As I consider dusting off this blog and recommitting to regular writing and publishing, I am adding recent email newsletter content shared with my congregation. This post was originally sent to my congregation on July 30, 2024.
Every four years we hear how this is the most important election in history … well, at least the last most important election just four yeas ago, when we heard the claim that THAT was the most important election in history.
Elections are important. Local, state, and federal elections have wide and varied consequences for our life together, from land use zoning to the delivery of social services, education and foreign policy to care for the environment, national security, economic development, and more.
Lutherans have traditionally understood voting and civic engagement as part of our vocation – our calling in faith – to love and serve our neighbor. We engage in politics and public life not as would seem typical, to seek personal benefit or to elect leaders to enact policies that improve our lives. No. We engage in political activities and civic life for the sake of our neighbor, so that governance and civic institutions would act in ways that improve the lives of others, especially those who are poor, sick, and vulnerable. St Paul’s call that we are to look not to our own interests but to the interests of others (Philippians 2:4) is relevant – inviting us to vote not for our own interests, but for the interests of others.
Yet in Sunday’s Gospel we heard that Jesus feared that the crowd wanted to make him a king … so he ran away from them (see John 6:15). Jesus rejects this attempt to place him in earthly power. Now, Jesus’ rejection of civil power does not mean that we don’t care about governance and the things of politics. Not at all. Civic engagement is one faithful way for us to serve our neighbor.
However, we do not seek to install our God or our religion in government. Jesus is Savior and Lord without need for any government title or legal protection, and without the risk of confusing civil power with divine power. Give to God what is God’s and to Caesar what is Caesar’s, after all (see Matthew 22, Mark 12, and Luke 20). Long before Jesus’ time, in the Period of the Judges, the LORD didn’t want Israel to have a king, warning the people that a king would lead only to unrighteousness and injustice (see 1 Samuel 8). The LORD was right.
Ultimately, our relationship with politics is complicated. As Christians we don’t find our ultimate meaning in politics, but we do care about politics – for the welfare of our community and our neighbors is determined to a significant degree by the quality and legitimacy of our laws and public institutions. We are our brother’s and our sister’s keeper, after all (see Genesis 4:1-16). And a significant way that we keep and care for our neighbor is through good governance.
A prayer for good governance (from the Lutheran hymnal) asks God to bless our leaders and to drive out from us cynicism, selfishness and corruption. May we enter into this political season not with resignation, cynicism or despair, but with determination to use our vote and our voice to seek the welfare of our community and our country, in obedience to our Savior’s law of love.
Almighty God, we lift before you all who govern. May those who hold power understand that it is a trust from you to be used, not for personal glory or profit, but for the service of the people. Drive from us cynicism, selfishness, and corruption; grant in your mercy just and honest government; and give us grace to live together in unity and peace; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
The Lutheran Zephyr 