Well, it’s time for me to tick off a few people, disappoint a few, and most likely lose a few “friendships.” I put that in quotes very intentionally. After listening to today’s inauguration speech, I am more convinced than ever that Trump is president of the United States, but he is not my leader.
I do not say this because of his speech, which, by the way, was the most frightening I have ever heard. I say it because I am a follower of Jesus, one who accepts him as Lord of my life. And for the last 44 years I have become increasingly convinced that you cannot be a person who calls Jesus Lord and serve anyone or anything else.
Let me take you back to my early teen years, when I first decided to follow Jesus.
A side note: you will notice that I rarely, if ever, refer to myself as Christian. That term, which was originally used as a mocking term to describe followers of “The Way” who were being persecuted, has been co-opted by the right-wing political groups in America. “Christian” and “Follower of Jesus” seem to have two different meanings these days. I go with the second.
In my early teens I was pretty much lost in this world and a young ministerial student told me about Jesus. I fell in love with Jesus and decided I would follow him. I remember Jesus saying that you could not serve two gods, that there could only be one. So I took him literally at that and for years I would not say the Pledge of Allegiance. After all, after all, if I pledge allegiance to one thing, it takes precedence over all else. My allegiance was to Jesus.
Then there came a time when people began to convince me that you could have more than one god. That it would be like flags on a flagpole- which one was on top. (Oddly enough, most of those people would say that the national flag should always be on top, with the Christian flag underneath.) I tried that for a while, thinking that I could love Jesus and country, just as long as I loved Jesus just a little bit more.
But a few decades ago, I began to see disturbing things happening in the name of Christianity. It built up to today when those things showed themselves in the awful prayers that were said at the inauguration. There was hardly anything said in them about what Jesus said was important. And the inaugural speech actually spoke against the very things Jesus said was crucial. “…I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me, I was naked and you gave me clothing, I was sick and you took care of me, I was in prison and you visited me…” (Jesus, Matthew 25). It became clear again to me that you cannot partly follow Jesus. He said that in many ways.
I do think that today we saw what will be the end of democracy in America. The good news is that followers of Jesus have lived (and suffered) through times like this many times over the centuries. But the faith continues on. Many great nations, and a few empires, have come and gone in the last two millennia. And as much as I hate to see it, it appears that ours is on the way out. But the people of God, the followers of Jesus, will continue on.
So, while the speech was frightening and the prayers appalling, it has made me more committed to my leader than ever before.
Michael Henderson 