The Great Experiment

By The Rev. Bernard W. Poppe, Rector

There was a small item in the news this week that was lost amid the financial turbulence. It involved a man by the name of Paul Emory Washington. Perhaps because it's an election year, or perhaps because of the turbulent times we're now in, or most likely in a bid for advertising by a genealogy company, research was done on the ancestry of our first President George Washington to discover his oldest living heir.

The process was complicated by the fact that George Washington had no children. But the intrepid genealogists followed the rules of their science of kinship to trace the line which led them from the late 1700's to 2008 to 82 year old Paul Emory Washington of San Antonio, Texas.

Being of presidential lineage is not that uncommon, as a matter of fact, we're pleased to know that one of our own church members is a direct descendant of President Ulysses S. Grant.

However, what makes Paul Washington of interest is that in the days following the Revolutionary War, George Washington was offered the monarchy. The role of President had not been invented yet, and the new American country only knew one form of leadership, that of Sovereign Monarchs. So grateful was the nation to George Washington that they offered him the crown. Perhaps Jesus was the only other person in history to decline such an honor. But, Washington so believed in the leadership capability of the people that he championed the idea of President and elected terms as part of the great experiment of Democracy. Had Washington accepted the crown and become King, Paul Emerson Washington of San Antonio, Texas might just have been our reigning King.

Mr. Washington humbly brushes aside any notion of regal standing, though his children are quoted as being quite sure he'd make a dandy king.

In the early days of American independence, there was a great deal of fear and worry that the "great experiment" as it became known would fail. Drawing up a whole new governmental system as it was adopted in 1787 didn't seem quite as easy as it had in 1776 when they signed the declaration for independence. It was indeed risky and the lives of everyone in the country weighed in the balance.

Many people looked back to the traditional method of monarchy as the solution to their fear. It's what they knew, and in the anxiety of facing an unknown, untried "experiment," to many people, returning to the monarchy seemed a conservative and prudent course of action.

To some degree this is the mind set of the Israelites wandering in the desert as we continue this account from the Book of Exodus. They really didn't know what they had gotten themselves into. Yes, they had been miserable; and yes they cried out for help. But who was Moses anyway? Modern readers have the end of the story and several millennia of myth and lore surrounding it to know who Moses was, but to the people in the desert he was a young, relatively unknown, untested man whose only claim to authority was speaking to a burning bush. He told them of a God whose name was so holy that they couldn't even say it. A God who was everywhere, yet invisible, and a God who had singled them out for a particular relationship. It didn't bode well.

There were signs and wonders along the way, but quite possibly they were coincidences. And there was that disturbing habit Moses had of going off by himself climbing mountains and disappearing for months at a time. In our first lesson we read about the last straw the Israelites were prepared to endure. He was gone too long, they were scared and lost and fearful that Moses and this God were gone forever. They decided it was time to return to what they knew. And what they knew were carved images they called gods. The needed the security of seeing their gods and carrying them and knowing where they were. They wanted to know their names and speak directly to them. They had reached a point of thinking their own great experiment had indeed failed and it was time to return to the old ways.

Well, Moses did return and he set them straight. We know the ending of that story and how the people of Israel did continue to make their way through the desert to their promised land, and similarly we know the ending of the story after the American Revolution, how the Constitution was written and how each community put their trust in God, engraving it, in the former case on tablets of stone, and in the later case on dollar bills.

The Gospel lesson gives us another very strange image of God's invitation to community. What a wedding that must have been! I don't think I've ever received and invitation to a wedding that has elicited from me a hostile response toward the mail carrier - much less kill her. Nor would it have occurred to me to re-examine the cause of a town's destruction to be the work of an angry father of the groom. I can only imagine the second round of guests looking at the carnage around them and tell the next set of messengers they'd be delighted to attend the wedding. It sounds like a real blast. This is like the Kingdom of Heaven, huh? Some parables work better than others.

Sifting through the debris of the Gospel lesson we can actually see how the invitation from God to enter into joy is often met with resistance. The messengers who were the prophets did try to prepare the people for righteous living worthy of God and they were ridiculed and killed. This is where I differ with the teller of the story. I don't believe that a loving God retaliates against the wrongs done to the messengers. I think the towns tend to destroy themselves through their own pettiness or carelessness, or greed, or hostility.

There is a theology in the world that credits God with earthly destruction. I think such theologies are the worst cuts of all. We can look around the world at the wars, violence and financial crisis and figure out that this is not God's doing. This is ours. God invites us to a kingdom of joy and we refuse the offer with, and through, violence.

But in God's love it doesn't stop there. God asks again and again until someone shows up. During my lifetime the biggest crisis and catastrophes I've seen have been the rise and falls of stock markets in 1987, 2001 and this current one. I've seen the devastation of the early AIDS epidemic and lost more friends than I care to count. I watched in horror as the towers fell in 2001 and spent countless hours in pastoral care for those who lost loved ones or colleagues or hope. We all watched the devastation of the tsunamis and hurricanes, especially Katrina.

Yet in each of these crisis I witnessed miracles. The overwhelming power of love to face the challenges. The number of people who rose to the occasion to be God's hands and voice in times of need. Volunteers to work or donate money or time and expertise are, in keeping with the parable, those who accepted the invitation to the wedding feast. People who come to the help of others in time of crisis and need are the people who experience the kingdom of God and its love. In each of these crisis we did not know what was going to happen next, but pulling together we walked through the difficult terrain of unknowing through the sheer will of doing the next right thing.

In times of uncertainty it's a very real temptation to look back and try to replicate older solutions to older problems. But new problems require new solutions and they aren't always clear or obvious. They take faith and will power. They take integrity and patience. When I read about the executives who used part of their bail out money for a $400K junket, I thought of the guest who came to the wedding not dressed properly.

We've lived through crisis before and we'll certainly live through this one. It's an opportunity for all of us to do our daily work and live our daily lives committed to honesty and service to our fellow travelers. If anyone is tempted to feel sorry for themselves, then it's time for that person to help another.

In one sense we picked a horrible time for a Stewardship Campaign. But in another sense, this is a perfect time. People are afraid and giving threatens to be low. But on the other hand the need is greater now than ever to do what we do best, and that is to live, preach and witness the Good News of God in Christ. Hope is one of the foundations of our common lives here. It's a demonstrated fact that whenever public crisis hit, people turn to houses of faith in ways they never had before. We need to continue our work and ministry and be prepared to offer a spiritual haven and living example of the triumph of love in the face of adversity. We are not a people defeated and we are not a people looking backward. We do not look for scapegoats nor do we shrink from difficult questions. Our faith means everything to us and for that reason we must continue to pledge toward the work and witness of St. George's.

Over the next few weeks we'll conduct this program a little differently than before, but ultimately the need remains to make a financial pledge that makes sense for each household. No one of us will presume to tell you what that should be. We will make clear that we made good decisions last year regarding our budget and though we have a deficit it's much smaller than in years past. I think we've found the right balance. We need to maintain it to stay where we are, but we also need to grow our income side if we are to grow in our ministry. Our family and youth programs have been doing so well, I would personally love to see our income grow enough to hire a youth minister. There are a lot of ways we can grow, but first we must recommit ourselves to the value of the ministry we already do and the value of the faith, hope and love that is nurtured in this church. It's up to all of us to keep it strong and it's up to God to help us. God has never let his people down and certainly will not this day.

When the apostle Paul wrote to his church facing hard times he wrote these words for their comfort and inspiration: "...Beloved, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is pleasing, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence and if there is anything worthy of praise, think on these things. Keep on doing the things that you have learned and received and heard and seen in me, and the God of peace will be with you." Amen.

© 2008 St. George's Episcopal Church, Maplewood, NJ