My Need for Conversion

(Lectionary for November 20, 2016)

This year the lectionary text offers what appears to be a rich irony for this Sunday. After the election of Donald J. Trump to the presidency of the USA, is it not supremely odd that today’s text speaks so famously of God’s promise of “a righteous branch,” of one who will “reign as king and deal wisely, executing justice and righteousness in the land,” one whose very name will be “YHWH is our righteousness” (Jer 23:5-6)? Given my thoughts about Mr. Trump, expressed on this blog more than once during the campaign, I imagine you are now expecting to read another screed against this man whom many have labeled bigoted, vulgar, xenophobic, anti-intellectual, among other adjectives not easily repeatable in polite company. But I have a surprise for you today. This blog is about me, and about what I hope to have learned from the astonishing election we have just witnessed. Perhaps some of you need to imbibe the same lesson for yourselves.

Through generous mouthfuls of crow, eaten at a very large table of shocked progressives, I have tried to think about what all this may mean. No, I am not at all happy with the electoral outcome; to witness the persons whom the president-elect may choose for his closest advisors gives me heartburn. To imagine whom he might choose as a Supreme Court nominee—or even more than one choice—is alarming. To watch his possible actions with respect to the warming planet may be catastrophic; that word is unfortunately not hyperbolic but is all too literal. I am not sanguine about this election, and I know I am not alone in that judgment. All of my friends and acquaintances would agree, except some of them would add a stream of words that I try hard never to say out loud.

And that last sentence is where I want to go today. I have a huge problem as a 21st century American citizen; I know no one who would have eagerly and proudly voted for Mr. Trump. As I sat in the bosom of six of my liberal friends on election night, in one of our well-appointed and comfortable homes, each of us watched in astonished horror as the sea of red included the states that we had to win to capture the White House for our side. By 10:00PM, the game was over, and we left to our own comfortable homes quite sick at heart, and in a case or two, sick to our stomachs. We said over and again, “How could any thoughtful person have voted for him?” We were nonplussed, aghast, rendered finally mute, by what we witnessed this past Nov 8. Each of us spent the next few days in silent pain, wondering what all this meant. Now that it has been over a week since that fateful night, I have had a few thoughts.

I had to admit that when my candidate, Hillary Clinton, during her campaign had called half of his voters a “bag of deplorables,” I smirked inside and readily agreed. Surely, only a despicable, deplorable person would vote for such a flawed human being, an apparent misogynist, ready to turn the clocks back for women and immigrants and persons of color. Secretary Clinton uttered those words at an expensive fund-raiser, sponsored by the long-time liberal firebrand, Barbara Streisand. The people in that crowd were as far removed from those who voted for Donald Trump as they could possibly have been. And so was I, though, God knows, I could never have afforded a seat in the hall that night.

So now I have turned inward, exploring my own deep prejudices against those who did not vote as I did. I have been retired for four and one-half years now and my wife for five and one-half years. We are hardly rich, but we have sufficient resources to live a relatively comfortable life style. We own our home outright; we drive two lovely cars. Both of our children are well on their own, both married successfully, one of whom has two beautiful and healthy children. All four of them, daughter and husband, son and wife, have excellent jobs, make good salaries, live in nice homes. We have no financial responsibilities for them at all. Thus, our money is our own, spent as we wish on travel, meals out, along with at least 10% given to church and charities of our selection. In short, we are living exactly as we had hoped, our careers along with our parents’ offerings to us sufficient money to live with comparative ease.

And the great majority of our friends are in similar circumstances, retired or close to retirement, living well, with successful children, preparing and expecting to live the life we are currently living. I know there are people who are far less fortunate—we go to a church that has a vast ministry to the homeless in our city—so I see persons who have little to nothing. However, I do not see people who have lost the work their parents and grandparents had—assembly-line workers, coal miners, oil rough-necks, etc. These people are scraping by, their lives moving painfully from pay check to pay check, making minimum wage or slightly more, working two or more jobs to pay their bills, wondering how their children will go to college, wondering how they can ever retire, let alone travel or enjoy the remainder of their lives with a shred of ease or comfort. Many of these folks voted for Donald Trump who promised them hope, better jobs, brighter futures, saying to them that they had been abandoned by people like me who have promised them more but who have finally forgotten them after their votes have been cast. He said he would not forget them, and many believed him.

We may argue all day long about whether or not he will in fact help them, will in fact not forget them, but they wanted to believe him, and so they voted for him. They were finally tired of people like me who have found their way up the ladder, have reached a high enough rung to survey the land with ease and pleasure, while they have tried in vain to make it to the ladder’s first step.

So, here is what I have learned in this election season, something you might think a Christian would have known after 70 years on the planet: I live in a liberal bubble, and I have not heard the loud cries of my fellow citizens, because I have chosen not to hear. It is for me far easier to aid the homeless than to hear from those who have homes but who struggle to keep them, who struggle to give their children a future, who demand more from the society than those of us who in the main have controlled the society have been willing to give.

Now I am not as naïve as this may sound. I know full well that I cannot help all those who voted for Donald Trump to become like me, wise and educated and satisfied with a blessed retirement. I also know that many who voted for him are not poor or nearly poor, who are not struggling for a place in the world. Still, many who did so vote fit that profile. All I am confessing is that I simply have not made any effort to move outside of what I have known, a comfortable, reasonable, reasoned world of books and polite conversation and lovely dinners out. In short, I have my own bigoted ways, my own limited viewpoints, my own blind spots in the midst of my fancy PhDed life.

Donald Trump is hardly “YHWH’s righteous branch.” No one is ever likely to call him “YHWH’s righteousness.” But, of course, no one is ready to give me or you that name either. As we once again approach the season of Christmas, that one we will call “righteous branch” is again about to born in Bethlehem. He is the one that old Simeon will say is “destined for the fall and rise of many in Israel and a sign that will be opposed so that the inner thoughts of many will be revealed” (Luke 2: 34-35). May it be so for me this year! I long for my inner thoughts to be revealed, for my restricted bubble to burst to allow me to see more of my fellow Americans than I have heretofore seen. And, yes, I pray that Donald Trump might be a good president for all of us. Do any of you have need of a similar confession and possible repentance?