This IS who we are.

There will be no comfort in saying “this isn’t who we are.”

We’ve said it too many times.

After every tragedy. After every policy that robs the poor to enrich the powerful. After every cruelty justified in the name of security or prosperity. After every moment our elected leaders make a mockery of the gospel – calling good what is evil, and evil what is good.

​We need to get comfortable with this fact: this is who we are. This is who we've always been.

We are a nation that chooses, again and again, to build walls and cages rather than communities of care. A nation that would sooner offer tax breaks to billionaires than ensure children have enough to eat or the sick can see a doctor. We are a people whose leaders laugh as they contemplate letting migrants be eaten by alligators or drown at our borders. They sneer at the loss of health care in rural communities. They shrug at the suffering that will come from slashing Medicaid, as if the lives that hang in the balance are of no consequence at all.

And if that weren’t enough, we stand beneath the shadow of a Supreme Court that has handed vast new, unchecked powers – and near-total immunity – to the executive branch. Powers that will outlast this administration, and the next, and perhaps the one after that. Powers that should terrify all who care about justice, democracy, and the fragile promise of liberty.

I know it hurts. Especially for those of us who don’t see ourselves as an active part in the downward spiral of society. Still, we can’t keep pretending otherwise. A majority of our nation's citizens (us!) voted for this. We voted for racism. We voted for modern internment camps. We voted for highly-weaponized immigration agents. We voted for brutal cuts to Medicaid and SNAP benefits. We voted for cruelty. This is who we are.

But (and here’s the hard hope in this moment) – this doesn’t have to be who we remain.

​Scripture knows this story all too well. Isaiah cried out to a people who claimed to seek God but lived lives soaked in injustice:

“Is not this the fast that I choose: to loose the bonds of injustice,
to undo the thongs of the yoke,
to let the oppressed go free,
and to break every yoke?
Is it not to share your bread with the hungry,
and bring the homeless poor into your house;
when you see the naked, to cover them,
and not to hide yourself from your own kin?”
(Isaiah 58:6-7, NRSV)

Jesus, too, made it plain. In Matthew 25 he told us that the nations will be judged by how they treated the least of these: the hungry, the sick, the stranger, the imprisoned. Not by their grandstanding speeches. Not by their immense prosperity. Not by how efficiently they trimmed a budget or secured their borders. They would be judged by love in action.

When we look at our national life today, we see how far we have strayed. But let us be clear: we are not the first generation to face this choice. The Bible is full of moments where God’s people must decide: will we serve the God of justice or the gods of greed and fear?

Brutal, not-at-all beautiful bills may pass. Glorified internment camps (concentration camps?) may be built. Wars may be started. Cuts may go through. Billionaires may get their handouts. But none of this changes our call as followers of Jesus: to stand with the vulnerable, to speak truth to power, to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim release to the captives.

So if this is who we are, what do we do?

Let’s be the ones who refuse to let this chapter of our history be the end of our story.

We tell the truth. We don’t sugarcoat or minimize. We name the harm being done to the poor, the sick, the migrant, the child. We resist the temptation to retreat into comfortable denial or hollow optimism. We push back against people and policies who use the language of Christian faith to defend bigotry and violence.

And, we don’t stop there. People of conscience and moral character have work to do:

• Advocate. Keep writing, calling, and showing up. The passage of one big bill is not the end of the story. Legislators need to hear, again and again, that we are watching and we will not stand silent.
• Mobilize. The choices made by this Congress can be challenged at the ballot box. Organize. Register voters. Support candidates committed to justice and compassion.
• Pray. Not as a substitute for action but as its foundation. Pray for courage. Pray for wisdom. Pray for the vulnerable. Pray for those who have hardened their hearts that they may yet be moved to compassion.
• Gather. Find your people. We need one another more than ever. Grief shared is bearable. Action taken together is powerful.
• Care for those hit hardest. The cuts to healthcare and hunger programs will fall hardest on the poor, the disabled, the elderly, rural families. The camps will target migrants and asylum-seekers. Immigration policies will focus upon people of color. Be the hands of Christ in tangible, practical ways.
• Practice defiant joy. When cruelty reigns, joy is an act of resistance. Celebrate beauty. Make art. Laugh with your loved ones. Tend your garden. Dance at weddings. Refuse to let the powers of death steal your soul.
• Care for yourself. Justice work is not a sprint, it’s a long, sustained note. Picture the choir holding that note, singers staggering their breaths so the song continues. Take your breath when you need it. Rest. See a therapist. Fill that anxiety prescription. Step away when you must. Trust that others will carry the note until you’re ready to rejoin the song.

Friends, it is tempting to despair. But despair is a luxury we cannot afford, if we claim to follow Jesus. The same Jesus who was crucified by the violence of empire is the one who rose again. The same Jesus who preached good news to the poor still calls to us now: follow me.

​So let’s follow him, not with empty words but with lives that say: this is not who we will remain.