Preachers should earn trust before preaching on politics to allay the fear of an ambush. If you argue a preacher can’t speak of politics, it’s like saying reflect on a tree, but don’t mention branches.
It’s like saying you can talk of hunger but not about what feasts on poverty. You can delve into stewardship but not economics, into health but not care, into gratitude but not have mercy.
Politics, by definition, is concern for the community. We vote for our ecclesiastical and government leaders, and we pay taxes.
Preachers are called to wail against principalities. It's not preachers’ jobs to speak of partisan bias, assume allegiances, or presume a higher moral ground. It is a lifelong task we undertake together to search the depths of loving ourselves, our neighbors, and God with whole hearts. It didn’t matter who was ruling as prophets begged that the cries of the suffering be heard, demanded a fast that God longed for, and criticized the faithful who neglected widows and orphans.
Jesus is speaking to everyone with religious and political power in Matthew, to give drink, clothing, and food to the naked, the thirsty, and the hungry. The prophetic call is to blur aisles, to change narratives, and to be living witnesses that we can love our perceived and real enemies. For love to underpin politics, we breach chasms, work together, and forgive.
The call for the faithful to love enemies is a political and prophetic statement. Nelson Mandela, walking out of prison, announced he was going to work with the people who kept him locked up for 27 years. He believed that if he did not forgive, he would remain in chains. “If you want to make peace with your enemy, you must work with your enemy. Then he becomes your partner.” The women I have met coming out of prison at Thistle Farms for thirty years have affirmed that truth.
If you want to be free, learn to love the people who locked you up. Dorothy Day preached the revolution the world needs is of our hearts. She implored the need to learn to love our enemies and work in political arenas on behalf of those who have no voice in the “hallowed halls of power.”
I was at the White House last week to offer a prayer for a new initiative totaling more than a billion dollars to support work that prevents and treats malaria and tuberculosis for vulnerable moms and babies around the world. I felt a bit of trepidation imaging the leaders of the White House Faith Office.
As I completed the security check, the coordinator for the event, a Salvadorean immigrant, welcomed me. Her parents immigrated when she was seven and have been leading a church in Houston for 25 years. She loves working in the White House on faith-based initiatives for global health. One of directors of the office and the first to speak after my prayer, reminisced about her time serving under four presidents and the remarkable work she witnessed under Bush to launch PEPFAR, the sixty-million-dollar global fund that saved seventy million lives from HIV/AIDS.
When she remembered fondly the partnerships in Botswana between faith communities and the state department, I teared up thinking about my father-in-law, Dr. John Hummon, who was the head of USAID there. I have no idea what side of the aisle she sits on. I do know that she worked with and remembered someone I love to bring healing.
Jenny Dyer, a Nashvillian and Director of the 2030 Collaborative, devotes her career to galvanizing partnerships of faith communities to jump unabashedly into the global work of healing.
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