Houses are important but we advocate for people. Each house is more than a structure of wood, sheetrock, and nails. Each represents the real lives of the people living in them, where new starts take place and hopes for the future are born.
Some say advocacy is politics. Well, what’s wrong with that? Contrary to what many think, politics is not a dirty word. Politics is about people. Politics, at its core, is about making decisions that affect our communities. These decisions reflect our values and priorities. Politics influence how and what public policy is made and who benefits and who is ignored. We get the politics we make.
Before I became a pastor one of my jobs was as a lobbyist. I didn’t become a pastor simply to be a lobbyist in a clerical collar, but I do consider it my responsibility to a be Christian advocate. The goals of such advocacy are to:
- build relationships
- have substantive conversations
- help establish justice
I asked my congregation one time “What would Jesus say if he went to talk with members of Congress?” Someone replied, “Jesus wouldn’t be in the halls of power but with the people, whose backs are against the wall or with those who don’t even have a wall to back up to.” True. That’s where should be also. But one way we can be “with” such persons is to advocate for their concerns. We can refuse to be silent. We can take a stand.
Advocacy is about witnessing to God’s love, sharing the wisdom of the community with its leaders, and, yes, sometimes offering prophetic critique. Advocacy often says the status quo is not sufficient and God expects us to do better. When we engage in advocacy we do as Jesus told us to in Matthew 7:24-27—"Everyone then who hears these words of mine and acts on them will be like a wise man who built his house on rock. The rain fell, the floods came, and the winds blew and beat on that house, but it did not fall, because it had been founded on rock. And everyone who hears these words of mine and does not act on them will be like a foolish man who built his house on sand. The rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat against that house, and it fell—and great was its fall!”
Advocacy is one way people of faith come together to build the Beloved Community and when we live together in that place what a day of rejoicing it will be!
Pastor Alan Felton
Benson Memorial United Methodist Church