The Sunday Musician

Again this week, The Other Ed asked me to lead the Saturday night worship time, and I felt I served everyone a little better than last week. Those of you who read here regularly know the Saturday service in our little corner of the world is, well, little-probably about thirty people. I love it.

I felt sort of ‘hymny', so we did:

The Wonderful Cross

How Could I But Love You (see last week Sunday's post)

Give Me Jesus (Fernando Ortega)

Holy, Holy, Holy

After the third song, I opened it up for a short prayer time, and about three prayers into it, a guy spoke up over on the right. I've seen him before-he's a loner, seems obviously to be what my dad would have called ‘down on his luck'. His prayer spun me off into thinking about the election-which I'll explain in a minute. But first, his prayer:

Do Justice, Love Mercy

"Dear God...I'm having a hard time. Two years ago today they found my brother dead in his apartment. It hurts so bad."

He paused, and I thought he was done, but he choked out the next sentence:

"I miss my brother."

And then he sobbed. He prayed on a little longer, but half my attention wandered. I was thinking about the woman who had prayed first. She prayed for people who might be suffering, either physically or emotionally. She also prayed we'd do what we could to comfort them.

I waited for the man in on the right to finish praying, led us through another chorus of ‘Give Me Jesus', and finished with Holy, Holy, Holy. I sat down, Dave took the stage, and my mind was free to run.

I'm going to vote conservative next Tuesday, because I believe it's not the government's job to give my money to other people. Okay then...what about ‘doing justice, loving mercy' and all that? What about the down-on-the-luck guy weeping for his dead brother? Joe Biden is from the party that wants to help the little guy, but he only gave $3600 the last several years. Obama has a half brother living in poverty, but apparently hasn't helped him. Okay, so if I write them off, what about me and my party that doesn't want tax payer dollars going overmuch to poor people? Am I going to satisfy myself with just feeling guilty? Write a blog post where I bare my soul? What does THAT do for the guy who lost his brother? 

I slipped over to the keyboard to play some soft music while Dave served communion, and as the man on the right passed by the woman who'd prayed for the suffering, she reached out and gave him a long, long hug.

So I have a question for everyone:  I heard an Air America guy say that if Christians don't want the government to pay for helping the poor, then what IS their plan to solve world poverty and hunger?  My question is: why do we have to have a plan that solves these problems for the whole world?  Why can't I take care of the poor people in my city, and you take care of the poor people in yours? 

This post is part of Fred McKinnon's "Sunday Set lists", which you should check out.