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In the end more than they wanted freedom they wanted security and a comfortable life. And they lost all—security, comfort, and freedom. The Athenians finally wanted not to give to society, but for society to give to them. When the freedom they wished for most was the freedom from responsibility, then Athens ceased to be free.— Edward Gibbon, Decline & Fall of the Roman Empire

Because of my work with the Boston Red Sox, chairing The Great Fenway Park Writers Series, I’m frequently in that wonderful city.

On one such visit I went to the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library, standing majestically on a point overlooking Boston Harbor. I had been before, but if you love politics and the lore of the Kennedys, as I do, you can’t really go too often — or to any presidential library for that matter.

While there I purchased two CDs of JFK’s speeches, both as candidate and president. These remarkable recordings began with his acceptance speech in Los Angeles as the presidential nominee of the Democratic Party in the summer of 1960. They end with his speech on going to the moon at Rice University in Houston in September of 1963. Those two speeches, like all the others on the CD, are marked by one constant, unambiguous theme: commitment and sacrifice.

From that night at the Coliseum in Los Angeles to his remarks before the governor and legislature in Massachusetts as candidate Kennedy, to his speeches at the University of Washington in Seattle to his Yale University address in New Haven as president, he always said the way ahead for America would be difficult, that it would require sacrifice, that much would be asked of us. But he also warned that the outcome was uncertain. He didn’t gloss over our challenges; he didn’t use double-speak to hide difficult problems.

Of course, the most famous speech he gave was his Inaugural Address. The words he spoke from the East Steps of the U.S. Capitol that cold January day in 1961 have never lost their resonance, even if we have ignored the duty they called us to.

In that speech he said, “Let every nation know, whether it wishes us well or ill, that we shall pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend, oppose any foe, in order to assure the survival and the success of liberty.”

After listing a long series of challenges facing our country, he said, “All this will not be finished in the first 100 days. Nor will it be finished in the first 1,000 days, nor in the life of this Administration, nor even perhaps in our lifetime on this planet. But let us begin.”

He then ended with perhaps the most famous words ever spoken by any president, “And so, my fellow Americans: ask not what your country can do for you—ask what you can do for your country.”

Listening again to his speeches, to that great voice, the transcendence of his language, the extraordinary clarity with which he summoned Americans, of why commitment was necessary if we were to prevail in a hostile and dangerous world, is to be reminded, not only of what we lost, but of how cheap and dissolute our politics have become—on both sides of the political aisle.

Thinking about it now, reflecting on President Kennedy’s 1,000 days in office, can you name any president since who summoned us to commitment and sacrifice? Moreover, can you name one current candidate for president, Democrat or Republican—Biden, Clinton, Dodd, Edwards, Giuliani, Huckabee, Kucinich, McCain, Obama, Paul, Romney, Thompson, etc.—who speaks in the language of commitment, of putting country before self?

As you think about that, remember this: After 9/11 President Bush told us to “go shopping.” He didn’t call for sacrifice. He didn’t call for commitment. He didn’t call for Americans to renew our vows to the country we love. He said, “Go shopping.”

Recently with friends of more than 50 years I saw the movie Bobby, about the last day of Robert F. Kennedy’s life and the interplay of that event in the lives of those who worked at the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles, where the senator was assassinated. I watched it reluctantly.

Having worked for Bobby as a press aide in the presidential campaign of ’68, having loved him, and having admired him greatly, I didn’t want to relive that terrible moment when he lay in a pool of blood on the hotel’s kitchen floor, or my all-night vigil at the hospital in L.A. where he died. But my friends wanted me to see the film, they wanted to know my sense of it, how I felt about the movie?

I’m not in the movie-reviewing business, but Bobby is a very good film—far above the norm for Hollywood, which, more often than not, caters not to our best instincts, but our worst. It was directed by Emilio Estevez, who ably succeeded, through the use of film clips and sound tracks of the senator’s speeches, in capturing the essence of Bobby Kennedy.

Listening to those speeches, which haunt the movie, it is fair to conclude that at the core of his being, Bobby Kennedy had a moral understanding of our world. His speeches, like those of JFK’s, are a forceful reminder that both Kennedys were powerful in challenging Americans, of reminding us that greatness lies in dedication to country, not in the avoidance of duty—and only by such acts of dedication can America’s greatness be assured.

In June of 1967, in a speech to students at Fordham University in New York City, Bobby Kennedy said this: “Few men are willing to brave the disapproval of their fellows, the censure of their colleagues, the wrath of their society. Moral courage is a rarer commodity than bravery in battle or great intelligence. Yet it is the one essential, vital quality for those who seek to change a world that yields most painfully to change.”

That understanding has escaped today’s politicians. Either they or their consultants are convinced the way forward is by promising ease, not hardship. But here’s the difficult truth: Nothing of value was ever obtained without commitment and sacrifice.

When in 1620 the Mayflower set sail for America from Plymouth, England, no one among the 102 passengers knew what lie ahead. But it was of reasonable certainty that the way ahead would be hard and uncertain; that while they were men and women of faith and hope, they also knew there was no assurance of success. They believed in God and in his Providence, but they also knew from the harsh and bitter reality of their lives in England, a people persecuted for practicing a faith unacceptable to King and Crown, that God’s Providence is often mysterious and unknowable—and they were in a tiny vessel surrounded by a vast and dangerous ocean.

That was 387 years ago, and our circumstance and theirs are in no wise comparable, but we share this in common: We too live in an age of uncertainty, and the forces of evil, those who would do America great harm, grow daily. Nothing is assured. Noting is guaranteed. Except this: Ease and comfort is not the way to sustain the greatness of our nation. Commitment and sacrifice is required—and if the politicians won’t get it, and there’s little evidence they will, then we have a moral duty to strip them of their “leadership” and summon the land we love to an even greater manifest destiny.

Thus far in this essay the Kennedy brothers have been my primary focus. But I wouldn’t write about them alone in the pages of Good News without a connection to the mission of Good News—a glorious 40 year mission of reawakening the Arminian/Wesleyan message within the United Methodist Church.

To many readers of Good News, that may seem an odd connection, since most readers of this publication, I guess, are more conservative than liberal in their politics, while I remain, as often proclaimed, a liberal Kennedy Democrat.

So let me endeavor to make that connection, and trust that in the process of doing so you will be as tolerant of my politics as I strive to be of yours, so that together we may embrace something of far greater significance—our core Arminian/Wesleyan beliefs.

Here’s the connection: While it is highly relevant to inquire which presidential candidate dares ask for our sacrifice and commitment, there’s another question, no less relevant, no less important, but it’s not for politicians but preachers. It is this: When was the last time your preacher asked anything of you?

Coming out of the conservative Church of the Nazarene, I was accustomed to being asked at the sermon’s end, was I committed to Christ?

I have now been a Methodist 45 years and I can only remember that question being asked once, but it wasn’t a United Methodist minister who asked it, but rather an Australian evangelist. His name was Alan Walker, who was superintendent of the Methodist Wesley Mission in Sydney, the largest church in Australia. (Dr. Walker was famous for two things — evangelical zeal, arising out of his deep Wesleyan faith, and his socialist politics. You may think the two incompatible. Alan Walker did not.)

Some years back, Walker put the question of Christian commitment before the lay leadership of San Diego area United Methodist churches at a large Sunday night gathering. The response was quite remarkable: two-thirds of the lay leadership went forward to commit their lives to Christ. I don’t remember the question being asked since, other than in Book of Discipline rituals.

True, I’m a United Methodist in the West and our California-Pacific Annual Conference is theologically liberal, and therefore a whole lot of things that might be asked of Methodist laymen elsewhere, especially in the South and Midwest, don’t get asked here—except, of course, when it comes to money and church budgets.

There’s nothing wrong with asking for money. Budgets must be met, church programs underwritten, pastors and staff paid, energy bills met, materials bought, conference apportionments dealt with, etc., but it doesn’t precede commitment, it follows it.

In my Church of the Nazarene days, sermons ended with a call to discipleship. If you hadn’t received Christ as Savior, hadn’t gone on to sanctification, then you needed God’s forgiving grace and you needed to commit your life wholly to Jesus (Romans 12:1-2 was often the foundational text). That’s where the sermon ended; it never ended with a plea for money.

During the Rev. Mark Trotter’s 24-year ministry at First United Methodist in San Diego, he and I often had a dialogue about the proper response to the end of the sermon. I thought the proper response was a call to discipleship. He thought the proper response was the giving of tithes and offerings. In those 24 years that never changed.

I love Mark Trotter and he was one of the nation’s most gifted preachers (he still is, although in retirement), but he rejected my argument because he believed, in part, it was just a hangover from my Church of the Nazarene days. I told him I was not asking that at sermon’s end the congregation stand and sing, “Tell mother I’ll be there in answer to her prayers,” but with dignity people be given a chance to consider discipleship—or to share any other need.

I told him no matter how smart he was—very—neither he nor any other preacher could possibly know how many people came to church on any given Sunday because they wanted a human connection. It was unknowable, absent an invitation to consider Christ in one’s life.

I was dead serious about that. I still am.

People come to church for lots of reasons. Some may come because they’re new in town and want a church home. Some may be lonely, wanting human relationships. Some may be in difficult personal circumstances, out of work, a marriage under duress, health concerns, addiction problems, angst over their kids, and they come to church hoping to find answers, in worship—at your church, in your worship service!

But because so many people are shy, uncomfortable in new surroundings, they will most likely avoid the issue of why they’ve come. Not infrequently they will enter late, sit in the back, and disappear before the closing hymn. You know that happens—and it occurs every Sunday somewhere within United Methodism. They come and they leave and, this is truly the haunting part, they may never come back unless the church has provided them an opportunity to express their needs.

How do we avoid that from happening, walking away without a word—unknown, unaccounted for, and unconnected?

Person-to-person expressions of warmth by lay people are vital, but the issue of recognizing the strangers among us is not solely, nor even primarily, the minister’s responsibility, but belongs to all of us who constitute the body of Christ. No one should ever come to church and leave without being greeted. It is unfathomable why we permit it to happen, but we know it does.

Dr. Fred Craddock, who taught preaching at the Candler School of Theology at Emory University in Atlanta, tells a story of being invited to preach for four nights at a large Atlanta area church. He said he didn’t expect much in the way of crowds, but the crowds exceeded his expectations.

The first night the church’s pastor invited the congregation to greet one another in brotherly love. Craddock said the embracing and hugging that took place was unlike any he had witnessed. It was remarkable. But that wasn’t the end of it. It happened the second night and the third, and then it happened all over again the last night.

Following the final service the pastor and his wife invited Craddock and his wife to join them for coffee and dessert. While they were enjoying their dessert the pastor asked, “Have you ever seen such a friendly, loving church?”

Mrs. Craddock said she wasn’t so sure. Surprised by her comment, the pastor asked, “What do you mean?” Mrs. Craddock said she attended all four services, but no one had acknowledged her presence. No one. No smile. No hello. No handshake. No greeting. Nothing.

There was an awkward silence. Then the pastor said, “Oh, that’s because no one knows you.”

In the greeting of strangers the laity’s role is fundamental, but the preacher’s role even more so. It’s imperative that people be given the opportunity to come forward in response to the sermon, that they’re challenged to do something other than write a check.

This is not an argument for emotional harangues or pulling psychological triggers by preachers, but rather for an invitation that is dignified, that provides a chance for people to share the state of their life—if they choose. Once we deemed it an “altar call,” but its nomenclature is unimportant. The paramount issue is less about how it’s done, as long as individual dignity is respected, but that’s its done every week.

If I were a preacher I would not want to come to the close of my parish years without knowing that every Sunday under my ministry people at worship had been given a chance to consider Christ in their life, to consider discipleship, to consider a church relationship. I wouldn’t want that on my conscience—a stranger among us without human contact.

But this isn’t solely about strangers in our midst. It’s also about preachers holding church members accountable—not to the budget but to Christ. Budgets, as Bishop John Chance of the Episcopal Diocese of Washington, DC, reminds us, are about “structure,” but commitment to Christ is about “mission.”

It is little known that Confederate General Robert E. Lee was against slavery. When he wrote his memoirs he fully intended to say slavery had been wrong. But he didn’t. Why not? Because he was advised that if he said that in his book, it would not sell in the South (so much for General Lee’s bravery and gallantry).

I often wonder on Sundays how many preachers fail to say the hard thing, fail to challenge members, fail to ask for sacrifice, fail to demand anything from anyone, out a palpable fear their “book” won’t sell? It isn’t just a failure to give strangers in our midst a chance to consider Christ but also the inexcusable failure to ask for commitment from members who desperately need to make a commitment—and to know commitment is expected.

Maybe that’s why more than three million United Methodist have disappeared from our rolls—and maybe that many more would disappear if we had a truthful accounting of membership and church participation. (Don’t hold your breath waiting for that to happen. It is the rare Methodist minister who will prune his or her church rolls to reflect actual membership involvement. Who wishes to incur a bishop’s ire, or miss a chance to be “promoted” to a larger church?)

Many Americans are fed up with vanilla politics, politicians in both parties who think one thing and say another, and political “spin-doctors.” They are fed up with elected officials whose backbones closely approximate a jelly fish. They are fed up with seekers after public office that will say anything to win, failing to understand that what many voters want is someone, anyone, who will tell the truth! Not the “truth” that comes out of focus groups, or from the addled brains of consultants, but truth about the hard choices our nation faces.

But as that call to accountability is tragically missing from politics, its absence from our churches is even greater and more alarming. Politics may be about the present, but church is about eternity. In both realms, however, politics and church, the prevailing ethos is to avoid commitment, avoid sacrifice, avoid anything that might cause people to turn away—voters or church members.

The world in a moral context
I may be the only person in America who would put John Wesley in the same article with John and Bobby Kennedy, but here’s my reason for doing so: The two Johns and Bobby saw the world in a moral context. Wesley saw the hard and difficult choices facing 18th century England. The Kennedys saw the hard and difficult choices facing 20th century America (and, yes they saw those choices in moral terms; it’s there in their speeches, you can’t miss it, no matter your politics). But whether those choices were spiritual, secular or both, they understood that unless people were willing to make commitments, to make sacrifices that transcend personal interests, England’s future, America’s future, were at risk.

They understood something else, too. They understood that absent leadership (political leadership, church leadership, a willingness of leaders to ask people to rise above their own comforts) the probability of change was limited.

In the election of 2004, more than 100 million Americans of eligible voting age did not vote! No political leader told them their absence from the voting booth was a moral failing. No one told them that by failing to vote they had gravely compromised their future.

Think of it this way: From the first time an American died from a bullet fired by a British soldier at Bunker Hill to the last American to die from an IED in Baghdad, more than 2.5 million men and women have died defending freedom’s greatest gift—the right to vote. (When was the last time, by the way, your preacher on the Sunday before an election urged you to go to the polls and vote? Not how to vote but to vote.)

Similarly, by failing to call people to discipleship, to seek commitment, to call for sacrifice, many of today’s United Methodist clergy have compromised the spiritual welfare of their members and, in turn, have jeopardized the church’s future.

I began this essay by citing Edward Gibbons’ famous quote about the Athenians. I choose to end by warning that his assessment of what happened to a great civilization 2,500 years ago, the pursuit of pleasure at the expense of commitment, is more than relevant to today’s America—both societal and religious.

We need leaders, in politics and in the church, who will call us to a new awakening of citizenship and discipleship; leaders who will tell us how dedication and commitment can save our country and our church—and who will issue that challenge before it’s too late.

George Mitrovich, a United Methodist layman, is president of The City Club of San Diego and The Denver Forum, two leading American public forums, in addition to his responsibilities with the Boston Red Sox. He can be reached at gmitro35@gmail.com.

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Preachers, Politicians, and Sacrivice By George Mitrovich

Preachers, Politicians, and Sacrivice
By George Mitrovich