Isaiah 65: 21,23,24; Luke 21:6

From despondency to hope

I have always respected the law in this country of separation of church and state.  Pastors are not supposed to endorse political candidates.   However, pastors are supposed to comment on moral issues even when they pertain to political leaders, from the perspective of their faith.  Eighteen years ago from this same pulpit I spoke of the behavior of President Clinton and you know very well how I feel about America’s idolatry of guns.  We can talk about the moral issues of climate change and health care for the poor another time from a Biblical perspective.  What is going on now is much deeper and it has to do with what this little church in its diversity is all about.  Nextchurch, a Presbyterian Church organization organized  a national call in for pastors three days ago about how they should preach this Sunday.  I have never seen that before. The United Church of Christ in Honolulu has counselors standing by for after this election.  Some of you, specifically women, have reached out to me in need of healing.  I don’t think they can put their finger on it but I am coming to the realization that it is about a sense of feeling violated.  It is about a sense that we got where we are now through an appeal to the darkest reaches of the human psyche.  I have seen you through five previous Presidential elections, but in all those, whether they were victories by a Democrat or a Republican the candidates, although critical, always fundamentally appealed to our better angels.   Not this time. That part is harder to heal and can only be done through conciliation and contrition on the part of the ones who have perpetrated it.  More important, the decision of so many Christian leaders to overlook such manipulative appeals to the dark forces of racism, objectification and hatred of women and ridicule of the weak raises a moral crisis that, if not addressed, can only hasten the decline of the Church in this country.  When Christians become complicit in this, as they have so often in history, the sacred is violated.  When well meaning people in this country and around the world see devout Christians excuse such behavior with reference to one or two policy choices, it reverberates through time.  I think of all the nations the Germans, who are led by a Lutheran pastor’s daughter and a Lutheran pastor, are most horrified. They have seen this before and have paid the moral price for it and we see it again in Europe too: Nigel Farage in Britain, Marine Le Pen in France and Geert Wilders in Holland to name a few.  People who abuse democracy to put people down, but then despise the right of others to speak out.  It still exists in Germany too of course, but one Dutch newspaper wrote a few days ago: “New York is now no longer the model for democracy, Berlin is.”  Can you believe that?

Luke in the twenty-first chapter speaks of the no stone being left on top of another. He writes his gospel from the understanding of the destruction of the Second Temple, a temple that to this day has not been rebuilt.   Isaiah writes of a time of hope, a time of prosperity in beautiful words: They shall build houses and inhabit them; they shall plant vineyards and eat their fruit. They shall not labor in vain, or bear children for calamity; for they shall be offspring, blessed by the Lord and their descendants as well.  Before they call I will answer, while they are yet speaking, I will hear.”  Many of you today are thinking of strewn and broken stones rather than of hope, but I think that is a mistake.  It is time to act hopefully, not to undo an election or answer anger with anger, but to work for what you believe in.  If the current president can welcome with dignity his successor who is about to undo everything he has worked for in eight years, then we can act passionately for kindness and acceptance and diversity.  In between all your hard fundraiser work and the fun social gatherings that is what this little church has been all about during the last twenty years: to be compassionate and inclusive.  We have not been perfect but we never stopped trying.  People like you are the antidote for the hatred we have seen and heard and for what is to come.

Friends, I know you, I know what a number of you have seen in your lifetimes, the deepest darkness of the human soul.   Go to work with new energy and commitment.  If you are not happy with what happened and I assume that is most of you, then act and speak and volunteer and donate, but do so in kindness not in anger.   Conquer darkness with light, not with more darkness. That is the message of the Gospel.  And perhaps you should pray that this new leader whatever you think of him will be so awed by the weight of his office that he discovers something noble and contrite and humble inside of himself that will render him more fit to govern all the people in the time he has.  Let me close with the lines from the movie Norma Rae:” “It goes like it goes:””And so it goes like the river flows and time it rolls right on and maybe what’s good gets a little bit better and maybe what’s bad gets gone.”  May God guide and help us all.