Sometime Tuesday evening or maybe even days later, we will know our next president and the makeup of the 2025 congress. When things become clear, if the polls are correct, roughly half of our nation will feel disappointed as the other half celebrates. This is a consequential election with the stakes heightened by social media algorithms that tend to amplify divisions. Many of us may feel anxious about the next four years and beyond. I have found myself praying a prayer attributed to King David. I adapted Psalm 72 for our modern context, taking a few liberties with my tweaks. For me, Psalm 72 reminds me of the core of Judeo-Christian values, like loving neighbors, feeding people, welcoming strangers, providing for poor people, ensuring justice, blessing neighbors, and working for peace. No matter which candidate wins this election, I pledge to keep praying and working to create communities defined by redemptive goodwill for all people. God calls us to offer loving-kindness to all our neighbors (foreign and domestic), to strangers, and Jesus tells us even to our enemies. No matter who wins, our nation needs each of us to live out these basic teachings of our faith: loving God and neighbor. I hope you find comfort in this prayer church people have been praying for 3,000 years.

Love Pastor Paul

Psalm 72: Adapted and Contextualized

Give the president, judges, and congress your justice, O God,
and your righteousness to the vice president and cabinet members.
May they lead your people with their right actions
and bring poor people justice.

May the land yield prosperity for the people,
and the fields team with produce
so that everyone has enough to eat.

May the president, congress and our judges,
defend the cause of the poor of the people,
give deliverance to the needy,
and crush oppression.

May our leaders show reverence for God as long as the sun shines,
and their good deeds bless the coming generations.
May their administration be like the rain that falls on the mown grass,
like showers that water the earth and renew it.

May ethics and goodness flourish during their terms,
and may peace abound as long as the moon endures.
May peace-makers rule from sea to sea
and to the ends of the earth.

May old enemies become new allies,
and those dealing in oppression find justice.
May peace abound on the earth
and every government strive for equity and for the common good

May our leaders not work for their own interests, or that of party,
but may let them decide for the needs of people so that:
they care for the poor,
they help those who have no helper,
they have compassion on those who are weak,
they defend the oppressed,
they hear those long ignored,
and they lift up all who have been disenfranchised and exploited.

Lord, may you bless our courts, our governors, our lawmakers
so they may deliver us from oppression and violence.
We lift our leaders in prayer continually,
and pray that all nations may be blessed by our leaders:
may all the world’s people rejoice to know this administration.

Oh Lord, our God,
who alone does wondrous things.
Blessed be God’s glorious name forever;
may God’s glory fill the whole earth. Amen and Amen.