I looked at yesterday’s Daily Office readings to see what inspiration I could find with respect to the Inauguration. What caught my attention was Mark 3:19-35. In the passage, a group of scribes are once again attempting to discredit Jesus’ preaching, this time by insidiously suggesting that since Jesus is so good at casting out demons, he must be in fact the ruler of those demons— he must be Satan or one of Satan’s minions. Jesus responds with a passage often quoted in the context of the American Civil War:
If a kingdom is divided against itself, that kingdom cannot stand. And if a house is divided against itself, that house will not be able to stand.
This has application to our politics today as well. Political debate has become so acrimonious, so charged with vitriol, that too many of our political leaders get lost in the tactics of political victory to the detriment of strategic visions of the greater good. Much of the opposition to anything and everything done or proposed by Bush and the Republicans comes from knee-jerk hatred of the source instead of thoughtful consideration of the merits. Now, I see Obama proposing and supporting concepts that are, on close analysis, not very different from his predecessor’s, yet, because it is coming from Obama, opposition is muted and largely confined to the fringes of the political spectrum.
Certainly there will be policies I will disagree with, but I hope that I do so from a position of respect with an open mind and an open heart. I do not want to see my country divided the way it has been; instead, I want to see us working together to accomplish great things. A house divided will not stand.
Those of you who know me well will wonder that I’m so willing to embrace the new President. After all, I’m fiscally conservative with a somewhat libertarian bent when it comes to social issues. For insight into my thinking, look at the final section of the reading from Mark:
A crowd was sitting around him; and they said to him, ‘Your mother and your brothers are outside, asking for you.’ And he replied, ‘Who are my mother and my brothers?’ And looking at those who sat around him, he said, ‘Here are my mother and my brothers! Whoever does the will of God is my brother and sister and mother.’
In terms of political family, Obama may not be my ‘biological’ brother, but I believe he is striving to do the will of God. As such, he is my brother, too.
