Shouting from the Backbench

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Luke 3:1-6

Doug was an Elder in a small Presbyterian church.  He at one time became quite motivated about finding an outreach project for his little church.  It just happened that he happened to meet the minister of the Presbyterian church in Puslinch, ON who was passionately involved in a newly founded organization that was a cooperative venture between First Nations Reserves in Northern Ontario and various organizations in Southern Ontario to help relieve poverty on the more isolated northern reserves.  

The organization had a unique approach.  It let the Reserves say what they needed and then it resourced those needs.  The typical protocol in these matters is that the government or some other organization tells the Reserves what the Reserves need and tells them to take it or get nothing.  When actual needs are ignored, the system remains paternalistic and nothing changes.

One of this organization’s success stories involved a Northern Reserve needing clean drinking water.  Government solutions were proving inadequate and slow…and yet the people still needed water like now.  Someone in the Puslinch church looked over at the Nestle water plant and said “They have water” and went and asked if Nestle would help.  Nestle did…by the truckload.  A common-sense solution to a sickeningly unnecessarily all too common problem. 

Inspired by such successes, Doug became more involved in this organization and so did his church.  For some reason known only to him, Doug decided to go to his local Member of Parliament to see if he could maybe possibly see if the government might maybe want to endorse such an ingenious way of helping people.  Doug asked his minister (me) to come along and together they had a very cordial meeting with the MP.  

Now get this, the MP said there was really nothing he could do about the problem.  He said, “I’m just a backbencher in the party and I don’t have a say in anything.”  Moreover, In the conversation the MP noticed that the minister had a Southern accent and offered to do what he could to help him become a Canadian citizen which amounted to nothing more than giving him paper copies of Citizenship documents and forms that are readily available online. 

The minister (me) left that meeting a bit astounded.  Here was a government official drawing a salary over three times his own, a member of the governing party of Canada (PC), elected to represent his constituents yet here he was saying he really could not represent or help anybody because he was a backbencher in his party and in Parliament.  Back benchers sit in the rear of the House and say little to nothing except maybe join in on the very adult heckling and hissing that happens in Parliament.  He was good for photo ops, but not for much else.  

This is troubling for a nation.  If any MP elected to represent the people of a constituency is effectively voiceless in Parliament, this means that in the end Canada is little more than a functional oligarchy, a nation ruled by a few who weren’t necessarily elected by the people but were simply powerful in their party.  How these few gain their power is always an interesting story.  Nevertheless, such is power.

Looking at Luke’s Gospel, it is interesting that he begins his account of John the Baptist’s ministry of preparing the way for the Messiah by naming “the few” in the land who had “the power”.  There were the Roman powers at the top: Tiberius, the Emperor; Pontius Pilate, the governor of Judea.  There were the Jewish home-grown powers appointed by Rome: Herod, his brother Phillip, and Lysanias.  And, there were the Rome-appointed Jerusalem Temple authorities: the High Priests Annas and Caiaphas.  This was the rule of one imposed by a few.  But, there’s also the few behind the scenes who have power over that one.  That’s how power works in an Empire.

It was during the rule of this band of cronies that the Word of God came to John the Baptizer out in the backwater region of the wilderness of Jordan. As we remember from Sunday School and Children’s Sermons of yore, John was a bit of an odd cookie.  He was a hermit, very hairy and dishevelled, wore clothes made of camel’s hair, and ate locusts and honey.  He was the son of a rural priest named Zechariah and his wife Elizabeth.  They were too old to have children but God gave them John, a child of promise.  And remember the wilderness?  For forty years after the Exodus God’s people wandered in the wilderness of Sinai and there learned to rely on God and believe his promises.  

In the scheme of how political change happened in the world of first century Israel John was a backwater, backbenching prophet.  He had no “power” at all in the government.  Yet, when prophets start talking about valleys being filled, mountains being brought low, the crooked being made straight, and the rough being smoothened they are talking about the people being empowered, the powerful being brought low, corruption ending, and life becoming better.  But, his own attempts to hold the powers that be accountable to the way God gave his people to live only got him arrested and, in the end, beheaded.  Regardless, the “grassroots” movement the grasshopper-eating backwater prophet started paved the way for Jesus, the Messiah, whose followers did in time destabilize the Roman Empire and change the world.  

John the Baptist didn’t do bad for a backwater backbencher.  If we think that his call to repent to those people of God flocking to him in the wilderness was simply a non-political matter of private religion, we are mistaken.  Moreover, if we think that following Jesus is just a private matter of personal faith, we are mistaken.  Following Jesus is a public matter that will involve confronting the “powers” from the backbench in backwater places. 

The people flocking to John in the wilderness were desperate people who were expecting their God, the God who had delivered them from Pharaoh out of slavery in Egypt, to deliver them from Roman domination.  John’s calling them from the wilderness of Jordan to return to the ways given them by God was a grassroots call to the people of God to stop participating in the elements of their way of life that fed on the Roman way of life and in turn start living as the faithful people of their God.  Faithful living was/is the way to prepare the way for the Lord to come and establish peace. 

We could learn something from what God was doing through John the Baptist.  The way to overthrow an Empire is to stop living according to the ways of that Empire. This is difficult because we ourselves have grown too accustomed if not addicted to the ways of the Empire.  We  have to change our loyalties.  Primarily, we must start doing as Jesus said, “Love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your strength, and with all your mind; and your neighbour as yourself” (Lk 10:27). 

John’s call to repentance was the call to the people of God to start acting like people of God and in so doing find that the Kingdom of God is near.  Love for God lived out looks like love for neighbour…even if and especially if that neighbour comes from Syria or Guatemala.  How different would this world be if we, the followers of Jesus, stopped with the Consumerism, the Materialism, the Militarism, the Patriotism, the Racism, the Individualism, and all those “ism’s” that make empires so strong and simply made a practice of loving our neighbours?  Especially those who are different and vulnerable?  Amen.

 

The Solution to Politics

 Luke 3:1-6

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If we were hearing this passage from Luke’s Gospel with the fresh ears of someone who lived at the time Luke wrote his “narrative about the events that have been fulfilled among us” (as he states at the beginning) to a fictitious addressee whom he names Theophilus which means “God-lover”, we would be struck with how political it is.  He starts here by naming the political leaders who are responsible for the well-being of the people not only God’s people there in Judea, but of everybody in the world as they knew hit.  Luke names the politicians and then makes the bold statement that the Word of God didn’t come to them but to a hermit prophet out in the wilderness to whom multitudes of people were flocking in desperation because their life was so bad (mostly because of these politicians) that God was their only hope.  He names the leaders and indicates that God will work against them to bring salvation to all people.  This was not a non-political matter of private religion.

Be mindful that to a First Century hearer of Luke’s Gospel, salvation did not mean getting your sins forgiven so that you can go to heaven when you die.  Deliverance would be the better word to use here and deliverance was always a “this world” matter, an “on earth as it is in Heaven” matter.  The baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins that John was proclaiming was not the message of get baptized so you can go to heaven when you die.  John’s baptism was a symbolic gesture of wanting to be clean before God in order to be ready for when God comes to put things right.  

There was strong sentiment among the people that due to the corruption of the priests and the money-making religion that they had made of Temple worship in Jerusalem, the sacrifices made there were unacceptable to God.  So, the everyday people of the land were going to the prophet of God out in the wilderness to get washed clean in the Jordan to be ready for God’s coming.  You know significance of the Jordan River, the river God’s people crossed into the Promised Land from their wandering in the wilderness after God delivered them from slavery in Egypt and also when God brought them back from Exile in Babylon.  The faithful, everyday people of the land were looking for a new start in a new age in God’s land with God obviously reigning. 

Repentance wasn’t so much this remorseful “I’m a sinner” thing that medieval Christianity passed on to us.  Repentance was getting on board with what God was doing to deliver his people from oppression and establish them anew in the Land with leadership that would lead like King David did, leaders after God’s own heart rather than popularity and power.  These people were, with desperation, anticipating as their only hope that at any moment the Messiah of God would come and bring the Kingdom of God.  So, they went to John the Baptist for they knew that he, according to prophecy, was the one crying out in the wilderness preparing the way of the Lord. 

This movement that was centered around John the Baptist was not a non-political matter of private religion.  It was all about matters of everyday life – work, taxation, the cost of living – and the effect the political leadership in the land had on those everyday matters.  The faithful in the land, those looking to God for the solution, were flocking to John because they had no confidence at all that their political and religious leadership were capable of solving the difficulties of everyday life, but were rather the root of the problem.  Those in power were ruling for the benefit of themselves rather looking after the needs of the people.

I think we can relate to their lack of confidence in their political leadership.  On November 21, 2021 the survey organization Ipsos conducted a poll here in Canada identifying what Canadians considered to be the top issues our newly elected federal government needed to deal with and also our confidence in Parliament to make significant progress on these issues.  The biggest issue was affordability and the cost of living, the affordability of basic necessities.  Only 21% of us were confident our leadership can make significant progress on keeping the cost of living in check.  The second big issue was the Pandemic and we gave the government a 61% vote of confidence on that.  Then came healthcare, housing, the economy, and climate change only one third of the people surveyed had any confidence at all that our elected officials can make any sort of significant progress on these issues.  We're better than the Americans though.  The results of a similar survey released this passed week showed that only 21% of the people surveyed had confidence that Congress can get anything done at all.  

I don’t want to sound pessimistic, but it truly sounds to me that in North America we are losing confidence in our elected leadership and it appears we are heading towards hopelessness.  That’s not good.  I’m no political analyst, but from my armchair I really don’t see where the needs of everyday people like me and my family are being put first.  I am deeply troubled that it is likely that nearly all of our members of federal Parliament made more on stock investments last year, during a Pandemic, than the combined income of my household.  That leads me to surmise that our members of Parliament do not wrestle with the same economic insecurities as you and I; yet, they make decisions that affect our economic security.  And then we have to listen to them bicker over their ideological differences and as they personally attack each other as if they were professional wrestlers dressed like televangelists.  I would much prefer they put their politics and the twisted desire to win at all cost aside and work together to do the work we elected them to do.  Sorry. I’m getting off track here.  There has to be a solution to politics.  

  Well, in John the Baptist’s day the people were returning to the Jordan, to get on board with what God was doing and get a new start.  For us today, I suggest we return to the Table of our Lord.  This meal which introduces us to the One who did not spare his one life, but gave it for us all; the One who did not seek his own gain, but gave up everything that we might have the abundant life; the One who took five loaves and two fish and fed a crowd of likely 15,000 hopeless people; the One who healed people, cleansed and restored lepers, cast out demons, and held political and religious leadership accountable for their hypocrisy; the One who understood that the unity of the bond of love needs to be tended to before all else.  

In this me-centred world where everybody’s their own expert and the capacity to trust is out the window and at our cores we’re just plain scared to death, I don’t think that it’s a ridiculous suggestion to say, “We need Jesus!”; to say, “Come to the table and meet and ponder the One whose way is unconditional love and sacrificial generosity and hospitality. There is a place where you are welcome; where you can rest and lay your burdens down, where the Spirit of God just might wash over you letting you know just how loved by God you are and that you are his beloved child and your life is in his hands."  The place to find the solution to politics is the Table of our Lord.  Come and meet the One who gave himself for you.  Jesus and his way is the solution to politics.  He is peace and at his table is the way to the peace of his kingdom.  Amen. 

 

Backbenching in the Wilderness

Luke3:1-6
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Doug was an Elder in a small Presbyterian church.  He at one time became quite motivated about finding an outreach project for his little church.  It just happened that he happened to meet the minister of the Presbyterian church in Puslinch, ON who was deeply involved in a newly founded organization called North-South Partnership for Children.  This ministry was a cooperative venture between First Nations Reserves in Northern Ontario and various organizations in Southern Ontario to help relieve poverty on the more isolated northern Reserves. 

North-South Partnership had a unique approach.  It let the Reserves say what they needed and then it resourced those needs.  The typical protocol in these matters is that the government or some other organization tells the Reserves what the Reserves need and tells them to take it or nothing.  When actual needs are ignored, the system remains paternalistic and nothing changes.

One of North-South’s success stories involved a Northern Reserve needing clean drinking water.  Government solutions were proving inadequate and slow…and yet the people still needed water.  Someone in the Puslinch church looked over at the Nestle water plant and said “They have water” and went and asked if Nestle would help.  Nestle did…by the truckload.  A common sense solution to a sickeningly unnecessarily common problem.

Inspired by such successes, Doug became more involved in the North-South organization along with his church.  Then for some reason he decided to go to his local Member of Parliament to see if he could maybe possibly see if the government might maybe want to endorse such an ingenious way of helping people.  Doug asked his minister to come along and together they had a very cordial meeting with the MP.  The MP said there was really nothing he could do.  He said, “I’m just a backbencher in the party and I don’t have a say in anything.” In the conversation the MP noticed that the minister had a Southern accent and offered to do what he could to help him become a Canadian citizen which amounted to nothing more than giving him paper copies of Citizenship documents and forms that are readily available online.

The minster left that meeting a bit astounded.  Here was a government official drawing a salary over three times his own, a member of the governing party of Canada, elected to represent his constituents, saying he really could not represent or help anybody because he was a backbencher in his party and in Parliament.  He was good for photo ops, but not for much else.  

This is troubling for a society.  If any MP elected to represent the people of a constituency is effectively voiceless in Parliament, this means that in the end Canada is little more than a functional oligarchy, a nation ruled by a few who weren’t elected by the majority of the people but are simply powerful in their party.  How these few gain their power is always an interesting story.  Nevertheless, such is power.

Looking at Luke’s Gospel, it is interesting that he begins his account of John the Baptist’s ministry of preparing the way for the Messiah by naming “the few” in the land who had “the power”.  There were the Roman powers at the top: Tiberius, the Emperor; Pontius Pilate, the governor of Judea.  There were the Jewish powers appointed by Rome: Herod, his brother Phillip, and Lysanias.  And, there were the Roman appointed Jerusalem Temple authorities: the High Priests Annas and Caiaphas.  This was the rule of one imposed by a few.  That’s how power work’s in an Empire.

It was during the rule of this band of cronies that the Word of God came to John the Baptizer out in the backwater region of the wilderness of Jordan. As we remember from Sunday School and Children’s Sermons of yore, John was a bit of an odd cookie.  He was a hermit, very hairy and dishevelled, wore clothes made of camel’s hair, and ate locusts and honey.  He was the son of a rural priest named Zechariah and his wife Elizabeth.  They were too old to have children but God gave them John, a child of promise.  And remember the wilderness?  For eighty years after the Exodus God’s people wandered in the wilderness of Sinai and there learned to rely on God and believe his promises. 

In the scheme of how political change happened in the world of first century Israel John was a backwater, backbenching prophet.  He had no “power” at all in the government.  Yet, when prophets start talking about valleys being filled, mountains being brought low, the crooked being made straight, and the rough being smoothened they are talking about the people being empowered, the powerful being brought low, corruption ending, and life becoming easier.  But, his own attempts to hold the powers that be accountable to the way God gave his people to live only got him arrested and in the end beheaded.  Regardless, the “grassroots” movement he started paved the way for Jesus, the Messiah, and did in time destabilize the Roman Empire and change the world. 

John the Baptist didn’t do bad for a backwater backbencher.  If we think that his call to repent to those people of God flocking to him in the wilderness was simply a non-political matter of private religion, we are mistaken.  More over, if we think that following Jesus is just a private matter of personal faith, we are mistaken.  Following Jesus is a public matter that will involve confronting the “powers” from the backbench in backwater places.

The people flocking to John in the wilderness were desperate people who were expecting their God, the God who had delivered them from Pharaoh out of slavery in Egypt, to deliver them from Roman domination.  John’s calling them from the wilderness of Jordan to return to the ways given them by God was a grassroots call to the people of God to stop participating in the elements of their way of life that fed on the Roman way of life and in turn start living as the faithful people of their God.  Faithful living was the way to prepare the way for the Lord God to come and establish peace.

We could learn something from what God was doing through John the Baptist.  The way to overthrow an Empire is to stop living according to the ways of that Empire; ways to which we ourselves have grown accustomed if not addicted and in turn, start doing as Jesus said, “Love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your strength, and with all your mind; and your neighbour as yourself” (Lk 10:27). 

John’s call to repentance was the call to the people of God to start acting like people of God and in so doing find that the Kingdom of God is near.  Love for God lived out looks like love for neighbour…even if and especially if that neighbour comes from Syria or Guatemala.  How different would this world be if we stopped with the Consumerism, the Materialism, the Militarism, the Patriotism, the Racism, the Individualism, and all those “ism’s” that make empire’s strong and simply made a practice of loving our neighbours?  Amen.