I still believe God is good no matter what is happening in our bombed-out world obsessed with power and dominance. That’s the way the world works. We yearn for something different and yet we continue to participate in its ways.
Probably the thing I personally hate the most is when Jesus is used as a tool and his ways distorted to create a political Jesus. I don’t know Political Jesus. I don’t want to know Political Jesus. I want to run from him as far as possible. Political Jesus espouses everything opposite from the real Jesus. Political Jesus makes me want to run screaming and throw up.
When God came to earth as a man, He chose poverty, small insignificant people, and actively resisted those who wanted to make him a political king. He invited people into a new way, offering to plant a seed of transforming love in their hearts that would grow into magnificent tree drooping with delicious fruit:
-Love for enemies, real love that seeks to understand, reach across dividing lines, heal wounds, love so powerful that it would die for this enemy.
-Desire to serve and come alongside people instead of trying to manipulate and control and use them.
-Willingness to accept grievous wounds and refusal to retaliate and take an eye for an eye.
-Hearts full of compassion for all the humans they see, especially the struggling outsiders, the poor, the foreign, the powerless.
If someone says they know Jesus and you don’t see those fruits growing in their lives (maybe slowly, maybe haphazardly!), they probably haven’t met the real Jesus. The seed He plants is a real seed that really transforms utterly.
I haven’t seen those fruits in the man we now call president. The vision of a powerful Christianity he offers is another version of Political Jesus. I’m not buying it. I’m not buying the idea that waking up to President Harris would save everyone either even if I personally would feel far more comfortable having coffee with her than Donald Trump. The world is going to keep on world-ing and thinking political power is the means to happiness. Jesus did not storm the halls of Rome and take the emperor’s seat. He had far more important things to do with people the empire laughed at and scorned. The Kingdom that He came to establish grows in hearts, not in seats of government, even if we dearly pray that those with the Seed in their hearts will sit in the seats of power. While it occasionally happens, doesn’t seem to be the norm. You’ll far more likely find a person with that Seed in their hearts doing normal or lowly and unglamorous things because such people tend to abhor power and do anything they can to stay away from it.
However, there is one thing I can do- I‘m praying for all the people who have lost hope today and are living in fear and despair, that the Voice of beautiful peace that transcends world and politics will beckon their hearts into its rest. I’m praying for all those celebrating victory and imagining all America’s troubles are over today to hear the Voice that says His ways are not our ways, and that the only time He met with a king on earth was forced, where he was mocked and sent off for execution. And I will pray for our new president, too, that his heart hears the Voice, that he lets that Voice plant the transforming seed in his heart. Can you imagine what a shocking and crazy and beautiful thing that would be, if he suddenly became humble and loving and wildly compassionate and wise and discerning and loved his enemies? Let it be so, Lord.
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