A bad week for the God of Love

“The God of Love had a really bad week”

                               Diana Butler Bass

___________________________________________

The God of love had a very bad week

It was a week where more legal immigrants we detained at the border

Mostly because the color of their skin made them a perfect target

For a racist leader.

It was a week when children remained in cages

Their fragile selves being destroy day by day by the cruelty imposed on them

By people claiming that God blesses their country

It was a week when gun control continued to be blocked

It was a week when hatred flourished to the shout of

“send her back”

A week when so called “patriots” tried to stir up both hate and

Fear, in front of my county’s courthouse

A week in which a person who dared to challenge them

Woke up to a broken car window and a vandalized care

It was a week when vitrol flooded the comments sections

On Facebook and News articles

It was a week when the Evangelical church, claiming to follow Jesus

Doubled down on its support of a cheat and liar

And worse

It was a week when an evangelical pastor

Suggested that if Trump loses the election

Christian leaders and politicians will all get murdered

(this same “pastor” suggested that the children and grandchildren of all who oppose Trump will be cursed)

Yep,

The God of love had a bad week

Meanwhile, the God many Americans have created in place of this God

That tougher, stricter

Emperor God

Who is all punishment, wrath and exclusion

That God who plays favorites

And is all about power and wealth

And winning

This militaristic, angry

Cruel God…

Did so well

This God (or so we are led to believe)

Rode along with ICE as they rounded up good people

Smiled benevolently at the angry, chanting crowds

Blessed a country that has created economic inequity

Made race based injustice the norm

And neglected the vulnerable

This God sided with winners

This God flat out squashed the God of Love….

Or not

The truth is

And this is something

“a minority of white Christians know,

and the majority of Christians of color never need be reminded,

the God of love is always hanging around,

the brown-skinned Jewish rabbi preaching about the poor being blessed

and the broken-hearted comforted.

Love your neighbor as yourself.

Do unto others. Let the little children come.

Faith, hope, and love.

And the greatest of these is love.”  (Diana Butler Bass)

It was a bad week for the God of Love

But it is (symbolically)

Friday

And Sunday is coming

And on Sunday, Love wins