Facing Reality
a sermon by John W. Wimberly, Jr.
Pastor, Western Presbyterian Church
Washington, D.C.
October 19, 2008

Text: Matthew 22:15-22

When this particular Gospel passage appears in the lectionary, I usually preach on the separation of church and state.  When Jesus says, “Therefore, give unto the Emperor the things that are the Emperor’s and to God the things that are God’s,” he makes a key distinction which, centuries later, no doubt caught the attention of this nation’s founding parents.  Jesus argued that some things are rightfully under the authority of the state while other things rightly belong solely to God. 

Surely, Jesus believed that even the Emperor’s things belong to God since everything created belongs to God.  But on a practical, functional level, Jesus knew that we need to figure out what can rightly be assigned to the sphere of influence of the state.  Because it was a theological issue, Jesus and, later, his followers were not about to confess Caesar as God.  But they realized there was no harm and some good that came from paying taxes.

Our founding parents got a lot of things right.  But one of their most profound gifts to us is the First Amendment separation of church and state.  It is intended simultaneously to protect religion from state interference and the state from religious interference.  As a result of this gift, the U.S. has the most vibrant, diverse religious community in the world.  We respect one another rather than try to convert one another, at least most of us do.

Some of you know that I have made the study and defense of the separation of church and state a central part of my ministry.  In 1994, Western won a precedent-setting decision in federal court to protect our feeding ministry from government interference.  I have been an outspoken critic of the religious right as it grew in power and influence.  I have argued the same points with some liberals as they have tried to create a religious left.

Frankly, it is not an area of my ministry that wins me a lot of friends.  Respect, sometimes.  Friends, rarely.  Defending the separation of religion and state, I irritate people even more than I normally aggravate them. 

Working to protect the wall of separation, I have had to challenge a religious group here in D.C. that provides services to the homeless and wants to receive money from the government to fund their explicitly religious programs; tell congregations that they cannot expect special protections in health, fire and safety regulatory matters just because they are a religious group; tell pastor friends that I don’t agree with their endorsements of candidates from the pulpit; tell well-intentioned churches starved for funding that they shouldn’t accept faith-based funding, even for much needed programs. 

The separation issue shapes my thinking on many different issues.  Two weeks ago, when I was involved in a debate on abortion rights at GW, one of my main arguments centered on the First Amendment.  The notion that abortion is murder rests on the assumption that life begins at fertilization.  However, there is no scientific consensus as to when life begins.  The pro-life movement would have the government intrude on basic decisions a woman makes about her body based on a theological belief, not scientific evidence.  Talk about big government.

However, despite or maybe because I am so intensely involved in First Amendment issues, when I read our Gospel lesson this morning, what jumped out at me was not the First Amendment.  Instead, I saw Jesus embracing a reality-based strategy.

In the story, Jesus’ opponents attempt to trap him into espousing an unpopular political position.  To show how little politics have changed over the past two thousand years, Jesus’ opponents tried to link him to supporting taxes.  They figured his polling numbers would drop like a lead balloon if he supported paying taxes to Rome.  I can see the headline: Jesus supports taxes to Rome!  A reporter surely would have asked, “What would plumber Abraham say?”

Jesus avoided the trap by describing reality (and I obviously paraphrase), “You know folks, there are some givens in life.  And no matter what we do, we aren’t going to get around them.  They are what they are.  See this coin?  It is the Emperors.  And what is the Emperor’s is the emperor’s.  Pay up and get used to it.” Wisely, Jesus’ opponents quickly realized there is no arguing with reality and abandoned the debate.

Unlike Jesus and his opponents, most of us do argue with reality—every day, in a million different ways.  We want to be something we can’t be, do something we can’t do.  Worse, we want someone else to be someone they can’t be, do something they can’t do.  At times, we even want the world to be something it can’t be, give us something, such as self-worth, it can’t give. 

Our present financial crisis is a case in point.  When I was in my MBA program, I really dreaded the prospect of taking the finance courses.  However, finance turned out to be my favorite subject because, in the end, finance is all about reality and common sense.  There are lots of ways to slice and dice finance problems.  But all workable solutions are ultimately governed by certain basic rules—all of which are reality based.

If a company isn’t making any money, eventually its stock will be worthless.  Period.  A failure to grasp that piece of reality caused the dot.com stock bust at the beginning of this decade.  Unless a loan is backed by an asset of equal or superior value or a borrower who can pay it off no matter what, it is risky.  An unwillingness to accept that reality is what caused the derivatives and credit default swaps to fail.  Stocks can outperform historical averages for extended periods of time.  But they don’t outperform them forever.  A refusal to acknowledge that reality is why people never should have expected the stock market to rise and never fall.  Good financial decisions are rooted in these kinds of realities.

However, as simple, transparent and logical as the realities of finance are, a lot of very, very smart people, indeed brilliant people, ignored them.  They thought they could outsmart reality.  They couldn’t.  As one writer I trust said, “The problem wasn’t that folks on Wall Street were selling us a bunch of malarkey.  Much, much worse, they actually believed their malarkey.”

Of course, it is classic that everyone is jumping on the people on Wall Street who outsmarted themselves and us.  What about jumping on ourselves?  Over the past fifteen years, how many parties were we at where we said to someone else, “This housing market is crazy.”?  It was.  We should have believed our own words and acted accordingly.  Instead, many of us started to incur personal debt based on a net worth stoked by inflated home values. 

How many parties were we at where people suggested that we buy a particular stock even though they had no real knowledge of the earnings and financial situation of the company itself?  They didn’t know a P/E ratio from ROE.  It should have been a clue that the market was being driven by investors who didn’t have a clue.  And yet some of us thought, “Well maybe they are right.  Better jump on the train before it is too late.”

Take all of these examples together and we have to confess that, for many years, we have engaged in a collective attempt to suspend reality.  We have convinced ourselves that our homes are worth more than common sense tells us they are worth; paying three bucks for a cup of coffee makes sense; it isn’t necessary to save money. Together, we have clicked our heels and tried to wish our way to place that doesn’t exist.

As a testament to our creativity and ingenuity, we managed to do it for a pretty long time.  Some folks have lived in this illusory world for much of their lives.  In the Post this morning, a 46-year old Montgomery County woman, in the midst of an unexpected job change and speaking for many in her age group, says, “We have never done without, as a generation.” Deluded by the good times, we convinced each other, the world’s investment community, and many others that reality no longer rules.  We now know otherwise.  Reality always rules. This is what Jesus was stating when he said “Give to the Emperor what is the Emperor’s.”

When I talk to couples having relationship problems, oftentimes one person refuses to accept the reality of who the other person is.  They want the person to change who she or he is.

With discipline and support, we can change behaviors.  We can stop being late for things; stop being messy; stop feeling the need to have the last word.  But we can’t change who we are.  If we are emotional, that is who we are.  If we are outwardly unemotional, that is who we are.  Expecting another person to change the fundamental reality of who he or she is simply is not a reality-based strategy.

The inability of a partner to change who he or she is doesn’t mean the relationship needs to end.  It means we need to accommodate ourselves to the reality of who they are.  We need to give to the Emperor that which is the Emperor’s.  Discern what behaviors can be changed and work on changing them.  But change someone from an optimistic to pessimistic world view, from being verbal from nonverbal, it is highly unlikely.

Of course, we need to be careful not to declare something a reality, a constant, which is, in fact, a variable.  Reality is not always what it seems to be.  When I came to Western twenty five years ago, the Presbytery executive, at the time, told me that Western was a dying congregation.  We had no nursery or Sunday school for children.  Much of our membership was over the age of 60.  We had no savings.  At times, making payroll was an issue.  Gaston and I used to have Sunday morning prayer services over the 60-year-old boiler. Such was one reality of Western.

However, the members and I saw a second, different reality.  We didn’t see a dying church.  We saw a dedicated membership who refused to close their doors when encouraged to do so.  We saw a beautiful building located in a dynamic part of downtown, next to a world-class university.  The reality we saw was a congregation and location filled with potential.

Gratefully, with hard work and God’s blessing, our understanding of reality has become the now generally accepted description of reality.  We have grown and diversified our membership, built solid mission programs and created a joy-filled family of faith.  This is the reality that we are called to sustain and grow in our current stewardship campaign.

This congregation is filled with change agents, women and men committed to transforming the world into a safer, more just, peaceful and sustainable place.  You are at work out there in the world changing things for the better through the law, advocacy groups, schools, non-profits and for profits.  There are so many different change strategies at work in the lives of the members of this congregation.  It is an honor to work with you. 

If we are to sustain those strategies for change, if we are not to grow frustrated and burn out, we need to remember Jesus’ words of caution:  there are some hard, cold realities that will not be changed.  If we aren’t careful, we will waste an enormous amount of energy trying to change things and people who can’t be changed. 

One of the great acts of spiritual discernment in life is understanding what can and cannot be changed.  The great Calvinist theologian, Reinhold Niehbur wrote a prayer that is used to close AA and other Twelve Step meetings.  It says, “God, give us grace to accept with serenity the things that cannot be changed, courage to change the things that should be changed, and the wisdom to distinguish the one from the other.” It is a prayer by which we can guide our lives.

Reality is not such a bad thing.  It really isn’t.  Jesus realized he was going to die young. He realized his early death was a reality that would shape his life.  He didn’t deny or freak out over it.  It made him anxious at times.  But he knew there was nothing he could do about it.  So he just lived every day to its fullest.

If we have a gene or family system that makes us more likely to be an alcoholic, we don’t need to freak out.  Just be careful with alcohol.  If we are in a tough spot economically, panicking or denying it won’t help.  Figure out a strategy how to deal with it.  If our career is stymied, figure out why and see if there is a work-around.  If there isn’t a way around the problems, we either live with our job or do something else.

Reality is not to be feared.  It is to be named and dealt with faithfully.  Jesus’ idealism was firmly rooted in the realities of the world.  May ours be the same. 

Let us pray: Gracious God, sometimes the realities of life can scare us.  We imagine they present impossible barriers standing between us and where we want to go.  Help us to see realities not as barriers but as the playing field of life.  As we do so, may we find more effective and faithful ways to walk with you and one another.  All this we pray in Jesus’ precious Name.  Amen.