image credit: Todd Trapani on Unsplash
Now what? It’s the question after every election. Whatever we feel about the results, the new Congress won’t be sworn in until January 3. That’s almost two months away. Real change, if it comes, will take longer still. So most of us will do what feels natural. We’ll wait.
Some of that waiting is real. That’s how the political process works. But for many of us, the instinct to wait was planted long before this election. It grew out of the passive spirituality we were taught.
In evangelicalism, that passivity might have sounded something like:
I am an untrustworthy sinner; it is God who is good. So I will trust God’s plan, not my own. I will ask for forgiveness and wait for my Savior to rescue me.
In more progressive circles, that passivity might have sounded more like:
There is so much potential. I want to appreciate the seeds that have been planted and wait to see what grows. The Spirit is moving. I will watch for the path to open.
In both, and in many other potential examples, the first move, and sometimes the only move, is to wait. We are not in charge. There is a rescuer, and it isn't me.
That isn’t all untrue. In the good work of AA, for example, the first three steps are to admit powerlessness, look to a Power greater than ourselves, and submit to that care. Humility and trust are part of the spiritual path in almost every tradition.
The problem comes when we stop there. When we wait for too long, our theology can become one of learned helplessness. Waiting can become the whole path. (Which is also usually an individual path, as I wait for what opens up for me.)
What if we need to wait and trust but also still take action?
Scripture keeps asking us to move
We were made to tend. Humans weren’t placed in a perfect bliss that we ruined and now try to return to. We were placed in the garden “to tend and keep it” (Gen 2:15). From the beginning, creation needed our work to flourish.
Salvation requires participation. At the edge of the sea, with Egypt closing in, Moses tells the people, “Stand still, and see the salvation of the Lord” (Ex 14:13). God answers, “Why do you cry to Me? Tell the children of Israel to go forward” (Ex 14:15). The people had to move. They were active participants in their own rescue.
Hope is tangible. Rahab actively protects outsiders, and demands their faithful care for her family in return. The sign of their promise is a scarlet cord tied in her window (Josh 2:21). The Hebrew word for cord is tikvah, which everywhere but this verse, is translated as hope or expectation. Hope is the visible, risky, active, and tangible work for a different future.
Justice is made. Micah says God asks us to “do justice, to love mercy, and to walk humbly with your God” (Mic 6:8). The Hebrew for do is asah, meaning to make, create, produce. Justice isn’t something that just happens. We make it. It requires effort.
Eternal life is love, and love is active. When a lawyer asks Jesus how to inherit eternal life, the conversation leads to a parable about loving neighbors that defines love as compassionate action. It ends with a command: “Go and do likewise” (Luke 10:37).
In just these five texts, we see a world that needs our care. We see a salvation that requires our participation, and a hope that asks us to risk. We see a justice formed by our hands, and an eternal life formed through compassion for others.
Why this matters now
Passive spirituality doesn’t stay in church. It shapes how we hold responsibility everywhere else.
After an election, when we respond only with waiting, we are missing the important next step. Voting is only one piece of the puzzle.
Miguel de la Torre writes,
“I am not convinced, as was Martin Luther King, Jr. that ‘the arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends towards justice’… The hopelessness I advocate rejects quick and easy fixes that may temporarily soothe the conscience of the privileged but is no substitute for bringing about a more just social structure.”
De la Torre isn’t arguing for giving up. He’s refusing a cheap hope that soothes the comfortable while others keep suffering. Rahab’s cord cost her something. So did the Samaritan’s mercy. They are our ancestors, showing us what real hope and love look like.
What I’m learning
It has taken me a long time to learn this, and I’m still learning.
I’m a perpetual question asker. I love making space more than pushing forward. But my gifts become vices when I lean too hard into the reflection and miss the responsibility. I have too often offered kindness or a blessing to someone in a hard time without giving what they actually needed (James 2:14-17 could have been addressed to me.)
It wasn’t until Operation Metro Surge, the ICE occupation of the Twin Cities, that I truly woke up to the ongoing needs of my immigrant neighbors. I lived in a community with a high population of immigrants. I had made donations and posted on social media about the importance of welcoming strangers. But it’s only in the last year that I started showing up. I’m still learning what sustainable, relational, and supportive action looks like, but the work is changing me. My faith is more alive than it has been in a long time.
Another way in
Lisa and I have come to this from different directions. For both of us, it’s been a learned practice. Here’s how she describes hers:
“My habit when things feel overwhelming is to just volunteer and do something. Sometimes I find that I figure out solutions or next steps, but oftentimes, I meet people and learn. I am stretched to a new way of moving in the world. New relationships and communities mean that I am better connected and grounded. That means I am even more motivated to effect change for people and generations that are not my own.
What will we do?
So here is the question with. I hope all of us are asking it:
What are we willing to do now, and continue to do, for the mutual flourishing of our communities?
What words will we speak, whether or not anyone with a platform is speaking? How many calls and letters will we send to those who hold power? How will we give our time to protect our vulnerable neighbors? How will hope and love become action in our lives? How will we help create the justice we long for?
I see God working when my boots are on the ground.
In it with you,
Steph
P.S. Looking for ways to be involved in your community? Send me an email and let’s chat. I’d love to help you find the place that would be right for you.
