Pastor's Message - April 2025

On the next page, you'll find Jenny's monthly "President's Message," where she reflects on an important discussion at our recent Church Council meeting. I'll leave that in her very capable hands.

I do want to lift up one comment that I made during the conversation, the fact that I must compromise with evil every day in politics, and don't want to have to do that in the church. Let me explain:

Those who have engaged me on difficult issues may have heard me speak of the "Three Armies" problem. Those who follow my work as an elected official may also be familiar with it.

It goes like this: You have three armies with a strength of 3, 2, and 1. Your opponent has the exact same configuration. In a battle between equals, there is a 50/50 chance of victory. If you can control the match-ups, how do you arrange your armies?

While some may greedily pursue complete victory, the answer is to arrange it so that your 3 faces their 2, your 2 faces their 1, and your 1 faces their 3. You win two out of three battles, and thus the war.

When Corrections Officers waged an illegal strike, setting up an encampment in the ward I represent on City Council, I had to decide whether I wanted to "die in that ditch."

The public explanation for the strike was understaffing and long shifts, as well as a desire to roll back reforms limiting the use of solitary confinement. The real explanation was that the same week, six officers were indicted for murdering an inmate, a story that got lost because of the strike. And during the strike, another inmate was murdered by officers. Say their names: Robert Brooks. Messiah Nantwi.

Police and prison reforms are complicated, but there are so many countries that do it better than us, especially when it comes to the mentally ill and addicted. But I have no say on matters related to corrections as a City Council Member. In a charged and partisan fight, do I risk my work on housing justice for the self-righteousness of protest? Do I risk the violent speech that all too often leads to actual violence?

Many of us are wrestling with these sorts of questions these days, deciding which battles to fight, how much we can take on.

But here is the challenge: that weak army I pitted against the enemy's strongest force was made up of real people too, people I chose to sacrifice, soldiers with husbands and kids and mothers and dreams. The gospel demands that I see them, that I value them, that I love my enemies and defend those at the margins. Like our American myth, the Gospel is aspirational, a destination we hope to one day reach, but not a present reality, the "as-if" of a better world. May we continue to preach that world into reality through our words and our deeds, even in trying times.

+Gary