Pulling from a scene from Game of Thrones, Rev. Shockley hopes to explain what we going through right now, post election. There are three groups in the T.V. show, the White Walkers, the humans, and the wild ones. the character of Jon Snow wants to make peace with the wild ones so they can join forces against the White Walkers. Many of the other humans disagree with him. In the skit, the talk is of joining with the right wingers in order to fight against oppression and injustice brought by the Wall Streeters. Today’s reading from the Gospel of Matthew talks about what to do when you see the desolating sacrilege of the temple, run.
This text speaks first to the second century BCE event where a Greek king victory over Israel. The victors built an alter to Zeus on the site of the temple. Two hundred years later, the Romans destroyed Jerusalem. For many people today, the sight of our president-elect is their desolating sacrilege event. Those most effected emotionally are immigrants, Muslims, LGBTQ persons, members of Black Lives Matter, and women. Many see no alternative but to run. What are we to do? There is a wall ideologically that separates the people of America. Those on each side can be open or closed. It is those who are closed to the other side that prevent us from talking to or learning from each other. The insight we can learn from Games of Thrones’ Jon Snow is that even though a wall separates us, we are all human. By banding together with the right wingers, we can fight the true enemy, the non-human corporations. During this long winter, we must stand together with those who suffer on both sides of the wall.