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Note: You can also find Matt's Weekly Devotional on our website.

TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 5, 2024

2Nothing is covered up that will not be uncovered, and nothing secret that will not become known. 3Therefore whatever you have said in the dark will be heard in the light, and what you have whispered behind closed doors will be proclaimed from the housetops.

–– Luke 12:2-3


We do not know what the morrow will bring any more than we can draw conclusions about what kind of world we will see under the light of the next full moon. Today + tomorrow = uncertainty = anxiety = fear. At least, that is the apocalyptic pathos we have been fed throughout this quadrennial fest of hand-wringing, hate-mongering, blame-spewing discourse. I don’t know when it was decided that we would rely on our worst impulses to determine who is worthy of our highest offices, yet with the passing of every four years, it only becomes more obvious that nothing has come about to dissuade us from from this practice. How inconsiderate of our better angels to all go on vacation during election season. Just when we most need reason, empathy, mercy, and civility, they jump on a cruise ship headed for Tahiti. 


Lord, have mercy. May all that is uncivil go into hibernation, so that we may see our neighbor as ourselves, and thus, love our neighbor as we love ourselves. If we cannot speak truth about ourselves, our motives, our intolerance, we will never have the capacity to speak the truth in love. At least the commercials and ads will be gone. For the last several months, the one constant has been a looping playlist of thinly veiled public hostility, the Muzak of malevolence that only highly partisan peddlers think is clever. In such an environment, may we be chastened by Jesus’ admonition to all who foster the illusion that our iniquitous or self-interested motivations and prejudices are safely veiled under socially palatable parlance –– “Nothing is covered up that will not be uncovered, and nothing secret that will not become known. Therefore whatever you have said in the dark will be heard in the light…” Paul is a bit more blunt –– “God is not mocked.”


In the acclaimed Broadway musical, Promises, Promises, an insurance company employee trying to climb the corporate ladder allows himself to get caught up in the nefarious and manipulative schemes of his superiors. Ultimately, his conscience compels him to refuse further participation –– 


“This is where those promises, promises end.

I don't pretend that what was wrong can be right…


Oh, promises, their kind of promises, can just destroy a life.

Oh, promises, those kind of promises, take all the joy from life.”


We may not be able to reform a political machine more focused on winning than on serving, but we can refuse to be captive to the petty, grievance fueled rhetoric of the machine. Self-interested agendas and self-righteous indignation are toxic to community and a poor tutor for nation-building. Today we vote, but let this also be a day to recenter our psyches in an ethos of goodness and graciousness. After all, we follow not an idea or a party, or a personality; we follow the Prince of Peace who commanded –– “As I have loved you, so you must love one another.”

Grace and Peace,

Matt  


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