"Today and Forever" (11/7/24)

My Siblings in Christ,

This has been a trying time for our country. The election results have left some joyous and others despondent and fearful. Our public discourse made the darkest parts of our human interactions painfully evident. The willingness, ease, and capacity to hurt people should unsettle our collective consciousness. Our light as a people seems somewhat diminished. There is a growing sense of bitterness and distrust—a gnawing despair in the realization that we do not know our neighbor or community.

Yet we hope when all seems hopeless.

That hope is not in institutions or governments. It stems from our true identity. While we rejoice when the values we hold dear as Christians align with those of our elected officials and despair when they do not, our identity rests in Christ. Through the ministry, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ, we have been adopted into a family that transcends earthly governments and politics. (John 1:12)

Jesus taught us true humanity and how to see it in one another.

This is not the first time our country has endured turmoil and strife, nor will it be the last. Our diocese was formed in that turbulent time, between the end of the Revolutionary War and the ratification of the Constitution. Our churches bear the names of those lost during those four-year spans of the Civil War, World War I, and World War II. We endured by knowing that while the world changes, "Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever." (Hebrews 13:8)

Our belief in this great republic and, more importantly, our faith in Jesus Christ is how we meet the coming days and years. We can either take the path of restoration or the descent of destruction. We can restore goodness, kindness, dignity, civility, and empathy. However, if we choose destruction, we lose everything we hold sacred and lose sight of Christ.

The Greek translation for the word devil is diabolos, "the slanderer," and contains two roots: "to throw apart or scatter." Our Savior Jesus is the Good Shepherd who gathers God's people and will go after the lost one. My father often said, "Any mule (he used a different word) can kick down a barn door; it takes a carpenter to build one.” We follow the shepherd and carpenter.

We have the opportunity to inspire belief and restore trust. We cannot lose hope in the goodness of humanity. If we cannot see or find it, we must become it. If anyone draws lines of division, we create ever-expanding circles of belonging. When one is in danger or cast aside, we gather God's beloved, without exception, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings. Let’s build communities of safety and self-sacrifice that nurture, protect, and comfort. Be fearless when someone is being attacked, denigrated, or dehumanized and hold ourselves accountable to God, ourselves, and one another.

Let us set our eyes on Christ and greet the day with faith so we can continue to pray. Let us ask the Holy One for the perseverance to build communities of the poor, compassionate, merciful, and loving. The tenacity to live Matthew 25 and the Sermon on the Mount. The fortitude to engage in the democratic process with goodness and truth and respect the dignity of every human being. The willingness to find our common unity instead of our differences. The resolve to be peacemakers, beacons of light, and vessels of hope. The courage to take up the crosses with our names and the names of our neighbors on them.

This is a difficult ministry, but we must go forward believing that our identity is not party, label, or ideology; our identity is Christ. "Therefore, as God's chosen people, holy and dearly loved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience." (Colossians 3:12)

Let us now engage in the ministry of restoration for all humanity and the world's nations. Earthly kingdoms will come and go; elections will be won and lost, and politicians and leaders will fade away. For there is only one who is the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end. There is only one Savior. The One who endures and will always reign: Jesus Christ. This truth assures us of God's peace, which passes all understanding.