One Christian’s Reflections on The
Election and Healing
This has been a stressful week for most
Americans as well as many people from around the world. Many of us are devastated
by the results of the election and others are overjoyed. This is true in our
churches as well as in the community and nation as a whole. So how do we as
Christians in a divided nation deal with our own emotions, how do we become
part of the solution and not part of the problem? How do we become healers and not haters?
First we pray. We pray for our nation, we pray
for our leaders, we pray for the guidance, wisdom, courage and peace of the
Holy Spirit. We pray for our enemies and
our opponents and we pray that God will help us to understand and listen to
those with whom we disagree and will help them to listen to and understand us.
I am convinced that every member of our congregation voted based on their faith
in God and their comment to our baptismal vows to “seek and serve Christ in all
persons, loving our neighbor as ourselves, and striving for justice and peace
among all people, and respecting the dignity of every human being. And yet, and
yet, we did not all vote for the same person. How do we make sense of this? We
talk and we listen. We do not simply wait for our turn to speak, but we truly
listen to one another.
Then we turn to The Bible for guidance,
for the reminder that no earthly leader is our ultimate authority, that God is
above all earthly leaders; that “our help comes from the Lord, the Maker of
Heaven and Earth.”(Psalm 121)
(Isaiah 12:2-6) Surely, it is God who saves me; I will trust in him and
not be afraid. For the Lord is my stronghold and my sure defense, and he will
be my Savior. Therefore you shall draw water with rejoicing from the springs of
salvation. And on that day you shall say, Give thanks to the Lord and call upon
his Name.
When Jesus spoke to his disciples
about the destruction of the temple, they asked him: "Teacher,
when will this be, and what will be the sign that this is about to take place?"
and he responded, "Beware that you are not led astray; for many will come
in my name and say, `I am he!' and, `The time is near!' Do not go after them.”(Luke
21:5-19)
History is a constant
struggle between good and evil and sometimes it is difficult to know which is
which. Things get better then worse, worse then better and God is with us
through both the downs and the ups. Our task, our calling as Christians today,
is to show patience and endurance. As Jesus tells us, “through endurance we
will gain our lives.”(Luke 21:19)
We Christians are
called today to reflect on this election and all that lead up to it, not in
light of who won or who lost, of who is right and who is wrong, or even whether
we have witnessed the new heaven and the new Earth, or the end times, but in
light of our relationship to God and to each other, based on our prayer,
scriptures, and baptismal vows. In how we treat one another, we as God’s people
must be the leaders, not the followers. If we do not set the standard and
commit to “Do to others as you would have them
do to you"(Luke 6:31), no one else will.
So,
let’s reflect on our neighbor’s feelings as well as our own feelings: feelings
of joy, jubilation, depression, sadness, anger and loss. The President,
President Elect and Secretary Clinton all showed tremendous class last Tuesday
and Wednesday. Unfortunately some of their supporters did not. There was
destruction of property and disruption of traffic, bulling in schools and “encouragement”
for racial, ethnic and religious minorities to leave the country. Again, if God’s
people do not set a healing tone for our conversation and common life, no one will.
How do we do this,
how do we become the presence of God in the world? First, we respect the
decisions of others, even if we do not understand why they made those decisions,
and we ask them to respect our decisions even if they cannot understand why we made
them. Next, we think before we speak and act: “will what I say and do build
bridges that unite or walls that separate. And we especially
think before we type or repost anything. And we fact check, fact check, fact
check!
Going forward, we
pray, we immerse ourselves in scripture and worship and we continue to be
informed about our world and our leaders through a variety of sources, not just
those that re-affirm our pre-conceived ideas.
Then we support our
President-Elect and all our elected leaders, but we do not follow them blindly.
Who the president is does not change what Christians do. We continue to work
for justice, freedom and peace and against discrimination and oppression of all
kinds. And above all we follow our Savior, Jesus Christ as we “love the Lord
our God with all our heart, mind, soul and strength and love our neighbors as
ourselves.
