a position unique to me. 57,200,000 Americans have a pre-existing condition. Before the ACA insurance companies could in a variety of ways, choose not to cover us or punish us for our pre-existing conditions. To be clear, many pre-existing conditions are not as extreme as mine, for example acne, asthma, diabetes, and high cholesterol. At the same time, imagine an insurance company using your pimples as an excuse to not pay for treating any part of your body that has skin on it!

         So, for me, and many like me, where the two candidates fall on the ACA is incredibly important.

Donald Trump’s Position

         Donald Trump’s position on the ACA is all over the map. In fact, he’s redone his official position page since this morning. He’s claimed that he loves a socialist system like Scotland, that he’ll protect people with Pre-existing conditions, that he’ll repeal the ACA and not replace it with anything.

         Then there is the current position on his website (again, different than the one I read this morning). Look carefully at his official position (if you can, the page keeps changing). He’ll repeal the ACA on day one. Then he says he’ll replace the ACA, but makes no mention of Pre-existing conditions. He continually focuses on the free market and unleashing the power of business to provide goods and services. In my experience, businesses are happy to use their power to deny goods and services when it comes to paying for healthcare of people with pre-existing conditions.

Hillary Clinton’s Position

         Unlike Donald Trump’s position on the ACA, Hillary is clear, she’ll keeps laws in place to protect people with pre-existing conditions. Additionally, she’s been consistently fighting to provide healthcare for all since the Children’s Health Insurance Program back in the ‘90’s.

The Choice

         I know some people I’ve talked to think it is really bad to be a “one issue voter.” In fact, they seem to think my opinion on who should be president doesn’t count because I have real skin in the game, that one particular policy will shape my life in a big way, so I can’t be objective. I’d love to be objective! I’d love to make this decision looking down on it all, like Gloucester on the cliff in King Lear, or to treat elections like some game or game show, like it is Dancing with the Stars or a way to express my particular cultural and social location.

         But I don’t have that privilege.

         If Hillary is elected I spend 10% or less of my income on check-ups, and when my valve goes I struggle financially for a year, but stay afloat.

         If Trump is elected I spend 25% of my income on check-ups and call in favors, and when my heart valve goes I die, go bankrupt, or break bad.

         So, for the sake of all of us with pre-existing conditions, please give Hillary Clinton a second look.

Next up, Pedro.

Coming Soon: My presidential endorsement with reference to 3 fictional characters

Walter White from "Breaking Bad"

Pedro from "Napoleon Dynamite"

Eric Cartman from "Southpark"

Sermon: What if Roles Were Reversed?

What if Roles Were Reversed?

          Have you ever seen those body switch, or mind switch, or role reversal, movies?

“Big” with Tom Hanks, or “Trading Places” with Eddie Murphy, or any of the 3 “Freaky Friday” movies, or “The Hot Chick”, or “Change Up”, or “13 going on 30”, or “18 again”. Characters switch places, and learn a valuable lesson by walking in someone else’s shoes.

          That’s what Jesus is up to in this story he tells to these well-heeled religious folk.

“Imagine if,” Jesus suggests, “a rich man traded places with a poor man. The poor man receives royal clothing and good food and comfort, the rich man sores and scraps and agony.

Previously they were separated by a gate, now by a great chasm.

Previously the rich man was merciless, now he is denied mercy.”

         

What if the opposite was true? / What if roles were reversed? These are deep questions.

In Philosophy, this situation is called “the Veil of Ignorance.” If you are making rules for a society you must do so with the assumption that you don’t know what kind of person you’ll end up as in society, and therefore you will write rules that are fair and good. You are less likely to write laws targeting any one group, if you yourself might become part of that group.

          What if the roles were reversed? Think of what this simple question does? Imagine it!

Imagine with me, what Monday’s presidential debate would look like if Hillary Clinton’s mind went into Donald Trump’s body and vice versa. I’d imagine this situation would reveal some hypocrisy, with Democratic Party Pundits extoling Trump in disguise, and Republican Party Pundits acclaiming Clinton without knowing it.

          Or imagine if a white Vietnam Vet and Colin Kaepernick, now known for protesting the mistreatment of African Americans in this country by kneeling during the national anthem, imagine them changing places for a week. Wouldn’t that be a fascinating conversation to hear on the other end of that experiment, the two of them talking through their experiences as one another?

          Or imagine the 11 million people in the state of Georgia trading places with the 11 million Syrians who have fled their homes in the face of Civil War. How would this shape America’s treatment of refugees? How would Syrians view Americans after that experience?

          How would the many divisions we find in this world change if, even for a blink of an eye, roles were reversed all over the globe, people put in positions they’d never expected?

          What if the roles were reversed?

Prayer

          What if the roles were reversed?

          How would those at ease in Zion feel, if they were thrown from themselves and inhabited the lives of their neighbors threatened by Assyrian armies? Would they continue to luxuriate while their brothers trembled, after they themselves trembled for a time? Or would they feel compassion?

          I’ve mentioned this word before—com-passion—suffering along with, someone else. Would they be moved to grief at the sight of their sisters exposed to the sword?

          Would Amos and his deep, prophetic, anger at them, be blunted and turned away—would they at ease in Zion be spared God’s wrath, if they had the basic human decency to care?!?

          What if the roles were reversed?

          Would Timothy’s rich congregants, tempted as they are, find contentment, trusting they have enough when they get what they need, without pushing the envelope and pursuing what they want—if they traded places with the poor among them?

          If they experienced a life where food and clothing was all you get, would they… be humble, turn away from the idolatry of wealth, do good, be generous, and share, as Timothy is advised to command of them? Could they too experience life that truly is life!?!

          What if the roles were reversed?

          That’s what the rich man is asking too, right?

What if my experience of this role reversal with Lazarus could be passed on?

What if my five brothers could be warned?

If Lazarus warns them, couldn’t they maybe be saved?

Could they maybe see their own Lazaruses? See the folk resting hopelessly at their own gates?

Can’t compassion be passed on to them and this evil be avoided?

Can’t contentment visit their house?

          And Abraham responds, “Nope.”

“Nope. The extended story of God acting to save His people from slavery in Egypt should have been a clear signal to them that God cares about those down on their luck.

          “But!” the man continues.

          Abraham cuts him off, “For that matter, have you even read the Prophets? I mean, if you read the book of Amos and like it, you don’t understand it

—if it doesn’t make you run in repentance with your tail between your legs, nothing will!”

          “But that’s God speaking to us in a book, no one takes that seriously!” the rich man protests, “Send someone from the dead! How could people not be moved by a man come back from the dead?”

          Abraham replies, “If Moses and the Prophets don’t do it, even a man risen from the dead won’t move people.”

         

          But, thank God, Jesus doesn’t come only to warn us—he comes to free us.

          He, in fact, switches places with us,

reverses roles with us.

He takes on our sins…

our sins, once many, are no more.

We’re freed of that debt

—but not for license or luxury or privilege—

We’re freed for community, for the sheer joy of discovering what God is up to,

where God is found.

He takes our sins, but gives us his eyes…

The whole world looks different! Our eyes have been replaced… “we can see clearly now!”

It is as if, in Jesus reversing roles with us, we have in fact switched place with our neighbors, and now know a little more fully the face of God.

Yes, with these new eyes, the eyes of faith…

Christ has given us new eyes to experience holiness all around.

Our whole life is one extended dive into the waters of baptism;

it is an ongoing transformation of our lives and our relationship to all people…

all of creation, even!

          If we are freed by Christ, we are freed to seek him out in our neighbors.

Once we looked and saw no one but Lazarus, now we see our Lord.

I ask you, “What if the roles were reversed?” because they are! A+A

Sermon: Grace doesn’t make Cents

Hey, Jesus, you’re squandering God’s grace.

You’re throwing it around like New Money at Sacks 5^th Avenue.

                If you’re truly on God’s payroll, you’d hold back, and not associate with people like that

—sinners, tax collectors, all those people not welcome at God’s table.

—You’re squandering God’s goodwill,

you’re being a bad steward of God’s kindness,

God’s grace.

                Then, as we know, Jesus responds to such accusations with stories about lost things, lost animals, and lost people. He tells the religious authorities

—God is like a woman scouring her house for a single cent.

—God is like a shepherd leaving all his sheep alone in the woods in order to find a single lost one.

—God is like a father embarrassing himself for his sinner son’s sake…

—You all, however, are like a jealous brother who embraces his father’s embarrassment, and holds a grudge against this lost son who was found.

                Jesus leaves them, but maybe the Disciples aren’t fully convinced—we rarely are right?

Maybe they are murmuring about cost-benefit analysis,

or wondering where their next meal will come from,

or wondering what they’re neighbors will say when they notice them dining with undesirables.

                I’d imagine Jesus stops suddenly along the road, maybe Thomas is looking down at his I-Phone and doesn’t notice until he runs into Andrew, not such a good thing—he’s got a temper on him…

                Jesus turns to them and says, “I see that you don’t get it. You want grace to make sense, to add up…

But grace doesn’t make cents,

or dollars,
or any sort of back and forth I owe you and you owe me, quid pro quo, way of being.

But, because you all are stubborn, let’s think this through their way,

let’s run the numbers and play out the alternative scenario,

auditing God’s books,

and thinking through what the Pharisees and Scribes accused me of doing with God’s grace.

Let’s assume God is a God of limited resources, like Smaug, the dragon in The Hobbit, who hordes his Gold and kills any poor beggar or fool who tries to so much as touch it.

                God has put his great big pile of money into a trust, and asked me to manage it.

                And I did… but soon enough the Pharisees and Scribes saw what I was doing, you’ve seen it first hand, right? 

Forgiving like a fool,

searching in places good folk ought not be,

associating with the destitute and disposable…

                And this God of limited resources, greedy as all get out, called me into his office and raked me over the coals just like the Pharisees say he would.

This God of limits asked, “Are the charges against you true? Are you not charging interest on my grace and looking out for my bottom line? Show me your books at once!”

                So, I left his office,

ran to my desk (getting there before the goons who would put all my work stuff into a box and boot me out the door could make it there).

I furiously called and emailed all my customers…

after all, look at my baby soft hands, I’ve not worked a day in my life.”

                At this James guhuffed, seeing Jesus’ calloused carpenter hands.

                “I called everyone, the unclean man with a demon I exorcised, the whole pile of people I healed at the house of Peter’s mother-in-law, the lepers, that paralyzed fella, the centurion and his slave, the widow and her son…

you get the idea—all these people I’ve been helping in the name of God.

I said to one, “What do you owe God? 100 jugs of oil, pay 50.”

To another, “100 bushels of wheat, make it 80.”

                And you’ve seen it guys, the way people praise God in response to mercy, in response to forgiveness, healing…

                The whole village partied in response to the unexpected generosity from this Scrooge version of God.

He heard the hip-hip-hoorays hollered the whole way home,

So he found me and gave me my job back

—after all, people he’d never expected to pay him back, or even associate with him, were singing his praises to the highest heaven.

                So, if the Pharisees are right--God’s bag, his greatest joy and way of relating to the world, is filling his sack with loot,

and yet my gracious representation of him has got him more loot than all the tight fistedness of the Pharisees,

if that’s the case, then you as my disciples ought to do the same.

                Yes, even in the face of resistance and book keeping and holding grudges, go and represent God as gracious.

                They’ll tell you it is dishonest to go to the least, lost, and disinherited with God’s goods,

that you can’t squeeze a drop of praise of God from them no matter how hard you try…

well, they’re thinking is too heavenly minded, be wise, shrewd, dishonest in the eyes of the Religious-folk, so that you might go to those who will actually notice the services God has provided.

In business this is called a Blue Water strategy

—while everyone else is fighting over a small group of people, making the water red with the blood of competition, you go where no other company is, and you fish that market alone

—you are rewarded, while everyone else is bloodied

                You get it, right?

If our way of honoring God and spreading God’s Grace around, is still the most profitable way of doing this God thing

—even within a system that assumes God is a tight-fisted titan, hoarding his Grace and counting every penny of it…

how much more faithful is our open handed, merciful generosity in light of God’s true nature?

—in light of the God who searches out the lost?

squanders His very self for the sake of those he seeks!

How much more faithful this so called dishonesty that doesn’t make sense. A+A