We live in exciting and turbulent times.

       We live in exciting and turbulent times. Exciting if you’re an unaffected onlooker, Turbulent if you are one of those directly affected by the cheaters and crooks in power.  They say as a Church or Christian we should not comment on injustice in politics. “Jesus said nothing about politics!” they proclaim. An assertion which is clearly false. The command to love your neighbor should compel us to care about the things that affect them—including injustice, exploitation and corruption.                                                                                                                                          Those who have the privilege of being unaffected by the fallout that comes from above often have the luxury of ignoring politics or remaining quiet about injustice. But that simply should not sit right with us. Of course Jesus had a whole bunch of acid things to say about corrupt and crooked leaders. So it was actually pretty aggressive for John the Baptist to call the Sadducees a “brood of venomous snakes” (Matt. 3:7). And then, Jesus goes and calls them “evil cheaters” (Matt. 16:1–5). Not to mention that he told them they were “dead wrong” multiple times on multiple issues .                                                                                                                                                                             With everything going on in our country today, the mandates from various government offices, first with the  closing of our churches (we did not close our church) and non essential businesses, masking of our children in schools, teaching “Critical Race Theory” in our schools, teaching alternate sexual life styles in our schools, an experimental vaccine for a virus, which there are numerous therapeutics and medications for, and according to the CDC, has a 99.6% survival rate . About a third of our country has already survived Covid 19 and have natural immunity, which is better than the vaccine and still they want to force them to get vaccinated.                                                    “Silence in the face of bigotry and injustice, however, only enables harm and hurt. Lutheran pastor Martin Niemoeller (jailed in Nazi Germany for speaking out) confessed that in a poem he penned after the war. “First they came for the Communists,” he wrote, “but I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a Communist.” He added, “Then they came for” the Jews, the Catholics, and others, “but I didn’t speak up.” Finally, “they came for me—and by that time there was no one left to speak up.” It takes courage—and love—to speak up against injustice. Seeking God’s help, however, we recognize the time to speak is now.” (from ODB 10/18/21).                                                                                     As King Solomon wrote in the book of Ecclesiastes, “There is a time for everything, and a season for every activity under the heavens: . . . a time to be silent and a time to speak” Ecclesiastes 3:1, 7                                  Now is the time to speak.