I have been at a loss as to how to respond to the events of this week. I feel as if I have been somehow propelled into a dystopian nightmare of alternative reality, where evil is paraded as good and lies are told as “alternative facts”. I have had to go back to my purpose for this blog, and begin from there, how do we live as Christians in this world?

We live as Christians in this as in any time by living into the Kingdom of God. This is not just saying we’re Christian, or repeating some specific prayer, and expecting to go to heaven. The Kingdom of God is now. In Mark 1:14 – 15, Jesus came into Galilee, proclaiming, “The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God has come near; repent and believe the good news.” And in Luke 4, Jesus returned to Nazareth and went to the synagogue, where he read from the scroll of Isaiah, “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to bring good news to the poor. Has sent me to proclaim release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.” He then said to those gathered there, “Today, this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.” When Jesus speaks of the Kingdom, he is not talking about going to heaven when you die! He is giving us the wonderful news that we can live into the Kingdom here and now!

What does it look like to live into the Kingdom of God, taking that to our time and place? It looks like Jesus said when he read from Isaiah, bringing good news to the poor – not further oppressing those with little, but caring for them, providing food for the hungry, a fair wage for the worker, health care for each one, education for children! It looks like release to the captives, letting the oppressed go free — respecting each person, man or woman or child regardless of skin color, culture, national origin, sexual orientation, gender, or religion – welcoming the stranger, the refugee who has already lost everything. It does not look like blocking the entry of refugees and immigrants to our country so that we might have more profit, might, in our ignorance, feel safer. (No refugee or immigrant has committed an act of terror since 9/11, but people born here have.) It is loving our neighbor!

What living into the Kingdom does not look like are the edicts signed in the past 8 days! It is not blocking all Muslims from our shores, holding them indefinitely in our airports. It is not building walls. It is not insulting our neighbors. It is not fighting and lying about numbers. It is not canceling programs that benefit the poor and the disadvantaged and those who have been oppressed for generations. It is not sacrificing our environment, God’s beautiful creation, on the altar of greed, then telling people not to talk about it! If you think these things are just fine, I weep for you, for your God is not my God. My God loves you, and all these others who have been hurt by this week’s actions.  Jesus said, “For God so loved the world.” (John 3:16, just a portion)

A car in my neighborhood has a bumper sticker that says, “Jesus loves you, but I’m his favorite.” That the car also boasts a Trump sticker is not surprising. I imagine this person  means well, even thinks he is evangelizing because he has the name of Jesus on his car. But people who are not religious would be turned away, thinking that Christians are arrogant, ethnocentric, and selfish.

Some believe that wealth is a sign of God’s favor. You can see the “prosperity gospel” preached on TV and in some mega-churches, and two “prosperity gospel” preachers were invited to speak at Mr. Trump’s inauguration. You can  find support for it in certain Old Testament biblical passages . “Praise the LORD! Happy are those who fear the LORD, who greatly delight in his commandments. Their descendants will be mighty in the land; the generation of the upright will be blessed. Wealth and riches are in their houses –.” (Psalm 112:1-3a) This would seem to support the idea that God blesses people with wealth, but read on and you will find that these people are also generous to the poor, merciful, just, and faithful. It is more that the wealthy have a responsibility than that they are favored.

More commonly scripture reveals that God’s favor goes to the poor, the stranger, and the outcasts. The prophets warned Israel and Judah of a loss of God’s favor due to their worship of idols and mistreatment of the poor. In the New Testament, Jesus called a rich young man, but he went away sad, because he could not give up his wealth. Jesus commented, “It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for someone who is rich to enter the Kingdom of God.” (Matthew 19:24) But Jesus did not give up on the wealthy; in Luke 19, Zacchaeus, a rich tax collector, climbed a tree to see Jesus. Jesus called him down and went to his home, where Zacchaeus stood and announced that he was giving half his possessions to the poor and paying back four times anything he had taken by fraud. Jesus said that salvation had come to that house that day. (Luke 19:1-10)

People gain wealth by any of a number of ways, some of which are legitimate and some of which are fraudulent. Wealth is not a measure of God’s favor, nor an indication of Christian values. God cares more about what you do with what you have, whether it is little or much. Do you feed the poor? care for the needy? dig wells in Africa? Or do you equip your private jet with gold-plated seat belts? The real measure of God’s favor is in Matthew 5: the blessed are not the haughty or the rich, but the poor in spirit, those who mourn, the meek, those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, the merciful, the pure in heart, and the peacemakers.

There are those who claim that God brought about the election of Donald Trump. Franklin Graham has said this; he will be speaking at Trump’s inauguration tomorrow.  Regardless of how you cast your vote, my aim today is simply to examine this question: Does God intervene in elections? By extension, then, is all government in keeping with God’s will?

In a time of temptation, Satan offered Jesus the rule of the entire world. “Again, the devil took him to a very high mountain and showed him all the kingdoms of the world and their splendor; and he said to him, ‘All these I will give you, if you will fall down and worship me.’ Jesus said to him, ‘Away with you, Satan! For it is written, Worship the Lord your God, and serve only him.'” (Matthew 4:8 – 10 NRSV) The people of Israel were expecting a Messiah who would take on the Romans, who would lead Israel to the rule of a new empire. But Jesus talked about the Kingdom of God; not a political kingdom, but a kingdom of the heart. If God had wanted to create his kingdom by intervening in political affairs, Jesus could have led an army; instead, Jesus said, “Turn the other cheek.” (Matthew 5:39) and when the Roman soldier demands you carry his load for a mile, carry it for two.

If we take the statement to its logical conclusion, then God was also responsible for the evil brought about by Adolf Hitler. The point is, this is not how God works in the world. I do not doubt that God does work in the world, but I do believe that God works through people. God calls people to his work in the world – God calls people to heal the sick, to feed the hungry, to welcome the stranger, to care for the poor. Throughout the New Testament, and in the Prophets in the Old, you will find nations and communities failing in doing these particular things, and God calling people to do something about it! It may well be that God may call someone to political action – but when he does, it will be in defense of the poor, the stranger, the outcast, the widow, and the orphan. That is how God works!

A second point is, God has chosen to give us free will. We can follow Jesus, or turn away, as the rich young ruler did. We can choose, but we are responsible for our choices. You are responsible for your vote, and for the actions of the person for whom you voted.

I saw a great movie yesterday, “Hidden Figures”. It is the true story of three brilliant black women who worked for NASA in the early days of the space program. While it is on the surface a story about the push to get the space program going, the underlying story is rich, and sometimes subtle.

I grew up in the segregated South – there were certain fictions that we were taught, fictions that upheld the system of segregation. One was that black people (a different word was used in those days, by the way) were not as intelligent as white people. All three of these women clearly blow that fiction out of the water! Interesting that no one knew about them at the time – No one would have, because people in the South did not believe any news that might be thought to encourage the Civil Rights Movement. (Not believing the national news has a long history in the south.) It was much easier to deny truth than to confront an untruth! A second point the movie made was in the segregation of rest-rooms, water fountains, work space, even the coffee pot where these women worked. That was based on another fiction – you saw it in the movie, “The Help” as well. White people feared catching some disease from black people. I am sorry – I feel ugly just repeating these fictions! Personally, I recognized them as fiction with a shock when I went to nursing school in Birmingham in 1961. The hospital there prided itself on having a separate floor for the people they called “colored”. The thing that shocked me to the core, however, was that the sheets used on the beds of that floor were yellow, so that no white person would risk sleeping on them after laundering. It made no sense, and even I, raised to believe that segregation was “right”, saw how demeaning it was. The whole system of segregation was demeaning, and based on fictions. And those in power often supported the fictions by pointing to “proof-texts” in the Bible.

Unless we at some point seriously examine the things we have grown up believing, we never know that they are fictions. And, we never see the racism within ourselves.

One particularly poignant moment in the film is when a white supervisor, after years of calling Dorothy Vaughn “Dorothy”, and refusing to promote her, does at last tell her of her promotion to a position as the first black supervisor at NASA (over the IBM team). And when she delivers that message, she addresses her as “Mrs. Vaughn”. Finally, she treats her with respect. The first step to loving our neighbor is treating one another with respect.

Is there a line that defines decent behavior? Jesus said “Do unto others as you would have them do to you”(Matthew 7:12). That does not mean, by the way, that we should do unto others before they get a chance to do it to us! Although, I must say, sometimes people act as if that were the case. Think about it – what would you want others to do to you? How would you want to be treated? If you were ill, you would want a skilled medical professional to treat you with kindness and respect. If you were new in town, you would want your new neighbors to treat you with respect, whether you dressed just like them, or differently, whether you worshipped as they did or differently, whether you spoke the same language, or not.

The operative word is respect. The only way to treat another person as you would wish to be treated is to treat that person respectfully. If you truly follow Jesus, that means to love them as well. But let’s begin just with respect.

Is it respectful for 4 youth to torment a young person who is mentally challenged, filming the whole thing? Everyone would agree that is wrong. Is it respectful to torment a young person because he/she is gay or lesbian? That too is clearly wrong. And yet, we often see incidents these days where these things happen, where kids – yes, children – beat and kick  and torment others then post it on social media. What is happening in our society that makes them think that makes them look big, or famous?

Is it respectful to fail to tip a hard-working waitress, leaving a note about how she should live her life instead? No – that is not respectful, nor loving, yet this was done by people who called themselves Christian. Is it respectful to scream at a clerk who is trying his/her best to help you? If you have witnessed this you would agree that the answer is no.

Is it respectful for a political candidate to mock someone’s disability? to tell people that someone who demonstrates at his rally should be beaten up? to brag about grabbing women? to attack reporters who ask difficult questions? to talk about all people of a nationality as rapists and thieves? to talk about women as pigs? We are not talking about “political correctness” here; we are talking about behavior that is not respectful. I thought that there was a line by which you and I defined acceptable behavior. For me, these behaviors are over that line, even for Junior High, just like those I listed above. And yet, people who claim to be Christian voted for someone who crossed this line, who would never want to be treated the way he is treating others!

My question remains, where do you draw your line? What actions are in keeping with the Golden Rule?

Everyone has a story – The thing is, we do not often stop to listen, to tell one another our stories. It is so much easier to see people as classifications rather than individuals, each with his or her own story!

An article on Facebook this week told of a woman who was in a check-out line behind another woman balancing several children, some of  whom were inadequately dressed for the weather, trying to buy groceries and clothing for them. And behind the writer of the item in line were a well-dressed couple who were making snide comments about the woman checking out. They had “classified” her in their minds and made their own assumptions about her morality. But the real story was that the woman was a foster mom, and the three children had been brought to her the day before, without even adequate clothing. She was trying to get them clean, warm clothing and keep them fed! The woman in the middle helped her to get items through check-out and when she had gone, turned and gave the couple behind her the real story along with a piece of her mind. You would think they would have felt bad, would have apologized, but they did not. They were not ready to admit that their assumptions were wrong.

We all make assumptions; we cannot deny it. But sometimes the assumptions are just plain wrong! What if, instead of making an assumption, we offered help, or asked about a person’s story? What if we listened?

When Jesus was faced with a person about whom he could have made an assumption, he asked a question instead. Remember “Blind Bartimaeus”? Sitting by the road-side, he called out to Jesus, and Jesus said, “What do you want me to do for you?” (Mark 10:46-52 is the story.) We might think the answer obvious, but Bartimaeus needed to speak for himself.

The loving thing to do is to ask the question, allow a person to speak, and to listen to that person’s story. Let me hear your story, and I will tell you mine, and we will find it much easier to love one another, as Jesus said.

Living a Christian life, loving others, in the reality that is this world means that we cannot ignore what is happening around us. Wishful thinking might avoid politics, but I find there are things that I must confront.

One of the big lies perpetuated in the recent election has been that immigrants and refugees pose a great threat to our personal safety and national security. This, my friends, is simply not true! What is the result of this misinformation? Of course, the aim was to make people fearful. Fearful people want a “strong” leader. But what is the result of fear of “the other” – those who speak another language, look or dress differently from you, whose culture is different, or those whose religion or sexual status is different?

When you see people as “other” you are not seeing them as human beings, as children of God. The result is a very unChristian nation! Yes, that is what I said. When you fear rather than welcoming the person who is different from you, then you are not following Christ. Look at Matthew 25:33 – 35, “and he will put the sheep at his right hand and the goats at his left. Then the king will say to those at his right hand, ‘Come, you that are blessed by my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world; for I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me.” The passage goes on, but I want to stop here to emphasize that the Christian response is one of welcome, not one of exclusion or isolation!

Jesus also said, “Love your neighbor” and “Love your enemy”. Pray that we may be people of love.

The title of this blog is taken from the 13th Chapter of Corinthians, what many of us know as the “love chapter”.  After Paul talks about all the characteristics of love (kind, not envious or boastful or arrogant or rude), he goes on in verse 8 to say, “Love never ends. But as for prophecies, they will come to an end; as for tongues, they will cease; as for knowledge, it will come to an end.”

Although we often use this chapter at weddings, that is not at all the sort of love Paul is talking about! And while we may wish that romantic love were endless, and we might strive to make it so, many of us have found this not to be the case. Many of us have sadly found that the “twelfth of never” has come and gone. (You might have to be my age to get the reference – it is from a 60’s song.) Honestly, I have known a few couples who have this sort of love; they work at it; they communicate. But this chapter is about much more than our relationship to a romantic love; it is about the way we live as Christians in the world. If we are truly Christian, then we feel the love of Christ in our hearts, and that love overflows to those we meet. Unless all that we do is powered by that sort of love, we are just making noise in the marching band.

And now, when it seems that the world has gone spinning out of control, when even people who claim the name of Christ advocate hate, exclusion, greed, and fear – and this feels like betrayal to me – when arrogance, boasting, and rudeness seem to have won – even now  love does not end. In fact, love may be the only thing we have left. But love is powerful – it is the greatest of the three – faith, hope, and love. Let us, in troubled days, lean into love. Let us pray, and love, and hope.