The Election, Your Spirituality, & the Soul of our Nation #2: Love and Fruit
God must blush, or feel embarrassed, or simply weep over us during election season. God yearns for us to live robust, compassionate, joyful lives, but we get knotted up in frustration, judgment, fretting and even contempt.
So for starters, thinking toward what spiritual equilibrium might look like, and even toward what healing the soul of our nation might require, let’s name that whatever throws you off balance, whatever causes you to question to intelligence and character of your neighbor, all of the not speaking and unfriending, and posting on social media snide or venomous jabs: all of this is not of God. Paul did not say “the fruit of the Spirit is contempt, judgment, shivering in worry, being cocksure your party will be the salvation of the world and the other will be catastrophe.”
No, “the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, gentleness, self-control” (Galatians 5:22). I’m not scolding, but inviting you to let go of what is bedeviling you and open your soul up to God’s Spirit surprising even you with fresh life.
And love. Jesus never said “Thou shalt agree with your neighbor” but “Love your neighbor.” And who’s the neighbor? Jesus said it’s the Samaritan, the one who thinks and acts so wrong. Jesus said it’s your enemy. Thank God that God loves me and doesn’t unfriend me or refuse to speak when I think and act wrong… God’s not mad you’re knotted up just now. God wants to liberate you for a life of more joy.
We’ll talk later about some habits and prayers to help foster love and the Spirit’s fruit. For now, let’s take note that it’s not just your soul or mine that is at stake. It’s the soul of the nation, which feels overwhelmingly huge and inevitable and immovable. But the soul of the nation really does lean toward something better when I am better, when you are better, when we love and bear fruit. It’s contagious. The only other option is just to wave the cynical, hopeless flag of surrender.
Let’s also have some compassion on the other half of the people out there, and on ourselves. Walter Brueggemann memorably said “Everybody’s afraid. Some are afraid the world they’ve treasured and counted on in the past is crumbling around them. The others are afraid the world they dream of will never come to be.”
And I read in the marvelous current issue of Christianity Today that our fears now and during election time aren’t little fears, like I might lose my keys or be late for work. Our fears are apocalyptic and existential: it feels like the whole world, our survival as a decent civilization, the very possibility of good… all are at stake, and in peril of being forever shattered. As Christians, we have a beautiful, grand alternative to such primal fears. We can trust in God. We won’t ultimately be undone by any election.
As a lover of history, I pause and realize that the vast majority of people through the millennia and in all places have lived under governments they despised and which oppressed them. Jesus, Mary and the disciples did – and Christianity took hold and thrived in such a wicked political culture. The world will be the world; it’s up to us to be and live as God’s peculiar people who know how to love and to hope in God.