A Message for Election Week
As the US elections loom large over our lives right now, we are all experiencing, to one degree or another, the deep anxiety, frustration, and fear that has marked this political season in our nation. There are deep divisions over the state of our politics, how Christians should frame these elections and who to vote for, and how it will affect the church’s witness into the future.
As I have been reflecting on these realities, I cannot shake from my consciousness the message of Jesus’ beatitude that I preached on this past weekend: “Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called children of God.” (Matt. 5:9). Permit me to share a few of these reflections as a way to help frame our faithful presence leading up to and after the elections next week.
First, the context of this invitation to peacemaking is the reality that Jesus is already present and at work in our world, inaugurating a kingdom that is marked by shalom peace. This biblical view of peace is not just an end to war, or a state of mind to achieve, but involves the work of reconciliation and justice in our lives and communities. The lack of shalom peace, in Jeremiah 6 for example, was directly connected to the unjust practices and oppression that were rampant in Israel. Biblical shalom peace is wholeness, reconciliation, restoration, and as one scholar describes it: “all that constitutes well-being in the world.”
In this midst of the brokenness, anxiety, and fear that exist as a result of our political landscape, we proclaim the Good News that our King Jesus is at work inaugurating this shalom peace, wholeness, justice, and well-being in the world. He is at work building his fully reconciled kingdom.
As sons and daughters of God, we are invited to participate in this kingdom work alongside Jesus. Yes, he is at work in the world, but he doesn’t say: “Just sit back and watch me do this.” He involves his sons and daughters in his shalom peacemaking in the world. Each of us are invited to heed this call in every area of our life, including our public witness and political engagement.
How do we do this at Rez? Our entire discipleship process is aimed at making us into the kind of community that seeks the shalom, the goodness, and the well-being of our neighbors, just as we have been gathered and share life together in the goodness of God. As we are welcomed by God, shaped by him, and sent out into the world, our public witness to the work of peacemaking is our everyday work, not just in an election year. It is work that will continue in the days and weeks and months after the election.
Lastly, as we consider all of the uncertainty looming over us, we can be committed to the work of peacemaking and not lose heart or succumb to our anxieties, because we know the end of the story. We believe that the kingdom coming in its fullness will mean peace and reconciliation and well-being. In Isaiah 57, God promises: “Peace, peace, to the far and to the near.” And so we can live, not out of despair or hopelessness at the violence and polarization and brokenness of the world, but with quiet confidence and hope that at the end of all things, all of these things will come to an end.
In the meantime, we can lean into our call as sons and daughters of God to be peacemakers in the world, always resting in his promise of his coming kingdom. To that end, I commend to you a prayer attributed to St. Francis that is an invitation into peacemaking in the world.
Lord, make me an instrument of your peace:
where there is hatred, let me sow love;
where there is injury, pardon;
where there is doubt, faith;
where there is despair, hope;
where there is darkness, light;
where there is sadness, joy.
O divine Master, grant that I may not so much seek
to be consoled as to console,
to be understood as to understand,
to be loved as to love.
For it is in giving that we receive,
it is in pardoning that we are pardoned,
and it is in dying that we are born to eternal life.
Amen.
Dcn. Ryan Boettcher
