In recent years we’ve heard quite a lot of criticism of American presidents, haven’t we? It would be difficult to catalogue the number and range of criticisms that were levelled at Donald Trump during his presidency and now it seems the knives are out for President Joe Biden as his competency, trustworthiness and not to mention his handling of the situation in Afghanistan are all being questioned. But no matter what people may think of Messrs Trump and Biden, the one who is widely regarded as the worst, and certainly, I think, most infamous of all Presidents of the United States, at least in living memory, is Richard Nixon.
Most of us here will remember Nixon, I’m sure, but for those who don’t, Nixon was forced to resign from office during his second term of office as President to avoid impeachment for obstruction of justice, abuse of power, and contempt of Congress.
There’s no doubt whatsoever that Nixon fully lived up to his nickname of ‘Tricky Dick’ and ended his term as President and his political career in disgrace, and yet for many people, including myself, he remains a fascinating character. He is widely regarded as a man who had the ability to be a good, perhaps even great President of the United States. He can be credited with some notable achievements, opening relations between the United States and China, negotiating the first nuclear arms limitation treaty with the Soviet Union and ending American involvement in the Vietnam War, for example. And yet he ended up being regarded as one of, if not the, worst Presidents ever and a disgrace to himself, the Presidency, and his country because of his shady way of doing things and attempts to cover up his involvement in illegal activities carried out on his behalf. So why was Nixon like that? I think the answer lies in his own words.
Towards the end of his farewell speech to his Cabinet and Staff, Nixon said this,
“Always give your best. Never get discouraged. Never be petty. Always remember others may hate you but those who hate you don’t win unless you hate them. And then you destroy yourself.”
I don’t anyone has ever given a more accurate epitaph to themselves than Nixon did in those words. Nixon could be extremely petty. He believed people were always trying to put him down, so he tried to put them down. He believed people were out to destroy him, so he tried to destroy them. He believed that people hated him, so he hated them. And in the end, he did destroy himself.
I’ve chosen to speak about Nixon this morning because I think he is a very high-profile example of what can happen to us if we don’t take the lessons of this morning’s readings to heart and try our best to live by those lessons. In our both our Old and New Testament readings this morning, we’re urged to live as God intended us to live. We’re urged to keep God’s commandments and, in the Letter of St James, not to let ourselves be contaminated or stained by the world. And that’s a message that’s taken up and reinforced in our Gospel reading, in Jesus’ own words:
“Hear me, all of you, and understand: There is nothing outside a person that by going into him can defile him, but the things that come out of a person are what defile him.”
On one level, this is a teaching about ritual purity. It’s a teaching that eating without washing our hands first, whilst it might not be very hygienic, doesn’t damage our relationship with God because that is based on the kind of people we are in our hearts, not in our stomachs. And although this morning we don’t read the verses that actually say this, it’s also a teaching that there isn’t really any such thing as ritually unclean food because again, the food we eat simply goes into our bodies through our mouths, through our stomachs, and then out of our bodies.
But on another level, this is a teaching about what can enter into a person from outside and can contaminate and stain us. Jesus says,
“What comes out of a person is what defiles him. For from within, out of the heart of man, come evil thoughts…”
some of which Jesus names before he says,
“All these evil things come from within, and they defile a person.”
I’ve spoken before about the ancient understanding of the heart. For people of ancient times, it was the heart, not as we understand, the brain, where decisions were made. For the ancients, including the people Jesus was speaking to, everything that a person experiences in life entered the heart. It was in the heart where everything was considered and where the appropriate response was formulated. And so it was from the heart that actions came. And if these actions, and the thoughts that created them, were contrary to God’s commandments, it was these things that came from within a person, from their heart, that defiled a person. What this morning’s readings are telling us then, is that we mustn’t allow what we experience in the world to corrupt us by leading us away from God and abandoning his commandments.
The case of President Richard Nixon is an example of what can happen to a person if and when they allow the world to make them angry and bitter. His example shows us what we can become if we choose, and it is a choice, if we choose to repay people in kind for the insults and injuries and hurt they’ve caused us, or we think they’d like to cause us. His, is a high-profile example but it can happen to all of us in so many ways. I remember, for example, saying one time to an old school friend of mine that he wasn’t very nice to his girlfriend at times. His answer was that his last girlfriend had done the same things to him, so he was just getting his own back! But how many people have we met who’ve been through a bad experience and then treated other people, people who had nothing to do with the experience in question, badly as a result of that experience. Treated them as though either they were responsible for what had happened or as though they would do the same thing if they got the chance? It’s something we’ve probably all experienced, and probably all done at some time, and when we’ve done it, we’ve probably excused it by calling it the ‘baggage’ we’re carrying with us.
It is easy to allow the world to make us like this because there are so many things that happen in the world, and to us, as we go through life that can make us angry and bitter. But if we do allow the world to make us like this, and that is our choice, these things damage our relationships with one another as individuals. They can damage relationships between groups of people. They can damage relationships between nations. And they damage our relationship with God too because being angry and bitter at others for what has happened to us, is allowing the world to contaminate or stain us, not least because it stops us from loving our neighbour as God intends us to.
Whatever the world throws at us, and whatever enters into our hearts as a result, Jesus calls us not to let these things turn us to evil thoughts because from evil thoughts spring evil actions. Whatever the world throws at us, and whatever enters our hearts as a result, we’re called to remain uncontaminated and unstained by them and faithful to God’s commandments and Jesus’ teaching. We know the rewards both for faithfulness and unfaithfulness to God and Christ and I’m sure we all want the reward that faithfulness brings. So whatever the world throws at us and whatever enters into our hearts as a result, we have to do our best to remain uncontaminated and unstained. Perhaps then, we could do a lot worse than take those words from Richard Nixon’s farewell speech and apply them to our own situation as Christians:
“Always give your best. Never get discouraged. Never be petty. Always remember others may hate you but those who hate you don’t win unless you hate them. And then you destroy yourself.”
Amen.
The Propers for the 22nd Sunday of Ordinary Time can be viewed here.
Parish Church of St Mark Chadderton 