A Pre-Election Day Thought

Passions are hot.  Tempers are flaring.  I can see it when I scroll through my timeline.  I see it in some of the text messages and emails I get. I see it when I watch the news (both in the contents of the reporting and the tone of the reporters.)   I can sense it when people that I know love Jesus twist scripture to support a presidential candidate.

 

 

When emotions get as warm as they are in our world right now it is usually because of fear or love.  Both are at work in most of our hearts.  Many of us fear one outcome or another.  Some Christians are fearful of a loss of their religious freedoms.  Some Christians are fearful of a loss of their public witness.  Some non-christians are fearful of the loss of their rights.  Some people from all religious backgrounds are fearful of their rights as minorities. Many of all religious backgrounds are afraid that their preferred vision for America will not succeed.

Some of us love our vision for America.  Some of us love a political candidate.  Some of us love our freedoms and rights.

All of this drives us toward different outcomes this week that we either love deeply or fear terribly.  

There is a biblical command that will help us to navigate the coming weeks together well. Christians must obey it.  Non-christians may find it useful as well for the building of a more healthy society.  It is my hope that we will all be able to hear and follow this command in the coming weeks and heal some of the terrible division that threatens to cripple our society.

This command comes from the book of Romans.  The author has spent most of his letter to the Roman Church explaining what it means to be a Christian and in Chapter twelve he transitions to how we ought to live as Christians.  He offers us a few bullet points of what a Christian life looks like. In Verse 15 he writes:

“Rejoice with those who rejoice, weep with those who weep.” 

That sounds simple enough, but let’s admit that it becomes more complicated when we are also either weeping or rejoicing!

So how can we do that?

We need to acknowledge that most of our rejoicing is temporary.  In a world filled with both light and dark, it is only reasonable to expect that our victories will be short lived.  In a world of bipartisan politics, it is only reasonable to suspect that you can only count on holding power for the next few years.  You may rejoice today, but you will likely weep tomorrow.

It never feels good to weep.  So let’s not only know that our rejoicing is temporary but let’s be people who have empathy for those who weep.  Let’s understand their sorrow and sadness, even as we rejoice.

When some of us were children we were taught not to be poor winners.  Our sports teams were taught to shake hands and say “good game.”  The winning kid who stuck his tongue out at the losing team would be banned from the next game.  This was to teach sportsmanlike conduct and empathy.  Some of us have forgotten those lessons. We have gotten lost in a culture that values power more than love.  This is not the Christian way.

We need to return to a culture of empathy. 

But not only that.

Whatever may happen, we need to know that our weeping is temporary.  Christians more than others have access to a worldview that promises that we will win in the end.  The same guy who wrote Romans wrote somewhere else that we do not grieve as people who have no hope.  Some of us may fear the loss of religious freedom.  In the next generation or two it is highly unlikely that we will continue to enjoy the sort of religious freedom we have enjoyed for the past generation or two.

If that is true, we will be joining with the majority of the global church in living as minorities in a culture that we do not control.  This is a loss, it is ok to acknowledge that.  This loss is not a complete and utter devastation.  This is a way of life that will call us toward deeper faithfulness and a more powerful influence in our world.

If your guy loses this week, there will be people around you who are thrilled.  We can congratulate them that they got their way.  We can love them well even as we grieve.  And we can know that whatever the outcome of this week’s election and the next generation of Americans, Jesus still promises to make all things new.

We must return to a culture of putting the church and the kingdom of God above partisan politics.  

If we learn to have empathy, and we learn to value the kingdom above all else, this week will not devastate or elevate us more than it should.

Let’s try to rejoice with those who rejoice and weep with those who weep.  We can do so as people who love well and who have a greater vision of the world.

Good luck to all, and may the odds be ever in your favor.