Self-Awareness

As I write this note to you on Thursday afternoon, the election results hang in the balance. I don’t want to talk about the results, though. I want to talk about what our next steps should be, regardless of the results.

Monday, Eric Polak sent me a link to Mitch Albom’s opinion column in the Detroit Free Press. I found it so helpful, I read it several times. The title is, “Election will be meaningless if we don't change our ways.” You might remember that Albom is the author of the best seller, “Tuesdays with Morrie.” In his column, Mr. Albom called us to accountability, on both sides, for how we’ve accepted the practice of objectifying one another. Friends, it is never okay to see another human being as an obstacle in the way of getting what you want. It just isn’t. It is never okay to consider violence an acceptable means to the end you seek. It just isn’t.

I share Mr. Albom’s concern when he says, “To be honest, I am less concerned with what we do Tuesday than what we do Wednesday, Thursday, and every day thereafter. My biggest fear isn’t who sits in the Oval Office come January; if the rest of us keep conducting ourselves the way we have been the last six months, it won’t make a difference.” I believe our faith in Jesus Christ is the deepest well we have right now; I believe that well can provide the living water we need to act differently.

So, I want to offer you another article from a church leader I follow, Carey Nieuwhof. It was titled, “After the US Election: 3 Things the Culture Needs Right Now that the Church Can Give.” His third point has been rolling around in my soul trying to settle, “An exhausted culture needs an alternative to itself, not an echo of itself.” What if the church offered a place where divided opinions and politics could worship together? What if the church chose to focus on right acting instead of right thinking? What if we could once again say with pride, “There are many different opinions in our church, but we love each other and make room for each other”?

There will be those who read my words and you already know we disagree on who should be the next President of the United States, but please also know this -- I still really want us to belong to the same local congregation. I think it is healthy to disagree, even when it means we must move slower because we can’t all get on the same page. I think we’ll be better off when we share the stories around our opinions and then really listen to how that story shapes the meaning on which the other insists. It must go both ways, however. I can’t extend that grace to you unless I trust that you will extend it back to me. And, I surely can’t extend that grace when I am concerned you will judge my faith in God as faulty because I hold a certain opinion. When we reach the conclusion that someone else cannot call Jesus, Lord and Savior, because they voted differently than you, we are out of bounds.

This is my ask of you on this Friday morning, take a breath and examine your feelings. Is there any shred of permission to objectify another in your soul? Has your anger ever reached the level of wanting to cut off relationship with someone who disagrees with you? Is there any space in you to admit that the claims of “the other side” might have merit? The reason I ask these questions is because this is where I struggle. I don’t like being dismissed for my opinions. And, I don’t like being afraid my personal safety is in danger over election results. I respond in not helpful ways. So, I need to confess. I also need to repent, to turn around, to act differently with the grace of God as my guide. If I can trust that you will do the same, I would be able to let down my guard so much more effectively. Will you? Will we? No matter how this election turns out, I want to be better than I have been. I want us to be a better witness to our world than we have been.

Self-examination is essential to the stewardship virtue we focus on this Sunday: self-awareness. The exercise of asking questions like the ones above, while difficult, is vital to a growing life of faith with God. God cannot reach the parts of us we refuse to admit exist. And, God’s love will always struggle to transform those pieces of us as well. So, let’s be honest as we come to worship this Sunday. Let’s take a look in the mirror with the grace of God shining over our shoulder.

The stewardship letters went in the mail this week. Your reply envelope has a first-class stamp so you can more easily return it during these days of distance. If you’d like to give us a reply electronically, you can download a pdf of our reply card, fill it out, and email it to Lori Burns. Or, you can just send an email to Lori Burns with your commitment for next year. We’ll be receiving those commitments in worship on Nov. 22, so we hope you’ll get those reply cards in the mail soon. On commitment Sunday, we’ll have a special time of consecration and blessing over the commitments we make for next year.

You’ll find several Christ-centered service opportunities in this week’s email. You can sign up to adopt a child in the care of Osage County DHS for Christmas, or sign up to bring food to the Family Promise guests the week of Thanksgiving. In addition, we’ve had several church members request help with yard work. If you and/or members of your family could spend a few hours working on a yard, click here to sign up. Finally, we did receive permission to donate prayer shawls to Ascension St. John’s Hospital. Specifically, these prayer shawls will be placed on the ICU floors with COVID patients for nurses to distribute as they see fit. This coming week, we’ll have several shawls out in our chapel and would invite you to come by and pray over them. For safety’s sake, we need you to wear a mask at all times when in the building and we are only allowing one person in the chapel at a time unless you are in the same household. If you’d like to sign up for a 30 minute time slot for offering prayer, use this link.

I am really looking forward to our time of worship together Sunday, Faith. Whether you join us online or in person, you give me hope. After church, I always look at who signed in on our Connection Card. I am looking for guests I need to contact, but I am also looking for familiar names so I can call to mind familiar faces and pray for you. I am parched and ready to find the well of living water with you.

Hope to see you Sunday,