“When he heard this, he was shocked and went away grieving, for he had many possessions.”
--Mark 10:22
Dear Friends,
Happy Election Day, everyone. After many months of incessant calls and campaigning, how marvelous it was to get up this morning and offer a tangible response. And how wonderful it was to see a string of cars parked a half a mile away from my voting location, with a line of people wrapped around the building! This, I believe, is American democracy at its finest.
Earlier this morning I stood in line behind a woman who was wearing a custom made outfit that read “vote” all over her (including her mask). She was there with her daughter, who was voting for the first time. While waiting, I overheard this mother giving rather firm counsel to her son over the phone. “It doesn’t matter how long the line is” she said. “Get yourself down here. And don’t just sit here in your car, either, waiting on everyone else.” Let’s just say that I was proud to follow her lead.
Hungry as we are for a sense of direction these days, I cannot help but notice our increased desire for some sort of ‘blessed assurance.’ If we’re going to show up, or put ourselves out there, we at least want it to count for something real. With the force of anxiety having already diminished our patience and our capacity for calm, we are liable to slide into the so-called ‘tyranny of the urgent’ or the pain of ‘the immediate now.’ To be fair, it is hard to maintain perspective amidst the echoes telling you that THIS is the most important decision in history.
Even at this moment, I am glad to have a writing assignment to distract me while waiting for the election results to come in. Still, the nagging question remains… will the investment of time and effort be worth it in the end? I suspect this question can be applied to any number of situations and scenarios, but how do you begin to answer? Is it simply a matter of tallying the votes and then declaring the winners and losers? How else might we define a ‘win’? And how do we get to the Truth?
Clearly, there is a vast array of competing visions across our socio-political landscape, but the moral and ethical genius of our election process is that each voice has intrinsic value. It is good to have convictions, we say, and every person has the fundamental right to be heard. But what happens to the body when nearly half the population does not get their way? What then?
In one of the great gems from his personal journal, John Wesley had this to say on October 6, 1774 (perhaps you have seen this wisdom already in several places in recent weeks, but just in case you missed it, I gladly reference it once more).
As Wesley records his experience:
“I met those of our society who had votes in the ensuing election, and advised them
1. To vote, without fee or reward, for the person they judged most worthy
2. To speak no evil of the person they voted against, and
3. To take care their spirits were not sharpened against those that voted on the other side.”
The directive here seems simple and yet profound. Even among Christians, we know that a “sharpened spirit” can be a difficult weapon to wield appropriately. No matter how advanced the packaging may be, it is awfully hard to stay in relationship with a razor without getting cut. “Take care,” said Wesley. That is, take inventory of your own spirit before planning your address of the other.
This counsel sheds further light for me on the teachings of Jesus in the gospels. Remembering the Beatitudes, we may not always recognize how blessed it is to be poor in spirit, and yet the ability to empty oneself of personal self-will and to renounce all preconceived opinions (which includes a taming of our tongues) can sure make a difference in our life together. It certainly helps in the question of how to love God AND love neighbor.
Oh, good Lord…wouldn’t it be so much easier to just do one or the other?
In one of the most telling illustrations of this point, you may remember the story of Jesus and his conversation with the one referred to as ‘the Rich Young Man.’ In what may be the saddest passage in all of literature, this fellow missed one of the greatest opportunities in history and then walked away in complete sadness—all because “he had great possessions.” The Scripture points to the obstacle of monetary wealth in this case, but at a more fundamental level this is the story of our contemporary humanity in general.
We reject the relationship of saving grace that is offered to us, often because we have “great possessions” in the way of preconceived ideas—confidence in our judgment, and in the ideas with which we are most familiar; spiritual pride, born of academic distinction; sentimental or material attachment to institutions and organizations; habits of life that we have no desire to renounce; concern for human respect, or perhaps fear of public ridicule; or a vested interest in social acceptance or worldly honor. Red state, blue state, donkeys, elephants—we’ll all fight to hold our ideological ground—for better or worse.
As Dr. Emmet Fox wrote in his little book on the Sermon on the Mount back in 1938, “these (intractable) possessions keep us chained to the rock of suffering that is our exile from God.” Humbled as I am by this insight into my own pig-headedness, I agree wholeheartedly, and would only add that the same is true in our separation from our neighbors.
In a year in which this sense of prevailing exile has been exacerbated by the conditions of pandemic, divisive politics and natural disaster, I suspect that we have all longed for liberation in one form or another. Do you suppose we have suffered enough for now? I do. Or at least I hope so.
So what chains would we be willing to have broken for the sake of a more reconciled community? Do we trust Jesus to do this work among us? Would we settle for a peace that passes all understanding, or does the “win” have to be attributed to our own thinking and doing?
Granted, Jesus may not offer life to us under the conditions that we might have expected or preferred, but I see no reason to discontinue the journey as it is; not when you consider the glorious gift that is yet to be revealed in and through us…if we will allow it.
The call of Christ is ever before us—don’t just sit there. Get in line!
Lord God Almighty, you have made all the peoples of the earth for your glory, to serve you in freedom and in peace. Give to your people of our country a zeal for justice and the strength of forbearance, that we may use our liberty in accordance with your gracious will; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, forever and ever. Amen.
Grace to You,
Darren
