So it’s election season, and, as
such, we know to drown out the incessant political ads, the editorials and
letters to the editor that read as if the person writing in is standing on a
chair screaming, and the substance-less promises of people in far off places
looking for our vote. Closer to home we have friends and neighbors seeking
elected offices of one sort or another, which is a whole other thing that,
while not nearly as obnoxious as campaigns in St. Paul or Washington D.C.,
still contributes to a good deal of local stress—even if we’re all too polite
to acknowledge it. It’s that political time of the year, and all I can think
is, “Thank God it’s not a presidential election year.”
It’s
also a confusing time for churches because we aren’t allowed to endorse
candidates but we can, apparently, take stands on issues; hence the churches
who put up banners saying “Vote Yes on measure such and such” or “Vote no on
something else.” These are the kind of razor-thin ethical distinctions that
only politicians could create. The church lives in the world, so we are
political in the sense that all people making decisions about how to live are
political, but we are also apolitical—in that we do not put our trust in
elected leaders or legislation to tell the world about Jesus.
This
is a good time to read from 2 Kings for that reason. Naaman, who is introduced
as a commander in the army of the king of Aram, has a skin problem. He has
some really bad acne. The translation we just read suggests it is leprosy, but
since leprosy was more or less unknown during this period it could be as
serious as that or, more likely, it was something like psoriasis. Either way,
Naaman has a skin issue and he needs some help. Hearing that there is a prophet
in Israel—that
lowly country that he has been raiding again and again—who can heal his
disease, he sends word to the king and asks for an audience with the prophet.
But
somewhere along the line the message gets crossed and the word that goes out
goes not to the prophet, Elisha, but to the king of Israel. Typical political leader
that he is, the king of Aram
sends word straight to the top, to his equal in the army of Israel. Why go to a lowly prophet when this is a
matter between kings? Moreover, he tells the king that it is his
responsibility to cure Naaman of leprosy. Again, politics as usual, as the king
of Israel
understands immediately. He can’t heal Naaman. He’s a king; not a healer. The
kings are playing their own little game of thrones here, but all the while this
is subterfuge to what is really happening, even though it’s obvious to those of
us reading along. The first verse of 2 Kings 5 says, “Naaman, commander of the
army of the king of Aram, was a great man and in high favor with his master, because by him the Lord had given victory
to Aram.”
Now,
Naaman doesn’t know that. He’s thinking he was victorious over Israel because Aram had bigger, badder armies, and
they were stronger and their children were really good at sports… or something
along those lines. He has no idea of anything divine going on behind the
scenes, but for those of us privy to the details it was God who handed over
Israel to the king of Aram because (for those who have been following the daily
readings from “Sharing God’s Story at Home”) King Ahab of Israel was not very
good at following God’s laws. This is a common refrain for Israel and why
they are constantly losing their promised land that it took so many generations
to procure. But the biblical witness is clear throughout the Old Testament that
all of these changes in the political landscape, all of these kings and rulers
and wars, are marshaled over by the one true God, the God of Israel.
OK,
that’s important to set the stage for today because most of us are operating
out of that Old Testament perspective when we think about God’s role in
politics. We still tend to believe that wars are won and lost and rulers are
deposed because they do not follow God’s commandments. Like our Puritan
forebears who came over to America
to establish a theocracy in New England, we
pretty much assume that, for better or worse, God is favoring us as his chosen
people. However, there is a rather significant thing that has changed between
the time of Naaman and today (in addition to the part about us not being Jewish)
and that significant thing was Jesus Christ.
Because
of Jesus we no longer need a God who plays along with politics. With Jesus all
of our politics are moot. Jesus Christ looks at our attempts to make our
country as Christian as possible and says, “Oh, that’s cute.” Look at us acting
like politics are the most important thing when Christ is already present here
and now, freeing us to do what it is that Jesus commanded us to do: Love your
neighbor; love God; the rest is commentary. And to those who are obsessed with political
games under a religious guise, there is good news: The end times? They are
right now, and not because of some signs of the imminent apocalypse. No, the
end times are now, because now is the time when God promises to be present and
we know that because now is not yesterday and it is not tomorrow. All politics
look forward. God is in the business of now.
What
does Naaman discover in the kingdom
of Israel? At first it is
a king impotent in the face of his request. What
kind of politics is it that cures disease? we may rightly ask. Then it is
bemusement with Elisha, a stand-in for the Lord God. How can you ask of me such a simple thing? declares Naaman,
annoyed. Somewhere along the line he was tricked, like the king of Aram, into
thinking that the healing event itself was going to be ostentatious. That is
what a political event should be, after all—balloons, loud music, a stage. But
it was a simple healing, a simple dip in the Jordan. There was nothing special
about the water, or about the players in the game besides the word from God
spoken through the prophet, Elijah.
We want God to be big and showy. We
want him to show up in the midst of thousands when the Jesus we discover in the
Gospels several times went the other direction of the crowds. So we struggle
immensely with what it means to be Christians in the political world of the 21st
century. A Christianity Today poll released this week asked Evangelical pastors
a series of questions and, rather startlingly (though maybe not surprisingly),
an enormous percentage of these pastors answered with well-documented heresies
from the early church. 71% of evangelical pastors agreed with the statement,
“People seek God first, then he responds with grace,” even though that belief
is known as Pelagianism and it was denounced as early as the Council of
Carthage in 418.[1] We still don’t get it. We
still think politics have their place in the church. We still want to meet God
part of the way; we want to heal ourselves, to work really hard, to make
salvation something seek out, discover, and choose. Like Naaman, we want it to
be difficult and involve a lot of pomp and circumstance.
This story of
Naaman is a story that is doubly about salvation. First, he is healed—the Latin
word for health is “salve” from which we get this word ‘salvation’—and then he
proclaims that Yahweh is God. It is much the same for us, but, unlike Naaman,
we have not even to make the meager effort of washing ourselves in the Jordan. Most of
us were washed in baptism before we had a clue what it meant, which is exactly
as it should be. Jesus Christ has chosen you apart from anything you’ve done. And
it only matters how you respond to that gift to the extent that you proclaim,
“Jesus Christ is God.” That’s scandalous. It’s an affront to politics as usual.
As it should be.
[1] http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2014/october-web-only/new-poll-finds-evangelicals-favorite-heresies.html?start=2
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