Because I attended an ecumenical seminary, the memories I have from my first few weeks of school involved a great deal of categorization. Who was a Presbyterian? Who was a Methodist? Who was a former Mormon turned United Church of Christ guy? That last one is a real person. He’s an Anglican priest in Canada now. God is weird.
By and large, we sorted ourselves out and found our kind. People were accepting, affirming, and all of the other words we use in religious circles. Save for this one guy. He was there from an Anglican denomination that had broken away from the Episcopal Church. And I had been warned about him.
Based on everyone’s description, he sounded like an actual monster. He was from one of those churches that “tried to take our church from us” (always said as though the speaker personally owned the church). I was told this guy was essentially an unloving fundamentalist. He sounded scary.
So when I was leaving my Old Testament class one morning and someone pointed him out to me, I was surprised to see an actual human being staring back. Also, I learned that his name was Josh. Which is also my husband’s name. This was a real problem for the Hatred Barrier that I had firmly put in place.
Then, something terrible happened. As I was standing there staring at him, God pushed me. I am not kidding. God shoved me toward this other Josh. And then I looked and felt dumb. So I stuck out my hand and mutter-shouted, “HIMYNAMEISSARAH.” And he shook my hand. And after that initially awkward meeting, we became friends.
It is a difficult thing to live in a place where the lines of conservative and progressive/liberal are fiercely drawn. And it can be a very dangerous place to be standing in the stream of the Gospel. Sometimes it feels like a refreshing, merciful place to be. But much of the time it feels like desperately trying to ride a surf board on an ocean of rage, having never surfed before.
With the upcoming election for Senate, Texas currently feels like the epicenter of this fury. People are yelling at other drivers’ political bumper stickers and spewing opinions on to one another at every given opportunity. And the front yard has become ground zero for proclaiming which side you are on.
You do not have to guess who is for Beto or who is for Cruz. Those claims are staked right in the grass. I often drive through our neighborhood and see people on one side with a string of political signs and people on the other side in direct opposition. It feels a bit like a vitriolic silent argument.
The sinner in me cheers on the side I like. But the redeemed in me wonders if those opposing neighbors even speak to one another. And I also wonder if their relationship will weather this politically grueling moment. Or if Beto and Cruz will be their unnecessary undoing.
There is an odd morning practice that has developed in our family over this school year. Our son loves to ride the bus. Every morning at 7:14am EJMST (East Jesus in the Morning Standard Time), we walk down the block to wait with our neighbors. Our children are all of elementary age and the bus does not stop at any one specific house. We actually meet in the middle of things.
All of the children look ready for school. All of the adults look unshowered and tired. “How are y’all?” we ask one another or “We made it!” when Friday finally rolls around. It is a moment of encouragement and a time to check in with our neighbors. And it has begun to feel prayerful.
We have neighbors who do not vote the way we choose to vote. I know this because they have signs in their yard that tell me. But I cannot let that reality become a part of how I see them. Because I know how God sees them.
We talk a great deal about how, politically speaking, things are so difficult and hard right now. And that is true. But I do wonder about how our current situation reads into scripture. I wonder about how we are loved by an Unexpected God who did Unexpected Things, like supping with sinners and dying with the accused.
Primarily, I wonder about how this unexpectedness plays itself out in our own lives. Because the expected thing to do right now is to swim in righteous anger, to alienate, and to turn our neighbors into people marked as not like us. So what is the unexpected response for the Christian?
All those years ago at seminary, when God pushed me into Josh, I believe He wanted something seared into my experience: Relationships are worth more than being right. And even more than that, our emotions and righteous anger are often a way to keep true relationship at bay. Because people are all different. And relationships are hard.
When I came back my second year of seminary, I was a full six months pregnant with our first child. At my academic seminary, people did not know how to process a pregnant student. I did not see another pregnant student on campus the entire time I attended there. I did not fit into their desks. And the first person I saw when I walked onto campus that September asked me if I was pregnant or if I just had a tumor.
But not the guy I was told to be weary of, ‘Anglican Josh.’ The guy I was told was too conservative to talk to. Not him. The first time I encountered him that fall semester, he saw me across campus, rushed over, and put his hands out towards me. And with great love and joy in his eyes, he said, “Can I please pray for you and your baby?”
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13 responses to “On the Upcoming Election: The Unexpected God Who Pushes Us Towards One Another”
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I don’t know, Sarah. I also believe that God calls us to love everyone, but to suggest that the person enabling white nationalism should be loved in the exact same way as the person whose life is threatened by that white nationalism doesn’t really square with Christ’s life. Love to the former might look like some hard truth telling while love to the latter is protection. We aren’t protecting the vulnerable if we enable their persecutors or just throw up our hands and proclaim “Well, God loves you both!”
Hi Maggie, I hear you. I’m just not sure that individually dividing my neighbors is going to help anything. I’ve seen people try their hand at those kinds of conversations/conflicts. It just drives people more deeply into their “side.”
This is not to say “do nothing.” But a sign in my yard or a one sided conversation with a neighbor is what I keep seeing in my own context. And it keeps not working.
Also, the uncomfortable truth of Christianity is that God does love us all.
I don’t know, Sarah. I also believe that God calls us to love everyone, but to suggest that the person enabling abortion should be loved in the exact same way as the person whose life is threatened by abortion doesn’t really square with Christ’s life. Love to the former might look like some hard truth telling while love to the latter is protection. We aren’t protecting the vulnerable if we enable their persecutors or just throw up our hands and proclaim “Well, God loves you both!”
I think this proves your point Sarah. Same statement yet substitute a different issue (side) which I’m sure in me doing so will beget a rage that says it’s not the same, but it’s the point of your article. We need an unexpected God and His unexpected love. The question is not how can God love a white nationalist or how can he love an abortionist the real question is how can God love me? Does this mean we remain silent and not speak truth on the issues that God has given us passion for and God himself has a passion for? No, but It does shape our passions with the uncomfortable truth of Christianity that God does love us all. That is Good News!
Amen.
An amen from me as well Brad. You see to the heart of the issue and have shared that in a succinct way!
It just seems like you and others below are using that uncomfortable truth to get, well, comfortable. In fact, it’s more comforting to think God loves us all just the way we are than to see ourselves called to act. You don’t say you are using the relationships you are preserving to speak up for the oppressed in other ways, and maybe you are, but I don’t read it here. I think the issue for me comes down to how do you think God wants the Church to behave if we’re on our way to another ethnic cleansing, this time in our own country, right in front of our faces? Getting uncomfortable at the bus stop seems like the least those of us with privilege could do when Christ calls us over and over to give aid and comfort to the oppressed.
Hey Sarah! Glad to hear you believe relationships are more important than being right because I would not have a single friend if I had to be right. Another great post, Sarah! Well timed as well. I can’t wait to hear you preach!
Hi Sarah, I find it very comforting to know that God loves us all. Because I know I don’t deserve it but am so grateful for His love. And, no matter who wins or who does not win an election – God’s love will not fail. Sarah, thanks for posting this as it is a great reminder of how our judgement of others can cause us to lose out on knowing someone special.
But a sign in my yard or a one sided conversation with a neighbor is what I keep seeing in my own context. And it keeps not working.
Maybe a HUGE sign would work. I don”t know how big they are in Texas, but the way things are going here in Virginia, they’ll be the size of billboards in 2020!
I appreciate you tilting at this windmill, Sarah. And the comments here show how hard it is to do in a noncontroversial way. It’s easy just to write another blog on “my personal low anthropology moment of the week” and have everyone nod in agreement. But if the Gospel is going to mean anything important in this time and age it is going to have to speak to this issue of our political affiliations and church wars.
That’s why I keep hammering this issue. It’s one thing to disavow “fundamentalist beliefs” whatever that phrase means to you. But it’s a whole different thing to actually stop thinking like a fundamentalist. Your Yale classmates demonstrated this well as do the comments above. The notion that we must attack those we think are hurting the vulnerable or “our Church” in order to protect those things is about the most fundamentalist thing a person can think. And it is the opposite of what Jesus did.
The truth is that on the final day my stack of errors and harm done to the poor and marginalized are going to be just as high as the person I’m fighting to stop right now. That doesn’t mean I don’t make my case in the public square, but it does mean I enter the arena of ideas covered in Jesus works not my right ideas. And I see everyone else there is the same.
The fundamentalist in each one of us secures their identities in their right beliefs but the Gospel frees us to enter into spirited debates on political matters where our identities and the identities of our opponents are secure in Christ’s work for us. If that were to happen we would quickly see that Christ doesn’t only protect the people we think are vulnerable. He’s protecting all of us because he sees all of us as vulnerable. Even the one we are attacking.
Great piece, fellow YDS alum! I feel Maggie is on to something. God does love us all just the way we are AND we are called to act. You can be chaplain to the empire or a prophetic voice. Nov. 6 is the time for choosing. VOTE.
That poster of “Lyin’ Ted” is priceless! “Texas” is a “thing” and it transcends all political and religious divisions. And on that score we may need a bit of perspective on this election and our current “divided” country…things were not exactly chummy between the followers of Jefferson and Hamilton, Jackson and Adams, Roosevelt and his critics, Nixon and the entire universe, and on and on. So let’s all take a deep breath and…shout each other down on the internet 🙂
And, sadly, when it comes to politicians all has been reduced to soundbites and sweeping portrayals (often black and white, as it were, no pun intended) of what a person running for office is for or against. Consequently, we are only reacting to very strong labels, and attributing such strong labels to those with signs in their yard. All the more reason to get pushed all together and see that we are more than labels and soundbites.