I Can Think of Some Good Reasons Why Someone Would Vote for Trump
33rd Sunday, C Cycle homily, 11-14-16
I went on retreat this past week. It was my annual retreat with about 40 other priests at St. Paul of the Cross Retreat House in Detroit. We had our daily conferences in a room which held about sixty people. As I sat listening to the retreat director, I noticed that behind his shoulder on the wall there was a wooden crucifix. Jesus was hanging on the cross looking down sadly at the ground. I knew that the cross would be playing a significant role in my retreat, but I wasn’t sure at that point what it would be.
Then came Wednesday morning with the news that Trump had won the election. We were all shocked. Only one of us had voted for Trump. There was an eerie sense in the room.
I can think of some good reasons why someone would vote for Trump.
- Protection of the unborn
- Those who lost jobs because of international trade deals
- Many small towns had become ghost towns because of the businesses closing
But on the other hand, I had some very strong misgivings about the president-elect.
- Insults towards immigrants as being all criminals
- Crass words and attitudes towards women
- Did not reject the support of the KKK
- Did not understand the concerns of the urban poor
I had experienced the pain caused by prejudice towards the African American community as a graduate student when I lived with a family in the summer of 1967 during the riot-rebellion in Detroit. The family I was living with on the near north side of the city had tried to advance themselves. Both parents worked to send their four children to Catholic School. They owned their own home. But the redlining in the housing market did not allow them to move where, if they were white, they could make a good investment in housing.
I stayed with the family in the city during the week of the rioting. At the end of the week I realized that while I spent the evenings upstairs sleeping soundly, the father of the family was huddled on the front room floor with his wife and children with a gun in his hand to protect them. A few of the radicals in the neighborhood who did not like a white man living in their house.
It was then I realized for a few moments in my life the pain, sadness, rage and frustration of what being Black in America was all about. I also realized that with all the generations of suffering, some people of color had not only endured but turned all that rejection and suffering into a deep compassion for others, a depth of compassion which can only come through suffering. I wanted to be close to that compassion. I wanted to be close to that experience of God. That was why I had spent most of my life in urban ministry…to share in the rich gift of compassion birthed through suffering.
Well, with a new president-elect seemingly insensitive to the pain which has divided our nation since its founding. I was sitting in the conference room at the retreat and I looked up at the crucifix again. Later in my room I took a similar crucifix off the wall and held it close to my chest. I knew that the one who had died to set us free would somehow see me through this time of anger, pain, confusion and chaos.
Today’s gospel speaks of the end of time. There are events in our lives that seem to overwhelm us. Serious sickness, the loss of a loved one, the burden of life. But the longer I pressed the crucifix to my chest, the more I realized that this one who had suffered and died also rose from the dead. I experienced that he HAD risen and formed a community through the power of his suffering and death.
And then I began to realize, here I was, privileged to be the pastor of a faith community, in the middle of an urban area, with people born in fifteen different countries, praising God and giving witness that the kingdom which Jesus had come to establish was, in fact, in front of me. I had all I could want in life.
My brothers and sisters, let us continue to live in the presence of the one who overcame suffering and death and showers us with compassion and life. May we come to know and celebrate the kingdom in our midst.