This week, in her Piloting Faith devotional, Cameron Trimble reminded me of an old story that she thinks originates with the Quechua people. I perked right up when I read that because you may remember that for years we had a Quechua church worshipping right here at First Churches.

Well, anyway, it is a story about a forest fire that drives every animal in the woods to the very edge of the forest where they stand paralyzed at the river’s edge and watch helplessly as their home - everything that they have known and loved - goes up in flames. All of the animals are frozen in fear and despair. All, that is, except for one.

With quiet resolve a tiny hummingbird breaks from the group, dives into the river, picks up a single drop of water in her little beak, and returns to release it over the fire. Then she turns back, gathers up another drop, and does it again.

“What are you doing?” the other animals cry out. “You can’t stop this fire with just a few drops of water!” “No,” she said, “But at least I am doing what I can.”

How many of you have heard that story before? Well whether you’ve heard it or not, y’all probably know what I’m going to say next.

It’s hard not to feel like our home is on fire right now too.

I don’t think I’m exaggerating when I say that our country, our democracy, our society - the freedoms, values, and opportunities we know and love and take for granted as Americans - are not so slowly and all but surely going up in flames.

The daily barrage of attacks on our rights: our right to vote, to representation, to due process, or even control over our own bodies - coupled with attacks on religious and academic freedom, medical and environmental science, the queer community, all immigrants and refugees whether they are here legally or not, and now - gosh - even labor statistics - it’s like living in the middle of a 5 alarm fire everyday.

Just this week the U.C.C. warned our churches to be aware that federal grants we have applied for in the past will now be denied to any non-profit that refuses to cooperate with immigration officials, any institution that participates in boycotts relating to Israel, or any organization that promotes diversity, equity, and inclusion (https://www.swcucc.org/conference-office-blog/2025/8/2/federal-grant-terms-and-conditions-churches-must-review-carefully?fbclid=IwY2xjawL_fE1leHRuA2FlbQIxMQABHmNyXUwUtiQt89msWnxYlgZ1V5vSI8VaMx8VGTVFvkushXlC-5zyMywD48fV_aem_m6hKgmqHevftIUGGXqBWnA).

So welcoming the stranger and the refugee, as our scripture commands - not once, not twice, but dozens and dozens of times - now puts us in direct conflict with our government.

Speaking out against the genocide in Gaza may well put us in direct conflict with our government.

Our vision statements - here at First Churches and at Edwards - our designations as open and affirming churches, the fact that we don’t just welcome you wherever you are on your life’s journey, but believe it is our Christian duty to listen to you, learn from you, honor, love, and protect you as a child of God, now puts us in direct conflict with the objectives of this administration (https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2025/01/ending-illegal-discrimination-and-restoring-merit-based-opportunity/).

And in case you think I am exaggerating, I’ve linked to the terms and conditions and relevant executive order in my footnotes. But I’m not. I don’t care if you’re a Republican or a Democrat. If you care about religious freedom, the separation of church and state, basic human decency or what it means to live in a civil society, this is bad.

I don’t want to be afraid of my government.

I don’t want to live in fear for my neighbors.

I don’t want to stand paralyzed at the edge of all this destruction - not just of norms and institutions - but of people’s very lives, and watch helplessly as everything we know and love burns to the ground. And thanks be to God, I know Jesus doesn’t want that either.

“Do not be afraid, little flock, do not be afraid for it is your Father’s good pleasure to give you the kingdom.” But God knows, I am afraid. And weirdly, tragically, ironically, the people I’m most afraid of right now are my fellow Christians; at least the ones who have lined up behind this administration or stepped up to serve it in exchange for privilege, power, and control.

I feel like they’ve brought gallons of gasoline to this conflagration and our little hummingbird doesn’t stand a chance.

So it may surprise you to hear that I think more Christianity in the public sphere, not less, is what we need right now. And it may surprise you even further to hear that I think this because of the writings of a gay, atheist, secular Jew by the name of Jonathan Rauch. Rauch is a senior fellow at the Brookings Institute and the author of, “Cross Purposes: Christianity's Broken Bargain with Democracy."

I know some of you are familiar with Rauch’s work because Jim, Jim, Jack, Jeff, Jeff, and David, have all sent me articles since the book came out this past February. And actually it was Andrew, just this past week, who sent an interview with Jonathan my way that I found encouraging because I think he can help us chart a course through this crisis we find ourselves in.

The way Rauch sees it, we need more Christianity right now, not less, because the men who wrote the constitution and founded our republic actually did so under the assumption that Christians would continue to live out their faith and cultivate within Americans the values needed to uphold and defend a democratic society.

We are talking about virtues like truthfulness, civility, lawfulness, a belief in the dignity and worth of every human being, mutual forbearance, and the value of working together for the common good. They trusted that if the church would foster these virtues in enough people it would keep our republic stable.

And yes, I know that at the time founders like Jefferson wrote those words about “all men being created equal,” they were only talking about free, property holding, white men, and leaving a whole lot of us out. But actually the exception proves the rule here.

History bears witness to the fact that the more Christians learned to embrace Christlike virtues such as advocating for those on the margins and seeing all people as created in the image of God, the more our country moved forward and expanded that definition of “men” to the point now where all Americans - regardless of gender, class, race, or creed - are seen as full citizens of this country.

So, however separate church and state were always meant to be here in the US, our democracy has not only been strengthened when the church promotes and lives up to its highest ideals, but has always depended on it. From the very beginning there was an assumption that the church and the state would mutually reinforce one another, and in America’s best and most prosperous eras, they have.

But you know as well as I do that the mainline church has been in steady decline since the 1960’s and this has hurt not only the church but our country. Somewhere along the way, the mainline church lost its way, its conviction, its passion for following Jesus. The church became indistinguishable from the culture around it until being a good Christian amounted to nothing more demanding than simply being a good person.

For decades the mainline asked little more of its followers then to show up on Sunday and give enough money to keep the institutions going and generations grew up with a gospel message so watered down that, as one my friends who grew up in the UCC once said, he thought the gospel was basically just: “be nice and recycle.”

There were exceptions of course, which again proved the rule. I think of leaders like William Sloane Coffin, Peter Ives Grandmother and father, or our own Tom Derr, people whose commitment to things like the civil rights movement or ending the war in Vietnam, called them to exercise the courage of their convictions.

Those who took up the call of discipleship and risked something to love their neighbors and their enemies, strengthened their faith and our democracy. But for those content with the status quo, little was asked and as a result a weak faith took root. Rauch describes this as a “thin form of Christianity.”

In response to this thinness, many either dropped out of Christianity altogether or went looking for something more demanding and therefore more fulfilling. Some found a new faith in eastern religions, the new age movement, or sought new meaning in political engagement.

But many found evangelicalism, and for a time those churches grew and grew and grew. They identified as countercultural and that worked. When it came to one’s faith, evangelicals created a culture of high demand that required commitment, sacrifice, and service, which in turn inspired a deep faith and sense of real community in their members.

But then along came the religious right and a temptation to move from the margins of that counter cultural space into a position of domination within the culture itself. Evangelicals became more and more identified with the Republican Party in their quest to establish a society whose laws reflected their faith and values even at the expense of others’ freedom.

Rather than identify as a countercultural force for good they hunkered down and, in spite of their huge numbers, bought into this idea that they were a persecuted, embattled minority. This enabled Republican politicians to turn Democrats into an existential threat rather than neighbors with differing opinions, which set off a chain reaction that has helped create the hyper partisan environment we are all living in now.

Rauch describes this unholy alliance as “sharp Christianity,” and it hurts us all because sharp Christianity is based in fear: fear of the other, fear that they will take what you have or force you to go against your beliefs if you don’t force them to do what you want first. This fear has radicalized the evangelical right to such a point that they are now willing to forsake the Christ-like practice of civic virtues and concern for the downtrodden for the sake of political power.

Tony Campolo, one of many evangelicals cast out of the fold for refusing to go along with all of this, used to say that mixing politics and religion is a lot like mixing manure and ice cream. It doesn’t hurt the manure, but it sure makes the ice cream taste like…manure.

And people noticed. Evangelical churches are now the ones experiencing decline as Christians who just want to follow in the way of Jesus have left their ranks. Evangelicalism has become synonymous with Republicanism and it has changed both the character of the church and the character of the country.

You may remember that in 2011 a famous poll asked whether being a person of good character was essential in an elected official and evangelicals were, by far, the body that believed character mattered most. Fast forward to 2016 and, when asked the same question, it was evangelicals who said that character mattered least. According to Rauch, they “made the gamble that they could influence the Republican Party more than the Republican Party would influence them, and they lost” (https://www.nytimes.com/2024/12/18/opinion/christianity-democracy-religion.html).

In fact it was in a speech given at a Christian college where Donald Trump made the infamous declaration that he could shoot someone on fifth avenue and his supporters would not abandon him. How can that be, you might wonder? Rauch thinks it is because in that same speech to those same supporters that he also said, “if you vote for me, I will give you power.”

In exchange for that power, evangelicals helped elect a man with no Christian character at all, and now look where we are.

According to Rauch, when Christianity becomes too thin or too sharp, that is when the church fails to live up to our highest ideals, the whole republic suffers. Our democracy was not designed to withstand a leader who disdains virtue, flouts the truth, ignores the law, and collapses the separation of church and state to preference one narrow interpretation of a particular faith over all others.

Rauch sees this clearly and is now imploring those of us in the church who will listen to stand up and stand firm. What America needs right now, he says, is for Christianity to become more truly Christian, to embrace what he sees as the 3 core values of our faith that overlap with the highest aspirations of a liberal democracy: 1. Do not be afraid. 2. Imitate Jesus. 3. Forgive

1. Do not be afraid - those words we heard today are the most repeated imperative in the New Testament.

2. Imitate Jesus. - love your neighbor, love your enemy, and care for those on the margins.

And 3. Forgive - be peacemakers who value restoration over retribution.

Democracy depends on people giving each other the benefit of the doubt. It depends on us working together for the common good. It requires compromise and persuasion. And you can’t do any of that if you have demonized the other side, if you are afraid that they only exist to wipe you out, if the moment you get power you use it to go after your so called enemies simply to take them down.

Rauch says that what America needs now is a “thick Christianity,” a church full of people unafraid to love and forgive and work on behalf of one another the way Jesus would want us to. And the good news I want to close with today is that between our two congregations, I think we know a little something about that. I could give any number of examples - from Manna - the Friday breakfast - but think back to all we did together, just last Sunday.

First, we worshipped together around a communion table that was open to all.

Then we celebrated the birthday of a child whose family we have welcomed here from Haiti. Then we joined people of other faiths and none who came out to mourn what is happening to our immigrant neighbors.

Edwards, your pastor welcomed hundreds of people into your sanctuary and spoke with courage and clarity against the abuse of power that this administration is perpetrating, and she didn’t mince words. “It is my opinion,” she said, “that the current immigration enforcement tactics used by the federal government are immoral.

All people, regardless of immigration status, should be treated with kindness, grace, respect and dignity.” Our own Elliot led people of many faiths and none in a centering prayer and then sent us forth to march through the city as a silent witness to the harm being done to people we care about because every faith teaches us to treat our neighbor the way we would want to be treated.

And then, as if we hadn’t done enough that day, people from Edwards Church came back to First Churches and stood out on our front steps where you worshipped again and then helped serve a full meal with Cathedral in the Night to anyone who was hungry.

That is what I call a thick Christianity, a Church that is willing to love and welcome all the wrong people even when we’ve been warned time and again to stop. A thick Christianity is unafraid to speak truth to power. A thick Christianity is not threatened by diversity, but seeks to work with others to create something better than we could ever create apart.

A thick Christianity is good, not just for us but for our neighbors - whether they share our faith or not - because it is committed to the virtues that enable us to build a commonwealth on earth where all of God’s children can pursue life, liberty and happiness.

Between these two congregations, and among all the faith communities in our city, there is a spirit of cooperation rather than competition that enables us to work together to make God’s love and justice real.

There is concrete care for our neighbors and a generous outpouring of resources with no expectation that these will be repaid in kind, because we know we’re storing up a different kind of treasure. We’re working together to build a kingdom that comes as we live into the reality that my wellbeing can never be secured at the expense of yours, but is intimately connected to that of all of our neighbors.

Friends, we believe that the kingdom comes and our master shows up, in those places where our hands our open to loving service,  that place where we find ourselves blessed and fed with purpose, meaning, connection, all the things that make life worth living, as we bless and feed one another. It is a faith thick with meaning and full of treasures that neither rust nor moth can destroy.

So let me close by saying this: I know that there is plenty to be afraid of right now. I know there is no safe place in this moment with the world on fire the way it is. But Jesus never promised us safety. What he promised us was solidarity, that he would come to those of us who get it and are willing to keep working with and for him for the good of all.

And so like that hummingbird, it is on us to do what we can and do our part. It is on us to work and wait and watch for opportunities to lean in - not because we can fix it all - but because our country needs us. As Christians we can all carry our little drops of truth toward this fire, not - to quote Cameron Trimble- because any of us can stop it on our own, but because the world and this republic can only be held together by faith filled people who refuse to stand by and watch it burn.

We are those people. Amen? Amen!