This is what it looks like to be partisan: “Vote for Candidate _________.”
This is what it looks like to be political: “I want our nation to __________.”
This is what it looks like to be faithful: “I believe God wants us to __________.”
In a perfect world, all three of these things line up together: We vote for a certain candidate because that candidate will help our nation move in a certain direction that aligns with what I believe God wants us to do.
Yesterday the leaders in our Presbytery made a faithful statement that some will call political. Please remember that the political is also pastoral for people of faith. We will welcome diverse people. We will seek equity for people. We will include people. The Bible tells us so.
I would definitely flunk the pop culture category on Jeopardy.
The image above (with a slight edit) illustrates Rolling Stone’s Top 30 Social Influencers of 2024 and I have never heard of any of these humans. They often influence what to buy or not buy, how to live or how not to live, how to see the world in a new way.
I heard, in Church recently, Jesus referred to as the ultimate influencer. This hadn’t occurred to me before.
Jesus didn’t say much about buying stuff (although he had thoughts onfinancialpriorities.) Jesus did say a lot about how to live and how to see the world.
True confession: I spend a lot of time in my head trying to figure out how people who say they follow Jesus have nothing to say about what’s going on in our country right nowif they voted for the current occupant of The White House. This is a spiritual matter to me, not a political one. I would ask the same question if the President was from another party – and I have.
In this situation, though, I’ve come to three conclusions:
People who are untroubled by what’s going on in our country do not know what’s going on.
People who are untroubled by what’s going on in our country do not want to know what’s going on.
People who are untroubled by what’s going on in our country do not believe the news reports about what’s going on.
I shared an image on social media that one of my colleagues – BG – posted first which says: “If you have ever wondered what you’d do during slavery, The Holocaust, or The Civil Rights Movement, you’re doing it right now” and I know that some of the people I love consider that statement self-righteous or naive or mean. But I stand by it.
I know a naturalized citizen who has lost his job (with medical insurance) helping refugees resettle because there are no more refugees coming into the United States. Even those cleared for entry, even those to be welcomed here because they helped Americans at great risk to themselves and their families back in their homeland are no longer welcome. I know several scientists frantically seeking new funding for their cancer research after NIH grants were cut. I have friends who have worked for USAID trying to convey that we – the United States – are causing the deaths of thousands of people either by stopping the deliver of food or medicine.
Are we or are we not influenced by the teaching of Jesus? It doesn’t matter if we vote Republican or Democrat or Green Party or Libertarian or we don’t vote at all. If we call ourselves Christian, it means nothing if we are not influenced by the One who said:
You shall worship the Lord your God and him only shall you serve. (i.e. not money)
Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be satisfied. (i.e. the “woke”)
You cannot serve God and money. (i.e. are we willing to ignore the poor for our own financial gain?)
I desire mercy, not sacrifice. I came not to call the righteous but sinners. (i.e. beware the self-righteous who show no mercy to vulnerable people)
Why do you call me “Lord, Lord” and not do what I tell you? (i.e. why we all need to confess every day that we can do better.)
What specifically can we do?
We can call our members of Congress. If yours are like mine, they’ve stopped answering their phones. But we can leave messages.
We can speak upwhen someone openly expresses racism and makes comments based on white supremacy. I live in N.C. A pastor used the N-word in my presence within the last six months. When someone comments that “those people have made bad decisions” ask if they have ever made a bad decision and what did they lose because of it?
We can financially support organizationsthat feed the poor, serve the unhoused, assist those without medical insurance.
We can volunteer our time to those same organizations.
We can vote out people whose policies privilege only the rich.
We can take an honest look at ourselves and our own privilege. Who do we know who happens to get their food from a food pantry? What is the first and last name of the poorest person we know and what do we know about them? When was the last time we had a conversation with a Person of Color or an immigrant or a person in the LGBTQ community about what their daily lives are like?
My point is this:how is Jesus influencing our lives? Not everyone who reads this claims to be Christian. But if we do claim Jesus . . .
I once heard Dr. James Forbes preach on the Luke 15 parables: The Parable of the Lost Sheep, The Parable of the Lost Coin, and The Parable of the Prodigal Son. He reminded us which character was God in these parables:
In the Parable of the Lost Sheep, God’s the shepherd.
In the Parable of the Prodigal, God’s the father.
And in the Parable of the Lost Coin, God’s the woman.
“Maybe you don’t believe that women are created in God’s image, or you don’t believe that God calls women to ministry, or you don’t believe that the Bible includes female imagery of God,” Forbes said. “I’m not going to argue about that with you today. You can take that up with Jesus.”
Preachers everywhere are being accused of being “too woke” today when we proclaim God’s Word about caring for the poor, the imprisoned, the stranger, the lonely, the sick. Well – to quote Dr. Forbes – I’m not going to argue about that with you. You can take it up with Jesus.”
“Liberal Preachers” who are criticized for lifting up the blessings of being meek, merciful and peacemaking, can take that up with Jesus. When “liberal preacher” Bishop Mariann Budde asked the President to consider mercy for the vulnerable on January 21st, she faced subsequent death threats. She was quoting Jesus when she preached those words.
Woke Christianity isn’t Christianity at all. It’s a fake version of Christianity that denies or misuses the Word of God in favor of making sure no one gets their feelings hurt.
(Jesus) unrolled the scroll and found the place where it was written: ‘The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to bring good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.’
If we don’t believe that Jesus himself was and is about justice, compassion and mercy for the vulnerable, we can take it up with Jesus.
Image of the pulpit in the National Cathedral in Washington, D.C. designed under the direction of British architect W. D. Caroe.This was the pulpit where Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. preached his last sermon in a church sanctuary.
The rate of change is determined by the level of trust.
Somebody said that to me last week. (Thanks, if it was from you.) It was a take on Rev. Jennifer Bailey’s quote.
There are several rookie mistakes Pastors – and other leaders – make that will forever sabotage our effectiveness. The first is to try to change things without establishing trust. Show me a Transitional Pastor who decides to shake up how a church does Lent and Easter without first learning what they love about the way they do Lent and Easter and I’ll show you an unnecessary $#@ Storm. Show me a newly Installed Pastor who announces that the congregation will not longer be singing The Doxology during worship and I’ll show you a choir set on blocking every idea the Pastor has moving forward.
Trust is in short-supply these days. Institutions we once trusted have betrayed us. (There was yet another joke about the Catholic Church offered by the Irish Catholic host Conan O’Brien during the Oscars Sunday. Will the Roman Catholic Church ever recover from the sins of their past? Will the Presbyterians?)
How do we engender trust in our families, our communities, our institutions? Be trustworthy.
Listen to people who haven’t had a voice. (Note: Listening is not waiting for our turn to talk.)
Read the room. (Notice things like a detective. Or a person with emotional intelligence.)
One of the beautiful things about being a long-term pastor is that – God-willing – we have engendered trust even among communities that occasionally disagree. As Lent begins tomorrow, consider trust-building as a spiritual discipline.
We are a movie family. We regularly analyze movies together. We stay to watch all the credits.
One of the best things HH and I did as parents was take our kids out of school on opening day of epic movies like Harry Potter and Lord of the Rings and go to the Uptown Theater in D.C. We got in line early to grab our favorite seats: first row, center balcony. The red velvet curtains opened and we were transported.
The Oscars are tonight and we always watch although I’m not sure why. HH and I don’t care much about the fashions. Our favorites don’t always win and we often do not watch every nominated film. I’m fairly certain that some winners prevail because “it’s time” (Anthony Hopkins) or everybody likes them (Tom Hanks.) But it’s fun.
Great movies are those that make an impact. HH and I have watched three Gene Hackman movies since his death (The Conversation, The French Connection, and The Royal Tenebaums) and only one had much of an impact on me. We’d seen The Royal Tenebaums before at least twice and – still – it moved us when we watched it again. We laughed. We cried. We coveted the luggage – like all Wes Anderson movies.
The truth is that every one of us is in the impact business. We were each born to make a difference.
It might be an earth-shaking difference: Margaret Sanger. Or it might be a tiny difference: Jan Edmiston. But this is a calling each of us shares.
A couple years ago, an esteemed pastor challenged me to close ten churches in our Presbytery before I retire. (!) First of all, I am not a bishop. I don’t have the authority to close any church. In fact I find that congregations tend to close themselvesafter years of making no impact in their communities.
I visited a “small church” today that makes an enormous impact in the recovery community. Perhaps a handful of people gather for worship on Sunday mornings but hundreds have found wholeness through the nightly AA meetings.
I visited another “little church” a few weeks ago with about 25 members, and I learned that they feed a couple hundred people every month. They even have freezers to store chicken to hand out, donated by a local processing plant. And they have a Bible study for developmentally delayed adults with about five adult women each Sunday morning. They are making an earth-shattering difference.
Everyone can make a difference in someone’s life or in the life of their community. It’s predicted that 100,000 churches (of all or no denominations) will close by 2030, according to Mark Elsdon. Those that will close are the ones who forgot that they were in the impact business. They will close after benefitting no one in their neighborhoods. They will have long become rote responsibilities for the handful of members left.
Consider the movies, the groups, the individuals, the animals, the experiences that have made an impact in our lives. And then consider how we are making an impact for one other person or many other people. Even the small impacts can be life-changing.
After finding success with his 2000 book Bowling Alone, Robert Putnam was asked to participate in a documentary, produced by Netflix, called Join or Die. (I recommend it and it would make a good adult class offering.)
Although we Americans are increasingly self-isolating (we prefer streaming movies to public movie theatres), some of us are a part organizations even as adults. Some might be official. Some might be haphazardly structured.
As a pastor, I am a part of a Preaching Group (meeting annually in a variety of locations), a clergy support cohort of pearl clutchers (gathering via group threads and an occasional in-person meet up), a fun cousins group (annual reunions and occasional girl cousins only events), and assorted work teams and committees. I’ve rarely been part of a book group. I’ve never been in a running group or a birdwatching group.
An interesting thing is happening in The Church. For the first time in a while, I’m hearing that new people are finding their way into church sanctuaries in hopes of finding spiritual support during what feels like political mayhem to many of us. More than five people in the last month have contacted me to ask if I might recommend a church in the cities where they live. We often seek a group in specific circumstances: a support group in times of grief, a young mom’s group when we crave adult conversation, a church when the world feels overwhelming. Unfortunately, finding a church is probably a last resort for millions of Americans.
Creating community is not just a cool new fad. It’s essential to being a human being and – in the words of the Join or Die movie – essential to being a democracy.
It’s scary joining a group. What if I join a book group and I don’t like the suggested books? What if I join a singles group for general companionship and everyone wants to hook up? What if I join a church and it starts to feel clique-y or cultish? It’s okay to try something and step away. Repeat after me: “It wasn’t what I was looking for but I’m glad it works for you.”
A much-respected Presbyterian leader felt like he needed to share on social media last week that he’s joining the Quakers and leaving the Presbyterians. He is amazing and he will continue to be amazing. And it doesn’t mean he’s rejected us. He’s found what he needs and this is good.
So here’s my point: it used to be true that “the most important hour of the week” for church people and/or people seeking spiritual connection was the worship hour in a church sanctuary. Or so we were taught. This means that – for that one hour – the music, the liturgy, the sermon, the ambiance, and the hospitality must be impressive enough to lure people back next Sunday.
Worship is important. Of course. But perhaps “the most important hour of the week” for followers of Christ are those times in small groups, one-on-ones, long-standing circle meetings or Bible studies, or the brief time before and after worship when we greet each other and sip coffee and share real things. Those moments of community give us life. What if we spent more time fostering those moments? When I was part of Holy Grounds in Alexandria, Virginia we found that most folks came to Sunday night worship after they’d already connected with people through Monday Burgers or Friday Game Night.
I hope you are a part of something that gives your life meaning. And if we indeed have that, what if we looked out for others who seem to be seeking what might give their lives meaning too? This in itself is a spiritual discipline: notice people who are seeking community, not to “lure them in” but to love them and partner with them in life-giving things.
In thanksgiving for Black History Month, the mosaic includes images (from the top left clockwise) of The Girl Friends, Inc. established in 1927 during the Harlem Renaissance, members of Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority Inc. founded in 1908 on the campus of Howard University, the Montana Federation of Negro Women’s Clubs in Butte, August 3, 1921, the NC AT&T State University Cheerleaders, the YMCA bible study class in Alcorn, Miss., ca. 1918, the Atlanta’s Neighborhood Union established in 1908, and (in the center) the Appalachian State University Gospel Choir established in 1976,
There’s a Bible verse that most of us have never preached on/heard a sermon about concerning what happens if we ignore the fact that our next door neighbors are involved in child sacrifice. I’m thinking that most of us would call 911.
From the beginning of human existence, God has expected us to be our siblings’ keeper – and I’m thinking brothers/sisters/siblings equal “neighbors” as Jesus defines them. We are expected to have concern for our neighbor and so if we become aware of some injustice or cruelty or grief, we need to do something to address those things. If we see a violation of God’s commandments, we are expected to seek repair.
Sometimes it’s easier not to know. Close our eyes to the evil next door (Leviticus 20:4-5) or pretend like we are unaware of the need (Luke 10:25-37) or deny that it’s our responsibility to care for another person (Genesis 4:9-10). The Bible is full of examples of this: we are expected to care for each other in this world – and not just the ones in our family, no matter what some say.
We live in a world controlled by the information we consume. When we are only exposed to “fake news” or incomplete news or strategically curated news, our ability to see each other as God’s Children is diminished. Too often, though, we like it that way. When we don’t know the fuller story, we don’t have to address what that story has revealed about ourselves.
I don’t know who wrote it, but I read this over the weekend:
It’s no accident that:
We learned about Helen Keller instead of W.E.B. DuBois in school.
We learned about the Watts and L.A. Riots, but not Tulsa or Wilmington.
We learned that George Washington’s dentures were made from wood, rather than the teeth of enslaved people and animals.
We learned about Black ghettos but not about Black Wall Street.
We learned about The New Deal but not about Red Lining.
Privilege is having history presented in a way that doesn’t make some people uncomfortable. And racism is perpetuated by those of us who refuse to learn or acknowledge the full story.
In honor of SNL’s 50th Anniversary, I’ve been re-watching some of the skits and fake commercials from previous years. This one stings, not merely because it’s particularly partisan, but because it reminds me that I’m complicit too.
I personally love Valentine’s Day but not for romantic reasons. I find schmaltzy cards kind of fun. I like telling people I love them.
Some people avoid Valentine’s Day like I avoid Mother’s Day. (Love my kids. Miss my Mom.) Some celebrate Galentine’s Day. Some people take St. Valentine very seriously and spend the day pondering martyrdom. And I recently heard February 14 referred to as Single Awareness Day.
Being single can be a joy. Sometimes partnered people feel single. Everyone experiences existential loneliness in that – even if we married believing that Our Person would fulfill every need and maybe even read our minds – we quickly realized that it was not possible. No one can thoroughly know us – how we think, what we think, why we are the way we are – except for One.
My personal faith story involves realizing that even though he was a male person born 2000 years before me in a wholly different context and culture, I deeply felt that God knew me through Jesus. Long story, but that was the takeaway.
Today I know partnered people who feel lonely. I know married people who wish they weren’t. I know single people tired of feeling alone. And yet . . .
February 14 is an excellent time to take a minute and be aware that each of us is a distinct and complicated human, worthy of love and filled with the proclivity to love others. Imagine a day – or just a moment – when we can single-mindedly appreciate the person we were created to be.
It is an underappreciated miracle when we have people to love, work that satisfies and a greater purpose in this life than making the most money, curating the best resume, or stockpiling the best toys. Life is a miracle and I love it when we remember.
May every single one of you have a day filled with sparks of insight and more than one moment of joy.
I keep a grappling hook in my office – a gift from church friends with whom I have grappled with many complicated issues.
Leadership researchers will tell us that issues can be simple, complicated, complex, or chaotic, but for the sake of this post, I’m going with simple versus complicated. One of the wedges divided us politically and theologically seems to be the unwillingness to grapple with complicated things. It’s easier (and lazier) to cling to simplistic opinions and let those opinions direct our political opinions.
We do this by assigning negative (and simplistic) assumptions to catch phrases or acronyms:
“DEI” comes to mean unfair hiring practices or the lifting up of unqualified people for the sake of being “woke.” But if we do some research, we find that DEI is a bit more complicated than that. Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion actually ensures opportunities for people whom we might not consider otherwise for employment or even participation in an organization: The person who can do the job even though they are in a wheelchair. The person who doesn’t look like everybody else but it equally up for the task. There are countless studies on the benefits of including a diversity of voices at the table. We omit whole demographics of people if we ignore those who are not like us.
Critical Race Theory has practically become a swear word that we attach to preschool programs or middle school field trips when – actually – it’s an academic theory studied in universities. According to Wikipedia “the word critical in the name is an academic reference to critical theory rather than criticizing or blaming individuals.” But we condemn people who consider Critical Race Theory by accusing them of “hating their country.”
Especially in these days, it’s really essential to do our research and by that I don’t mean getting our news from Raw Story or Turning Point Action. And I’m not merely referring to our media diet. This is also essential for those of us who take the Bible and our faith seriously.
When a political leader refers to “the Christian idea” that you “owe the strongest duty to your family” and “your first duty as an American leader is to the people of your own country” the curious Christian would grapple with that sentiment by studying their own Bibles and noting if this is what Jesus said.
When some Christians question the leadership of women in church, the curious Christian would do a deep dive into the context and culture of the words they quote to “prove” what they already believe. Turns out the apostle Paul was quite open-minded.
Christians who grapple with complicated issues of faith and life are taking the Scriptures seriously.
In some ways, following Jesus is quite simple: love your neighbor as yourself, feed the hungry, welcome the stranger, etc. It becomes more complicated when we dig into what these simple ideas mean:
Is the trans person our neighbor?
Is the hungry addict worthy of food?
If the stranger is undocumented, what’s our responsibility?
Sometimes we might grapple with issues and find that what we’ve always believed is not as simple as it seems. Sometimes we might be shocked by God’s Truth and it forces us to repent.
Is it easy following the way of Jesus? Yes. And not always.
When HH and I were Co-Pastors of Fairlington Presbyterian Church in Alexandria, Virginia the congregation was preparing to celebrate it’s 50th Anniversary. Established in 1947, the church experienced explosive growth (We beat Hitler! Let’s have babies!) and – almost forty years later – an explosive church split broke spirits and hearts. When HH and I arrived, the church was a bruised remnant of what it had once been.
As the 50th Anniversary was approaching, we decided to invite the Moderator of the Presbyterian Church USA General Assembly, the highest elected official in the denomination, to be our guest preacher. I had been a Commissioner to the 208th General Assembly and had happily voted for Rev. Buchanan for Moderator.
I called The Mother Ship in Louisville to ask how we could get on John Buchanan’s preaching schedule. We wanted him to be the preacher the day we celebrated our 50th Anniversary, and I was discouraged to hear that there were probably 3 requests for every possible preaching date in The Moderator’s 12 months of service.
Me: So is there to trick to having John Buchanan choose us – a small church that almost left the PCUSA denomination a few years ago?
Moderator’s Scheduler: It helps to have an unusual request, something unique.
Me: Like a candygram?
MS: Um, no.
Much less fun than a candygram, was the idea that we would have a petition, but not an ordinary petition. We would ask members the upcoming Sunday to not only sign them names asking John Buchanan to come to Fairlington Pres, but we would add comments about why we’d love for him to be the preacher on our 50th Anniversary.
Unfortunately there was a snowstorm that Sunday and worship had been cancelled. There would be no fun petition because the deadline for Moderator Requests was the next week.
We were shocked to hear back from the Moderator’s Scheduler that he had accepted our request and would be preaching on Mother’s Day 1997. The thing is: we never sent a request because of the snowstorm.
As the church secretary, ND and I were in the office pondering how this happened, she made a confession to me: On Monday morning, after the snowstorm, she had gone through the rolls of deceased members and – with different pens and different handwriting styles – had completed a masterwork of several hundreds of signatures and personal requests for John Buchanan to come to Fairlington. It would be our little secret. HH’s response:
He’s from Chicago. He’d understand dead people voting.
On Mother’s Day 1997, John and Sue Buchanan came to Alexandria and it was a wonderful celebration. The founding pastor Dr. Charlie Cowsert was present. General Presbyter Teri Thomas was present. The music was especially inspiring. And when I stood to introduce Dr. Buchanan, I shared the secret.
Charlie Cowsert had asked me before worship how we got John Buchanan to decide to come to our small church, and I told him I’d explain in my introduction. And so just before John preached, I told the story of the snowstorm and ND going through the rolls of deceased members and “he’s from Chicago so he’d understand death people voting.” It was kind of hilarious.
To my horror, John stood in the pulpit and PULLED THE PETITION OUT OF HIS FOLDER. “Please God don’t let him read it,” I thought to myself. I wasn’t sure it would be as hilarious when he read “comments by” the dead spouses and parents of those who had gathered. Thankfully, he did not read it.
But we laughed multiple times that day and John was delighted by our ruse. And for the rest of his term – unti Pat Brown replaced him as the Moderator of the next General Assembly, HH and I got phone calls from friends all over the country telling us that they had heard John Buchanan preach and he had told the story about preaching at Fairlington Presbyterian Church and the dead people’s petition. And he always chuckled at the punch line: “He’s from Chicago. He’d understand dead people voting.“
John loved Chicago. He loved elegant worship and justice for the underdog. He especially loved Sue and their children. And he – most of all – loved the God of Creation who died for us all.
Thanks be to God for an amazing life lived by an amazing man.
A Church for Starving Artists 