It's Sunday morning, and our nation will choose it's next President in 2 days. I've tried to stay clear of the political nastiness that has plagued this campaign from the beginning. I am still trying to do that now, and I'm not telling anyone HOW TO vote, other than TO vote.
My concern is for the future. Regardless of which candidate emerges from this bloodbath with at least 270 electoral votes, they will be a badly wounded leader. The attacks will not abate, although their source may change and their intensity will certainly be magnified.
Both candidates have serious flaws, and one could argue convincingly that neither deserves our vote. That said, one of them will win, after which we, the American people, will be left with whatever messes remain.
Will a wounded and deeply flawed candidate be able to unite our people, end the mean-spiritedness, find a common purpose and allow us to move forward? Even the most optimistic observer would think this impossible, especially in the short term.
Who then? My vote is for Jesus and His people, His Church. I am not talking about the wolf-in-sheep clothing hypocrite politicians who pander and steep their disdain and bias in their narrow, selective interpretation of God's word. These folks have given Christianity a bad name, a name that is diametrically opposite of what our faith represents.
I mean the real Christians - the ones who, day in and day out, love one another, even their enemies. Who practice what they preach - and they spend much more time practicing than preaching. People of integrity, of humility, of kindness. of patience, of acceptance, of grace.
Christians are often defined by people who are out in public, making grand, sanctimonious judgments about those with whom they disagree. They hate the sinner, not just the sin. The invite others to do likewise, looking down on their opposition with bitter disdain.
At the end of the day, none of us is perfect. We are all sinners in some form. We have to leave the mindset that our sins are okay, while sins committed by others are punishable. That is not our job to decide.
Jesus just said for us to love one another. He didn't qualify that. There were no limitations. We can interpret His meaning to be to love everyone. And since every person is a sinner, of some sort, then we must love sinners. Their sins, whether in thought or in deed, are not for us to judge. Certainly we don't want evil to be done. Certainly, if we are in a position to help someone battle their sinfulness, we should do so. But how we do it is important. We have to love the person, regardless of the sin.
Our country and the world have deteriorated, in part because we have let the evils of disdain and disrespect along with the resulting disillusionment and disengagement to poison our unity, which ultimately is our strength.
I pray that whatever the result on Tuesday, that all of our people pull together, realize how much we have in common, and begin to work together. A house divided against itself cannot stand, and our house is surely divided. May Jesus, through his faithful people, bring us together and live out our purpose in this world. Amen