The God Article

A sermon based on Philippians1:3-11. "Love - love is not a luxury for this life - love is a necessity, if we hope to survive. If we cannot love, fear will win the day and we will turn on each other over things as small as getting our own way or as slight as the name we use for God. Love is what we were formed by, conceived with and created for. Love is what life, what God, is about and therefore a life fully lived has no room for fear. Love is one of the most profound human experiences. It is one of the noblest aspirations."

I sit down with Rev. Guy Lynch of "The Practical Christian" Radio Show to talk about my most recent blog post, "War on Christmas? Sign This Minister Up."

Audio of the blog post, "War on Christmas? Sine this Minister Up." "War on Christmas? A war on what Christmas has become? A war on worshiping consumerism in the sacred halls of Target and Best Buy while the world is swallowed up in the darkness of not having enough food to eat, a place to live, clean water to drink, access to reasonable health care? Sign me up, because I refuse to let the story of my faith be co-opted by corporations who only wish to convince us that we are privileged and we do deserve what we have more than other and we should revel in our abundance...even as we celebrate the birth of the child who laid in a feeding trough, who lived his life with no place to lay his head, who told us that “just as you do it unto the least of these so to you do it unto me... who gave up his very life that we might understand what true love looks like."

A sermon for the first Sunday of Advent.

For decades now, the loudest voice in Christianity (or at least the most persistently visible) has been from politicians on the right. Let's face it, they have owned the national Christian voice. Touting Jesus as if they had been one of the original disciples, they have twisted the reality of the Gospels and God's biases for the oppressed, the marginalized and the undeserved into a pro-Americana doctrine that promotes the rights of the haves over the needs of the have-nots. They've actually figured out how to make it seem sinful to question war and capital punishment. And the dominate part of the Church has, at best, sat idly by as the political right has used the name of Christ to take God's name in vain by marginalizing more and more people as they pushing laws that make it more difficult to obtain basic human rights like health care, reasonable access to shelter and the ability to feed our families. We need modern day prophets to walk in the footsteps of Isaiah, Amos, Micah, Jesus and, yes, even Dr. King. People to stand up to, and to stand over and against the status quo. Voices calling out into the modern day wildernesses of plutocracy, militarism, white privilege and so many other anti-Biblical movements that serve only to marginalize and hurt specific groups of people. In this age of social media, it might be that the Voice In The Wilderness that the world so sorely needs, might just be Voices (with an 's') In The Wilderness. It might just be your voice, my voice, our voices in a collective cry saying, "Repent! God does not love straight people more than gay people. God does not love the wealthy more than the poor. God does require us to DO justice. Not to just say it is a good thing, but to insure that it is a reality for all people." We must stand up to the Religious and Political Right who have been allowed to own the voice of Christianity for far too long and reclaim it.