Epiphany Insurrection

The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it.  John 1:5

In the same way, let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father in heaven.  Matthew 5:16

[The following was initially written in the heat of anger on January 7, 2021.  I have let it sit for a year but have only made a few changes.  I am still angry, mostly at myself, but more hopeful.]

I had a role in the insurrection at the Capitol Building in Washington, D.C. on January 6, the day of Epiphany, 2021.  Not directly, of course.  I would never engage in hooliganism, much less, desecration of the respected national halls of our country.  Still, I am complicit.  There is plenty of blame to go around - scapegoats innumerable - but as they say about pointing the finger, there are ample fingers pointing back at me.  

What was my role, then?  I was for over 30 years until 2018 a pastor and I accept responsibility for any way I contributed to the overwhelming failure of the Church in America to hold true to the gospel rather than acquiesce to the nationalistic impulses that have watered down the message of Jesus in this country.  This failure has occurred over generations and is no one person’s fault, yet if we are to stand any chance of redemption it must begin with confession of the Church’s complicity in its prophetic calling.  

Okay, maybe I’m being too hard on myself.  I did try.  I engaged in difficult conversations with people who disagreed with me.  I preached prophetic sermons that offended people, some of whom left the church I was serving to go worship somewhere else.  But I always felt like I could have done more, and I am not alone.  Recent history has sharpened my awareness of the inadequacy of the Church’s witness and mine.   As a leader in the church I must claim my own culpability. 

The prophetic calling which the Church has overlooked is found in the words of Isaiah, quoted by Jesus at the beginning of his ministry, setting the theme for his righteous kingdom-establishing work:  

“The Spirit of the Lord is upon me,

    because he has anointed me

        to bring good news to the poor.

He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives

    and recovery of sight to the blind,

        to let the oppressed go free,

to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.”  (Luke 4:18-19)

The error of the Church in America has been the abandonment of this obvious mandate to work for justice in preference for an overly sentimentalized message about the individual’s need for reconciliation with God.  Of course, such redemption of the individual is a part of the gospel.  But if all that matters is getting one’s heart “right with God,” then one can ignore a multitude of existing social ills.  If all that matters is adding souls to the church rolls, then one can avoid messy confrontations with the principalities and the powers.  

The Church has focused on personal reconciliation with God and too often ignored our need to be reconciled to each other, all across the world.  

We have too often diminished the Church’s mission to the poor by serving only their basic needs while ignoring the institutional systems that lead to their poverty.  

The Church has sought to comfort the oppressed without addressing the societal structures that contribute to their oppression, nor have we often challenged the oppressor. 

Instead of “proclaiming the year of the Lord’s favor,” we have sought to accommodate a culture that has obviously promoted some as more favored than others.  As one rare prophet declared about the Church, we have been content to have our fellowship meals, Bible studies, building programs, and membership drives while blindly allowing our institutions to do our sinning for us.

There are prophetic voices that have sounded the alarm, calling the Church to account, but too many of us have preferred the easy path, the wide way that leads to destruction.  The conservative evangelical movement’s unquestioning allegiance to the politics of power are particularly egregious but mainstream Protestantism has also been culpable in its failure to emphasize the fullness of Jesus’s message.  As mainstream denominations have seen their membership fall off in the last half century, the emphasis has been on church growth while the sharper edges of the gospel have been softened lest we give offense to existing and potential members.  We emphasize Jesus as Savior but sugar-coat Jesus as Lord.  But in making the gospel more palatable it no longer is gospel, and we are no longer the Church.

The events of January 6, 2021 should have come as no surprise.  They are the direct result of what Donald Trump had been fomenting from the very beginnings of his assault on the Office of President.  We knew who he was from the outset.  He made no pretense to being anything other than an amoral, self-aggrandizing, narcissistic liar who would say and do anything that would keep him in the spotlight.  At least he was honest.  He said who he was and did what he set out to do - no matter how unprincipled and unethical.  He made no pretense to being a leader for all, but only for those who walked in lockstep with him.  And any of us in the Church who embraced him, or who tried not to offend those who did embrace him, are guilty of a moral failure to point out the travesty he was all along.  The fact that many self-identifying Christians have supported him is a testament to the lengths to which the gospel has been perverted. This is not a matter of liberal versus conservative but a matter of truth versus falsehood, right versus wrong.  That we, as a country, had to endure the Epiphany insurrection is a national shame, and is at least in part due to the failure of the Church to be the salt of the earth, the leaven in the loaf, or the herald of “good news for the poor . . . and release for the captives.”  

Last January’s events should lead us to reflect on whom we as a democratic nation want to be.  Are we truly a nation promoting liberty and justice for all?  And for the people of God, called to be “a light to the nations” on the day of Epiphany, we should be pondering whether our light has been hidden “under a bushel,” and what kind of light we will now become.

As part of my desire to shine a holy light, and to atone for my previous failures, I am attempting to help our church become advocates for racial healing and reconciliation in our community.  There are those who wish our church would just stop talking about this issue - which is a sure sign of how badly the Church has failed to live up to our calling to follow Jesus.  I now know, to a degree I never realized before, just how difficult a task it is to do this ministry of reconciliation.  The great strides of the civil rights movement in the 50’s and 60’s filled me with great hope, but now I see how much work there remains to be done.  And the work of racial reconciliation is but one of the many tasks that need the attention of Jesus’ followers.  

May this year’s Epiphany be the beginning of a renewed festival of light revealing the glory of God.  We each have a light to shine.  Even a light as small as a candle the darkness cannot overcome (as we read in the first chapter of The Gospel of John).  Even such a great darkness as fell upon the Capitol Building last year will not defeat us if each of us shines what light we have for all to see.