A Psalm for Grieving Voters

I've been hearing from a lot of people this week who are feeling disappointed, betrayed, and angry. Those feelings come from a lot of different places, but they coalesce around the election of a convicted felon, a man who lobs words like weapons of mass destruction into riled-up crowds, and then pretends to have no responsibility for the outcome. Some are afraid for our democracy, because of the things he's said about "enemies" within and his apparent disdain for the limits of Presidential power, not to mention his unwillingness to give it up. Some are angry because of the awful words he's casually spoken, or sanctioned with his silence, about women, people of color, and immigrants. Some are horrified at the allegations of (and at least one finding of liability for) sexual assault. No President is perfect, every one of them has made mistakes. But it is hard to imagine that we've ever elected one when we knew so thoroughly who we were electing and what he intended to do once in office.

     I say all that not to blame anyone for their vote. Only to say that the feelings of those who are grieving and angry are valid and legitimate.

     So I want to tell you that if you're feeling disappointed, betrayed, and angry, you have a place here. Some of us know exactly what you're feeling. Some of us, maybe, can't know exactly -- but we care that you're feeling it. Those feelings do not make you unpatriotic -- sometimes the most patriotic thing we can do is hold our country to a higher standard. They are neither sins you need to repent of, nor character flaws you need to fix. They are legitimate, and they matter.

      Please hear me when I say that you do not have to pretend you're OK to have a place here. We want to be a community
where you can process those feelings. Where you can just sit with them, if you want. 

     If it makes your skin crawl when someone quotes 1 Timothy, where we're told we should pray for those in power, if you're not ready to even think about that yet, I promise, some of us get it. 

And all of us -- including those who might feel better about how the election went -- will give you the space you need to mourn, and hurt, and work out how to carry on.

     We're going to read together this Sunday from Psalm 146:

"Do not put your trust in princes, in human beings, who cannot save...Blessed are those whose help is the God of Jacob, whose hope is in the LORD their God."

And we'll be reminded that we are a community not because we agree on who is most qualified to be President, but because we believe in God, our Father, who is "faithful forever." In his Son, Jesus. We're a community because we're inhabited by his Spirit. And we'll remind each other that our work is not to seek power and privilege in aligning ourselves with the ruling party, but to be a countercultural people who are busy doing God's work of serving the powerless in our world:

"He upholds the cause of the oppressed

     and gives food to the hungry.

The LORD sets prisoners free,

the LORD gives sight to the blind,

the LORD lifts up those who are bowed down,

the LORD loves the righteous.

The LORD watches over the foreigner

     and sustains the fatherless and the widow,

          but he frustrates the ways of the wicked."

Please know that you have a place with us. Please know that, however you're feeling since election day, you're loved and appreciated, and you're an essential part of what God is doing in our neighborhood, our city, in our country, in the world.