People wonder about the usefulness of what I do as a Christian pastor. They know church attendance is not what it once was, and with its scandals and a history of hypocrisy, the institution I serve is not found trustworthy. Individual spirituality is now where people find their solace, and practices of Eastern religions have been popular for a long time. The church and other forms of organized religion seem outdated and irrelevant.
To make matters worse, faith seems to have found a new context: politics. Denominations acknowledge that more and more, politics is the new religion. American citizens cling to their identity as Republican or Democrat — as for or against President Trump — with religious fervor. And although we work for unity as followers of Jesus, we are as subject to the same sharp divisions as are our communities. These days, as much as I try to stay neutral in the pulpit, it can be a high-wire act to preach the Gospel without leaning to one side or the other and therefore lose half my listeners.
With all this going on, what keeps me coming back to the church is its story. Christianity is a grand story, a story of people who encounter a God of power and love who shows up in showdowns with human power. I cling to this story as our president, from the highest perch in the world, seems to bandy about raw power like a toy, erratically decreeing foreign policy and economic plans that wreak havoc. Meantime, the richest man in the world has been his ally, driving reckless policies into the heart of our federal agencies.
There are signs that Americans are more receptive to the concept of a higher power now that our higher power of government is letting us down. I feel we need to show folks a higher power that has a story they can claim as their own. The Christian story, which begins with Judaism, is a story older and bigger than America, one that defines us more fundamentally as a good people with purpose. We might have a new identity with this story, but it doesn’t make us superior, just a support to the cause of putting a check on the current mayhem.
This Easter, churches will tell the highlight of the Christian story. The background is the Gospels, in which a beleaguered people find hope and grace in following Jesus of Nazareth, a Jew they called rabbi but who extended his teaching and healing ministry to all people interested in a God of love. As his following grows and his words become more controversial, Jesus is arrested for blasphemy and crucified for sedition by Roman officials. His lifeless body is taken down from the cross, and it is heartbreakingly clear that the mission failed.
Bereft and afraid, the men hide, and the women go home and prepare for the Sabbath. The day after the Sabbath, the women rise early to do their duty of embalming Jesus’s body. While it is still dark, they take their ointments to the tomb where he lay. The concern is about who will move the stone, for a heavy rock had been rolled in front of the cave-like grave. When they finally arrive, there is shock. Dismay. Fear. Something is horribly amiss.
The stone has been rolled away, and the tomb is empty. A moment later, an angel speaks: “Why do you look for the living among the dead? He is not here.”
For some, this is where the story must end — it is outside the realm of reason. Christians say it is evidence that God has taken charge. God has enforced God’s ways over false religion, over abusive imperial power, and even over death. The resurrection of Jesus makes everyone come alive with hope. They organize to spread the good news — “He is risen!” — raising hopes that it is possible to live the life Jesus taught. God’s good will can go forward for humanity and bring about unity, peace, justice, abundant life. If God has rolled away the stone, what other barriers can remain?
For anyone who enjoyed a seder last week at Passover, they heard the story of this same God trouncing the power of the pharaoh and releasing the enslaved Hebrews to Moses. The Red Sea parts, and the people are on their way to the Promised Land. The spiritual truth we glean from these stories is that God acts in human history, and is still on the side of freedom from oppression. Abolitionists as well as the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. predicated their work on the notion that God delivers people suffering in bondage, not just bondage to sin.
I honor the division of church and state, but with our beloved democracy slipping through our fingers, perhaps we need to reach for something sturdier, something even more foundational. The bigger story that has shaped the lives of Jews and Christians comes with God-ordained rules for how to treat one another. A similar ethic, of course, is found in any teaching that is based on the Golden Rule, but the commandment is consistent in telling us to consider others’ needs as much as our own in life. When it is a community or nation at stake, we must put aside our own interests for the common good.
Eleanor Roosevelt, who wrote “The Moral Basis of Democracy” in a time of rising fascism in Europe, states that the responsibility of the individual for the well-being of his neighbors “is akin to ‘Love thy neighbor as thyself. . . .’ ” Roosevelt adds that this principle “seems always to have been a part of the development of the Democratic ideal which has differentiated it from all other forms of government.” For our democracy to remain strong, we must practice these spiritual values since they uphold the goal of equality among all. Democracy cannot create these values — it can only reflect an ethic that is already there as its underpinnings.
Every time I read in this paper about the crowds of “Hands Off” protesters, the resistance to imprudent policies at town meetings, the initiatives to preserve our environment, I know that God is empowering ordinary people to do God’s work in the face of other forces. We can take heart in such efforts and other stories — family stories, local history, whatever our north star may be — because they matter in making real to us the larger story of God’s ability to bring about good everywhere.
Right now my politics and my faith are headed in the same direction, propelling me past any party and into this bigger story as my guide. I need it to inspire my actions and ignite my imagination. The Christian story is still unfolding, and our world is still subject to the good will of God; unexpected outcomes are possible. Our country may now be poised in a dismal predawn hour of Easter morning, not so sure that God will enter the plot in real time. But it is all about trusting when we cannot see. I resolve to step up as a citizen, step out and do my duty, even while it is still dark.
The Rev. Candace Whitman is pastor-at-large in the Presbytery of Long Island. She lives in East Hampton.