Today something died. That’s the best metaphor I have for
coming to terms with the unbelievable. When someone dies, your mind takes in
the reality long before your heart can come to terms with it. Every reminder is
like experiencing the death all over again. That’s the emotion that hits me
every time I remember that we elected Donald Trump as our next president.
Were I to think only of myself, my fear would be minimal. I
am a sixty-three-year-old white female Christian who is blessed with good
employment that provides me with superb healthcare coverage. I’m old enough to
be hopefully confident that my Social Security won’t ever be privatized. I
don’t think my voting rights will ever be questioned. And I’ve spent my
professional career in a role that was traditionally considered all male.
Yet I am afraid for my children and my grandchildren. I want
my daughter, daughters-in-law, and granddaughter to have reproductive choice. And
I want them to be respected in their workplace, valued for the gifts they have
to share and not their value on some scale of beauty. For now my sons,
daughter, and daughters-in-law have access to good healthcare coverage. But
that could easily change. And I want my children and grandchildren to be able to
enjoy the beauty of God’s world for perhaps the next century and even beyond. I
want that world to be healthy enough to sustain not only their lives but its
life as well.
Yet as a Christian I am compelled to fear for more than
myself and even my family. The well-being of all God’s children is my concern.
And so I am afraid for my Muslim brothers and sisters. I am afraid for my LGBT
brothers and sisters. I am afraid for my African-American brothers and sisters.
I’m afraid for my Hispanic brothers and sisters, especially those who may fear
they now must hide.
And I fear for our planet. Thirty-three years ago I remember
watching The Day After. That was the
decade of the 80s when many took up the call to limit or even dismantle nuclear
weapons. Those movements now seem only a faint whisper in an overconfident age.
Perhaps their time has come again.
As a Christian I will now pray daily for President-elect
Trump. My prayer will be that as he assumes the weight of this office, as he
daily faces the challenges that are now his, he will change. The Grinch thought
he understood the human heart and what brings joy. When he discovered a
different source, one that could not be stolen, his heart grew three sizes. It
is called grace and as a Christian I believe it is the most powerful force in
the world.
In my sermon for November 6th I reflected on the
prophet Haggai and his rallying cry to the returned exiles. They were facing the
daunting task of rebuilding the Temple, of restoring a dream. Take courage,
he said. Do not fear. Work for I am with you, says the Lord of hosts. Haggai told them there was
work to be done. Work that would draw them close to the God who was still there,
still working, still liberating, still redeeming no matter how foolish that
work may have appeared.
The
intention was to reaffirm faith in a God who still holds the world in His good
hands no matter the outcome of the election that was to happen two days later.
On that Sunday, I did not expect to need to hear those words for my own heart.
I did not expect our nation to choose a man whose words fill me with fear. If
the complete sermon intrigues you, it is posted on this site.
The lectionary texts for this coming Sunday
include Isaiah 65:17-25. It is God’s vision for the world. If you have never
read it, you should.
For no matter who won an election, God is still God and the world still resides
in God’s good hands.
