Homily: The Third Sunday after Pentecost [June 10, 2018] Trinity, Santa Barbara

            On primary election day, last Tuesday, June 5, Kathy and I served as poll workers in Canoga Park. This is the fourth election we have worked since we moved back to L.A. two years ago. We don’t have exalted positions. Kathy’s title is “Clerk No. 1”. Mine is “Clerk No. 2”. My friend and former teaching colleague, Larry Dilg (“Supervisor”) has been working elections a couple of years longer than we have, and he recruited us to be part of an ongoing precinct team. Larry is a smart and hospitable guy, and he has built a small staff of people who can both do the work effectively and treat the voters with respect.

This past Tuesday, Los Angeles County inadvertently dropped 118,000 voters from the rolls. As you can imagine, we had to serve a number of frustrated people and convince them to cast provisional ballots, which we were able to do. Nobody in our precinct lost their temper, and everybody voted. Although the days of a precinct worker are long (they run from about 6 a.m. to around 10 p.m.), the work is rewarding because the voters take it so seriously. I think I’ll keep doing it until I’m too feeble to lift all the equipment.

            In Los Angeles County several precincts usually share one location. At Canoga Park Presbyterian Church, our precinct (the “orange” table) shared the parish hall with another precinct, (the “green” table). The green table precinct was led by an elderly man in a US Navy cap who seemed very unhappy to be there or, in fact, anywhere. His affect was such that he could not address the many voters with problems without seeming to scold them. About once an hour a voter would come over to our table and ask how they could file a complaint against the other supervisor.

            The women who worked at this other precinct tried their best to control their leader and put out some of the interpersonal fires he started, but everybody over there ran out of patience when the polls closed at 8 p.m. Several people were still in the process of voting, but as both precincts began the process of closing up, the leader across the hall really began to lose it. There are very specific instructions about how to set up and tear down—largely having to do with ballot security-- but this guy had his own way of doing things. When his colleagues began to question some of his orders, he erupted.

            “I don’t care what the official procedures are!  I am the leader, and your job is not to question me but to do what I say!” Very like Captain Queeg in The Caine Mutiny.

            A composed and dignified young woman quietly responded that to her mind everybody’s job was to follow the county’s procedures and that no one person was above them. At this, rather than respond with a rationale for his authoritarianism, the older man unleashed a string of misogynist epithets, managing to call this young woman a couple of offensive names. My friend Larry went over and tried to calm things down, but everyone (especially the people still voting) was rattled by the experience. As Kathy said on our way out, “I think that guy’s sell-by date has passed.”

            My experience of the man I now call the “misogynist martinet” comes to mind as I reflect on the gospel [Mark 3: 20-35] for this morning. Today’s passage is from the early chapters of Mark’s gospel, the part in which Jesus’s public ministry seems to alarm everyone in town, especially his own family, who try to restrain him from healing and teaching. But the main attack comes from the scribes, religious professionals whose official authority system is threatened by a popular free-lancer like Jesus. Rather than give a reasoned argument explaining their critique of Jesus, the scribes immediately resort (as did our misogynist martinet precinct supervisor) to name-calling. “He has Beelzebul, and by the ruler of the demons he casts our demons,” they say. Jesus is clearly more popular and effective than the religious professionals. The only way they can think of to attack his credibility is to call him names.

            It is hard, when hearing a story like today’s gospel, not to think immediately of certain leaders in our national public life who use social media to make ad hominem and ad feminam attacks against their adversaries. (No names, please!) Whatever your associations with name-calling, we are all familiar the practice of labeling people rather than engaging them in their full humanity. Attaching a label (often, but not always, a gender, race, ethnic, or sexual identity epithet) is a way of reducing a person to a thin abstraction. It’s easier for me to hate or dismiss you if I can think of you as something rather than someone. And it’s easier still for me to deflect your criticism of me if I can call you the devil in the bargain.

            As in many Jesus stories, the great thing about this gospel interchange lies in the way Jesus turns the tables on his attackers. As Jesus asks,

“How can Satan cast out Satan? If a kingdom is divided against itself, that kingdom cannot stand. And if a house is divided against itself, that house will not be able to stand. And if Satan has risen up against himself and is divided, he cannot stand, but his end has come.”

            Jesus knew that part of the problem with name callers is that they don’t think very clearly. If demons are of the devil, and Jesus is of the devil, then why would the devil cast himself out? Once you rob the invective of its power, the scribes’ argument makes no sense. And that is why Jesus then goes on to make his remark about what we in the church have come to call the “unforgivable sin”.

“Truly I tell you, people will be forgiven for their sins and whatever blasphemies they utter; but whoever blasphemes against the Holy Spirit can never have forgiveness but is guilty of an eternal sin”— for they had said, “He has an unclean spirit.”

By making their charge that Jesus’s works were of the devil, the scribes had attributed Jesus’s power to Satan rather than God. Apparently for Jesus, you can say anything you want about God so long as you don’t make the mistake of calling something that actually comes from God “evil”. When I was younger I was confused by this passage, but now it strikes me as eminently simple. It gives me great comfort whenever I hear a hateful preacher talking against same-sex marriage, gender equality, or racial justice. Like the scribes in the story, some folks make the mistake of equating status quo oppression with the will of God. In so doing they are treading on dangerous ground. It is one of the highlights of my professional life that right wing evangelist Franklin Graham on two occasions called me an apostate for performing same sex weddings and allowing a Muslim prayer service in the National Cathedral. While I would not presume to accuse Mr. Graham of having committed the unforgivable sin, I will suggest that it is not smart to misconstrue works of the Holy Spirit. When in doubt, it’s always good policy to side with the champions of love, justice, and compassion.

            Our culture seems to be caught up right now in a maelstrom bad thinking, bad theology, and personal attacks. Given this miserable national mood, it shouldn’t surprise us that two new documentaries have appeared in local theaters: a movie about Mr. Rogers (Won’t You Be My Neighbor) and another about Pope Francis (Pope Francis—A Man of His Word). After endless hours of cable news featuring hateful rallies, screaming pundits, and pugnacious tweets who wouldn’t want to spend some time in Mr. Roger’s Neighborhood or schmoozing with Francis? It is no accident that, in this dispiriting national moment, we find ourselves drawn to people who enact those values of love, justice, and compassion that got Jesus into so much trouble even in his home town.

            The renewed popularity of Mr. Rogers reminds us of one of the first truths we all learned in nursery school, that name calling is never a good idea. Jesus knew that the people who called him evil did so primarily out of fear. And frightened people, like frightened animals, can be dangerous. The precinct leader who called his colleague names resulted to name calling because he feared, correctly, that his time in authority was nearing an end. The scribes who called Jesus evil clearly believed the same thing. And who knows what goes on in the mind of our Tweeter-in-Chief?

When we are confronted by frightened, dangerous people our natural response is to jump reflexively into the fray. But before we start throwing elbows too, let’s pause and remember the women and men who show us another way to be in the world. God’s grace comes to us in many forms, but high among them is the possibility of showing kindness in the face of hate, compassion in response to aggression, generosity in the wake of fear. Love, as Mr. Rogers knew and practiced, is both formative and transformative. Love, as Pope Francis demonstrates by his life and witness, both makes us and renews us. Love, as Jesus always reminded his followers, is all that we finally have to offer.  I know this may sound simplistic, but I believe it to be the gospel truth. Amen.