How were preachers not ready for this? a friend asked me over the phone. He was talking about how many of our colleagues responded with shock and dismay the week after the election. I was scrubbing the grout on my kitchen floor while I talked with him.
I know, I said. I only prepared for this possibility. I paused to assess if I had missed any spots. I hadn’t – I’d been on the floor for more than hour. Not because I knew it would go this way, but because I knew that if it went this way, I would have to say something.
This is perhaps the most predictable part of being a pastor. Come Sunday, you will have to say something. I said something the week after the election. Something about how we can be under no illusions that the rise of the far right is a blip on the political radar. The citizens of these United States are telling us how much they value the lives of immigrants and BIPOC/trans folks, and we should believe them. I said something the week after that, too. Something about how the last eight years have changed us. We’ve faced fire and flood, pandemic and loss, and so, we will need to dig deeper this time around.
This past week, though, I didn’t have to say much of anything. A retired colleague was preaching at my congregation, and I was grateful. Not only because I appreciate her sermons on their own merit, but because I had not thought out this far. I had not considered what would come after the initial grief, outrage, and anger. I had not anticipated what I would say as this month comes to an end, and we are facing the great unknown of the next four, fourteen, and forty years. And so, two weeks after the election, I started to panic. That’s when I started cleaning.
Come Sunday, my retired colleague opted to say something about thanksgiving. Specifically, she opened with the question, What if you woke up tomorrow only with what you thanked God for today? At first, it just seemed like a one-off. It’s an easy and well-worn path to gratitude in November. And in a less skilled preacher’s hands, it might have seemed like mere consolation. (ie Don’t worry that the world is on fire – just be grateful for what you have!) But as she said more, I understood the earnestness of her words. If we do not give thanks, it is as if we lose everything. Because when we fail to practice gratitude, we miss the day that is before us.
With the help of a scrub brush,I successfully distracted myself from the sense of pending doom for the better of last week, but Sunday reminded me that I do not want to remain distracted. Because for all that this present day may be – a time of fear and uncertainty, for sure – this is also the only day that we have. This is the day that we can resist the cruelty of this world. This is the day that we begin building a more just and compassionate world, even if the powers that be are stacked against us.
What if you woke up tomorrow only with what you thanked God for today? Yesterday, I woke up to clean. But today, I tried waking up to gratitude. Tomorrow, I hope we wake up to everything. I hope that in these days to come, as we wake up to more terrifying information in our news feeds, we also wake up to the beauty of the creation we are tasked to protect. I hope we wake up to the precious dignity of each human being. I hope we wake up to carry hope for the people who are working alongside of us. I hope we wake up to our loved ones, to those it is difficult to love, to the people we pass by on the street corner. I hope we wake up, fully present – grateful that we have been given this day to work for justice and compassion; grateful that we do not do this work alone.
Parish on Fire 