Scripture: Ephesians 4:1-6, 11-16, 25-32
- One Sunday, in one of my former churches, a bunch of us were doing dishes and chatting in the kitchen, and one person said, “I don’t understand how Republicans can call themselves Christian.”
- This got my attention, and I had to speak up. “Well,” I said. “My husband manages to be both…Christian and a Republican.”
- Everyone got quiet. I don’t think they knew he was a Republican!
- What’s surprising about that story is that it happened in the mid-90’s.
- It’s hard to believe how long Republicans and Democrats have been shaming and demonizing each other, even in the Church.
- But it was one of those weird moments early in my marriage when I realized that I had gotten myself into a little adventure that I had not really bargained on by marrying a Republican.
- Yes, I chose a mixed marriage to someone who was politically different from me:
- It didn’t seem like a big deal at the time
- my parents were also a mixed marriage and they had pretty healthy political arguments at the dinner table when I was growing up
- Then I came to Wisconsin as an adult, directly from Berkeley, California to the birthplace of the Republican Party
- When I met Charles, I didn’t choose him for his politics.
- I chose him because he was intelligent, we both like jazz, and he could keep me warm in the bed on winter nights.
- Neither of us really wanted to marry someone like us;
- he didn’t want to marry a farm girl and I didn’t want to marry a minister. We wanted a challenge!
- Charles’ family had long been active in the GOP:
- His father served on the Board of Regents;
- one family story told is that when he met Gaylord Nelson, he introduced himself as a Republican and Nelson said, “I won’t hold that against you.”
- It was a time when the two parties could shake hands and get to work
- My brother-in-law Tim, because he was active in the GOP, had access to elected officials in Washington and took several trips there to lobby for immigration reform on behalf of Wisconsin dairy farmers.
- (He’s made almost no progress in that effort)
- For me, watching from the sidelines in those days, being an active Republican meant meeting elected officials at the summer corn roast or the County Fair booth Lincoln Day dinners
- (they once asked me to pray at the Lincoln Day dinner. They didn’t know I was praying for the other side!)
- For me, watching from the sidelines in those days, being an active Republican meant meeting elected officials at the summer corn roast or the County Fair booth Lincoln Day dinners
- (He’s made almost no progress in that effort)
- His father served on the Board of Regents;
- In 1996, Charles was invited to be a delegate to the Republican National Convention that nominated Bob Dole. I went along for the ride, and what a ride!
- I remember strolling through the exhibition hall marveling at how you could buy a painting of Reagan’s face painted on velvet (to hang on your wall next to your Elvis!)
- And one day I came upon an open area where all the protesters were staging their demonstrations, with a chain link fence between us.
- I was thinking, “Why am I here on the wrong side of the fence? Those are my people!”
- It was a fascinating slice of life and I’m glad I ventured into that world to see what it was like.
- Maybe the most important thing I learned was that I could step into someone else’s ideological world without getting lost. I knew my own politics and core values. And I knew my husband’s were different.
- Neither of us had to give up who we were to stay married.
- Of course, party politics has changed dramatically since the 90’s; and I’m sometimes asked how we stay in our mixed marriage.
- So I gave myself that assignment for this sermon; maybe we have something to offer others in these divided times.
- Why ARE we still married?
- I think one reason is because we don’t talk about politics the way the media does
- Like any committed relationship, we mostly talk about things like who’s taking out the trash…
- We talk about the politics of daily life in a small town:
- his experience serving on the School Board
- and my experience on the Town Plan Commission;
- We talk about all the books he reads about history and economics
- and about the homeless people I meet in my job as a pastor
- On a deeper level, we’ve talked about our personal histories, our emotions, our attitudes toward money, and slowly over time, we have learned about each other’s core values
- Sometimes we’ve avoided sensitive topics!
- In both 2016 and 2020 I asked him not to tell me who he voted for; I was afraid to hear his answer. And he didn’t tell me.
- Now it’s 2024, and he has told me and I’m happy to say…we’re still married! He votes his conscience.
- But a good relationship is about more than arguing and voting;
- Over the years, we’ve found some things we do together with a common passion:
- adopting and raising a child
- planted trees, raised bees, and nurtured the ecosystem on our farm;
- built relationships with our Hispanic neighbors,
- Over the years, we’ve found some things we do together with a common passion:
- We’ve sought out the common ground from which we can build bridges, using our common values as building blocks
- We’re clear about our “non-negotiables”
- While trying to maintain the attitude that the other has opinions and values that are legitimate and honorable.
- Unfortunately, over these past 32 years, some Americans seem to have lost interest in staying married to each other as a nation
- We’ve reduced our relationships to political alliances or oppositional camps.
- We assume the other side is just wrong
- What used to be normal political disagreements have now become cause for family feuds, destroying each other’s yard signs; manipulation of ballot counting, even assassination attempts
- Right now, Americans are laser focused on which party will win the most points and power in November
- But the sad reality is that, whoever wins the most power, the other 50% of the nation will feel beaten down, angry, frightened and estranged from their neighbors.
- To me, it also matters that Americans stay married as a nation
- Early Christianity was born out of an extraordinary project of bringing differences together to create something new:
- Jew and Gentile, slave and free, men and women
- They defied the law and their own social customs to meet in each other’s homes and eat at each other’s tables.
- It would’ve been much safer if they never had to confront the Roman centurion or the Syro-Phoenician woman or the Ethiopian eunuch. But they found ways to invite these people to the table.
- It may feel safer to us to stay in our bubbles with like-minded Christians,
- but the long-term effect of that is deeper polarization.
- I believe we must continue to try to build trust in community;
- Jesus was always doing that, even as he spoke truth to power.
- How can we work more on building trust with other Americans we’ve alienated ourselves from?
- I’ve come across a few resources for people who are brave enough to expose themselves to other people’s views and start building bridges.
- In our UCC “Vote with Love” campaign resources, I found this list of basic practices for talking to someone who has different beliefs or opinions, using resources from your Christian faith.
- Story Corps, which you may have heard of through National Public Radio, is a story telling project; they have a separate initiative called “One Small Step: where you can be paired up with a person who has differing beliefs for a safe conversation using guiding questions
- I tried this once and the guy I was paired with ended up to be a lapsed UCC member!
- Starts With Us is a website with resources I’ve been reading and using lately, including a Detox daily exercise you can have sent to your email inbox.
- Ironically, Charles and I have grown closer through these years—even in our politics. These days we both feel like lost souls on a deserted island with weird bedfellows like Liz Cheney and Heather Cox Richardson and David Brooks
- We don’t know where we belong politically anymore, but we know we still belong together.
- There are lots of things progressive Christians like you at Lyndale need to keep doing to express your core values; that’s who you are as a faith community, and you need to keep being who God calls you to be.
- But we should not be satisfied to live in a nation of political bubbles where we never have to listen to or grow in understanding people who believe differently than we do.
- Look at the homework and think of one small step you can make toward someone who is different from you and start building bridges using the core values you share with them.
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