On a clear Sunday afternoon in the middle of the Chesapeake Bay, a 25,000-pound powerboat moving at high speed ran into, and over, a sloop under sail.

The powerboat was a Tiara 4000 Express with a top speed of 33 miles per hour. The sailboat was an ultralight Colgate sloop, moving at about five miles per hour.

It's not hard to imagine who came out on top.

The powerboat hit the sailboat right smack in the middle, demolishing the cabin and partially submerging the sailboat. The crew of two on the sailboat were thrown into the water, and quickly rescued.

The operator of the powerboat said he had not SEEN the sailboat. Well, maybe he did, maybe he didn't. How can you miss a sloop with a 35-foot mast and raised sails?

This is a crystal-clear case of a burdened vessel beating up on a privileged vessel. (J. Sherwood, "Powerboat Plows into Sailboat," Soundings Newspaper, September 2001, www.apg.army.mil/SIBO/quotes1.htm)

For generations, skippers have used the terms "burdened" and "privileged" to define the status of two vessels encountering each other. The privileged vessel is the one that has the right of way -- the right to proceed uninhibited by the other. The burdened vessel is the one that does NOT have the right of way, the one that must take any necessary action to keep out of the way of the privileged vessel.

For example, sailboats are privileged and motorboats are burdened, meaning that motorboats must yield the right of way to sailboats under sail. This obviously didn't happen on that clear Sunday afternoon in the Chesapeake Bay. The burdened boat destroyed the privileged boat.

In today's Gospel lesson from Matthew, Jesus speaks to his disciples and to the crowds in Jerusalem about privileges and burdens. "The scribes and Pharisees sit on Moses' seat," says Jesus; "therefore do whatever they teach you and follow it" (Matthew 23:2-3). Jesus has no problem with the religious guidance of the scribes and Pharisees, since he respects the teaching and administrative authority of the synagogue leadership, an authority neatly summed up in the expression "Moses' seat." Moses' seat was a seat of power, much like the seats of power we know exist today in city halls, in state capitals, in Washington, D.C., on Wall Street, and even in religious centers such as Vatican City. Many of us will be voting this Tuesday for candidates we want to send, or return, to certain secular seats of power.

Surprisingly, it doesn't seem to bother Jesus that a particular seat of power exists. But what makes him furious is that the power-people don't practice what they preach.

"Do not do as they do," Jesus thunders, "for they do not practice what they teach. They tie up heavy burdens, hard to bear, and lay them on the shoulders of others; but they themselves are unwilling to lift a finger to move them" (vv. 3-4). The Pharisees encourage the people as a whole to live as a priestly nation, and they apply the priestly purity laws to all the people of God, laws such as hand-washing before eating. But Jesus considers such purity laws to be human traditions, much less important than the commandments of God. "Listen and understand," he calls to the crowd in Matthew 15: "it is not what goes into the mouth that defiles a person, but it is what comes out of the mouth that defiles" (vv. 10-11).

Much more serious than eating with unwashed hands, according to Jesus, are the sins of murder, adultery, fornication, theft, false witness and slander. And in a direct attack on the Pharisees and the scribes, Jesus accuses them of breaking a clear commandment of God when they give support to the Temple instead of to their aging parents. It is far more important to obey the commandment to honor your father and your mother, he says, than to follow the tradition of dedicating property to the Temple (15:3-6).

Jesus gets livid whenever privileged people beat up on burdened people.

In a sense, the perspective of Jesus turns time-honored nautical tradition on its head. In the waterways of America, the privileged vessel is the one that has the right of way, while the burdened vessel is the one that must take any necessary action to keep out of the way of the privileged vessel. But in the justice system of Jesus, the opposite is true: Privileged people must always yield the right of way to burdened people, and not do anything to increase their burdens.

Justice is done, in a divine sense, when privileged vessels do whatever they can to ASSIST burdened vessels. Justice is done when we care for our aging parents, and for the most vulnerable of our children. Justice is done when we sponsor a participant in the CROP Walk, or when we join the youth of our church on their Walk for the Homeless. Justice is done when we support a wide range of mission projects through our pledges to Fairfax Presbyterian Church -- pledges that everyone is challenged to honor before the end of the year. As you can see from the pledge report in today's bulletin, we are currently falling behind in our financial commitments.

In the justice system of Jesus, we do whatever we can to ease the burdens of people around us. This means filling out the Estimate of Giving card that you received this week, and making an increase in your giving so that we can further expand the mission of the church. An increase in 2003 will allow us to pursue a number of new initiatives, including support for an orphanage in Rudensk and a missionary in Brazil.

We privileged vessels are challenged to do whatever we can to assist the burdened vessels of this world.

Keep this in mind on Tuesday when you go to the polls, and ponder it whenever you encounter a person who is more burdened than yourself. As Christians, we are naturally going to have a wide variety of opinions on a broad spectrum of political issues, but we simply cannot be divided on the issue of social justice. Jesus makes it clear that it is wrong to side with privileged persons, those who "tie up heavy burdens, hard to bear, and lay them on the shoulders of others" (23:4) ... those who "do all their deeds to be seen by others" (v. 5) ... those who "love to have the place of honor at banquets and the best seats in the synagogues, and to be greeted with respect in the marketplace" (vv. 6-7).

Consider the issue of the sales tax referendum that we will be voting on this Tuesday. Now I honestly don't know whether this proposed increased will help or hurt our transportation system in Northern Virginia, and I'm certainly not going to recommend that you vote yes … or no. But I do have a strong conviction that sales tax increases are a bad idea, because they unfairly punish the poor.

"Think about it. If you are wealthy, a one-half percent increase in the sales tax is no big deal. It adds a little to your PURCHASES, but it doesn't touch your salary, or your real estate, or your investments. In fact, it barely affects your total wealth at all."

But if you are poor, living paycheck to paycheck, a sales tax increase hits you HARD. It takes a bite out of the limited money you have in your pocket to buy the necessities of life. Studies have shown that sales taxes hit the poor six times harder than they do the wealthy. For the middle class, the impact is four times harder.

Is this any way to treat our burdened vessels? Sixty-four years ago, President Roosevelt said that a sales tax "places the burden of the government more on those least able to pay, and less on those most able to pay." Apparently, our political leaders today -- men and women of both political parties -- are choosing not to see this. They are determined to move ahead, and are revving up the powerboats of progress, oblivious to the damage they might cause.

Let's go back, for a second, to the story of the powerboat and the sailboat on the Chesapeake Bay. Imagine the scene: It's a beautiful Sunday afternoon in June, perfect boating weather, and the bay is teeming with vessels.

Out of the blue, one boat smashes violently into another.

You could think of the powerboat as the privileged party here, gulping gallons of gasoline and cruising at high speed toward wherever it wants to go. Very often, operators of these boats feel like they are the lords of the waterways, and care little about the mess they leave in their wake.

The sailboat, in this case, is the burdened vessel, at the mercy of the winds and making slow progress through the water.

The two boats crash, and the sailboat suffers the worst. Its two crew members are hurled into the water, and one is temporarily trapped under the sail. Fortunately, they are quickly rescued by being plucked out of the water by the crew of the powerboat.

There's a lesson here. When we perform acts of charity in our society today, we are like the crew of the powerboat, rescuing people we have accidentally knocked into the water. Most of us, quite honestly, are children of privilege, with food on our tables, clothes on our backs, and roofs over our heads. When we feed, clothe, and shelter the poor, we are doing what we can to rescue burdened people who are trying to keep their heads above water.

But wouldn't it be better if we didn't crash into their boats in the first place? Wouldn't it be better if we didn't knock these poor souls overboard?

Jesus wants us to focus on justice, not charity. He challenges us to obey his divine rules of navigation, which call for privileged people to give the right of way to burdened people. He commands us to look out for the burdened vessels around us, and to do what we can to assist them. In the story of the Chesapeake Bay crash, it's fascinating to note that the operator of the powerboat says he did not SEE the sailboat. In much the same way, we privileged vessels often do not see the burdened vessels around us. They are invisible to us, unless we look very carefully, with the eyes of Christian discipleship.

On this coming election day, and in all the days to come, our challenge is to act in ways that keep us from further damaging the burdened vessels of our world. Let us live our lives in ways that truly serve other people, for we remember that Jesus said that "The greatest among you will be your servant" (v. 11).

Only then will burdens be lifted, and true justice be done. Amen.

Link to Sermon Index page

Link to What's New page