A banker called in one of his customers to talk to him about his account. “YOUR FINANCIAL AFFAIRS ARE A MESS” he said to the man. “YOUR WIFE CONSTANTLY OVERDRAWS YOUR ACCOUNT. SHE MISSES CREDIT CARD PAYMENTS. WHY DON’T YOU HAVE A TALK WITH HER?” The guy said, “Because I would much rather argue with you than her.”

There’s man whose marriage is badly out of balance. Balance is something we all search for in life. In our working lives there is always the obvious balance between work and home life, between work relationships and parenting responsibilities. And we need to find balance between time for others and time for ourselves. Or time devoted to worship at church and service to others versus time alone time for meditation and exercise and personal growth. There is even the need for most of us to find balance between the foods that are good for us and foods that we like.

Someone recently rewrote the creation story to explain how THAT difficult balance came to be:

And God said, “LET US MAKE MAN IN OUR IMAGE”…and so God created man in his own image. Male and female He created them. And looked upon Man and Woman and saw that they were lean and fit. And Satan said, “I KNOW HOW I CAN GET INTO THIS GAME.” And God populated the earth with broccoli and cauliflower and spinach, green and yellow vegetables of all kinds, so man and woman would live long and healthy lives.

And Satan created McDonald’s. And McDonald’s brought forth the 99 cent double cheeseburger. And Satan said to man, “You want fries with that?” And man said, “Supersize them!” And man gained 10 lbs. And Satan brought forth chocolate. And woman gained 10lbs. And GOD said, “Try my crispy fresh salad.” And Satan brought forth Ben and Jerry and their ice cream. And everyone gained 10 more lbs. And their bad cholesterol went through the roof.

And God brought forth running shoes and Man resolved to lose those extra lbs. And Satan brought forth cable TV and the remote control. And Man gained another 20 lbs. And Satan saw that it was good. And Man went into cardiac arrest. And God sighed and created quadruple bypass surgery. And Satan created HMOs.

Now to a lot of you, that would have been a funnier conclusion if I had said, “AND SATAN CREATED OBAMACARE.” But we don’t do political humor from the pulpit in the Lutheran Church. Or at least we shouldn’t be. Not if we are truly Lutheran. This morning is Reformation Sunday; a good morning to review some of our basic Lutheran traditions, all of which of course, are based on the Bible, the whole Bible, and nothing but the Bible. For instance, it is traditional, and therefore Scriptural for Lutheran Christians to recognize the Church and the State as two different entities. Jesus taught those who wanted to hold back their taxes because they felt their government was corrupt and rather evil – and by the way, it was in Jesus’ time – Jesus said, ”Give Caesar his due because this is his kingdom and you happen to be living in his kingdom.”  And our Lord himself professed “MY KINGDOM IS NOT OF THIS WORLD.”

Martin Luther formulated this Scriptural doctrines of the two kingdoms – This earthly kingdom lived under God’s grace and the heavenly kingdom to come of God’s glory. And Thomas Jefferson sort of co-opted Luther’s theology of the Two Kingdoms as he formulated what would become the United States’ practice of the separation of Church and State. Jefferson was not a Lutheran, of course. In fact, Jefferson refused to ever be identified with any Christian denomination. He firmly believed in God but had serious doubts about whether Jesus was the only way to heaven. But as to the church meddling in the affairs of the state, he understood its dangerous implications – as did Luther, as did Jesus. And so he happily would go toe to toe with the Puritan John Adams on these issues. You know the definition of a Puritan don’t you? One who spends his life tormented by the thought that someone somewhere might be having a good time.

A more modern day example of the application of this teaching would be battle over prayer in public schools. Lutheran Christians lament the fact that science in public schools can teach evolution but cannot mention that God could very well be the author of life, as do most Christians. But we have never joined the battle to protect prayer and religion’s place in the schools. Frankly, it is the responsibility of parents and the Church to teach Christian beliefs to their children. We have never been comfortable with a public school teacher having the authority to teach or share his or her personal interpretations of God’s Word with a classroom of impressionable minds.

Maybe it would seem to be a step in the right direction to have our people in Washington be overt practitioners of the Christian faith, to close our borders to people of other religions, with a special exemption for Jewish people. But you really don’t want to live in a United States like that. When the first Mormon was elected to the U.S. Senate in 1907, there were numerous protest marches and Christian leaders rallied the troops to descend on Washington, but we survived somehow as a nation.

Consider that, when the Christian Church was being persecuted in the first centuries it grew exponentially. Once the Church became the great authority and power of the land by the Middle Ages, they gave us the Crusades, an organized and failed effort to attempt genocide of the mostly Arab Muslim religion as retaliation. Next, by the year 1500 and lasting for 400 years came the Inquisition, with the Church having the authority of the State of convert people of other religions by whatever means necessary, including beatings and burnings at the stake. Not Christianity’s finest hour.

May we always be a Christian nation, who seeks to love our non-Christian brothers and sisters into the kingdom of God by always giving them an example of a better way, through Jesus Christ. That is our sole purpose as the Christian Church. God help us if one brand of Christianity ever had influence on the state. That is the critical balance that will best serve the Church and its mission of the Gospel. It takes a lot of trust and hope for Christians today to continue to pray for that balance instead of seeking to take matters into our own hands. Fortunately, God assures us daily, DON’T WORRY, I GOT THAT COVERED. PUT YOUR TRUST AND YOUR HOPE IN ME AND I WILL BLESS YOU.

A small Midwestern town once sponsored a coyote hunt because so many farmers were losing chickens to these predators. 1500 coyotes were killed in a single weekend. Within a few months the entire community was overrun with rodents, because their natural enemy had been eliminated. The rodents weren’t much of a problem, but the rattlesnakes that soon followed were. They came to feast on the rats and mice. At that point the chickens were safe, but the humans were in danger! Balance is necessary in nature and in life.

We give thanks to God this Reformation Sunday that we live in a democratic land. We can and should voice our disapproval when government acts contrary to God’s Word. But the Church’s only mission is to know Jesus and to make Jesus known. May God continue to bless America with the kind of balance that will best serve that mission. AMEN