Religious vs Political

Two Sundays ago I preached a sermon on Transfiguration Sunday that talked about our need to be transformed. I talked about the kind of people we need to be transformed into and the kind of people we need to be transformed from. I didn’t talk in bland generalities, but rather, gave specific examples of how we needed to be transformed in order to show the love of God through Jesus to the world more clearly.

And when the service was over, at least one person complained to two people I know...but not to me directly...that my sermon was “too political.”

“Too political.” Funny...I knew that someone was going to say that. Even though I mentioned no specific names in my sermon, I knew that someone was going to say it was “too political.” Perhaps it was “too political” because it sounded like something “those damned liberals would say.” But my wife astutely pointed out that had we visited a conservative church...conservative both in the way they interpreted the Bible as well as the political views of the pastor and most of the congregation, and heard a sermon from their particular point of view, where they were specifically political, and where everyone else was enthusiastically shouting “Amen!”, this person probably wouldn’t have complained at all.

And actually, nor would we. We would simply have chalked it up to differences in how we interpret the Bible, and how those differences inform our daily lives. Indeed how those differences inform our political lives.

So the question here is when is something religious and when is it political. Or perhaps more precisely, does our religion inform our political views or do our political views inform our religious beliefs?

I know how I think things work with me, and because I firmly believe that my religious beliefs inform my political views, I can comfortably say that my sermon of two weeks ago was not political...although it definitely made some people with opposing political views very uncomfortable.

But wait...there’s more!

Ash Wednesday was last week, and in the liturgy for the service that evening, I found the following words in the confession of sin:

Our self-indulgent appetites and ways, and our exploitation of other people, we confess to you.

Our neglect of human need and suffering, and our indifference to injustice and cruelty, we confess to you.

Our false judgements, our uncharitable thoughts toward our neighbors, and our prejudice and contempt toward those who differ from us, we confess to you.

Our waste and pollution of your creation, and our lack of concern for those who come after us, we confess to you.

Restore us, O God, and let your anger depart from us.

I saw these words in the liturgy for the day, and felt vindicated. This was everything I had said three days earlier, except that instead of trusting people to connect the dots themelves (which we often don’t), I came out with a big black Sharpie and did it for them.

Why? Not because my politics inform my religious beliefs. But because my religious beliefs inform my politics…as well as the rest of my life.

Religious beliefs which I’m always re-examining in the light of new data.

Which is as it should be.

In both cases.