The Politics of Jesus: Welcome Everyone

Isaiah 58; Matthew 5:1-12

October 15, 2012

Less than a month away from a contentious national election, it takes either a lot of gall or some mix of faith and hope to launch a sermon series entitled The Politics of Jesus. I reckon we’ll find out which part of the mix we’re in as we go along.

I have been moved to offer these reflections over the next several weeks not only by the political season we’re all obviously living through just now, but also by a whole bunch of mail I’ve received either virtually or in the mail box over the past few months.

It began toward the end of summer, when I got this piece from the self-proclaimed, “Watchman of the Midwest.” It reminds us that the nation whose God is the Lord is blessed, right after a 12-point list of “reasons not to vote for Barrack Hussein Obama.”

Then the Christian Century came in with Gov. Romney on the cover.

Then I got this invitation from the Centreville Baptist Church to a free “Answers in Genesis Creation Conference.” It is exactly what it sounds like it is, and if you don’t think it carries a political agenda then you probably ought to go back and read about the Scopes Monkey Trial.

And that is not to mention the news feed on Facebook or any other social media point of contact with the wider world.

So much of this stuff, in whatever form and from whatever perspective, reveals at least one common thread: they all point toward a politics of divide and, if not conquer, then at least divide and exclude.

Whether it’s coming from Left, Right or Center, that is not a politics of Jesus.

I’ll acknowledge up front that there are, and always have been, folks who do not believe that Jesus had anything to do with politics, and that, therefore, neither should the church. That perspective gets phrased lots of ways: don’t mix politics and religion; keep church and state separate; keep God out of the public square.

I always find it amusing that you hear the same thing from the Left and the Right depending upon whose political ox is being gored, or, perhaps, whose God is being used to justify or oppose whose policies.

It’s good to begin with a simple reminder: God is not a Republican. Or a Democrat.

But it’s equally important to begin with a second reminder: God is deeply concerned with the fate of the city, with the way that power is used and maintained, and, always, with the condition of the poor, the outcast, the marginalized and the victims of injustice.

Listen to these words, from the centerpiece of Isaiah 58, the chapter when God’s prophet calls the people to restore the city’s streets to live in:

Is not this the fast that I choose:
   to loose the bonds of injustice,
   to undo the thongs of the yoke,
to let the oppressed go free,
   and to break every yoke?
Is it not to share your bread with the hungry,
   and bring the homeless poor into your house?

Such an agenda is inherently political because it has to do with how power is exercised in the city – the very definition rooted in the Greek origins of the word politics.

Walter Brueggemann suggests that one legitimate perspective on the Bible is to take the whole thing, from Genesis to Revelation – as an extended meditation on the city, or, at least, on the Holy City of Jerusalem. He goes on, in the same way, to underscore the point that every city is holy.

The concerns of the city are always, fundamentally, political, and, therefore, God cares about our politics because God cares about the city.

The problem with our politics is that they are way too narrowly drawn. Most of us, most of the time, hear the word “politics” and immediately think “partisan, electoral politics.” We reduce politics to elections, and reduce discourse about politics to mere electioneering. That reductive process leaves us with perpetual campaigns standing in place of actual governance.

It is no wonder that the vast majority of us are completely turned off by the whole thing, and equally little wonder that a small minority of eligible voters – less than a third – will vote for the next president – whichever candidate prevails next month.

Personally, I think this is a bad thing. I am, and always have been, a small “d” democrat. I believe firmly that the more voices there are involved in the decision-making process of any group the better the decisions will be.

More to the point, I believe that any politics that would dare to mention Jesus at all must be an inclusive one because, duh, God cares about every one of us. So that’s a “politics of Jesus, 101” – it’s inclusive in terms of process and in terms of policy objectives.

That’s simple on the surface of it, but I want to push just a bit deeper. The words of Matthew and those of Isaiah guide us here, but not in any obvious way. Oh, to be sure, the Beatitudes remind us, as do Isaiah’s words, that God has a deep and decisive concern for the poor and the marginalized that comes first, prior to concern for those who are rich and powerful.

But more than the content of those words, their form is instructive; perhaps even decisive.

There are no policy papers, party platforms or powerful politicians here; instead of “politics as usual,” we get poetry as prophecy, we get prophecy as politics, and we discover that this is the work of the people.

We get this poetic politics when we attend to what Brueggemann calls “odd voices of discernment, mostly poets and unwelcome dissenters who had a sinking feeling in their gut. Here and there they found words that unnerved the city; because they offered a shrill reminder that even slick logos do not change or nullify the facts on the ground in the city.”[1]

Those voices continue to resound around us in our own time if we can turn down the political noise machine long enough to listen.

When Jesus engaged the powers and principalities of his age, he did so either in his own poetic voice or by appropriating the poetry of the prophets of his people, proclaiming that,

“The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to bring good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives, and recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.”

That comes straight out of the poetry of Isaiah.

You will have recognized a moment ago when I mentioned “the work of the people.” Liturgy. Liturgy is poetry, it is prophecy, and it is, therefore, also politics. It may not be the totality of the politics of Jesus, but it is the heart and soul of it.

Whatever the politics of Jesus may be, in our moment and in our more traditional political language, it must begin in worship. In fact, it begins in baptism, when we welcome the newest members of the household of God. We welcome them without regard to race, sexuality, wealth or power. We simply welcome them, because God welcomes us.

And we anoint them, in the waters of baptism, to the same calling that Jesus claimed for himself: to bring good news to the poor, liberty to the captives, wholeness to the broken, equality to the oppressed, jubilee to the indebted.

Where you find this work going on among the people, you are drawing close to the politics of Jesus. And that is enough for a start. Amen.

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[1] Walter Brueggemann, Disruptive Grace (Minneapolis: Fortress, 2011), 101.