Living Our Faith Out Loud

Dear First Pres SLO Family,

Grace and peace to you. I mean that—in the name of Jesus the Messiah, I wish you all a lavish measure of grace and peace.

I changed the greeting here because I think we’re all going to have to be a bit more intentional with our words and actions over these next few years. We can’t let our expressions of care and love fall into the trap of sounding like something we just say.

We’re going to have to mean it.

It’s hard to leave politics out of our daily conversations. You’re going to hear my typical disclaimer a lot for a while: I won’t do partisan politics—I’m not here to tell you how to vote. I’m here to teach and proclaim what God has done in Jesus Christ for you, and you, and you… Some of that is naturally going to sound like I’m commenting on our current political situation, and there’s a good reason for that.

I’m going to be commenting on our current political situation.

That’s because what is coming from our elected leaders, more than usual, is straying into our lives as followers of Jesus. It’s happening in two ways: First, our government is making decisions that impact our neighbors in serious and harmful ways. When something bad happens to our neighbors, the people that Jesus told us to love, we are required to speak on their behalf. Cornel West said it this way: “Never forget that justice is what love looks like in public.” We won’t forget that.

Second, so much of what is happening politically carries the veneer of Christian faith. Decisions that go directly against the teachings of Jesus are being rebranded as Christian. I’ve said this before, and it looks like I’ll be saying it a lot: You can’t simply slap the name of Jesus on something hateful, then call it Christian. It doesn’t work that way, and it is my calling and my job to say so. And news flash: it’s your calling, too.

This past week there have been multiple intrusion of churches by ICE agents across America. Now don’t get me wrong—I believe that immigration oversight is a mess in this country, but churches? And hospitals and schools? I’ll be raising these questions with our session soon so that we can form a response plan together. Here’s my personal plan: If agents invade our church during a worship service to arrest someone there, I’m going with them.

See what I mean? We’re going to have to mean what we say when we say we follow Jesus, or why would anyone else join us?

There is plenty of room for differences of opinion on a wide range of political issues. Let’s be clear, though, whether or not we’re going to love our neighbors is not negotiable. Every Christian has the responsibility to protect people who can’t protect themselves.

I’m tempted to say “welcome to the resistance” here at the end of this letter, but I think that might disturb some of you. I’ll say this instead:

Buckle up, as we choose together to live our faith out loud, in public, in the name of Jesus.

Pastor John