Values You Can Take to the Polls

This sermon was preached at Ledyard Congregational Church in Ledyard, CT on November 3, 2024.

“You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the greatest and first commandment. And a second is like it: you shall love your neighbor as yourself. On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.” Matthew 22:37-40

“On this hang all the law and the prophets.” You’d think this love business was one of the most important things in the bible. Oh, wait, it is. This command has its roots in Deuteronomy…it is called the Shema.

The words used for love in Hebrew and Greek have nothing to do with our contemporary understanding of love, which focuses on feelings and warm fuzzies. Romantic love dominates the language of love.

The biblical traditions are far richer. In Hebrew the word is hesed. It can mean steadfast love, mercy, lovingkindness and goodness. It also means a covenantal love. It is characterized by great tenderness and consideration towards others. It is fundamentally a love that God has for creatures and one that is embodied in God’s followers

The Greek word is agape. It is considered the highest form of love. It is self-giving, patient, kind and never fails. Agape is the word used in 1 Corinthians 13, the famous chapter on love.

So from both the Judeo and Christian traditions love is held forth as the defining characteristic of God and how God works through humans. Throughout both testaments the central message is God’s enduring love affair with creation and all that is in it. And as God’s followers we strive to embody that love in all we say and do.

This is the cornerstone value that we are to bring to the world. It is a stance that defines everything else. When we come from a place of hesed and agape we are manifesting God’s greatest love.

So, with love as the central value, we are going to look at several scriptures that underscore values that are central to our tradition. Values we can take to the polls.

We begin in Leviticus. Nobody reads Leviticus, it’s like reading the Manhattan Yellow Pages. There are multiple layers of tradition that get sandwiched together and it makes for a tough read. But there are some themes that run through the book and this is one of them from Leviticus 19:33-34. “When an alien resides with you in your land, you shall not oppress the alien. The alien who resides with you shall be to you as the citizen among you; you shall love the alien as yourself, for you were aliens in the land of Egypt: I am the Lord your God.”

This stance is fundamentally one of compassion and care, justice and wellbeing. It means that however we approach the issue of immigration we need to come from a place of compassion for the stranger. We are far more apt to “other” the alien than we are to welcome them.

Now we go to Jeremiah 29:7. This is after the Israelites were exiled to Babylon and Yahweh says through the prophet Jeremiah, “But seek the welfare of the city where I have sent you into exile, and pray to the Lord on its behalf, for in its welfare you will find your welfare.” God’s word to the Israelites in exile was to not pout and get on with their lives. When we look at those words in relation to the immigrant community in the United States, they take on a rich meaning.

The immigrants who come to the US are by and large some of the hardest working people you will meet. They clean our hospitals and hotels, pick our vegetables and work in slaughterhouses. Not one of my friends has said, “Gee I lost my job at the slaughterhouse ripping the guts out of chickens because some immigrant came and took my job.” It is the stance of love for the alien that needs to inform our politics. Stance becomes action, so where we start matters.

Next we go to Genesis 2: Not a prophet but a prophetic witness about the creation in which we live. In Genesis 1 the narrative is to have dominion over the earth. This has been interpreted as pillage the earth’s resources, use it as a garbage dump, care nothing for the planet. And we see where that is getting us as we teeter on the edge of climate disaster.

Genesis 2 offers a different image that is not nearly as popular. Till the earth and keep it. We are stewards of this great planet. It is ours to use but not abuse. Our stance toward the earth needs to be one of care and conservation, and that needs to inform our politics. How we live day to day matters. The truth is there is enough for everyone’s need but not everyone’s greed. We are stewards of limited resources…John McCutheon sings, this earth was made a common treasury for everyone to share, all things in common, all people one…

Next we go to the prophet Isaiah. The book of Isaiah as we have it today came together over a period of about eight hundred years. All of those years were marked by war, four major conflicts that drastically altered the landscape of Israel and Judah. And we know that region remains a tinderbox today.

In the second chapter verses 4 and 5 we read, “He shall judge between the nations and shall arbitrate for many peoples; they shall beat their swords into plowshare and their spears into pruning hooks. Nation shall not lift up sword against nation neither shall they learn war anymore.”

The stance, the value we are to hold in the world is one of peace. Like war, peace must be waged. Being steeped in a stance of peace informs our political commitments. There is something fundamentally wrong when the best economic times are in post war periods. It says something about how our nation’s resources are prioritized. This is a narrative that needs to change for the sake of the earth and for its people.   

Next we go back to Jeremiah, Chapter 29 vss. 12-13. “Your ancient ruins shall be rebuilt; you shall raise up the foundations of many generations; you shall be called repairers of the breach, the restorer of streets to live in.” Repairers of the breach…the breach between the rich and the poor…those for whom the system doesn’t work. 135-140 million people live in poverty. It is the fourth leading cause of death in the United States. We are repairers of the breach. Our voice and our vote help to repair the breach when we use it with hesed and agape.

We are to use our vote for those who have no vote; we are the voice for those who have no voice. And the reason they have no vote and no voice is because there have been over 1000 bills introduced across the nation that suppress voting rights, mostly of the poor and people of color.

The love that God has for us is the love we are to have for those whom we will never meet…the poor the disenfranchised, those with no health care, those who live on a minimum wage that hasn’t been raised since 2009, when it went from $6.75 to $7.25. In 1965 CEOs were paid 21 times as much as the typical worker. In 2023 CEOs were paid 290 times the typical worker. What might it look like to the poor when we use our voice and our vote on behalf of those who have no voice and whose votes have been suppressed.

We are repairers of the breach when we address what William Barber calls the five interlocking injustices: systemic racism, poverty, environmental degradation, a war economy, denial of health care and the false distorted narrative of religious nationalism.

Jeremiah says we will make the streets fit to live in again when the streets are safe for all people. And that means elimination of unfair labor practices, being generous in feeding the hungry and giving ourselves to the down and out. The streets will be fit to live in again when hesed and agape love for the stranger and outcast are our way of being in the world. We vote our values as God’s people when we vote hesed and agape. Jurgen Moltmann said, “Those who hope in God can no longer put up with the way things are. Hope is a response to suffering that calls people to action in the present to witness to God’s promises in the future.”

Bishop William Barber used these words to close the Inaugural Prayer breakfast…the words of the great American preacher Harry Emerson Fosdick who penned them during the great depression. I invite you to pray them with me.

God of grace and God of glory, on your people pour your power

Crown your ancient church’s story, bring its bud to glorious flower.

Grant us wisdom, grant us courage, for the facing of this hour

Heal your children’s warring madness, bend our pride to your control.

Shame our wanton, selfish gladness, rich in things and poor in soul.

Grant us wisdom, grant us courage lest we miss your kingdom’s goal.

Save us from weak resignation to the evils we deplore.

Let the search for your salvation be our glory evermore

Grant us wisdom, grant us courage, serving you whom we adore, serving you whom we adore. Amen.