In This White House
Good morning, Church. How’s everybody doing? Let’s spend time checking in with each other today and in the days ahead — hearing how each other is feeling, how we’re doing. Let’s ask each other sincerely, and listen carefully. It’s not important now to re-litigate our arguments for or against the outcome of the election. What’s important is that each of us hears how others feel, what they care about, and what they need to feel safe, have hope, and thrive. It’s ok to feel however it is you feel today.
This needs to be our safe space, where we all belong, and we know and love each other as people, no matter how different we are. I love the story of the widow in Mark’s gospel, putting everything she has into the treasury. It’s a wonderful reminder especially during pledge season that everyone belongs and makes a difference — please remember to get your pledge in to support your community’s work and ministry! But the story of the widow’s mite is often reduced to a financial — money-related — story. That’s too reductive, I think. The widow’s mite is just an easy to see measure to show that the widow was all in — she put everything she had into her community.
Our community — really our whole country — is not of one mind on how and who best to address some of our most challenging issues. Some of us may be disappointed and even fearful, while others may be happy and relieved. Whether we’re relieved, frightened, glad, disappointed, validated, or mystified, we’ve all wrestled with with the reality that about half the people in the country see things another way.
And I don’t know about you, but for me the result felt very sudden. The news outlets and the pundits had prepared us to expect the vote counting to stretch out for days, so the stark evidence of our differing views came earlier than I had anticipated, making the impact feel even more jarring. I have to admit, I was struggling. I turned to my go-to comfort in times of political turmoil — the psalms of lamentation, hope, and praise we find in really good TV. (Come see me for a watch list if you’re looking for inspiration.)
The West Wing
I sat down and watched Season 2 of The West Wing, Aaron Sorkin’s 1999 political drama starring Martin Sheen as the Nobel laureate president, and an absolutely knockout ensemble cast as White House staff. The writing is brilliant — Shakespearian even in the parallel story lines playing out simultaneously close up with the staff, and politically and culturally across the world stage. I’ve probably watched — (my poor husband!) — the entire 7 seasons through at least 5 times, as an antidote to my political disorientation, especially when I need a dose of hope.
I went straight to the episodes that the doctor prescribed for my particular ache: that we as a nation have just been reminded that don’t all see things the same way. I watched “In This White House,” where the brilliant young, articulate, and idealistic deputy communications director, Sam Seaborn, appears on Capitol Beat, a political talk show, opposite Ainsley Hayes, the brilliant young, articulate, idealistic political analyst from the other political party. The President and the rest of the White House staff watch back at the White House, totally entertained as Sam “gets diced and sliced by a woman named Ainsley Hayes,” as President Bartlet rather gleefully describes the point/counterpoint conversation.
Sam and Ainsley are discussing a piece of educational legislation that the White House has championed and the other party has vigorously opposed. President Bartlet, who loves working with “smart people who disagree with him,” orders his chief of staff to hire Ainsley Hayes to work at the White House, and the episode unfolds showing each side’s abject horror at the idea of working with the other. It’s not important for purposes of this conversation which party was in the White House, but rather what each assumed about the other’s intelligence, character, capability, and motivation. In the final scene, Ainsley’s colleagues, assuming she’s refused the job offer, trash talk the White House staff, calling them worthless.
Do not talk about them that way, she says. Say they’re smug and superior. Say they like high taxes and love spending your money. But don’t call them worthless. At least not around me. They are extraordinarily qualified. Their intent is good, and their commitment is true. They are righteous. And they are patriots. And I am their lawyer.
Different Perspectives
We have different perspectives built on gender, race, ethnicity, socio-economic location, education, regional and local culture, and lived experience. AND here’s another thing: we’re also individuals, each of us uniquely made in God’s own image. Our views are not defined by our race, gender, age, the way we look, where we’re from, or what we do for a living. We cannot demonize one another, because we all are the other. Just look at the election data. We split in every demographic category.
Recent news reports tell us that Americans are moving in increasing numbers to places where political views match their own — one of the factors that gives rise to the “super landslide” counties and districts. But is that the right answer when our communities, work places, organizations, and even families represent different views on how to solve our most challenging issues? This is NOT the message we get from Ruth, our mother in the faith, who flat out refuses her mother-in-law Naomi’s well-intended suggestion that she stay back in Moab with her own gods and people, while Naomi returns to her folks in Bethlehem. Ruth and Naomi hold their community together through a difference starkly defined by the Dead Sea, too salty even to sustain life, with Ruth’s homeland Moab on one side and Bethlehem and Judea on the other.
Through compassion, community, relationship, and empathy, Ruth marries Naomi’s cousin Boaz, building a future that begets Obed, who begets King David, who with Uriah the Hittite’s wife Bathsheba begets King Solomon, continuing in this great line of begetting all the way to Mary, mother of Jesus. (I’m going to hit this quickly for priestly decorum, so you’re going to have to keep up. If you were thinking that feet might be an Old Testament euphemism for another more intimate body party, you would be correct.)
This is not a story of sticking with our own kind and “othering” those who are different from us. Remember, it’s the women of the neighborhood who welcome Ruth and Boaz’s son and Naomi’s grandson, Obed, and it is they who love him into their community and give him his name, just like this community welcomed a child into our community in baptism last Sunday. Our greatest opportunity in these next days and weeks is to find, and show, compassion for one another — the compassion of Ainsley Hayes for the White House staff, the compassion of Naomi for her Moabite daughter-in-law, Ruth — because that’s how we form community.
Community is life-sustaining, especially now. Staying in conversation with those who think differently than we do helps us to grow together, stay curious, and listen to each other, always ready to learn something new or change our minds. The sense of belonging we get from being connected builds relationship — our capacity to listen in love and curiosity to others whose lives are different from ours. And relationship creates empathy, which is no less than the key to our survival as human beings.
Will you pray with me?
O Lord our Governor, bless all the leaders of our land, that we may be a people at peace among ourselves and a blessing to other nations of the earth. Grant to the President and members of the cabinet, to governors of states, mayors of cities, and to all in administrative authority, wisdom and grace in the exercise of their duties. Give courage, wisdom, and foresight to senators and representatives, and legislators in states and cities, to provide for the needs of all people, and to fulfill our obligations in the community of nations. Give understanding and integrity to the judges and officers of our courts, that human rights may be safeguarded and justice served.
And finally, teach our people to rely on your strength and to accept their own responsibilities to their fellow citizens, that they may support our leaders in making wise decisions for the well-being of our society; that we may serve you faithfully in our generation and honor your holy Name. Amen