This coming Sunday is Social Media Sunday (#SMS16) and I’ve been seeing a lot of activity around it. I am glad to see people sharing ways to proclaim God’s love through social media and I worry that often the discussions end up being about social media, and not about God’s love.

This thought came back to me as I read AT&T #InspiredMobility and #SMS16 Twitter Party. When corporate marketing and social responsibility people get involved, when I see phrases like “Thanks to AT&T there is an easy way to find inspiration online” I get concerned.

When I speak about communications and social media, I often urge people to go back to the mission statement of the organization. What are you trying to accomplish? In the Episcopal Book of Common Prayer, we find

The mission of the Church is to restore all people to unity with God and each other in Christ.

A recent tweet, highlighted in discussions about #SMS16 said, “God loves selfies! So post your selfies cause God loves selfies (and you)!” This was, in my opinion, a great tweet. From a communications perspective, it focused on the mission statement. From my religious perspective, it focused on what really matters, God’s love. I commented

As a social media professional and activist, I've always been ambivalent about #chsocm, #sms16, and related efforts. Too often, at least to me, they feel like they are about social media and marketing, and not about God's love.

So this tweet caught my attention. It returns our focus onto what really matters. God loves you. We need to boldly proclaim this. We need to ask, in all of our media how it helps "to restore all people to
unity with God and each other in Christ.".

I’ve been thinking along the same lines in my political discourse recently. I am generally avoiding political discourse online these days, because it seems too toxic, too far removed from what really matters. Yet two posts caught my attention yesterday.

The first was Craig Casey’s Facebook post that starts "If I gave you a bowl of skittles and three of them were poison would you still eat them?"

"Are the other skittles human lives?"…

Go out and read it.
I shared the post, saying

Generally, in spite of running for office yet again, I'm trying to stay out of most of the political discussions this year. They have become too toxic, too counter-productive. What is needed is proclaiming the Gospel.

This, perhaps, puts the Gospel into a post-modern construct that addresses the underlying issue that has gotten lost in so much of our current political discourse.

As one friend put it, very succinctly, "Eating the skittles is following the way of the cross."

One friend responded asking

Or is it because you favor Jill Stein or miss Bernie? I've never known you to not have a preference.

I responded

I have a very strong preference. I am voting for Hillary. I've been pretty clear about this in my writings for months. She isn't the perfect candidate, but I believe voting for her is closest to voting my beliefs.

Yet there is a much bigger issue. I believe our whole political process has become horribly corrupted. We have lost our focus in politics about what really matters. Our politics is driven way too much by a sick combination of fear and greed. I suspect most people don't think of the politics of who will do the best for our economy or who will best protect our way of life as being based on fear and greed, but that is really what it is.

We, as a nation, appear to have lost touch with our fundamental moral character. It is that moral character, that love of neighbor and welcoming the stranger that is the real basis for making America great again.

The reason I avoid most of the political discussions is that they seem to be arguing, in a destructive toxic manner, which response to greed and fear is best, instead of challenging the underlying dynamic.

This leads to the second article I shared yesterday.
School lunch worker quits after being forced to refuse hot meal to poor student.

The title pretty much says it all, but you should read the full story.

“As a Christian, I have an issue with this,” said Koltiska, of Canonsburg, Pa. “It’s sinful and shameful is what it is.” …

“God is love, and we should love one another and be kind,” Koltiska said. “There’s enough wealth in this world that no child should go hungry, especially in school. To me this is just wrong.”

With both of these, we return to the underlying mission, in a language that the unchurched can more easily understand. God is love. We are called to love one another. It is pretty simple and is a stark contrast to the political discourse of the day. It illustrates, I believe, very vividly, the Gospel lesson for Social Media Sunday, Luke 16:19-31 which starts

Jesus said, "There was a [well tanned] rich man who was dressed in purple and fine linen and who feasted sumptuously every day. And at his gate lay a poor man named Lazarus, covered with sores, who longed to satisfy his hunger with what fell from the rich man's table [including Skittles and cheese sandwiches]; even the dogs would come and lick his sores….

On October 23rd, the South Central Region of the Episcopal Church in Connecticut will have its Fall Convocation. (More on this coming very soon). We are asking people, “What do you bring to the table?” as we talk about how we support one another’s ministries.

Perhaps I’ll post a picture of some Skittles and a cheese sandwich from the Convocation on social media, a foretaste of that heavenly banquet where we will feast on what truly nourishes us, God’s love, a love we are called to share with one another, even, or perhaps these days, especially, online.