Friends, in all honesty I am truly sick of this year's political campaigns and can't wait for the election to be over. Fortunately, for all of our sakes, it will all be over blessedly soon.
I am sick of reading the passionate letters to the editor, including my own; I am sick of the manufactured news each candidate seems able to generate to further his or her cause; I am sick of both the real and computer generated calls from all parties--red, blue, green and otherwise.
But mostly I am sick of the wasted dollars that have been poured into the negative ads that inundate voters through television and radio, the internet and telephone.
In the congressional Quarterly of October 16, 2006, Marie Horrigan observed that,
"Based on the blizzard of images and sound bites in this fall's campaigns, American voters might think they face impossible choices in the midterm election.
This year's candidates have presented them with a picture not just of contrasts, but of extremes: the one who gives succor to terrorists vs. the one who is indifferent to the death of soldiers in Iraq; a politician in the pocket of big oil vs. one who would let gas prices rise until average Americans are no longer able to drive cars; a candidate who would open the border to potentially dangerous "aliens" vs. an advocate of an immigration policy so rigid it would strangle the American economy.
These images she says suggest, "Americans are under attack from Islamic extremists in every corner of the world." That "homosexuals are mocking holy matrimony, that lesbians and feminists are attacking everything sacred and Liberal "activist" judges have completely rewritten the Constitution.
Not that any of this is particularly new. Running down the other guy has been a staple of closely contested American campaigns since John Adams questioned Thomas Jefferson's family values.
But academics, political operatives and their client candidates say a number of factors have all converged to make 2006 the nastiest election in the modern era."
According to USA Today a record $2 billion is being spent on candidate and independent "issue" TV ads during this campaign. In the last 60 days an unprecedented 90% of the ads have been negative.
In spite of all the vitriol that has come to us over the airways, I assume that many of us still spend several hours each week watching the television news or listening to NPR and such trying to discern what is happening in the world.
But, it hasn't always been so. In 18th-century New England the most important form of public oral communication (even entertainment) was the sermon preached by the local cleric.
The Rev. Barbara Brown Zikmund has commented that while "people read many newspapers and tracts, they heard hundreds of sermons. The average weekly churchgoer listened to over 7,000 sermons in a lifetime, amounting to over 15,000 hours of listening.
Not only did pastors in each town preach every Sunday, but also in keeping with the Calvinist belief that all human activity falls under the jurisdiction of God's Word, sermons were preached at significant public events--anniversaries, thanksgiving days, fast days and, yes, even on election days.
Unlike the more traditional sermons delivered in the Church of England, which were supposed to "please and inspire," New England Congregationalists and subsequently the Unitarian societies that broke away from the established churches inherited a rational tradition and argued that a good sermon was to "inform and convince."
Given the amount of media attention devoted to our contemporary elections I'm not sure that there is much I can add to the debates that in anyway would inform or convince anyone of anything.
Plus something they didn't have back in the 18th century--the IRS--has plenty to say about churches advocating for particular candidates or party organizations.
So instead of focusing on just the election this morning, I want us to ponder how our neighborhoods, our communities and our nation will be different when we get up to go about our daily rounds on Wednesday morning.
I want us to ask ourselves what will be different about the world I live in after the last rousing celebratory speeches have been cheered?
The last hand wringing concessions have been uttered? After the last bottle of champagne has been drained?
And after the last banner and streamer and pieces of confetti have been swept up and put out in the trash.
After all, it seems to me, that it is only after the election that the real work of democracy begins.
I want to tell a story. This particular story comes to us from the New Testament Gospel of Matthew. This story may seem an unlikely choice for a sermon on the eve of Election Day but I think it merits telling anyway.
In the beginning of his narrative Matthew tells us that "these are the last words of Jesus' last discourse" coming as they do following a series of parables and warnings about living responsibly so as to be ready for the final days of judgment--what some refer to as the Second Coming of Jesus.
The beginning of the story describes the return to earth of Jesus that he may preside over a meeting of all the nations of the world. Jesus is described as being seated on his heavenly throne accompanied by a band of angles. This is what Matthew wrote:
When he was sitting on the Mount of Olives, the disciples came to Jesus privately. He said to them:
"When the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him, then he will sit on the throne of his glory. All the nations will be gathered before him, and he will separate people one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats, and he will put the sheep at his right hand and the goats at the left.
Then the king will say to those at his right hand, 'Come, you that are blessed by my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world; for I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me, I was naked and you gave me clothing, I was sick and you took care of me, I was in prison and you visited me.
Then the righteous will answer him, 'Lord, when was it that we saw you hungry and gave you food, or thirsty and gave you something to drink? And when was it that we saw you a stranger and welcomed you, or naked and gave you clothing? And when was it that we saw you sick or in prison and visited you?'
And the king will answer them, 'Truly I tell you, just as you did it to one of the least of these who are members of my family, you did it to me.'
It is interesting to see how the essence of this story in many ways conflicts with the setting.
In spite of the images of supernatural glory and salvation the story quickly becomes a simple affirmation of ordinary human acts of kindness.--giving food and water the hungry and thirsty; providing hospitality to the stranger, clothing the naked, caring for the sick and visiting those in prison. This actually sounds like a pretty good mission statement for our social justice committee.
The real surprise of this story is not in what it says; but in what it does not say.
In picturing what the final judgment might be like Matthew does not say that salvation is only for those who have confessed their faith in Christ; nor is any mention made of grace or the forgiveness of sins.
In very simple language Matthew tells the reader that what really counts in this life is whether one has acted with loving care toward needy people.
Now it might seem strange to include in an Election Day sermon the story of the Last Judgment--even if some candidates make try to make us feel as if that is what this election is really all about.
But listen to what commentator Bill Moyers has written in an article for Sojourners Magazine:
"This is a time of testing--for people of all faith and for people who believe in democracy. How do we nurture the healing side of religion over the killing side? How do we protect the soul of democracy against the contagion of a triumphalist theology in the service of the imperial state?"
"Over the past few years, as the poor got poorer, the health care crisis worsened, and wealth became more and more concentrated among the few, prophetic Christianity lost its voice...and they hijacked the historic figure of Jesus;
The very Jesus who stood in Nazareth and proclaimed 'the lord has anointed me to preach the good news to the poor;'
The very Jesus who told the 5,000 that all would be fed.
The very Jesus who challenged the orthodoxy of the day by feeding the hungry on the Sabbath, who offered kindness to the prostitute and hospitality to the outcast, who raised the status of women, and treated even the tax collector as the child of God....This Jesus has been hijacked and turned into a guardian of privilege instead of a champion of the dispossessed."
Moyers concludes, "Let's get Jesus back. The Jesus who inspired a Methodist ship-caulker named Edward Rogers to crusade across New England for an eight hour work day.
Let's get back the Jesus who caused Frances William to rise up against the sweatshop.
The Jesus who called a young priest name d John Ryan to champion child labor laws, unemployment insurance, a minimum wage, and decent housing for the poor--10 years before Roosevelt and his New Deal.
Lets get back the Jesus in whose name Dorothy Day challenged the church to march alongside autoworkers, fishermen and textile workers in Massachusetts and the same Jesus who led Martin Luther King to Memphis to join sanitation workers in their struggle for a decent wage."
As we approach Tuesday's elections I can't help but wonder what happened to the imperatives for social justice and caring for our neighbor so eloquently presented in our passage from Matthew?
What has happened to the call to lift up the poor? What has happened to the call to welcome the stranger, to feed the hungry, to clothe the naked, to care for the sick and to visit the prisoner?
Moyers' reply is simply this: "Our times," he says, "cry out for a new politics of justice."
I believe deeply that if we are to live our lives congruently with our Unitarian Universalist values then it is impossible for us to separate our principles from our politics.
I believe that if we live our lives congruently with our principles then each of us will have reason to raise our voices in this call for a new politics of justice.
If we believe in the inherent worth and dignity of all, then we must be motivated to meet the needs of the homeless, the impoverished, the sick and the outcast.
Despite a booming economy, a stock market that has reached historic heights in the last few weeks and reports of welfare reform success, wages for many Americans have simply not risen fast enough to cover the increased cost of living.
For many Americans the most basic aspects of life--food, shelter, medicine--have become unaffordable luxuries.
In the past year, of those people seeking emergency food relief, 35% - that's more than 1 in 3 - had to choose between paying their rent and buying food.
Based on the Census Bureau survey, USDA estimates that in 2000, 10.5 million U.S. households were food insecure, meaning that they did not have access to enough food to meet their basic needs.
About 33 million people lived in these households, including 20 million adults and 13 million children. Hunger in America has, and continues to be, a real problem for a significant part of our population.
So on election day let us remember the words: I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me, I was naked and you gave me clothing, I was sick and you took care of me, I was in prison and you visited me.
If we believe in equity and compassion then we must cry out for affordable health care and a judicial system that is open to all citizens and not just the wealth.
A record 46.6 million Americans had no health insurance in 2005 and fewer people received coverage through their employers, according to U.S. census figures released this past summer. The United States infant mortality rate is 28% which places us just behind the Czech Republic in world rankings.
The Commonwealth of Virginia is second only to Texas in the number of executions performed since the death penalty was reinstated.
On Tuesday let us remember the words: I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me, I was naked and you gave me clothing, I was sick and you took care of me, I was in prison and you visited me.
If we believe in the goal of a world community dedicated to peace, justice and liberty for all then we need to call upon our leaders to model these principals within our own land and in our relations with those nations we consider to be both friend and stranger.
And if we believe that we are caught up in an inescapable web of all existence then how are we called to be good stewards of the land, its resources, and of the amount of wealth that allows us to pour close to 2 billion dollars into the hands of television executives and advertising firms so that we can be subjected to messages of hate, bigotry and innuendo.
Imagine what 2 billion dollars might do if it was spent on health care and education for migrant workers; if it was spent rebuilding the worst of our inner city schools, if it was used properly to bring basic services to the most desperate citizens of the middle east.
"I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me, I was naked and you gave me clothing, I was sick and you took care of me, I was in prison and you visited me."
The legacy of this election will be in how we answer these questions: How did I show a caring love for those around me, especially those who were in need or were suffering?
Which comes first in my life - people or things? And what things?
And which people and what kinds of people? Who do I love and who do I hate?
Reinhold Niebuhr is said to have observed that love means being responsible--being responsible to our families, to our civilization and to our world.
On Tuesday we will all be called upon to vote our conscience. May each of us vote for the person we deem to be the most intelligent, the most experienced, and the most compassionate.
May we take this responsibility with the utmost seriousness, and may our conscience steer us to stand on the side of love and to vote for a new politics of justice.
Amen and Blessed be.