TransPreacher

We come here together to pray.

Today is a day of great anxiety, after a contentious election season. A season where political debate did not stay confined to federal policy in Washington DC, but sought to divide communities in Springfield and around Columbus, Ohio, and across the supposed “land of the free”.

Election Day should be a day of ultimate equality. When we step into the ballot box, everyone’s vote counts the same. It doesn’t matter how much money you have, the wealth of your zip code, or what your family looks like, one person, one vote.

But from Ida B Wells a century ago to gerrymandering today, we know that not every voice and vote are equally heard.

Thomas Jefferson wrote that “All people are created equal…”

Unless you are a person who has come here from another country and you are defined as illegal. Both parties argue about who has the toughest immigration policies, when scripture calls us to welcome the stranger and the refugee, for we were all once immigrants.

Unless you are a person who has a gender identity or expression different than the one assigned at birth and you are defined as a deviant and a threat. Jesus describes the gender diverse people of his day as people “born that way, and there are eunuchs who have been made eunuchs by others—and there are those who choose to live like eunuchs for the sake of the kingdom of heaven.”

Unless you are a person in poverty. Gustavo Gutierrez, the father of liberation theology who recently died, spoke of God’s preferential option for the poor. While scripture continually centers the poor, politicians on either side of the aisle seek to outdo each other in pandering to the middle class, neither party speaks of feeding the hungry, clothing the naked, visiting the incarcerated.

Perhaps this creates opportunity for us. We are the ones who center and pray for the people who Jesus called blessed. We are the ones who can use our privilege and power and position to work for justice and equity for people who continue to be marginalized for the sake of political advantage.

After all, Howard Thurman placed Jesus among the disinherited. If we worship the person who had no place to lay their head, we should care about the people today who experience homelessness.

As we come together in this house of prayer for all people, we truly pray for life and liberation and freedom for everyone. People of all races, all classes, all colors, all parties, all genders, all orientations, all abilities, all nationalities. We are all created in the image of God, let us recognize the divinity and connection we have with all people. Let us live and vote in a way that brings our shared salvation. Let us bring the kindom of God, on earth as it is in heaven.