The Political Nature of the Gospel

            Here we are, one month into 2015.  The pundits are gearing up for the next presidential election next year and the candidates are trying out their voices in various places.  It is sometimes even amusing to see them striving to look “presidential” and to say the right things to attract the people whom they think are their audience.  Rick Santorum, Sarah Palin and Mitt Romney are even putting their names forward as possible candidates in the election.  We will see what happens in the next year and a half to bring people to the front of the pack so that we can have an election next year. 

            I don’t know why anyone would want to be president in these times.  These are times of power and strife.  There is not much agreement on any of the substantive issues that face this country.  There are those who want to send troops into every country that seems to threaten us.  There are those who think that there is no substance whatsoever to climate change and that we ought to ignore the scientists who warn us about what we are doing to this planet.  There are those who want Wall Street to have its way with anything that it wants to do, and those who are terrified that big money is running the country.  We need heroic leadership to confront all of the things that are going on around us and to corral a reluctant congress that seems to have no desire at all to deal with the issues that many of the people in this country want them to resolve.

            I know that Jesus fought an incredible political battle in his short life on this earth.  What caused the Romans to finally execute him wasn’t his miracles or what he said about God; instead it was his confrontation of the political establishment of his time and the way that they treated the people.  I love the words of the Lord’s Prayer when it says: Thy Kingdom come on earth as it is in Heaven.  Notice that Jesus uses the word Kingdom in a very specific way.  He could have used almost any other word, but he chose Kingdom because it put what he was teaching on a collision course with the dominant Kingdom that his followers were experiencing:  The Kingdom of Rome.  When Jesus was crucified, it was a statement by the Roman authorities that this blasphemy of their power would not be tolerated.  His crucifixion took place in public, outside Jerusalem on a hill called Golgotha.  The public nature of this execution made it certain that the people who witnessed this event would know that Rome would not stand for the things that Jesus said and did that confronted them and their stooges who were the leaders of the Temple who saw that the people obeyed the requirements of the Roman government. 

            Religion needs to be political if it is going to confront the problems of this world and make changes.  I have been heartened by Pope Francis and his willingness to speak to what he sees wrong not only in the world, but in his church.  He is calling for reform and change that has the potential to make the world a better place for many people who struggle with the problems that life puts in their way. 

            We have some remarkable examples of Christians who were not deterred by power from speaking the truth about injustice and intolerance, particularly of people who had no power at all.  Dietrich Bonheoffer was executed by the Nazis because of his outspoken words denouncing what they were doing.  He even participated in the attempt to assassinate Adolph Hitler.  Martin Luther King died for his heroic assault on white supremacy while leading the Civil Rights movement in this country.  King was not only hated by the people who were in the vanguard of segregation and denial of voting rights to people of color, he was also hated by the FBI and accused of being a Communist by them.  It is of little wonder that he finally was killed in Memphis by a man who was acting on behalf of all of those who were threatened by King’s rhetoric and his uncanny ability to mobilize people who were oppressed to his cause. In Memphis at the time of his death, he was working on behalf of the workers who collected the garbage in that town.

        In our time, we have been the witnesses of his remarkable speeches and his great faith that has brought us to this place in our history where we have even elected an African American president and are poised to take great strides forward in terms of racial relations. 

            This won’t happen if we simply believe that what has happened in the past is enough.  It isn’t.  We need more heroism from people of faith who are committed to following Jesus, whose whole message was about the Kingdom of God and the need that we have to establish it on this earth.  That means that we need to find ways to create justice and hope for people who have none.  We need to channel our faith into causes that bring good things to the poor and the people who have no power at all.  This, in this time, needs to be the work of the church and its people.  It won’t be a popular cause.  The people who have the power will work to diminish anything that is done by those who want change.  With the halls of power in the hands of the wealthy, we need to find ways to get the work done anyway.  God bless those who work for God’s Kingdom of justice and peace on this earth.