Tomorrow is Election Day. Many of you have already voted, some by mail, some by early voting. I am very old fashioned here. I want to go to the polls on Election Day and vote. Elections are different than they were even thirty or forty years ago, in part thanks to the Supreme Court’s Citizens United decision of that enabled the dreadful influence of money in our elections, even the local ones.
Back in another life before I came to New Jersey, I ran for a local office. Some of the issues were the same: accountability, development, services to the community, and, of course, taxes. The overarching issue that affected the town where I lived was its changing nature which some did not like. The central question was whether we would be an open and welcoming community.
For America, it is still the question we face today. Will we be true to our stated ideals, although not always lived, or will we revert to a closed and insular way of thinking and living. Someone wrote that the area where religion and politics meet is like an estuary, that brackish water of fresh and salt, teeming with life. Our politics should reflect what we say we believe in: the God through whom Jesus brought a new vision or our relationships with one another, equal, open, welcoming.
By the way, I won.
Prayer for the Day
Our lives seem so fractious, s polarized, O God,
Caught up in rhetoric of those who would ivied us;
We hear the language of fear and division,
And we try to center ourselves on you, O Lord.
More than sheltering us under your wings,
Strengthen our resolve to speak your welcome to all.
In the name of the One who is our strength,
Even Christ Jesus our Lord, Amen.
Thoughts for the Day
While our democracy will never be perfect, we must continually defend the rights, institutions, and laws that help safeguard our freedoms and advance the common good.
Adam Russell Taylor, president of Sojourners, a Christian organization
So often we think we have got to make a difference and be a big dog. Let us just try to be little fleas biting. Enough fleas biting strategically can make a big dog very uncomfortable.
Marian Wright Edelman, founder Children’s Defense Fund
What good is it, my brothers, if someone says he has faith but does not have works? Can that faith save him? If a brother or sister is poorly clothed and lacking in daily food, and one of you says to them, “Go in peace, be warmed and filled,” without giving them the things needed for the body, what good is that? So also faith by itself, if it does not have works, is dead.
Letter of James 2: 14-17
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