We’ve built our house on the sand, and now the ground is shifting.
I remember when then-candidate Barack Obama first won the presidency; I was in high school. I recall the charismatic Democrat’s promises — a guarantee that hope would be fulfilled and change would instill within us a sense of meaning and belonging — injecting new life into our national psyche.
Maxine Waters Claims She Was Sent by God to Stop Trump: ‘Jesus, Lord!’
For some, the injection was positive, while for others it meant America’s certain demise. On Inauguration Day, my history class filed into our small library, where we huddled around a big-box TV hanging on a manila-colored wall just below a dropped ceiling.
As the new president’s words rang out, some watched gleefully and others shook their heads. Of course, some of my classmates saw the departure from our regular routine as an opportunity to pull out their now-archaic flip phones and send a few quick text messages.
But as Obama spoke and my fellow students ticked away on their phones, a house was being built. It wasn’t — or isn’t — a tangible home, but its impact on our lives is very real.
Obama’s inauguration in 2009 marked the first time, at least in my lifetime, that we as a society sold our biggest piece of real estate to an unforgiving, ever-shifting, never-fulfilling god. We sold our soul to politics, expecting supernatural results, and our discourse ever since has reflected that devastating decision.
We are reaping the consequences of building our house on the sand.
In Matthew 7, Jesus Christ warns his disciples against placing their faith, hope, and trust on a shifting foundation. He said:
Anyone who listens to my teaching and follows it is wise, like a person who builds a house on solid rock. Though the rain comes in torrents and the floodwaters rise and the winds beat against that house, it won’t collapse because it is built on bedrock.
But anyone who hears my teaching and doesn’t obey it is foolish, like a person who builds a house on sand. When the rains and floods come and the winds beat against that house, it will collapse with a mighty crash.
Our house is now collapsing. I don’t blame Obama and I don’t blame President Donald Trump, though their actions and rhetoric are certainly the result of our willingness to elevate politics above every other moral value.
We’ve allowed our politics to usurp — or even become — our religion.
I don’t know professor and Salon writer Jared Sexton personally, but the apocalyptic Twitter thread he posted this week about covering the Trump administration is a perfect example of the ways in which our collective political idolatry has left us in despair.
This presidency is just awful, and it seeps into our lives regardless of where we are or what we're doing. It's ubiquitous and painful. It wears us out and breaks our hearts. We have to keep going, but we need to practice self-care. 2/
— Jared Yates Sexton (@JYSexton) July 25, 2018
It felt like if you even looked away from it you were somehow giving in and being complicit, but that's how this thing is designed. It's meant to wear us down until we can't even muster a fight. 4/
— Jared Yates Sexton (@JYSexton) July 25, 2018
If we run ourselves down until our bodies give out, we're not going to be any good to anyone. That's how authoritarians win, because their lack of shame allows them to trample. We have to take care of ourselves, and one another, because it's more important than ever. 10/
— Jared Yates Sexton (@JYSexton) July 25, 2018
If you're suffering, you're not weak. You need a break. It's not giving up, it's not waving a white flag, it's taking care of yourself and preparing for future battles. Listen to your body and listen to your head. Take comfort where you can find it, rest when you can. 11/11
— Jared Yates Sexton (@JYSexton) July 25, 2018
Sexton hit the nail on the head when he pointed out that people “are suffering” and noted our political world is “meant to wear us down.” But he missed the mark on solving the problem.
As the famed saying goes, the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result. Politics has become a zero-sum game — you either win it all or you lose everything. It wasn’t designed to satisfy, so why should we continue to store up treasures just to squander them on a god we know will let us down?
In Matthew 6:19-21, Jesus said:
Don’t store up treasures here on earth, where moths eat them and rust destroys them, and where thieves break in and steal. Store your treasures in heaven, where moths and rust cannot destroy, and thieves do not break in and steal. Wherever your treasure is, there the desires of your heart will also be.
Our politics is fleeting — it’s a vapor. It’s an inadequate bandage for a wound with only one cure. Politics is all-or-nothing, so it’s no surprise its consequences are so often apocalyptic. If my faith is in politicians and their policies, where will I go when they fail?
We’ve built our house on the sand and the ground is shifting.
Over the weekend, Rep. Maxine Waters (D-Calif.) for the second time in a month suggested God is behind her no-holds-barred opposition to the Trump administration. And Sen. Cory Booker (D-N.J.) said Tuesday those who support Trump’s Supreme Court nominee, Judge Brett Kavanaugh, are “complicit in evil.”
Booker even referenced Psalm 23:4 — “Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death” — but failed to complete the passage, revealing where we find comfort, peace, and stability when we’re in the valley.
The passage continues, “I will fear no evil; for you are with me; your rod and your staff, they comfort me.”
Both Booker and Sexton pointed out the problem but stopped shy of naming the solution. Our foundation has to be in God. Our only hope is in the resurrection of Jesus Christ. Apart from him, there is no satisfaction, no hope and certainly no lasting change.
We’re in trouble because we’ve built our house on the sand. The sooner we realize that the sooner we can rebuild our house on the rock.