By the time you receive this, the election will be over. We may, or may not, have a clear sense of who won and who lost. It saddens me to put the election results in those terms, but that’s the way the contest is configured. There are winners and losers.

Its no different than when Jesus walked the earth, the systems of power and governance had winners and losers. From what I can see, Jesus didn’t truly buy into that way of thinking. What I take from Jesus’ time and dialogue with his friends was, he wanted to change that way of thinking. If we were to put it in today’s vernacular, we would say Jesus was about finding win-win solutions where equity, harmony, justice, love and unity could be our guiding force.

Still, that’s not the system we participate in. We have winners and losers. Even though the system is set up this way, we don’t have to buy into it to the extreme. Yes, our candidate may have won, but that doesn’t mean we have to gloat or belittle those who voted a different way. Our candidate may have lost, that doesn’t mean we have to sulk and hang our heads. As members of a society and country, we still play an important role. We are ‘The People.” We are the country, and we can find ways to work within the system to bring about just and loving solutions to our problems and circumstances.

Division and acrimony does not have to be the way we live together. We can be gracious winners, and supportive losers. We can be the change we hope to see in others. We can respond to the voices of hate, or the taunts of division with love and reconciliation. We can be those who seek a better way. For far too long we have seen each other in tribal ways, us versus them. We align ourselves along political boundaries, and see the other side as evil. We forget, we are all citizens of the same country. We all have a vested interest in seeing our country prosper.

Beyond political identities, we also are ALL children of God. If we start there in relating to our neighbors, we may find a very different outcome. When disasters or tragedies come, and they will, our first thought shouldn’t be, are they part of our tribe? Our first thought should be, what can we do to relieve their suffering, their grief, their situation? When we see God in every neighbor, near or far, we should be moved to be as compassionate, and caring, and loving, and accepting as we would be if that person was God incarnate. The reality is, they are. They have God in them, and how we treat them is how we will be seen to be treating God.

I’m praying today, whichever way the election turns out, that we can all do a better job of being who God created us to be.

Your companion on the Way,

Pastor Tom