Happy Are Those Whose Hope Is in The Lord
It’s been a long week, a stressful week, a week of emotional highs and lows. I think many people have a kind of election hangover. 74 million Americans are happy, even thrilled that Donald Trump won the election. At the same time, 70 million Americans are heartbroken and despondent that Kamala Harris lost. And yet, as I said in my homily the day after the election, as different from one another as these people may be, we should not lose sight of the fact that the vast majority of folks on both sides of the aisle are good people, ordinary people, people like you and me – people who love their families, people who work hard, people who want safety and security and a slice of the American dream. The truth is, we have much more in common with each other than we do differences and like it or not, we are all bound together by our common humanity. As painful as it may be at this raw moment for some people to hear, in the end, there is no us and them, there is only us. And some of us may need to write this down on a piece of paper and tape it to our mirrors as a daily reminder – there is only us.
I know there will be serious consequences because of this election, some I pray will be good and some I worry may be quite dangerous, but I am trying to keep my perspective. Did you hear the Psalmist for today? (By the way, you know I didn’t pick these lessons. In our church tradition we all use the same lectionary, we are given the same assigned lessons every Sunday so that churches all over the country are preaching on the same texts.) In this sense, I consider our Psalm this morning to be a bit of grace and a wake up call. “Put not your trust in rulers, nor in any child of earth, for there is no help in them” the psalmist says. “When they breathe their last, they return to earth, and in that day their thoughts perish. Happy are they who have the God of Jacob for their help! whose hope is in the LORD their God.” The Psalmist speaks the truth. We should not forget that there is no politician that is going to save us, no party, no political platform. I know many people are upset today while some are quite happy – but the psalmist reminds us to lift up our heads and expand our horizons beyond the results of November 5, to lift our heads up and look beyond the fleeting nature of politics, to place our hope on God and God’s promises, and keep our allegiances where they belong.
In our lessons for today we hear about two widows who gave all that they had to honor God. Now, we must remember that Widows in ancient Palestine had few if any legal rights. They could not inherit from their spouses and so if their husbands died, they were totally dependent on the charity of their extended families or the pity of others. Moreover, the fact that they were widows was often seen as God’s punishment for the sin of their families.
The widow of Zarephath had almost nothing, just enough oil and meal to cook up one last piece of fry bread. She knew that after this was gone, she and her son would starve to death. But when Elijah commanded her to give him some of her bread, she trusted him enough to obey. As a result, everyone got something to eat and there was enough left over to feed the woman and her son for many days. In our reading from Mark, Jesus praised the generosity of a widow. Her two small coins placed in the Temple treasury meant more than any of the others because she had so little but wanted so badly to be faithful.
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 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; good measure, pressed down, shaken together, running over, will be put into your lap. For the measure you give will be the measure you receive.”
Friends, some of us may feel as frail and frightened today as those widows and wonder what we are 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. As Brene Brown wrote the other day, “Right now, the thing that is helping the most is micro-dosing hope. I have no access to big hope right now; however, I am asking myself how I can support the people around me. The people on my team, in my community. How can I make sure that, in the maelstrom of my emotions, I stay committed to courage, kindness, and caring for others regardless of the choices made by others? Doing the smallest next right thing is hard, but sometimes it’s all we’ve got.”
The other day a friend came to me concerned that he and his father might be at a breaking point. They were both on radically different ends of the political spectrum and they could agree on nothing. My friend was frustrated and disappointed with his dad and wanted to know what more he could do if anything. I asked him if they had ever sat down and tried to talk things out. He said they had on numerous occasions, and it had gotten them nowhere, it only strained their relationship more. I asked him if he thought there was anything he could say or do that would change his father’s mind. With deep sadness in his eyes, my friend said no, his father wasn’t going to change. Then just love him, I said. Just love him in spite of himself. Do everything you can to hold onto him and your relationship. Give him what you can of yourself and even though it may seem like a widow’s mite, right now the love of a son for a father is enough. God can do amazing things when we try and love.
In closing, there is another part of our Psalm today that we cannot forget. “Who gives justice to those who are oppressed,” the Psalmist writes, “and food to those who hunger. The Lord sets the prisoners free; the Lord opens the eyes of the blind; the Lord lifts up those who are bowed down; The Lord loves the righteous; the Lord cares for the stranger; he sustains the orphan and widow, but frustrates the way of the wicked.
In the days ahead, while we work to hold onto one another, giving what we can to heal our divisions, striving to love our neighbor, striving to love our enemies, we must at the same time stand up for the values of the cross, the values of the Kingdom. As the baptized, we are supposed to be the body of Christ, to do Christ’s work in the world. That means we have a responsibility to stand up for the weak, to care for the poor, to push back against racism, sexism, homophobia, and demonization of the stranger. That means speaking out against bad policy, hateful rhetoric, and any attempt to distort the truth. These things are not party, they are Gospel values. They are not left or right, Democrat or Republican – they are God’s commands.
We have our marching orders. If we call ourselves Christians then regardless of who sits in the White House, our work is the same – to love God, to love our neighbor, to be bearers of the Good News and to be the hands and feet of Christ in the world.
We have our work cut out for us. Amen.