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Sunday, September 27, 2020
Our politics must be tied
directly to the great commandment. The
Great Commandment only makes sense if we understand God intends to say
everyone. Jesus went to the cross
because “God so love the world;” not part of the world but all of it,
everyone.
What is the ‘Great
Commandment?’ From the mouth of Jesus,
“You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with
all your mind, and with all your strength.”
He’s quoting Deuteronomy 6:4. This has been God’s top priority for us
from the beginning. Next, quoting
Leviticus 19:18, Jesus says, “You shall love your neighbor as yourself. There is no other commandment greater than
these” (Mark 12:29-31).
Wait, wait! Time out, Jesus. We wanted 1 – the greatest commandment. You gave 2!
He’s allowed to do that. He’s Jesus. He gives them together, because we can only
understand them together. We can only
truly love God when we love our neighbor.
It is impossible to truly love God if we fail to love our neighbor. So, racism, conscious or unconscious, makes
it impossible to love God because it is a failure to love our neighbor. Holding others in contempt, for whatever
reason, makes God-love impossible. If
you hold someone in contempt, you have elevated yourself above him; you have
failed to love him. Loving God means
loving people. The way we approach
politics shows whether or not we truly love people.
I don’t mean the American political
scene. It is abhorrent when churches and
pastors align with one party or the other, or a third party. Many in our church family and many listening
to this have strong political convictions which may lead you to hear this
message and conclude I am against your party or for your party. It’s not so.
I am not advocating for or against any candidate or party.
Partisan
politics have no place in church. This is
God’s time. We have to contemplate how
God calls us, His church, to relate to each other and to the world. Politics refers to people. So, as Christ-followers, our politics have to
be love-based. It’s the only way Christ
allows. Of the many significant
obstacles to love, I will briefly touch on 3, using as a source chapter 4 of
the book Crossing the Lines we Draw by theologian and pastor Matthew
Tennant.
First:
fear. Fear drives us to objectify
others. Fear prevents us from seeing
others as people – people God calls us to love.
Fear leads me to hoard resources and prevents me from sharing. I forget that we all need food, shelter,
healthcare, clothing, and community; instead, I make sure I have enough. I even store extras to make sure I’ll have
more than enough in the future. Fear
turns my generosity into greed as I ignore everyone else and look out only for
myself.
Tennant
uses the example of terrorism to illustrate the way fear distorts our
perspective. He quotes an American
politician who, a few years ago said, “We will … unite the civilized world
against radical Islamic terrorism, which we will eradicate completely from the
face of the earth” (p.41). It’s a
patently absurd statement because terrorism is a technique, not an individual
or even a group. Most Muslims are not
terrorists. Many terrorists are not
Muslim; some are white American. But
fear leads us to demonize radical Islamic terrorists, whoever they are. Fear leads us to objectify groups of people
or regions of the world.
In
Matthew 5 Jesus says, “I say to you love
your enemies and pray for those who persecute you. … If anyone strikes you on
the right cheek, turn the other also” (Matthew 5:44, 39). That’s the Jesus, red letters! His teaching and his commands get drowned out
by the illogical noise our fears produce.
So, who do you fear? Protestors
or looters? Political liberals or conservatives?
Submit your fears to God. Ask Him to give you the courage to love those you
fear or hold in contempt. Empowered by the
Holy Spirit, we overcome fear by, loving those we would never love. The ‘other’ is no longer an object of our
judgment, but instead a recipient of our love.
A
second obstacle to Great Commandment politics is the sense that life is a
zero-sum game. Tennant points out a
zero-sum game requires winners and losers (p.49). For you and I to be winners, we have to beat
others. We advance at the expense of
others. A zero-sum game favors
individual advancement over cooperation and mutual gain.
Picture
it. Five thousand people on a hillside
have listened to Jesus for hours. His
words are so rich, no one will leave.
Practical-minded Philip, one of the 12, wants to know how they’re going
to feed this crowd the size of a small town (John 6:5). Andrew, the matchmaker of the 12, sees a kid
munching a loaf of bread.
“A
lot of hungry people here,” he says to the kid.
The kid nods. “You going to eat
all of that?” Andrew asks.
The
kid nods yes. Then he says to Andrew, “At least I got mine!”
That’s
not how the story goes! The kid offers
to share his lunch, and we get to see the way God multiplies our small
offerings; Jesus miraculously feeds 5000 people with one boy’s meal. We give what have to support each other and
help those with nothing, and God multiplies it.
This is not socialism; this is Great Commandment politics. Share.
Give. Make sure everyone is
included, cared for, and empowered.
Guided by love, we reject the zero-sum game approach and instead look
for ways we can give of ourselves for the good of others. Jesus gave his all for us on the cross. We imitate Him, our savior, by giving of
ourselves.
So
far, in connecting love with politics, we have seen two movements. We reject fear by seeing the “other” whomever
we mean by “other” as someone to love, not someone to despise. Second, we reject the competitive idea of a
zero-sum game in favor of cooperation and mutual blessing. We do this by sharing and trusting God to
take what we give and bless others with it.
What’s third obstacle to love we need to overcome? False narratives.
Tennant
refers to a couple TV shows from the 1950’s, Ozzie and Harriet, and Leave
it to Beaver. Both are fine shows
that depict an idealized America, if idealized America is a 1950’s white,
working class nuclear family: mom, dad, two kids. Sometimes this era is referred to as The
Greatest Generation. This is the
generation of my parents and my grandparents.
However, the picture is of a particular type of family situation; but that’s
not the only picture from that time period.
America
back then was great, for some people; not for all. Read the history of how stridently white
people all over the country, not just the south, but all over resisted
integrating public schools. If you have
a conscience and you’re willing to honestly read the history, you’ll be
horrified. Read about the racism against
Asians coming to America during that time.
Tennant
also points out that these beloved old shows fail to delve into the depths of
Appalachia and the Southern literary tradition, a white cultural heritage that
went ignored. What makes America “great”
is in the eye of the beholder. As
followers of Jesus, we have to tell the truth in the face of distorted
narratives.
The
1950’s, the 1980’s, today – none of it is a golden age. Until Jesus returns, the world is a fallen
place where women and men of every nation are lost and dying in sin, cut off
from the love of God, cut off by their own choices. The politics of love drive us to tell the
truth about sin. The politics of love
compel us to help people find their way to the Savior, our Lord, Jesus.
We
overcome fear by committing to love, even love our enemies.
We
reject the zero-sum game in favor of cooperation and mutual blessing.
We
expose false narratives by speaking the truth in love, even when the truths we
expose are inconvenient and uncomfortable.
Love
of God and love of neighbor comes to full fruition in the most quoted of Bible
passages, John 3:16-17. Jesus says, “For
God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes
in him may not perish but may have eternal life. Indeed, God did not send the son into the
world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through
him.”
“The
world” means everyone. That so-called
radical Islamic terrorist; Jesus wants to be with him for eternity. That person in Portland you saw on the news,
the one throwing a Molotov cocktail at the police; Jesus loves him. That Aryan white supremacist advocating for
the purity of the white race; he’s shouting, red-faced, at an antifa protestor,
who shouts right back, louder. Jesus
died for them both. Jesus died for
George Floyd and Derek Chauvin, for Michael Brown and Darren Wilson, for
Trayvon Martin and George Zimmerman. God
so loved the world, means everyone.
The
cross shows that Jesus is for everyone.
Do you want to stand with Jesus?
You can stand against racism, against terrorism, and against
hatred. We are for people – black
people, Arabic people, southern whites, Yankees, Canadians, Republicans and
Democrats, everyone.
Jesus
gives the Great Commandment to love God and love people in the midst of a
series of contentious public debates. He
debates with Pharisees, Sadducees, and a group called Herodians. Each group attempts to outsmart Jesus and
catch him in some inconsistency. Like
today’s political reporters, they try to trip Jesus up, but they always fail
and end up with egg on their own faces.
One
guy though, described as a “scribe” (Mk 12:28), most likely a Sadducee, asks
Jesus a legitimate question. Which is
the greatest commandment? Jesus tells
him he must love God and love neighbor.
A light goes on in this Sadducee’s mind.
“You’re right, teacher,” he says.
Jesus can see that unlike the others, his heart is true and Jesus says
to the scribe, “You are not far from the kingdom of God.”
That’s
where I want to be, close to the Kingdom.
I want you there with me.
Commitment to the Great Commandment puts us on the path. Right now, our country is mired in the worst
of political seasons. It’s an
opportunity for us to bear witness to the goodness of God by sharing the love
of Jesus, in our thoughts, our words, and our actions. May we do that. May we obey the command to love, answer the
call of love, and win people over to Jesus with hearts, words, and deeds of
love.
AMEN
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