Browsed by
Category: politics

The Hill We Climb

The Hill We Climb

Oh, my … What beauty, what grace, what truth, what timely words for this moment, for us …

Here is the text of the poem …

When day comes we ask ourselves,
where can we find light in this never-ending shade?
The loss we carry,
a sea we must wade
We’ve braved the belly of the beast
We’ve learned that quiet isn’t always peace
And the norms and notions
of what just is
Isn’t always just-ice
And yet the dawn is ours
before we knew it
Somehow we do it
Somehow we’ve weathered and witnessed
a nation that isn’t broken
but simply unfinished
We the successors of a country and a time
Where a skinny Black girl
descended from slaves and raised by a single mother
can dream of becoming president
only to find herself reciting for one
And yes we are far from polished
far from pristine
but that doesn’t mean we are
striving to form a union that is perfect
We are striving to forge a union with purpose
To compose a country committed to all cultures, colors, characters and
conditions of man
And so we lift our gazes not to what stands between us
but what stands before us
We close the divide because we know, to put our future first,
we must first put our differences aside
We lay down our arms
so we can reach out our arms
to one another
We seek harm to none and harmony for all
Let the globe, if nothing else, say this is true:
That even as we grieved, we grew
That even as we hurt, we hoped
That even as we tired, we tried
That we’ll forever be tied together, victorious
Not because we will never again know defeat
but because we will never again sow division
Scripture tells us to envision
that everyone shall sit under their own vine and fig tree
And no one shall make them afraid
If we’re to live up to our own time
Then victory won’t lie in the blade
But in all the bridges we’ve made
That is the promise to glade
The hill we climb
If only we dare
It’s because being American is more than a pride we inherit,
it’s the past we step into
and how we repair it
We’ve seen a force that would shatter our nation
rather than share it
Would destroy our country if it meant delaying democracy
And this effort very nearly succeeded
But while democracy can be periodically delayed
it can never be permanently defeated
In this truth
in this faith we trust
For while we have our eyes on the future
history has its eyes on us
This is the era of just redemption
We feared at its inception
We did not feel prepared to be the heirs
of such a terrifying hour
but within it we found the power
to author a new chapter
To offer hope and laughter to ourselves
So while once we asked,
how could we possibly prevail over catastrophe?
Now we assert
How could catastrophe possibly prevail over us?
We will not march back to what was
but move to what shall be
A country that is bruised but whole,
benevolent but bold,
fierce and free
We will not be turned around
or interrupted by intimidation
because we know our inaction and inertia
will be the inheritance of the next generation
Our blunders become their burdens
But one thing is certain:
If we merge mercy with might,
and might with right,
then love becomes our legacy
and change our children’s birthright
So let us leave behind a country
better than the one we were left with
Every breath from my bronze-pounded chest,
we will raise this wounded world into a wondrous one
We will rise from the gold-limbed hills of the west,
we will rise from the windswept northeast
where our forefathers first realized revolution
We will rise from the lake-rimmed cities of the midwestern states,
we will rise from the sunbaked south
We will rebuild, reconcile and recover
and every known nook of our nation and
every corner called our country,
our people diverse and beautiful will emerge,
battered and beautiful
When day comes we step out of the shade,
aflame and unafraid
The new dawn blooms as we free it
For there is always light,
if only we’re brave enough to see it
If only we’re brave enough to be it

A Christian Insurrection

A Christian Insurrection

I recommend an article released this morning written by Emma Green for The Atlantic magazine, entitled A Christian Insurrection.  Ms. Green addresses similar concerns to those I raised yesterday in my blog post, Disturbing Images, namely the  confusion and distortion and degradation of the Christian witness brought about by an unholy alliance with a ungodly demagogue.  Her article begins,

The name of God was everywhere during Wednesday’s insurrection against the American government. The mob carried signs and flag[s] declaring JESUS SAVES! and GOD, GUNS & GUTS MADE AMERICA, LET’S KEEP ALL THREE. Some were participants in the Jericho March, a gathering of Christians to “pray, march, fast, and rally for election integrity.” After calling on God to “save the republic” during rallies at state capitols and in D.C. over the past two months, the marchers returned to Washington with flourish. On the National Mall, one man waved the flag of Israel above a sign begging passersby to SAY YES TO JESUS. “Shout if you love Jesus!” someone yelled, and the crowd cheered. “Shout if you love Trump!” The crowd cheered louder.

Shout if you love Jesus. Shout if you love Trump. As if the two belong on the same dais, merit the same praise, deserve the same allegiance. And notice which of the two received the greater acclaim. This is a dangerous confusion, a toxic conflation of loyalty to Jesus with loyalty to a political leader, a confusion which Mr. Trump has only encouraged. Recall what he said at a campaign rally in October …

A friend of mine said, you know, you’re the most famous man in the world. I said, no, I’m not. No, I’m not. No. He said, no, who’s more famous than you? You are the most famous man in the world. What are you talking about? Who’s more famous? I said, Jesus Christ.

[CHEERING, APPLAUSE]

And I don’t want to take any chances, so I looked up and I said, and it’s not even close.

Mr. Trump defers to Jesus, but he is the one who dares raise the issue and speak his name and the name of Jesus as if they belong in the same conversation. Mr. Trump has said of himself, “I am the chosen one,” and also drew attention to the remarks of a radio commentator who claimed, “The Jewish people in Israel love him like he’s the King of Israel. They love him like he is the second coming of God.” Jesus himself warned his followers not to be fooled by such pretenders …

Watch out, and do not let anyone fool you. Many men, claiming to speak for me, will come and say, ‘I am the Messiah!’ and they will fool many people.

Ms Green’s article continues,

The group’s name is drawn from the biblical story of Jericho, “a city of false gods and corruption,” the march’s website says. Just as God instructed Joshua to march around Jericho seven times with priests blowing trumpets, Christians gathered in D.C., blowing shofars, the ram’s horn typically used in Jewish worship, to banish the “darkness of election fraud” and ensure that “the walls of corruption crumble.”

The Jericho March is evidence that Trump has bent elements of American Christianity to his will, and that many Christians have obligingly remade their faith in his image. Defiant masses literally broke down the walls of government, some believing they were marching under Jesus’s banner to implement God’s will to keep Trump in the White House.

Christians have remade their faith in his image. Shame! This is nothing more than idolatry. The peoples of this world are watching and it grieves me that when they see the name of Jesus lifted up, this is what they see.

Disturbing images

Disturbing images

The images I saw yesterday afternoon were jarring, unsettling, disturbing …

An American flag with the name TRUMP superimposed, equating allegiance to the nation to allegiance to one man.

A hybrid flag, half stars and stripes, half southern cross, equating the ideology of these United States with the ideology of the Confederacy, namely the fundamental right of citizens to own human beings of African origin as personal property.

A full Confederate flag paraded through the capitol building, emblematic of a longing for the ascendancy of white supremacy.

Even more upsetting for me were the signs: one sign mounted on the windshield of an automobile reading “Pelosi is Satan,” and a large yellow sign held aloft reading simply “JESUS SAVES.” But this “protest” was billed as a “March for Trump” and a “March to Save America,” meaning that these signs conflate believing in Jesus with believing in Trump, that Trump’s mission is to be America’s “savior,” that the debate, the struggle, is not between Republican and Democrat, between left or right, even between fundamentally different visions of governance, but between darkness and light, between devotees of the devil and the servants of God and their savior, namely Donald J. Trump.

I can believe that Proud Boys and white supremacists and Q-Anon disciples would want to gather at the capitol at the president’s bidding to disrupt the business of our democracy, to promulgate the lie of a stolen election, to foment rebellion, but I had friends there. Forty-year friends, dedicated followers of Jesus, had traveled half a country to be there Wednesday, to be there because …?

This was not a Right to Life March. This was not a march for peace. This was not a march for religious liberty.  This was not a march for any cause, but for a man, a “March for Trump,” a show of solidarity to bolster his claim that he actually won the election.

Why be there? Why be there as a Christian? Why be there for no other reason than that one man, one man alone, testifies that the election result is a lie. There are no “two sides to the argument,” absolutely no evidence at all of a level of fraud that overturned the election, only the word of one man whose ego cannot bear losing. Why be there for him, at his bidding, trusting only his word?

We are called to be there for Jesus, to do his bidding, to trust his word, not to give this kind of unquestioning allegiance to a man.  Jesus saves.  Jesus saves and no man may claim that mantle for himself. May Jesus save us from this time of confusion and cooption and carelessness, when our Christian witness, our witness to the empowering and freeing and healing love of Christ, has been compromised by our readiness to believe the lies of and pledge our allegiance to a self-serving charlatan.

Blasphemy

Blasphemy

A Wednesday evening tweet from President Trump …

These are the things and events that happen when a sacred landslide election victory is so unceremoniously & viciously stripped away from great patriots who have been badly & unfairly treated for so long.

Mr. Trump’s words are not merely justification of a shameful and violent attack on our American democracy, and not merely a shameless lie, but quite simply blasphemy.

It is blasphemous to attribute holiness to something that is entirely profane. Whether or not God may use political leaders to advance God’s purposes (and we do pray that our leaders will advance God’s purposes of justice and righteousness and peace), and whether or not God has a preference in any particular election (and I believe that God cares little about whom we choose to elect, but much about how whomever we do elect chooses to act),  no politician may claim holiness because of their office and no elective “victory” is worthy of being named “holy.”

When this president claims that his (untrue) “election victory” is “sacred,” he is claiming for himself status and honor and glory that belong to God alone. And that is blasphemy.

So help me, God

So help me, God

Robert Kraft, George Pell, Donald Trump. Three men at the height of their powers, having reached the pinnacle of their professions. The owner of one of the most storied sports franchises, the third highest official of the Roman Catholic Church, the president of the United States. Three men called to represent the best of the worlds of business and government and the church. And three men in the last few days all credibly accused, and in one case convicted, of sexual exploitation of vulnerable persons.

It is alarming. We expect better from those who should, by all rights, command our deepest honor and respect. I am a Patriots fan, a fan of the team the Robert Kraft has built, a fan of the way this team wins, by utilizing every player, by motivating every player from one to fifty-three to fulfill their particular role. The reports of Kraft’s solicitation of sexual favors from likely victims of human trafficking are embarrassing, shameful, baffling, disgusting.

George Pell is supposed to represent Jesus, my Jesus, the protector of the poor and vulnerable, the bearer of mercy and grace, but instead he is the newest face of the deepest failures of the church of Jesus Christ. He makes gospel a lie by his actions. May God have mercy on us, on all those whom he has hurt and all those whose faith he has undermined. And may God have mercy on him.

The news of a campaign worker’s accusations of an unwanted kiss from Donald Trump doesn’t command much attention, because that’s the kind of behavior we have come to expect of him. He has bragged of his power to take what he wants from whomever he wants whenever he wants. And we hardly bat an eye …

It makes me tremble. I tremble at the frailty of the human condition. Exploitation, deceit, hypocrisy, selfishness, callousness are rampant. And, if we are honest, the seeds of all of these things, if not the fruit, are in all of us.

It brings me grief, great grief, because there seem so few who can honestly command our honor and respect, so few among who should be the archetypes of human accomplishment who genuinely model fidelity or integrity or selflessness or righteousness, which is simply to say, doing the right thing because it is the right thing.

We cannot expect our icons to be perfect. We are all equally human, all of us equally fragile in heart and will, in our ability to choose always what is best, to do always what is right. Which is why the most essential of human virtues for any of us, president or school teacher, entrepreneur or soldier, priest or convenience store clerk, is humility.

Humility means knowing what and who we are, acknowledging and admitting our frailty, acknowledging and admitting that we need help, that each of us need help, in being and becoming who we are meant to be as human beings, help from each other and help from God. “So help me, God” is not an oath, but a plea, a heartfelt plea for God to guide and strengthen, and, when we fall short, to forgive.

a biblical mandate

a biblical mandate

In case you missed it … Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez quotes the Bible.

Last month White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders condescendingly dismissed Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’ Green New Deal saying:

I don’t think we’re going to listen to her on much of anything, particularly not on matters that we’re going to leave in to the hands of a much, much higher authority … [The country should leave the fate of the planet in] the hands of something and someone much more powerful than any of us.

Ocasio-Cortez tweeted in reply:

She’s right. Taking care of this planet is our human responsibility, our delegated responsibility, from the One in whose image we are made. Like the One who made us, we possess the power to build up or tear down, to protect or to destroy, to care … or not.

How can we claim to love God and not love (care for) this earth that God has created? How can we claim to love our neighbors and not care for the home which sustains their life and all life?

Christian environmentalist is not an oxymoron. Environmentalism is an essential and necessary part of our Christian identity!

The rules of the game

The rules of the game

Yesterday, in response to Elizabeth Warren’s announcement of her candidacy for president, President Trump tweeted:

Today Elizabeth Warren, sometimes referred to by me as Pocahontas, joined the race for President. Will she run as our first Native American presidential candidate, or has she decided that after 32 years, this is not playing so well anymore? See you on the campaign TRAIL, Liz!

“See you on the TRAIL, Liz?” Those words, that tone, that uninvited familiarity, that disturbing reference to a most terrible moment in American history coming from the head of state of the land of “liberty and justice for all?” Hardly presidential.  But isn’t that the point? Is it not Mr. Trump’s selling point that he is not like other politicians and presidents, that he will not be PC, that he doesn’t do “official-speak,” but tells it like it is?

But “See you on the TRAIL, Liz?” This is not telling it like it is.  This is petulant, petty, demeaning, cruel, not different in kind or intent from the taunts of any elementary school bully. This is not refreshingly candid. This is childish and despicable.

As I compose these words, I find my face flushing and my teeth clenching … and there is the problem, not Mr. Trump’s problem, but mine.  I am angry, bitterly angry, incensed at this man’s barbarity. And I want to lash out, put him down, put him in his place, defame him! But then, I am just like him.

There is nothing wrong with being angry, but I must not let the anger change me, change my way of being, change my commitment to love — to love God, always, and to prove my love for God by loving my neighbor, each neighbor. 

Hateful rhetoric hurts, hurts people in tangible ways, but it can wreak even more damage by changing the game, getting its targets to play by its rules. Hate wins when it elicits hate in return.

Hate must not win.  And so I pray.  I pray for Mr. Trump, for a change of heart, for a softening of heart, for eyes to hear and ears to hear the people, all the people, for whom he acts and on whose behalf he leads. I pray that he would be inclined to justice, moved by compassion, that he would be humbled — not humiliated, but humbled, by the enormity of his responsibility and the utter insignificance of his own person.

And I watch my language. I will be angry and I will call this president out, but I pray that I will not be petty, that I will not be cruel, that I will not demean, that I will never play by his rules, but by Jesus’ rules …

One

One

In response to the hate crimes of the last several days — mailing pipe bombs to Democrats, shooting worshippers at a Squirrel Hill synagogue because they are Jews — and in response to our seeming inability as a nation to unify and mourn together even in the face of such horrors, I offer this reprint of a sermon preached in Waterloo, Iowa, on September 11, 2016 …

(Play video)

That brings back a host of feelings, doesn’t it?

Fifteen years ago today, our world changed.  Fifteen years ago today, we changed.  For the better?  Did we change for the better?  We might have …

The events of that day shocked us, overwhelmed us, pierced our hearts, flooded our spirits with grief, but brought us together.  It was the grief itself, our shared loss, that brought us together, not just all of us with each other within the bounds of our own nation, but all of us with so many others from so many other nations too who shared our horror and our grief.  It was not a common enemy that united us that day, but shared suffering.  It was not anger that brought us together, but empathy.

And we were humbled.  Suddenly, we too were vulnerable.  We were not untouchable, impregnable, immune from threat.  We lost, for a moment, some of our hubris, and it was replaced by coming together to console one another and replaced by wisdom, wisdom that understood that we too are just one part of this wide world, all of us subject to the same threats and the same challenges and the same opportunities.

That was a piece, I think, of what engendered so much empathy for us around the globe.  That day we experienced for ourselves some of the suffering, the anguish, the vulnerability, that so many have experienced themselves for generations and some must now live with every day.That day opened for us a window of opportunity: to leave behind hubris for humility, to leave behind unchecked ambition for shared purpose, to replace suspicion with empathy and mistrust with compassion.  It was an act of evil that transformed us that day, but the first impulses it raised in us were good.  We wanted not revenge, but comfort, not a war on terror or anything or anyone else, but peace.  We wanted peace, for all.  Our heroes that day were not victors, but healers, not warriors, but people who tended to our wounds, our wounds of body and spirit.

We might have become better and wiser people because of that day.  Did we?

What is the tenor of our national mood today?  Humility or hubris?  Unity or fragmentation?  Common purpose or polarization?  Compassion or fear?  Empathy or anger?  You know!  We are more divided, more anxious, more cynical, more defiant, more cynical, more desperate than at any time in my lifetime.

And our politics is broken.  I am not saying our system is broken, not yet, but our system, our way of doing democracy, our way of being a nation, is threatened because our politics, our way of doing things together, is broken.  Our system depends on checks and balances, but also on shared purpose, shared values, and, dare I say it, mutual respect.  But in our politics, respect has been trashed, there are few if any shared values, and the only shared purpose is a unfettered desire to win at all costs.

So we need to talk.  You and I need to talk, here, about politics!  Now let’s be clear, I am not about to endorse any candidate or party.  Even if I could or even if I wanted to, there is no candidate in this presidential race I would be ready to endorse.

No, we don’t need to talk about Republican politics or Democratic politics, but the politics of Jesus.  We need to talk, here, about the politics of Jesus, because before we are Democrats, before we are Republicans, before we are Americans, we are Christians, followers of Jesus, children of God, and it is this identity, this allegiance, that puts all the rest of it into perspective.

Jesus … politics?  Yes, the politics of Jesus!  Talk about politics here?  Yes, here!

Listen to this definition of politics:

Politics is the study or practice of the distribution of power and resources within a given community.

Politics is concerned with the ways power and resources are distributed in a community.  Jesus is concerned about the ways power and resources are distributed among the members of the community of God’s people, so Jesus has something to say about politics.

Jesus had something to say to the Pharisees and teachers of the Law about politics.  They objected to the time and attention Jesus was giving to people they considered unworthy of such an investment.  By welcoming them and eating with them, Jesus was giving them much too much credit and therefore much too much power.  By welcoming them and eating with them, Jesus was making them members of the community on equal footing with rest, entitled to the same respect, entitled to the same consideration.  But if you give your respect away so easily, what of all those good people who have worked so hard to earn it?

So Jesus told them a story:

Suppose one of you has a hundred sheep and loses one of them — what do you do? 

The beauty of the story is that everybody knows what you do: you go look for the lost sheep!  Any of the Pharisees, all of the teachers of the Law, would do the same, because when you’re a shepherd, every sheep matters.  Each one matters.  One matters.

The holy God is a shepherd.  The Lord is my shepherd … and every sheep matters.  Each one matters.  One matters.

This is a key tenet of Jesus’ politics: one matters.  Each one matters.  The Pharisee and the tax collector.  The teacher and the outcast.  But you don’t divert all your resources to tending the ones who are already safe!  It is the outliers, the vulnerable ones, the threatened ones, the lost ones, the disconnected ones, who command the attention of the shepherd.

It is with people as it is with sheep: when one is at risk, that is your priority.  You go, you seek, and you keep on seeking, and when at last you find him, when you finally come to where she is, you sit with him and welcome him, you embrace her and you bring her home.

One matters.  So what are the implications for our politics?  This is what you don’t do.  You don’t spend the majority of your resources improving the lives of the majority of the people, expecting the outliers to find a way to help themselves.  When a sheep is lost, you don’t blame the sheep.  It doesn’t matter who or what is at fault.  The sheep is lost and that’s what matters.

You don’t congratulate yourself for taking such good care of the ninety-nine and happily sit with the flock waiting for the lost one to find its own way home!  Or not.  You go, you look, and you keep on looking until the lost one is found, because one matters!

One matters.

Our world has changed.  We are more interdependent than ever and yet more divided than ever, more powerful than we ever have been and yet more vulnerable than we ever have been, sick of war and yet always at war.  This brave new world is frightening and baffling and ever-changing.  We face political and social and environmental challenges of such enormity that there may well be no answers even if we had the political will to seek them, which, at present, we do not.

So what do we do?  We put our trust where it belongs.  The Lord is my shepherd, not any politician, not any party.

Don’t put your trust in human leaders;
no human being can save you.

And we seek God’s kingdom, the community where vulnerable ones are protected, where lost ones are looked for, where one — each one — matters.