Easter 6 Sermon

Power and blessing and wisdom and strength be to the Lamb forever,
and blessings to those who bring glory and honor
to the Lamb
as we worship at the throne and table of our God.
Alleluia and Amen.
+++++++++++

"Come over to Macedonia and help us."

"Come over to Macedonia and help us."

When Paul was given the vision to go to Macedonia,
Paul went.

Paul went with
at minimum
Silas and Timothy.

Paul, Silas, and Timothy went to Macedonia
because there was a vision that said:
‘Come over to Macedonia and help us.’

There was no feasibility study done first;
there was no long-range financial forecast
with projections of income and expenses,
no five-year strategic plan to see if it was cost-effective,
if there would be sufficient pay-back,
no concern if there was a prudent financial return on investment for expenditure of capital and labor;

no committee to put the project on hold
while they examined a budget
worried that this mission to Macedonia
would put the early Church over budget
because if it were over budget
it would be postponed until some possible future date
because we all know
that God values adherence to a human-created budget
more than God values adherence to Christ’s mission.
Or not.

No.

None of these things.

Paul had a vision:
"Come over to Macedonia and help us."

Paul had a vision.

A vision!
Not even an actual invitation,
not a written proposal in proper grant form,
with suitable attachments and schedules
approved by the appropriate sub-committee
before it went to the board for formal action in accordance with the accepted protocol for initiating a new activity deemed subject to existing policy per the prior approved plan of action.

No.

Paul had a vision.

"Come over to Macedonia and help us."

And so Paul, Silas, and Timothy went to Macedonia.

Vision.

President Ronald Reagan was fond of quoting
the King James rendering of Proverbs 29.18:
‘where there is no vision, the people perish.’

If we as the Church operate without vision,
without vision given by the Holy Spirit,
then we do perish.

If we as a congregation operate with vision,
vision that we are given to see and embrace by the power of the Holy Spirit,
then we are living in the call of the Risen Christ.

"Come over to Macedonia and help us."

That was a revolutionary, radical vision.
It was a vision that led to profound –
dare I say it –
profound change.

Now today I want to kill once and forever the power of the “c” word,
I want to eradicate permanently the pejorative power of the word “change,”
a word that is used to attempt to intimidate others,
a word that that is intended to have a nasty, negative meaning.

Change is life
and life is change;
without change we would not be human,
without change we’d be one-celled amoebas dying a certain death.
because in fact we would not even survive as a single celled amoeba;
the very process of life involves ever-constant change,
be it respiration, ingestion, digestion, metabolism, elimination, reproduction.
When change ceases, the organism dies.

When change ceases, the living organism dies.
This is how God structured life.

A definition of death is when an organism ceases to process change.

A simple Mother’s day illustration:
a task of the mother
and father and all who love the baby
is to change the baby;

an unchanged baby is not a pleasant thing

a baby that is not changed will soon lie in a pile of its own waste,
a classic definition of abuse,
which will lead to the baby’s inevitable death.

A mother
and all who love the infant
consistently measure its health by change:
ounces and pounds gained,
inches grown,
new skills developed.

And what is school but the community’s attempt to promote particular guided and intentional changes in the knowledge, values, and skill sets of a child.
Teachers are change-agents;
a teacher who fails to change the lives of students is (to say the least) not an effective teacher.

And in the church,
so it is with those who are pastors
and lay people with vision.
A pastor who allows a congregation to be unchanged is useless and a travesty to the calling of ordained ministry,
and an accomplice to the death of that congregation.

When change ceases, a body dies.

Never again let the word “change” be used as a weapon to cudgel and badger,
never again let the word “change” be used as a club to obstruct the vision of the Spirit,
to block the ministry of the Gospel
and the life and work of the church.

"Come over to Macedonia and help us."

Jesus was an agent of revolutionary change,
the Risen Savior is the most profoundly transcendent Change in human history,
the Spirit at Pentecost calls us into community to be the on-going dynamic force for change in the world,
we are called to be transformers of the world with our witness to the Gospel.

"Come over to Macedonia and help us."

That vision changed your life and mine.

More precisely,
because Paul, Silas, and Timothy acted on the vision,
they totally and completely changed our lives.

Today’s account is written in the 16th chapter of the book of the Acts of the Apostles
which is a record of one revolutionary change after another
in the lives of the people who were called by the Spirit to be the first generation of Church in the world.

Last week’s First Lesson was from the 11th chapter of Acts,
the vision of Peter,
a vision of change,
a call to open the doors of the Church to everyone.

Peter’s vision was that no longer would there be an a church of the insiders
that kept its door closed to the outsiders,
closed to those from not around here,
closed to those not of our kind,
closed to those that were “different.”

Peter’s vision was totally revolutionary,
a mind blowing portent of enormous and irretractable change,
of openness and inclusion for which there was no going back.

No longer “us” and “them”
but only “all of us as God’s children.”
Peter’s vision was that no matter who you were
or where you were on life’s journey,
you were welcome in the Church as one of Christ’s own people.

Peter’s vision of inclusiveness of all of God’s people being welcomed in Christ’s Church
was so revolutionary
that by Acts chapter 15 we have the first great Church Council where the very issue of openness was put before the whole Church.

By the power of the Spirit,
Peter’s God-given vision
prevailed,
a tremendous change in the Church.

Now in Acts chapter 16 comes the next step in the revolutionary sea changes that made the Church:

"Come over to Macedonia and help us."

Up until this moment,
where we are at today in Acts chapter 16,
the Gospel was geographically confined
to what we know today as Turkey, Syria, Lebanon, Jordan, Palestine, Israel.

When Paul received his vision, he was in Troas,
on the northwest seacoast of Turkey.

Macedonia,
from where Alexander the Great came forth to rule the world,
is just north of Greece,
in Europe.

Paul, Silas, and Timothy sailed across the Aegean Sea from Troas to Samothrace to Neapolis to Philippi.

That journey is somewhat of a reversal of the Trojan War,
Troas from where Paul sailed being the 1st century name for Troy;
in our story from Acts instead of Europe bringing war to Asia Minor,
it is Asia Minor importing into Europe the Gospel of Peace.

This trip across the Aegean Sea changed history,
and even more,
it changed the course of Christianity.

Paul, Silas, and Timothy brought Christianity to Europe,
where all of our ancestors were worshipping idols and trees.

The author of Acts notes that Philippi was a Roman colony;
thus in this account we have both Macedonia, representative of Greece, the center of eastern Christianity, the Orthodox Church,
and Rome as Rome, center of western Christianity for the first fifteen centuries of the Church’s experience.

"Come over to Macedonia and help us."

Obeying that vision changed your life and mine,
because Christianity came to our ancestors;

because our ancestors communicated the faith to the generations that came after them,
we received the gift of the Gospel
which we are called upon to convey to the generations that come after us.

We are the heirs of that journey that Paul, Silas, and Timothy made in response to the vision,
"Come over to Macedonia and help us."

++++++++++

What is our vision today?

Right here
right now
in Spencerville, Ohio
at Spencerville United Church of Christ,
what is our vision?

Do we exist as just kind of a community center
where people can have their showers and receptions
and from where people can borrow chairs and tables?

Are we here as a closed community,
where any new or differing thought is treated as an insult,
where anyone who is not from here is an outsider (if not a threat),
where we gather only to reinforce our self-images worshipping a god that we ourselves created,
a god made in our same self-image who never challenges us,
who never makes any claim on us,
who never asks of us anything other than what we have already decided?

Or do we have the Spirit’s vision?

Are we open to the Spirit’s vision?

What and where is our Macedonia?

"Come over to Macedonia and help us."

What calls us to get up and come over,
to move,
to make a journey across whatever sea lies between us and the place where God is calling us to be?
What is our vision?

‘Where there is no vision, the people perish.’

If we as the Church operate without vision,
without vision given by the Holy Spirit,
then we do perish.

If we as a congregation operate with vision,
with a vision given by the Holy Spirit,
then our ministry thrives.

We have so many good and faithful people in this congregation,
people who inspire and bless us by their love for our God,
by their placing the Gospel first and foremost in their lives.

And we have the promise of these words of Jesus from today’s Gospel lesson:
The Advocate, that is, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you everything, and remind you of all that I have said to you.

Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled, and do not let them be afraid.

In one week we will gather at 5:00 pm to share in a meal
and discuss values for this congregation,
with special attention to the word “acceptance.”

“Acceptance” is perhaps something that we can name as our first value that comes from our now four-month long and continuing discussion on our values.

Determining our values is part of the Visioning process,
the conversation whereby together we seek discernment as to where the Spirit envisions that we go as a congregation into God’s future.

In two weeks we celebrate the festival of Pentecost,
the day on which the Spirit, the Advocate,
gathers us together to be the Church,
creates and re-creates us,
renews and empowers us again to be the Church
in this time and place.

Whatever the values are that we discern by the Spirit’s guidance,
if they be Christ’s values,
they will be values that involve our care for and service to others.

Our values will not be about ourselves.

Our values in Christ cannot be about taking care of ourselves and serving ourselves and reinforcing ourselves and thinking about our needs.

"Come over to Macedonia and help us."

Paul, Silas, and Timothy did not place their needs first;
it was the needs of the other,
of the other person,
the need of others,
that came first.

"Come over to Macedonia and help us."

In Christ it is never about helping our own selves;
Christ will take care of us.
In Christ it is always
always
always
about helping others.

Mother’s Day.
You cannot be a parent without a child.
You cannot be a Christian and have it be about yourself.
You are only a Christian when there is love towards others.

What for us is Macedonia?
What for us is service to all of God’s people?
What is our vision to serve others
in our community,
in our region,
our nation,
in the world?
How do we discern our call to serve others
which is how we serve Christ?
What is our vision?

These are questions that I cannot answer alone.
These are things which together we discern as community.

Join us next Sunday at 5 as we share a meal and together discuss our values and the Spirit’s vision.
Join us next Sunday and every Sunday at 10 am as we gather as Christ’s family to worship and encounter our God.
Join us in two weeks at 10 am as we celebrate Pentecost, God’s creation of the Church and tthus he re-creation of our congregation,
join us every Sunday as we come to be strengthened by the Spirit to live out the Spirit’s vision:
Come to Macedonia, and help us.

As your pastor I have authority to promise you this:
as we serve Christ by serving others,
as we live out the vision that the Spirit gives to us,
we will never have to worry about our own situation and needs.

Go to Macedonia, and help them.

Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled, and do not let them be afraid.

Prayers of the People, Easter 6

One: I invite you to pray for all people according to their needs.

One: As a mother hen gathers its brood under its wings, so has Jesus yearned to gather us to protect and keep us from all harm. Give us the vision to make Christ’s love real to those who live under the scourge of war, terror, violence, poverty, and injustice. Holy God, Loving God,
Many: hear our prayers.

One: Mary mother of our Savior was ever willing to serve the cause of the Gospel; create in us clean hearts and renew right spirits within us so that we may follow Mary’s example. Grant that as individuals and a congregation, we will have the vision to serve others which is true service to you. Holy God, Loving God,
Many: hear our prayers.

One: Isaiah tells us that you, O God, shall never forget us, just as a mother never forgets the child of her womb, as a mother never forgets her nursing child. Nourish us; feed us; gather us as your children around your table to celebrate your feast of victory. Holy God, Loving God,
Many: hear our prayers.

One: Isaiah also teaches us that a mother comforts her child, so you will comfort us. We pray for your comfort on for Ralph at St. Ritas, Ben at Auglaize Acres; Mick & Jeanie and Mike & Dawn as Mick and Mike do battle with cancer; for Tony in prison; for Ned and Mary far away from us, and all who call upon you. Holy God, Loving God,
Many: hear our prayers.

One: Into your hands we commend all for whom we pray, trusting in your mercy, through Jesus Christ our Savior.
Many: Amen.

sermon 7-22-07 Proper 11

Grace to you and peace from the still speaking God.
Amen.

Actually, grace and peace seem to be concepts at odd
with what God says to us in our readings this morning.

What is up with those readings?

God is, how can one say, a bit angry.

The songs of the temple shall become wailings in that day,
says the Lord God…
Hear this, you that trample on the needy,
and bring to ruin the poor of the land…

The time is surely coming, says the Lord God,
when I will send a famine on the land;
not a famine of bread, or a thirst for water,
but of hearing the words of the LORD.

They shall wander from sea to sea, and from north to east;
they shall run to and fro, seeking the word of the LORD,
but they shall not find it.

That’s from Amos.

Then there is today’s psalm.

You love evil more than good,
and lying more than speaking the truth.

God will break you down forever;
God will snatch and tear you from your tent;
God will uproot you from the land of the living.

God is still speaking.

God just is not saying very easy things.

We want God to confirm us in our comfortableness.

We want God to be a good old boy
who tells us that we just can slide with being good old boys too.

There are some places where one can hear sermons
about this easy sort of god.

But not here.

God is still speaking.

God is still speaking in this church.

++++++++++

Now when I say “this church”

does the phrase “this church”
refer to our United Church of Christ,
which just celebrated its 50th anniversary at General Synod 26
in Hartford, Connecticut,

or does the phrase “this church”
refer to
First Congregational Church, United Church of Christ of Muskegon,
or to
Congregational United Church of Christ of Armada,
or Emmanuel United Church of Christ of Manchester,
Phoenix Community Church, United Church of Christ of Kalamazoo,
perhaps the Congregational Church of Birmingham, United Church of Christ –



No matter where we are from, we are all one church.

We are all connected.

No matter who we were
or where we have been on life's journey,
we have become United Church of Christ.

And that is a good thing.

Of the UCC,
we have come to a place for which our parents sighed.

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++

In the narthex,
on either side of the doors
there are two plaques,
two plaques that honor by consensus the two pastors
regarded as the greatest pastors
in the 148 year history of this congregation:
the Rev. Archibald Hadden
and
the Rev. Samuel Oliver.


Dr. Hadden and Dr. Oliver
wrote some very important words from their hearts
73 years ago,
in 1934
for the 75th anniversary of this congregation.

(Those doing the math fast:
yes, in two years
we will celebrate the 150th anniversary of this congregation.)

Dr. Hadden and Dr. Oliver wrote
what they felt was vital for this congregation to be about
as it moved from its first 75 years of ministry into its future.

What Drs. Hadden and Oliver said was this:
this church must be about the business of economic justice,
this church must be about the business of racial justice,
and this church must never again bless another war.

That is a most remarkable forshawdowing
of the five historic commitments of the UCC –

perhaps not a foreshawdowing at all
but the foundation of what called the UCC into being
and what our purpose is about today –

the five historic commitments that we reflected upon
earlier in our worship,
the five historic commitments which are:

1. We are a united and uniting church.
2. We are a multiracial and multicultural church.
3. We are a church accessible to all.
4. We are an open and affirming church.
5. We are a peace with justice church.

Now to some people that sounds “liberal.”

That is the usual thing said about the UCC
when someone is trying to insult us:
They say we are “liberal.”

To me,
they sound like the words of Dr. Hadden and Dr. Oliver
of 73 years ago.

1. We are united and uniting.

Dr. Hadden and Dr. Oliver wrote that
we at First did not worship one denominational past;
they said
“the sources from which [our] membership came
discloses a wide range of denominational background
with various shades of belief and christian practice.”

And because of that,
Drs. Hadden and Oliver contiuned,
we were and are positioned to be ecumenical,
harmonious with others,
to be united and uniting in Christ
rather than in any divisive thing.


2. We are a multiracial and multicultural church.

Drs. Hadden and Oliver observed
a historic diversity of this congregation’s membership,
noting that we are not
“limited to a racial or denominational background.”

Dr. Hadden and Dr. Oliver observed
our unity at First was
“to Christian principles rather than to race, doctrine, or denomination.”

Now we all know that we have a long way to go
for this congregation to grow into
the multiracial and multicultural expression
to which we in the UCC are committed;
we must strive mightily and intentionally
to be multiracial and multicultural
in fulfillment of the vision of Drs. Hadden and Oliver
and the UCC.

Let it be also said
that those attended General Synod 26
noted well that the UCC,
our national church, our membership, and our leadership,
clergy and lay,
is profoundly
and intentionally
multicultural and multiracial.


3. We are a church accessible to all.

This is an area that Drs. Hadden and Oliver did not address;
they could not anticipate everything,
and I presume their blessings
on what has been done here
for accessibility
and for what we will continue to do.


4. We are an opening and affirming church.

This is also an area that Dr. Hadden and Dr. Oliver
did not address
and here I will not presume their thoughts
but everything they wrote 73 years ago
speaks of a witness to love, acceptance, inclusivity.

We are an open and affirming church.

We have a history in the UCC and our predecessor church bodies:

-- in 1785 we were the first Protestants to ordain an African American to the pastoral office,
Lemuel Haynes,

-- in 1853 we were the first in the church since the ancient church
to ordain a woman to the pastoral office,
Antoinette Brown,

-- in 1972 we were the first church body
in recorded church history
to ordain an openly gay person,
Bill Johnson.

The UCC is all about being open and affirming.

For some people this seems to be an issue
but the UCC is clear on this:
we are open and affirming.

The kids get it –
at confirmation camp last month we were taking turns
saying why we loved our church;
one confirmation student got a big smile on this face
and said with great conviction,
“I love my church because I am accepted there.”

Truth be told, people,
I live my life for moments like that.

At confirmation camp and at General Synod 26
there were the little giggles and twitters
when mention was first made of sexuality issues,
as you might expect with adolescents and teens,
or perhaps even with adults,

but once the question was put out there,
the question:
should our church be open and affirming to everyone,
the answer was always a definitive yes.

No matter who you are or where you are on life's journey, you're welcome here.

In the UCC we mean those words.

No matter who you are or where you are on life's journey, you're welcome here.

We in the UCC intentionally proclaim those words of welcome.
Someone in the Church has to say it and mean it
and right now there is no one else
in America on a national level
besides us.

If not us, who?

It should be us,
it must be us,
it must be the UCC,
because God is still speaking to us
and we have a long history of being early truth tellers.

If we don’t live out,
that the light of the world is Jesus,
then who will?

We all know the rejection and the pain
that people of certain sexual orientations have suffered
from the church and society;

for those of us who live in Muskegon,
last Sunday’s front page stories in the Chronicle
were another painful reminder
on how families and individuals
in this very day, right now,
are treated badly, devastated
by the actions of religious communities
because they or a family member is gay –

No matter who you are or where you are on life's journey, you're welcome here.

As with so many other things
we in the UCC are called to lead.

The UCC and its predecessor bodies
pioneered higher education in this country,
today 15 seminaries and 47 colleges are related to the UCC,
the UCC and its predecessor bodies
established the first printing press in the United States,
held the mettings that led to the Boston Tea Party,
saved the Liberty Bell from the British,
gave America the first published African American author,
were the earliest truth tellers
in the American abolitionist movement,
supported against much opposition those who were held in slavery on the Amistad,
gave American its first united church body in 1840,
pioneered the liturgical, eucharistic consciousness of Mercursburg Theology a hundred years before the rest of
American Protestantism got involved,
founded six of the historic African American colleges,
pioneered the Social Gospel movement,
gave the world the brilliant and church shaking theologicans
H. Richard Neibuhr, Reinhold Neibuhr, and Paul Tillich,
the Neibuhrs being from Michigan,
gave us Dr Hadden and Dr Oliver in 1934 speaking for racial and economic justice and stating
“this church must never again bless another war,”
was on record calling for an end to the Viet Nam war in 1965,
long before any other American institution took that stand,
supported the United Farm Workers,
supported the Wilmington 10 of the civil rights movement
gave Martin Luther King his first honorary degree in the early days of the Montgomery bus boycott,
gave American the first African American president of an integrated church body,
gave the church its first inclusive language hymnal
and book of worship,

whether we have been afraid or not,
those who came before us in the UCC
and its predecessor church bodies
have been from earliest colonial days
in the fore front of where ever the action was,
those who have before us have been early truth tellers,

God has called us to be in the forefront,

so should anyone be surprised the UCC has been and is
a consistent early truth teller
in being an open and affirming church body.

The only surprise would be in if we didn’t take the lead.



Someone is still bound to say that we should not talk
of sexuality issues in the church.

God created us as sexual beings,
the Biblical book Song of Songs (Song of Solomon)
celebrates God’s gift of sexuality,
the Scriptures have much to say
about the covenant of faithfulness in these regards,
one of the 10 commandments is about adultery
so therefore we must discuss it,
circumcision is a Biblical issue and issues of circumcision and non-circumcision are crucial to the Christian Biblical writers,
we make much of the virgin Mary;

as long as we have a commandment about adultery
we are required by the God and the Scriptures
to discuss issues of sexuality with our youth
in Christian Education and especially in confirmation,
and sometimes from the pulpit;

it is good,
every good transcending,
that as our youth come into their own
as the human beings that God created them to be,
that they know the very words of the UCC’s Gospel welcome:

No matter who you are or where you are on life's journey, you're welcome here.

Our witness to Christ is deeply enhanced
because we hear the still speaking God
telling us to extravagantly welcome all people,
not casting on others our own biases
but welcoming all people as God created them to be.

In fact the younger ones among us get it
a lot better than some of us in older generations.

It is unfathomable why some seem to obsess about
the uniqueness and gifts of each individual as created by God,
rather than grasp that the still speaking God
created us each with our own orientations;
the important issue is
covenantal living in faithfulness to one another.

And thus the UCC is an open and affirming church.

That leads me to the last historic affirmation of the UCC:



5. We are a peace with justice church.

Jesus said “blessed are the peacemakers.”

When did peacemaking
become a prisoner to our political biases?

The still speaking God did not call us to be Republicans
or Democrats.

The still speaking God did not in Christ say
Blessed are the liberals
nor
Blessed are the conservatives.

The still speaking God in the words of Jesus said
Blessed are the peacemakers.

34 years ago Dr. Hadden and Dr. Oliver
in an address to this church said these words:

“This church can never again bless another war…
the spirit of war and the spirit of Christ can never be reconciled.”

That is hardly news nor hardly new.

We are the United Church of Christ,
Christ is the head of our church,
not a political leader and not a political party,
not a political ideology or partisan beliefs
no matter how emotionally we may hold them.

No matter who you are or where you are on life's journey, you're welcome here.

There must be no confusion about peacemaking.

To say that we cannot bless a war –
Dr. Hadden’s words and Dr. Oliver’s words,
not mine,
but I like those words,
how can we ever invoke God’s or the church’s blessings on war,

but is not to be thought of as anti our country
or anti this or anti that
and especially not anti our troops.

We don’t all agree.
Some among us feel that the current wars are wrong in every conceivable way.

Others
feel the current military actions are necessary and supportable.

And there are many feelings between those poles.

No matter who you are or where you are on life's journey, you're welcome here.

A great moment at General Synod 26
was when we all were in conversation
with our UCC military chaplains.

A view on the war is a matter of supporting
or not supporting our troops.

A supporting our troops issue can be vieed as
how much money are we as a congregation
giving to the UCC to do the work of the church
which includes the funding of our UCC military chaplains;

out there in the midst of war
there is not a person who needs to have our opinions
but they do need the love and support we can give
through our military chaplains.

In fact we all ought to be demanding
of our finance committees and our governing boards
that we give ever increasing support to the UCC
to do the work of the church,
to fund our chaplains and our educational institutions
and fund our global ministries and our national ministries,

to fund all the work of the church because it is not about us,
it is about what we do for others:

in the end
the still speaking God will judge the UCC and us
not on whether we were conservative or liberal
but on whether we were faithful.


Our lessons today:
the Scriptures are filled with God’s call for justice.

The Scriptures are filled with the call to love,
not to judge or condemn but to love others as God has loved us:

read the lesson from Amos and all of Amos
and all of the prophets
that Jesus constantly quoted,
that Jesus self-identified as the reason the God dwells among us,
the psalms and all of the Scriptures
which call us to the very things
that Dr. Hadden and Dr. Oliver put before us 73 years ago,
that have been the historic commitments of the UCC
and its predecessor bodies;

this call of Jesus is hard to hear sometimes;
it is why Martha hid from Jesus to avoid hearing the difficult words of Christ
that take us out of comfort zones into the challenges of living
as God’s faithful people in a world that ever more
needs to experience the love, peace, and justice of God
that we need to give
as God’s people.


In the end
the still speaking God will judge the UCC and us
not on whether we were conservative or liberal
but on whether we were faithful.

The UCC is not perfect.

But as Dr. Hadden and Dr. Oliver
speak to us across our own history
to live out the historic commitments of the UCC,
I can only conclude:
Thank God for the UCC.

against the militarization of the presidency

At Ease, Mr. President

By GARRY WILLS
Published: January 27, 2007
NY Times

Evanston, Ill.

WE hear constantly now about “our commander in chief.” The word has become a synonym for “president.” It is said that we “elect a commander in chief.” It is asked whether this or that candidate is “worthy to be our commander in chief.”

But the president is not our commander in chief. He certainly is not mine. I am not in the Army.

I first cringed at the misuse in 1973, during the “Saturday Night Massacre” (as it was called). President Richard Nixon, angered at the Watergate inquiry being conducted by the special prosecutor Archibald Cox, dispatched his chief of staff, Al Haig, to arrange for Mr. Cox’s firing. Mr. Haig told the attorney general, Elliot Richardson, to dismiss Mr. Cox. Mr. Richardson refused, and resigned. Then Mr. Haig told the second in line at the Justice Department, William Ruckelshaus, to fire Cox. Mr. Ruckelshaus refused, and accepted his dismissal. The third in line, Robert Bork, finally did the deed.

What struck me was what Mr. Haig told Mr. Ruckelshaus, “You know what it means when an order comes down from the commander in chief and a member of his team cannot execute it.” This was as great a constitutional faux pas as Mr. Haig’s later claim, when President Reagan was wounded, that “Constitutionally ... I’m in control.”

President Nixon was not Mr. Ruckelshaus’s commander in chief. The president is not the commander in chief of civilians. He is not even commander in chief of National Guard troops unless and until they are federalized. The Constitution is clear on this: “The president shall be commander in chief of the Army and Navy of the United States, and of the militia of the several states, when called into the actual service of the United States.”

When Abraham Lincoln took actions based on military considerations, he gave himself the proper title, “commander in chief of the Army and Navy of the United States.” That title is rarely — more like never — heard today. It is just “commander in chief,” or even “commander in chief of the United States.” This reflects the increasing militarization of our politics. The citizenry at large is now thought of as under military discipline. In wartime, it is true, people submit to the national leadership more than in peacetime. The executive branch takes actions in secret, unaccountable to the electorate, to hide its moves from the enemy and protect national secrets. Constitutional shortcuts are taken “for the duration.” But those impositions are removed when normal life returns.

But we have not seen normal life in 66 years. The wartime discipline imposed in 1941 has never been lifted, and “the duration” has become the norm. World War II melded into the cold war, with greater secrecy than ever — more classified information, tougher security clearances. And now the cold war has modulated into the war on terrorism.

There has never been an executive branch more fetishistic about secrecy than the Bush-Cheney one. The secrecy has been used to throw a veil over detentions, “renditions,” suspension of the Geneva Conventions and of habeas corpus, torture and warrantless wiretaps. We hear again the refrain so common in the other wars — If you knew what we know, you would see how justified all our actions are.

But we can never know what they know. We do not have sufficient clearance.

When Adm. William Crowe, the former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, criticized the gulf war under the first President Bush, Secretary of State James Baker said that the admiral was not qualified to speak on the matter since he no longer had the clearance to read classified reports. If he is not qualified, then no ordinary citizen is. We must simply trust our lords and obey the commander in chief.

The glorification of the president as a war leader is registered in numerous and substantial executive aggrandizements; but it is symbolized in other ways that, while small in themselves, dispose the citizenry to accept those aggrandizements. We are reminded, for instance, of the expanded commander in chief status every time a modern president gets off the White House helicopter and returns the salute of marines.

That is an innovation that was begun by Ronald Reagan. Dwight Eisenhower, a real general, knew that the salute is for the uniform, and as president he was not wearing one. An exchange of salutes was out of order. (George Bush came as close as he could to wearing a uniform while president when he landed on the telegenic aircraft carrier in an Air Force flight jacket).

We used to take pride in civilian leadership of the military under the Constitution, a principle that George Washington embraced when he avoided military symbols at Mount Vernon. We are not led — or were not in the past — by caudillos.

Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan’s prescient last book, “Secrecy,” traced the ever-faster-growing secrecy of our government and said that it strikes at the very essence of democracy — accountability of representatives to the people. How can the people hold their representatives to account if they are denied knowledge of what they are doing? Wartime and war analogies are embraced because these justify the secrecy. The representative is accountable to citizens. Soldiers are accountable to their officer. The dynamics are different, and to blend them is to undermine the basic principles of our Constitution.

Garry Wills, a professor emeritus of history at Northwestern, is the author, most recently, of “What Paul Meant.”

Atlanta Lutheran Pastor's story

Converted critic
Gay pastor who could be expelled supported by former opponent

By JOHN BLAKE
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Published on: 01/17/07

James Mayer is a 70-year-old truck driver from South Carolina who calls himself a "tough Lutheran."

But when he talks about what's happened to him during the past six years, his eyes well up. He swallows hard and sighs. Then the tears come.

"Look at me," he says with a sheepish smile. "This is who I am. I'm not ashamed of it."

Six years ago, Mayer was an angry man. St. John's Lutheran Church had elected the Rev. Bradley Schmeling, an openly gay man, as its new pastor. Only six people out of the then 250-member congregation voted against Schmeling. Mayer and his wife were two of them. He vowed not to return.

This is the worst thing that could have happened to the church, Mayer thought. They're probably going to close the doors.

St. John's doors remain open — but Schmeling's future is now in doubt.

Bishop Ronald B. Warren of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America filed charges in August against Schmeling after the pastor told him that he had entered into a relationship with another man. ELCA policy permits gay clergy — only if they're celibate. Schmeling's trial starts in Atlanta on Friday. He could be expelled from the ELCA.

The Midtown church has since rallied around Schmeling — and so has Mayer. He has not only returned to the church but contributed money to Schmeling's legal defense. He tears up at the prospect that "Pastor Brad" may no longer lead his church.

"If you had told me six years ago that I was going to give money to Brad's defense," he says, "I would have told you, 'You've lost your mind.' "

Middle-ground position

Over the past three decades, most mainline Protestant denominations have become more accepting of gays. Some, like the United Church of Christ, even support the rights of gays to marry.

The ELCA has not gone that far. It won't allow any "practicing" gays in sexual relationships with people of the same gender to be ordained as clergy.

Those guidelines have been adopted by some other Protestant denominations. It's viewed as a middle ground, a way to avoid schism. Yet inevitably a congregation will violate these rules, deeming the celibacy requirements as outmoded interpretation of Scripture.

St. John's is such a church. When it called Schmeling for interviews in 2000, he told them he was gay. But it wasn't an issue, says Laura Crawley, the congregation's president.

"At the time, the bishop approved him," she says. "We were not breaking any sort of rules in calling him."

Crawley says the church's call committee was drawn to Schmeling's ability. His way of translating ancient Scriptures into plain language. His habit of not just using children as cute backdrops in service but treating them as adults. His flair for creative worship.

They knew, though, that he might break church rules someday if he met someone. Many actually hoped that he would.

"When your job is giving 24 hours a day, you need someone in your life who is devoted to giving to you," she says.

The church may have become more accepting of gay pastors, but Mayer didn't get the memo. He didn't change his views of gays. He was more concerned with survival.

"The church was barely hanging on when he came," Mayer says.

'Gay was bad'

So was the ELCA. Like many other Protestant denominations, the organization's membership has been declining for at least 20 years.

Some say most Protestant denominations are dying because they're diluting the Bible. Others say it's because they're not inclusive.

When both sides clash publicly, they typically follow a formula. Clergy cite dueling biblical verses, pray for guidance from the Holy Spirit and parse the meaning of convoluted church policy phrases.

Mayer doesn't cite biblical scholars or the Holy Spirit to explain his change. A reserved man, he doesn't even like talking about the subject.

"I'm only here because of Pastor Brad," he says as he unfolds his lanky frame in a chair at a St. John's Sunday school room. "If it wasn't for him, I wouldn't even be talking to you."

He says he never talked about homosexuality growing up on a farm in Prosperity, S.C.

There was no theological debate; the issue was settled.

"I came up with very little knowledge of gayness," he says. "The only thing I ever heard about gay was bad. This is all I knew: He's gay. He's bad."

That didn't change when St. John's called Schmeling, a seminary student at Emory University who was completing his doctorate.

When the church selected Schmeling after a congregational vote, Mayer started thinking about other churches. But they had to be Lutheran. Mayer was a devoted Lutheran who once broke up with a girlfriend because she was a Baptist. He can trace his Lutheran ancestors back to the 17th century. And though he had attended St. John's with his wife, Irene, for 47 years, he was prepared to move.

"I figured it was going under," he says. "I might as well hunt somewhere else."

Schmeling drew him back home, though.

First, he reached the person Mayer calls "the most important person in my life" — his wife, Irene.

The two will celebrate their 48th wedding anniversary this month. Schmeling called Irene at their Forest Park home to introduce himself.

"The word 'gay' didn't really come up in my conversation," Irene Mayer recalls. "He was calling with concern about myself and my family."

Schmeling kept calling her.

"Over a period of time, he won her over," Mayer says. "She just started loving him."

Church revival

Mayer also noticed that his church wasn't dying anymore. In six years, St. John's membership grew from 250 to about 350. More children and young adults joined. Once, Mayer knew all the members — but he has since lost track.

"I'm the old person right now," he says with a smile.

Then Schmeling touched another important person in Mayer's life — his 47-year-old daughter. He won't divulge the details but says that his daughter was experiencing some significant personal problems. She wasn't a member at St. John's, but Schmeling met with her and helped pull her out of her crisis. "Every time I ever said, 'I need you,' that's all I had to say, [and] he was there," Mayer says.

Finally, Schmeling evoked memories of another important person — Mayer's father, Enoch, a turkey farmer. "My mother preached the Bible; Daddy lived the Bible," he says. "If I said I needed help, he was there. The words 'I love you" weren't part of his vocabulary. It was just something I knew."

Mayer says he saw the same quality in Schmeling. He somehow made people know that he cared for them. He made time to help. Made time to meet complete strangers. Made time to make everyone welcome.

By the time Mayer learned that Schmeling had a partner, he says it was "irrelevant" to him.

"I wasn't surprised," he says. "If you find someone like Pastor Brad that everyone likes, you know that he was going to run into someone who was gay and who felt the same way the rest of us do."

When asked about biblical verses that condemned

homosexuality, though, Mayer's posture stiffens. He says: "I don't go there.

"That's between Pastor Brad and God," he says. "None of us are perfect. We're all going to answer for our sin."

When asked about ELCA guidelines, he grasps for the right words.

Finally, he says after sighing, "I don't know everything in the world. I don't understand how we all couldn't be born perfectly.

"It's just that over a period of time, I came to realize Pastor Brad wasn't the person I thought he was. He was still gay. But the knowledge that I had of gay people wasn't who he was.

"He was just like everybody else."

Torture and Methodists

U.S. Takes Low Road
October 3, 2006
GARRISON KEILLOR

I would not send my college kid off for a semester abroad if I were you. We have suspended human rights in America, and what goes around comes around. Ixnay habeas corpus.

The U.S. Senate, in all its splendor and majesty, has decided that an "enemy combatant" is any non-citizen whom the president says is an enemy combatant, including your Korean greengrocer or your Swedish grandmother or your Czech au pair, and can be arrested and held for as long as authorities wish without any right of appeal to a court of law to examine the matter. If your college kid were to be arrested in Bangkok or Cairo, suspected of "crimes against the state," and held in prison, you'd assume that an American foreign service officer would be able to speak to your kid and arrange for a lawyer, but this may not be true anymore. Be forewarned.


The Senate also decided it's up to the president to decide whether it's OK to make these "enemy combatants"stand naked in cold rooms for a couple days in blinding light and be beaten by interrogators. They have no right to see the evidence against them, and there is no appeal. This was passed by 65 senators and will now be signed by Mr. Bush, put into effect, and in due course be thrown out by the courts.

It's good that Barry Goldwater is dead because this would have killed him. Go back to the Senate of 1964 - Goldwater, Dirksen, Russell, McCarthy, Javits, Morse, Fulbright - and you won't find more than 10 votes for it.

None of the men and women who voted for this bill has any right to speak in public about the rule of law anymore, or to take a high moral view of the Third Reich, or to wax poetic about the American Ideal. Mark their names. Any institution of higher learning that grants honorary degrees to these people forfeits its honor. Alexander, Allard, Allen, Bennett, Bond, Brownback, Bunning, Burns, Burr, Carper, Chambliss, Coburn, Cochran, Coleman, Collins, Cornyn, Craig, Crapo, DeMint, DeWine, Dole, Domenici, Ensign, Enzi, Frist, Graham, Grassley, Gregg, Hagel, Hatch, Hutchison, Inhofe, Isakson, Johnson, Kyl, Landrieu, Lautenberg, LIEBERMAN, Lott, Lugar, Martinez, McCain, McConnell, Menendez, Murkowski, Nelson of Florida, Nelson of Nebraska, Pryor, Roberts, Rockefeller, Salazar, Santorum, Sessions, Shelby, Smith, Specter, Stabenow, Stevens, Sununu, Talent, Thomas, Thune, Vitter, Voinovich, Warner.

If, however, the court does not, then our country has taken a step toward totalitarianism. If the government can round up someone and never be required to explain why, then it's no longer the United States of America as you and I always understood it. Our enemies have succeeded beyond their wildest dreams. They have made us become like them.

I got some insight last week into who supports torture when I went down to Dallas to speak at Highland Park Methodist Church. It was spooky. I walked in, was met by two burly security men with walkie- talkies, and within 10 minutes was told by three people that this was the Bushes' church and that it would be better if I didn't talk about politics. I was there on a book tour for "Homegrown Democrat," but they thought it better if I didn't mention it. So I tried to make light of it: I told the audience, "I don't need to talk politics. I have no need even to be interested in politics - I'm a citizen, I have plenty of money and my grandsons are at least 12 years away from being eligible for military service." And the audience applauded! Those were their sentiments exactly. We've got ours, and who cares?

The Methodists of Dallas can be fairly sure that none of them will be snatched off the streets, flown to Guantanamo, stripped naked, forced to stand for 48 hours in a freezing room with deafening noise, so why should they worry? It's only the Jews who are in danger, and the homosexuals and gypsies. The Christians are doing just fine. If you can't trust a Methodist with absolute power to arrest people and not have to say why, then whom can you trust?

Garrison Keillor's "A Prairie Home Companion" can be heard Saturday nights on public radio stations across the country. This piece was distributed by Tribune Media Services.

The View From Guantánamo

By ABU BAKKER QASSIM

Published: September 17, 2006

Tirana, Albania

I HAVE been greatly saddened to hear that the Congress of the United States, a country I deeply admire, is considering new laws that would deny prisoners at Guantánamo Bay the right to challenge their detentions in federal court.

I learned my respect for American institutions the hard way. When I was growing up as a Uighur in China, there were no independent courts to review the imprisonment and oppression of people who, like me, peacefully opposed the Communists. But I learned my hardest lesson from the United States: I spent four long years behind the razor wire of its prison in Cuba.

I was locked up and mistreated for being in the wrong place at the wrong time during America’s war in Afghanistan. Like hundreds of Guantánamo detainees, I was never a terrorist or a soldier. I was never even on a battlefield. Pakistani bounty hunters sold me and 17 other Uighurs to the United States military like animals for $5,000 a head. The Americans made a terrible mistake.

It was only the country’s centuries-old commitment to allowing habeas corpus challenges that put that mistake right — or began to. In May, on the eve of a court hearing in my case, the military relented, and I was sent to Albania along with four other Uighurs. But 12 of my Uighur brothers remain in Guantánamo today. Will they be stranded there forever?

Without my American lawyers and habeas corpus, my situation and that of the other Uighurs would still be a secret. I would be sitting in a metal cage today. Habeas corpus helped me to tell the world that Uighurs are not a threat to the United States or the West, but an ally. Habeas corpus cleared my name — and most important, it let my family know that I was still alive.

Like my fellow Uighurs, I am a great admirer of the American legal and political systems. I have the utmost respect for the United States Congress. So I respectfully ask American lawmakers to protect habeas corpus and let justice prevail. Continuing to permit habeas rights to the detainees in Guantánamo will not set the guilty free. It will prove to the world that American democracy is safe and well.

I am from East Turkestan on the northwest edge of China. Communist China cynically calls my homeland “Xinjiang,” which means “new dominion” or “new frontier.” My people want only to be treated with respect and dignity. But China uses the American war on terrorism as a pretext to punish those who peacefully dissent from its oppressive policies. They brand as “terrorism” all political opposition from the Uighurs.

Amnesty International reports that East Turkistan is the only province in China where people may face the death penalty for political offenses. Chinese leaders brag about the number of Uighur political prisoners shot in the head. I was punished for speaking against China’s unjust policies, and I left because of the threat to my life. My search for work and refuge took me from Kyrgyzstan to Afghanistan and Pakistan.

I heard about the Sept. 11 attacks for the first time in Guantánamo. I was not aware of their magnitude until after my release, when a reporter showed me images online at an Internet cafe in Tirana. It was a terrible thing. But I too was its victim. I would never have experienced the ordeal and humiliation of Guantánamo if this horrific event had not taken place.

I feel great sadness for the families who lost their loved ones on that horrible day five years ago. And I would be sadder still to see the freedom-loving American people walk away from their respect for the rule of law. I want America to be a strong and respected nation in the world. Only then can it continue to be the source of hope for the hopeless — like my people.

Abu Bakker Qassim was imprisoned at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, from 2002 to May. This article was translated from the Uighur by Nury Turael.