The congregation I serve is about a mile from a naval air station. A fairly decent portion of the people who commune with me on a Sunday have connections to that naval base either because they are or were active duty there, engage in or retired from contract work there, or have a friend or relative that does or did. To say that the base drives the economy of the community would be an understatement. The kids that go to the preschool here at this parish have parents and grandparents whose employment stems directly from that governmental facility. I don’t look at what the DOGE is doing and think of how it will affect me or demonstrate my own political perspective, I think about what it is doing to those people who share the Lord’s body and blood with me, to those kids who share a classroom with my daughters and whose faces I see in chapel. I don’t see concrete or abstract political policy or ideology, good or bad, when I hear of what is happening right now, I see people whose lives are being dramatically changed. 

Obviously, this is to say nothing about the untold numbers of people made in the image of God who are waking up to a different Friday than they expected because aid has been cut short, because not just their work, but they, have been vilified and demonized. People, not programs and policies, are what cross my mind. People for whom Christ shed his blood, breathed his last, and emptied his tomb. For me, for the people in my local area, the government is not a toy to play with, it is a source of livelihood and protection, provided by God for the sake of the needs of the body and life of people. 

Any pastor actually engaged in the lives of people, knows the hurt, anger, fear, and frustration some folks are feeling as well as the pride, satisfaction, delight, and gratification others are experiencing. Pastors also feel some of those, perhaps a bit of both. But what pastors shouldn’t do, and what this pastor wont do, is choose policies and programs and procedures and platforms over people. Why? Because God’s word of law and gospel isn’t aimed at abstract ideas, it is spoken to people. God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, creates, redeems, and sanctifies people. 

One of the things en vogue right now is the dehumanization and demonization of anyone who disagrees with me—whoever the me is. We are polarized. We have picked our sides. You are either for us or against us. The church, though, we don’t get to play that game. Because whether we affirm a specific program or not, whether we sanction the decision to end a life early or not, whether we hold to a traditional and conservative frameworks for interpreting the scriptures and life in the world or not, we don’t have the word that permits us to treat the world the way it treats us. If the scriptures are clear about things like abstract moral positions, then we must also confess that they are equally clear about the posture we are called to take, the attitudes we are to embody, the love we are to evidence in the concrete relationships which provide us the avenue to aid in the flourishing of all created life. You may delight that your candidate won, but not at the expense or diminishment of those whose candidate lost. You may relish the thought of gutting the bloat of an impersonal institution, but not without accounting for the human casualties left in the wake. The church is called to a higher standard by the one who created and sustains all, who provides daily bread for all, even evil people. 

I’ve thought a lot this week about letters and social media posts and wondered what I should say, how I should speak into the cacophony of noise and the only thing I can think of are the words of Psalm 82. I cannot fix anything, I am not the savior of the world or of the people whose faces I see. I can, though, trust, that God works through the chaos, through people, to care for those who belong to him. Spoiler alert—all people belong to him. 

Psalm 82 – A Plea for Justice – A Psalm of Asaph.

God has taken his place in the divine council;
    in the midst of the gods he holds judgment:
“How long will you judge unjustly
    and show partiality to the wicked? Selah
Give justice to the weak and the orphan;
    maintain the right of the lowly and the destitute.
Rescue the weak and the needy;
    deliver them from the hand of the wicked.”

They have neither knowledge nor understanding;
    they walk around in darkness;
    all the foundations of the earth are shaken.

I say, “You are gods,
    children of the Most High, all of you;
nevertheless, you shall die like mortals
    and fall like any prince.”[a]

Rise up, O God, judge the earth,
    for all the nations belong to you!