Sunday, July 12, 2026
On the Semiquincentennial of U.S.A. (Part 3)
1.
Watching from afar, or at least the next state over, we have of course witnessed this week the dissolution of what was a promising Senate campaign in Maine. One that had for many months inspired a movement of Mainers—with visions of universal health care, a fair and just economy, and a national commitment to international law, human rights, rather than perpetual and genocidal war. The political tide seemed to be literally turning in Maine. And change seemed be even within their shared and collective grasp.
Like so many of you, I have friends north of the border, and a good many are devasted this weekend. And there are questions, so many questions this weekend, that pertain, I think, to our summer conversation about democracy itself and what we in the church bring—spiritually, theologically—to that project.
2.
To this last point, let us remember that the fundamental commitment of the gospel is inclusion, and the core practice of Christianity is healing. Healing of bodies. Healing of spirits. Healing of communities. Over and over again, Jesus engages meaningfully and bravely with women, and a few men, who have been brutalized. Brutalized by systems of cruelty and privilege. Betrayed by family and even religious leaders they trusted. And over and over again, Jesus makes space for their truth, for the sharing of hard stories, for their grief and rage, and then for compassion, for inclusion, and the healing of their bodies and spirits. And, indeed, that’s the calling, the vocation of beloved community itself. Ours and so many others. If you’ve been violated in any way, there is a privileged place for you at this table. We can heal together. So we bring to this work—just as Jesus does—our most humble hearts and most courageous loving. There is simply no other way.
I want to suggest too, and this is hard to say; but I want to suggest that it may well be that Graham Platner too is a victim of systemic, organized, generational violence. And it may well be that his choices, his treatment of women, his violence (if that’s what it is)—that his life has been scarred by unholy wars, and toxic masculinity, and the trauma of American violence perpetuated by governments going back decades and decades in this country. Which is not for a second to rationalize or dismiss the price paid by the abused and scarred among us. It is simply to say that violence, war: it is all too often ingested, embodied and transmitted—generation to generation; soldiers to their families; partners to their partners. And in the cacophony of this week’s news, in the flurry of activity to oust him from the race in Maine, I fear that this point is too easily lost on us. The kind of violence of which Graham Platner is accused is mapped out in war rooms, paid for by Congress, and rationalized by presidents who all too often lie to make it happen.
Graham Platner served three tours, we know, in Iraq and Afghanistan: three tours in countries we had brutally occupied, three tours in communities of families ripped to shreds, three tours in conflicts where unimaginable terror traumatized the young people sent to do our government’s dirty work. And that kind of violence, coupled with toxic masculinity and crippled self-esteem, does awful, awful things to men, and to the women they love.
And if we’re committed to the difficult tasks of supporting those who’ve been abused and violated, and healing those who’ve ingested war, and violence, and abusive notions of power and sex; if we’re committed to this, we must address the patterns of violence, even the political economy of war and violence, that betrays democratic traditions of collaboration, negotiation and neighborliness.
Rape is not just Graham Platner’s issue, or his fatal flaw. It is an American issue, a public health issue, a spiritual crisis; and we are all responsible for healing this body politic. This country. Our country. Who will we choose to be?
3.
Both readings this morning are lyrical, almost musical in the ways they land in our hearts and here in our pews. And in two very different ways, perhaps, they set before us—and before our country—a choice.
Down in Massachusetts, Regie Gibson says:
“Any path this nation takes, it’s because we helped to choose it. Any tyranny that eventually triumphs, it’s because we helped excuse it. Any freedom this nation loses is because Massachusetts helped to lose it…” And Isaiah’s ancient text is, too, about a choice, a choice in every generation, a choice that involves particular commitments, shared among us, expressed in personal piety and public policy. The choice is consequential; and so too the blessing on the other side: “The Lord will guide you continually and satisfy your needs in parched places, and make your bones strong…” Isn’t th is the blessing we ache for in our generation? That our bones, that our democratic bones might be made strong again?
And this extraordinary word, this poetry, is indeed a stunning call to a particular practice, and it’s a shared and communal practice. With implications, profound implications of course, for personal piety. For the patterns of our own families and households.
You heard the text. God’s promises are sweet. God’s blessing is indeed on offer. But this practice (says the prophet) is our obligation, our collective responsibility. To betray that responsibility is to dismiss the promises themselves. What Isaiah conjures for us is a practice that meets violence with justice, a practice that meets the abuse of power with the rebuilding of trust. And this has profound implications, I think, for our American democracy. Listen.
“If you remove the yoke from among you,There is a conditionality to God’s blessing. That’s the troubling, but essential prophetic tradition in a nutshell. There is a conditionality to God’s blessing. Isaiah’s speaking to an entire people, to a people he obviously loves, but chooses here to challenge and even cajole. “If you remove the yoke from among you, then your light shall rise in the darkness…If you satisfy the needs of the afflicted, then you shall be like a watered garden…” This, my friends, is the word of the Lord. The blessing of a people, of a nation, comes with conditions. The promise of God’s spirit, of God’s repairing, of God’s healing: these too come with conditions.
the pointing of the finger, the speaking of evil,
if you offer your food to the hungry
and satisfy the needs of the afflicted,
then your light shall rise in the darkness
and your gloom be like the noonday.”
A democracy will hold up in the sweep of history, amidst the storms of history, only insofar as we act together, as we collaborate in communities, to remove so many yokes of oppression. A democracy will thrive and mature among us only insofar as we satisfy the needs of the afflicted, of the children, of the refugees and vulnerable in our midst. There is a conditionality to God’s blessing. And it sounds through both these texts like an anthem today, like Woody Guthrie singing “This Land” or Bob Dylan singing “The Times They are a Changin’” or Nina Simone singing “To Be Young, Gifted and Black.”
And so I offer these texts to you this morning, to the church, and maybe to our friends in Maine, and maybe even to Graham Platner and his team. I offer them as anthems of hope, as clarifying words, and (yes) as sharpening tools, in a democratic moment that requires clarity and discernment among us all. We have obligations, responsibilities. And God has indeed set conditions on every nation. But the promise, the blessing, and the hope is extraordinary:
"Your ancient ruins shall be rebuilt;4.
you shall raise up the foundations of many generations;
you shall be called the repairer of the breach,
the restorer of streets to live in.”
The task before us in America requires not just a few political candidates, or a handful of spiritual heroes, but all of us. A national commitment to democracy itself.
So to this question, finally, about imperfect leaders or broken politicians or even candidates who’ve made terrible mistakes in their lives: I think we want to make space, friends, for every one of us in the democratic experiment. It must not be a spectator sport: farmed out to the very rich, the very powerful and their chosen representatives. It must not be entertainment consumed on CNN, FOX or even MS NOW. That’s not democracy. Democracy requires an educated and empowered people. Democracy thrives in communities of neighborliness and respect. Democracy means working collaboratively, and through political processes, to meet our human and spiritual obligations to one another.
We should not, we cannot shame any human being in such a way that they are banished from the body politic. And we simply have to encourage truth-telling, courageous reflection, and, yes, confession and repentance: in public life as in our private spheres and homes. We ache for leaders brave enough to acknowledge their own wrong-doing and free enough to make reparations and turn the page. If a man is willing, if a man is able to come to grips with his actions, even his violence, our tradition insists that we make space for mercy, for learning and for transformation.
And if we create this kind of space in our democracy, space for confession, space for transformation, space for grace, we may yet encourage the kind of participation, the kind of collaboration that welcomes new energies and even liberating promise. “Then your light shall rise in the darkness andyour gloom be like the noonday…”
But if we turn toward one another and toward the future we can only inhabit together, we may find that we are indeed one another’s keepers, we are indeed one another’s neighbors, we are indeed siblings in a nation where brotherhood and sisterhood require our best selves, our kindest selves, and our hearty participation in a circle that never ends.
So let our choices be shaped by faithfulness. Let our democratic practice be infused with care and concern. And let our ancient ruins be rebuilt and our American streets restored as avenues of justice, grace and peace. For all of us.
Amen and Ashe.
