Earlier this week I had a parishioner reach out to me to express disappointment in our church’s response to our country beginning a war with Iran this past Sunday – or, rather, our lack of response. They acknowledged that I had asked for prayers for the people of Iran, for our soldiers, and for peace during what we call our Prayers of the People in our liturgy. But they felt that this was not enough.
And really who am I to disagree? I’m not sharing this with you to passive aggressively call them out, or to defend myself: I’m genuinely wondering, what is the right amount of recognition for our government ordering an indefensible assault on a sovereign country and assassinating their head of state? What is the appropriate response?
It was January 6, 2021 and I was in my kitchen making bread. I am one of the legion of middle-aged suburbanites who got their own sourdough starter and began making bread during the pandemic. Pandemic protocols were still in place at our church, and I was working from home. I am not a person who enjoys working from home – and our church’s shutdown – which lasted well over a year – was one of the worst times of my life. And I’ve already talked to my therapist about all this, so I don’t need to process this with you, but for various reasons, squeezing and stretching and shaping dough was one of the few things that brought me close to peace. So there I was in my kitchen.
A news alert came up on my screen.
I was already anxious about this day. The President had refused to accept the recent election results, regardless of all evidence pointing to a fair and lawful process – according to all state authorities, as well as the highest people in his own administration. He was pressuring the Vice President not to certify the election results – something that was not actually in his purview. This was something I had not seen before: A sitting president not acknowledging election results as valid, and openly working to overturn them. To say it was unsettling is true, but doesn’t quite say enough.
I have a little Google screen on my kitchen counter, and I was able to watch TV on that – so I turned on the news and watched people storming the Capitol building. I watched the guard rails being knocked over and walls scaled and people with zip ties and confederate flags assaulting police officers and breaking into the building. Again, I did not have any kind of frame of reference for this sort of thing. Nothing comparable had ever happened in this country in my lifetime. A friend messaged me. Are you seeing this? I am, I thought. I guess I am.
And then it dawned on me: People will expect me to have something to say about this. I’m the leader of a community that seeks to embody Christ’s loving presence in the real world. In my sermons and my blogs I talk about real world events and how they impact our lives as Christians. I don’t have some huge national audience, but I do speak to and for a particular community and within our little church world, there is expectation that I have something to say.
And to be fair – there are a good number of people in our congregation that actually expected (or hoped) I would say nothing about it. We have people across the political spectrum in our community that would prefer we never acknowledge, discuss, or spiritually reflect on current events. Millions of Christians understand the church similar to how we were taught about the dinner table – don’t talk about politics.
I for one find not talking about politics very attractive. I would love never to talk about politics again. Unfortunately for me, religion is and always has been political, and religious adherence is and always has had political implications. I don’t like this any more than you do. Sadly for us, it is only 100% true.
Anyway I thought to myself, “How I respond to this matters to others.” Which is fine. That’s the job. And also, I was standing there in my little useless body in my little galley kitchen with my hands in my dough and my tears on my cheeks, no less an overwhelmed witness than anyone else who was watching. I was just as confused and scared and broken-hearted as you. “How much time,” I wondered, “will it take before I know what to say?”
A few Saturdays ago, I was sitting at my dining room table playing cards with my family. I looked down at my phone – because I’m addicted to my phone – and saw the news of ICE executing an unarmed man on a Minneapolis street in broad daylight. I could feel the shock, sorrow, and horror flood my body. My 8 year-old said, “Dad, it’s your turn to play!” And it was, so I forced a smile and played. The traumas are coming fast and steady these days. We are not ok. Our people are not ok. What is the right amount of talking about it? What is the right level of response? I am trying to sort this out too.
Have you noticed over the last decade how often very extreme and unprecedented things are being portrayed as normal? How easy it is to be labeled radical for not accepting extreme and unprecedented things as normal?
If I say, “I find the storming of the Capitol Building to overthrow election results alarming and overwhelming,” I am being extreme.
If I say, “I don’t believe our government should enlist heavily armed masked men to roam the streets of our cities arresting, deporting, and executing people,” I am talking like a radical.
If this is extreme, what is moderate?
We have begun a needless war. Our brave and faithful soldiers – who have honorably signed up to put their lives on the line for our safety are being commanded to kill people who were not going to attack us, were not going to kill us. This too is not a matter of opinion, but of verified fact – attested by people in the highest positions of power in our country. Not one person who has died in the last week had to die last week. There was no inevitability here. The most patriotic thing we can do is cease this war. The best way we can support our troops is to bring them home. I’m willing to bet you know this to be true – regardless of your party affiliation or political leanings. I’m willing to bet you know this is not an extreme thing to think or feel or say.
I also don’t always know how or when to say this – which, again, is not an excuse to my beloved parishioner or to you – just a statement of fact. 15 years into this work and it is still not always clear to me when and what the church should say about all the things that are happening.
I will not pretend that trauma and violence have not become commonplace in our civic life. They have.
I will not pretend that I am unaffected. I am affected.
Have you met someone who isn’t?
I’ve been having multiple conversations with people lately about hope – because there is always call for hope, and indeed living into hope is one of the primary works of the Christian vocation. Hope is not about denial of circumstances or a toxic rose-colored positivity. Hope is a refusal to allow the darkness to have the last word.
We are creations of the God of love – who made us out of an abundance of that love. And we insist that love has the last word in this world, that love is the most true thing, that it is the most powerful force that has ever been. To hope is to insist that love wins and then to act like that’s true.
There will be times when we stand in our kitchen with our hands in the dough, broken and overwhelmed. There will be times when our children will say, “It’s your turn to play!” And we will hold all sorts of things inside and say yes it is and wonder what kind of world it will be for them when it’s their turn. There will be times when we say too much to our church and our world, and other times when we don’t say enough to either.
I keep returning to Jesus. To Christ’s love for me, for you, for humanity. That love is stronger than war and death. It lifts us up out of the depths. It allows us to move past the overwhelm and paralysis. It empowers us to work for the peace of a world that so badly needs it. It is love that gives us hope.
