Jesus for President
September 22, 2024 - November 10, 2024
Politics is really just the business of how we live together, and how we distribute power for decision-making about resources. With that technical definition in mind, politicians have to decide what kind of world we’re *in* and what kind of world we *want*.
In that sense, Jesus and the church in his name is inherently political. We are always making decisions (consciously or not) about how we live together, and how the world is, and how the world could and even should be.
Reading the final pre-Passion chapters of Mark through the lens of political world-building, what do we learn about Jesus’s “platform,” to use an anachronistic term? Or better, using his term: what does God’s reign (God’s empire) promise and provide for its citizens?
Abundance, abundantly clear. The age-old question regarding material resources: is there enough? or should we hoard and hand-wring, worrying that we’ll be left empty-handed? In the world Jesus is building, there is always enough if we trust God’s provision.
Generational thinking. It’s not only trauma we pass on from generation to generation...it’s also the sequoias we’re planting now that will come to fruit only for our descendants. Jesus’s time is short, but his vision is long, and it begins with the snot-nosed kids right in front of him.
Collaboration across difference. There’s no need, Jesus says, to fence off good work to ensure our exclusive claim to power. Good work happens in lots of places, apart from us, and it’s the goodness that matters, not who gets credit. Also, side note: stay salty, disciples.
Light up each person’s dignity. In a training for non-violent, peacekeeping poll chaplains, a rabbi instructed us to “light up the dignity” of both perpetrators and targets of abuse. Jesus’s reversal of blindness sounds ableist to our ears, but what if we can see his work as lighting up the dignity of the shushed Bartimaeus? And what if that is Josh’s work, too, in hospital chaplaincy? Josh’s ordination!
Beware of wealth, and redistribute it to dispel its power. In the tradition of the prophets, Jesus was suspicious of accumulated wealth, and urged his followers not to be trapped by it. Money demands loyalty (sweat, time, relationships, wellbeing...). God’s reign competes with money for our dependence and loyalty. Carissa Robinson is preaching.
The Son of Humanity in service. There’s no escaping the upside-down power structure of Jesus’s campaign (or God’s reign). Finally, it gets down to really small things, like who takes the trash out at the end of the night.
Give God what belongs to God. The Sunday before our national elections, let’s reflect on what we’re meant to release to the empire vs. what we give only to God. “Do not put your trust in princes” from Psalm 146 becomes “Do not put your trust in politicians.”
Love. The Sunday after our national elections, how does it look to proceed in the love that God calls us to, and upon which God’s empire is built?