JESUS FAILED MISERABLY (OR WAS UP TO SOMETHING BETTER).
November 2012
Is it possible that underneath the fighting, fear mongering, and self-righteousness of this election season lies a genuine desire to connect?
Even as I write this I’m confronted with an awareness of how much I want my words to count for something.
I want to be heard.
I want to matter.
And I want to belong.
This awareness awakens childhood wounds of feeling invisible, helpless, and unlovable. Through this lens of my own suffering I’m able to see others hurting in their own desperate attempts to be heard, to matter, and to belong.
The fear and anger (read: shittyness) around elections makes me wonder if voting is as important as we think it is, and if its actual importance is for the same reason we assume it to be important.
Sometimes voting feels like another distraction from owning up to my own negligence, failure, and inability to engage with what really matters in my own life.
I’m not saying we shouldn’t vote. I’m saying we should consider our motivations behind voting, its perceived versus actual importance, and whether there may be more impactful ways to invite others into the love of God.
One of democracy’s virtues is that it creates an opportunity for us to openly discuss our thoughts, values, and ideals. This creates life-giving space for us to connect with one another.
And connection is a vital part of what it means to be human.
But a quick glance at my Facebook feed shows me how bad we are at connecting with each other and how good we are at pushing each other away. Maybe this is because we put a lot of effort into being right and not enough into acknowledging the image of God in each other.
If we put a lopsided weight on winning and correctness, our exchanges cease to be a safe place for honest, intimate, and vulnerable connection. Instead, they drag us headfirst into a conversational fistfight for our lives.
It’s as if we’re afraid to not know everything.
In some ways I think we’ve mistaken the privilege of democratic dialogue for our right to demand our own way, using fear as a motivating force. I see a lot of drawing lines and choosing sides, but very little open, honest dialogue and connection.
Politics are about people, not issues.
Issues objectify us into talking points.
It’s amazing how little I know when it comes to the simpler things, let alone the vastly complex issues facing this country in regard to civil rights, healthcare reform, foreign policy, national debt, unemployment, war, and poverty—just to name a few.
Maybe there’s a distinction between making a good decision and making the right choice.
Because making a good decision is to give it your best shot knowing clairvoyance is not expected, whereas making the right choice assumes there to be only one answer in a given situation—one that requires complete comprehension of all variables and flawless execution of the correct selection.
Which puts a lot of pressure on us.
American culture has fooled us into thinking that the world revolves around us, and that’s why many of us walk around feeling the weight of humanity resting on our shoulders.
But what if God is inviting us to surrender the weight of humanity back to Him?
What if His yoke really is easy and His burden truly light?
What if God’s inviting us to trust Him in new and impossible ways but we keep trying to fix things in our own strength?
As much as I would like to believe the solutions to our nation’s problems can fit neatly into a one-hundred-and-forty-character tweet, I get the feeling it’s not that simple.
This brand of simplicity sets up the dangerous idea that we can actually fix everything if we could get our collective act together. This type of thinking leads to self-sufficiency and self-righteousness. Contrary to the Sermon on the Mount, we begin telling ourselves that it’s the affluent, the educated, and the few who are blessed.
When we unintentionally presume voting to be important for the wrong reasons, we can be distracted from some of the substantial, tangible issues we can actually engage with in our daily lives.
Just to be honest, most of the complexities of politics are beyond my scope of experience or understanding.
To be clear, I’m not saying we can’t or shouldn’t participate in government, but I don’t think the news media and blogosphere are providing an adequate amount of unbiased information for the general public to somehow all be experts on how to run a modern-day empire of over three-hundred million citizens.
I’ve personally seen men of great character struggle to manage successful businesses, community organizations, and faith communities, let alone an entire nation. My point being that leadership is no easy endeavor regardless of political or religious affiliation.
(A quick reading of Moses leading the Exodus affirms the difficulties of ruling a nation of ungrateful brats like us.)
It saddens me that some of us have confused the virtually effortless act of casting a ballot as being a legitimate gesture of faith—while ignoring a multitude of daily opportunities to experience and invite others into the love of God here and now.
For some of us, casting a ballot might literally be the least we can do.
This doesn’t mean we shouldn’t vote so much as it means we might want to reassess the importance we attribute toward voting on issues compared to the importance of engaging with the issues in our everyday lives.
Jesus was murdered by the “church” and government of His time.
Through the prodding and manipulation of religious leaders and at the hands of the Roman Empire, He was killed.
Prior to His death He was given chance after chance to grasp at power and take the political reins as leader of His people—yet He constantly and resolutely declined.
Why did Jesus refuse to set up His own political rule?
What was He holding out for?
Jesus either failed miserably, was holding out for America to pick up the slack, or was up to something better.
I’m not saying there are no answers. I’m suggesting that we give the same consideration and attention to the process of our thinking as we do to our conclusions.
(It would also do us good to question the legitimacy of the binary options we are presented with in politics, theology, and life in general.)
Because to think we must choose between the lesser of two evils is to ignore the fact that we don’t have to choose evil at all.
If these elections are shaking the foundations of freedom, hope, or security in your life, I’d like to welcome you into a real freedom that liberates us from the lies of false hope, the bondage of self-sufficiency, and the emptiness of political promises.
To know politics as the arena in which we can find or lose our freedom is to never have known freedom at all.
So go cast your vote.
But don’t stop thinking through what it really means to be free when you leave that voting booth.
Try not to confuse civic duty with divine calling.
And for the love of God, don’t dismiss the love of God.
You are beautiful.
You are necessary.
And you are not forgotten by a God who loves you regardless of what happens in this or the next election.
May God guide and keep you in His love as you live out your calling and convictions.
May you know that you have already been saved from yourself at His great and willing expense and not your own.
And may the love of God liberate you from any illusion that your freedom in Him is in any way at stake against the principalities and powers of this world.
May the love of God heal our addiction to hope in political systems, to black-and-white thinking, and to suggesting simple solutions for life’s incredibly complex problems.
May we stay anchored in His love amidst a swelling sea of answers and assertions by men falsely claiming they behold the power to save us.
And may we rest in the truth that regardless of who is in the White House, the God of the universe hears us, we matter, and we belong to Him.
Now that’s one-hundred-and-forty characters worth getting excited about.