From

the

Interim Director

The Rev. Arnold L. Tiemeyer

     We have just traveled through Good Friday, the Easter vigil and Easter Sunday. What a trip of emotion and inspiration that is. 

     The cross we see on Good Friday is no less than love out of control.

     During the day time Saturday, I felt that I was living in a time of uncertainty.  I knew the next chapter, yet the time seemed so uncertain and incomplete.

     And then the vigil.  The lessons of salvation shout that there is a future.  We are moved with Adam and Eve, Moses, Abraham, and Jesus out of the boundaries of the past to a new certain day.  The Easter acclamation underlines this certainty of a future.  In church we sang:

                              Christ is Alive!
                              His Spirit burns through this and every future age
                              Till all creation lives and learns
                              His joy, his justice, love and praise.

     Believing in the future age means acting in joy, justice, love and praise.  So often we come to the opportunity of advocacy as though it is merely a political task.  We align ourselves with various coalitions to help pass an increase in the minimum wage.  We plead with our representatives to share our country’s wealth with the nations where there is not enough food.  We search for ways to assure that our government provides protection and security for the newcomer and the poor.  We take on the mantle of political parties and rejoice in compromise as the satisfactory state.  But it isn’t just politics.  The Christian has the opportunity to see advocacy as the way to be Christ’s body in the reality of Easter.  His joy, justice, love and praise is lived by all creation. This will be love out of control-not merely compromise.

     There appears to be a developing consensus that the minimum wage will be increased in PA. The impact of that decision is described in the Minimum Wage article. We rejoice in the increase but do not take satisfaction for the future.  The promise for our citizens should be a wage that provides a sustainable life.  Immigration law changes that recognize the worth of the newcomers living among us will give us something to rejoice about.  But, it isn’t the future that is characterized by education for children, health care for mothers, dignity of work and absence of fear for the sojourner among us.

     Yes, it feels like the Saturday before Easter.  Uncertain, incomplete times. But the Easter proclamation promises more-a future of justice.  Christians may live in the Saturday before Easter for 10 or 20 years before a sustainable wage is mandated.  Advocacy is the task of the impatient, but impatience does not overwhelm the advocate.  Rejoice in your opportunity to be Christ’s body in the public square…’till everyone knows His justice and love.

                                                                                                Arnold

(Arnold L. Tiemeyer, an ordained pastor of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, lives in Blue Bell, PA. He is retired and has served as a parish pastor, a member of the churchwide staff, a director of a social service agency and as a health care executive. He is serving as the Interim Director of Lutheran Advocacy Ministry in PA as it searches for its new Director).