God's Vote

I await my campain button in the mail. Maybe it will have a message from God on the back. Kind of like a Snapple cap. Don't we wish spiritual discernment was that clear when it comes to electing our officials?

Sister Joan Chittister of Erie, PA helped me out last week in her email newsletter: I think there is a criterion we can use to make our personal political decisions with moral confidence. I bet God’s own criteria still holds. I bet God is still listening, as in Yahweh’s message to Moses at the burning bush: “I have heard the cry of the poor…and I mean to deliver them.” (http://www.benetvision.org/)

God's vote for Moses was a vote for deliverance of the enslaved and oppressed. That theme echoes through out scripture. Choose any three Psalms at random and my guess is that you will here the message resound.

We have plenty of people crying for deliverance in our world. In America, kids go without meals in the summer because the school lunch program is closed. Health care goes wanting because we can't share our abundance of health care options. Mortgage foreclosures put families at risk because of greed. Of course compared to the rest of the world, even our poor are rich (http://www.richlist.com/). Travel the globe in your imagination and you will find poverty crying out in every nation. God hears the cries of the oppressed amid greed, pollution, affluenza, and warfare of all sorts.

My burning bush moment with God is going to take place in the voting booth up the street. It will be holy ground for a holy call for me to be the change God wants to see in the world. Like Moses, I may have to go barefoot in that holy space.

I wonder if I'll be asked to leave because of no shoes?

Bob Anderson

churchdoc@gmail.com

Bob Anderson