I wish the preacher would talk about politics in

church…said no one…ever.

Actually, that’s not quite true. According to a recent

Public Religion Research Institute survey, 18% of

churchgoers wish they heard more about political

divisions from the pulpit. So, to one in every five of

you, you are welcome! To the rest, hang in there! It

will be over soon.

For now, we’ll leave aside the thorny question of what

constitutes a political issue in church. Among some,

the color of the carpet or the words of the Doxology

would qualify. Dare I say…applause in worship? The

uncomfortable truth is we need to talk about the

political climate because political animosity is tearing

us apart and threatening our future. If you haven’t

witnessed this in your own life, God bless you, but you

have surely heard about it. A recent essay by Thomas

Edsall makes the point plain. His title is: “Gut-Level

Hatred Is Consuming Our Political Life.”

This downward spiral toward gut-level hatred should be

a cause of deep concern for all people of faith. Without

a foundation of basic understanding and empathy,

challenging tasks like cooperation and compromise

for the common good become nearly impossible. As

a pastor, I am particularly concerned about how this

animosity has invaded communities of faith. Some

churches become little more than weekly rallies for

political causes or even candidates. In other cases,

escalating disagreement devolves into open hostility,

and the Body of Christ is irreparably fractured. My list

of colleagues who have left congregations (or ministry

altogether) in the last three years because of threats or

the persistent strain of unabated conflict is growing.

For the sake of our shared future, for posterity’s sake,

something must change.

And so, we need to talk about politics in church

because we are impacted by the alarming trends

around us and for another reason as well. Pseudoreligious language is being used to bolster lies that

are not only divisive but deeply dangerous. The rise

of Christian nationalism (a topic about which we will

learn more this fall) is perhaps the most pernicious

of these lies. Trading on appeals to blatant racism

and stoking flames of fear, messengers of Christian

nationalism aim to drive wedges of division even

deeper in pursuit of political power on religious

grounds. For shame. When we are this divided and

the fires of our hatred are fed, the sad truth is that

violence becomes inevitable.

And so, we need to talk about politics in church

because, in the vacuum left by the silence of our

hushed voices, pronouncements that betray the

gospel and twist the scriptures into a weapon are

given spotlights and megaphones.

And this is not the first time that faith has been

warped in such a tragic way. The history hits close

to home. This summer, I read Timothy Egan’s Fever

in the Heartland. It is the disturbing story of the

Ku Klux Klan’s reemergence in the early Twentieth

Century, a rise centered in the state of Indiana and

made possible by the active and public leadership

of Christian clergy. On a Sunday in January of 1923,

the Reverend Aubrey H. Moore took to the pulpit

of First Christian Church in Noblesville to answer

the question from the title of his much-publicized

sermon: “Is the Ku Klux Klan a Menace to America?”

Now, Moore was no outlier; he was Noblesville’s most

popular preacher a century ago. The local newspaper

reported that the gathering in his church that day was

the largest in a house of worship in many years. The

pastor proceeded to defend, and then openly praise,

the Klan. The menace, it turns out, was its enemies.

Reverend Moore closed his sermon with a prayer,

asking God to “bless every Ku Kluxer who may be

under the sound of my voice.” And the congregation

rose with their hands in the air as the preacher

concluded, “I would rather wear a white sheet in the

dark than see my country in a shroud.”

This history stands as a warning to us—that in a time

of rising extremism and bitter division, the voice of

faith must be clear and rooted in the Gospel. The

voice of insipid fear, and the drive for power, can

cause us to veer from the paths of righteousness in

ways we might not even imagine possible. Those

Christian clergy who provided religious justification

for the KKK’s open pursuit of power were people just

like me, just like us. They were rewarded with financial

support and political influence. Those preachers had

much to gain. All they had to do was forfeit their soul.

Baptist theologian Russell Moore has been writing

passionately in recent years about the need for the

Church of Jesus Christ to repent if we are to offer

a compelling word to the world. This description

particularly struck me. He writes, “We are losing

too many of a generation—not because they are

secularists but because they believe [that deep

down] we are.” In other words, there are many today

who assume that the Church has sold its soul for

influence, and it is hard to blame them. For religious

faith captive to the quest for political power breeds

justifiable cynicism, and we are raising a generation

of religious cynics. We need to offer a courageous,

Christ-centered alternative.

It might surprise you that I think the answer comes

in this morning’s scripture passage from the Gospel

of Matthew. This is not a greatest hits text. Most

of us prefer a vision of Jesus the gentle shepherd,

Jesus the wise teacher, Jesus the patient, merciful,

forgiving savior. But the earliest Christian creed

marked a line in the sand drawn by his disciples. It

was this: Jesus is Lord.

Today’s gospel reading is not a public address or

a political speech. There is no large crowd. At the

beginning of Matthew, Chapter 10, Jesus gathers his

twelve disciples. He calls them by name, and then

he prepares to send them out into the world, like

sheep into the midst of wolves, he says. Just before

this morning’s passage, Jesus says to his disciples,

“Do not fear those who kill the body but cannot kill

the soul.” Jesus addresses his closest followers, these

twelve who have left everything behind to follow him.

And what Jesus describes, drawing on the prophet

Micah, is already the experience of those disciples.

They are living in a time of dissension, strife, and

turmoil. Their decision to follow Jesus has caused

conflict, and there will be more, because what Jesus

asks of them, what the kingdom of God demands

of them, is total devotion. Their commitment to him

must take precedence over all other loyalties. And

when they choose to make Jesus Lord, not everyone

will rejoice.

The decision to follow Jesus is a choice for change.

Following Jesus is not about seeking worldly power or

influence. Following Jesus is not about living in fear.

Following Jesus is not about claiming superiority or

standing in the place of a judge. Following Jesus must

mean living as he lived—with heartfelt compassion

for the suffering, welcome for the outcast, forgiveness

for the sinner. Following Jesus means lifting our own

crosses to embody the kind of sacrificial love that

forever changed the world. That’s what it means to

say, “Jesus is Lord.”

And there is no false advertising. Jesus is clear that

such discipleship will not be easy, in his time or in

ours, for those idols that desire our devotion will not

relent without a struggle. They will make promises,

tempting us with power, unsettling us with fears of

weakness or irrelevance. We might lose what we’ve

been told is most important.

When we are seduced into believing that our primary

identity is determined by our politics and that

our primary community is the tribe of likeminded

partisans in our echo chamber, being part of a

church says something entirely different. It must say

something entirely different.

Listen. I will tell you who you are. You are a child of

God. And so is everyone you encounter. You belong

in here not because we represent your political tribe,

but because we are trying to follow Jesus together.

Last fall, we at Second were blessed to have Father

Michael Lapsley with us for several days. Father

Michael has served as a priest for many years in

South Africa. He was an active part of the antiApartheid movement, a movement that was, in

many ways, led by people of faith. It was the inverse

of those Christian voices praising the KKK. His

leadership did not go unnoticed. Father Michael

was sent a letter bomb in 1990. It resulted in the

loss of both his hands, the sight in one eye, and

serious burns all over his body. Father Michael was

undaunted. He continued his work tirelessly. He

chose forgiveness over retribution. Michael told us,

“They took my hands, but the only weapon I’ve ever

had was my tongue. They did not take that.” One

afternoon, Father Michael and I were talking in my

office about the deep divisions in our country, and

Michael shared a joke they used to tell in South Africa

in the 1980s. It goes like this: “There are two possible

solutions to our crisis here. One is miraculous, and

one is realistic. One solution is that God will send

down holy angels and sort us all out. That’s the

realistic solution. The miraculous one is that we will

sit down and talk with our enemies.”

I found both truth and hope in that bit of humor. We

need a miracle. And we’ve come to the right place. In

here we tell stories about a God who brings life from

death, who creates new hearts and new communities

within and among us.

I am convinced that we in the church can offer a

powerful voice in the public square. And here’s how.

Our loyalty must be to no person or ideology, but

only to God. We must never sacrifice this profound

call for the polarized pronouncements of the purely

political. We must speak, whenever possible, in a

clear and unified voice. And whenever necessary, we

must love those with whom we disagree. The bitter,

rancid, rotting political climate we experience is not

inescapable. But we need beacons of moral leadership,

and we can be those beacons. We can serve and

not demonize those in need. We can confess our

complicity with systems that keep some people down,

and then we can do something to change them. We

can see gifts and not threats in our differences. We can

call forth the better angels of our nature.

I’ll speak for myself here. I am determined to speak

and act outside of this space in ways that have

integrity and align with what I confess to believe

when I’m inside this space. I am determined to preach

and live a faith that has a chance of finding a home

in the hearts of my sons. I want to give them a vision

for a better world than the one we’re passing on. And

fifty years from now, I want to rest secure trusting that

I did my very best to preach and live the love of God. I

want a politics that reflects the conviction that each of

us bears the image of God and is therefore worthy of

love for no other reason than that. I want to remember

that ultimately, I am accountable not to human

opinion but to the sovereign God who calls me.

One hundred years from now, I want to be counted

among Father Lapsley and not Rev. Moore. Now, I am

not naive. But my Bible tells me this is strength, not

weakness. There is no easy path, but my faith convicts

me of this—that only love stands a chance of repairing

what has been broken.

Only love. Only love. Let us pray.

Gracious God, tune our hearts to the rhythms of your

goodness reflected in your beloved children; turn our

hearts toward one another and grant us courage so

that we might live the truth we profess. Amen.