Like many of you, this past Wednesday I woke with a knot in my stomach and quickly fell into a state of mourning. First came the shock and disbelief, the initial panic, then the race for a thread of hope, and finally the numbness, the cold paralysis. Though I went to the office and worked through the day, once I got home I found I couldn’t concentrate, couldn’t read. My heart prayed without words. I felt a deep sense of solidarity with all the frightened ‘others’ in the country and the world who were justly terrorized by these horrifying election returns. In my mind’s eye I saw many families in agony, anticipating their loved ones being torn away from them—their fathers, mothers, children, aunts, uncles, cousins—their own circle of support wrenched and broken by immigration officials.
As she was walking down the street, a friend told me later, she met the eyes of a newly arrived neighbor she had smiled at once before. The woman, Latina, saw my friend’s smile and hurried across a busy street to ask for a hug, though the two had never met. The woman dissolved in tears in my friend’s arms, speaking in a rush of Spanish my friend didn’t understand. Holding her close she simply said “we are with you. I live just up the street. You are not alone.”
Already there are stories of increasing harassment, slurs and violence against Muslims, African Americans, Latinos—all our vulnerable neighbors. Women, non-white and LGBT students on campuses across the nation are frightened. But they are not alone. We cannot allow them to be alone while the violent rhetoric of a hateful campaign threatens their security even more today than yesterday, generated and authorized by the man who will be president.
Today’s Gospel is so timely—“nation will rise against nation and empire against empire”. Within the borders of our country—red against blue, urban against rural, white against non-white, native-born against immigrant—we suffer the reality of angry, hate-filled division spawned by artificially created culture wars and an increasing disparity between the educated and uneducated, the rich and the poor, the white and non-white in our nation. As Jesus talks about ‘end times’ this first weekend after the election, we grieve the end of how we have viewed ourselves—a united, generous people, a nation with power, yes, but also compassion. We mourn the end of what we thought we could rely on—public servants who care about all of us, a foundational desire for unity, maturity and restraint in public discourse, a legally upheld barrier against bullying, harassment, and violence. Those beliefs have been all but crushed for many of us while our entire planetary ecosystem hangs in the balance. We have so much work to do.
The prophet, Malachi, speaks to us tonight from the 4th century BCE, when the First Temple is being rebuilt and the people of Judah are struggling to reconstruct their lives. It, too, is a time of great pain. The exile is over and many have returned to deal with the destruction of their homes, their lives and religious rituals, practices that fell apart when the Temple was destroyed.
Malachi sees the spiritual sickness of his people largely rooted in the growing discrepancy between the rich and poor of the land, where the most faithful are struggling and falling behind while those showing contempt for the law and for God are getting ahead. He urges the people toward hope telling them if they remain faithful to the voice and wisdom of God, and act in accordance with God’s law, the sun of justice will rise and shower them with its healing rays.
The contrast between Malachi’s words and those of Jesus is stark. Luke is writing after the destruction of that Temple the people of Malachi’s time were in the process of building. As this Gospel is being written followers of Jesus are experiencing persecution under Emperor Domitian, persecutions that had begun under Nero 20 years earlier. False prophets are wandering through villages claiming to be the messiah. When each is proven to be an imposter, some of Jesus’ followers are losing faith and giving up hope. Luke wants to encourage that hope, reduce their fear and fortify their ability to stand strong in the face of hatred and oppression. Don’t be afraid Jesus tells them, and don’t follow false leaders. When your time to speak and act arrives, as it will, act and speak in a way that demonstrates who and what you are—my followers—people of integrity, hope and compassion. Luke reassures them that God will be with them through it all, giving them words no one can refute, offering guidance, wisdom, support and grace.
As in the days of Malachi and Jesus we, too, have work to do. And we will not follow an imposter, a false prophet, one who asserts that he alone has all the answers to the world’s troubles, crediting himself with the wisdom and power only God can claim. We will stand in solidarity with our frightened sisters and brothers, the poor and vulnerable of this nation, the world, and the earth itself. This is where we are called and this is where we must stand. Our faith tradition and the times themselves, call us here.
I’m reminded of an article by Clarissa Pinkola Estes. She is a Jungian Psychologist, a poet, and the author of ‘Women Who Run With the Wolves.’ This is an excerpt of words she wrote in 2008. They were posted again the day after the election:
“My friends,” she says,” do not lose heart. We were made for these times. Ours is a time of almost daily astonishment and often righteous rage over the latest degradations of what matters most to civilized, visionary people.
You are right in your assessments. Yet, I urge you…gentle you…do not lose hope….we were made for these times. For years, we have been learning, practicing, and just waiting to meet on this exact plain of engagement.
There have never been more awakened souls than there are right now across the world. And they are fully provisioned and able to signal one another as never before in the history of humankind…. Look out over the prow; there are millions of boats of righteous souls on the waters with you.
You and I will meet these great souls. They will hail us, love us and guide us, and we will know them when they appear. Didn’t you say you were a believer? Didn’t you say you pledged to listen to a voice greater than your own? Didn’t you ask for grace? Don’t you remember that to be in grace means to submit to that greater voice?
There can be no despair when you remember why you came to Earth, who you serve, and who sent you here. The good words we say and the good deeds we do are not ours. They are the words and deeds of the One who brought us here. In that spirit, I hope you will write this on your wall: When a great ship is in harbor and moored, it is safe, there can be no doubt. But that is not what great ships are built for.”
My friends, this is our time, our moment, and we are not alone. God is with us in each other, with us in our sorrow, our bewilderment and anger. We are here to help each other and humanity through these ‘end-times’ and toward the promised dawn. Let us go forward then, hand in hand, following that greater Voice—the Voice embracing all of us—all of us—with love, and leading us toward unity and peace.
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