Election Day

And God spoke all these words:
“I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of Egypt, out of the land of slavery.
“You shall have no other gods before me.
“You shall not make for yourself an image in the form of anything in heaven above or on the earth beneath or in the waters below. You shall not bow down to them or worship them; for I, the Lord your God, am a jealous God, punishing the children for the sin of the parents to the third and fourth generation of those who hate me, but showing love to a thousand generations of those who love me and keep my commandments.”
-Exodus 20:1-6

Idolatry is a tricky sin.  In our current day and age, we are not in the habit of making “graven images” in the form of creatures (the golden calf, for example), to which we bow down and worship.  But we certainly see the act of worshipping all kinds of things that are not God.  We worship power, security, fame, and influence, just to name a few “idols” of our day.

On this election day, I am reminded of the admonition of Jesus in Luke 16:13 that we cannot serve two masters, (both God and money).  We are also called to render to Caesar that which is Caesar’s (the money with his picture on it) and render to God that which is God’s (our very selves which are made in God’s image) -Luke 20:25.

Please join me as we pray for our country on this election day.  May we love the Lord our God with all our heart, soul, mind and strength and love our neighbors as ourselves.  May our voting help us to care for the sick, the poor, the hungry and the hurting.

This fall, we will practice sharing our stories of faith.  This month we have invited Theresa Roosendaal to share on Nov 16 and Dave Burrill will share Nov 23.  God has given each of us a wonderful story to tell!  Please join us in worship this fall as we share our own inspiring stories of faith.

God, why isn’t life fair?
We confess that we follow rules expecting a reward, hoping that if we just say, believe, or do the right thing, you’ll love us, help us, save us.
But fairness does not seem to be your goal.
Help us to see beyond fairness to justice, beyond rule-following to relationship with you, beyond envy and resentment to love and wholeness.  Give us courage to say, “I’m sorry” to those we have hurt.  Give us humility to admit our failure to you and to one another.  Heal those hurts in the power and love of Jesus Christ our Lord.  Amen.