Greetings in the Name of the Lord!

I have been struggling to find the appropriate pastoral response to the things currently happening in Minneapolis. I have written draft after draft of this very letter over the last few weeks. I struggle with it because on one hand I want to respond as an American Citizen, and on the other hand, I am called to respond as a Christian Pastor, and although I do not think those responses cancel out each other, I really only have authority to offer one of those responses.

Although I have very strong feelings about a lot of things going on as an American, I am not an expert, nor do I have any real authority on topics around Politics and American History. Where my authority and expertise do lie are in Christianity, and I do not want to use that authority to promote my opinions over others within the midst of political discourse, that is not what the pulpit is for. That said, our times do call for each of us to live into our responsibilities as American citizens and participate in our systems of government, and what follows from me here in this letter is not meant to replace or discourage from what your call as American Citizens are in such a time as this, knowing each of us will have a different reaction and response, and that’s OK, because that is democracy.

As I’ve been fumbling for the right words, I was reminded by something I read a week or so ago--I believe it was by Rev Dr William Barber, but it might have been someone else--that there are many roles in a society and within a culture. Examples include teachers, politicians, scientists, artists, journalists, lawyers, doctors, each having their own unique authority within a society to speak on specific topics. And different institutions have different responsibilities as well, like universities, governments, hospitals, newspapers, etc.  Dr Rev Barber reminded me that one of the responsibilities of the religious organizations and clergy in a society is to offer hope.

This really hit me. Because right now there is so much fear, there is so much anxiety, that it often feels like hope is missing. And I look to many of my pastoral colleagues, and I see them posting things on social media that stoke fear, that raise worry, and that often go against what one of our primary responsibilities as clergy is: to offer hope in difficult times.

With this in mind, I want to do my best to try and offer a response to the things that are happening in line with what Jesus taught and what Jesus modeled. I can’t promise I will get this 100% correct, but I hope you will forgive me any specific missteps and embrace the larger message I am hoping to convey.

As a pastor, I am deeply concerned with the rising tide of violence we are seeing play out on the streets of Minneapolis. Two people, Renee Good and Alex Pretti, have been killed at the hands of federal agents.  Beyond just these two instances, there has been a growing trend of intimidation, coercion, harassment, demonization, fearmongering, scapegoating, displays of dominance, all of which border on downright cruelty, coming from some of our national executive leaders that are deeply troubling. Even more troubling is that many of those in national executive leadership roles claim Christianity as central to their life.  

In the face of this, what might a response be when one looks to Jesus as an example?

Without going too far down the rabbit hole, Jesus almost certainly experienced and witnessed violence and oppression on the part of the Roman Empire in his daily life. He would have seen violence and authoritarianism up close and in person. He grew up in a place where Roman soldiers would regularly whip people in public who were deemed enemies of Caesar. Those deemed as rebels or insurrectionists were regularly crucified along the roads of the region in public displays of power and intimidation. In fact, crucifixion was reserved specifically for enemies of the state. Historians of the day offer many glimpses into the savage brutality on the part of Rome to try and keep far flung provinces like Judea and Galilee in line.

In the communities Jesus lived in there were basically three general responses to Roman oppression. Either you joined them (Military service promised citizenship and privileges), you rebelled against them (as the Zealots of Jesus’ day did) or you just tried to keep your head down and stay off the Roman radar.  None of these options were great, joining them meant having to inflict harm on your own communities, fighting them almost always led to death and often the death of family members or whole villages, and keeping your head down was difficult and stressful and a challenging way to live.

Being witness to all this, Jesus sought to offer another path: the Kingdom of Heaven. He offered a new way of living, a radically different way of living. It meant grounding oneself in God’s Love, seeking wholeness for the community you lived in, a willingness to sacrifice oneself for others, and a heart to serve, heal and restore those who lived in pain, fear, poverty, worry and stress.

When we try to imagine what a Christ-centered response to the rising tide of violence on the part of the powerful would like today, we can discern that it would not be joining in with those that further violence, and it would not be countering violence with violence, and it would not be just laying low either.

If we look to the gospels for practical guidance, we find that Jesus does not fearmonger, scapegoat, shame, demonize, use violence, blame or exclude.

Instead, Jesus offers hope, encourages humility, loves his enemies, lives into peace, dines with sinners, seeks radical inclusion and love for the whole of creation.

And more than this, Jesus seeks community and aligns with those that have been disenfranchised, disinherited, marginalized, the very people who suffered the most at the hands of Rome. At the same time he also welcomed those the rest of the Jewish community often cast as evil, welcoming them assuming they repented (changed their thinking) towards the kingdom of heaven and left their unjust practices behind. The two best examples of this are the Roman centurion and Matthew the tax collector, both sinners in the eyes of the Jewish community and both seen as in cahoots with Rome.

So what does this mean for followers of Christ today?  It means we seek to build community with those that are suffering most at the hands of the powerful, in our current moment that would be immigrant communities, communities of color, low-income communities, those left behind by globalization. It means we pray with the families and friends of Renee Good and Alex Pretti, and all those who have experienced violence seeking to live into their right to dissent and peacefully protest. But it also means we pray for those who perpetrate and even promote violence, for they are certainly harmed by this as well. We make sure not to demonize, blame, shame or scapegoat them, because the violence we are seeing is something much larger than them, larger, even, than the national executive leaders who push agendas of intimidation and dominance. Praying for them does not mean we condone or agree with their actions, but that we recognize them as God’s creation just as we are God’s creation.

Jesus understood that unjust systems are the products of unhealthy/fractured relationships and communities. To foster just systems, one needs to focus on the relationships we are in, and that we seek to treat others with the Love we experience from God. Our actions and our words matter. Jesus encourages us to work from the ground up, to start where we are, to spread love and compassion and service even when it can appear foolish to the rest of the world. Jesus understood that those acts heal and restore and allow God’s love to move within communities and into the larger world.

Again, this Christian response is meant to be a yes/and response to what we are called to do as American Citizens--for democracy requires discourse, dissent, protesting and engaging elected officials--but Christ calls us to more, to make sure that our interactions with others are from a place of deep rooted Love, a compassion that does not have limits or boundaries.

It feels like a whole lot of voices across the political spectrum right now would say that focusing on loving our enemies and offering compassion and care are foolish, that they are naïve, that they won’t solve the problem. But Christ offered his teachings from the experience of the brutality of the Roman Empire and offered it as a response to that kind of brutality, there is nothing naïve about the model he offers; the love he has for his friends and neighbors. To act as Christ did is a truly courageous, radical and transformational act.

As a community of faith rooted in Christ, we can work to make sure we are caring for each other and encouraging one another and developing lives of Love, and that we are seeking to truly be Christ’s hands and feet in the world beyond our walls, to offer another way of being beyond the polarization that runs rampant around us. To do this is not foolish, rather it is hopeful, it is to trust that our actions are a part of and aligned with God’s hope for humanity and Love for creation. And in hope, if I can boldly remind us; the Roman Empire eventually collapsed, but the models Christ offered us live on in real and meaningful ways.  

In Peace,
Mike