Rt. Rev. Kym Lucas:
Greetings, beloved in Christ. I hope that you are well on this day. In just a few days, we will have a midterm election in our country, and I encourage all of you to make sure that you are registered to vote and to please vote. As your bishop, I would never tell you how to vote, but I will tell you how I vote. First, you should know I am a skeptic. I don’t believe what political ads say. I don’t believe what my friends say about particular candidates. I take my time and do my own research. I look up what candidates have to say for themselves about themselves. I look at their voting record if they’re already in office.
And I understand that every candidate on that ballot is a sinner and that none of them is the Messiah. I don’t need a Messiah. I have one. And the gospels are very clear about that Messiah’s criteria. I recognize that no one is a perfect candidate because there are no perfect people. And I also recognize that just because a person does one good thing, it doesn’t discount the 50 bad things they’ve done, and vice versa. So I take my time, and I research every candidate, pro and con.
Next, I look at every ballot initiative, and I do research there as well. Because I know that sometimes when something seems good, say like a three-strike rule, that such things are often intended to target specific communities, as we learned with the three-strike rule. And so I ask myself with each initiative, who is going to benefit from it and who will suffer?
After I do all of that research, I sit down with my ballot, and then I open my prayer book to page 304, and I ask myself these questions. Will you continue in the apostles’ teaching and fellowship and the breaking of the bread and in the prayers? Will you persevere in resisting evil, and whenever you fall into sin, repent and return to the Lord? Will you proclaim by word and example the good news of God in Christ? Will you seek and serve Christ in all persons, loving your neighbor as yourself? Will you strive for justice and peace among all people and respect the dignity of every human being? And then with prayer, I fill out my ballot.
Voting is a right, a right that was gained by some with much protest and with blood so that we all might have a say in how we are governed, so that we all might exercise that right to vote in the interest, in the best interest of our communities. That when we vote for justice, it’s not just about us. It’s about how we make a better world for everyone. And so please vote. Please vote prayerfully. Please vote your baptism. Blessings.