This was originally posted at EpinoiaCafe.com

Dear Brian McLaren,

I woke up this glorious inaugural morning-when he-who-must-not-be-named is leaving the white house, and a man who is beloved, who offers hope and change, takes his place-I woke up to your invitation to the Mobilization to End Poverty. And I was sad.

I opened the email with a tiny little spark of hope, that you would ask us to look into our hearts and find ways we better love one another. Maybe you’d ask us to take note of how we have so much more than we need, and invite us to voluntarily share it in the spirit of our Lord Jesus Christ. Maybe you’d remind us that a single moment of real human connection between two people is worth more than gold. Or maybe you’d encourage us to develop traditions like setting an extra place at the dinner table for a stranger, like befriending the scared, the lonely, the hungry and tired.

But instead, I found that I’m being invited to “hold President Obama accountable.” Apparently, it’s an event to “call the new president and members of Congress to take immediate steps to address extreme poverty.”

Is this what you think Jesus would be doing? Leading a crowd of thousands to the capital to appeal to Caesar for kindness? To hold the machine “accountable”?