Ask

About once every four years for most of my life, my mom would tell me the story of January 20, 1961. She was 17-years-old, on the very cusp of turning 18, and a senior in high school. She and a few others cut class that day so they could gather at a friend’s house (where there was a decent TV) to watch the inauguration of President John F. Kennedy. The young women swooned over him because, well, you know—eye candy. But they were equally stirred by the vision he cast for a world at peace and free from tyranny, poverty, disease, and war itself. They found themselves deeply inspired to ask not what your country can do for you, but ask what you can do for your country. They were breathless with all the possibilities of Camelot. Camelot, we know, did not survive its own idealism. Still, my mom always carried in her heart the hope for a beautiful future, if not for her generation, then for the next. And the next. And the next.

And so, at my mom’s urging, I cut class (or work) once every four years to pay attention to The Inauguration of whomever was being sworn in. Of course, I will be watching on Wednesday. I don’t imagine it will look much like Camelot, what with 9’ tall fencing topped off with razor wire and some 20,000 or so National Guard members scattered about the perimeter.

I might cry. If I do, it will not because of disappointment or elation at the results of an election, but because of the sheer solemnity of the moment. I will pray. When I do, it will be that we find our way forward—together—even as “we the people” are presently mired in conflict and animosity. And I will ask. I will ask the meaningful questions about how I might be part of the solution, not for my own sake, but for the sake of neighbors and community and, yes, country.

A few weeks ago, I practiced the beloved Moravian custom of selecting a Watchword for the New Year—a blindly-drawn verse of scripture through which to focus my attention. I’ve been contemplating it daily:

Jesus said, “Ask, and it will be given you; search, and you will find; knock, and the door will be opened for you.” Matthew 7:7

The word that captures my attention today—the one that seems to be set off from the rest as if it were outlined in neon—is “ask.” Ask. Ask. Ask. It strikes me that in our deeply factionalized culture, there’s a lot of declaring and demanding going on, and not so much asking. From both sides of the divide, voices claim moral superiority and righteousness. There is persistent insistence that one side is right, the other is wrong, and that’s that.

But that isn’t that. Either/or is a false set of choices. Finding a mutually beneficial way through the muck, though, means being open to a fresh set of possibilities. Those can only be discovered, I suspect, when there is an openness to finding them. It’s when we are willing to stop making statements and start asking questions that we begin to uncover the stepping stones that have been obscured. If we can trade in certitude for curiosity, those stepping stones will become ever more visible.

Ask. Ask not that God would be on one side or another, but that we would be on God’s side! Ask not that God give us what we think is in our own best interest, but that God bless us with what God knows we need. Ask not that any nation would be above God, but that our nation would be humbled to honor God through pursuits that lead to peace and wholeness for all.

Keeping Hopeful,

Pastor Chris

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