All of my life has been lived in the church and for the last nineteen years the same church. In that setting what I say and what I mean is the same thing. In my life outside of church I am a citizen of a small city who fourteen years ago was asked by a mayor to run for city council because he thought a preacher could bring peace to a council divided. In that setting I always tried to remember I was a preacher by calling and a politician by default. When in the heat of the moment and the passion of the debate I violated the oath of my higher calling I apologized in public and when possible, made amends in private. I suppose after six terms as a council member I should have left well enough alone but I heard the voice of that mayor in that our city’s politics were in need of a peace maker. Mike Norman of the Star Telegram does not know me as a preacher of the Gospel and in his profession, which I am confident he passionately believes to be truth telling, candidates for mayor only wink at the truth and are suspect for inadvertently misspelling the name of their mentor. It is true and a treasure that the constitution separates church and state but that is not so for sheep of the Shepherd. If we hear and follow the voice of Christ we cannot tell the truth in the church and twist it in the state. If we do we are like those who being plainly told believe themselves to be kept in suspense. But hearing the voice of the Shepherd in the church or the state we are always elected to the way of peace, truth and love and in that election we can never lose.
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