One Nation, Under God, Indivisible

Our scripture reading for today comes from the Gospel of Mark, the third chapter, verse 20 through verse 30, where we find these words. Jesus entered a house and again a crowd gathered so that he and his disciples were not even able to eat. When his family heard about this, they went to take charge of him, for they said he is out of his mind. And the teachers of the law who came down from Jerusalem said, he is possessed by Beelzebul, by the prince of demons. He is driving out demons. So Jesus called them over to him and began to speak to them in parables. How can Satan drive out Satan? If a kingdom is divided against himself, that kingdom cannot stand. If a house is divided against itself, that house cannot stand. And if Satan opposes himself and is divided, he cannot stand. His end has come. In fact, no one can enter a strong man's house without first tying him up. Then he can plunder the strong man's house. Truly, I tell you, people can be forgiven all their sins and every slander they utter. But whoever blasphemes against the Holy Spirit will never be forgiven. They are guilty of an eternal sin. He said this because they were saying he has an impure spirit. This is the word of God for the people of God. Thanks be to God.

Good morning, church. I don't know what I was thinking. This morning, I was like, I can just punt. We can do something on parables. I don't know. But here we are. And so as we start this sermon series on faith and politics, we're going to run six weeks, I think, with it. What I want to do is I want to kind of establish a couple of ground rules as we get started. I want to make a promise to you, and I need you to make a promise to me.

My promise to you is that I'm going to work hard to speak from a biblical perspective on this. I want to try to look at what does it mean in this situation to be a follower of Jesus, on whatever it is that we're talking about on that day. I'm not going to try to get into the partisanship that's going. I'm going to try to stay above it and to try to kind of look at it. Now, it doesn't mean that the parties are not going to get kind of get shrapnel from this. They definitely will because I think there's deservedly so from both parties on this. But what I want to do is to focus on what Scripture says, on what Jesus tells us, on what it means to be a follower of Christ in a world of politics. I have my opinions like everyone else does, but what I want to do is to stand squarely on the Bible in this. Now, having said that, this is going to step on our toes. At least I hope it does. That would be a desired outcome for me as if all of our toes get bloodied and bruised because we need it. And that's a healthy thing for followers of Jesus. It's a healthy thing for the church to be challenged to try to work where we fall short to try to get better. What I need from you, what the promise I need from you is really twofold. 

First, when you come in here and you hear me say something, what I need you to do is not have your first response be, I sure hope they heard that, whoever they is to you. I want you to think about it and say, what do I need to hear in this? That's healthy. I think sometimes we think, boy, I sure hope they heard that. And it takes the responsibility off of us. Our responsibility is to learn and grow and to become better followers of Jesus. And the way we do that is to come with an attitude of saying, what do I need to hear in this? Where am I falling short in this? And if all of us do that, and we've got folks from both sides of the aisle in this room, then we're all going to be better for it and our community is going to be better and our church is going to be better and we're going to be better followers of Jesus. The second thing is this. If you feel like I'm not following through on my promise, if you feel like I'm wrong in something that I say, if you feel like I'm missing the mark, or if you feel like you're not sure what it is I'm trying to say, I need you to reach out to me and let's get together and let's talk. I need you to be able to say, Pastor, can we meet for a cup of coffee and let's meet and say, I disagree with what you said here, or I'm not sure what you were trying to say here, and let's talk about it. That is the pathway forward.

That's how we're going to get better as a nation when we start doing that. Don't just go and say, we know that pastor. He said some stupid stuff on Sunday. You wouldn't believe all the trash. He's just, you know, whatever. Come talk to me Let's work through it. Let's listen to each other. Let's talk. That's how we're going to get better. We need to model that so that the world will see it, so that the world will find a better way forward as well. And I need you to show me grace when I mess up, and I feel certain I'll mess up. I think I've been here long enough, though, that I can have earned the benefit of the doubt. You know my heart, and that's to build community. That's to bring people together. That's to build bridges and to build the church. And that's what I hope to do here. 

The second piece of business I want us to tend to before we get into the sermon series is I want you to kind of have an understanding of some resources that I've been using as I've been preparing for this sermon series. There's really four books, and I believe they're on the screen here. These four books I've been using to kind of read through and prepare for the sermon series. I've got them on the table out in the Welcome Center. There's also a slide we put up in the window right outside the church offices. If you want to take a picture of the slide or take a picture of the books, or you could take a picture of that right now even. These four books all come from what I call the middle third of the political spectrum. That means they're not extreme right or they're not extreme left. They're in that middle third. And I believe, as I've read through them, and I know of the people that wrote them, that two of these come from a little bit right of center, and two of these come from a little bit left of center. But all four of these books are seeking to do the same thing to help to focus more towards the middle, to find common ground where we can stand on it together. So I encourage you to look at these books. If you're looking for some more information on these things, I think they're all really good in the things that they bring out. And so I think they're going to be helpful for us. 

And of course, in addition to these four books, scripture is going to be at the center of everything we talk about. In addition to these four books, you might see at the bottom, there's a podcast that has really been influential to me and maybe helped give me the courage to do this sermon series, and it's called You Might Be Right. Now, some of you all are familiar with it. I know some of you are fans of it. Some of you recommended the podcast to me first, but it's a podcast. You can find it anywhere where there are podcasts. And it's led by two former Tennessee governors. One is former Democratic Governor Phil Bredesen, and one is former Republican Governor Bill Haslam. And the name of the podcast, You Might Be Right, comes from another former Tennessee politician, former Tennessee Republican Senator Howard Baker, who became the Senate Majority Leader at one point in Congress and was even Chief of Staff for Ronald Reagan. But when someone would challenge Senator Baker on something, he was known to say back to them, you might be right. And he didn't mean it flippantly or arrogantly. He meant it genuinely, and he would follow that up with, let's get together and let's talk. And when they would get together and talk, Senator Baker was known to listen to that person in hopes of finding new information that he did not know of before that would shift his way of thinking, shift it more towards the person that he was talking to away from where he felt on that position before. These two governors' podcasts seeks to do the same thing.

They tackle divisive issues, and they each bring in experts from their perspective, from the Democrat or Republican perspective on these issues. But the goal of the podcast is not to prove that I'm right and you're wrong. The goal is to listen and to learn and to seek to find new avenues to find common ground to be able to work together so that we can stand on the same solid ground together. I was actually listening to one of these podcasts a couple of weeks ago, and in the midst of the podcast, Governor Haslam said, the government is better at fixing potholes than it is fixing hearts. The government is better at fixing potholes than it is fixing hearts. And I'll tell you, I couldn't pull over fast enough when I heard that to make sure that I wrote it down so that I didn't forget it because I think it captures the very heart of the issue that we're facing as a nation today.

I think this is the crux of our problems right now as a nation. And I would add to what Governor Haslam said, that the government and politics that surrounds it are actually brutally hard on hearts, that politics and our government can be hard on hearts. And the church and followers of Jesus, we're supposed to be in the heart business. And I think when we dabble too much into the political realm, we forget that. We lose track of that, and we can cause harm to hearts. I think when we get too invested in the politics as followers of Jesus, that we forget what our basic calling is. And we start working on fixing potholes at the expense of people's hearts. And when we do that as followers of Jesus, we are wrong, period. There is no excuse about that. When we forget what our business is as followers of Christ, let me say it a different way. The end doesn't justify the means. Jesus is clear about this throughout his teachings. And as followers of Jesus, we can't fix a pothole at the expense of a heart. The government's in the pothole repair business, and the church is in the heart business. And we need to hold this distinction, because I think sometimes we Christians get in the wrong business. We focus on the wrong things, and we fail to remember the hearts that are involved. As we get into this series, and it took a lot to set the stage on it, I know. We're setting the parameters today so that we can really move forward fast starting next week.

But as we start getting into this series, I want to kind of look at this, because I think the main reason that I really want to go forward with this series, the reason that I'm really excited about this series is because I don't like where we are as a nation. I don't like how we treat people. I don't like all the division I see And I'll tell you this, I believe that this is causing great harm to us as a nation. I believe the way we're acting is going to cause us even more harm if we don't make changes in the way we act and behave. And I'll tell you this too, even more so than the concern I have for the government and for our nation, is it's found its way into the church and it's causing great harm to the church. And here's where I think the greatest harm is being caused. It's hurt the church's witness in the world. As those who don't know Christ, as those who stand outside the church and look in, they don't see anything different in us than what they see in the world around them. Our witness is diminished when we take our focus to be on fixing potholes and don't take our understanding to be how we fix hearts and how we hold hearts. The division that we're seeing around politics is being mimicked in the church. And somehow we've lost in the midst of this the ability to disagree on an issue, any issue, all the issues, and still be the church together. We've missed out on that. We've forgotten what it means to. And how that happens is when our top priority is Jesus, then we can disagree on everything else and we still have our highest ideal in common. But when we raise politics above that, then if we don't agree on politics, then we can't be the church together. And that's where we are missing the mark. Where we don't think we can sit on a pew with someone we disagree with, and that's causing great harm.

The one thing that Scripture and our founding fathers both have in common was an understanding that it's important for us to be united. For instance, Paul wrote on it several times in his letters of the churches when they were fighting and bickering and divided. And he said, look, the church is one body. That's the body of Christ. And we have many parts. And how can one part say to another part, I don't need you. We need every part of the body to be able to live into what the body's supposed to be. And every part has value. And how can one part say to another part, you aren't needed. Likewise, our founding fathers saw being united as a key factor on our success moving forward. In the preamble of the United States Constitution, it says, we the people of the United States, in order to form a more perfect union, note how it starts. And this is not just by happenstance. It says, we. Not us and them. It says, we, the people of the United States, in order to form a more perfect union, that the core is the same core as unity.

Our founding fathers saw that our unity was critical for our success, so much so that when we were looking to put together the Declaration of Independence to declare our freedom and our independence from Great Britain, and it was really breaking down. It looked like it wasn't ever going to happen because of the divisiveness in the room and how people wanted their way and they weren't willing to compromise or give on it. And Ben Franklin ultimately had to get up out of what could have been his deathbed and find his way there. And in the midst of it, he got everyone's attention as he came into the room and as the silence filled it, he said, gentlemen, we must surely hang together or we will all hang separately. In other words, the future of our nation was literally hanging in our ability to come together as one. And I think that message still holds true to us today. And when we are out and about in an environment where they will ask us to stand and place our hand over our heart or salute and we say the Pledge of Allegiance, it says that we are one nation under God, indivisible, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. That's not just a declaration for us as a nation, but a warning that if we can be divided, we will be defeated. That goes for our nation and it goes for the church. In our text for today, Jesus offers a very similar warning. And if you are a student of history, then our scripture probably brought to mind a famous speech from our nation's history. I'll get back to that in a minute.

But it resonates in a way where Jesus is pointing out how divided the people of God are at this moment and how the religious elite are trying to preserve their own power by seeking to discredit Jesus, by seeking to do what they want to do and not look at what God is doing in their very midst in Jesus. And Jesus says in the midst of it, as he's dealing with the division that he sees among God's people, if a kingdom is divided against itself, that kingdom cannot stand. If a house is divided against itself, then that house cannot stand. Even if Satan is divided against himself, then he can't stand. Whether it's the kingdom of God, the kingdom of a nation, or even the kingdom of a household, if it's divided, it won't be able to stand. It will fall. That speech was from Abraham Lincoln in 1858 as he was running for the U.S. Senate from Illinois as our nation was wildly divided around the issue of slavery. And he stood on the steps of the state capitol and he gave what is known as the house divided speech. He said that if we can't find a way to become one as a nation to work through our differences, then our nation will fall because a house divided cannot stand. He was right then. And we know the aftermath of that. 

And he's right now, both as a nation and as the church. And by church, I mean that capital C universal church around the world, the one body of Christ. Jesus said in that text immediately following that a house divided cannot stand, that no one can enter a strong man's house and rob it without first tying up the strong man. I love that imagery. You can't come in and rob the strong man's house unless you tie up the strong man. If not, the strong man's gonna get you. Jesus is clear that if we are united as followers of Christ, then no one, nothing can destroy us. I say that's likely the same as our nation. Our nation's power has always been in our ability to come together and be united in times of great need. On Friday, we celebrated the 25th remembrance of what happened on September the 11th, 2001. What I remember was that sense of coming together in the aftermath, to work together for a common good. Unfortunately, it was short lived, but I still remember vividly how glorious that time in the aftermath of that awful tragedy was. That's what we need.

I miss it. So the way to destroy our nation is to divide us. That's the way that it will happen, to tie up the strong man, which is our unity in Christ. And even more importantly, Jesus tells us that the only way to destroy the church is to tie up that strange strong man to divide us and to keep us from being the one body of Christ with many parts in which we value every single part of the body. Our power as the church and as the nation lies and our ability to be one. One nation, one church under God, indivisible, where we value and work toward liberty and justice for everyone, for all, that no one is excluded from our work. Or as Paul said, where one part of the body can't say to another part, I don't need you. A house divided cannot stand. The sooner we recognize that as a nation, as the body of Christ that we call the church, the better off we will be.

I'll give you a warning for next week. Bring your steel-toed boots. 

Thanks be to God. Amen.