I listened with a shared sense of longing as I heard Richard Blanco read his poem "One Today" at the presidential inauguration, this past Monday, 1/21/13. I find the poem to be a heartfelt yearning for the uniting of all things even as we live in a world divided in countless ways. Ironically, Blanco read the poem in Washington, D.C., at a time in which many people are saying that our nation is more politically divided that it has ever been. Blanco takes us through a day and asks us to see the many, many things that should unite us as human beings in this world. He begins his work in this way

One sun rose on us today, kindled over our shores,
peeking over the Smokies, greeting the faces
of the Great Lakes, spreading a simple truth
across the Great Plains, then charging across the Rockies.
One light, waking up rooftops, under each one, a story
told by our silent gestures moving behind windows...

Blanco forces us to see that each day, there is one light, one ground, one wind or breath, and one sky. All this, it seems that he is saying, should compel us to find ways to overcome the many ways we are divided. He even goes on to draw upon the poetic image of the great Chinese poet of the 11th century, Su Dongpo, that reminds us that there is one moon at the end of the day—one moon ever reminding us that we should not feel so far apart. Blanco ends his poem with this:

And always one moon
like a silent drum tapping on every rooftop
and every window, of one country—all of us—
facing the stars
hope—a new constellation
waiting for us to map it,
waiting for us to name it—together.

I find this longing for togetherness to be a healthy yearning, what the Germans call "sehnsucht." But, I am also convinced that the shalom the poem hungers for will not be achieved by military might or by political power or by poetic expressions but only through the power of God's gospel at work in human hearts being transformed from the inside out. For us to be reconciled to both God and one another required painful and sacrificial incarnational ministry by Jesus. Moreover, for us to be involved in reconciliation ministry will demand that we engage in Jesus-like incarnational ministry.

We will see what that kind of ministry looks like as we come this week, this Sanctity of Life week, to what Jesus did in Mark 7:31–37.

To His Glory,

Dr. Greg Waybright
Senior Pastor