The Gospel and the Government

Again, like my last entry, this is a subject I don't feel entirely comfortable or competent discussing. Please read the first paragraph of 'Compassion vs. Justice' to get a feel for what I mean and why I still am going to write.

I have been fairly lethargic about my polemecy for most of my life. It all just seemed so polarizing and cutthroat that I wasn't seeing issues or movements, I was just seeing arguments and divisions. The first campaign I was ever old enough to vote in was the presidential elections of 2004. This proved to be a less than inspiring first experience with voting and I think I voted just because I believed that you should. Neither candidate seemed like the best of Americans, which really, the president should be.

One thing that I have been serious about for a large chunk of my teen and early adult years has been my faith. This has looked different and the expressions of it have changed over the years. Lately, I have been consumed with the idea of justice. I think that justice can be defined by different groups with different ideas in very different ways; in that way it can be a very relative term. However, the justice I have been seeking to define is that of the gospel story of Jesus. The kind of justice Jesus displayed when he was overturning tables in the temple and when he was rebuking the pharisees and religious know-it-alls of his day, that’s what I’m after. And the justice Jesus showed to lepers, the blind and the crippled. I expanded on some of my ideas about justice in my last post; you can go there if you want more.

I bring this idea back up because during the increasingly heated presidential primary race I have been thinking some about how the ideas of the gospel carry over into government and politics. What I mean is that I have been considering how my vote and my opinions do and don't/can and can't reflect the radical and revolutionary teachings of the gospel.

Well, actually, I guess that was a bit of a misnomer. I probably led you to believe that I was going to talk about how to live the gospel in politics...my bad, not quite ready for that one. I've always thought that a firm structure of theory needs to be developed before it starts getting all gussied up with practice. Well, maybe in theory I don't believe that...I'll stop.

I guess the question that has really been on my mind is whether or not the gospel and politics are compatible. Whether or not a government could be run following the ideas of the gospel—turn the other cheek, placing the needs of others before your own, et cetera.

As I thought about these questions I thought about the gospel and about Jesus. I thought about how He wasn't consumed with being a citizen of Galilee but rather a citizen of the kingdom of God. I thought about how He spent almost no time arguing with the political and religious giants of his day—the Pharisees—while still undermining and changing the structure of both politics and religion for history. I thought about how He declined the devils offer to rule the lands and didn't appease all those who thought he was going to be a political ruler, but instead became a king in a different way...in a way no one suspected.

Of course Jesus was Jesus, and we (or at least certainly I) are/am something far less. But I think we can still be, as followers of Jesus, people who think out of the box. People who defy the standard. People who don’t fit the mold people think we will, but do what is right in a way that is radical. A people who seek justice, compassion and mercy before revenge, defense and policy. The latter mentioned things are still important, but if we were to seek to be citizens of God’s kingdom before citizens of a particular country or political party they seem to be less important.

What does this mean for voting or political activism? Well, I think that it means there is room to wiggle. No candidate, so far as I can tell, completely embraces the ideas of the gospel and certainly if someone had they have long lost out (somehow I don’t think turning the other cheek or tithing or putting others countries interests before the interests of our own would be the most popular platform). I’m going to vote and I’ll vote for the candidate that I feel makes the biggest strides towards compassion and justice; the candidate that will change the most policies which are not in alignment with these things. But I’ll try to remember my place in God’s kingdom, working to reach this world—to be a peace maker and a kingdom bringer—before I get to caught up in a political scene and forget that Jesus redefined justice by thinking outside of the box and that we can continue to try and radically pursue it.

Compassion Vs Justice

The next two blogs I plan to write involve subjects I consider myself fairly ignorant about. In fact, I am ashamed to write about things I know so little about and have suffered for even less. I would much rather expose myself deeply disciplined, passionate and considerably sacrificed for these things. The desire to be exposed at our best is our shame controlling us. I have learned that this is a negative feedback system that I have seen to control myself and others; we don't expose ourselves so we don't enter into important discussions and the transformations which only come from letting our embarrassment go, and thus we are stuck. I'm tired of being stuck and am becoming desperate for more growth and understanding. I expose myself, my inadequacies and my ignorances here hoping to grow and be transformed as a result.

With that said...

Something that has really been on my mind quite a lot since I took a trip down to Mexico was the idea of justice and compassion. The trip I took was with 21 friends of mine to Juarez, Mexico. We have another friend, Brandon Culp, who has taken a full time position with an organization called Casas Por Cristo building houses in Juarez. I admire greatly the sacrifice that Brandon has made and the work that he is doing in Juarez. Brandon suggested that we get a group together and come down, so we did. I think that the idea of a trip, a huge road trip to another country with 20 friends, was more important and exciting to me than being compassionate. Actually, I think I was more excited to eat burritos than be compassionate as well. So my priorities were set: Friends, roadie, burritos, compassion.

While I was in Juarez I saw things in a way that I hadn’t remembered seeing them the time I had been there before. I saw hurting people. I saw homes that hardly seemed worthy of being called homes and people without even that. I saw people without cars or other means of transportation to get to jobs. I saw people who were sick and couldn’t work and therefore couldn’t afford to pay doctors. People stuck. I also saw massive and extravagant shopping centers that modeled something quite like America's suburbia. I saw huge houses with multiple cars parked outside all surrounded by barbwire and steal—a message that exclaims ‘this isn’t for you.’ I saw large scale poverty and corruption in a system that offered no other alternative than choosing one of these.

So to the jobsite we went. The twenty of us were able to build an entire house, from the foundation up, in 4 days. The three room structure was to be used by a neighboring church for school, Sunday morning classes and visiting pastors among other things. I felt very accomplished about what we had done. Where there had been nothing there was a house. Where there was a need it had been filled. That structure will undoubtedly serve the people in that community for years to come and I feel great about what we accomplished during that week.

The last day of our build Aaron and I went into town to get paint and painting supplies because we figured we’d probably have enough time to paint the inside before we left. On our way back to the jobsite we were discussing the state of the colonial and I mentioned how much it seemed like shooting a spit ball at a freight train. This house, no matter how amazing we made it, did little to slow the beast that kept this community’s members in extreme poverty. Aaron lamented that though our deeds were compassionate but they did little to serve justice and that only half of the gospel had been fulfilled in our efforts. There was compassion without justice.

I sort of shrugged off what he was saying, probably pointing out a funny looking dog on the side of the road or something. As I thought about what he had said throughout the build that day I realized that justice and compassion had sort of become the same thing to me in a lot of ways. Both things just kind of seemed to be entries on a list of qualities I wished to reflect from the gospel. A list that looked something like; love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, gentleness and self-control...and compassion and justice. I’d never really thought too hard about it but I guess I just lumped compassion and justice together. Since then I have thought more about what these two things are and how they are the gospel in their own, different way.

I think that compassion is an act of mercy or selflessness usually for those who are in need. Serving at homeless shelters or buying a hamburger for someone who’s hungry come to mind. Jesus was compassionate. He healed and helped pretty well everywhere he went. I think that building that house was an act of compassion and was the gospel in that way.

Justice, by a common definition, is getting people what they deserve. We often think of judges and court buildings when we think of justice. These are institutions that ‘give people what they deserve,’ serving fines, probations and jail sentences to those who have broken the law. This is justice, but justice and ‘getting people what they deserve’ is a lot broader than this. I think Justice is working to dismantle the machines which create injustice. I think it means breaking down the structures and systems which leave, for example, people hungry and homeless in Juarez, Mexico. I think it means working against racism, sexism and heterosexism. I think it means breaking down barriers that prevent understanding. I think it means questioning the roots of our comfort and the roots of other’s discomfort and asking why.

Justice is a hard discipline. ‘Working for justice’ is something that I have had a hard time understanding and an even harder time doing. However, I do think that compassion acts as medium to understanding justice. I did not even realize that unjust systems existed in Juarez before the trip to Mexico. I didn’t realize there was such a large homeless population in Longmont before I served with COrES. I don’t understand the systems of injustice which keep parts of Africa in political turmoil and its people starving and dying of HIV, but I can respond compassionately with the visions of organizations like Blood:Water Mission.

As a response to the gospel I feel like we are brought through different disciplines in refracting and amplifying waves. Through the medium of compassion we discover injustices and are given the opportunity to respond with justice. Jesus says to the Pharisees in Luke, “Woe to you Pharisees because you give God a tenth of your mint, rue and all other kinds of garden herbs, but you neglect justice and the love of God. You should have practiced the latter without leaving the former undone.” It’s time that I realize how much I am like the Pharisees with my legalisms and trendy Christian ways and stop neglecting justice.

I don't imagine ways to be just will just start magically appearing to me. Just like I never would assume I could be infinitely joyful or compassionate. In fact, it has been hard to see injustice and I imagine that it will continue to be harder to react to what I see. Still, I feel that as a response to the gospel and to Jesus, the Jesus who worked to change the ways in which the world saw prostitutes, beggars and the homeless, I need to try.

So, consider this a part of the conversation and please continue it. Let's, as people who desire to be followers of the gospel, talk about what it means to do so and spur each other towards that.

Micah 6:8, "...act justly and love mercy and walk humbly with your God."