Context is key
Well, here we are. Another election behind us, an unknown future ahead of us. A two-toned map of our country and accompanying statistics declaring a story—and an important one—about who we are as a nation. It’s a reality we are all called to sit with, whomever we voted for, and however we feel about the outcome.
At the same time, as people who look to scripture for guidance and insight, we find that we are not always people of a single story. Both the people of Israel and the early church were embattled from without and within. Interpretations of those struggles ran the gamut: it’s God’s will and our just deserts, or, it’s a sign we’re on the right track—a faithful remnant when all seems lost. Likewise, prosperity and victory in scripture are met with differing interpretations: it’s a sign of God’s blessing and favor, or (ask just about any Hebrew prophet), it’s a sign that we’re not paying attention to the vulnerable, on whose backs that prosperity came to be.
Yesterday, during our 8-hour prayer vigil, I heard some of you share nuances to the story of victory and defeat plastered across every news source this morning. The divisions that cut through our family and friend circles have in some cases proven—to this point—irreparable. But, in other cases, they have led to deeper conversation and knowledge of one another. I stand in awe of those of you bold enough to keep these difficult conversations going, while many of us—myself included—are more apt to let differences slide for the sake of relationship.
Context is key. Figuring out how we respond to the election; to our family members and friends; to policy changes past, present, and future; will take deep wisdom and listening. But we can also choose whom we will listen to as we discern next steps. We can choose the lenses we don as we look out into our community, state, and world. We can choose to seek love, peace and a common life of trust, or we can make alternative choices. With whatever pastoral authority I have, I implore us to seek the former, as difficult as that may be.
Quaker author Parker Palmer, who in 2011 wrote the book Healing the Heart of Democracy, did a recent interview with Kate Bowler on her podcast Everything Happens. He said this:
“One thing I absolutely refuse to do as a human being… [is] succumb to the politics of divide and conquer. I refuse to listen to those noxious voices from on high who are telling me, ‘look, distrust that person, distrust that person, hate that person. That person’s up to no good.’ That’s B.S. And it’s an ancient political strategy designed to disempower me from citizenship, because if I can no longer have a network of trust among those… I walk out the door and meet, I can’t be a citizen of this democracy.”
It is my prayer, as we walk through this time, that we similarly refuse to succumb to the forces that would take us further away from our neighbors. It’s ok to start small, and it’s also ok not to start today. But—like it or not—we are bound together. May God help us as we journey into what’s next.
