Community Matters

Tomorrow is election day. In Idaho that means all the Republicans go to the polls and pick the winners and the rest of us go to the polls because our mothers (RIP) would be really disappointed in us if we didn't.

A couple of weeks ago the Gospel reading from the Lectionary was the passage in Matthew 21 about paying taxes to Caesar. Being just the "Interim" pastor, I mustered the courage to skate out onto some fairly thin ice around the question of whether or not there is "A Christian Position" that should be help by all believers on a variety of choices related to issues and candidate selection when "election day" rolls around. 

Here are a couple of thoughts from that message:

The question the Pharisees and Herodians asked Jesus had only one motive. It was intended to define and divide the religious community along political, NOT theological lines. "Is it lawful to pay taxes to Caesar?" was a really dumb question. Paying taxes to Caesar WAS the law. So, the question was really, "What does God think about paying taxes to Caesar?" The question, updated for our time, might have been, "Is there a Christian position on this political issue?"

It's a good question. Is there ever an "orthodox" position on a civil, political issue? 

At the time this question was asked there were a variety of strongly held views within the Jewish community about Israel's relationship to Rome. I'm indebted to Scott McNight's recent article on his "Jesus Creed" blog for help with this. He sites Christopher Bryan's book, Render Unto Caesar: Jesus, the Early Church and the Roman Superpower, identifying 4 very different responses to this question

• Acceptance of Roman rule and full cooperation with Rome
• Acceptance of Roman rule, coupled with a willingness to challenge the secular power nonviolently
• Non-violent rejection of Roman rule
• Violent rejection of Roman rule

The point Bryan makes, and it's the point I want to make as well, is that each of these positions found support within Jewish religious tradition.

So, there wasn't one position that could be said to capture "God's perspective" on this political question.

There have always been those who have attempted to define and divide the faith community along political lines.  "Is it lawful to pay taxes to Caesar?"  What is the Bible position on slavery? (Don't forget that both "sides" were quoting scripture on this one.) Is there a Biblical position on gender equality? Is there a Biblical position of capital punishment, birth control, public education, and of course the list could go on until we all felt threatened and uncomfortable. 

The opinions of Christians vary widely on most, if not all of these issues.  The one thing that is absolutely, certainly true is that each of us who identify as disciples of Christ, and who take that discipleship seriously believe our position to be Christian as well.

I'm thinking right now of one of my favorite sermons of John Wesley. It's called "The Catholic Spirit" (Catholic simply meaning "universal.")

Wesley makes three points that are relevant to this conversation

• We all have opinions, and we all believe our opinions to be correct.
• There are matters that factor into every opinion that we hold of which we are simply, and completely unaware.
• Regardless of what we think, we are most certainly wrong  on some point or another

Wesley implores the church to value community above personal opinion. And, he warns against the false notion that when we create a congregation with no difference of opinion we have created the "church." 

We need look no farther than the 12 men on whom Jesus chose to build his church. These guys NEVER agreed with each other, and they certainly never agreed on matters political.

It would be good, I think, to take a look at the people who came to Jesus with this question. Herodians and Pharisees were as opposed to one another politically as, well as the "right-side" of the "Tea Party" and the "left-side" of the "left side." They had one thing in common. Jesus scared the crap out of them. I'd like to suggest that the folks on either side of the political spectrum who want to force the Christian community to accept "their" position have a lot in common with the Herodians and the Pharisees. They are terribly threatened by Jesus, because Jesus can never be counted on to support "our" agenda, regardless of what it is. 

Here's where, I suppose, I run the greatest danger of being misunderstood. I'm not suggesting that every opinion is just as valid, or just as "Christian" as every other opinion. As disciples of Jesus we MUST believe in the sanctity of human life. But the way you vote, and the persons you support  in your effort to protect the sacredness of human life may vary greatly in the reality of our culture and context.

As disciples e of Jesus Christ we MUST believe in the responsibility of those who have much to care for those who have little. Believe what you will about the best political and economic structures to provide that care.

As a disciple of Jesus Christ you MUST recognize every person as God’s beloved child, the object of Christ’s sacrificial love, believe what you will about the best way for the church to express that love in ways that lead to redemption.

A wise friend of mine once said, "The Christian choice between one political party or another is simply a choice of which stream we're going to swim up." No political party promotes a Gospel agenda. All I am saying, and I'm sure it's been said before, is that when we allow the community of faith to be defined and divided by political ideology we have allowed the “image of the emperor” to slip from the coin in our pocket to the core of our identity and when the Image of the Emperor is stamped on the church of Jesus Christ it ceases to be the Church. 

The Church must decide whether she's going to be Christ's Body or Caesar's buddy. We can't have it both ways.