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Pray with me please God. May my words and our reflections be pleasing to you. Amen. Last Tuesday, one of the most brilliant theologians of the 20th century. The Peruvian priest Gustavo Gutierrez passed away

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at the age of 96. The subtitle is of his obituary in the Guardian, a newspaper reliably hostile to Christianity calls him a Dominican friar hailed as a prophet of the poor for the belief that the church

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had a political duty to end poverty. The Guardian then clarifies its true colors and blames him for leading some in the church to move well beyond their traditional pastoral roles. Connects him to Marxism, leftist rebels

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guerilla factions in Nicaragua and Colombia and dedicates a paragraph to what they call rumors. He was being investigated by the pope's head of doctrine and discipline, Joseph Ratzinger. In all this, the purportedly left leaning

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guardian mirrors the 19 seventies eighties response of threatened right wing elites in the US and Europe to Gutierrez's work . The obituary is profoundly misleading aside from revealing the Guardian's ideological alignment with those who want to undercut the

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idea. The church has a political duty to end poverty. Gutierrez anticipates the Guardian's response. If you talk about the poor, he says people will probably regard you as sensitive and generous. But if you

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talk about the causes of poverty, they will say to themselves, is this a Christian speaking? Isn't such language, really political. Gutierrez is famous for founding liberation theology which emphasizes not a political duty to

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end poverty, but a spiritual duty, a prophetic duty, a love of God is love of neighbor duty, a good Samaritan sheep, not goats duty to work at individual and structural levels, including political

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advocacy to end poverty. Gutierrez had a multidimensional understanding of poverty, attending not only to economic but also to political, social and cultural forms of poverty, stressing the need to ensure everyone could afford life's essentials

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, had voice in political life, had the freedom to develop individual creative potentials and had the ability to sustain their cultural traditions. Gutierrez affirmed a preferential option for the poor. This does not mean God loves

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the poor people. More loves poor people more. It describes how equal love responds in unequal situations. Think medical triage five doctors, 20 patients, some bleeding out some broken bones, some minor cuts,

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equal love means prioritizing those most in need. Gutierrez emphasized liberation instead of salvation because salvation is often understood to be only about individual spiritual life, forgiveness and heaven. His concerns were spiritual and social for spiritual

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union with God and hope in heaven and for just life on earth. He rejected Marx's contention that Christianity and its hope in heaven is an opiate for the people because he was surrounded by impoverished Christians whose faith

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in God and hope in heaven fueled resilience amidst daily struggle against worldly oppression. In stark contrast to Antonio Guzman, leader of the violent Marxist shining path, resistance movement in Gutierrez's home country of Peru and well

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aware of Marxist horrors in Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union. Gutierrez explicitly wrote against the presumption of those who thought they could rapidly create a perfect society with violence. Gutierrez thought we should remain as pessimistic as

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Calvin or Dennis of real politik like Henry Kissinger about human possibilities. Marxists were unrealistic about human potentials, lacked Christian understanding of original sin in the fall as existential realities. And this Marxist naivete led to magical

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thinking on a par with Adam Smith's dreams about the invisible hand. So the Marxist naivete led to hopelessly idealistic revolutionary experiments which destroyed the lives of tens of millions. The Guardian's obituary is disinformation because Gutierrez is

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Christian realism led him to reject revolutionary violence. Gutierrez recommends we work from present realities, generate utopian visions but understand that societal change takes time. So he urges reformist policies, not revolutionary transitions. The passion

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fueling justice delayed is justice denied is wholly understandable. Its urgency must be retained. But when it has sparked revolutionary movements, it has produced historical horrors, Gutierrez combining Christian idealism with Christian realism, affirms urgent

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reformism urges us, we might say with an eye to Martin Luther King Junior to work at the long task of bending the arc of the universe towards justice . All this means Gutierrez would affirm ethical voting.

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Ethical voting is not naive about the realities behind realpolitik . In accord with Christian understanding of original sin. In the fall, it expects peoples and people to act in their self-interest. It attends to economic military

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and political realities. It cares about having a nation which is economically and militarily great. But in contrast to those who use real politic realism as an excuse to mock idealism, ethical voting is also idealistic.

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It wants its nation to be great, not so it can dominate others. It wants its nation to be great so it can be good. This is biblical wisdom embedded in the transition from the Tower of

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Babel to the call of Abraham narratives. Babylonian elites wanted to be a great empire and were building a tower and a wall to make a name for themselves , exploiting their own people in hard labor. Gutierrez

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says God's scattering into diverse languages was a saving act because it undid the oppressive Babylonian elites attempt to become a great but not a good nation. Immediately after the Tower of Babel in Genesis, we hear the

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call of Abram where God says God will make Abram into a great nation. God will bless Abraham so he will be a blessing so that all peoples of the earth will be blessed through Him. God calls

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Israel to be both great and good realism and idealism . Israel and every nation are faithful to God in so far as they are great and good. A blessing to all peoples. Gutierrez pairs the redemptive scattering

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into diverse tongues with the multi linguist and multi tribal understanding of Pentecost where people understand the same gospel each in their own language. Spiritually, the bridge is gospel, love, love, which bridges borders,

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which define and protect diverse languages, cultures, traditions and nations, all of which are to be celebrated in so far as they are great to be good on this reading of Babble, the Call of Abraham

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and Pentecost. The borders of language and nation and culture resist the monolingual of empire even as they are bridged by fidelity to the same love. We may dream of a world of borders, bridged by love

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. But what already bridges all borders today is a global financial system. The duality is ancient love and Mammon Mammon is inevitable. Mars was foolish to think he could eliminate it. Smith was deluded to think

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it could be harnessed by an invisible hand which would derive goodness from unbridled selfishness. Mammon is inevitable but not evil. Love of Mammon destroys societies. That is the sociopolitical empirical conclusion of the deno history,

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engaging men and while consumed by love is the sociopolitical spiritual wisdom of the call of Abraham, the prophets and Pentecost for decades. Now, cultural elites have been attacking the idea of nation states convincing themselves.

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Nation states are responsible for the awful conflicts of the 19th and 20th centuries. They speak of nation stakes to cloak their attack on democracies. They vote and run for office and do not see themselves as hypocrites

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because they think they are utilizing the only structures available to achieve a higher good. They don't think democracies can handle today's global challenges. They think they can , these elites may have a vision ultimately of a

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global union of a day when there is no war among states. Because while ghostly shades of democracies may of necessity endure. When it comes to governing power , democracies will be reduced to vasser states. They

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may imagine a future when global elites will jet to an annual conference where using their superior knowledge and wisdom , they'll decide behind the scenes how the world is really going to work. This is not an unfamiliar

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vision. It is an all too familiar vision of empire, for instance of the Babylonian Assyrian and Roman Empires of the Ottoman, holy Roman, Russian, Chinese, Incan Spanish, British and Comanche empires.

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And it may be the vision emerging behind. Uh It may be the vision behind emerging transnational unions. History teaches that concentration of political power is a recipe for massive inequity and justice and oppression requiring violent suppression

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. Modern democratic nation states emerged in the 18th 19th and 20th centuries in response to monarchical and colonial empires and they attempted to repress subvert repressive regimes by making voting, political leaders accountability to all people essential to

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the possession of power. In this sense, ethical voting entails affirmation of democratic nation States. This means attacks upon the United States as an empire are dangerously confused for, they are unwitting attacks upon the world's

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oldest democratic nation state. And right now attacks which under democratic nation states clear a path for 21st century empire. But we will be different. Some good global elites think to themselves we're good. We'll stick

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to our ideals. We'll work for the common good , not just for elites so thought, idealistic people who have seized power with the best intentions throughout history . Many dictators started out like this again across the

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globe. For millennia, concentrated political power has resulted in massive inequity, injustice and oppression often by those once suppressed. This is a lesson that many global elites who are also good people should hearken after real

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voting in real nation states disrupts concentrations of power following the siren called the empire will lead to global ruin to economic, political, social and cultural poverty. But democracies are too slow, too unwieldy will never

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survive the impe the impeccable logic of men. But what if survival is not the ultimate point? The most bizarre aspect of our service today is not the masks, not even the fact that we're about to

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ritually eat the body and drink the blood of Jesus Christ. It's that in doing so, we proclaim fidelity to love over Mammoth fidelity to love over survival . From Manger to cross. The story of Jesus

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is the story of God on the underside of the Roman Empire. Seen from the perspective of the poor and marginalized, killed for speaking love to empire, killed for political speech. But the cross is not

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the goal, survival is not ultimate, but it is good. And the path not yet trodden is the path of cultivating democratic nation states which are great and good. Unlike all our ancestors, we are

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gods on earth. We have myriad extinction level powers of destruction out of all proportion to our socio political maturity. We are literally the Children in the science fiction movies in control of a starship with planet killing

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weaponry. And we just pray they go up before they destroy everything. Will we make it? I don't know the actual time on the doomsday clock may be a quarter past midnight. I do know the

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ancestors celebrated as saints in faiths across the world are celebrated for their fidelity to love no matter the cost . I think Gutierrez is right to call us to spiritual union with the God who is love and to

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struggle against economic, social, political and cultural poverty . Empire is a proven dead end. Our best hope lies in cultivating democratic nation states which and this is the part Marxist and Maoist and also elites at

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the Guardian in DC and at the UN really don't get and in practical terms, it's a devastating mistake . We need democratic nation states. Brimming with diverse communities of faith. Buddhist, Christian Hindu, humanist

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, Jewish Islamic, Navajo Wiccan speaking love to power in hopes of cultivating diverse nations united by love. Striving to be both great and good. These macro level concerns endure no matter who wins next week's election

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. And I confess all the hostility, tyranny, oppression, poverty, degradation, pain, and killing , suffusing our world often gets me down, not gutierrez. I met him once in a crowd after

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he gave a lecture at Princeton. And he crackled with joy and intellectual energy. He was wide awake to all these realities. He knew the struggle to bend the arc of the universe towards justice was hard

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, long, often futile. But he was rooted in a love divine which sustained and energized him. And he understood the wisdom of there was a time to weep and a time to laugh, a time

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to mourn and a time to dance. So let us thankfully embrace this brief moment and small space of peace. Thank God for the witness of Gustavo Gutierrez and celebrate him along with all that vaunted company of

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faithful ancestors of whom the world was not worthy.