categories. The first group wishes the elec- tion was over yesterday. These people are tired of the campaigns dominating the television; tired of the news reporting on every time a candidate sneezes. The other group, however, thrives on the energy, debate, and intensity of an election year. They can’t get enough of it! Oddly enough, these categories of people tend to marry one another, which makes for some interesting household dynamics. This stage of the campaign cycle is comprised almost entirely of speeches. Sure, each candidate has a full-on media assault through the Internet, radio, and cable, but they know that most of their votes are won the old-fashioned way—through the power of the stump speech. As a result, congressmen, sena- tors, governors, and state officials alike are crisscrossing their territories, speaking wherever they can to whoever might vote for them.
U
What if Jesus were running for elected office? Obviously, there was no democracy back in Jesus’ day, which is an argument in and of itself for just how political His life, leadership, and move- ment actually were. After all, Jesus inten- tionally set Himself up as the leader of a
22 EVANGEL | November 2010
POLITICS of JESUS
The
NLESS YOU’RE living in a cave, you know this is an election year in the United States. Election years tend to divide people into two
movement of people that shared common ideals about how life should be lived. That certainly sounds like politics to me! The problem is that while Jesus was a remarkable leader, He was not inter- ested in exercising political acumen. Good politicians don’t get crucified by their constituents. And in Jesus’ most famous “campaign speech”—the Sermon on the Mount—it’s not hard to see why the polit- ical tide eventually turned against Him. Just like the speeches from the candi- dates presently running for office, in Mat- thew 5-7 Jesus lays out His platform, poli- cies, priorities, values, and what He thinks the ancient nation of Israel should have looked like then, and what He commands the people of God to look like now. To grasp just how radical Jesus’ political edge was, look at the opening line: “Blessed are the poor in spirit: for their’s is the king- dom of heaven” (5:2).
Right now each of our nation’s major candidates is attempting to get his or her message out to the greatest number of people. Millions of dollars are being spent on technology, advertising, and crafting just the right message that will sway the public. Imagine that one of those candi- dates stood before the masses of people, and said something like this:
My fellow Americans, although these are trying times for our country, we continue to be a blessed nation under God because we are full of broken,
by Josh Rice
dysfunctional, “poor in spirit” people. We’re a blessed nation because we’ve got so many freeloaders, slackers, tax cheaters, prisoners, drug dealers— people who can’t seem to follow the simple laws of our land. As a result I’m introducing a new program called “blessed,” in which we are going to find these people who keep breaking the law. We’re going to hunt them down where they live. If they’re in jail, we’re going to get them. If they’re in urban ghettos or rural farms, we’re going to pick them up and give them full and total access to the national treasury.
As your leader, I will hand over the keys to all of America’s wealth in service to these broken, dysfunctional people. They can take whatever they want from our treasury and build a brand-new life for themselves. Under my administration, we are going to open up the greatest resources of our nation to those most unprepared to handle them—to those who deserve them the least. Thank you, and God bless America.
Obviously, a candidate stupid enough to come up with an idea like that would crash and burn. It’s a ridiculous con- cept—to focus the resources of our nation toward people who are broken. That’s why Jesus would not have been a good politi- cal candidate, and it’s one reason why the religious folk and the Romans lynched Him like a criminal when they figured out that was what He was about. The first line
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