You may wonder why—with all that is happening in the world—why I don’t address domestic and international issues more directly in my sermons.  Maybe you’re not wondering that but in case you are, here’s why:

Venezuela, Greenland, ICE, the Epstein Files, Gaza, Ukraine.  There are headlines every day that confront us and deserve our attention.  In fact, there are so many of them that if I were to address every one of them I would be preaching about nothing else.  Even within each issue there are new developments that I would need to return to each week even while other headlines and issues wait to be addressed.

That’s one reason.  Another is that I don’t believe that ours is an event or issue based faith.  Don’t get me wrong.  It’s no secret that my faith leads me to be a progressive person; politically and socially.  That said, ours is a God-based faith.  In other words, God comes before any issue.  God comes first.  If I were to unpack the insanity and cruelty of ICE and then finish up with a few words about God, it would be something other than a sermon.  

Consequently, in these challenging times, my view is that a sermon should first and foremost reinforce the presence of God in our lives; that we are not watching events unfold alone.  We belong to an eternal presence of love and compassion that has existed long before current events and will exist long after.  It is a presence, a divinity that loves us and will steer us through every dark valley.  A preacher’s job is to help people recognize that this holiness is available to them every moment of their lives.

Political realities shape our world and how we respond to those realities should be guided by our faith. We cannot respond at all, however, if we are weighed down by fear, desperation, and helplessness.  Preaching should lift people out of that quagmire of negativity and equip them for enacting their discipleship—as the Spirit leads them–with confidence and joy.

We all know the headlines and the issues before us.  Worship and preaching isn’t about naming them so much as it is about naming God and God’s role in our lives in times like these.

See you in church,

–Rev. Dominic