A Confession

It is the night before the national election.  I plan to go vote before I go to church in the morning.

I have voted in every election since I was eligible,  except one:  in 1984, I was in Japan, I was a poor student, and I couldn't afford to make all of the different train trips it would take for me to apply and get an absentee ballot and send it in.  I voted as a college student and as a worker, as a seminary student and as a pastor.  I loved that my little church was a polling place for elections.  I liked following and voting on the local ballot initiatives as much as nationwide elections.

I have strong political convictions, although in my deepest heart of hearts, and as a Christian, I recognize that the Reign of God is deeper than any of my convictions, and there will never be a political candidate that will bring in the "Reign of God."  I do believe that there are policies that better honor the image of God in all of us, but I know that others feel differently.  I also believe in my deepest heart of hearts that even though I have strong political convictions, nobody knows everything or is wise about everything.  To have a democracy, you have to have at least two different points of view (preferably even more); if you don't, you don't really have a democracy.  So I believe that the best community decisions and the best policies really are created as people with different commitments and visions talk to one another and hash it out.

So, in this very wearying election season, I've been reminding myself and reminding others that, as Father Greg Boyle has said:  "There is no them and us.  There is only us."  I have been reminding myself and reminding others that faith in God unites us, not faith in whatever political project we believe in, however much we believe in it.

Here's the confession, though.

It's really hard.

It's really hard because there are so many venues that speak lies and half-truths about things that are dear to me, and I see them.  For example, I see someone joking that "Barack Obama will take an early lead, until all of the Republicans get off work."  I see another set of statistics that blame one particular political party for the budget deficits and debts, when I know (even though I don't know everything, I know a few things) that the picture is much more complicated than that.  And if we don't ever realize that it's more complicated than that, we will never get the will to fix it.

I hear people pointing fingers and saying, "It's all your fault!"  People on all sides stretch the statistics to fit their own devices.  I want to be able to say, "There is enough blame to go around," because I suspect that is the truth, really.  And (to be honest) there are times when I want to say to someone I love, someone who is a fellow member of the Body of Christ, not "I love you," but "give me a break."

Tomorrow is Election Day.  I keep believing that what unites us is the body and blood of Christ, given and shed for all of us.  But it's hard.  And I fear that it's going to get harder.

But I pray that we will all have the strength to do that hard thing:  to come together to make good communities, and to see the imprint of God on each other's foreheads.

Dis-Organized Religion

"I have a problem with organized religion," he said to me.  They were sitting in my office, this couple preparing for marriage, when he said these words.  They were doing the pre-marital talks, it was Sunday morning right after worship, I was wearing (you know) the outfit that identifies me as a member of Organized Religion. 

Not that I'm defensive or anything.  And I don't claim to know always what a person might mean when they say "organized religion", but I have a couple of ideas (or suspicions).  Possibly they might mean "organized religion" that is designed (it seems) to judge people unworthy and keep them out.  Or they might mean the "organized religion" that seems to serve to protect the powerful instead of caring for the vulnerable, poor, hungry and lonely.   (For example, systems that give people in collars power and turn a blind eye when they abuse the power given them.)  Possibly they mean religion that organizes to try to impose religious values on people who don't share those values. 

Or, they could mean something else.  I'm open to suggestions.

Maybe they mean religion that organizes to get together on Sunday morning and sing some songs.  That's organized, too (although some churches are more organized than others).

So anyway,  it was Sunday morning, and I was tired, so when he said he had a problem with organized religion, I said, "How do you feel about dis-organized religion?" 

I've been thinking a bit about this since then; I think I might feel comfortable with a sort of dis-organized religion (well, except for the Sunday morning part; I would like to know when we are getting together for worship).  Maybe a little more dis-organized religion is what people need.  For example, maybe we need a faith with fewer answers and more questions, with more room for exploring, changing our minds, adding a new insight.  Then when we recite the creed, we can consider that our statement of faith is supposed to make God bigger, not smaller.   When we follow Jesus, we can consider that instead of cleaning up our lives and making them orderly, he's really dis-organizing us by giving us a new center.   Maybe we need some dis-organized religion, because (maybe) what people hate about organized religion is that it makes us sound like we have God all domesticated in a box.

I remember a professor in seminary once talking about progress in the Christian life.  He was talking about Augustine, I think, and he drew a straight line with an arrow on the board.  Then he said, "Luther believed in progress in the Christian life too, but he thought it looked more like this"  -- and he drew a squiggly line in the middle of the board.  I think there was an arrow in there somewhere.

I remember thinking, "I guess I'm Lutheran, then."

Dis-organized religion.   Religion with with room for people who don't agree with one another, where progress in the Christian life is messy, and where there is room for repentance.  That's what I'm looking for.

Join me.  We meet at 10:00 on Sunday morning.  Or thereabouts.

Politics is the new Religion

(My husband wanted me to post this, after a short conversation this morning.)

Sometimes I think we confuse faith and politics. 

Faith is about ultimate concerns, and high ideals.  It is about holding fast and not compromising.  Faith is a matter of life and death (although it also gets us through the day).  Faith is "blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God."

Politics is practical, down-to-earth.  It's not about perfection, but it is about improvement, in one way or another.  In politics, there has to be compromise, making deals, getting hands dirty. 

Lately it seems that faith has become practical and politics more ideological.  I'll bet if you go back a century or so, you won't find many sermons that are "practical, and relate to our daily life," as is common now.  Back in the 18th Century, the sermons were called, "Sinners in the hands of an Angry God," (for example) not "8 Ways to have a Happy Marriage."   

Now politics is about ultimate concerns, a matter of life and death.  I'm right and you're wrong.  We can't work together.  No compromising.  In some cases, our political commitments have become our religion. 

I have a friend who proselytizes for the free market.  If he were as zealous for Jesus, I think the whole world would be Christian (or at least his neighborhood.)  He is Very Suspicious of the Social Justice Christians, who, to be fair, are probably Very Suspicious of him.

Practical, down-to-earth, roll-up-your-sleeves-and-get-things-down.  That's politics.  It's down to earth, humble, sometimes-your-hands-get-dirty work.

A lot of people have observed that Americans hate politics.  There may be a lot of reasons for this, but I suspect this is one of them:  that politics has become the new religion, where people draw lines in the sand and declare those who disagree not only Wrong, but Unrighteous.  Those who disagree are The Enemy.  If you are Liberal, conservatives are commmonly called "Idiots."  Or is it the other way around?  If you are Conservative, liberals are commonly called "idiots."  Or, Hitler.

Don't get me wrong, I think politics is important, and is part of making the world a better place.  A better place, but not a perfect place.  But politicians are not Messiahs, whether the politician is Barack Obama talking about "Hope" or Sarah Palin's with her "Mama Grizzlies" or even Ronald Reagan's "It's morning in America."    If you doubt, imagine even one politician, even the most honorable ,respectable, politician you like best, saying something like "Love your enemies, and do good to those who hate you."   Especially in an election year.

So I pray for all of us, politicians, pastors, people who hate politics, to roll up their sleeves and get things done, to make the world better, if not perfect.  And then I pray that the vision of God's reign of love keeps burning in my heart.

One of the Temptations

I remember a conversation I had several years ago.

I was talking to my boyfriend at the time (not the one who would later become my husband.... ). I related a story I had heard about my grandfather. My aunt had told me that he used to shake his head and say, "I just don't know how anyone can be a Christian and a Democrat."

My boyfriend chuckled and said, "And we think just the opposite."

Just as if someone had hit my knee with one of those little hammers, I shot back a little, "No."

But he was just being honest.

And that's the temptation, always.

How can a good person think differently than we do? I am passionate about justice, about ending poverty, about creating opportunity, about ending racism, about advocating for children, about caring for the environment, about treating all people with respect. And those passions come from my faith values.

How can a good person come to a different conclusion about how to strive for these values politically?

In my congregation we have different political affiliations. In some quarters that is considered a liability. You know, now you have to be a "progressive" congregation or a "conservative" congregation. We're more united by our politics than by our denominations. But what if instead of Democrats, Republicans, conservatives, liberals, middle-class, upper-class, German, Polish, Catholic, or Pentecostal, we could see ourselves in the one way that would unite us: sinners. Forgiven sinners.

We are acting passionately based on our faith values. We are also making mistakes and getting it wrong.

We are open-minded and we are racist. We are cocky and we are humble. We are solving the problems of the world, and we are making them worse.

What do you think? Just wondering....

Republican Church

A few years ago I was at a church retreat with some of our board members, looking ahead to develop a vision and plan for our church. Over lunch, one of the members was telling us about her visit to a local mega-church, one pretty well known in our neck of the woods.

"What kind of a church is it?" someone asked her.

"It's a Republican church," she replied.

Interesting. She didn't say Baptist, or Methodist, or Episcopalian, or Presbyterian. She said Republican. In doing so, she touched on a trend developing in many churches lately, and, in my book, a troubling one.

As a young adult, nothing insulted my intelligence more than for a pastor or a church to tell me how to vote. I remember being very clear that I knew that was NOT their job; I could figure out very well on my own, thank you, where my faith values were leading me politically. And the denomination I grew up in, and eventually came back to, has conservatives and liberals, Republicans and Democrats. The idea was that it was our faith that united us, our common trust in Jesus, not our politics.

Now, in some ways, it feels that has been turned around. More than Lutheran or Methodist, it matters whether we are Conservative or Liberal. Never mind that those words can have many meanings. And it's not just what we believe in our hearts, but who we choose to associate with, how we organize ourselves, and the pre-conceptions that we bring to the scriptures.

I am always surprised, for example, when I am reading the Passion Narrative for a Bible study, and we read the story of the woman with the alabaster jar, the woman who anointed Jesus. This is one of my favorite stories, especially Mark's version, where Jesus praises the woman and says of her, "What she has done will be told in memory of her." Of course, nobody remembers her name, so the comment is somewhat bittersweet. But I love her wasteful gesture, her pouring out of expensive perfume, because to me it is a sign and a foretaste of what Jesus will do when he pours out his life for the world. And it is a woman who serves as the type of Christ's sacrifice.

Invariably, one of the Bible study participants will say something like this about this story. "Those who are on the left wouldn't like it."

And why would that be?

Because of Jesus' retort to the disciples, who critiqued the woman, "The poor you have with you always, but you will not always have me."

Obviously, Jesus' statement was meant to be a tacit endorsement of conservative Republican values, and a repudiation of liberal Democratic ones.

Not.

The problem with going through scripture looking for the statements you agree with is that you miss the larger picture: the picture of the wasteful God who breaks open the jar of his own life for all of sinful humanity.

The problem with going to churches of the like-minded (whether conservative or liberal) is that they might miss the larger picture: a scandalous God whose mission is larger than any political agenda, and who will call any willing sinner to follow.

The "Woman" or the "African American"

I remember a conversation I had several years ago with a fellow seminary student. Actually, she had graduated and was awaiting a call. She had her name given to one nearby congregation. She told me that they declined to interview her because, as she related it, "they had a woman once and it didn't work out, so we aren't interested in interviewing another woman."

If you think that's a justifiable statement, consider this one: "We had a male pastor once, and it didn't work out, so I guess we won't have a male pastor again."

I remember visiting with an older woman in the neighborhood when I first moved here. She was tangentially connected with our congregation (which is to say, not very). She started talking about the changes in the community in the past few years, particularly with regard to race and ethnic background, and not in a positive way. She must have sensed some dismay on my part, because she noted: "I didn't used to be prejudiced, but I got my purse snatched by a black man once, and now I don't trust them."

I sympathized with her situation, understood exactly how she felt, until I applied the same rule as above, and changed the sentence to: "I got my purse stolen by a white man once, and now I don't trust them." Hmmmm. Doesn't quite work the same, does it?

Fairly or unfairly, women and minorities are often looked upon as representatives of their gender or their race, at least in certain areas. So, Hillary Clinton is "the woman" candidate, and Barack Obama is "the African American" candidate. In some areas, there is the expectation that people will vote for them or WON'T vote for them simply on the basis of their gender or their race, as if their policies or their personal story or their particular strengths or particular weaknesses don't matter.

This is the politics of identity, and if it sometimes seems to be a good card to play (You have to support the woman candidate, or you have to support the African-American), it is a double-edged sword. While I celebrate how far women of accomplishment have come, I don't have to agree with the policies of every woman in public service.

There is the possibility that in November of 2008, we will make history. Perhaps we will elect the first woman president; perhaps we will elect the first African American President.

As for me, I'm waiting for the day when we will all be judged by the content of our character (however imperfect or flawed), when I won't be the "lady preacher" but simply the pastor, when my failures won't reflect on every other woman who attempts to come after me, when "my purse was stolen by a black man and now I don't trust them" will be seen for the absurdity it is.