SAINTS AND CANDIDATES. About a year ago there was an auto show in Padua, Italy. In addition to vintage

Transcription

1 SAINTS AND CANDIDATES Matthew 5:1-12 About a year ago there was an auto show in Padua, Italy. In addition to vintage and exotic motocars, there was for sale a 1959 Mercedes Benz 190D, not a particularly desirable car for collectors, except that this one had belonged to Padre Pio ( ), a Capuchin monk who was canonized St. Pio of Pietrolcina in Padre Pio had taken a vow of poverty and didn t own anything, much less a luxury automobile. The story is that the Mercedes was a gift from a wealthy family in gratitude for one of Padre Pio s miracles. Padre Pio is credited with countless miracles, some of them vehicular in nature: there is the story of a driver who survived a near-fatal accident, and also of a motorcyclist who sped ten miles on an empty tank to keep a lunch date at the monastery. Padre Pio s advice to people who came to him for help was, Pray, hope, and don t worry. For this reason he has become known as the patron saint of stress relief. The current owner of the car at the time of the show was a Giuseppe Favia. A dealer in Bari, he had brought the car from Domenica Cristiani, who while working near the monastery, had received it as a gift from Padre Pio, who apparently never had much use for it. The car sat at the monastery most of the time. Thanks to the southern-italian climate, there was no rust. The interior was immaculate, and the odometer registered only 50,578 miles a cream puff.

2 An Italian newspaper, Il Gazzettino announced the sale of the vehicle and proclaimed, The latest miracle of Padre Pio was to have elevated the price of a car worth about twenty thousand euros to more than ten times that amount. (The New Yorker, p. 43, 12/3/07) Now that s a saint for you! We Lutherans don t have anything like this. We re so democratic (small d, of course) that we think a saint is anyone who is baptized. You don t need to have performed miracles or show evidence of stigmata or anything much besides make an appearance at the baptismal font, which is comforting but not very inspiring. Lutherans were uncomfortable with the extravagant claims made by the Roman Catholic Church in creating its saints, a top-heavy process that seems to be fraught with legend and superstition. So we did the opposite. But this doesn t seem quite right either, does it? Shouldn t there be some quality to saintliness, something to make us think of the saint as having made some effort to show a little Christ-likeness? It is traditional on All Saints Sunday for the Beatitudes of Jesus as they appear in the Gospel of Matthew to be read in the church. The Beatitudes tell us who according to Jesus are the blessed. Is it not reasonable to think that the blessed are the saints? Surely that s why the lesson is read on this day. So, what if we were to look to the Beatitudes in order to get a picture of sainthood? And since Election Day falls right after All Saints Sunday, perhaps we might think of the Beatitudes in reference to the experience of going into the voting booth and casting one s ballot. With the Beatitudes in mind, you step into the voting booth and pull the curtain:

3 Blessed are the poor in spirit Who are the poor in spirit? This is a question that has perplexed biblical scholars, but let s try to answer it anyway. The poor in spirit are those who identify with the poor. They may not be poor themselves, but they judge things by the way the poor are treated. So the candidate who shows concern for the poor, who judges what is right to do by how the poor are affected, is the candidate of the saints. Then there is, Blessed are those who mourn. Those who mourn are people who grieve and take seriously the griefs of others and especially the griefs of those who struggle in the face of illness or disadvantage or death, those who are filled with regret. The right candidate is the one who will reduce the gap between those who are privileged and those who lack privilege and in so doing will help all of us to live without regret. Blessed are the meek. Let meek, which can sound like sheep, mean humble, which sounds like Jesus. Blessed are the humble because humility leads to goodness as arrogance cannot. The candidate who recognizes this will put our nation into the community of nations and by so doing will make possible the conversation that leads to understanding and cooperation and, God help us, peace.. Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness. The blessed are those who want goodness and justice more than they want power. The paradox is that real power is the fruit of justice and goodness. Which of the candidates wants the power that comes of justice and goodness and not merely the power of force? Blessed are the merciful. Mercy begets mercy. Which candidate will try to understand the behavior and experience and reasoning of others and even of our enemies, thinking that they are human beings like ourselves who have lives and loved ones and

4 interests? What are they going through? What have they been through? In Christ, they are our neighbors, too. Blessed are the pure of heart. The pure of heart are those who cannot be bought, not by money, not by desire for power or pleasure or anything other than the good which is God s will for all. The candidate of the pure of heart is the candidate who will not compromise principles even when he is compromising, as must be done in a democracy, to achieve the best that is possible for all concerned. Blessed are the peacemakers. Peacemakers are more than those who win when there is a conflict. Peacemakers are the enemies of violence. The candidate of peacemakers is the person who seeks with adversaries a common understanding that will prevent bloodshed. Such a person is not naïve about human perfidy, but s/he is nevertheless committed to doing everything possible to prevent the violence of war. Peace-makers make peace. They do not merely conquer enemies. There is a difference. Blessed are you when you are persecuted for righteousness sake. These are persons who will do what is right regardless of the personal cost. These are people who look to goals that are higher than the satisfaction of their personal ambitions. Their candidate will be the person who wants to serve more than s/he wants to rule and who as a consequence is willing to sacrifice in order for justice to be done. Blessed are you when people revile you and utter all kinds of evil against you on my account. Again, it is a matter of doing what is right regardless of the personal cost, but what is specifically in question here is one s reputation. What is the basis of the candidate s reputation? Does the candidate tell the truth and hence have nothing to fear from lies spoken against him/her?

5 This, I would suggest, is how Christian saints, the blessed, might go about deciding who is their candidate for public office in this election season. We step into the voting booth with the mind of Christ, and we will not allow ourselves to be distracted by anything that is not Christ. We vote our faith. Not our pocketbook. Not our fears. We vote our faith if we are saints worth the name, not saints perhaps like Padre Pio of whom it is said that he could be in two places at the same time and could rise off the ground by levitations, who could speed the mail, and who even possessed the odor of sanctity, whatever that is, but real saints nonetheless who embody the spirit of Christ in the way we live our lives, which includes the way we vote. Blessed are the saints and their candidate. Amen. All Saints Sunday, November 2, 2008 Emanuel Lutheran Church