This is being written several days prior to the federal, state, and local elections that are about to happen on 3 November. Most people I know are ready for it all to be over – and by the time you read this, it will likely be mostly over. There will be a few run-offs, and of course there will be hours upon hours of the talking-heads of cable news dissecting it – no matter what the outcome is.
I saw a video clip of Stanley Hauerwas a few days ago in which he compares American politics to being a bit like watching a Roman Circus. He went on to say that we tend to elect commercials, not people, and the end result is that we find a way for 50.1% of the people to tell the other 49.9% of the people how to live.
Put in plain and practical terms, for some, the election is little more than a referendum on whether we ought to be wearing masks or not! That very sentence says more about us as a nation than we should want to be known about us.
This may be too simplistic for some, but the truth is that many followers of Jesus are much more engaged in “the politics of government” than in “the politics of Jesus.” Narrowly defining some understanding of what we perceive to be a moral issue, we close our eyes to every other option that doesn’t subscribe to our definition of that issue.
No matter who is elected president, governor, senator, congress person, and a host of more localized positions, if I am a follower of Jesus, the politics of Jesus will direct my behavior. Paul would insist that I recognize the God-established role that government has, but I suspect he would be horrified at how easily we replace the politics of Jesus with the politics of any government, including our own!
Paul would insist that I recognize the God-established role that government has, but I suspect he would be horrified at how easily we replace the politics of Jesus with the politics of any government, including our own!
The New Testament has more than a few examples of the costly nature of following the politics of Jesus and not government, and lots of prophetic words about the never-ending reality that we are called to be counter-culture (not anti-culture, but counter) and counter-intuitive – which has to mean that we never substitute the politics of government for those of Jesus. If you read Romans 12:14-13:7 as a unit of thought instead of two different ideas, you quickly realize that even in the midst of the politics of government – which are sometimes challenging – we are called to follow the politics of Jesus, which demand that we be peacemakers, even in the midst of our enemies.
This is such an important issue, that Jesus Himself reminds us of what the implications might be. In Mathew 25:31-46 He defines the outcomes of His politics like this:
I was hungry and you gave me something to eat
I was thirsty, and you gave me something to drink
I was a stranger (alien), and you invited me in
Naked, and you clothed me
Sick, and you visited me,
In prison, and you came to me.
Those hearing Jesus were stunned by these words – especially as they wondered, “When did we do this?”
Jesus, revealing the very heart of the politics of Jesus, declares, “Truly” [think KJV “verily”] “I say to you, to the extent that you did it to one of these brothers of Mine, even the least of them, you did it to me.” (Mathew 25:40, NASB)
The flip side of all of this is that Jesus goes on to declare that to the extent that we fail to do these kinds of things, we don’t do them to Him. And the outcome of that is that we are goats and not sheep, eternally separated from Him, as the sheep share in eternal life.
The politics of government will always rule to the commercials. The politics of Jesus will always serve to the human need around us. You know, as I know – because we have been inundated by the commercials – that the commercials, narrowly and out-of-context, make claims about anything and everything. That’s why we end up with the kind of the politics of the government that are strangling us daily.
But you know, as I know – because we trust the words of Scripture as they tell us about Jesus – that there is nothing narrow about His politics. I can’t narrowly call myself “pro-life” if I don’t take Matthew 25 seriously. The politics of Jesus will always stretch us farther outside of our comfort zones than we can imagine. That’s just one among many, many examples.
No matter who was elected yesterday – and even if it isn’t settled yet as you read this – the politics of Jesus haven’t changed! “Shalom is restored. As the Father sent me to Israel, so I am sending you (to the world).” (cf. John 20:21)
What now? Go out and be Jesus to the world around you!
Wye Huxford 