Today's daily lesson comes from 1 Samuel chapter 11 verses 12 and 13:
12 Then the people said to Samuel, “Who is it that said, ‘Shall Saul reign over us?’ Bring the men, that we may put them to death.” 13 But Saul said, “Not a man shall be put to death this day, for today the Lord has worked salvation in Israel.”
Yesterday I was listening to a podcast by University of Texas historian H.W. Brands on Reconstruction. Brands, who has written a great book on President Grant, said that one of the greatest contrasts and lessons we can take from Grant's life as general and then president is that it is easier to win a war than it is to win peace.
Waging peace among ourselves ought to be a top priority for us as a nation. The U.S. Supreme Court has just issued its ruling making same-sex marriage the law of the land. For some, this was a long and hard-fought battle which resulted in victory. For others, it was a long and hard-fought battle ending in defeat. A 5-4 decision means there were winners and there were losers all across the country.
I have long been a supporter of my gay and lesbian friends and am happy for those of them who have or wish to marry. However, I am also grieved about the further division such a ruling has the potential to create in our families, churches, communities, and nation. This division has the power to further rip us apart.
But we will allow ourselves to be ripped apart if we choose not to hang together.
It is my prayer that we as a people will now resolve ourselves to the bonds of unity and reconciliation and steadfastly refuse to allow this issue to separate us from either loved one or neighbor. Good and decent people see this issue differently and in many hues. The challenge before us is to commit ourselves to remaining in relationship with one another in spite of our respective and ongoing differences. This is the hard work of waging peace. May the people of goodwill on all sides of this issue wage it mightily.
As I listened to Brands's talk, I thought of Lincoln's words from his second inaugural speech and could see that they are a good and fitting word for us as a country today and for all time:
"With malice toward none, with charity for all, with firmness in the right as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in, to bind up the nation's wounds, to care for him who shall have borne the battle and for his widow and his orphan, to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace among ourselves and with all nations."
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