God laid a heavy hand on me this week, and gave me a sermon to preach that I didn’t really feel ready to preach. But, I’m preaching it anyway. I’m going to say some things throughout this sermon that might catch you off guard, might surprise you a bit. But Christ ends with redemption. And I beg you to stay with me, because there is also redemption in the end of this sermon.

1. Liberal

a. Annoy a conservative: think for yourself

b. Somewhere in Texas a village is missing its idiot

c. George W. Bush: lots of ideas, none very bright

d. The Christian Right is often neither

2. Conservative

a. Stop Mad Cow: no Hillary in 2008

b. I think, therefore I’m conservative

c. Liberalism kills liberty dead

d. Support retroactive abortion for unwanted liberals

These are bumper stickers and t-shirts I’ve seen. I started thinking about these on Tuesday when I was getting my car serviced and picked up a paper to catch up on some of the news. I was reading along, quite happily, until I got to the political section of the newspaper. And boom, it was like a bomb had exploded. Democrats pointing their fingers and yelling at Republicans. Republicans pointing their fingers and yelling at Democrats. Democrats pointing their fingers and yelling at Democrats! Everyone just pointing and yelling. After getting over my initial annoyance over it all, I was able to laugh it off a little, particularly when, in my mind, I saw a vision of all these Washington politicians in a circus, dressed in clown suits, all running around, doing their own thing. Some of them playing jokes on one another, others doing high jump tricks. And then, suddenly, it’s time for them all to fit in a car. And they all, all several hundred of them, run to this one car and are all trying to fit in it.

I’m tired of the pointing fingers. In fact, I’m exhausted. My ears are ringing from all of the yelling.

1. There’s arguing in D.C. over President Bush’s illegal wire tapping. Meanwhile, miners are dead in Utah. The effort to rescue them is over.

2. There’s arguing and pointing fingers over the Iraq war. Meanwhile, soldiers and civilians continue to lose their lives everyday. And families mourn their loss.

3. There’s arguing over immigration. Meanwhile, a Hispanic woman, who was in the U.S. illegally and had previously found sanctuary in a Methodist church in Chicago in order to avoid being separated from her son, who is an American citizen—she has been deported. Her son is still in Chicago. A mother and her son have been separated.

4. There’s all this debating for the upcoming presidential elections. Meanwhile, an unfathomable number of people are still being killed in the genocide in the Sudan.

These Washington politicians are too busy pointing their fingers, too busy all trying to fit in the same car, to actually look around and realize what’s going on in the world.

In Matthew chapter 25 Jesus says: I was hungry and you gave me food. I was thirsty and you gave me drink. I was sick and you visited me. I was in prison and you came to me…As you did this to one of the least of my brethren, so you did it to me.

These Washington politicians are too busy pointing fingers, arguing over who is right and who is wrong, that they cannot see Jesus walking in their midst, hungry, thirsty, dying, sick, in prison.

I was struck by the beginning of today’s Gospel. This man walks up to Jesus and says, “Lord, will those who are saved be few?” I imagine that he is one of these over confident people, who thinks he’s better than anyone else. He knows he’s going to be saved. He knows he’s one of the few chosen. It’s as if he’s trying to get Jesus to support the fact that he’s saved, that he’s one of the few chosen, that he’s special and very few others are. I imagine that he says it like this: “Lord, will those who are saved be few?” (said with different emphasis, in a smirky way, with a wink). Jesus chides him, saying “Strive to enter by the narrow door; for many, I tell you, will seek to enter and will not be able.” In other words, stop being so sure of yourself. Stop being comfortable with the way your living your life, thinking that the way you’re living is the right way. Strive always, instead, to follow me, to follow my commandments. Realize that when you’re pointing your finger at someone, there’s always three fingers pointing right back at you.

My parents divorced when I was very young, and my father remarried a few years later. My two oldest brothers and I used to spend many weekends and holidays with him and his new wife and her children. One week in particular, my stepmother was doing some wash, and picked up some of my brothers clothes and my clothes, and put them all in the washing machine and washed them in warm water. Unfortunately, in this wash of white and lights, she put in a red sock. And, as any of you who have ever done this know, the result was that some of the white shirts turned pink. Among these shirts that turned a light pink was one of my oldest brother, Matt’s, favorite shirt. So, being a teenage boy who wasn’t going to wear pink, he just gave the shirt to me. I didn’t know what the shirt meant, but it was from my brother, so it must be cool. Right? So, I ask that you imagine this for a minute. I’m in elementary school, short little girl with long blond hair, going to school in Alabama, wearing a light pink oversized shirt, with a fist on it, and the shirt says, “Fight the Power.”

That’s so silly. A pink “Fight the Power” t-shirt, on an elementary school student. Where did that get me? Where did that get anyone? What did that accomplish? It’s like those bumper stickers I was talking about earlier. Where do those get us? They’re so silly. They accomplish nothing. They’re incredibly hurtful. They’re futile. Just like the finger pointing and yelling.

This silliness, this futility, this hurtful way of being—it has left me disillusioned. And there’s a reason, I think, for this disillusionment. I think it’s Jesus’ way of telling me, “Enter by the narrow door.”

These Washington politicians I’ve been telling you about, they seem lately to have become wide avenues of bigotry and hatred. These wide avenues are too well trod. Too wide. Too well trod. The disillusionment, then, doesn’t actually surprise me.

As Christians we understand that there is one way. One way. One door. Jesus. Our savior. Not the Republican Party. Not the Democratic Party. Not the pointing of fingers and yelling at one another.

Jesus. The ultimate peace found only in Jesus, only in the kingdom of heaven. And I ask that we all remember this. As the presidential debates get more ferocious. As the yelling gets louder. Let us try not to get caught up in it. Because all of that will one day pass away, and the only thing left will be the kingdom of heaven.

You see, we’re so lucky. We don’t have to choose one side or the other. We’ve already chosen the narrow door, the door leading to Jesus, to the kingdom of heaven. A door that forces us to help those in need, to remember in prayer the souls of miners killed in Utah and the soldiers and civilians killed in the Middle East, to remember the families who have lost loved ones, to pray for an end to the genocide in the Sudan. As followers of Christ we are called to do that. As followers of Christ we get to do that.

We don’t have to choose the wide avenues of bigotry and hatred, because we’ve already chosen the narrow door. And what good news that is. Away with the exhaustion and ringing ears, and disillusionment. Because through that narrow door we can see the kingdom of God, we can see Jesus, with open arms, calling us through that narrow door.

And that is so awesome!