So this is the second version of this article. I sat down to write something helpful and uplifting about the election that will be happening shortly. What came out was a litany of all the depressing and negative things that this election cycle has already done to our county and might possibly do in the future. Needless to say, it wasn’t very “helpful” and it definitely wasn’t “uplifting”. The more I chewed on the topic I realized that I didn’t need to recount the horribleness that we see around us. Instead there were two important questions that kept coming to the top: 1) What would Jesus do if he were here and 2) what would he have us do as Christians?
The first question can be answered by looking at what Jesus actually did when he was living on Earth. When we look at what Jesus did in the Gospels we can make a fairly good guess that Jesus would have some very strong things to say about the entire political system, not just the current candidates. However I don’t think he would ever get involved with that system. In the Gospels Jesus was, in some ways, surprisingly political. Whether it was turning over tables of the money changers or challenging the authority of Caesar, Jesus got in the face and under the skin of all of the politicians of the day. We can even see this in the fact that he was killed on a Roman cross, which was a public execution method primarily used to suppress political dissidents and revolutionaries. Jesus was very good at exposing the corruption and evils of those who were in power. At the same time, however, Jesus was also very non-political. In the temptation story the Devil offers him political control over the whole world and he rejects the temptation solidly and outright saying, “It is written, ‘You shall worship the Lord your God, and him only shall you serve.’” In the Gospels Jesus certainly has something to say to the politics of his day, but he is very careful not to get sucked in by the political machine. All of this tells me that if Jesus were here today he would have a lot to say not just about the issues of this election, but about the whole system of government endorse a particular candidate. Now, if we as Christians are in the business of imitating Christ, then paying attention to Jesus’ example gives us something of a guide for what we should be doing as well. Yes, there might be particular politicians who hold certain views on different issues that may be closer or farther away from what is God’s ultimate hope for this world. However, I believe that Jesus would have us remember that power is a corrupting force on all politicians and that our ultimate allegiance should be with Jesus, not a political party or even a particular country. As Brethren we stand in the tradition of Anabaptism, the tradition that was the first to question the official state/church relationship and to put forth the idea of the separa-tion of church and state. We are the ones who have known for hundreds of years that our hope should firmly be in Jesus Christ and as soon as you start to marry the church and the state we will be seduced and corrupted by that power. At times this has meant that we have abstained completely from involvement in forms of government and even the voting process. Within the last hundred years, however, many Brethren have taken a much more active and involved stance to events in our world and even in politics. Today I believe that Jesus would caution us against either extreme. We most certainly have a responsibility to speak truth to power and work for the increase of God’s Kingdom in all corners of this world including our government. How-ever, we should be very cautious to place our ultimate hope in politicians or any human government. Our calling as Christians is not to be indifferent to the political process, but we must be crystal clear about the fact that we worship Jesus Christ, and that our allegiance is to him and not a particular candidate or party. I actually believe that this particular election matters a lot. This election will have massive consequences on everything from our local city council, to state reps to national legislators and the president. However, what this election has also shown us is that if we are looking for hope and salvation in a particular candidate or political party, then we are looking in the wrong place. Even after this election we have an ongoing job as Christians to work for the Kingdom of God in our world. But as we engage with the American political system, whether it is in the voting booth, in private meetings, or protesting on the street, we must first be grounded in Jesus Christ.
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It’s important to know where you came from. In order to truly understand who we are today we have to know the history that came before us that have shaped us into who we are. This is something that is true of each of us as individuals, it’s something that’s true of our families, it’s true even of our country, and it’s true of our church.
This summer I had the opportunity spend some time in the basement of several libraries doing a bit of research about the history of our church. What I found was tremendously interesting. I found old newspaper articles about international Brethren conferences held here in Wichita about 1916. I found articles about the groundbreaking of our current church building. I found other articles about the building of our previous church building at 11th and St. Francis and even articles about the building before that at 15th and Grove. Some of these articles even had pictures. One article from 1938 told of the history of our congregation on the 60th anniversary, and even had pictures of the two previous buildings, a founding pastor and the current pastor. I found stories of how, when our current building was built, we actually merged two Brethren congregations. Interestingly, however, one of those congregations was actually a mission/outreach church that was planted by the other congregation 30 years or so prior to the merger. As I learned about our history from newspaper articles I started to wonder what had become of some of the buildings from our past. I knew the building at 15th and Grove had been torn down years ago, but I also knew that the buildings at 11th and St. Francis and 2nd and Millwood were still standing. So I sent some letters and eventually made con-tact with Jim Craig, a member of the Church of God (Seventh Day). The Church of God is the congregation that now worships in the building at 11th and St. Francis. After a few phone calls with Jim, I took DG miller over with me over to visit the building. DG is one of the few people in our congregation who remembers what the build-ing looked like. As we toured the building Jim told us about some of the changes to the building that had been made over the years. Things like taking out classrooms in the basement to make a fellowship hall, redoing the ceiling, sound systems, bathroom remodels, air conditioning and so on. For all the changes that have been made, however, it was still pretty easy to get a sense of what it might have been like 60 some odd years ago when our congregation still worshiped there. As I’ve thought about what I’ve learned doing this re-search and being able to see the old building there were two thoughts that have stuck with me. The first is that there is a certain continuity between where we are now and where we have come from. DG has a picture of his Sunday school class and himself standing outside of the 11th and St. Francis building when he was a child. The day that we toured the building he took another picture in the same place. It was a reminder that, even for those of us who are too young to have known that building, our congregation has a connection to that location; a location that was integral in shaping who we are. The other thought that I have had is that, while recognizing that continuity is helpful and important, our history is not the end of the story. Our congregation doesn’t worship in that building anymore. God has continued to lead us over these last 60 years. Our history includes, but is not bound by the walls of that old church building. And in the same way, that building has gained it’s own new history. For more than 60 years there has been another congregation worshiping with those walls. A congregation that has it’s own calling, it’s own mission, it’s own work in this world. Perhaps somewhat ironically, having the chance to inter-act with our history has reminded me that being the church is very much a present tense activity. Yes we are formed by the past, but we exist in the present. It is about what God is doing here and now and the people that we find ourselves in community with. Learning about the past has made me more thankful for the people and the mission that make up the church that I am a part of today. On August 13th our congregation gathered with another congregation in the park for a BBQ. In some ways it was a rather unremarkable thing. What made the BBQ special was that it was a gathering of a primarily white church and a primarily black church, who are trying to build a relation-ship with each other for the purpose of bridging the signifi-cant racial divides that exist within the city of Wichita. What was essentially a relaxed time of conversation, games and food, was also a key step in an important ongoing pro-ject in our city. I’d like to take a bit of time to remind us of how we got to this point and also to show us where we are going in the future.
In the summer of 2015 there was a tragic shooting in a church in Charleston, South Carolina. It was a racially motivated shooting that sparked response throughout the country, including Wichita. After one of these prayer vigils Bishop Wade Moore and Sam Muyskens invited a number of faith leaders to work on a project to help get people of different races to build relationships with each other. Because Sam has a very long history with our con-gregation, I was invited to be a part of this early planning meeting. Eventually, this project became known as Beyond Tolerance. A key part of this movement was to encourage pastors and other faith leaders to exchange pulpits as an entry point into new relationships between congregations. It was through this process that I was paired up with Pastor Roosevelt DeShazer from Progressive Missionary Baptist Church. After several meetings in the fall, in two Sundays in January he and I exchanged pulpits. He first preached at our church, and then I preached at their church. It was an exchange that was very well received by both congregations. So well, in fact, that we decided that we really wanted to continue the relationship in an intentional way. In spring, we then gathered a number of people from each congregation into a committee to start planning some events for this fall. What we decided was that we would have three events. The first would be the BBQ in OJ Watson Park. It was a chance for both churches to really meet each other and start building some relationships. The next two events will take the idea of a pulpit exchange to the next level. Instead of just exchanging pulpits, we’re going to take our whole churches to visit each other’s worship services. On October 2, our congregation will travel to PMBC to join their whole worship service. Then on December 11 their church will come to First CoB for worship. At each of these services Pastor DeShazer and Pastor Stucky will do a joint sermon. However, the worship style will basically be done by the hosting congregation. It is worth naming, at this point, that these worship exchanges are going to be cross-cultural experiences. Or to put it more bluntly, they are going to be new, different, and probably even a bit uncomfortable. That’s the point. Particularly for our congregation, our task is to simply show up as a guest, be open to whatever new experience that God has in store for us, and enjoy getting to worship with our Sisters and Brothers in a new way. Yes, there are things that we know will be different. Their service will be at a different time, a little be longer, more high energy, and a good bit louder than ours. But there will be other things that we won’t know what to do or what to expect, and it will be fine. As I’ve thought more and more this relationship and the work of anti-racism in Wichita, the more I’ve realized that one of our key tasks as white people is to simply be willing to show up in places where we’re not in control. It’s really easy to look at a worship service or a prayer vigil or some other event where we’re not sure exactly what is going to happen, and then make the choice to simply stay home, usually because we don’t want to feel uncomfortable. In anti-racism work there is a particular power in simply being present. This is why the large turnout for the BBQ was such an important thing. And this is why our willingness to simply go and worship with our partner congregation is so powerful. God is doing truly amazing things in our city, and our church is a part of it! |
Alan's Angle
Each month for our newsletter Pastor Alan writes a short article on a variety of topics. At times he will also create a video version of the article. Archives
November 2017
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