Read only this week…

In lieu of a sermon

This morning I attended church in the congregation I begin serving in September. I slipped in the back to participate and learn. It is a rare day off from preaching and it marks the end of summer holidays.

When I got home I replied to a post on John Pavlovich’s Substack channel. As I finished the post it struck me that it may be a good thing to share here with you my beloved readers , so here it is, slightly edited.

And please check out John’s channel here he is always deep, thoughtful, and often very profound. The article references John’s chance to visit a country outside the USA and his experience there and upon return home.

My respose:

Here in Canada we have a front row seat. Close enough that the vitriol and saliva hit us all the time. We try to monitor the floodgates and minimize the contamination but it is a constant pressure. There is a deep need to keep our elbows up no matter how tired our arms become.

Take heart John, and all you faithful ones in trumpistan. Keep up the good fight against the rising tide of the talibangelical hate machine. Hope is a bulwark against those who lust to crush it.

And as a pastor; I encourage my fellow Christ followers: Hope even beyond hope. This illness in the body politic of your democracy may be a sickness unto death. But do not despair. The greed lust and power addiction of the christo-fascist forces is indeed a deadly poison. But it infects most powerfully those who drink it most deeply and willingly. It shall kill what it does fill. But never forget the Gospel of Jesus Christ. It is very different from the false gospel, the bad news of the mega-churches and the prophets of power.

Th model of the church is not success and power. It is death and resurrection. It is the life of Christ who chose weakness and even failure in the face of the temptations in the wilderness. He chose to die rather than dominate. Should the USA falter and crumble and die, that is better, more hopeful, and far more Christian than success in the eyes of the world. It may make space for a resurrection to a new and better thing than the power mad abuse machine could ever imagine.

It may in fact be the beginning of the new thing God would desire to birth in the world. After all, world dominating empires are a dime a dozen. They litter the earth in every corner. They rise and fall and leave naught but ashes and broken monuments.

God builds, from love: things not made with hands, but rather from hearts. Love builds that which undermines imperial power and transforms the world from below. Top-down power crumbles and fades. Bottom up love grows and blossoms, bears fruit and spreads.

Take heart. The lure of God is here.