Bible Text:

I recently saw a cartoon that showed a minister standing before his congregation on Sunday morning before Election Day. These were his words: “Good morning. I’m glad you could all be here for this non-partisan, non-endorsing, carefully worded, non-directed, neutrally expounded gospel message on some key issues in this election.” 

Seldom have I started to work on a sermon as far ahead as I have this one. Usually I collect materials over a period of time and then start writing the sermon on Tuesday or Wednesday of each week. For this message I have collected materials for months. I started writing in September. It’s about another of the questions you may have asked: “Should my faith guide my vote?” 

I have never tried this before on any Sunday before any major election throughout my ministry.  

Some people say that Tuesday is the most important election in our lifetime. That may be so. I cannot be sure. Some say that never before has the country seemed so divided as we are right now. Some point out that members of Congress do not speak to one another any more on the two sides of the political aisle. In fact they treat each other as enemies. 

Some say the results of this election will be a razor’s edge. It is interesting to note that in the 2000 election the final result out of Florida was decided by about one-half of the average Sunday attendance at Christ United Methodist Church. Some say this is the most contentious campaign in our history. That may be so. However, in the course of the campaign I have read about some other campaigns in both the 19^th and the 20^th century which were pretty contentious. There’s a story that comes out of the life of the late Republican senator from Illinois, Everett Dirkson. You may remember he had a deep, gravelly voice, a white shock of hair, and a wonderful sense of humor. 

One day he was stumping for re-election. There was a man in the audience who was dead set upon ruining Dirkson’s speech. He laughed at him and jeered at him and made fun of him in every way he could. But the senator kept right on talking and seemed unbothered by the guy’s heckling. However, after the speech was over and Dirkson was about to leave, the man came up to him for one last harangue. “Senator,” he said to him, “if you were St. Peter, I wouldn’t vote for you at all.” To which Dirkson replied in his deep, deliberate voice, “My friend, let me tell you something. If I were St. Peter you wouldn’t be able to vote for me. Because, you see, you wouldn’t live in my district.” 

Some say we may not know the outcome of the election for a long time. One columnist last week said it might not even be known until April or May of 2006. Which poses an interesting question as to who becomes president on January 20, 2005, if that should happen to be the outcome. 

I even read one article that said the choice this year is between Abraham and Moses. Listen to this! George Bush is Abraham: the patriarch who made a covenant with God. Abraham focused on the obligations of the religious life and moral clarity.  

Senator Kerry, on the other hand, is Moses. Moses saw God’s love for the oppressed of the earth. Moses spoke on behalf of suffering people. Moses led oppressed people into a new land.[i] 

Both comparisons are a bit of a stretch. They are interesting, but certainly incomplete. 

I don’t know about any or all of these varied opinions. I only know we face a big Election Day on Tuesday. 

Should my faith guide my vote? There was a sampling of American opinion on this. (Don’t you just love the polls?) Fifty-one percent of Americans said churches should express political views. Sixty-five percent said churches should not endorse candidates. 

Does being a follower of Jesus make a difference in how I go to the polls? Where does a person of faith stand? Can I name that for us? I read a story about two chickens who were discussing the feasibility of laying an egg in the middle of a busy highway. One of them said to the other, “It probably could be done, if (1) you do it quickly, and (2), you laid it right on the line. Maybe that best describes the character of today’s message! 

One writer says this, “Mainline churches are among the few places in our society where people from widely diverse positions across the political spectrum can talk about substantive issues within the context of an ongoing community of shared belief.” 

I do not want to tell you or even suggest to you how you should vote. No church or pastor should do that. I remember when I was a junior in college in 1960 and the race was between John Kennedy and Richard Nixon, my home church pastor decided to post a letter on the wall of the narthex at the church. It was a letter that said, in effect, “Why I cannot vote for John Kennedy.” That letter was the talk of the church and the talk of the community for days and even weeks following the election. 

I will not do that. That is not my role. I want to resist even any innuendo this morning. My role is to ask the question, “Should my faith in Jesus guide my vote next Tuesday?” Let me try to set some clear direction on this question. I use as my text the one where Jesus says, “Render to Caesar that which is Caesar’s and to God that which is God’s.” 

WE MUST VOTE 

First, we must vote. That’s what “Render to Caesar” means in this context. It is not appropriate to decide not to vote. 

Yes, I saw a bumper sticker that said, “If God had intended us to vote, God would have made candidates.” I also saw this definition of a politician,” Someone going both ways in the fork of the road." 

Do what you will with these observations. We are still called to vote.  This is our system. This is our nation. This is our representative democracy, our republic. You cannot faithfully decide not to vote. I believe God would desire our participation. 

An American rabbi in Chicago tells of his grandparents who came to America as immigrants from Russia in the late 1950s. In 1968 the rabbi told his grandmother that he had decided not to vote in that election. He was dissatisfied with both candidates. His grandmother called him on the phone and scolded him in Yiddish, “Your grandfather and I suffered under the czars and then we suffered under Lenin and Stalin. We never had the right to vote, and you’re going to now sit out an election and not vote?” 

The rabbi then told how his grandparents dressed in their Sabbath best for Election Day. They went to the polls, thrilled to live in a place where their vote counted. They were always the first ones at the polling place on Election Day. 

Someone who had heard this story said, “For me, the thought of that elderly Jewish couple standing outside the polling place at dawn in their Sabbath clothes is another encouragement to jump into this troubled, fallen world and cast a vote.”[ii] 

Even if I think, “none of the above” or “neither of the above,” I must make a choice. I must pull a lever or mark an “x” or punch a chad (!) or touch a screen. To neglect or to refuse to vote is to decide that it does not matter. That is wrong. Voting is a privilege, and I owe my country that act of citizenship. So do you. 

However, I suspect I’m preaching mostly to the choir here. My guess is, most eligible voters in this house of faith will vote. I was pleased this week to receive e-mail from my 19-year-old grandson who is a freshman in college, saying that he had cast his first absentee ballot. 

RENDER TO CAESAR… AND TO GOD 

Jesus says render to Caesar and then render to God. What does that mean? First it means we need to pray. I’m calling us to three days of prayer beginning now. The election deserves that from us. To fail to pray is to fail in the meaning of our discipleship. Pray for the candidates. Pray for the electorate. Pray for the process.  

Secondly, it means we need to confess our own weaknesses. We need to admit our own frailty and our impure motives. We need to confess our own tendency to vote by narrow self-interest, or vote our own dogmatic prejudices. 

Thirdly, we need to remember God’s priorities as we vote. There was a cartoon that ran in the newspapers across the country a short time ago in which a fellow in his pajamas, ready for the night, is kneeling beside the bed saying his evening prayers. One panel has a section of prayer where he says, “…and one more thing you should know, God. Those disbelievers of the other political party, unlike our own party, which is righteous, have left your name out of their platform.” 

The next panel in the comic strip has a voice coming from heaven, saying, “Wise up, buster. I’m an independent.” 

We need to remember God’s priorities. God does have priorities. God’s priorities are clear: justice, peace, mercy.  Those are three big ones. God has concern for the poor and the homeless—what the Bible calls “the widows and the orphans.” And God calls us to a deep and abiding trust in Him. I know we’re not electing a chaplain; we’re electing a national leader. But trust in God is important. Abraham Lincoln never belonged to a church, but Lincoln had a deep faith. Jesus taught us the power of a deep trust in God. 

Fourthly, the text means we need to enter into a discernment process. I know that all four top candidates are religious persons. Three are United Methodist, one is Roman Catholic. It is interesting to note that 3% of the country is Methodist, 12% of the Congress is Methodist, and 75% of the candidates are Methodist! But I do not think God has a clear choice. 

Pat Robertson and Jerry Falwell are wrong. God did not tell them who is the favorite. God asks believers to make a choice based on the highest and the best that we know.  

One of our United Methodist bishops recently wrote, “Once the election is over, we will still not be certain that those elected were God’s choices. God often does unexpected things through the most unlikely leaders… But we can be sure of God’s intention for whoever is elected. God intends that the winner will govern with compassion and humility and pursue justice and peace—all rooted in the ultimate power of love. 

So finally the text means we need to pray fervently for the one elected. Whoever is elected will need a full measure of grace and strength and wisdom. Whoever is elected will need gifts from God to lead us in some very difficult and dangerous days. We need to pray for the selection of the cabinet and the advisors, whether they be new or renewed. This is our call. This is our responsibility. 

Abraham Lincoln said, at the close of the Civil War in 1864, “I do not think it would have been possible for us to make it through these dark days without the faith and energy of the Methodists.”[iii] I’d like to think that that would be said of us as well in 2004. 

I invite you now into some moments of prayerful discernment. I want you to do it today as a part of the close of this worship service. If we don’t do it now, we may forget. I want to close this message with prayer—silent prayer, quiet prayer together. And I invite you to ask only this: that God will purify your soul so that you can vote well. Not that you vote right, or correctly, but well. And that whoever is elected will lead this nation to new heights of justice, peace and mercy. 

Will you bow in prayer for a full minute? Hear what the Spirit may be saying to the Church.