Proper 27A
November 8, 2026
St. Dunstan’s
The Rev. Patricia Templeton
I was watching television Tuesday night when I saw a banner that surprised me. “Love Thy Neighbor,” it said.
Those words are familiar to even the most casual adherents of Christianity and Judaism. The admonition to love your neighbor is at the heart of the teachings of both the Old and New Testaments.
The message on the banner is not what surprised me. The surprise was where that banner hung – on the front of the podium from which newly-elected Texas Senator James Talarico gave his victory speech.
It was a night of surprises and firsts. In Georgia, we became the first state in the nation to elect a Black woman governor.
Texas elected the first Hispanic woman governor, while the first Native American woman was elected to lead New Mexico. The country’s first openly gay male senator was elected in New Hampshire, and the first Muslim senator was elected in Michigan.
Whether or not you were pleased by these results it was undeniably an historic night. The makeup of our elected officials in Washington and across the nation is going to look very different come January.
But the biggest surprise of the night for me was voters’ rejection of the blasphemous, twisted theology of White Christian Nationalism that has infiltrated public life in recent years.
Tuesday night nine pastors, former pastors, or seminarians were elected to Congress.
Pastors in politics is not a new phenomenon. Our senator, Raphael Warnock, still retains his role as senior pastor of Ebenezer Baptist Church. Many of you know Kim Jackson, an Episcopal priest in this diocese, who is also a Georgia state senator.
These newly-elected pastors embraced a message that put values like compassion and inclusion at the center of their campaigns,
“There’s an awakening taking place,” said the Rev. Jim Rigby, Talarico’s pastor in Texas. “It’s not so much one religion opposed to another, but the idea that everybody counts.”
Everybody counts.
That was the center of Talarico’s speech Tuesday night.
“There is no love of God without love of neighbor,” he said. “Every single person bears the image of the sacred. Every single person is holy. Not just my neighbor who looks like me, votes like me, prays like me. I am called to love all of my neighbors.”
The Rev. Adam Hamilton, pastor of the nation’s largest United Methodist Church, and a newly-elected senator from Kansas, echoed Talarico is his own victory speech.
“Do unto others as you would have them do unto you,” he said, noting that the so-called Golden Rule is found in every faith.
“What would it look like in Washington if they actually did that? How would our policies and politics change if we treated people this way?
“When people ask ‘who is my neighbor’ they are really asking, ‘Who do I not have to love?’”
Talarico and Adams’ words echo our own baptismal covenant, when we promise that we will respect the dignity of every human being.
We do that because every human being is created in the image of God.
Every human being. Gays, lesbians, trans people. White, brown, black and all other hues. Rich and poor. Christians, Jews, Muslims, Buddhists, Hindus, and atheists. Immigrants, documented or not. Republicans, Independents, and yes, even Democrats.
All created in the image of God. All sacred. All holy. All worthy of dignity and respect.
For far too long too many people who claim to love Jesus have ignored this most basic and foundational teaching.
Tuesday night gave me hope that people are sick of Christian nationalism and its twisted theology of hate and cruelty.
Hamilton agrees. “This election is a rebuke of unkindness and cruelty in Washington DC,” he said.
“I think I was elected because Kansans are saying we’re tired of the bullies. We’re tired of the chaos. We are no longer going to ignore the pain of our neighbors.
“There are a lot of Kansans saying let’s love our neighbors as we love ourselves.”
Both agree that it is time to banish the politics of hate, fear, cruelty, and division that have emanated from the White House and spread throughout the nation.
Talarico proclaimed that it is time, instead, for a politics of love.
“My faith teaches me that love is the strongest force in the universe,” he told his supporters Tuesday night. “Love is not passive; love is not neutral; love is not weak.
“Love requires that we stand between the bullies and the bullied. Love requires that we look evil in the eye and not blink.
“That kind of love has always been a threat to the powers that be. That kind of love is revolutionary. That kind of love is creative.
“We didn’t win this race by shaming or ridiculing our neighbors. We embodied a new kind of politics, one rooted in deep love for our state, our country, and most importantly, for all our neighbors.”
As uplifting and hopeful as these words are, we all know that one election is not going to change things overnight. War is still being waged, health care remains out of reach for many, children and their parents are still going to bed hungry, immigrants still live in fear.
Christian Nationalism and white supremacy are still the guiding principles of the White House, and millions of our fellow Americans still support them.
There is much work to be done, and there are those in power who will try to stop it. There are days of discouragement ahead. But Tuesday night reminds us that there is also hope.
In a sermon a few weeks ago I quoted the former bishop of Alaska, Steven Charleston, who had been asked who would get his vote.
Here’s his answer. “I will be voting for the poor. I will be voting for the homeless, for the hungry, for the elders who can’t afford their health care. I will be voting for the single moms, for the day laborers, and for the kids in school.”
On Tuesday, those for whom Charleston voted were the overwhelming winners.
He had this to say after the election:
“Let the hope of this moment heal you. Let it soak down to nourish fields of dreams that have been so long fallow. No, the struggle is not over, but for the moment, enjoy what it will feel like one day when it is.”
Amen.