“The Constantinian Test”
Matthew 23:1-12
Allen Huff
Jonesborough Presbyterian Church
11/12/17
In the fourth
century, when Christianity was a mere toddler as a world religion, the Church
began to face its supreme test. It started when Emperor Constantine won a
battle over a stronger enemy and credited the Christian God. So, in 313, a
victorious Constantine legalized Christianity. In 380, Emperor Theodosius I
declared Rome to be a Christian nation.
What I’m calling a test occurs when political and martial power
tempt the Church to confuse love and service of God with love and service of the
state. The unwritten contract goes something like this: If you let us into your sanctuaries, if you tweak your theologies to justify
our conquests and excesses, if you make faithfulness to your God synonymous
with good citizenship, we will embrace your symbols and language. We will defer
to your holy days. We, the State, will favor and exalt you, the Religion.
Since 380AD, Christianity has faced this Constantinian test continually, often
unsuccessfully.
In fairness, virtually all major
religions struggle with this test. When there’s enough fear and dis-ease in a
culture, religions, especially fundamentalist factions within them, gain traction
and scramble for exaltation. It seems to me that the three Abrahamic faiths – Christianity,
Judaism, and Islam – are particularly susceptible to failing the Constantinian
test. And within those religions, perhaps no one is more vulnerable to the
temptation to conspire with power than clergy. When a religion holds favored
status in a particular nation, its leaders often find the personal benefits of complicity
irresistible.
In today’s text, Jesus calls his
followers to do something difficult. With regard to the scribes and Pharisees,
“Do whatever they teach you and follow it,” says Jesus, “but do not do as they
do, for they do not practice what they teach.” They’re religious gold diggers, says Jesus.
Jesus is saying that authority
comes not from the office, not from the size of phylacteries, not from the
length of fringes, not from the seats of honor, and not from whatever deference
the priests enjoy in public. Authority comes from the Author of Creation.
I think Jesus gets
to meddling because he remembers facing precisely the same test after his
baptism. Out in the wilderness, Jesus is tempted to collude with the clannish,
manipulative, and violent ways and means of worldly power. And this goes on for
forty days.
Now, there’s nothing literal about the
number forty. Whether referring to days or years, forty is Bible-speak for a long time. The story of Jesus’
temptation tells us not only that Jesus has to endure a long, grueling test, it
also tells us that even Jesus takes a long time to overcome the devil’s deal:
that gut-wrenching and all-too-human temptation to use our unique gifts and
potential toward selfish ends.
After its
humble beginnings in Jerusalem, the Church enters its own forty-day wilderness.
And when Constantine and Theodosius offer the newly-baptized religion power and
privilege alien to its identity in Christ, the Church quickly caves in. It accepts
the unwritten contract of state exaltation.
When the Church bemoans its
decreasing size and influence, we can blame externalities all we want, but for
nearly two millennia, no one has given more people more reasons, and no one has
given more people better reasons to turn their backs on Christianity, and even
on God, than the Church itself. The institutional Church has been more
intentional about reaching out for sake of political favor than for the sake of
the gospel.
Our history,
though, is about more than any one of us, more than any one congregation or denomination,
more than any one era of our existence. So, maybe,
we’re still slogging through our own forty-day temptation. Maybe we’re still weathering our own forty-day flood, wandering in
our own forty-year Exodus, weeping through our own forty-hour hell between
Friday and Sunday. If so, then every day, every moment, every decision, every word,
every action, and every one of us matters – really and truly and eternally matters!
Successfully
on the other side of temptation, Jesus commits himself to living humbly and
peaceably on behalf of the Creation. He practices what he teaches. Now, he does
“tie up burdens hard to bear, and lay them on [our] shoulders.” That’s what take up your cross and follow me is all
about. But Jesus lifts more than a finger to help us. He helps us to understand
and value our burdens by sharing them and helping each other to carry them.
Every time we choose
to share the burdens of others, every time we choose to serve rather than to be
served, every time we choose to forgive rather than to hold onto anger and
resentment, every time we choose to stand in awe of what God creates instead of
trying to figure out how to monetize or profit from some “resource” – every
time we choose these things we’re overcoming temptation. We’re following Jesus.
The Church has survived for two
thousand years, longer than any state or nation. That tells me that along the
way, at critical times, we have told the Tempter that we depend on more than
bread, that we will not test God, and that we will not bow before some devious
Caesar.
Sure, sometimes in our weariness
and fear, we accept the tempter’s contract. Sometimes we settle for the
external trappings of religion over the call of Jesus.
I wear a robe on Sundays. I wear eye-catching stoles and sit in this tall
chair. I stand high-and-lifted-up, and speak into a microphone. With the state’s
blessing, I claim my housing allowance as non-taxable income. That’s not fair
to you, and I certainly did nothing to deserve special treatment. But I don’t
turn it down. And some point, someone – not me – decided that an entire month
should be set aside for pastor appreciation. It’s like a liturgical season! I’m
truly grateful for every expression of love and support. And pastor
appreciation doesn’t include parades and furniture store sales. But a whole
month? Doesn’t that tempt all of us, especially folks like me, to exalt pastors
onto pedestals where we don’t belong?
It grieves me
to admit this, but I know that if I took another job tomorrow, before long, some
of you would fall away from this congregation. I know the same is true if we
lost our extraordinary music director or pianist. I know because – and this is
as uncomfortable to say as it is to hear – I’ve heard folks say so. Then again,
I trust that in spite of such self-serving loyalties, and even if this, or any congregation
ends up closing its doors, the Church
will survive. God is not dependent on our robes, sermons, anthems, instruments,
or buildings. God chooses to be present through our love for one another,
through our care for the poor and the forgotten, and through our stewardship of
the earth.
Pastors are to
be most appreciated when their congregations embrace discipleship and mission
the way they embrace potlucks and bake sales. When doing as Jesus does, we are
all, without distinction, ministers in the
priesthood of all believers. And in
the long run, by the grace of God alone, what we teach transcends what we do.
What do you imagine people see in
us? Self-exalting Pharisees or servant-hearted disciples of Jesus? Probably
both. So, let’s be gracious with them and with ourselves. And may we trust that
we belong to Jesus, and that by his grace, all of us will make it through our
Constantinian test.
In forty days or so.
No comments:
Post a Comment