My unplanned response to Donald Trump's rally yesterday

I just read about Mr. Trump's Madison Square Garden rally yesterday, and think the following, which I drafted last night, is as good a response to it as any. Maybe if some who spoke there had been in church with me yesterday, they'd have changed their tune...one can always hope!

We heard a great sermon yesterday morning about the ingathering God of the Christian scriptures. About the God who would rather gather us into one than scatter us into many. About the God who calls all people to be more gatherers than scatterers, who rejoices when the lost come home and the whole family celebrates with them. (I've moved beyond the sermon itself, but I was inspired.)

Leaders who want to bring people together around common issues and concerns seem to me to be a reflection of the God I heard proclaimed this morning. Leaders who want to scatter us into our various tribes seem not to be. People who want to be gathered and in community seem to me to be responding to this God more truly than are people who thrive on being scattered and isolated.

We must be careful, however, not to get derailed. When Martin Luther King, Jr., was preaching reconciliation of races in the beloved community, many accused him of being divisive. But, sounding divisive in the search of being truly reconciled is often a necessary step on the way to a healed community. It is not an end in itself, but a rough spot on the way to human wholeness. King's dream was not about divisions, but about a unity beyond all of our divisions. Dare our land still dream that dream?

Lord, show us all how to be a more faithful ingatherers of the human family, even when some accuse us of creating division. Teach us what to say and do to help create your beloved community. Amen.