Sermon prepared for Messiah Lutheran Church
—7:00 PM Thanksgiving Eve Service—
11/22/00
by Gregory S. Kaurin, Associate Pastor for Spiritual
Care and Development
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Texts:
Joel 2:21-27, 1 Timothy 2:1-7, & Matthew 6:25-33
The
Sermon—
An Open Letter to Election Officials and Voters,
on Thanksgiving Eve
Dear
Sirs, Madams, Election Officials and Voters,
I am a Lutheran pastor in Washington
State and thankful citizen of the United States. “Thankful” is a word that I am writing with a bit of a crooked
smile. It’s true: I am thankful;
I am thankful for many things, including my citizenship. At same time, as you might imagine, I am not
so happy with some of the “goings on” right now. Each night, I find myself rolling my eyes and muttering sarcastic
and cynical comments as I watch and listen to my newest favorite soap opera on
CNN, “As the Election Spins.”
I suppose, though, that I can
find things for which to be thankful, even in this whole strange situation, at
least for the education that it is giving all of us. I have been amazed at the sustained interest people are giving to
this election and its politics.
The high school across from our
church allows our youth to bring and eat their lunches in our youth room. As a result, I have been delighted to hear
many of their conversations. And daily,
even though they do not yet vote, they are keeping up and debating the minutia,
the rumors and rulings. Whether good or
bad, they seem aware that they are witnessing a historic election. They seem to be learning more than I did in
my civics class when I was their age.
And me? It’s always interesting for me to see how words can take on new significance. As a preacher, words are very important to me. I now have new words and phrases that will serve as great metaphors. Before this, a ballot was a ballot. But now I know what a “butterfly ballot” is—although I feel a bit sorry to pick on such an attractive creature. This certainly wasn’t the butterfly’s fault, nor his Designer’s.
I asked one of my congregation members if a month ago he would have known what a “chad” was. He actually knew that some people in Northern Africa spoke the language of Chad. But no, until now, he had no idea that those little scraps of paper from punched data cards had a name.
Never before have these little scraps
of paper had so much significance. I
am sorry for all those thousands of chad that I have so carelessly thrown
away. I don’t know if it will help, but
I’m enclosing a few extra that I found on the office floor. Please forward them down to Florida if they
run short of chad to count.
I am told that our Northern natives have
many specific names for what we call “snow.”
What each of those names is, I don’t know. But in a similar vein, I do know now what a “hanging-chad”
is! And the “hinged-chad.” And there are still other kinds of chads
depending on the number of angles and corners that are or are not
attached. And last, of course, there
are the un-perforated chads that we now call “pregnant,” and we’ve learned that
too many pregnant chads cause ballots to be “dimpled.” I’m sorry, but I will not be including any
hanging, hinged or pregnant chad with this letter. (Besides, I’m really not sure if a chad is really a chad with all
the rights of a chad until it is fully born and separated from it’s
birth-mother paper.)
Yes, I am poking a bit of fun. I am also very aware of the seriousness of this situation. But in this open letter—as serious as this electoral situation is—please don’t miss how very thankful I am that many of us feel (and are) secure enough to make light jokes while we all wait to see how things will unfold.
I am profoundly thankful that, as we sit with an unresolved election—in spite of debates, arguments and even a few flared tempers and thrown fists—we do not have tanks and military running down Pennsylvania Avenue against our nation’s capital. Just two months ago in Yugoslavia, we were reminded of how in other countries contested elections can quickly become military coups. I am very grateful to those who set up this overlap of power between the sitting president and the potential president-elect.
We debate and have always struggled over what our division of church and state means, but I am also thankful that relative to other nations we have a country that does not actively suppress religious bodies. I was reminded of that this morning as I saw the kettles and bell-ringers asking the general public to help support the mission of the Salvation Army, which a few people may know is actually a Christian church, a church that even today is struggling to be allowed to extend their ministry into Russia. So, for these reasons and many more I am a thankful citizen of the United States.
As a pastor, during these
times, I am most thankful for God and his work through people and groups, including
nations like ours. Some have
pictured God as a “watchmaker God” who created the universe, put it in motion
and is now sitting back and watching the results. Against this—and I firmly believe he was right—the Revolutionist
Patrick Henry claimed that “God presides over the destinies of the
nations.” Let me write that again: “God
presides over the destinies of the nations.”
In the end, the United States (it is frightening to think) may or may not be the last or greatest nation to exist. She is the greatest to me, and while she is here and in her health, I am convinced that God is working through even some of her very secular structures and institutions. Through the people and structures, God feeds and clothes, yes. More important, through them God offers enough order for many of us to be disciples and to reach out to others with service and an eternal word of salvation.
I was recently reading a sermon from the 1950’s by one of my favorite preachers, Paul Tillich, a Prussian who fell into conflict with Nazi Germany and immigrated to preach and teach in the United States. He was preaching on God’s salvation. He said that “salvation happens whenever an enslaving power is conquered, whenever the wall is broken through, whenever the sickness is healed…Nobody except God can do this…All liberating, all healing power comes from the other side of the wall which separates us from eternal life,” and “All liberators, all healers are sent by God; they liberate and heal [only] through the power of the eternal given to them.”[1]
St. John’s Revelation in our Christian Bible says, “The leaves of the tree of life are for the healing of the nations.”[2] How can nations be saved? Pastor Tillich answered by saying, “Nations are saved if there is a small minority…who represent what the nation is called to be… [There must be a minority] willing to resist the anxiety produced by propaganda, the conformity enforced by threat, the hatred stimulated by ignorance. The future of this country and its spiritual values is not dependent as much on atomic defense as on the influence such groups will have on the spirit in which the nation will think and act.”[3]
So, dear Sirs, Madams, Election Officials and Voters, on this Thanksgiving Eve, both my thankfulness and my grin are growing broader and more confident even as I write this letter because I rest assured that God does preside over this and the destinies of all nations. I rest assured that you and I are ultimately in the best and eternal hands of God. And finally, I rest assured that even if this and all nations pass away, should the earth shake and the mountains fall into the seas, should even a global killer of an asteroid or comet strike the planet, and even if butterfly ballots and pregnant chads confuse us for awhile, the most important things are secured. Salvation shall prevail. Christ reigns. We are free. And we are called.
Believe that, and I will see you in eternity. Thank God.
Most sincerely yours,
Gregory Scott Kaurin
Pastor Gregory Scott Kaurin
P.S. If it is all right with you, I would like to reclaim the poor, misused butterfly as our Christian symbol for resurrection!
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