Saturday Night Live used to show brief cartoons by Robert Smigel. Smigel called his SNL satirical series “TV Funhouse.” In 2005, SNL aired a cartoon that imagined political leaders calling on a superhero named Divertor to distract the public from the real issues of the day. Divertor drew attention away from crises by creating celebrity scandals for people to worry about. Deregulation wrecking Wall Street? No sweat! Divertor would simply induce an actress to misbehave until her antics made headlines. No reason to ask hard questions about gas prices doubling when we can obsess on who is going to rehab. Like a jester in the throne room, Robert Smigel used humor to speak truth to power.
Have you noticed that folks argue about matters which demand much attention yet in the long run are of little or no consequence? Wedge issues dominate the airwaves from talk radio to news networks to internet chatter. For example, do you recall watching pundits talk ad infinitum about whether an Islamic house of worship should be built in lower Manhattan four blocks away from where the World Trade Center towers once stood? Yet at the time we neglected to discuss in public forums the far-reaching impact of fundamentalism in Christianity, Islam, Judaism, political parties, schools of economics, the law, and so forth. Remember observing law school student Sandra Fluke stand up to an all-male panel to advocate reproductive rights and health care for women? Afterward the subsequent analysis got sidetracked when Rush Limbaugh called her a derogatory name. Bigots seek to dominate airwaves and silence challengers; who is responsible for allowing that to happen? Again, a golden opportunity for public discourse was diverted.
The Church of Jesus Christ is neither immune nor innocent from distracting and diverting itself from addressing social matters of substance. Christian Centurypublished an academic survey of sermons preached in the early 1960s. The study examined what top three social topics were tackled in American pulpits. At the time the Civil Rights Movement was in full swing, the Viet Nam War was heating up, and an entire generation’s passion for change was palatable. The survey revealed, however, that preachers concentrated on the “evils of gambling, drinking, and divorce.” The study went on to explore the top social topics preached on 25 years later during the 1990s. Since by the Nineties millions of Americans played the lottery (gambling), alcohol use was commonplace (drinking), and half of all marriages were no longer (divorce), so the issues ministers chose to address evolved as well. The study illuminated that in the past decade one was apt to hear a preacher speak against abortion, immigration, homosexuality and gay marriage. Preaching focused on God’s judgment rather than on human rights and civil rights.
Four years ago in 2008, in the week leading up to the national election in November, our church received a packet in the mail. The large envelope included a pair of sermons to be preached against abortion and gay marriage. The packet made me laugh and cry, feel anger and become hopeful. Did the senders think your pastor was too lazy or ignorant or desperate to listen to the Holy Spirit and you, to create and deliver a fresh word for today? (And who told them!) Or did they think that they knew best what needed to be proclaimed and received in this sacred space? Or did they think that we were sitting around, twiddling our thumbs while waiting for sermon notes dripping with hateful theology and narcissistic ideology to fall like sour manna from the sky? The timing was not accidental. Divertor was in full gear.
Several of my kinfolk are looking for meaningful employment; half of my daughter’s high school classmates will not graduate; beloved families close to me are on the brink of losing their homes. Preachers and politicians, spare me the wedge issues, please.
What do you think are the most relevant topics of the day in need of church attention? The church has no needs; our divine vocation is to mobilize and respond to the needs of the people of God. Take a moment to think of practical concerns and social arenas that you would like to hear addressed from a biblical and theological framework, and pass them on to your pastor.
In 2012, we will not be diverted from being one with our neighbors in need. We will not let pettiness distract us from that which is most important. We will not let wedge issues come between us. We will release our fears and hold on to our faith. So whenever Divertor shows up, laugh and say, “Thanks, but no thanks.” We are adults who will not be distracted; we can handle the responsibility of building a global village, one step at a time. Trust us. Trust one another.
As always, First Christian Church of Decatur, I am delighted to be your pastor. Shalom, James L. Brewer-Calvert