Faith Challenges: It Ain't All Comfort

11/03/2020 is coming, and a lot of people are going to be disappointed. It matters not which side of the aisle they are on or which side "wins," more than half of the nation will be disappointed. As important as this election may be, it is not going to resolve the major issues that have divided the nation over the last decades and increasing in vehemence of late. We have forgotten how to talk respectfully to one another. We have forgotten how to belong to one another beyond our political differences. We have forgotten that there are things which are more important than who wields power. Elections do not change racial demographics. Elections do not resolve economic and social crises. Elections do not fix racial disparities and so many other issues that produce our social and national angst. Our economic system has produced too many losers and too few winners. Our healthcare system has produced too many bankruptcies and leaves too ...

Politics has never been a game of morality, goodness, honesty, and the wholesale promotion of the general welfare. It has ever been about power, privilege, and special interests. Pretending otherwise is foolishness. There is a reason Jesus eschewed political power for himself and his disciples. There is a reason the Hebrew Scriptures did not envision a monarchy as God's design for the national welfare. There is a reason Jesus never left a political structure in place for God's Reign on earth. Power corrupts, for human beings are corruptible. When we place people in power who desire power, corruption tends to be exacerbated. The greater the power, the greater the pull towards corruption, and the further we get from the promotion of the general welfare, especially for those on society's margins. The Hebrew prophets called those in power to account for how the poor, widows, orphans, immigrants, sick, and injured fared under their reign. The gospel is never abo...

I’ve heard Nathan’s parable mentioned many times over the years. It is a beautiful manipulation of David’s emotions, challenging him first to condemn a fictional character so that he might begin to see the error of his own way. Nathan confronts David after his escapades with Bathsheba and orchestrating the murder of Uriah the Hitite. He crafts a story contrasting a poor and a wealthy man, each with sheep. The difference is that the wealthy man had some 300 sheep, while the poor man had but one. The story makes a much greater distinction of the love both men had for their sheep. The wealthy man was not so concerned with any one of his sheep. His concern was with the total number under his control. He did not want to lose any of them, for their total was a measure of his wealth. The poor man had but one sheep, and this sheep was all that belonged to him. The sheep slept in his own bed. The sheep ate from his own bowl. His relationship with that one sheep was far greater than the ...

We glorify wealth, strength, and fame. We take people who already have those attributes and lift them higher as our leaders, our examples, our heroes. We like a take-no-prisoners attitude. We like the rough and tumble cowboy who dusts himself off after a fight and takes on the next challenge with little concern over who was injured moments before. Then Jesus comes along. We rush to see him at the courts of the Temple, turning over the tables of the money changers and running off those selling animals for sacrifice. Then we turn a blind eye to all Jesus had to say in regard to leadership, violence, peace, and the attitudes that God prizes. We ignore the character and attitudes he prizes among the disciples and his categorization of what he wanted of those who would lead and be at the head of the mission of spreading the reach of God’s Reign on earth. Jesus called common men to follow him as disciples charged with learning, retaining, and transmitting his teachings and embo...

A pastor with a national platform just announced that evangelicals voting for a certain candidate have "sold their souls to the devil." 1- The gospel is not partisan. 2- No political party or politician owns the gospel. 3- No two Christians believe everything alike. We are called to lives of transformation, not some static definition or litmus test of faith. 4- Politics is messy. Democracy is the art of compromise when it works at its best. Demonizing a party, a platform, or those taking a political position is an exercise in writing off people for whom Christ died. 5- As a pastor, I don't expect all my congregants to vote the way I do. I would hope that over the course of our lives we would be so transformed by Christ that we would actually change the way we vote, think, believe, and interact with others. Being faithful believers does not mean we are all on the same page. It means we are seeking to follow Christ Jesus more closely today tha...

The lie of white supremacy is that I am better, stronger, smarter, and more worthy than people of some other race. If that were true, I would never feel inferior, threatened, or intimidated by the actions and successes of those other races of humanity. Allowing for their full humanity would be no threat to my position. Michael Jordan would never feel threatened by me on the basketball court or the baseball diamond. He would have nothing to prove in measuring himself against me. We could play HORSE all day long, and he would win every time. We could play one-on-one, and I would be lucky to take control of the ball ball from him, much less get off a shot. There would be no contest it, for I would be far outclassed, outperformed, and outmaneuvered with no hope of scoring the first point. I played ping pong one time against the fourth rated ping pong player in Brazil. He gave me a lead of ten points to start the match. I got lucky. I managed to score a couple of points on a cou...

I am no school administrator. I am no epidemiologist. I am no public health expert. I am a pastor, charged with the care of my parishioners and the well-being of the community in which I serve. I have had many varied experiences in multiple countries, studied more than a handful of languages, and am used to processing new information and cultural contexts, and am trained in strategy development. Over the last few months, I have had a lot of new information to process, just like so many others struggling to make sense of shifting information about the Covid19 pandemic that has taken the world by storm. I have watched its exponential growth, read guidance from my denominational leadership, read what epidemiologists have been saying, and tried to make sound decisions regarding the welfare of the congregations under my charge. We have taken steps to find new ways to be the church in uncertain times, always following John Wesley’s principle of “Do No Harm.” I would like to share...