From the Book of Ben Sira:
Do not seek from the Lord high office,
or the seat of honor from the king.
Do not assert your righteousness before the Lord,
or display your wisdom before the king.
Do not seek to become a judge,
or you may be unable to root out injustice;
you may be partial to the powerful,
and so mar your integrity.
Commit no offense against the public,
and do not disgrace yourself among the people.
(From the Daily Office Lectionary – Ben Sira 7:4-7 – October 24, 2012)
There are a few folks flying all over the U.S. recently (and promising to do so for the next couple of weeks) who have not followed Ben Sira’s advice! Everyday for the past few weeks my mailbox has contained at least one and more commonly three or more expensively produced, glossy, color flyers extolling the virtues of one or the other of the political parties or candidates, or more often tearing down the other guys. Everyday for the past few weeks my voicemail has recorded a robo-call from some politician or political action group. Everyday at any hour of the day that I care to turn on my television set, I am treated to political advertisements and “news” shows. Someone is not following Ben Sira’s advice to “not seek high office or the seat of honor”! And we as a society are, I’m sad to say, disgraced among the nations by the spectacle of our electioneering.
And how could it be otherwise in a society like ours? In a culture in which the People are the sovereign, charged with choosing our leaders by popular vote, how could it be otherwise? We could, I suppose, try to limit the period of campaigning. We could, I suppose, try to limit the amount spent on political advertisements. I’m not sure these or other measures would work, but we could try.
What might work better is for everyone, more the People than the politicians, to remember and meditate upon the closing words of Abraham Lincoln’s first inaugural address:
We are not enemies, but friends. We must not be enemies. Though passion may have strained, it must not break our bonds of affection. The mystic chords of memory, stretching from every battle-field, and patriot grave, to every living heart and hearth-stone, all over this broad land, will yet swell the chorus of the Union, when again touched, as surely they will be, by the better angels of our nature.
If we and those who seek our votes would simply remember that we are not enemies, and let ourselves be touched “by the better angels of our nature,” if we and those who seek our votes would focus on truth and on laying out a vision for our country and our world instead of tearing down the other candidate, if we and those who seek our votes would carry out our democratic processes in humility, then perhaps we would not need Ben Sira’s injunction to “commit no offense against the public,” perhaps we could be assured that our election cycles do not disgrace ourselves among the nations.
Until then, though, Ben Sira’s words are not merely an injunction; they stand as stark indictment of our political campaigns. God grant that when it is all over, the better angels of our nature can unite us again.
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Father Funston is the rector of St. Paul’s Episcopal Church, Medina, Ohio.
Heart, spirit, body. These two verses speak to me of the necessary investment of one’s whole self, the whole person, into the spiritual and religious life. One of the most influential lay theologians of the middle 20th Century, William Stringfellow wrote: “Spiritual maturity or spiritual fulfillment necessarily involves the whole person – body, mind and soul, place, relationships – in connection with the whole of creation throughout the era of time . . . . Spirituality encompasses the whole person in the totality of existence in the world, not some fragment or scrap or incident of a person.” (The Politics of Spirituality, Westminster John Knox: 1984, p. 22) If Stringfellow is right, and I think he is, then a plan for spiritual growth should follow the Psalmist example and “set the Lord always before” the person seeking to grow. Always . . . not just an hour or so on Sunday morning.
Sound familiar? Jesus sounded a lot like Micah at times:
Micah gets just a wee bit graphic here with his metaphors, with his condemnation of political leaders, don’t you think? He has accused them of being cannibals! He describes them as treating the people like meat for a meal; they have butchered them, flayed them, broken their bones, and chopped them up for stew meat! It’s awful!
Micah condemns those who plot to do wrong “on their beds” and then carry out their plans when they rise; he prophesies God’s retribution against them. But then he is told not to do so; those to whom he preaches not only reject his prophecy, they tell him not to preach such things at all. He concludes that they only want to hear their preachers tell them of pleasant things, the things they enjoy; they want preachers who will utter “empty falsehoods” and preach of “wine and strong drink.”
It’s a darn good question, “Why do you call me “Lord, Lord,” and do not do what I tell you?” As we come to the last month of the 2012 political campaign, it is one which needs to be carefully considered by many Christians on all sides of the political divide. Are the values on which Christian voters are making their decisions those taught by Jesus, or are they cultural values dressed up in Christian clothing? One-issue voters in particular should take a broader look at their choices; just because a candidate supports your position on a question of particular importance to you does not mean his or her overall platform conforms well to the values of the Gospel, or does what Jesus told us to do.
It is said that Martin Luther hated the Letter of James; he called it an “epistle of straw” and didn’t believe it should be in the Bible. Why? Some folks will tell you it is because this epistle doesn’t support Luther’s theology of justification by grace through faith; James insists that works are necessary and the reformer just didn’t like that. However, that’s not really the case. Luther had doubts about the epistle’s apostolicity; he didn’t think it was really written by James the Apostle. He was probably right.
It’s a puzzlement! 
We are living through a presidential election campaign in the United States. It seems to have been going on for ever, and the political ads and the news coverage of the candidates are increasing in intensity and in frequency. Pollsters take the public’s political pulse; commentators analyze the polls; the public reacts to the analysis; the pollsters re-poll the public. It’s a system of pendulum swings that feeds upon itself and oscillates back and forth. Flip-flopping candidates are matched by a flip-flopping electorate, and the candidates, their surrogates, and the commentators all decry the fickleness of the crowd.
