Reading the Bible in Church

Today was All Saints Sunday in Church.  We did many things in church.  We sang, we prayed, I preached.  We opened our hands and received communion.  We even said, "Christ is risen!"  We lit candles to remember those in our lives who had been saints to us, who had reflected the light of Christ to us.

And, we read from the Bible.

We read from the Bible every Sunday at church.

But today it felt different.

I felt the weight of the appointed Gospel, from Jesus' Sermon on the Plain.  It is appointed for All Saints Sunday, but this year I didn't preach on the gospel.  I preached on being a saint, and I preached on being a witness, but I didn't preach on these particular words.

But I read them, because they were the words of the appointed gospel for today.

Two days before our National Election, I read the blessings and the woes.  Blessed are you who are poor.  Woe to you who are rich.  Blessed are you when you are reviled, and people speak ill of you.

And then, three little words:

Love your enemies

I don't know what my congregation heard when I said these words.  I felt time slow down while I said them.  "Love your enemies,  and do good to those who persecute you."

I felt like Jesus was speaking them directly to me.

They were words not just for the election, but for how to live afterwards.  I am not sure that it is possible, but I am certain that it is necessary.   Love your enemies.  I don't think that means, "Let your enemies walk all over you."  It also doesn't mean, "Let your enemies get away with evil."  It also doesn't mean "Show contempt for your enemies."

"Love your enemies."

I opened the Bible and the words of Jesus exploded in my face.

They made me consider again what it will mean, and what it might cost to be a follower of Jesus, in such a time as this.

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.

After....

On Thursday, we had our regular community clergy gathering. This month we were slated to meet at the local African American church. They had prepared a wonderful lunch for us: sandwiches and wraps and pie and other sweets that I can't even remember now. It was quite a feast. One of the pastors there had printed two poems by James Weldon Johnson. He recited the first one for us, and could barely get through one of the stanzas, he was so filled with emotion. He told us that he had called his 93 year old father in Chicago on Tuesday morning, only to discover that his father had already voted. He said that his father felt so grateful that he had lived to see that day.

The second poem was Lift Every Voice and Sing. It is the Black National Anthem. He was going to recite that poem too, but one of us suggested that we might sing it, instead. So we did, all twelve of us around the table a capella.

I didn't know this at the time, but Lift Every Voice was sung often in the schools in the segregated south, just like I remember singing My Country 'Tis of Thee.

After our lunch, I met briefly with the other African American pastor. We are planning the next Martin Luther King Day worship service, which will take place this year the day before inauguration day. We also took a moment to check in about the social justice organization we both work with.

He confessed to me that he was not sure who he would vote for until he went into the voting booth on Tuesday. (He didn't tell me, either.) Neither candidate, he thought, was perfect. Both were good, but flawed people.

I told some of this story in church on Sunday. Most people did not know there was an African American church in our town.

We still have a lot of work to do. But we're starting.

A New Day

What can I say? He will need all of our prayer, and all of our work, and all of our wisdom, and all of our service.

Minnesota State Turn-out

Some may not know that Minnesota usually has the highest voter turnout of any state in the union. I wonder if we will keep that honor this year.

We have some wild and some weird and some extremely negative races this year. It hasn't always been this way. I'd rather be known for our high voter turnout.

This local column explains it.

Two Prayers for Election Day

Under your law we live, great God,
and by your will we govern ourselves.
Help us as good citizens
to respect neighbors whose views differ from ours,
so that without partisan anger,
we may work out issues that divide us,
and elect candidates to serve the common welfare;
through Jesus Christ the lord. Amen
-The Book of Common Worship, Presbyterian Church, USA, 1946

Sovereign Lord, foolish we are, believing that we can rule ourselves by selecting this or that person to rule over us. We are at it a gain. Help us not to think it more significant than it is, but also give us and those we elect enough wisdom to acknowledge our follies. Help us laugh at ourselves, for without humor our politics cannot be humane. We desire to dominate and thus are dominated. Free us, dear Lord, for otherwise we perish. Amen
-Stanley Hauerwas, 1999

Compiled in An American Prayer Book, ed. Christopher Webber

Quote for the Day

I found this quote on Andrew Sullivan's Daily Dish. I've been obsessed with his pithy little thoughts lately, even when I don't agree with him.

"Unpopular ideas can be silenced, and inconvenient facts kept dark, without the need for any official ban … At any given moment there is an orthodoxy, a body of ideas which it is assumed that all right-thinking people will accept without question... Anyone who challenges the prevailing orthodoxy finds himself silenced with surprising effectiveness. A genuinely unfashionable opinion is almost never given a fair hearing, either in the popular press or in the highbrow periodicals ... If liberty means anything at all it means the right to tell people what they do not want to hear," - George Orwell, from his proposed preface to "Animal Farm."

So what are some of the things we do not want to hear right now?

I know one of the things I am thinking is:

So, with all of the talk about stimulating the economy and tax cuts, what ARE we going to do with the national debt? How much is it right now? Does it not matter any more?

Another is: I believe that one of the best hopes for this country is to resurrect and re-invigorate the promise of citizen democracy. Early on, I thought that Barack Obama's theme, "Yes, We can" might represent that post-partisan promise. But, being a citizen is hard work. Maybe "Yes We Can" sounds good, but is really too difficult to do. What do you think?

What are some other things you aren't hearing anyone saying?

It's been a quiet week in Minneapolis....

.... even though right next door there have been speeches, celebrations and protests. You wouldn't know it at our house, where we have barely turned the TV dial from the baseball station, watching the Twins lose every night. Pick your poison.

It's a far cry from 1968, when I stayed with my grandparents down in Jackson, Minnesota, and watched the whole Republican convention on television, with my grandfather's running commentary about how Nixon was a good guy because he did not grow up rich, like those Kennedys. (My grandfather also said that "Voting for Roosevelt was the worst mistake I ever made." He would say that and then, a little later, tell us that he was going "down to the co-op for a while." When I got older, that confused me.)

It's not that I don't care about politics. Although there are many political viewpoints (and now, even religious viewpoints) in my family, and we have learned to love each other, mostly, anyway.

And it's not that I don't care who becomes President.

But I worry that, for many people, voting has become their only act of civic participation. And of course, a lot of people don't even vote.

So, I was saddened and disturbed by what I heard about the derogatory comments about community organizers last night. One of the things that community organizers do is teach people how to participate effectively in their community, for social change -- for themselves.

I know a little about organizing, as I have received some training from The Gamaliel Foundation. One thing I find refreshing is that organizing challenges both liberal and conservative orthodoxies. It's not about hand-outs, or about rescuing poor people, but about empowering people to act for their own good. And it's not about "rugged individualism" or bootstraps, but about acting together for a common cause.

I found this article by a real live organizer ting inspiring and enlightening.

I'd also like to recommend (at least to Minnesotans) the book The Citizen Solution, by Harry Boyte. It's published by Minnesota Historical Society Press. I may post more about it later.

Finally, as all of the Conventions and all of the speeches fade from our view, and we get back into the pre-election groove of hearing all of the negative advertising, I would like to direct you to this helpful non-partisan truth-o-meter. (yep, they all do it...)

Now, I think I'll head down to the co-op for a little while....