Sing Along With Garth

 

Lady Gaga belting out the National Anthem was a highlight.  It was, for me, the best rendition since Whitney Houston knocked the collective socks off the world at the Super Bowl. But in an Inauguration full of soaring music, soul-stirring poetry and reality-check speeches, there was a different highlight I will most remember.

I know that there is a wide and deep divide, even, or maybe especially, among God’s people over what to make of President Biden’s and Vice-President Harris’ Inauguration. Many people prayed that it would not be so, and when it came to be, they offered up prayers of lament because God did not intervene and change the outcome. Many other people prayed prayers of praise and thanksgiving for God bringing the Inauguration into existence against efforts to defeat it. 

It seems like one of the thorniest of theological problems.  Did God’s will fail? Did God’s will prevail?  Here’s what I know. God was not surprised. God wasn’t surprised on Inauguration Day 2017 nor Inauguration Day 2021. God didn’t fall asleep at the switch on Election Day 2016 nor Election Day 2020.  I am not saying that God votes, because God doesn’t get a vote.  But God wasn’t surprised.

God is still in control. Jesus is still King of Kings and Lord of Lords.  What should unite all Christians under all Presidents are those things we hold in common. Our common mission: preach Good News: repent, believe, love, serve.  Our common prayer: bathe us in grace.

I didn't really anticipate ever singing Amazing Grace with Garth Brooks, but his invitation for people at home and work to join him was heartfelt; and so sing I did, joining my voice with tens of millions of people who love God and this nation. Praise God for Amazing Grace that will, in God's way and time, unite America.

I believe that we are going to overcome our divisions, perhaps just enough and just long enough, but enough, to live under the cover of God's Amazing Grace for a season.  So in this season, as in the one which preceded it, the people of God still praise God and seek God’s blessings. 

God bless America, President Biden, Vice-President Harris, the Congress and the Supreme Court. Amen.

 

How To Become a Great Person

Larger than life. This week made me think about larger than life people. Monday was a day set aside to remember the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.. You have to be among the largest of larger than life figures to have a nation honor your memory with a day.  Friday was a day set aside to observe the transition of the world’s most powerful political position, the President of the United States of America, also known less formally as the Leader of the Free World.  No pressure there.  The transition happened with all of the pomp and circumstance which this most important transition of power commands: President Obama flies away and President Trump is escorted to the people’s home past many thousands of cheering supporters.

Today many thousands of people march those same streets to register their opposition to the policies of the same man who was yesterday cheered.  The juxtaposition of these two “parades” shows the genius of our nation’s Constitution and character, for, as F. Scott Fitzgerald wrote, "The test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposing ideas in mind at the same time and still retain the ability to function."  Our nation functions, left and right, conservative and liberal, with two wildly different understandings of what it means for a nation to be “great again.” Genius.

But the other thing that these two parades show is how fleeting fame, or glory, or greatness is; the difficulties that arise for one thrust onto the “larger than life” stage.  At the end of the movie, Patton, the great and controversial General is walking away from the camera reciting the words that are spoken to ancient conquering heroes, “All glory is fleeting.”  I pray success for our nation and our new President, but I also pray for the loyal opposition to be allowed to function with gusto.  Presidents and their policies come and go, one flying away and another marching home, but the power of the people must remain the constant.  These are the “great persons”, the larger than life people upon whom the functioning of the world depends as they live and serve the greater good.

“Jesus gave us a new norm of greatness…(R)ecognize that he who is greatest among you shall be your servant. That’s a new definition of greatness….You don’t have to have a college degree to serve…You don’t have to know about Plato and Aristotle to serve. You don’t have to know Einstein’s theory of relativity to serve…You only need a heart full of grace, a soul generated by love. And you can be that servant.”  Martin Luther King, Jr. Source: Drum Major Instinct (last sermon 4 Feb 1968) (discovered at inward/outward)