Proper 10 (July 10-16)
Texts: Mark 6:14-29;
Eph 1:3-14; Amos 7:7-15
“TO FOLLOW JESUS IS TO RENOUNCE IMMUNITY”
On this day after an assassination attempt on Former President Trump, I’d like to offer reflections on the notion of immunity under the law. It is inspired by a brief poem that I will read to you in a few minutes. First, let’s take a few moments to appreciate the efforts our founding fathers made to begin to diminish the age-old human problem of political violence. The battle to lessen all forms of violence begins, I believe, with diminishing the violence done in the name of a nation’s own governance. It begins, in short, with a politics of seeking to diminish political violence.
How did our founding fathers hope to accomplish that? I’ve spoken this year about voting as perhaps the most important tool to avoid political violence. In the authoritarian governments of the past — all those centuries dominated by kings and emperors — generally the only recourse people had to changing their political leaders was violent revolution against them. And so the kings and emperors themselves also resorted to political violence, ruling with the heavy dose of violence against any would-be insurrectionists. They had to have constant vigilance of who might be plotting to revolt, often without much constraint of who they murdered in the process. This morning’s Gospel story about Herod’s beheading of John the Baptist is a case in point. But voting, in theory, seeks to diminish that threat of political violence. If we have free and fair elections, then each person’s being equal in their vote diminishes the need to try to change leaders through violent revolution.
The words “in theory” are important, though, because the founders began by giving only land-owning white men the right to vote, a mistake which we’ve been working to rectify for 200+ years. Over the nearly 250 years of our history we have worked gradually to ensure the right of each and every adult citizen to elect its leaders. John Lewis is one of those who led the fight for the Voting Rights Act of 1965, nearly giving his life in the march at the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, Alabama. In the later years of his life, he sought to strengthen those rights in the Bill that now bears his name. Is our support of such a bill in keeping with our commitment as followers of Jesus to work at diminishing violence? Don’t revolt. Vote.
Unfortunately, there’s another instance of “in theory,” which has seemingly arisen only in the last several years. Voting as a remedy to political violence only works well if every voter trusts in elections as free and fair. There are many folks questioning that recently. Are the doubts raised true? Is there any evidence, provable in court to sustain these doubts? Can you and I work to keep and build that trust? It’s one of the reasons I became a poll work in 2022.
The second great principle of our founders to diminish political violence is this: in theory there is to be no immunity under the law. Unlike the authoritarian governments that preceded our self-governance under the Rule of Law, no one is immune from prosecution under the law. Kings and dictators have that kind of immunity. Their holding onto power often depended on accusing and prosecuting supposed political enemies. Here in this country, we aim to defeat opponents at the ballot box — meaning that even our political leaders can’t undertake political violence against accused enemies without being subject to prosecution.
Unfortunately, the words “in theory” are once again relevant for a couple of reasons. Last week, we talked about the Original Lie of Supremacy, namely, human beings believing that some people deserve more than others and should therefore be in charge. In our nation’s history the lies of supremacy have continued to influence the working of our rule of law, especially along racial and economic lines. It used to be that kings and dictators were the first to claim such immunity for themselves. In our nation, those who think their wealth or race places them above others can sometimes come to believe that they are immune from prosecution. There are many examples:
- With the Constitution initially defining African enslaved people as 3/5 a person, slave-holders felt immune in using any means necessary to dominate their slaves.
- Jim Crow laws are an example of separating the rights between white people and people of color in anything but equal ways.
- Perhaps most tragically, during a 75-year period after the Civil War, mobs of white people saw themselves as immune from prosecution when lynching thousands of fellow citizens, mostly people of color. And that mostly proved to be true. Hardly anyone was ever held accountable for lynchings.
- More recently, we’ve begun to question police officers who seem to think they are more easily immune from using lethal force — again, much more often against people of color.
- Finally, the Christian Nationalism we’ve been talking about is based on supremacist thinking about Christianity as a religion, such that they are willing to use violence in order that they might achieve their aims according to their version of God.
The bottom line is this: the principle of no one having immunity under the law only works to diminish political violence to the extent that those who preside over it use it fairly, without prejudice or favor — without, that is, supremacist thinking that leads to one group of folks thinking they are immune from prosecution because they have been put in charge.
There’s another instance of “in theory” that has arisen since the recent Supreme Court decision about the possible immunity of the President. Doesn’t the principle of no immunity only work if all political leaders, including the President and Supreme Court justices, are also not immune from prosecution under the law? Most legal scholars have generally assumed this and taught it — until the bewildering recent Supreme Court decision which gives the President immunity under the law for “official acts.” We must ask and talk about, as we prepare to elect the next President: Does this now give the President the power to carry out political violence as long as he/she deems it to be official? Isn’t this a frightening opening of the door to Presidents being able to officially carry our political violence?
With that, I’d like to now read to you a poem that Steve Garnaas-Holmes offered this week on his website, “Unfolding Light.” It is titled “Immunity” and begins with the past immunity of people like Herod but then moves to our calling as followers of Jesus to not claim immunity for ourselves in standing against violence in the name of love. The bottom line is a trust in the power of love — that “this world is not immune to love.” Here, then, is “Immunity,” by Steve Garnaas-Holmes1:
Herod had immunity.
He could behead people;
his friends would let him,
his enemies powerless.
A dictator has immunity.
He will not use it for noble purposes.
We do not have immunity
from the consequences of our choices.
We will pay the price
for our bold, decisive action.
We are not immune to the suffering of the world.
If one suffers, all suffer together with them.
To follow Jesus is to renounce immunity.
Jesus did not say,
“Take up your lawn chair and follow me.”
Our trust is not that we will be treated well,
but that even in our weakness and vulnerability,
even in failure and suffering,
grace will prevail.
For even in all its evil and cruelty
this world is not immune
to love.
I’ll let that sink in for a moment. [Pause] And now hear the Good News: You and I as followers of Jesus are called not only to the laws of this land — which, if progressively enacted in reality and not just in theory, can truly help to diminish human violence, especially political violence. But we are also called to God’s law of love, which as our Second Reading tells, is the plan all along that God has of gathering all things in heaven and earth into harmony through Christ’s love. We trust in that power of love! We believe that the long arc of justice in the universe is gradually bending to God’s power of love. And so we have the same calling as John the Baptist’s father, Zechariah, prayed for his son: “You, my child, shall be called the prophet of the Most High, for you will go before the Lord to prepare the way, to give God’s people knowledge of salvation by the forgiveness of their sins. In the tender compassion of our God the dawn from on high shall break upon us, to shine on those who dwell in darkness and the shadow of death, and to guide our feet into the way of peace” (Luke 1:). Brothers and sisters in Christ, may the Spirit empower us this year, in the face of frightening political violence, to guide the feet of our feet, and those of our citizens, into the way of peace. Amen
Paul J. Nuechterlein
Bethania Lutheran Church,
Racine, WI, July 14, 2024
See also the Sermon Notes distributed with the bulletins.
Notes
1. Steve Garnaas-Holmes, “Unfolding Light” website: https://unfoldinglight.net/2024/07/10/immunity/
