Sermon

The Sacrament of Democracy

The Rev. Jack D. Bryant

Hope Unitarian Church

October 20, 2004

Readings:

Numbers 18:25-31

²⁵Then the LORD spoke to Moses, saying: ²⁶You shall speak to the Levites, saying: When you receive from the Israelites the tithe that I have given you from them for your portion, you shall set apart an offering from it to the LORD, a tithe of the tithe. ²⁷It shall be reckoned to you as your gift, the same as the grain of the threshing floor and the fullness of the wine press. ²⁸Thus you also shall set apart an offering to the LORD from all the tithes that you receive from the Israelites; and from them you shall give the Lord's offering to the priest Aaron. ²⁹Out of all the gifts to you, you shall set apart every offering due to the LORD; the best of all of them is the part to be consecrated. ³⁰Say also to them: When you have set apart the best of it, then the rest shall be reckoned to the Levites as produce of the threshing floor, and as produce of the wine press. ³¹You may eat it in any place, you and your households; for it is your payment for your service in the tent of meeting.

1 Corinthians 16:1-4

¹Now concerning the collection for the saints: you should follow the directions I gave to the churches of Galatia. ²On the first day of every week, each of you is to put aside and save whatever extra you earn, so that collections need not be taken when I come. ³And when I arrive, I will send any whom you approve with letters to take your gift to Jerusalem. ⁴If it seems advisable that I should go also, they will accompany me.

Mark 12: 13-17

13 Then they sent to him some Pharisees and some Herodians to trap him in what he said. ¹⁴And they came and said to him, ‘Teacher, we know that you are sincere, and show deference to no one; for you do not regard people with partiality, but teach the way of God in accordance with truth. Is it lawful to pay taxes to the emperor, or not? ¹⁵Should we pay them, or should we not?’ But knowing their hypocrisy, he said to them, ‘Why are you putting me to the test? Bring me a denarius and let me see it.’ ¹⁶And they brought one. Then he said to them, ‘Whose head is this, and whose title?’ They answered, ‘The emperor’s.’ ¹⁷Jesus said to them, ‘Give to the emperor the things that are the emperor’s, and to God the things that are God’s.’ And they were utterly amazed at him.

Sermon

Have you been watching the Presidential debates? Have you been watching the political ads on television? Have you heard the talk about taxes? Paying taxes is evil. Those who vote to raises taxes are evil. All taxes should be lowered or abolished, especially taxes on the rich, because that way everyone will have more. This message has been argued so successfully that politicians are terrified of raising taxes. As near as I can determine all politicians are against taxes. And one of the favorite ways of cursing a politician is to suggest that he or she is in favor or raising taxes. This is an especially effective curse when coupled with the accusation that someone is a liberal. Don’t vote for him: “He’s one of those liberals who wants to raises taxes that take our money away from us.” Of course, as one humorist pointed out, it’s language that has a familiar sound to it, because it’s been repeated so often in so many subtle variations - such as, “He’s one of those Jews who wants to raises taxes that take our money away from us.” It could also be one of those Catholics or blacks or any other group you wanted to vilify.

Now I’m not entirely unsympathetic to the idea of lowering taxes. I would like to see my tax obligation lowered. As Arthur Godfrey once said, “I am proud to be paying taxes in the United States. The only thing is – I could be just as proud for half the money.”

Complaining about taxes is universal - it’s not just neo-con politicians who object. As some unknown soul once said, “People who complain about taxes can be divided into two classes: men and women.”

And although it’s often said our country began with a revolt against paying taxes without representation, it’s also true, as Gerald Barzan said, that “Taxation with representation ain’t so hot either.”

There’s nothing new about complaining about paying taxes. It is probably the oldest complaint in human history. I can’t prove that, but it’s one of the things I’m willing to take as a matter of faith. And I don’t want to pay taxes anymore than the next person. I would like to keep it all. After all, those politicians are correct - it is my money. Why should I give it up?

But there’s something disturbing about the current controversy over taxes. And I’m not talking about fiscal policy. I’m not talking about the wisdom of running up large deficits. I’m not talking about how large or small the tax burden is in the United States compared to other countries. Those are the kind of questions that have traditionally driven the debate over taxes in our country. Those are the kinds of questions that traditionally divided liberals from conservatives. Conservatives were concerned about fiscal policy, about balancing the budget, about not spending more than we spend. Liberals, on the other hand, just weren’t as worried about it, they were willing to take more fiscal risks, spend a little more, borrow a little more. But that’s no longer what’s driving the debate. The debate is no longer about fiscal policy. The debate is really about morality. It is about fundamental moral questions - questions with deep roots in religion - which is why I think it’s appropriate to talk about it here in church.

Last week I talked about the smoke that’s been generated on the issue of separation of church and state. Well, there’s even more smoke being blown about the tax issue. The rhetoric you hear about how the government should reduce taxes because it’s our money is nonsense, absolute nonsense. The real basis for the argument being made against taxes is this: We should reduce taxes because the individual has no obligation to support the common good. Indeed, there is no common good, there is only private self-interest. I want to repeat what I just said, because I think it’s important. The real argument underlying the current opposition to taxes is the idea that the individual has no obligation to support the common good, because there is no common good, there is only private self-interest.

That’s why, amidst an orgy of tax slashing, the current administration has no problem giving billions of dollars in no bid contracts to its friends, rewriting environmental policy on the basis of campaign contributions and accepting an energy policy dictated by the likes of Enron. There is no common good, there is only private self-interest.

And there is a mundane moral corollary to what’s happening. Virtually every politician is afraid to speak of raising taxes. President Bush never saw a tax he liked. Senator Kerry is willing to raise taxes on the very rich, but even there he is cautious, repeating over and over that he will never raise taxes on those making less than Two Hundred Thousand Dollars a year. Both candidates for our nation’s highest office have big plans to spend a lot of money, but neither is willing to talk about how they will fund it. They can’t, because both are trapped in a policy of opposing all taxes. But don’t worry - whoever is elected will spend money our government doesn’t have. Now how is this a mundane moral issue?

Imagine, if you will, that you take your child to a store where you see any number of items you’d like to purchase, but you don’t have enough money. You lecture your child on how foolish it is to pay such high prices. Why should the merchant take our money? It’s our money, after all. So you pick up the merchandise you want and walk out the door without paying for it. You shoplift. I think that’s the moral lesson being taught by politicians of all persuasions today - the morality of shoplifting. Even if you reject the idea of a common good, does one have the right to take what one can’t or won’t pay for?

Our government exists - among other reasons - “to promote the general welfare.” We may have honest differences of opinion about what constitutes the general welfare, but I don’t believe there is any legal, moral or religious justification for removing the general welfare, for removing the common good, from of our society. And as long as we want to build bridges, feed the hungry - or, if you wish, provide corporate welfare - we have to be willing to pay for it. And that means paying taxes - just as we have an obligation to pay for something we want at the store. It is a moral obligation.

But you may ask: Is it a religious obligation? I believe the answer is yes. One of the traditions that comes to us out of the bible is that of the tithe. Now, you should know that the biblical idea of the tithe is not all that clear. Our readings this morning about tithing are a bit confusing. I looked at several additional mentions of the tithe, but they just added to the confusion. And, of course, there is the famous remark by Jesus about rendering unto Caesar what is Caesar’s and unto God that which is God’s. But that doesn’t really help. The traditional interpretation - which says it is about a conflict between Jesus and the Pharisees is rebutted by modern scholarship which says the conflict wasn’t between Jesus and the Pharisees - who were the Jewish sect whose beliefs most closely matched those of Jesus - but between the Pharisees and the followers of Jesus some forty to sixty years later. That leaves us with a remark that is probably intended as a sly way of being anti-Roman.

But regardless of what the role of tithing was - a kind of religious tax - there is no doubt that the biblical tradition as a whole lifts up the idea of the common good. If anything the biblical witness supports communism more than it does capitalism. It is the poor who are to be cared for - not Enron. It is widows for whom a special collection is to be made - not Haliburton. It is the meek who shall inherit the earth - not the largest campaign contributors who get to rewrite the regulations. But perhaps no one did a better of job of capturing the demand of all the world’s great religions than Robert Ingersoll when he said, “Real religion means the doing of justice. Real religion means the giving to others every right you claim yourself. Real religion consists in duties of man to man, in feeding the hungry, in clothing the naked, in defending the innocent, and in saying what you believe to be true.”

Religion calls for us to recognize that there is a common good. Religion calls for us to recognize that each of us has an obligation to support that common good. A political system, a political argument, that claims it’s our money, that denies the common good, and asserts instead that there is only private self-interest, is one that abandons the religious imperative. When that happens it is the religious responsibility to raise the prophetic voice and to call governments and politicians to account for the idolatrous claim that God is their own enlightened self-interest.

But this is not just a problem for governments. It is also a problem for churches. As citizens of our city, state and country we have an obligation to support the common good on which we agree through our taxes. Members of a church - members of this church - have a similar obligation to support the common good for which the church works. Our own religious tradition is - like that of our country - one of democratic governance. If you want to dot your i’s and cross your t’s you can properly say it is a republican form of democracy. But it means the same thing. It means no one else is responsible for paying for what we decide the common good is to be. If we want to build new roads or refurbish our convention center, then we have an obligation to pay the requisite taxes. And if, as a church, we want to have a building, a pianist, a choir director, a director of religious education and a minister, then we must pay for them. And I include myself, because as a Unitarian I am a member of this church - which is why Lynn and I will pay a pledge of forty-eight hundred dollars this year. The Vatican won’t pay for the operation of this church, nor anyone else. It is only the obligation of the members. Which is why, if you are a visitor today, that I hope you will not put anything in the collection plate when it circulates, because you are our guests. It is not your responsibility to financially support our church. It is only the responsibility of those of us who are members.

Our religious tradition is not founded upon a particular set of beliefs. Statements about who we are, about the essence of what it means to be a Unitarian, don’t begin with the words, “We believe.” Such statements begin with the words, “We promise” or “We do covenant”. That is because ours is a covenantal tradition, based on promises of conduct, promises of mutual support, promises about building communities, promises about recognizing that there is a common good that we are called to support, a common good that for me is symbolized by the words, “the Kingdom of God,” a metaphorical phrase for the ultimate fulfillment of the common good.

The same is true of us as a country. What it means to be an American doesn’t begin with a statement about party affiliation or belief in the sanctity of life or an affirmation of religious affiliation. What it means to be an American begins with a promise to support the common good.

I began by saying that we may have honest differences of opinion about what constitutes the common good. That is true of us both as a nation and as a church. But such differences will never destroy us. The one argument that will destroy us, however, is the attempt to claim there is no common good, that there is only self-interest, that we need not pay the taxes that financially support our country or that we need not financially support our church. Such arguments say we need not promise each other anything. Or if we have made promises, our promises are meaningless and we don’t have to keep them. Such an attitude leads to the morality of shoplifting, which now seems to prevail our national political scene.

It is in the recognition of our obligations to one another and to the common good that we rise about self-interest, that we rise above personal beliefs, and form ourselves into a community. It is by accepting the responsibility to meet the resulting financial obligations - through the taxes we pay to the government and the contributions that we make to our church - that we consummate the creation of community. In this sense our taxes to our democratic government and our contributions to our democratically governed church are nothing less than a sacrament, an act symbol that connects us to the essence of both government and church.

This is something we cannot pass off to another. That’s why I am opposed to the so called faith based initiatives proposed by the same politicians who oppose all taxes today. I oppose them because the obligations of a church can only be met by the members of that church. I believe churches have an obligation - as Ingersol said - to feed the hungry and to clothe the naked. And as an obligation of the church, it must be met by the church and the church’s members - not with federal monies. Those federal monies are not offered to help any church. Those monies are offered to buy the silence of the churches that take such money. Those monies are offered to muzzle the prophetic voice, the prophetic obligation of religion that calls the institution of the church and the institution of government to acknowledge the obligation to work for the common good.

It would be nice if our taxes were lower; and we should not shirk from genuine conflict about the common interest church and state should support. But we must also ask ourselves about the cost we will pay as a society if we choose to deny the existence of such a common interest. That is why I believe taxes paid to our government and contributions made to our church - as well as other charitable contributions we make - should be seen not as burdens, but as opportunities - opportunities to transform our ideals and our values into concrete reality, to be able to go to sleep at night and know that we have not just talked about those who are in want - be it physical or spiritual - but that we have actually fed the hungry in spirit and clothed the naked against the cold of winter.

Amen.