Words, Words, Words.

Words have meaning, sure that's a pretty obvious statement, but in light of all that has been going in the last week plus it bears repeating.

Last week I posted about my feelings on the election, about the bulk of evangelical church leaders support of the President Elect, the knowledge that my personal journey of faith and just daily life has pushed me away from the way an evangelical is supposed to think and act, and in some ways has placed road blocks and wedges between people who knew me when...

Words are easy, especially today when those words can be posted from a distance without any dialog.  When we read words we assign them meaning not just based on definition but on a set of filters we have picked up over our lifetime.  When I read I hear words and sentences if that makes sense.  I put emotion and inflection, or at least my brain does, into what I am reading.  This is problematic because I am almost certain that I get the intention wrong at least 90 percent of the time.

But words matter just like actions matter.   When I look at what is happening, at who is being appointed to important positions and at the actions of a group of people who everyone knew existed but that had been relegated to silence.  There will always be bigotry in the world because humans are flawed.  Still as Christ followers we're supposed to remember that being in the world is necessary but living differently is not just some sort of suggestion.  It's a command from the one we claim to follow.

Here is where I get frustrated.  In every movement there are extreme individuals.  People who the vast majority of people wish would just not open their mouth.  Those individuals are useful in some ways, they represent numbers and numbers are always good to have, but then many of us hope that they will slink off to obscurity again once the initial goal is achieved. I know there are people who voted for the president-elect that are loving, caring thoughtful individuals, they don't look down on people, they don't and never would say some of the things that are being said with increasing regularity.  They probably hope that the alt right will just slink back to that rock it crawled out from under and disappear for at least another two years and if they have their way another four.  The thing is it's not happening, the alt right is not crawling anywhere and with the appointment of Steve Bannon it seems that the new administration is perfectly fine with that.  Words matter and Trumps words have birthed a fear in a large group of people in this country, I place myself with that group. But that's not all that those words have done,  they have emboldened this group of people so much that they not only aren't crawling back under the rock, but are willing to pick those rocks up and start throwing them, and through it all the evangelical movement, specifically its leaders seem to remain silent, it's not enough to call for prayer, it's not enough to have a rally where the answer is to pray for our country and leadership to somehow get back to God.  The church should have already been praying, it's time to be Hands and Feet extended to the whosoever's, which makes this next paragraph so hard to write.

As much as I wish it were not so, President Elect Trump is a reality.  I am completely down with protests.  I think that they offer an opportunity, when done peacefully, to show where we stand in tangible ways, but words matter, and no matter how much it pains us to admit it.  We have a President Elect.  Democrats have said not my president when it was George W B, Republicans said not my president when it was Barak O, and now Democrats are again saying not my president when it's Donald T.  Not My Choice seems more accurate.  I know it's not as catchy a slogan, but it is non-the-less true.  Protest but do so in such a way that the people's attention you are trying to get are pushed to confront the reality of what is now happening, forced to face the fact that the racism, misogyny, and bigotry that they want to claim is just a fringe part of their choice is not as fringe as they thought or wanted to admit.

When I say not my choice it places the onus on the ones who voted for the President Elect to deal with the choice they made, or should in theory.  When I say not my choice I am reminding people who I get a chance to choose again in two years for the House and Senate, and in four years for the White House.  When I say not my choice I also begin to realize the responsibility I have to stand up for and with people who will be effected in the next four years but also who are feeling the fear and effects of what is happening right now, and finally when I say not my choice, I am faced with the reality that I have the choice to pray, every day, for the leadership of our country, not the way I want to pray, but the way Paul told Timothy to pray for them.

“I urge you, first of all, to pray for all people. Ask God to help them; intercede on their behalf, and give thanks for them. Pray this way for kings and all who are in authority so that we can live peaceful and quiet lives marked by godliness and dignity.”
(1 Timothy 2:1–2 NLT-SE)

What strikes me in this scripture is that we are not necessarily praying for conversion here.  We are to pray for God to help them.  I have to say that's not something that I really want to do right now.  I want to pray that the incoming administration implodes, that they fail to enact a single policy measure that they ran on.  I want to pray that the Senate Majority leader fails, that The speaker of the house falls apart.  I want to pray imprecatory prayers, but that's not what I'm supposed to do.

I'm supposed to pray for my leaders and ask God to Help them, but more than that I'm supposed to Give thanks for them.  I don't want to, but living like Christ necessitates my daily doing something that no one in their right mind would want to do.  Take up a cross and follow him.

What makes this all so hard is the realization that I must pray for help and guidance for the president-elect, and stand with the people who are out there protesting, working with them, loving them where they are, and pushing the importance of the issues that face us all.

Our country is more divided than ever, and I don't see that changing any time soon.  I have come to a realization though,  healing the divide isn't nearly as important as living out the faith I have been called to.  So I'll be doing a lot of praying, and a lot of standing up for the people who are afraid and stand to lose the most.  I'll be doing a lot of praying for leaders and standing against the policies they will attempt to make that go against the mandate to bring the love and Light of Christ to "WHOSOEVER."

 

The other post…

I have another post…it’s a really good one too, it’s almost done.  I’ve been working on it for a few days.  There’s a really cool picture in that post from our trip to Fright Fest.  I talk about relevant things in that post. Frustrations with life at the moment, worries about things that are coming, annoyance with people who claim Christianity.  It’s a good post.  I’ll finish it up and post it…it’s a good post.

This isn’t that almost finished post though. You’ve probably already figured that out.

I don’t sleep a lot any more.  Life has been handing us a lot to deal with.  Everyone knows that.  So when I have an excuse not to sleep it makes things better, I can tell myself that I’m not sleeping for a good reason, instead of because of the concern and worry that plagues me. Anyway Tuesday night I was awake because I was concerned about the election.  To be clear I didn’t start out that way, and while I didn’t think it was a complete lock, I was pretty sure that the American people had the keys and were heading to the door…then I popped over to the news and saw the map and realized that not only were we on the edge of the rabbit hole, but that darn rabbit was behind us about to give us a push.

My heart sank when they called state after state for Trump.  There would be one brief moment when sanity seemed to be prevailing, and then again it started to happen with Trump being given state after state.  To make matters worse Republicans retained the Capitol building.  Promising that the next four years have the potential to be terrifying.  Health care will be rocked, common sense regulation abandoned, and another attempt at trickle down economics, a failed concept over and over and over.

More than anything I couldn’t stomach the fact that a man who in 1992 talked to a 10 year old girl and then told people he would be dating her in 10 years was actually going to be sitting in the Oval Office.  I have a 10 year old daughter, in fact I have three daughters, three daughters that have to live in a country that has decided for whatever reason to give a sexual predator the most important desk in the land.

So many of my old evangelical friends have some strange notion that America equals Israel.  That our country is in some way a New Testament substitute for the Old Testament Israelites, except that it’s not true, but for arguments sake lets say they are right (for the record they are not!)  The conventional godspeak that they use is the idea that God set this whole thing up, and while I don’t believe last nights results took God at all by surprise, (part of that whole omniscience thing) Lets apply a concept from the Children of Israel…They decided that they wanted a king, even though they were not supposed to.  They put up a big fuss and told Samuel they wanted a king. Samuel told God, Samuel was frustrated, he understood what was coming, understood what would happen, he could see what was coming even before the whole king thing happened.  He was offended for God, and told God so, then God said this…



Several months ago, the religious right anointed Donald Trump as their chosen King.  People like James Dobson, and Jerry Falwell Jr. and Franklin Graham have asked for their King, and have encouraged their followers to do the same.  Well they have the King they asked for…One only need look at what happened to the Children of Israel when God gave them their king. It wasn’t what they were supposed to have, it wasn’t the best thing for them, but they didn’t much care about that, they wanted what they wanted…

Will the world keep turning?  Of course.  Will we make it through the next four years?  I would like us to, but I’m really not sure.  I know that I have friends that are afraid, we minister to Syrian refugee families that are going to be terrified.  Joyce has students at school that are worried. But none of that matters right, because we have a guy who promised to repeal healthcare, stand up for the right to own guns, build a wall keeping people out…(do we realize that walls also keep us in?)  A guy who consistently disparages entire people groups, looks at women as less than men, and is down with torture, and using nuclear weapons if we need to…

They have their King…

As a person that follows Christ I have this mandate to share the Gospel with people, not some people, not a few people, not people who I understand and am comfortable with, just people.  If I get the chance to do so with words that's fine, but more and more I am convinced that the gospel is shared through living like Christ.  I used to say acting like Christ but more and more I realize that acting is not the same thing as living.

What I have been noticing through this whole election and again in the outcome is the massive disconnect of many people who claim Christ and want to live like him and the desire to somehow bring back a time that they thought was better.  Having lived through some of those times I just am amazed, and sad, mostly sad.  Progressive, Christians are shaking our heads and wondering how our more conservative counterparts can possibly impart to the president elect faith in Christ simply because he scratched their ears on everything from abortion and marriage equality to climate change and a conservative supreme court.  Yes my person lost, but to be clear, he wasn't even on the ticket and so I shifted my vote, and that person too lost.  I have an opportunity, I can complain and blame and do all the things that this piece seems to do, or I can live like Christ.  I can realize that now more than ever the church is going to have to stand in the gap for people, now more than ever we as a group of Christ Followers are going to have to live and move and have our being in the one we claim to follow, we are going to have to take care of the people that for the most part we may have been tolerating or giving cursory attention to, allowing the state to pick up the slack, legislators to pass the rules, non-profits to meet the needs.  Now more than ever we as a Church, a church as a whole, conservative and progressive is going to have to be Jesus to the world around us.  We may get the chance to use our words, but our actions are really all that will matter.