I have to confess, I’m something of a political junkie.  I love to listen to the Presidential candidates, read editorials, listen to talk radio and watch Chris Matthews and Bill O’Reilly on TV, all of it.  It drives Marilyn crazy and she tells me to change channels or stop listening!!  One aspect of the current season that has particularly interested me is the controversy over Sen. Barack Obama’s Pastor.  Rev. Jeremiah Wright is the now retired Pastor of Trinity United Church of Christ in Chicago, where the Obama family has worshiped for twenty years.  The big flap is over this Pastor’s sermons, plastered all over the radio, TV and internet, which tend to be way out there, radical and well, just about as wild as I’ve heard in a long time.
I wonder how fair it is to blame Sen. Obama for the rantings and ravings of what I would say is his misguided Pastor.  I wonder if he should have left the church when he heard such words from the pulpit.  But then I pause when I consider that you, the people in the pews for my own rantings and ravings, have had to listen to me flap my gums at you for 14 years.  I’ve averaged, I think, about 70 sermons a year, counting special occasions and regular Sundays.  That’s somewhere around 18 hours a year, times 14 years, that’s 252 hours.  That’s a lot of time!  What have I said to you for 252 solid hours of preaching?

I hope at least some of those sermons have contained at least some of the Word of God.  I hope you have been able to overlook the unimportant parts and found something of God’s Word.  I hope I haven’t embarrassed anyone or driven anyone away who couldn’t take it.  I do know, God’s Word has indeed come through as we hear the Bible read, sing spiritual songs, pray together, and looked at our stained glass and painting of Jesus week after week.  I still believe that for us, our church is the best place to hear God’s Word for our lives and give us ways of responding to it.

And so, I continue to want a shot at you.  I actually think you will be better off if you hear what I have to say to you, what your church has to say to you, what Jesus Christ has to say to you.  I actually believe that it will strengthen your faith and better your life if you are in the pews on Sundays, and if you bring your children and grandchildren (or moms and dads) with you.  I am not on the radio or TV, at least not yet.  So you’ll have to come see me in person.  I look forward to it!  And if you run for President, and someone wants to tie you to me, you’ll know if what I say is crazy or not!

See you in church,

Pastor Marcus