An Election Week Message from Pastor Jane

Tuesday is election day here in our beautiful country. We will certainly use our hearts and minds to be led in our voting. It is such an honor to be part of this Democratic Republic, this amazing experiment that is America, but all the cosmos is God’s.

It is truly the Lord alone who is our Creator, Redeemer, and Sustainer.

The form of democratic republic government is young, other governing forms are much older and have much longer consecutive histories, monarchies, for example, who claimed God appointed them to rule. The idea of the separation of church and state was introduced by Henry the 8th who did not want to be told by the church he could not get a divorce. The interplay between powers of state (some claiming divine power and some claiming secular power) and God’s work in humanity has been quiet a tangle over the centuries.

Our faith in God cuts through all of these and is stronger than any form of governing, greater in hope and life than any ruler, more glorious and binding than any bomb or law. If you ever doubt this, pray the prayer of the desperate father in Mark 9, “I believe, help me in my unbelief.” Jesus shows us that the father's faith, or lack of it, is no obstacle to him. Cry out: your sincerity is precious to Jesus. God placed within you a spirit that even destroyers of the flesh cannot touch.

No matter who wins the privilege of serving America as our President and Commander in Chief, no matter the tone set, no matter the consequences, no matter the good or ill that come, we pray with grateful and hoping hearts for America and her work in the world.

WE ARE THE PEOPLE OF EASTER; OUR LIVES ARE THE WORK OF CHRISTMAS.

We wake up each day saying again that God is growing us and walking with us individually and as a church, local and universal, in all joy and all sorrow.

We look for and participate in Christ’s resurrection in all life.

We lift our hearts and lives to take part of God’s true work of Shalom for all creation.

We celebrate and invite others into the body of Christ and together we care for what needs attention in our lives, community, and the world - to nourish, to comfort, to build, to find, to bless - and we follow Christ out of old ways of living that lead to death and chaos, step by step into new life with Christ each day.

Your joy in Christ, your love, peace, and your faith in God’s will for goodness bless this world more than you can know.

You are the body of Christ, each one of you is part of it. (1 Cor. 12:27)