From the Pulpit: There Is Only ‘Us’

Surveying the nation after an election where emotions ran high and feelings are raw, Dean Randy Hollerith has a reminder: There is no us or them; there is only us.

Preaching from the Gospel lesson about the poor widows who gave all they had to God, Dean Randy said there’s a lesson for America in 2024:

My friends, these two stories are not ultimately about giving food or giving money; they are about trust. They are about the trust these two widows had in God’s love and in God’s grace. They trusted God enough to know that even in their desperate situation, if they gave what they had, God would not leave them desolate.

As Jesus said to his disciples, “give and it will be given to you. … For the measure you give will be the measure you receive.”

I know some of us may feel as frail and frightened today as those widows and wonder, what are we to do in the days and weeks ahead? Well, I think that like the widows we are to give, we are to trust that God is doing more than we could ask for or imagine, and we are to give what we can of ourselves to love our neighbor, to love our enemies, to hold us together as a nation. Because again, there is no us and them. There is only us.

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If we call ourselves Christians, then regardless of who sits in the White House, our work is the same: To love God, to love neighbor, to be bearers of the good news and to stand tall and proud as the hands and feet of Christ in the world. We have our work cut out for us.