What job description would you write for a witness to the gospel of Jesus Christ? The truth is, if we are honest, we all have our checklists. She would be forthright. He would be well educated. She would be a terrific preacher. He would be a praying man. She would be a leader in social justice. He would be a person of great love. She would lead the people in peace. And for goodness sake, they would be above reproach, wouldn't they? They would be, to quote Senator Biden, “articulate, bright and—CLEAN.”

Despite the horrific racism inherent in Senator Biden's quip, many of us have had a good chuckle this week at his expense. Jay Leno, David Letterman, even Peter Segal on this week's edition of the NPR news show “Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me!” all of them have taken great pleasure in underscoring Biden's assertion that Senator Obama is “clean.”

But, friends, if we are honest, Joe Biden has shed a more honest light than any of us wishes on one of OUR silent criteria, one of OUR unspoken and unwritten, but very present requirements for our ideal witnesses to the gospel. They would be sensible, command respect, be able to communicate effectively with the media, have the power to sway the national government—but above all, LET THEM BE CLEAN.

Let them not have marital infidelities, lest they be labeled as hypocrites or dismissed as illegitimate; let them be clean. Let them not have too little money, or education, so that they are not ignored; but let them not have too much, so that they are not feared or envied. Let them be clean. Let them not be HIV positive, lest they be labeled as a drug-addict or sexually loose; let them not be overweight, living with diabetes or hypertension, lest they be judged as slovenly or lazy. In all things health-related, let them be clean. Let them be hard workers, but not with their hands, less they be dismissed as lower class; let them be clean. Let them be pious—not drinkers, or smokers, or swearers; let them be clean. Let them not be easily labeled shifty or untrustworthy, because THEIR cultural norms are not the same as ours; let them be clean. For goodness sakes, in all the ways that we think it matters, let them be clean!

You see, the creator of the Simpsons had us pegged; and Joe Biden admitted it out loud. For our witnesses to the gospel—our representatives of the faith—we want people who are exactly like Ned Flanders. We want people who are clean.
Today's scriptures stop us short in our musings. For in the words read today, we hear about Jesus: a Jesus who also was looking for witnesses to the gospel, representatives of the faith. And what today's scriptures remind us in a very pointed way, is that when Jesus chose witnesses, he did not choose “clean” people.

Take Simon Peter for example, we have tended to remake this Galilean fisherman in our own image, a proto-Presbyterian self-made man, captain of a pristine, antiseptic fishing vessel, who gets called away to become an eloquent exegetical preacher who can weave together a brilliant sermon for Pentecost Sunday. But this is not the man whom Jesus called. Jesus called Simon, a first-century laborer, a man who would have stripped down to his loincloth to do the hard, sweaty, grinding work of rowing out into deep water, casting the nets, pulling in, casting the nets, pulling in all night long. Jesus called Simon, a man you could SMELL coming to you; a man who smelled of sweat, rough fabric, salt water, and the perpetual, inescapable, gets in your dark curly hair and oozes out of the pores of your brown skin smell of FISH. Jesus called Simon, and friends, Simon was not clean.

Oh, I know, you may tell me, “But he walked with Jesus. Surely, that cleaned him up a little.” But friends, the witness of the gospels is that Jesus called SIMON, a man who ate without ritually washing his hands. Jesus called SIMON, who picked grain when walking through a field on the Sabbath without the slightest concern about what the Bible says. Jesus called SIMON, who wasn't sure he should give to support the religious institution of his day—the Temple. Jesus called SIMON, who doesn't even seem to react to good, pious teaching when Jesus is sitting right there in the boat with him. SIMON is not pious, not in any way that would be acceptable or worthy of those who would be representatives of the gospel; friends, Jesus called SIMON, and SIMON is not clean.

And, I remind you just who this Simon becomes. Simon is the one who embarrasses us by getting out of the boat to walk on water, and then sinking. Simon is the one who babbles on about creating booths on the mountain of transfiguration. Simon is the one who tries so hard to talk Jesus out of the crucifixion that even Jesus calls him Satan. Simon, yes, this Simon whom Jesus has the nerve to call the Rock, he is the one who falls asleep on Jesus at the hour of his need and who denies his relationship with Jesus, even after he promises to stick by him until death. And friends, I remind you that JESUS called Simon, and Simon was not clean.

And Simon would not deny any of this. When Jesus calls him, he pushes him away. Even as his boat sinks under the weight of fish, he falls to his knees and says, “Leave me. I am a sinful man. Leave me Jesus. I am not articulate. I am not bright. And you and I both know that I am not clean.” And we look with embarrassment at this smelly, coarse, flighty hulk of a man and shake our heads. Jesus, why in the world would you choose him? Couldn't you give us someone more like—like Barack Obama? Couldn't you at least choose someone that is clean?
And if Peter disturbs us, how much more does Saul of Tarsus, the one we call “Saint Paul”? Granted, Paul has the pedigree we want, he's a highly educated, deeply pious, articulate, theologically brilliant man. He can travel in all of the right circles, say all of the right things, and even get rich persons to open their houses and their hearts to the gospel. And yet, and yet….

Isn't this the same Paul who was an accessory to torture, to false imprisonment, and to murder? Isn't this the same Paul who did nothing to stop the stoning of Stephen and the terrorism unleashed on the early churches? Can his hands not be stained with the blood of so many of our early sisters and brothers, many without names and faces? Paul claims that Jesus has called him, but how is that possible; clearly Paul is not clean.

And even if you think that someone who should have been thrown in prison for life can change from a terrorist thug to a faithful witness, what do we do with the Paul who disinherits Hagar in Galatians? What do we do with the Paul who sends a fugitive slave home to his master? What do we do with the Paul who cannot seem to understand that if God made men gay, which is what he says in Romans, it is not a curse for their idolatry but a blessing of creation? What, in a church with a conscience, do we do with a Paul whose writings are constantly used to disinherit the least of these? What do we do with a Paul who is called by Jesus? A Paul who calls us to remember the good news of the gospel, the cross and the resurrection, and yet, a Paul whose life and legacy are deeply, uncomfortably unclean?

But as Simon cowers in the boat, there comes a tap on his shoulder. “Simon, what are you afraid of? Don't you think I know you're unclean? Come. I'm looking for unclean witnesses to catch people.” As Paul reasons with the church at Corinth, he has a moment of brilliant lucidity. “Church,” he writes, “don't you think I know that I am one untimely born, unworthy to be an apostle because I persecuted you? But, by the grace of Jesus Christ, I am what I am.” Believe in the good news of the resurrection, good news delivered by unclean witnesses.

People of God, what are we afraid of? Why do we still yearn inwardly for what Joe Biden said aloud, church leaders, faith leaders, and witnesses to the gospel, who are articulate, bright and clean? Why is our denomination still ripping itself to shreds from the inside out over who is clean enough to preach, who is clean enough to pastor, who is clean enough to bear witness to the gospel of Jesus Christ?

Have we forgotten that 200 years ago in the year 1807, when the United States Constitution still counted him as 3/5^th of a person, when debates were still raging around the United States about whether he and other such Negros could possibly be fully human, in a nation that fundamentally counted him among the unclean, Jesus Christ called John Gloucester, former slave, to be the founding pastor of First African Presbyterian Church in Philadelphia, the very first black Presbyterian congregation?

Have we forgotten the struggle that Margaret Towner and other women like her went through, in a church that believed they were too unclean to be preachers of the word; too unfit to break bread at church, when they broke bread for their families every day at home? Have we forgotten that, in 1955, even in the face of an impending split over the issue, Jesus Christ called Margaret Towner, an unclean woman in a man's world, to be the first Presbyterian woman ordained a minister of word and sacrament?

And what shall we do with Deacon Lisa Larges, with Reverend Christopher Glase, and the Reverend Dr. Jane Adams Spahr, gay Presbyterians all of them? What shall we do with all of those deemed too unclean who, like Martin Luther King led movements, and like Bayard Rustin organized marches on Washington? What shall we do with uppity unclean women like Molly Ivins and Ann Richards and Jane Fonda, who called us to task when we needed it, bearing witness to truths that made us wince in our discomfort and dis-ease? What do we do when Nelson Mandela goes on international television to declare that his son died of AIDS and that he, and his entire unclean nation, had a divine call to stop the silence around this disease? People of God, what do we do, when we are surrounded with a church, a nation, yes, an entire world of unclean witnesses?

Church, what we do, what we MUST do is to stand in the shadow of the cross, at this table and at this font, and we who would be judge must confess the truth, we also are unclean. And the truth is, our search for clean witnesses is a cop-out. A cop-out that allows us to ignore Jesus' call on OUR lives, a call that will require US to step out in all of our humanity. And we will be an embarrassment, sometimes. We will be inarticulate sometimes. We will be less than brilliant, many times. And we will, despite our best efforts, continue to be unclean. And the truth is it doesn't matter, as long as the gospel is proclaimed. And the truth is, the minute we stop masking our fear of our own imperfection by pointing fingers at others, the minute we face our own sinfulness, our own uncleanness, and crumple to the ground like Simon Peter in the presence of the power of the living God, it is at that moment that a voice says to us, “Fear not.”

Fear not. For, you will be a witness for your Lord. Fear not, for you will catch people. Fear not, for although you are unclean you have come to the right place. Look at the sign on the door, the sign of the cross written in waters of baptism, with the blood of the covenant in the power of the resurrection. Can you not read it? It says “Wanted: Unclean Witnesses.”

In the name of Jesus Christ, who was and is and is to come. Amen.

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