I tell my clergy colleagues that I am incredibly lucky to be at All Saints. I am allowed to be as authentic as much as I am able to be. It is a gift I cherish; and that gift is astonishingly rare. That is particularly true when it comes to preaching. I am given the opportunity Sunday after Sunday to honestly share with you my best understanding of the Gospels; and I am affirmed by you in that. Many of my clergy friends lament that they have to be somewhat guarded when it comes to preaching, lest they step on someone’s toes. The red line, as it were, is what people call politics. Some say that the church has no business meddling in matters political, but as you well know gentle reader, I beg to differ. We are entering a new and contentious season of politics, so I want to make the case, again, for the church’s role in matters political.
Politics by definition is the means by which we order our common life, and that is all the more true in a democracy. The purpose of the Gospels is exactly that: a means, a vision, of ordering our common life according to the rubrics of Love, embodied in the teachings of Jesus. That means that matters of well being and dignity, the good of our neighbor, a just world, are Gospel issues. Whenever and wherever the dignity or well-being of our neighbor is compromised we as Christians have a responsibility to speak out and act. Jesus was crucified by the Romans for meddling in the political matters of his day, and it is his legacy that we follow. The church is not an escape from the political commerce of the world. It is a place, a community, wherein a critical mass of conscience is engendered and empowered for the good of our world.
I agree that the church shouldn’t be partisan. We should be about issues, not candidates…. but it is inevitable that we may be misunderstood, as sometimes the lines between political parties and issues are often blurred. But we err on the side of being activists and advocates for the powerless among us… the ones who do not have a voice as to their full participation in God’s abundant world.
The irony of course is that the church is roundly criticized in our day and age for being irrelevant, and perhaps it is naive of me to say, but I believe the world needs us to be relevant; that someone has to speak for the good of the whole; someone has to articulate the vision of the faithful that the good will prevail; that Love has the last word; that God lives and moves among the complexities of our common life. If that is political then more power to us.
