“Although He's
regularly asked to do so, God does not take sides in American politics.”
--George
J. Mitchell
“…and may God bless the United States of America!” This
will be the final phrase of every single Presidential campaign speech for the
next two months. O.K…that’s not an absolutely guaranteed fact. But try this
experiment. During the next sixty days, listen to any of the hundreds of
campaign speeches President Obama and Governor Mitt Romney will deliver daily,
right up until Election Day. Chances are that almost every single one of these
secular sermons will end with what has become a rhetorical cliché and the
standard coda to every presidential stump speech. “…and
may God bless the United
States of America!”
It makes me wonder. Just what does it mean to ask for the
blessing of the Divine upon a people or a nation? Is it presumptuous to do so? Is it a sincere
public act of faith? Or is it just something the speechwriter always tags on to
the end of a speech? Just what do the candidates really desire when they ask
God to “bless” America?
Something tells me that these questions
won’t be asked in the Presidential debates.
So here’s a proposal. In the days leading up to our shared
trip to the ballot box, let’s democratize this whole question of just who gets
to ask God for a national blessing. It
is not just Romney or Obama who gets to invoke the Divine and then prayerfully
make requests for America. Faith is fully democratic. Prayer is as close
and available as our deepest hopes, whether we speak them out loud or hold them
in our hearts.
We know the candidates want God to bless America. What about you, as a citizen? If you do pray,
what are the God given blessings you might request for this land that we call
home?
Here’s a few of mine.
I might ask God to bless all of America and its political leaders
with a spirit of humility. America
is an amazing country. I do love
it. But God did not only make, and God
does not only bless, our one land.
Instead God blesses and made all Creation. The U.S. is but one
of 196 countries in the world. God made all peoples and nations. God loves
every last child of God in every land, from Afghanistan
and Albania, to Kenya and Kiribati,
to Yemen, Zambia and Zimbabwe. So may God Bless America and may God bless the whole
world too. No exceptions or exceptionalism.
I might ask God to bless America and its leaders with
courage. Thus far in the Presidential
campaign the candidates have been quite good at telling us what we want to
hear, but not always so good at telling us what we need to hear. Far too often they tell us we can spend
without consequence and cut without pain. Also: we don’t have to sacrifice,
taxpayers or beneficiaries alike, calculators and budgets be damned.
The real truth? It is
somewhere in the middle, a place neither party seems to want to move to. So may God grant us the civic fortitude and
courageous leadership to find answers outside of our cozy partisan comfort
zones.
Then I might ask God to bless America with a spirit of generous compromise.
Sociologists and political pundits report that America is as ideologically divided
now as it was at the time of the Civil War.
We know how that turned out. If America
is to find solutions to our civic challenges, citizens and politicians need to
find a common ground for the common good.
We need to let go of our often self-righteous and dogmatic positions.
These may provide red meat for the media and ideologues but they do absolutely nothing
to unlock gridlock and move us ahead. So
may God help us to ask not “What’s in it for me?” but instead “What is best for
the whole country?”
Of course finally, we’ve no idea how God hears or responds
to the most fervent of our prayers, collective and individual. It would be prideful and arrogant to assume
we know the mind and motives of God. Folks of faith always walk by faith, not
proof.
But yes, I’d still say, may God Bless the United States of America
and the whole world. May God bless the
candidates and the citizenry, as we make and maybe even pray our way to
November 6th.
What’s on your prayer list for America?
No comments:
Post a Comment