The Emporia Gazette

May 28, 2012

• Headlines
• Sports
• Forums
• Weather
• Classifieds

• Help
• Log in
• Home

• E-mail story
• Post a comment
• iPod friendly version

A Sermon on Matthew 4: 12-23, delivered by Rev. Tobias Schlingensiepen on January 23, 2011 at First Congregational Church in Topeka,, which led to his involvement in Clergy Concerned for the Welfare of the Residents of the Kansas Neurological Institute.

I’ve often wondered what it would be like to hear this story from the perspective of Zebedee. Some total stranger comes by and calls his two sons (the future of his business and his pension plan) out of the boat, and off they go. It would be interesting to have a photograph of his facial expression at that particular moment.

As I read the lesson again this week, I could not do so without returning to the questionable future of the residents of the Kansas Neurological Institute. I also thought about other places that no longer exist in this city and elsewhere, places like the Topeka State Hospital, places that served people for whose well being we once felt a civic obligation; we even felt pride that new and truly humane forms of treatment had once been pioneered there by the Menningers, and those who followed them. I thought about those with severe mental and physical challenges, in this case, those who are really the most vulnerable among us. My question became: Who is responsible?

We can read our lesson to say, “Well, Jesus was coming through one day and he called out to some men in a boat to leave everything behind and follow him. The kingdom of heaven was near so he asked them to forget about everything else and join him on his journey. They’d see soon enough where the trip would lead. They left the boat and headed for glory.”

Too often, praise is all about praise, about how we feel – and often are in need of feeling - in the act of it. But praise is first and foremost a response to God’s grace and goodness, and that response, if it is from the heart, implies a willingness to be responsible for the things God cares about. For a Christian to offer God praise is to agree to follow Jesus, and this means following his teachings. It means we have to take the journey with him – to the cross!

Jesus says to Simon and Andrew, James and John, “Follow me,” and they leave their boats and follow him. The lesson concludes with what scholars call a summary: “Jesus went through Galilee, teaching in their synagogues, and proclaiming the good news of the kingdom and curing every disease and every sickness among the people” (4: 23 NRSV).

There is, then, something between our being called and the glory to which we are called. It has something to do with the words Matthew quotes, the words of the prophet Isaiah: “Land of Zebulun, land of Naphtali, on the road by the sea, across the Jordan, Galilee of the Gentiles— the people who sat in darkness have seen a great light, and for those who sat in the region and shadow of death light has dawned.” This is more than just a reference to the mission to the Gentiles; it proclaims the dawning fulfillment of a God’s promise to put an end to the sufferings of the people who dwelt in that region.

There are many people in our own State who are still sitting in “the region and shadow of death,” people who are still waiting for the light to dawn. As we in our State’s executive branch and legislature discuss budgets and how much money there is – or isn’t – for this, that, and the other thing, we are failing to address what should be asked first: What should our priorities as Kansans be? In other words, what should matter to us?

We say that what we are doing is “balancing the budget.” It’s made to sound like heroic work. But let’s be honest – what we are, in fact, saying is: We place a higher value on this than on that. But who would really want to come out and put it that way?

Every church member knows that a church’s budget is not just about money – it is the indicator of what a particular church truly believes. With regard to KNI, the question boils down to this: Do we care about our State’s most vulnerable citizens? It’s a discussion we need to have, and not as it is currently taking place, as a debate about the budget, or under the gun of “balancing the budget” by such and such a date. Rather, it is a discussion that needs our time, as well as our primary attention. It is a question that includes the residents of KNI, but one that is also much larger in scope.

I am not saying that taking care of the vulnerable is necessarily the state’s (i.e. the government’s) responsibility, although I would hope that doing so is an important value to all Kansans and that, if given an opportunity, we would gladly put our hearts and minds and means to work discussing how we might do a better job of it. We might, for example, consider thinking about fair taxation, about what all of us, from the wealthiest on down, including the churches, would be willing to give to make Kansas a more caring, a better place to live for all. What, after all is the state, if it is not an expression of the concerns of its citizens. It is the responsibility of all Kansans to have a debate about the values that should govern the policies we would be governed by. Are the most vulnerable among our fellow citizens of concern to us? This is a discussion for which we should make time.

But, right now, and closer to home, I’m wondering: Where are the churches? Where are those of us who profess to care about these things – who profess to follow Jesus in addressing the needs of “the lame, the halt, and the blind,” of the outcast and the marginalized, of the “least of these?” Whether our Governor or our Legislature is concerned with these things is not the first question: are we? Does following Jesus affect our understanding of what it means to be a citizen of Kansas? Should we bear witness to our discipleship in the public square? With regard to KNI, anyway, the churches have been astonishingly slow to respond! We should be haunted by the voice of the Son of Man, who at the judgment of the nations says, “Truly I tell you, just as you did not do it to one of the least of these, you did not do it to me” (Matthew 25: 45 NRSV).

What will happen to the residents of KNI if that facility is closed? Who will ask these questions, not just today, but tomorrow and the day after? Who will attend to the well being of KNI’s residents, should that facility be closed?

How will we know? A government that is not given the means to address these questions will not be of any help here, regardless of how concerned individual Kansans may be in principle about the well being of the vulnerable.

I am praying that the Christian community, together with members of other religious communities, will say to each other, “Taking care of the vulnerable is the bottom line for measuring the well being of our State. Let’s work together to encourage all Kansans to help make our State a leader in caring once again. Let’s encourage our Governor and our legislators to take some leadership here rather than bowing to the non-existent god of ‘budgetary necessity.’”

And let us not fool ourselves either! Many churches bow to this same god, to a religious narcissism that demands nothing of us beyond the conviction of personal salvation. Jesus called Simon and Andrew, James and John, yes! But what did he call them for? The gospel says “good news for the poor.” Are our concerns, our commitments as christians attentive to this good news? Or are we more concerned about protecting our financial prosperity, our “blessings” – as if God made no demands upon us as to how these blessings should be shared?

The early church was very concerned about the poor. Deacons, one of the earliest offices in the church, were called to go around and make sure that the vulnerable members of the community were cared for fairly. And in the first centuries of the church, one of the primary things that distinguished the churches from many other religious groups were their hands-on commitment to care. Emperor Constantine was impressed by how the churches took responsibility for the well being of the thousands and thousands of people flooding to the cities from rural areas in the Roman Empire. To do so, Christians created hospitals and schools.

In our own state, we can point to men and women who, like Charles M. Sheldon, rallied us around the question: “What would Jesus do?” Sheldon did not see this as a private ‘religious’ question but one that pertained to the well being of all people.

I am seriously feeling led to encouraging the faith community in Kansas to come together for a conversation about what our commitments should be to the vulnerable in our State, as part of a discussion about what our commitments should be to each other as fellow citizens.

How can we help our politicians to come out from behind budgetary debates and lead a discussion about what our priorities as citizens of this State should be? Could that be part of our church’s mission, of any church’s mission, to help foster such a debate, to hold ourselves responsible for its outcome? Congregationalists have never been very numerous in Kansas (when compared with Methodists, for example), but we have believed in freedom (helping to prevent the establishment of slavery in Kansas), as well as in the responsibility expressed through good government (a legacy of the covenant theology of the Reformed tradition, to which we belong; a tradition which, by the way, had an enormous impact on the U.S. and the Kansas Constitutions). Congregationalists have also upheld the importance of education, helping to found Washburn University here at home.

After years of ecumenical decline, I think the time has come for people of faith – of all faiths – to come together, to put our heads, our hearts and our means together to participate in a debate about values in our state. KNI is a fortunate acronym here. Its letters could stand for “Kansas and I.” What should I, as a citizen of Kansas, care about together with other Kansans? How can we work to make Kansas a model of caring, beginning with the most vulnerable and including all citizens of our once visionary home.

I ask us all to think this week, every day, about what it means when Jesus says, “Follow me!” Is it just “from the cross to the grave, from the grave to the sky?” Jesus, remember, also said, “If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me…For what will it profit them if they gain the whole world but forfeit their life?”

No, to follow Jesus means being willing to carry our cross, to be just as incarnate in this world as Jesus was, to be just as much alive “in the flesh” as Jesus was to the needs of the vulnerable, to care for them – no matter what the personal or collective cost. We must not spiritualize the vulnerable out of our field of vision and responsibility. Any response to God, must include our response to them.

I strongly believe that now, more than ever, how we respond to Jesus’ invitation to follow him will determine not only the well being of our churches but also the well being of Kansas.

What are we going to do that is worth leaving dad sitting in the boat for? It is worth our considering.

Praise be to God. Amen.