A Lament for the Outcome of the 2016 Presidential Election

God of hope, you came into the world as the Prince of Peace and invited us to follow your path of peace.

Your ways, as a man, were gentle, compassionate, radical, progressive, inclusive, and kind.

Your appeal never included bullying, humiliation, mocking, threatening, or hatred.

How then, O Lord, is it possible that so many of your followers, this very week, participated joyfully in the election of a man who has repeatedly represented himself as the antithesis of the One we claim to follow?

I may be wrong Lord, and my understanding of who you are and what matters most to you may be tainted by my own left-leaning lens, but what happened this week, in a country that incessantly invokes ITS right to YOUR name and YOUR blessing, has broken my heart and filled my stomach with bile.

God of justice, clear this temple, just as the One I follow cleared the temple of the religious wrong-doers who were acting in their own self-interest and to the detriment of the least of these.

God of truth, reveal truth, just as the One I follow opened the eyes of the religious elders who were blind to their own sin even as they prepared to take the life of a woman caught in sin.

God of the widows and orphans, ignite in those of us who cry out for the restoration of balance and equality, the energy, conviction, courage, and commitment to work tirelessly in the fulfillment of the kingdom tasks we have, this week, and every week, been given to do.

And let us do it with hearts filled with compassion and humility, leaving the work of judgment and correction in the hands of the One who knows all and loves all and forgives all.

Amen