Dr. Martin Luther King once said that “power without love is reckless and abusive and love without power is sentimental and anemic.”
I have thought a lot about that quote as I have listened to and read the developing story about Bishop Eddie Long.
Surely, Bishop Long is a powerful man. His congregation numbers over 25,000 ( a number which staggers my imagination!). He has met and eaten with presidents and past presidents of this country. He has preached all over the world.
Yet, it seems that he, as so many of us do, exercised power without love – meaning that he became more impressed with the power than with the love that his office – and mine – dictate that we exercise.
Corporations, which are already wealthy enough to hoard money while this society clamors for relief, want only to make more money. Chambers of Commerce all over this country sit and think about not how to get jobs for those on the lowest levels of our society’s ladder, but instead, how to create jobs that will bring them millions more dollars. They seem to exercise power …without love…leading them to become reckless and abusive.
On the other hand, Dr. King noted that love without power is sentimental and anemic. What good is it to love God’s people, the so-called “least of these,” if you have no power to help them? I remember my mother saying that “love don’t pay the bills.” Touché. When we can see a problem but can do nothing about it, we become frustrated, and instead of hurting others, as those with power without love are apt to do, we often turn our frustration inward, hurting ourselves.
The trick is to get the balance. We have lots of love here at Advent UCC; we need some power. We need to recognize the power we do have and use it, and work to get more power so that we can do effective ministry. How do we do that? By stepping out of comfort zones of shyness and timidity and walking bolding in our relationship with the Christ so that we can see where the Christ is leading us. I do believe Jesus is leading us, and has been, but we have been way too reticent and way too laid back to see where He is pointing us.
If the arc of the universe is long but indeed does bend toward justice, then we who love ought to reach for the power that Jesus will give us to make that justice happen. God didn’t give us a spirit of fear, but of …power, of love, and of sound mind.
Who we are and what we were put here to do has not yet come to fruition. I am suggesting that in love, we seek the power that God wants to give us.
Have a good week.
Pastor Smith

Dare We NOT Vote?

There is a spirit of malaise and fatigue amongst Americans, too many of whom are struggling to survive in this economy, but with the upcoming mid-term elections coming up, I have to urge you: vote.
Vote if you’re tired. Vote if you’re angry. Vote if you’re skeptical. Vote. Why?
Well, there are a couple of reasons. First, as African Americans, too many of our people gave up their lives and suffered great pain and injustice to get for us the right to vote. I wish you would all read Taylor Branch’s books on the work of Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. The work Dr. King and the Civil Rights workers did, the obstacles they faced, the murders of innocent people which went unmentioned, unknown, or glossed over, is hard to digest. Most of us have no idea. We are like people sitting in a concert. We see an hour or two of a performance and have no idea how many days, hours, months and years it took to get to that point. We are enjoying the work of our ancestors and predecessors. They could not vote. It was illegal for them to vote. They were kept powerless while they were made to pay taxes and fight for this country …They knew that phase one of them becoming real citizens of this country was securing the right to vote. They did it for us. We owe it to them to take the gift they gave us.
The second reason to vote is because NOT voting will help usher in, perhaps, people and policies which do not help us. It is foolhardy to believe that years of reckless spending done by the previous administration could be or would be corrected in two years! There have been policies set in place that will help this country and this world get out of the hole we are in now. But to stay home, pouting, mad because “change you can believe in” didn’t come soon enough, deciding not to vote, will not bode well for the majority of people in this nation.
By this time, I am not sure if Democrat or Republican, Liberal or Conservative, political titles that we throw around, make much difference, but I am sure that we who believe in justice have, really, only one tool to help make sure that justice flows like an everlasting stream …and that is to vote. Most of you have received absentee ballots. Use them. Fill them out and send them in. Encourage your friends and family to do the same. Help be a part of a groundswell of quiet determination that we WILL be heard, and we will NOT let anyone or any party be the boss of us.
Our predecessors and ancestors died …and suffered …and struggled …for such a time as this. I would hope that we would honor their work and their love for us by making sure we use this most precious gift they gave us, a gift this nation promised to all but kept from so many for too long.
Have a good week.
Pastor Smith

Money, Mission and God

Money follows mission.
Whenever a church or a group does mission, money follows. You almost don’t have to ask. People see what you’re doing and they want to help; I think it’s natural for people to want to help. That means people naturally want to give money, but they have to see the mission first.
With that in mind, a couple of things hit me: one, as much as we work on outreach, we still have not gotten or done a clear-enough mission project. There is so much we can do and need to do. We could teach English as a second language classes, or have a program where we work on improving the literacy of the children in our community. We could have regular parenting classes for young mothers, or support groups for grandmothers who find themselves raising their children’s children. We could reach out to African American youth who are on a fast track to nowhere, providing them education and exposure to all kinds of things, with the intent that such work often changes lives.
Second, it hit me that as we become more mission minded, we will not have to worry about money. If God gives the vision, God gives the provision. That’s how God works.
To that end, I am going to have a “mission meeting” on Thursday, September 30, at 7 p.m. I want you all to be in prayer, not only about mission, but about your role in making the mission come to fruition. If we have just one mission to add to, say, our sandwich makers outreach, we will be closer to doing God’s work and will than we are right now.
I am going to ask those who can to fast that week, from 6 a.m. from 6 p.m. Nothing to eat or drink for 12 hours a day that week. I am thinking of having brief prayer every day that week at 6 p.m. where we pray and break the fast together. Not only will we pray about our mission, but about where we want to be by this time next year. The praying and fasting should make the vision clear. I am going to need for those of you who will participate in this project to let me know, via the church office.
God did not put us here or keep us here to flounder. God put us here to thrive and be a witness and a light to this community, this city and this state. God put us here to let people know that God never fails, and that God sustains and supports those who trust in Him/Her.
We come to worship, but we must leave to serve.
God would have it no other way.
Have a good week!
Pastor Smith