Politics According to Jesus

Deuteronomy 34:1-12, Psalm 1, Matthew 22:34-46

Good morning!

Turn to your neighbor and say, “Neighbor, who are you voting for?”

Do you realize that that question has been extraordinarily rare in the history of the human race? Voting for our leaders is just not something that most people have done. In fact, it was so rare that we don’t see it in the Bible. Even in the selection of an Apostle to replace Judas Iscariot, the followers of Jesus came up with two men and let God select the winner through the casting of lots.

Throughout most of history, the vast majority of people have lived under governments that were established not by the vote of the people, but by the vote of the sword. The men who held the weapons decided who would lead the nation. In many cases, this meant that the leader of the nation was the most capable military leader. In other cases, it meant that the son or grandson of that great military leader retained control. But in many cases, it simply meant that the country was ruled by the man who was most ruthless.

You will notice I’ve said, “man”. I meant that. Until the 19th century, the number of women who ruled nations who were more than figureheads could be counted on your fingers. Of course, those few that did were very notable – Cleopatra of Egypt, Elizabeth I of England, Catherine the Great of Russia.

Democracy and its modern cousin, the democratic republic have been very rare, only becoming popular recently. The first democracy of any note was the city of Athens, Greece, around 500 BC, when any free adult male could come to the city center and vote on any issue. There was no mayor, no city council – the men simply talked for hours and voted on the issue.

Rome had a bit of a democratic republic in its early days, but it was stacked. If you were a foot soldier, you and 99 other foot soldiers got together and your company had one vote. If you could ride into battle on horseback, you and 9 other friends similarly equipped came together and your squad of cavalry got one vote. And if you were the leader of one of the noble families, you got one vote. And this crazy system worked for about 700 years, and only failed with the arrival of Julius Caesar, about 60 years before Christ was born.

After Caesar, all thoughts of ordinary people electing leaders were lost until the days of the American Revolution in 1776. But since then, one nation after another has gone to the vote principle, and today, almost every country in the world has some form of vote for their leaders.

But at the time of Christ, voting was not used. Men became king or emperor because of their military genius – or their family connections. And so we often wonder what Jesus had to say about politics.

Today, when politicians look toward Christians, it always seems to me that they are trying to sell us something. They see us as a constituency, as a group of people who will support them if they will say the right thing, if they come down on the right side of “our” issues, or they assume we will vote for them because they are one party or the other.

It wasn’t always that way. Politicians used to be very careful to listen to the people in the churches, for pastors looked to the Bible and made up their minds about what our positions would be, people listened to their pastors, and then the politicians, no matter which party, listened to what the church people said, for it was the people in the churches that consistently voted. In fact, many Presidents and powerful politicians started out in churches, or came from ministerial families. Woodrow Wilson’s father actually helped to found the Southern Presbyterian Church in the United States when the Presbyterians split during the Civil War.

But today, politicians rarely come from a church background. There simply doesn’t seem to be time – or perhaps Christians don’t want to get their hands dirty with the political mess.

But what did Jesus have to say that can guide us in our voting?

Perhaps the most important thing is related to our reading today. David was the greatest king that Israel had ever had. Under David and his son Solomon, Israel had been a great nation, able to stand up to the Egyptians in the south and the various countries in the east where modern day Iraq and Iran are. Israel, for one brief period of time, was able to stand tall and not have to play its neighbors off against each other. So David was the model king for the people of Israel who lived at the time of Jesus.

Jesus gets into a verbal battle of wits with some of the Pharisees. They asked Him what was the greatest commandment of the 632 commandments in the Old Testament, and Jesus tells them that they should love God completely – and love their neighbor as themselves. He says that these two principles summarize the entire law, the 632 commandments, and they are most important. We would do well to remember these – Love God completely and love your neighbor as yourself. In everything we do, do we follow these two commandments? You see, all the remaining commandments are simply ways to love God completely and to love your neighbor as yourself.

This is our first principle of Christian politics. Does our vote help us – and others - to love God more completely and to love our neighbor as ourselves? Consider what the men and women you are considering voting for are saying, consider who they are: Which one appears to love God more completely? Which one loves other people more?

Jesus gives us another principle of Christian politics with his response to the Pharisees. He says, in essence, “You asked me a question, now I get to ask you a question.” He asks why, if the Messiah, the Savior of Israel is to be a son of King David – a descendent of King David – why does King David turn to the Messiah and call Him Lord?

If you think it through, then the only way for King David to want to bow down to the Messiah, his son, is for the Messiah to be in some way greater than David. But a man’s son was by definition in that culture LESSER than the father. But also, David must have known this Messiah to mention Him as He does. Yet David had died a thousand years before the conversation that Jesus was having. The only conclusion is that the Messiah must be divine and immortal – and descended by normal means from King David.

Jesus met this criteria. Through His mother, He was a blood descendent of King David. And through His Father, He was divine. In fact, He was present as the eternal Word of God even earlier, at the creation itself.

But let’s put aside all of this about Who Jesus is. Let’s look at it through our lense of today’s politics.

If King David, the greatest King of Israel, looked up to Jesus the Word of God as His Lord, then we should always keep in mind that Jesus is the One to whom we owe allegiance – not a governor, not a President, not a party. Ultimately, we should be looking for men and women to vote for who are loyal – not to the party – we’ve seen what trouble that causes, not to some other man or woman, for that leads to corruption or a dictatorship, not even to the people, for while ordinary people often have wisdom, we are prone to panic and be swayed by fancy speeches and advertisements. No, we want to vote for men and women who are loyal to Jesus Christ as their Lord. This is how we get good, wise, government.

There is one final point I’d like to make about politics. Too often, the people of the church have let their political parties determine their ideas of right and wrong, their ideas of theology, their ideas of what the church should do. I have seen this happen on both sides – Republicans want me to preach against some issue – Democrats want me to preach against a different issue.

There are several problems with this. First of all, on almost any political issue, I’d bet that half of you agree, a quarter of you disagree, and a quarter don’t really care. If I join in with the half of you that agree, I’ll upset the quarter of you that disagree. Some pastors go ahead and do that. And so there are churches around that are known for being conservative strongholds – and other churches that are homes for liberals. But churches should welcome people of all political parties.

But the practical aspect of church unity aside, the problem is that we should be praying carefully for what Jesus wants first – and let what Jesus wants influence our political views. We should NOT let our political views decide what we think Jesus wants. And that is a very difficult habit to get out of once you go down that path. Instead of being Republicans who happen to be Christian or Democrats who happen to be Christians, we should be Christians who decided this time to vote Republican or Democrat or independent.

That’s why I don’t generally speak on politics from the pulpit. Christians should vote – always vote – there may be no one you feel like voting for, but there is always someone you want to vote against. But before you vote, before you drive to the polling station, and again as you stand in the voting booth – pray for the Holy Spirit to guide you in who to vote for – and who to vote against, particularly when you don’t know the candidates or when you know them both too well and know that they are both good – or know they are both slimy.

I’ve met enough politicians to tell you that about a fifth of them are honest, hard-working, smart people who actually care about what they are doing. And about a fifth of them are ambitious and prone to backstab, doing anything to get what they want. The remainder are like most people – moderately decent, reasonably honest, doing a job for a reasonable paycheck – no more – but no less.

Please vote. The Apostle Paul tells us that God gives us the rulers that He decides we deserve. If you vote to put God-fearing people in the halls of power, they may make good decisions and they may make bad decisions, but at least they’ll be trying to listen to God as they make those decisions. There are plenty of candidates that don’t even pretend to care about God.

We have been given a little bit of power to influence the world with our votes. Use that power wisely – listen to God, and look for godly men and women to vote for.

So turn to your neighbor and say, “Neighbor, who are you voting for?”

And turn back to your neighbor and say, “Neighbor, I’m voting for God.”