Not long before 9-11, I left congregational ministry for a time, to teach. I never felt more mixed feelings about being away from a pulpit than on the Sunday after that day - separated from the awesome responsibility that comes with preaching on such a Sunday.  

But it became a topic for class. I asked my students, each preparing for ministry: "If you were preaching this Sunday, what would you do?  What's the right balance between an ancient scripture and events in the present?  What's the right balance between a global gospel that does not choose one nation over another and our identity as American Christians who've wagered a lot of our faith on putting Christian values into play in our politics?  And what's the right balance between speaking truth as one sees it—even if some get upset—and honoring a congregation that includes people with different points of view?”

So I asked them.  

Their responses were thoughtful.  What struck me, though, was that their impulses were more pastoral than prophetic.  Maybe another group would have been different.  But from this group I got several answers like, 

"Feelings are too raw right now to interpret the truth of it, so that needs to wait,"  or 

"I need to take care of my people first," or 

"Right now, people need a word of comfort and reassurance."  

That was a good instinct, but I wondered if it was a good answer.  I wondered because the world all around us is always interpreting, and proclaiming, and taking stands very loudly.  Ideas and reactions claim us well before we land in the pews (or log on to church).  So is it right to think that among all the competing voices clamoring for their attention, the pulpit should retreat?  

Do we think the pulpit should be modest because we're afraid of offending people, or think that some folks' commitment to church is so thin that if we make them a little uncomfortable they'll simply leave for a church that doesn't?  (Many do, sadly.)  Every preacher wonders these things before he preaches on Sundays like that one after 9-11—or like the one just last Sunday.    

And so sometimes we cede the ground and simply say that God loves us.  Now God does love us.  And God's love is both the first and last word of the gospel.  But in between that first and last word there's still a lot to learn, and there's still a lot to wrestle over, and disagree about, and apply to our lives and to the world, and to shape the mission of the church around.

And so we talked about all that.  And the students began to reveal their own convictions and what they believed scripture, and the church, and reason said to that moment we were in.    

And so this week. What's the balance now, when emotions divide our pews?

The past week, on that day the church calls Epiphany, the United States Capitol building was stormed and briefly overtaken by what many are calling an insurrection.  It was both directly and indirectly egged on by political leaders, justified by what I believe, with as much certainty as I can have as an imperfect but reflective person, are a series of very deceiving public statements (ok, lies).  

We watched it all unfold on television.  The child of a dear friend, who works on the Hill, was barricaded for hours in a congresswoman's office having no idea what would happen next.    

The next day several state capitals were also attacked in a few different ways.  A fake guillotine was placed outside the Arizona State Capitol, as if to say that state officials deserve such a fate. And among the whipped-up crowds were many signs with quotes from the Bible, or the word "Jesus," or invocations of Christian faith as justification.  One article called it "The Christian insurrection."  I'd suggest that those signs alone—which were many—make this a topic for the preachers.  For it is the Lord, Christians claim, who was invoked.

So, again, what is that balance?

Churches don't call pastors to be their pundits.  They don't call pastors to be silent either, or to just help them feel good, or to keep the church only over there in one corner when all of God's world should be our horizon.  Relegation is not gospel.  It's just not.  John Wesley was right when he said "The World is our parish." 

So how do you speak in a way that keeps people of different views in the conversation and still say something—especially when so many voices around us are clamoring for our attention and demanding our faith?  

Some may find me timid and some may find me brash.  Some may find me too purple for their taste, or just about right.  But I assure you that I do have a political view on the events of this week, and it's not middling at all.  For while I know there are different ways in to all of this, there should be no doubt that as people of faith we must resist forces of violence, and deception, and manipulation.  

Can we start from there?