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A new kind of Christian politics
Wednesday of Holy Week, April 12, 2017
I gave my back to those who beat me, my cheeks to those who plucked my beard; I did not hide my face from mockery and spitting. The Lord God is my help; therefore I am not disgraced … Judas, Jesus’ betrayer, said, “Surely it is not I, Rabbi?” Jesus answered, “You have said so.” – from Isaiah 50 and Matthew 26
Jewish zealots like Judas believed Jesus should be Israel’s political messiah, and rescue his people from the Romans. Like most of us most of the time, the zealots wanted something for nothing. They were willing to die for their beliefs, but they would not allow others to have their own beliefs and learn to live with them. To protect their integrity, they had become brittle.
The Romans were no different. What after all did Pax Romana mean? Tacitus, very untactfully, quoted an enemy of Rome who said, “They make a desert and call it peace.”
Jesus will not settle for this kind of peace. He does not break bruised reeds or quench smoldering wicks. Those verses in Isaiah 42 are the centerpiece of civil disobedience, and they are neither passive nor aggressive. Jesus, the assertive savior, had something completely different in mind. By dying, he would show us how to live.
These questions don’t go away. What can we do today? The Benedict Option suggests, first, what we should not do: “Believers must avoid the usual trap of thinking politics can solve cultural and religious problems. The deep cultural forces that have been separating the West from God for centuries will not be halted or reversed by a single election, or any election at all.”
But author Rod Dreher goes on, “Let’s be a creative minority, offering warm, living, light-filled alternatives to a world growing cold, dead and dark. If we are increasingly without influence, let’s be guided by monastic wisdom and welcome this humbly as an opportunity sent by God for our purification and sanctification.”
Doesn’t Jesus say the same thing? Judas wasn’t interested, but many of us are. Politics, religion, and psychology seem to offer solutions for awhile, but that fantasy fades. As long as we think we need to protect ourselves from others in order to survive (well … don’t we?), we won’t get anywhere.
“Losing political power might just be the thing that saves the church’s soul. Ceasing to believe that the fate of the American Empire is in our hands frees us to put them to work for the Kingdom of God in our own little shires.” We don’t need one ring to rule them all; we need to love each other, because we’re loved ourselves.
Morning after morning, Lord, you open my ears and rouse me. You never turn away from my resistance or my weary bones. Your eyes always sparkle with the promise of new life, and your companionship, Lord, sustains me day by day. I need never be afraid, but even then, in my foolish fear, you never leave, never forsake me.
http://www.davesandel.net/category/lent-easter-devotions-2017/
http://www.christiancounselingservice.com/archived_devotions.php?article_id=1598
