Faith-based

On January 29, 2001, just days after his first coming, by executive-ex-cathedra order, President G.W. Bush created the OFBCI (White House Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives), otherwise known as faith-based federal funding, and saw that it was good. Rectifying the unfairness and discrimination of dispensing the State’s blessings only to selected secular communities, the policy of previous liberal regimes, the edict clarified the president's campaign message, heretofore parabolic if not mystical, of “Conservative Compassion.” A new and strange doctrine to orthodox Republican ears, yea, to Christian ears, to anybody’s ears, “Conservative Compassion” had been a mystery to me. But I have always had trouble with theological stuff. Now it was as clear as the tables of stone from Mr. Sinai.

Still aglow and hallowed from this epiphany, let us wend our way to the brightly Klieg-light lit church on a hill with the marquee that proclaims: megaChurchoftheBurningBush.org, where Pastor Lillian is preaching.

Welcome, welcome, welcome everyone, saint and sinner alike, saith the pastor, welcome to the Church of the Burning Bush. (Congregation applauses and hugs each other, stomps the floor.)

Our first hymn is one we all know and love: "Onward (in 2012, Forward) Christian Soldiers." Altogether now -- one! two! three!: “Onward Christian Soldiers, / Marching as before / With faith-based subsidies galore/ Mighty shield and buckler we so adore.”

We are gathered here to thank the OFCI for abundantly blessing us. This is a service and liturgy of thanksgiving. Let the band rock! Let the rocks shout! In the language of Isaiah, Let the hills clap their hands! (A producer materializes with a sign that says Applause! Applause!)

O so long in the wilderness have we wandered, faithlessly. Lo, our subsidies cometh! O Dear congregation – sorry, a little lapse there; the pastor meant to say, she always says, “hey you guys!” – like the Ten Virgins waited for the bridegroom, in like manner have we through the long night waited for the “latter rain.” And lo and lol :}, it has come – as promised, from the gentiles, from the government. (wild, almost pagan, applause!)

For today’s text let us turn together to the side screens to 1 Co 13:13 (New Revised Standard Faith-based Version) : “And now abideth faith, hope, charity, and subsidy…; but the greatest of these is subsidy.“ (congregation applauses)

And now, brethren, for our sermon funny, pastor Lillian is reminded of this New Yorker cartoon caption [cartoon flashes on all screens]: Reverend standing at church door greeting the faithful and the not-so: “Brother Thomas, I am deeply concerned for your faith-base.” (congregation chuckles).

But there's more. Let us all turn in our pews, or squirm, to the side screens, with which, in number, we are as blessed as old-time cathedrals their nooks for images of saints -- behold our Homiletic quickies, writ by the unseen hand in Power Point -- skip the hermeneutics -- or funnies, hard to tell the difference: Let us stand and read in unison:

• The government and the Holy Spirit give different sorts of subsidies. The former kicks in when the latter fails. (chuckles)

• Blessed are the faith-based for they shall be subsidized. (congregation applauses!)

• Let us consider Matthew 6:19, 20 [it flashes on all the screens] But lay up for yourselves treasures in the OFBCI, where neither moth nor radical Republicans doth corrupt, and where Wall Street thieves do not break through nor steal. (applause applause)

• The kingdom of heaven hath come: government subsidies rain down upon excreta-painting Modernist painters and faith-based charities alike. (Applause)

• Oh ye of little faith-base, pray and protest without ceasing. Pray that ye not strike out with the faith-bases loaded. And give us this day our daily faith-based subsidy. Thy faith-base hath made thee whole. (chuckles)

• And now may I direct your attention (behold the side screens) to the fourth volume of Will Durant’s epochal History of Civilization is “The Age of Faith.” The updated version: “The Age of Faith-base.” (Amen amen!)

• So is the radical religious right to be called the straight-laced faith-based? (chuckles)

The congregation may be seated.

But let us now be serious, dear brethren-sistern. Thy Funding shall not be awarded by doctrine alone, but only if performance standards are met.

Is this, I must ask, salvation by works? Has our church, just as it finally casts off its chains, the sin of legalism and slavery to the Commandments, returned thereunto in faith-based performance standards, etched by federal hands?

As Paul in Romans 6:2 says [St. Paul in Power Point flashes on all screens], God forbid! As Phillips version puts it, what a ghastly thought! As Reverend Wright would say, hell no! Yea, Faith-based subsidies shall make ye free (John 8:32 flashes on the screen). Base that on faith, I adjure thee. (applause, applause, applause, applause – standing ovation )

But we are an ecumenical people, yearning to bestow the blessings bestowed upon us, upon others: what about the still works-based religions? Surely they meet performance-based requirements. (applause, feeble)

So are you ready for nightly TV-News exposures of greed and corruption in the faith-based charity industry? (amen, feeble)

But let us not be long of face and downcast of countenance, as we were in our Dark Ages. What are the truly and updated righteous if not happy giddy? Dour and sour are we no longer, for we have been delivered. Let us turn in our updated scripture to this familiar text: Galatians 5:22 (behold the side screens, where the text doth flash, thanks be to Epson Projectors funded by the OFBCI):
But the fruit of the faith-based federal Spirit is tolerance, longsuffering, and whimsy, and, as St Paul elsewhere saith (Philippians 4:7, updated version), humor that passeth all understanding. Let me hear an amen for another manna-load of pew-based humor: (amen amen)

• [flashing on the screens:] Old church geezers look forward to ascending to heaven. Meanwhile church youth ascend to the balcony. Where they are changed in the twinkling of an eye. (chuckles)

• Church bulletin: “Youth Rampage to be held in Rummage Room.” Church Bulletin humor. (dutiful chuckles)

• Church bulletin: “There will be a rummage for ladies…” Too late for me, I did my rummaging for ladies years ago. (congregation boos)

• Our church now has pastors going by first names, like ‘Pastor John’ — like ‘Pope John’? I See this as “making an image to the beast.” Inside joke. Well, it’s as funny as most pew humor. (congregation is silent)

• And now, fresh from their “effort” in Lost Vegas, our very own Faith-based Pious Puppets, in that heart-warming old story, “Samson Brings The House Down!” Drumroll! (Applause! Applause!)

• Fittingly, the funniest pew humor cometh from the bully pulpit, wherein pastor Bush saith: “I’m for supporting faith-based charities; I’m for putting government on the winning side.” (Applause, amen)

Thank you, thank you! Let us now meditate with closed eyes and silence upon this devotional poem: “When the faith-based faithful backslide / Are their subsidies to subside?” (There was gnashing of teeth.)

Let us stand for the benediction: Peace and green on earth, and good welfare to men and women! (Organ rocks all banks of pipes and decibells, congregation rocks out, while the screens flash: Check our church website <www.faithbasedpews.org> for a whole new generation of devotional wall plaques, like, “Reach out and touch faith-base today!”)

Golden epilog: But lo, that was under the Old Dispensation, the Old Testament, the prophet crying in the wilderness, his message but preparation for the Greater Gospel to come in 2008 and vouchsafed in 2012, the New Covenant, the Later Latter Rain that bringeth blessings that eye had not seen, nor ear heard, nor entered into the heart of man/woman: free State-based birth control and abortions whereby spirits inserted in moments of exercise of happy free will may be exorcised. (writ on 18,430 tablets of stone).