Alms not Arms

WESTMINSTER PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH
March 11, 2012
Third Sunday in Lent
Rev. Mark R. Bradshaw-Miller
John 2:13-22; Matthew 6:2-4
“Alms not Arms”

On January 17, 1961 – fifty-one years ago -- President Eisenhower gave a farewell address to the nation.  In that address the President talked about his concern about the growing power of the new defense industry.  Until that time, there had been no industry whose sole purpose was to make weapons.  His concern was that this industry would begin to be the tail that wagged the dog.  Political decisions would begin to be influenced by the industry’s need to grow its business. 

This was not the first time that President Eisenhower spoke about his concerns.  In the first year of his presidency, he gave a speech called the Iron Cross.  He said:
Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and not clothed. This world in arms is not spending money alone. It is spending the sweat of its laborers, the genius of its scientists, and the hopes of its children. This is not a way of life at all in any true sense. Under the cloud of threatening war, it is humanity hanging from a cross of iron.
As a veteran and a general, Eisenhower could not be dismissed as a “lefty-radical.”  He had a deep and abiding faith in God and a clear-headed understanding of the relationship between war, business, and how that relationship could lead to decisions about war being made by those who would profit from war.  His understanding was clearly impacted by his faith.  He is the only sitting president to be baptized while in office.  The president was evangelized into the Presbyterian Church.

On April 4, 1967, six years after Eisenhower’s farewell address, the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. gave a speech at the Riverside Church in New York City.  In that speech he took a public stance in opposition to the Vietnam War.  Using strong theological language he denounced the three evils of “racism, extreme materialism and militarism,” which created the conditions which led to the war in Vietnam.  The connections he made simply put a fine point on what President Eisenhower had said only a few years before.  But Dr. King was criticized and even dismissed as a communist. 

Time has not made us wiser at all.  The warning left by Eisenhower continues to be ignored.  The rise of military contractors – many of whom are modern day mercenaries – now outnumber our combat troops in Afghanistan and Iraq and they cost the nation more than a fully equipped army.  I have done some research on how the money we have spent on the war in Iraq could have been used in others ways.  To date, we have spent 800 trillion dollars on the Iraq war alone.  To help put that in a little better perspective, the amount of money we spend in one year on the war could have done one of the following things domestically: 5.2 million children in poverty could have received healthcare; or 150,000 elementary school teachers could have been hired; or 1.3 million Head Start slots for children could have been opened.  1.3 million more Veterans could have received medical care from the VA, or 2.1 million people in poverty could have received healthcare.  So when we hear that there is no more money for social programs and that taxes must be raised, do not believe the hype.  We do not have a cash flow problem, only a problem with priorities.  President Eisenhower was right.

I know that when faced with these numbers it is easy to get lost.  I cannot really imagine a million let alone a billion or 800 trillion.  Those numbers, even when broken down further seem remote.  So, let me bring it closer to home.  If we were to take only the first congressional district of Missouri instead of the entire nation, it would mean just in our congressional district alone we could have done one of the following.  And this is just with the money we spent in one year on the war.  We could have provided healthcare for 7700 children or 3700 adults.  Or, it could have gone to add 314 school teachers in the city schools or 2500 head start program slots for children so they could get a leg up in the education process.  Or, it could have gone to give 2300 military veterans VA medical care.  That is what it cost us locally for just ONE YEAR!  The costs of war, while now hidden from most Americans, run far greater than the cost per gallon of gasoline.  But as a people of faith, we cannot, in good faith, ignore or remain ignorant of the costs.

By now it may seem like a stretch to say this sermon is not a political speech.  But despite sharing those numbers and the words of Dr. King and President Eisenhower, it is not built upon partisan ideology.  All I have pointed out is that war and economics are intimately intertwined.  Honest politicians and economists from across the spectrum have and will admit this is true.  But this sort of talk is often uncomfortable.  And, when we talk like this, it is easy to be dismissed, discounted and ignored as a fool or worse.  Brazilian theologian Dom Helder Camara summed it up well when he said, “When I give food to the poor, they call me a saint. When I ask why they are poor, they call me a communist.”  It is not partisan or political unless we consider what Jesus did in the temple when he drove out the moneychangers as political. 

It might seem strange to make that jump; maybe even seem like I would have to stretch things to make that case.  But that is because the cleansing of the temple story is part of a bigger story that is not often discussed.  It was Passover and at the time of Jesus and a rather large enterprise had grown up around the required sacrifices.  The temple and its ritual practice had spawned an economic engine which mirrored the oppressive and exclusionary practices of the Roman economy.  In fact, the economy of the temple and the military of Rome were walking hand in hand.  The occupation of Jesus’ day meant his actions would absolutely be interpreted as political by those in charge.

In Jesus’ time, the religious leadership had given concern for the most vulnerable in society a back seat to their concern for the status quo.  Practical politics dominated the thinking of the religious leadership.  Jesus came along and turned their whole world upside down.  It was not the animals and the money changers that angered Jesus but the use of God’s house as the ideological foundation for the exploitation of the poor.   It is much easier to interpret this as a passage about money in church.  Unfortunately, the historical setting makes that a misguided interpretation.

So what do we do?  How is the church of Jesus Christ to respond in our own time dominated by the love of power and the orgy of greed?  If you have access to the powerful, then you must speak and work for larger change.  If you have access to your neighbors, share your bread.  In other words, do what you have the power to do.  And know you are far more powerful than you believe. 

As a follower of the one who fed the poor by showing them how to share and healed without requiring payment, we can never stand by the excuse that we do not have enough members, or enough money, or enough health, or enough…. The only thing which will keep us from living faithfully, and doing what we can with what we have, is giving in to the voice of cynicism.  We are the people of hope. Let our actions speak of this hope.  Our voices are needed, our actions are needed, and our love for God’s world is needed… now more than ever!  Amen?  Amen.