I write this as we prepare for Election Day and the aftermath of a presidential election. I expect the election is all we will be talking about for the next few weeks. I find wisdom in contributing to the conversation prior to knowing the outcome of the election.
In my fairytale imagination, the anxiety many of us felt over politics disappeared with the relentless run of political ads. The outcome of the election was undeniable and resulted in a quick concession speech. As a result, in the week after the election, our nation united behind our next president, whomever it is. As I said, my fairytale imagination.
In my honest imagination, I wonder how long we will wait after Election Day to learn the results and how rigorously those results will be challenged and discredited. I worry about how long we will live under the threat of political violence and how we will respond if and when political violence occurs. On this side of Election Day, I pray for the safety of poll workers and those who certify elections. I pray that the vote will not in any way be suppressed. I pray for a peaceful transition of power. Mostly I look to God for help because I am afraid of what this election will reveal about us as a nation.
I find hope in an image that Pastor Zachariah Shipman of University Lutheran Church in East Lansing offered his congregation. Picture a blue donkey on the left and a red elephant on the right. Above them reigns a white lamb. The message is clear. On the day after the election, as on the day before, God is still God. Jesus loves and reigns in the world. The Holy Spirit is at work among us and in our country.
In the weeks after the election, perhaps more than anything else, we need Jesus to save us from division. We are divided in our politics. We are divided over what constitutes the truth. Common ground appears impossible to find; compromise is regarded as anathema. Polarization and tribalism are the norm. We have lost our ability and our appetite to overcome our division.
Jesus gives us a new identity we can embrace, a future we can live into, and power to do both. Jesus unites us as God’s children: “There is no longer Jew or Greek, there is no longer slave or free, there is no longer male and female; for all of you are one in Christ Jesus” (Galatians 3:28). Christ empowers us to strive to overcome rather than contribute to division by claiming this identity for ourselves and regarding others, first and foremost, as also one with us in Christ. We regard no one from a human point of view. For “if anyone is in Christ, there is a new creation: everything old has passed away; see, everything has become new! All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ, and has given us the ministry of reconciliation; that is, in Christ God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and entrusting the message of reconciliation to us” (2 Corinthians 5:16–19).
This is not a fairytale. This is the gospel, the good news our nation needs the church to bring today. As children of God and disciples of the Lord Jesus who are empowered by the Holy Spirit, our vocation is to hang onto this hope and to share this hope with others. By virtue of our baptism into Christ’s death and resurrection, we are to be both a “prophetic presence” and a “reconciling and healing presence” in the world, both denouncing sin and mediating conflicts to serve the common good (Church in Society, pp. 3-4). We are to take up and participate in the essential work of repairing a divided nation, work that is just beginning. We are to remain steadfast in pursuing God’s call to care for others and be united in Christ.
But for today, perhaps the best we can do is to heed words of Jesus: “Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled, and do not let them be afraid” (John 14:27). We can be of strong heart and good courage because, no matter who wins in the battle of the elephant and the donkey, the lamb will forever reign.
With you in Christ,
The Rev. Craig Alan Satterlee, Ph.D., Bishop