by Bishop Bill Gohl
The Rev. Karl Mattson preached on those verses when I was installed as pastor in my first congregation.
The Rev. John Heinemeier took up those words in his sermon when I became lead pastor at Epiphany in Baltimore.
ELCA Presiding Bishop Elizabeth Eaton preached on Saturday at my Installation as Bishop of the Delaware-Maryland Synod on these verses from Isaiah.
You shall be called a repairer of the breach, the restorer of streets to dwell in – high expectations from a faithful God.
Perhaps those high expectation of entering this new call of the church have something to do with why I was appalled, not particularly surprised, but appalled when a major political party’s candidate for President of the United States found themselves in the whirlwind of controversy, yet again, this weekend, over misogynistic sexual innuendo that continues the trajectory of this political season as being among the meanest and lowest in this nation’s modern history. After 16 years of ordained ministry, I allow myself to believe that "I’ve seen it all," only to be sadly mistaken.
And what troubles me is not simply what was said, which was awful, but the reaction. It’s déjà vu, insomuch as we’ve heard this kind of talk before.
"Women are pigs."
"She had blood in her eyes."
"I don’t even wait, I’m attracted to beautiful, I just grab them and start kissing."
Many times, this party’s candidate has had direct contact with women in power and has taken something they said as insulting. He’s slandered women who have done things like breastfeeding in public or failing to make dinner for their husbands. The party’s “powers that be” were fine with letting their "boys will be boys" candidate be ― until his comments hit too close to home. I mean, the outrage from the party base was in short supply when their candidate referred to former Miss Universe, Alicia Machado, as "Miss Housekeeping" because she’s Latina.
Yet, on a recently unearthed recording from 2005, the presidential nominee can be heard talking about trying to "f*#k" a married woman and bragging about how easy it is for him to commit sexual assault, "And when you’re a star they let you do it, you can do anything..."
Thankfully, the party powers did show the fortitude to declare that "no woman should ever be described in these terms or talked about in this manner." Some of the power brokers have even gone as far as revoking their endorsements, saying that these remarks are "a bridge too far." Yet, the sudden distancing from a formerly supportive party base is laughable.
Why? Because the candidate has spewed vile, racist, misogynistic, xenophobic bile since he entered the race. He has made a campaign platform on the dehumanization of people of color. And these denizens of the party’s power base knew this, even before he became their party’s standard-bearer – and they still backed him after he secured the nomination. Déjà vu.
He called Mexicans "rapists."
He tweeted a fake statistic implying that African-Americans are murderers.
He pledged to ban Muslims, and refugees from war-torn Syria in particular, from entering the United States.
All of this rhetoric targeting people of color wasn’t enough to get the party to summon the moral courage to even simply say 'this is wrong.'
Where is the outrage? Why is this so easily brushed-off as "typical locker room talk?" Threats to white women are still taken more seriously than violence against women of color. It’s not hard to see why this tape has sent so many scurrying away from their candidate. After all, the party needs white women to win elections much more than it needs Muslims or Latinos or African-American citizens.
As the father of two young women, I am angry, afraid of what this kind of talk encourages and condones.
As a father of two young men, that kind of "locker room" talk would be totally unacceptable.
As a Christian, I cannot be silent in the face of tacit support for crude oppression of the vast majority of this people and world for whom God loves so much, that he gave his only son.
As a public leader in the church, I will not allow the basest sinful behavior of a candidate for President of the United States go unchallenged without standing on the side of those who are being rolled over and crushed, sacrificed on an idolatrous altar that keeps us "safe" from having to engage as citizens of the world; neighbors, in Christ, to one another.
Isaiah’s advice and counsel: "Shout it aloud, do not hold back. Raise your voice like a trumpet. Declare to my people their rebellion and to the descendants of Jacob their sins. For day after day they seek me out; they seem eager to know my ways, as if they were a nation that does what is right and has not forsaken the commands of its God…
"Is not this the kind of fasting I have chosen: to loose the chains of injustice and untie the cords of the yoke, to set the oppressed free and break every yoke? Is it not to share your food with the hungry and to provide the poor wanderer with shelter—when you see the naked, to clothe them, and not to turn away from your own flesh and blood?
"Then your light will break forth like the dawn, and your healing will quickly appear; then your righteousness will go before you, and the glory of the Lord will be your rear guard.
"If you do away with the yoke of oppression, with the pointing finger and malicious talk, and if you spend yourselves in behalf of the hungry and satisfy the needs of the oppressed, then your light will rise in the darkness, and your night will become like the noonday.
"And the Lord will guide you continually, and satisfy your desire with good things, and make your bones strong; and you shall be like a watered garden, like a spring of water, whose waters fail not. And your ancient ruins shall be rebuilt; you shall raise up the foundations of many generations; you shall be called a repairer of the breach, the restorer of streets to dwell in." – Isaiah 58, selected
I am grateful for the ways this church, you – and we together – are standing in the gap; naming sin, thus robbing it of its unbridled power; restoring agency and voice to the oppressed; and doing our part to rebuild the crossroads of being neighbor and creating community, for Christ’s sake.
We’re on the way together,