![]() They had been to the congressman’s town hall in a different locality the previous week. The people seated in the row behind me offered loud, running commentary. It was, from the get-go, like an episode of Jerry Springer. Then another man jumped up from behind the congressman, grabbed the mic from his hand, and started yelling about what would have happened if his wife had been aborted. Someone behind me, who had apparently been calculating the medical costs of her indiscretions with her uterus, yelled out that condoms were cheaper. The congressman took a handheld mic and offered it to a young woman who stood up to speak about her uterus and its rights and insurance and its impact upon her uterus. At first this was, I admit, edgy and exciting. While waiting in line to get in and then waiting inside for the meeting to start, I talked with a lot of people. Many lined up against the walls, and 250 more gathered in an overflow room. The middle-school auditorium was packed with nearly 1,000 people. And in these sentiments, I was most certainly united in heart and spirit with the majority of people in attendance. I had a little speech outlined in my head, and because our congressman is from my faith tradition, I planned to “let him have it.” I thought he was a coward and a hypocrite, and I expected more. I had left phone messages at the congressman’s office-both his local office and his office in DC-but now I wanted to stand and speak in person to one of the powers of earth. Then I saw my chance to make a difference: a town hall meeting moderated by my congressman. This has resulted in some delicate meetings in living rooms and coffee shops with members of the church I serve, and a few sweaty-behind-the-knees discussions with our elders, as they fulfill their duty by trying to understand what’s happening with me. I am going out on untested limbs in my sermons, and the people of my congregation, most of whom have accepted opposite political conclusions, can feel it. Sometimes when I pray, I discover tears in my eyes, and I look down to find my fists are clenched.Īnd all of this soul-churning is leaking out of me when I preach. Sometimes when I pray, I discover tears in my eyes, and I look down to find my fists are clenched. I have gone to marches and painted signs. Every day I get wrapped up in the news, and I pack and un-pack these things with equally troubled pastors. I want to rise up and do something that matters. I am a little preacher serving quiet churches on country roads. ![]() I am desperately trying to get it right, and I have the terrible sense that for most of my life I have gotten it wrong. My soul is grinding and churning to make some kind of Christian sense of it all, and I am lurching by fits and starts down a road I have never traveled. Things we politely call “social issues” or “justice issues”-the kinds of things which, like the priest and the Levite in the parable of The Good Samaritan, I have “passed by on the other side”-well, these things now keep me awake at night. Over the last five years, and with special intensity in the last two, things have been changing within me. For 30 years in ministry, I have neglected the former and abided too much by the latter. I am a pastor from a faith tradition that, on the one hand, believes on a theological level that Christians should engage in and redeem the political sphere, but on the other hand, prefers that pastors shut up and stay out of politics when speaking from the pulpit. Although I’ve always had relatives or friends from the “zealot-fringe” who got frothed up about their party or their cause, I typically rolled my eyes at their Facebook posts and moved on. Never have I been the kind of person to do this. Two months ago I went to a town hall meeting sponsored by our district congressman. ![]()
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