Buddy is what history has called a “Yellow Dog Democrat.” He would never disagree with that statement. He never has had anything good to say about any Republican that has ever held office. In fact the word “Republican” is almost always uttered with an expletive of one form or another. If a Republican and a Democrat were ever to have the same idea on anything, if the Republican got the idea out of his mouth first, it would be a bad idea that would be the death of the country. If the Democrat were to have the idea first it would be the best idea anyone had entertained in years. If some how both parties were to come out with the same idea at the same time, it would either be Buddy’s tribute to bi-partisanship or he would somehow self-destruct. I am not sure which would be the case. Buddy knew (or at least said he knew) all the local Democratic leaders in the area and was heavily involved in local Democratic politics.
On the other hand, there was Mike. Mike was the polar opposite of Buddy. I’m really not sure what they call the Republican version of a “Yellow Dog Democrat,” but that is Mike. I guess we will just say that Mike is a “died in the wool Republican. Mike absolutely hates the Democrats and thinks that they will tax and spend us all into the next Great Depression. MIke is quick to make judgments of people. If the person in question is a Republican he or she is among God’s chosen people. If he or she is a Democrat they either belong in prison or should be stoned to death, probably stoned.
These two lived a rather peaceful co-existence, though both made it very clear that they didn’t like each other at all. These to fellow-church members could maintain some level of peaceful co-existence mostly because to the degree that they possibly could do so, they just avoided each other. You generally didn’t see the two of them together except during Sunday morning worship and even then Mike was in the choir and Buddy sat about two-thirds of the way from the back.
About the only other place you would see these two in the same room, and it was a fairly small room at that, was once a month at United Methodist Men. When the men would gather for breakfast and a morning of working around the church, both Buddy and Mike would be there. Both, after all, were faithful church members, and to add on top of that, neither was about to allow the other to show him up. So, they would both be there, they would be on time, and they both worked very hard. They represented their church and did so well. They truly cared about what happened at the church.
One Saturday morning the men of the congregation had gathered for United Methodist, nothing unusual there. I don’t remember why, but I wasn’t there that morning. They had breakfast and then started doing some work around the building. I am not exactly sure what happened, like I said, I wasn’t there, but some how, some way Buddy and Mike ended up working together on some project. I don’t know who started talking first, but one of them did. Things went back and forth. Then they escalated. It became a fight and I don’t mean a war of words. At one point Mike had Buddy upside down ready to do what professional wrestlers call a pile driver when he realized what he was doing. He turned Buddy back right side up, set him down and walked away. Cooler heads prevailed and remained between the two until they both went home.
It was all over politics. Two dedicated Christian men, ready to go to blows over politics. That is where we have moved in our society. It is sad. It is also frightening.
Over the past eighteen months or so we have all been bombarded with seemingly constant commercials and rhetoric from various politicians who are intent on getting our vote come election day. Many of those ads aren’t really that bad, they focus on issues important to candidates or on what that candidates strengths happen to be. Other commercials, on the other hand, are far less thrilling, focusing on whatever negative can be found on a particular opponent. Am I the only one that has been relieved that we haven’t seen any more television ads since Tuesday has passed by?
Yet that is not what has bothered me most during this election. The following questions are rhetorical questions. Please don’t answer, I don’t really want to know, and no, I am not asking who you voted for. While I hope you did all vote, I really don’t care who you voted for. No, the question I want to ask is, who here is a gossip? Well, actually there are two questions. Who here is a liar? I am serious about the questions.
I know, most, if not all of you, if I asked for a show of hands, there would be few if any of you who would raise your hands for either question. Yet think about this for a moment. How many of us have passed along emails deriding one of the candidates. I know, I know, some of you are safe because you don’t have email to start with.
During the past 18 months I have received emails admittedly more against Barrak Obama than John McCain or Sarah Palin, many centered on Obama’s race or Palin’s gender, but I want to highlight two, one from each side. There were emails about Obama that talked about him not being a citizen because he was born in Kenya. According to the email Obama’s grandmother was present for the birth and swears he was born in Kenya. Yet the email conveniently leaves out the idea that there are two ways that one can be considered to be a natural born citizen. If we are actually born in the United States or, if at least one of our parents are citizens or the US. There has never been a question that Obama’s mother was a US Citizen. It seems evident to me that whoever started this was intent on putting Obama in a negative light.
The other I want to mention is about Sarah Palin. As many of you know, Palin’s youngest child has Down’s Syndrome. There were emails that went around saying that this child was not Palin’s baby, but her daughter’s child. Now, there is no evidence of that being true, it is just what some people were saying in an effort to hurt the McCain-Palin campaign.
These emails are by no means alone. Touched by an Angel being removed from the air by the Federal Communications because God was used in the show. People even went so far as to tie famous evangelist’s names to it. Yet if you took the time to look up the websites of all involved it doesn’t take long to realize that it just isn’t true.
Folks, even if we say that we don’t gossip or that we don’t lie, when we pass around untrue emails we are doing just exactly that. When we spread something whether political or otherwise that we don’t know to be true, and what I have highlighted here is by no means all, we are gossips. When we spread these untruths we lie, and the last time I checked that was one that God put into the big 10.
We, as people of faith, can’t just lay the blame off on the world. Some of it is us. Shame on us folks. Like I said earlier, I don’t really care who you voted for. I do hope that you voted. But even more, I pray you voted for real reasons and not something that was just plain untrue. There is something wrong when we do that.
In our lesson this morning we find the story of the Israelites desire to have a king. They weren’t interested in Samuel being their leader. They weren’t interested in having God as king, a king they couldn’t see, so they wanted a king to rule over them like all the other nations. Samuel isn’t very happy about that and goes off to have a conversation with God. God reminds Samuel that it really isn’t Samuel who is being rejected, but God himself. Samuel is to tell the people what to expect from an earthly king, taxes, their young men in the military, etc. Samuel does as he is instructed. The people still want an earthly king and God tells Samuel to get them a king. If we kept reading we would discover that Israel did indeed get their king, and all Samuel had said would happen is exactly what happened. But the best part of the whole story is, through it all, God was with them That is the Keith paraphrased version.
I know, today in the United States we don’t have a king, we have a president. Following Tuesday’s election I know that some of you are quite happy with the results. Others of you are concerned that the country is on the verge of total collapse.
Over the two hundred plus year history of our country we have elected 43 presidents and had another that was never actually elected. In the 43 that have held the office thus far we have had good presidents and not so good presidents. Through both good and bad, our country has survived each.
Will President-elect Obama be a good president? Only time will tell. None of us really know for sure. Will our country survive his presidency? Again, none of us really know for sure. But I would say to you is this, based on our history, I think we will survive as a nation. We have shown again and again in our history, we are stronger than one man. And, in four years we will again have the opportunity to have our say as to who our next leader shall be.
The good news here is, God is still God and God is still in charge. With that do we really need to worry?
What I do know that we can ill afford is more situations like Buddy and Mike. During these past 18 months there has been so much hatred from both sides, among Christians, and over what? Politics. We who are called to be people of love are fighting and with so much fighting and hatred in our world, it is no wonder that Washington has “gridlock.” If you were a politician could which part of the electorate you would take guidance from?
I want to share one more passage of Scripture with you this morning in closing. Read Romans 13.
What that passage says to me is this. God had a hand in what happened here last Tuesday night. It also says to me that as people of faith we have an obligation to pray for our leaders, and that even means those we don’t like too much. It means we owe them our support. That doesn’t mean that we don’t question their decisions. It doesn’t mean that we don’t hold them accountable for the decisions they make. It just means that we act in love, prayer, and support until what they say or do go against the word of God.
I am sure that some of you are sitting there and saying, “Well Keith must be an Obama guy and now he wants us all to support Obama.” Well the truth is, you don’t know who I voted for and you aren’t going to know. I have had this sermon idea bouncing around in my head for a couple of weeks. Obviously I couldn’t finish it until I knew who won the election.
Friends, this message is my effort, and would have been virtually identical had John McCain won the election, to see the hate stop among our citizens but even more among people of faith. I pray that I never see or hear about another situation like Mike and Buddy again. As people of faith we may not always agree, but we are called to love, even when we find it difficult to impossible to agree, even in our politics.
