A Trilogy of Sorts on the Uniqueness of the Church

Part III: A Presentation to General Assembly

Jul 31, 2025

This time, the audience is a group of pastors and church leaders with the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ), at our biennial gathering, who came to see several of my colleagues and friends talk about the “Covenant of Love,” a movement to inject a stronger covenant feeling into our denominational governance.

My talk draws on Chapter Eight of my Reasonable Protestant’s Guide to Mysticism, a chapter on the “Mystical Body of Christ.” What, the chapter asks, does it look like when mystical selflessness becomes the basis for an institution?

The Disciples took a major step embracing institutionalism with our 1968 Design. But we continue to reflect on the Design, recognizing it always stands in need of reform.

Not too surprisingly, this talk comes back around to the dilemma at the center of my June 22 sermon, offering a limited justification for patience when it comes to speaking prophetically about politics.

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“The Covenant of Love and the Mystical Body of Christ”

I’d like to think that I had a much slicker paper, initially. And then a week ago I got together online with these friends and we had a great, sprawling conversation about the covenant of love. Inspired by that, I decided I needed to rewrite this little paper to make it truer to the insights from that dialogue. I hope both the process and the result reflects the covenant of love.

What is a covenant? And why do we want our denomination, in its relationships between General, regional, and local manifestations as set out initially in the 1968 Design, to be even more a covenant of love?

I want to begin by taking up the distinction made in the Covenant Conversation between a covenant and a contract. These two words are not synonymous; a “contract of love” sounds off, doesn’t it? A contract is a free agreement between two or more parties who advance their self-interests in an exchange of goods and services. My self and self-interested ego is preserved there at the bottom with my signature, which also holds me accountable. But a covenant—take a marriage as an example—is about joining my very self to another. I lose something of my ego and in doing so free myself in an expanded relationship that changes the very notion of me and mine. A beautiful statement of covenant is found in Exodus: “I will take you to be my people, and I will be your God.” (Ex 6:7) See how the “my” and “your” change places—you are my people, I am your God? God is no longer God’s own, a sovereign and absolute Ego. And we are no longer our own; we belong to God. We belong to each other, God and us—like a marriage of sorts (Hosea 2).[1]

I believe that this mutual belonging is what the “covenant of love” is going for. And rightly so. I don’t have time to make the case that Disciples from the beginning often related to what we call the General manifestation on contractual terms. As the thinking goes, that contract comes at a cost; we have to pay for centralized coordination at the price of giving up some autonomy. Back in 1987, Dennis Landon argued that even the 1968 Design did not resolve this dilemma.

Among other changes, the Covenant Project, as I see it, is trying to move beyond this contractual thinking and its pitting unity against autonomy. Its reorientation of GA from voting on resolutions, like a Federal representative government, to a more continuous mediation of dialogue takes us away from contractual thinking. I was particularly excited by Rev. Owen’s citing of the dialogue models coming out of the United Church of Canada.

Dialogue is a great way to make our coming together at GA from our local and regional ministries into a real fellowship, which is to say, a transformative fellowship. Celebrating friendship and love in tandem with the sometimes difficult, often rewarding work of dialogue is a genuine way to be in covenant. Now I can vote without changing my ego at all. And I can affiliate only with people I already agree with. But dialogue done well breaks open my ego and my “positions”; it makes me aware of the human being on the other side of that vote.

So yes, dialogue is good; and I don’t want to hear from anyone who disagrees. But there was probably a legitimate concern behind our initial contractual approach to centralized institutions. A social contract is designed to protect the interests of individuals and smaller communities that can easily be overwhelmed by larger institutions. Even when we base a large institution on dialogue, it is hard not to overwhelm the local voices in this dialogue because institutions take on a life of their own.

Scripture has a relevant lesson about covenant. In Scripture, covenant begins as neither a contract nor as a dialogue. The covenant between God and Israel at Sinai is not first in the timeline but is foundational. The berit made at Sinai takes a form similar to a treaty between a great king and lesser subjects. God has all the power here. Or as I would prefer to understand it, God holds all the responsibility. So God takes the first step in saving action, and now Israel is obliged to faithfulness. To continue from where I quoted from Exodus above, God says: “And you shall know that I am the Lord your God, who has brought you out from under the burdens of the Egyptians.” The people are not forced into compliance, although there are implicit threats in the covenant story; rather, the people are obligated to take on some of God’s divine responsibility. And that includes treating one another with equity and love.

That’s one way covenant can deal with unequal power or responsibility. The higher power takes the initiative, promising to continually provide for the lesser power; the lesser power is not forced or paid into contractual compliance, but is obliged by a general sense of what is right and fair, and out of gratitude. There is a patron-client love between unequal powers that can apply to our covenant of love between general, regional, and local manifestations of church. This is how I’ve often heard congregational pleas made for DMF collections and budgeting.

Continuing but also shifting this covenant is the covenant set in place by Jesus at the Last Supper, sealed by the great mystery of his death. “This cup is the new covenant in my blood” [note: “new contract in my blood” sounds awful]; “do this in remembrance of me.” The Greek word is now diathēke, the most obvious meaning of which, especially in this context, is no longer “treaty” but “last will and testament.” There is sovereignty in a will and testament; I alone decide how my possessions are distributed after I die. But I execute this sovereignty only in my death. At Sinai and in the first covenants, there was already a certain generous self-limitation by God. But this last will and testament involves complete self-renunciation, most strikingly when Jesus says, “It is to your advantage that I go away” (John 16:7). This family gathered around Jesus will fail him. Still, he accepts a total loss of control and turns all that he has over to them, much like the father to the prodigal son. As in that story, the divine character revealed in this handing-over is all about loving self-limitation: God’s patience and mercy, a faithful Mother no matter what happens. This is how God as the superior power exercises self-emptying authority in Christ.

Luke (22:29-30) makes this explicit: “I confer on you, just as my Father has conferred on me, a kingdom, so that you may eat and drink at my table in my kingdom, and you will sit on thrones judging the twelve tribes of Israel.” Jesus hands over his reign, to be shared around a table like a family shares a meal.

If Jesus’ last will and testament simply distributed an extant kingdom, a piece of property, then I suppose Jesus might be instituting a democracy. We all get equal shares, so we should contractually gather occasionally and take a vote to decide how to run things. But Jesus is actually bequeathing a different way of being a self. He hands over his body and blood, not only to the disciples but, before God and upon the cross, to all. To take in his body and blood is to receive the promise of total self-giving. But Jesus’ giving away his life is made a shared self-giving that is life-giving. There’s no demand to die likewise. The supper remains a life-giving meal, preserving our created needs and interests. It has just this much in common with a contract. No Christian can be made to feel obliged to give up at least our simple creaturely needs: daily bread, and the sustenance of friendship.

But in its deeper reception, when we discern the body, the bread and the blood convey that self-giving spirit of Jesus. Paul understands this so well, and so preserves the deeper meaning of baptism as not just freedom from our sins, but a dying to oneself as one rises into this shared life of the risen Christ.

There is plenty in our sacramental union with Christ to ponder over a lifetime of contemplation. Here’s the lesson I want to draw with regards to what covenant means to us Disciples in our multiple manifestations of church, and particularly in our current cultural moment. Our dialogue prompted me to speak clearly about this. It feels like absolutely everything is at stake under the current federal government: our planet’s health, our constitutional democracy, and the lives of people all over the globe being affected by policy changes and the cut off of funding to so many programs. I don’t think those who favor Donald Trump will agree that it feels like everything is at stake. Even as a local pastor I feel like I’m in some kind of Armageddon; how much more so must it feel at the Regional and General level of church. Of course, to claim such a for-us or against-us urgency is probably the intention of President Trump. He wants to be the figure who divides us all. And so we find ourselves having to take a side. We are tempted to centralize our powers to rise to the fight to protect the weak, to preserve justice, and to care for God’s desecrated creation. There really is no avoiding this; for we are indeed called to join with all people who love justice and kindness and refuse the might-makes-right world that is the very worst of contractualism.

But while the covenant project is rightly concerned with justice, that’s not all I am hearing, especially when we think of covenant through the biblical examples, according to my own perhaps dubious interpretation. If we are imitators of God and executors of Christ’s kingdom, then where there is the highest claim to power, probably the General Church, there should be that deference, that patience, that relinquishing of one’s claims over the lesser, probably the local congregation. This could take the Sinai model of bestowing gifts needed for life and flourishing, with the hope that the recipient feel obligated to faithfulness in return. But it can go even further in the way of Christ so that the General and the Regional dedicate their whole being to the congregations, with the promise in Christ that the congregations will reciprocate that total self-giving, that selfless covenant. When that happens, the congregation as a whole, and each individual Christian in it, comes to realize that my life is nothing on my own. The autonomy we have so jealously guarded amounts to death. Only when I am participating in the unlimited Reign of God am I living eternally.

I’d like to think that this is the original pattern from Scripture that early Disciples were after. It is a spiritual-political shape of life. That life flows above to below, from General to broad-context ministries (including education and constituency ministries) to the congregation, and then circulates back to the universal body. And the hinge of this living flow is the spiritual realization of self-giving in the Lord’s Supper, and the mystical selflessness that is the promise of our baptism. Self-giving, instituted once and forever by Christ, animates our whole body like a single heartbeat.

This moment calls us to support an authoritative voice, embodied in our GMP and hopefully resounding with her ecumenical counterparts, and for all of our congregations to echo that voice. This moment calls us to united action. Still, we are not united as we should be. My only counsel to the General church, if I have discerned the shape of Christ’s life rightly, is to embrace patience and mercy enough to allow that dialogue to leaven us from below with love and mutual belonging; and I think that is what the covenant of love is trying to do. As urgent as the issues of our day are, it may well be that the most important action is the way we live into that covenant that circulates Jesus’s selfless giving, with everything hinging on that little act of baptism and the single-serve portion of bread and wine. I don’t know how impactful that will be. But our most faithful testimony may come from a divine humility and patience that allows for little recognitions by all of us: maybe I shouldn’t care so much about my right to have my own opinion and to count as fact whatever I am satisfied with. May God do that quiet, often unnoticed work of dissolving our contractual resistance in our covenant of love.

[1] Covenants in the Hebrew Bible have long been viewed as based on the suzerain-vassal paradigm, which I will come to; but Oliver Hersey’s dissertation, “The Marriage at Mount Sinai: Reading Exodus in the Context of Ancient Near Eastern Diplomatic Marriages,” argues that the Exodus covenant story reflects an ironic response to a Ramses II document about forcing a vassal king to deliver a daughter to secure their alliance. Sinai subtly reflects this kind of diplomatic marriage between YHWH and the bride Israel. Hersey discusses his argument on the OnScript podcast (https://onscript.study/ancient-marriage-contracts-and-the-sinai-covenant-oliver-hersey/).

A Trilogy of Sorts on the Uniqueness of the Church

Part II: A July 4th Sermon on the Law of Christ

Rev. Dr. Bill Wright

Jul 31, 2025

Central to my theory of what makes the church unique is a deference on the part of more powerful sectors toward the less powerful—those who are new to church, unsure about their faith, or those who have understandable reasons for being noncommittal. That deference translates into service without expectation or requirement of return. That’s Christian Law—the principle of how the church is run. It invites but never compels the less powerful to commit themselves to the same faith, and to discover in doing so a greater fulfillment.

“Law of Christ, Cross of Christ”

Galatians 6:1-16; Luke 10:3b-6, 8-11

July 4th gives us a wonderful opportunity to celebrate the freedom of our country, which all began with our revolution against colonial control. We have always celebrated freedom, but our idea of it continues to change and develop. First we celebrated our freedom from the aristocracies that characterized the Old World. Today we celebrate being free from hierarchies of class and race and sex. More than at our founding, we celebrate that we can reinvent ourselves here, and with hard work find a better place than where we started. That creative energy is a beautiful thing about American culture. We do well to recognize that that path of self-creation is not equally open to all in practice, beginning most obviously with the institution of slavery that was firmly in place in 1776. But I know I have benefitted from that American freedom for self-creation, and so I want to see it open to everyone.

American freedom is a good gift of creation that we enjoy and which justice compels us to share equally. Now, there are echoes in our American freedom of the freedom we have in Christ. But Christian freedom is also very different, as we saw last week. In Christ we are freed from all distinctions, distinctions of male and female, slave and free, and even national distinctions of Jew and Greek. We are called into a borderless fellowship into which all of God’s children are welcomed and called. And so the Body of Christ extends to every culture and every nation. That total openness and welcome of Christian freedom is—here again very differently from American freedom—united with a total commitment to one another, which Paul described as being “enslaved to one another.” Freedom is not for doing whatever you want, even under the lofty name of “self-creation,” although that can remain a dear gift of our created order. But Christian freedom is for total selfless service.

This week’s reading in Galatians picks up from there. And Paul’s emphasis on selfless service continues right along: “Bear one another’s burdens, and in this way you will fulfill the law of Christ.” First off, it is striking that Paul, who last week emphasized freedom from the law, this week happily talks about “the law of Christ.” The lesson: Never assume that Christian freedom is against Christian law. Christian faith and the freedom that comes with it is all about creating a certain kind of order; it’s about nurturing a certain culture, a way of being an open family. Our freedom is about binding us to one another and to God. And so we can talk about law and about commandments. (I hope so, otherwise our work on the “bylaws” is pointless.)

I suck at law. I can only admire my friends who are adept at secular law. I would have made a terrible lawyer. I’d constantly ask, Why is the law this way? But what a surprise, I really enjoy working on our church bylaws. These are the rules setting out membership and committees and decision-making here in the church. I used to glaze over at all this; maybe you do too. Church is about my relationship with God. It’s about prayer, singing, hearing God’s Word, and doing good to others. Not about committees and policies. Church is about Spirit, not Law.

And sure, worship and our relationship with God are truly primary. But as a church leader—and that can and does include any of us—I love just about nothing more than trying to create and nurture a way of life for our little institution that might reflect the amazing truth of the Gospel. Generations of church leaders have done that here, building a framework of rules and practices, shaping a culture, even designing and improving a physical space that is expressive of the Gospel. And some people say, “Oh, I’m spiritual but not religious; I don’t care about any of that.” As if there are two opposed things, spirituality and religion; you either do one or the other. That’s fine; we don’t all have to get involved in guiding the church as an institution, the ‘religious’ side.

But that religion, the institutional part, is not opposed to spirituality. Now, in most institutions, the rules are there to require you to do things or prevent you from doing things. But not the church. Church and its rules are, first and foremost, for letting you be all to yourself before God. We built and maintain this grand structure, we staff committees and the diaconate, we pour over our bylaws and think about how to improve them, we take a lot of care calling and empowering a pastor, so that, first and foremost, each of you can be yourself before God. It takes focus and so work and skill to place ourselves before God. But once we are all there, we are here to let you be you. Perhaps the most important moment of what we do as church is when we pray together in the Pastoral prayer, and then pause for a moment of silent prayer. That moment of solitude before God is essential. We always approach God together as a united Body, and go forth from God’s presence to act together in our community, fulfilling the love of neighbor, working, as Paul puts it very simply, “for the good of all.” But at the heart of this, we come before God as individuals, in absolute solitude, with no institution or rules in the way. And Jesus on the cross is once again our model of being alone before God, because no one else could be in his place. Do you know the spiritual, “Jesus walked this lonesome valley.” That spiritual begins with Jesus, walking this lonesome valley. But in the second verse, it turns it to us also…

All of this makes it hard to take measure of what is really going on here in Church. We are called to be the most united, connected, loving body, echoing the unity of our nation or any nation, but going way, way beyond it. “Bear one another’s burdens.” Become slaves to one another. There’s nothing in the Constitution about that. And yet we are at the same time called to be the place of greatest individuality, greatest solitude, where you find yourself all alone before God and the mysteries of life. We the church are called to be at once the most bonded social collective and the most deeply personal, intimate, even private place in the world. It’s utterly amazing that Jesus has brought about this great paradox: maximum connection, maximum solitude, all in one. Who else but God can turn up everything to the max, can max out both the private and the collective, whereas the world usually assumes that being an individual takes away from collectivity, and vice versa. Truly the church is special, the church is set apart or holy.

And here’s the payoff for interpreting what we read in Galatians. We need to understand the paradox of individuality and collectivity to see why Paul can tell us to bear one another’s burdens, fulfilling the law of Christ, and then two verses later say, “All must test their own work. Then that work, rather than their neighbor’s work, will become a cause for pride. For all must carry their own loads.” Did you catch that? “Bear one another’s burdens.” “All must carry their own loads.” Surely Paul was not ignorant about seeming to speak at total cross purposes.

Last week, we said that Christian freedom is for serving one another, for being enslaved to one another. (It’s actually a lot more fun that Paul makes it sound.) And we don’t just serve one another. As Paul adds this week, “Let us work for the good of all.” The freedom that only cares about my own good is what we have been crucified to, as Paul says about the cross of Lord Jesus Christ: “by which the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world.” Meaning, like Jesus, we accept responsibility for the selfishness that our world has fallen into. To the extent God’s grace is given to us (though not as much as to Jesus), we renounce our self-interest that we might redeem the selfishness of the world, and live for the good of all. That’s Christian freedom, paradox and all.

But Christian law, the law of Christ, is about God through Christ and the church giving you your own space before God, and staying out of the way. Now, we are here to bear your burdens. That’s what I especially do as a pastor. Whenever you want, we’ll be with you before God. But I can’t have faith for you. Only you can test your own work. And only you will reap what you sow. Only you can know judge yourself by God’s Spirit in you, recognizing the works that you need to repent for, and the works that can be a cause of pride, as Paul says. Whenever the law tries to compel people, whether it’s about circumcision or whatever, then hypocrisy sets in. But peace is upon those who are sheltered within the law of Christ.

What we do as an institution is what Jesus had the disciples go out and do: we serve and heal and let it be known that the kingdom of God has come near. Whether and how you respond and make your peace with that really depends on where you are in your life. I hope you didn’t get up this morning and come all the way here to reject God’s peace. I doubt that. This church is one of those towns that has welcomed the nearness of the kingdom as good news. But what’s your role in this town of God? If you want to stand to the side and just approve, that’s fine. No one can make that call for you. No one is going to say, Hey, to be a Christian you need to… Even if you do something really wrong here, we will listen to Paul and simply try to restore you “in a spirit of gentleness.” That’s our law. But if you want to boast of nothing else but the cross of Christ, then only you can carry that load.

A Trilogy of Sorts on the Uniqueness of the Church July 31, 2025

Part I: Sermon on Freedom in Christ

Rev. Dr. Bill Wright

Jul 31, 2025

Two of my July sermons were inspired by a presentation I gave at the Disciples General Assembly in Memphis. I’m posting all three together.

“Freed by Christ, Enslaved to One Another”

1 Kings 19:19-21; Galatians 5:1, 13-25; Luke 9:57-62

We could almost skip the sermon and simply meditate on the works of the flesh and the fruits of the spirit. The “works of the flesh” are not particularly about the body. Some are clearly about bad social behavior—Paul mentions quarrels, dissensions, factions. By flesh Paul basically means self-centered and self-seeking behavior rather than behavior that honors and loves others. Flesh is opposed to the Spirit, which bears the opposite fruit: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. Avoid Flesh; soak in the Spirit. What more is there to say?

Well, the whole Galatians passage is amazing, and it also resonates with a presentation I am giving at the Disciples General Assembly on July 15. A draft of that paper is due tomorrow. So I want to bear fruit from that presentation.

In this season where we celebrate Christ alive in the Spirit among us the church, what I want to talk about is what makes the Church so special. What is it about the church that makes it important to you? And important to our world? If there were no church, or there were only churches doing it wrong, how would you and the world as a whole be much worse off? I asked that question at Theology Talk this morning…

What makes the church special, so that we can be confident that Christ, who is at work in all things, is particularly at work among us? I am going to guess that the standard answer is that Christ is at work in our hearts, making us to feel loved and to be more loving. So there’s more of those fruits of the Spirit at work here—love, joy, peace and the rest. And fewer of the works of the self-centered flesh. And that’s a good answer. We are guided by the Spirit, as Paul says, in these good ways. And that makes for a more caring, more mutually supportive community. We practice love of neighbor here, which as Paul says, sums up the whole of the Law.

But there’s something else Paul says: “You are not subject to the law.” What is important about that? For freedom Christ has set us free. What is this freedom that Christ is working alongside of the love, joy, peace and the rest?

A little context here. The Galatians were not Jews by birth, but they apparently came to believe that they needed to be under the covenant with Israel to be saved. So that meant observing circumcision, dietary restrictions, and those marks laid out in the Torah or Law. These are boundary markers that served the important purpose of helping keep Israelites separate from other nations. Israel never had a steady territory with borders. For over a century the Israelites were exiled from the land. Later, many continued to live abroad throughout the Mediterranean world. So circumcision and dietary restrictions helped distinguish Jews, wherever they went, from pagan non-Jews. They kept Israel a distinct nation among the nations.

That’s one of the functions of law generally; it helps determine who is in and who is out, who is American and who is Canadian, Mexican, or who is an undocumented alien. Just about every organization begins with rules about who is a member and who is not. That’s what it means to be under the law. In our daily life, we come under a whole host of regulations that tell us who is in, who is out, what’s mine and what is yours (property law is a big deal), and so what you can and can’t do as a member of this and that organization. Israel’s law was unique, but still followed this structure.

But here’s what Paul is saying. The church is special because it is not under the law. The church does not have borders in this way. Here’s an illustration. Someone new comes through our doors. Can you imagine George or Nigel saying to this person: “I’m sorry, were you invited? Are you a special guest of someone here? Do you have permission from another church to visit us? Can you demonstrate fruits of the Spirit?” Heaven forbid! We simply say Welcome! We’re glad you are here. And we mean it, because we practice that “generosity” and “kindness” that Paul mentioned as fruits of the Spirit. We receive anyone and everyone who wants to come here as they are, because that is how God has received us in Christ.

This is true freedom for us in Christ. It is the freedom from having to make distinctions of who is in and out and enforce them. It is freedom from the law. And we should note that this freedom in Christ is already foreshadowed and implemented in Israel’s Torah. Alongside the distinctions made by circumcision and dietary rules, there are also commandments to welcome the alien and the stranger, for you were once aliens in Egypt. The Torah already shows this openness to all the nations of God’s world. It already commands us to love our neighbor as ourselves. But Israel was not ready to abandon the law with its restrictions altogether.

God has now done this in Christ, in whom “there is no longer Jew or Greek; there is no longer slave or free, there is no longer male or female,” as Paul says in chapter three. The church is not another nation defined by another law. We are free from making distinctions among people and enforcing them.

Ah, but you should be asking yourself, “Is that really so unique?” Within the general parameters of American law, all are welcomed at Stop and Shop or Starbucks or Cinemark theaters. Even without money, anyone can hang out on the Common or just cruise the streets of Gardner. For free, any child can attend public school and anyone can utilize the public library system. Yes, not just here but in all democratic nations, secular society has created wonderful free spaces where all are welcome without distinction. And we can recognize in that freedom a kind of echo of the freedom God has opened through Christ. True, that free space is largely driven by money. Most of our secular space is dedicated to spending and displaying money. But by no means all of it, and spending money is not evil. Secular free spaces allow us to enjoy creation, as those gathered on the Common for a free concert and free strawberry shortcake from us did last Sunday. This is the good freedom of being a creature of God. And we also enjoy that freedom here, just to be ourselves, to be welcomed by Nigel and George and befriended, to be served treats by Sue Reeves, to hear the beautiful music of Chay and our choir.

But to what end is this freedom? In our secular free spaces you are free to be entirely self-indulgent. You are free to care about not a soul outside yourself. We make no laws requiring service, or compassion, or love. We pay taxes, and some taxes do go to nurturing our students in school with a lot of love, or providing aid to people who are down or sick, and many such exceptions carried out by our public servants. But outside paying taxed we are officially perfectly fine with self-indulgence.

Here's where church is very different, and very special indeed. “For you were called to freedom, brothers and sisters, only do not use your freedom as an opportunity for self-indulgence [literally “the flesh”].” The Spirit of Christ which frees us is opposed to the self-centered flesh. As Paul says, the point of freedom is not to just do whatever you want. For when freedom is seen to be for nothing more than itself, then what is to prevent us from biting and devouring one another, and being consumed by one another? And sometimes it feels like our society is doing just that.

Paul’s answer? “But through love become slaves to one another.” He could not have put that any more dramatically. You are called to freedom to be slaves to one another. And Jesus says much the same thing in the Gospels: “Whoever wishes to become great among you must be your servant, and whoever wishes to be first among you must be slave of all.” That is special. Where else, and in what other organization or context, are you going to hear those words? Yes, freedom. Freedom from the law with its imposition of distinctions and enforcement of appropriate behavior. Freedom from having to make the grade or prove you belong or impress those who count or show you belong. Freedom from all that is felt here and we are liberated here. But not for no other purpose. Freedom is fulfilled in love and in service to all.

So to me this whole church thing looks like this: anyone coming in here, or anyone who meets us through our service to our community, should feel an amazing sense of freedom beyond what even the world can give. A freedom not just from having to make a certain impression, a freedom of not just being allowed to be, but of being welcomed and helped freely and with love, no legal strings attached. But if came here and received this love, wouldn’t you be curious about what motivates these people to be loving, generous, joyful? And so they may come here and stick around seeking the source of this freedom. Maybe these people just an awesome collection of cool and really nice folks!

And then they will see, according to our own testimony, that the source is not us. I’m not inherently cool and really nice, I don’t know about you. They will hear us confess that the source is God at work in Christ, and that the more we feel that work of the Spirit in us, the farther we realize we have yet to go to be freed by Christ from the law and its fussy distinctions; and to crucify the flesh with its passions and desires. Following the one who had no place to lay his head is a serious calling. We are not always ready to follow this Christ wherever he goes, no turning back. But Church is where we try, and own up to our shortcomings. Church is indeed special, a very different kingdom in the midst of ordinary life. A kingdom that loves all and is open to all. And once you see that, there’s no turning back.

Faith and Politics: The Last Word/Silence July 31, 2025

Every pastor I know is struggling with the desire to say something from the pulpit about our political turmoil, but not cause undue strife in the congregation. In this sermon I announce that I will not be commenting further on our political situation. But interpreting the silence from God Elijah experiences from Mt. Horeb, I make it clear that silence is not an acceptable solution.

June 22: “The Question Left Hanging”

1 Kings 19:1-15a; Galatians 3:23-29; Luke 8:26-33

Elijah, fleeing a death threat from Queen jezebel, is weary, physically and spiritually. Can you relate? This is the season when we are supposed to get down to work as the church under the power of the Holy Spirit. And I do want to get to that. But as lay in bed Tuesday, emptied of all energy by some mystery virus, I resonated with Elijah passing out under the Broom tree. He is exhausted out of dread, because he just bested the 450 pagan prophets favored by Jezebel in a contest and roused the people to slaughter them. He’s also exhausted physically, having just taken a victory lap in front of the king’s chariot for at least 17 miles (maybe not enough to impress Lydia). My virus made me feel like I had run 17 miles, which I will probably never do. But closer to Elijah, I am weary from being caught between God and the political struggles of our time. Many of you can probably resonate on that too.

Elijah has been caught up in the deadly rough and tumble of the power politics of his day. He feels that he has lost; his own people have been unfaithful. Now his very life is on the line, and also his calling as God’s prophet. He flees to the wilderness, and prays to God to take away his life. He’s done. In his grief he falls asleep. He is either awoken by an angel or has a dream vision. God provides him two simple meals of bread and water, and a chance to rest. And then Elijah goes to Mt. Horeb, also called Sinai, where God originally appeared to the ancestors in the fire and earthquakes of Exodus 19 to institute God’s covenant with Israel.

Elijah is probably expecting a big, dramatic, powerful revelation like the ancestors got at Horeb. Maybe a new set of 10 commandments. He gets no such revelation in the classic sense. Instead, he gets a question, “What are you doing here, Elijah?” It’s an odd question, because didn’t God send him here in the first place? It’s an eerie moment, that invites Elijah to do some soul-searching. He replies, I am doing your work, of course. I am being a prophet. I am speaking truth to power, as we say nowadays. “I have been very zealous for the Lord, the God of hosts; for the Israelites have forsaken their covenant, thrown down your altars, and killed your prophets with the sword. I alone am left, and they are seeking my life, to take it away.” Notice how he blames all of Israel for what its king and rulers have done; he makes himself sound more alone than he is.

Then a voice, was it God’s?— tells him to come out from his cave because The Lord is about to pass by. And there is a great wind breaking rocks to pieces, and an earthquake, and a fire. These are the classic signs of God’s terrible power by which God shows total dominion over all the nations of the earth (as affirmed in our psalm for today). But God isn’t in any of these terrible signs, and Elijah seems to know it. Even though Elijah was probably looking for some terrible power to come down from heaven and settle all the political scores. After all, fire had come down from heaven when Elijah bested the corrupt prophets of Ba’al, whom he then had slaughtered. But God’s not in the fire this time.

“After the fire, a sound of sheer silence.” (Sometimes translated “a still, small voice.”) Now this is particularly eerie, since during the contest with Elijah the prophets of Ba’al called upon their god all day long, but to no avail, and the Scripture says “There was no voice, no answer, and no response.” But when Elijah hears what must have sounded much the same—the sound of sheer silence—he wraps his mantle around his face. He is covering his eyes, because the belief was that if you see God you will die, and Elijah is going out to meet God face to face in the sheer silence.

And, strangely, he gets the same question again (notice, this time it doesn’t say that God spoke this question): “There came a voice to him that said, ‘What are you doing here, Elijah?’” Perhaps God’s sheer silence leaves the space for Elijah to seriously ask this question of himself. And how often do we seriously ask this question of ourselves? What are you doing in this mess? How did we get here? What are you going to do now—quit? Hide? Or jump back into the fray? Elsewhere in the Book of Kings God answers by destroying the godless and vindicating the good. But right here, in this tender but tense moment, God is not throwing his weight around at all. God is the question, not the answer.

I think I have run into my own version of this question, what are you doing here? We are in a moment of great political foment and drama, much like Elijah’s. Some are cheering, others are in despair. If I had time, I’d list all the reasons for one reaction or the other, including ways people in this room have been directly affected by decisions out of Washington. This is not abstract but very real, and depending on which news source you like, you are probably only hearing only reasons to cheer or reasons to despair. We are divided like we have not been in some time. If anything unites most of us, it is weariness of it all.

Do we not believe “God rules over the nations,” as we said in our psalm? Is not God the Lord not only of our heart, wherever that begins and ends, but of our political life also? I cannot avoid this question. And every week I get an email from this or that church organization reacting to the week’s news, telling me to be prophetic and to preach boldly to this political moment.

And yet paying more and more attention to politics just seems to feed the beast. It makes us all more stressed and anxious, whichever side we’re on. Our political and cultural wars threaten to take over our whole lives, and we are all pretty desperate to have a space set apart from all that struggle and fighting. Allowing political concerns of our day into this space threatens to bring that division in here, or I should say, bring it into here more, because to some extent we as a congregation are already affected by it. But in the interest of peace, we want to keep politics out of church.

I have been wrestling with this night and day, and I swear I am as exhausted as Elijah was. I feel myself, and the church as a whole, to be between a rock and a hard place—our version of Elijah’s cave. If we don’t speak and act in our political moment, with real lives and maybe our whole nation at stake, we will have failed as a prophetic people of God. If we do speak and try to act, we will bring division and hurt feelings—and it’s not like our survival as a church is guaranteed any more than Elijah’s life was. Day and night I have sought an answer from God about what to do. At times it is perfectly clear to me, and I have preached this, that we should be able to talk together about political realities, not me from the pulpit, but us talking together about this important part of our values and identity. But what is actually the best thing to do, pastorally and prophetically, in this moment? I go back and forth a lot, interrogating my thoughts before God. But it all seems to amount to sheer silence as an answer.

I have found no satisfactory solution for us as a congregation; neither in being silent nor in speaking. And I want you to empathize with me in this. You may think the answer is that there is a separation of church and state, but that’s a word from the Constitution; no such word can be found in the Bible, certainly not in Elijah’s example.

Elijah’s prophetic spirit will continue to press this question on us. That prophetic spirit is found throughout Scripture, and certainly in Jesus—the story of the Gerasene demoniac is rife with political overtones. But to this question we have as of now found no solution. Our life is still at risk amid the class of political tides. And so here we are, alone before God’s silence. Other churches may receive different answers. The only answer I have for now is what Elijah keeps falling back on: “I have been very zealous for the Lord, the God of Hosts.” You have borne patiently with me in my zeal. But we don’t know where to go from here.

Elijah can do nothing but repeat himself at this holy, revelatory moment. He has no new insight. But surprisingly, God seems satisfied. He sends him back to where he was in Damascus. Basically, God puts him back to work. Ok, you’ve wrestled with this long enough. You have borne the holy silence that tells us there is not always an answer, a solution, that there is not always a divine path to victory. Even Jesus had to bear the silence of God when he asked, “My God, My God, why have you forsaken me?”

I have taken this to heart. I am done—at least I feel done for now—trying to wrestle day in and day out with what to do as your pastor about our current political situation. I am done with the vocation, or perhaps temptation, of being a prophet. That is probably best for our health and unity as a congregation, and I am sure it best for my health as sanity as a pastor. I am not sure it’s the right thing to do. But I am ready to give it up.

What I ask in return is that we get back to work on the projects we have discerned together and already begun. (And to be fair, I’ve had plenty of say in these.) We currently have several groups working on community projects. One group is hosting dinners to thank and serve our town; that’s completely uncontroversial. Another group is organizing support for local refugees. We might disagree about policies towards refugees. But this is about helping our neighbors in need, as the Bible tells us to do. Another group is looking at ways we can counter all the anger that is at work in our culture, and treat each other with civil respect, for all are God’s children and none is without sin. That’s a little trickier, because there may well be legitimate reasons to be angry right now. But the point is, we should not take that out on each other and not let it diminish our common life as a community.

Aislinn and Fran are leading up the effort begun by our deacons to create an Open and Affirming policy. Again, this is not about making a big political statement. What we want to do is let people in the LGBTQ category and their loved ones know that they will not be made to feel like they don’t belong here. They can come be forgiven sinners with the rest of us.

These are amazing efforts for our church to take that glorify God and help people locally, without getting embroiled in power politics. If we can stay the course and complete these efforts, I will be satisfied with holding silence in the pulpit.

I make no permanent promise here. As the deacons and I have discussed, if we start to feel the local effects of a national Constitutional crisis, then we as a congregation may need to provide a public voice of assurance and direction. Who else can do this? But if it comes to that, we will do it together.

Somehow, if not through talk then through work together and loving fellowship, we need to put on Christ, as Paul tells us. In Christ Paul saw a unity that overcame all the divisions of his day—Jew vs. Greek, man vs. woman, free vs. slave. Surely unity in Christ can overcome our political divisions too. Let us all be one in Christ Jesus.

The Cave I Share with Elijah

Rev. Dr. Bill Wright

Jun 22, 2025

The First Kings lection is familiar but nonetheless strange. Since its meaning is so unclear—and I had to skip a detour about the tension of this passage with the Deuteronomistic theology of First Kings as a whole—I felt freed to read my and my congregation’s context into Elijah’s encounter with God on Horeb. That context is not shared by all churches, particularly churches with a clearly Progressive consensus. But neither are we unique. We have recently committed to a new set of service projects in our community, which I refer to at the end. See what you think.

It’s such an evocative yet evasive text that I am wondering what other preachers did with it.

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“The Question Left Hanging”