A LITTLE ELECTION REFLECTION - From Shane Claiborne
Another election day is upon us.
Most of us are just looking forward with relief as we put this election behind us.
There are some good things that can come from election year. When distractions and insults don’t hijack the headlines, campaign season gets people talking about stuff that affects our neighbors near and far – how we welcome immigrants, how we can decrease gun violence, mass incarceration and the death penalty, policies that can protect our most vulnerable people. Being interested in policies that affect our neighbors is surely one little part of what it means to love them.
But there is also a temptation to place our hope in something other than Jesus – in a candidate or a party. Some Christians end up thinking and talking more about Donald or Hillary than they do about Jesus. And if we aren’t careful we can become convinced that one of them is really our messianic hope in the world.
When we take our focus off Christ, we end up talking a lot about things Jesus didn’t talk much about, and we don’t talk much about the things Jesus had a whole lot to say about.
There’s an old hymn that goes like this, “My hope is built on nothing less than Jesus blood and righteousness… On Christ the solid rock I stand, all other ground is sinking sand.” Over the centuries Christians, at their best, have refused to place their hope in anything short of Jesus. After all the word “vote” shares the same root as “devotion” and has everything to do with what where we rest our hope and where our loyalty lies.
One of the most radical convictions of the early Christians was that Jesus was their “Lord” and “King” and “Savior”. Each of these was a real political title in the first century – there was already a Lord, and his name was Caesar. That’s why their witness was so subversive, so controversial. Every time they declared “Jesus is Lord” they were saying “Caesar is not.” The early Christians were accused of treason, insurrection, undermining the authority of Rome. They were called “atheists” because they had lost all hope in the religion of Rome’s imperial deities, they no longer had “faith” in the powers that be. They were declaring another emperor, one named Jesus. Here’s how they are described in the book of Acts in the New Testament: “These people who have caused trouble all over the world have now come here. … They are all defying Caesar’s decrees, saying that there is another king, one called Jesus!” (Acts 17:6–7)
It was as scandalous to say “Jesus is Lord” two thousand years ago as it is to say “Jesus is my President” or Commander in Chief today. So let us remember today that America is not the hope of the world. Neither is Hillary, or Donald. Only Jesus. But let us also not disengage from things that matter, from policies that affect folks God loves so dearly.
It’s too simplistic to think that the only way we have a voice is when we vote. Let us refuse to limit our influence to one day every 4 years on election day. For those of us who follow Christ, we vote every day. We vote with our lives. We vote with our budgets. We vote with our voices. What’s just as important as how we vote on November 8 is how we live on November 7 and November 9 and every other day of our lives.
So let us vote -- for the poor. Vote for the oppressed. For for the marginalized and the displaced.
Take love -- not fear -- with you into the voting booth.
And for Christians, we know very well that no President is going to be perfect. No matter who we elect in November, we’re probably end up protesting in January.
Voting for a new President may be little more than damage control. For Presidents and Caesars do not save the world.
Enough donkeys and elephants… long live the Lamb.
Original post found at Shane Claiborne's facebook page --
https://www.facebook.com/ShaneClaiborne/photos/a.10150112918376371.279881.100500271370/10153784455421371/?type=3
I have declined payment on this post as it is not my original content.