Walk In Love: An Election Day 2020 Reflection (3 Nov. 2020)

Psalm 146

Deuteronomy 10:12-21

Matthew 5:43-48

 Jesus gives what would be to the Jewish people of his time a scandalous teaching to love your enemies, and it still is in our era. We like to talk and preach about how important love is and how love always wins, but when we actually put it to real-world practical use it is a shock to most people and chalked up as eccentricity. Love is easy when it is toward our own as we perceive, and treat others as outsiders and lepers, even those within the Church. The times of our day are polarizing more so than any point in history and it grievously divides us. We praise those who think the same way we do and belittle and shun the ones who don't toe-the-line of our standards, creating out of them tribes, cliques, and factions to the hurt and anguish of our brothers and sisters in the Lord, further marring the witness of the Church of God.

 The passage from St. Matthew's Gospel occurs during the famous Sermon on the Mount. Jesus teaches in his sermon what it is to be humble in the Beatitudes, what it is to be salt and light, how and what it means for Christ to fulfill the Law; what murder is at its heart; against lust and divorce; against oaths and retaliations; how we should give, pray, and fast; to lay up treasures in Heaven and not be anxious about this life; asking things of God, the Golden Rule, fruit-bearing, knowing the Lord, and building upon the Rock. This is a day to seriously reflect on these teachings.

 Love embodies all of what Jesus delivers on the Sermon on the Mount; not the watered-down definition of of what we want love to be in our culture, but the selfless, self-giving, sacrificial love that shows and gives Jesus to our neighbor and for us to see Jesus in our neighbor; read Matthew 25:31-40. The idols of politics and party affiliation blinds us to this reality. Instead we look at even our brethren in the Lord as our opponents, mortal enemies even, and all just for a season during the election cycle. You may or may not be back on speaking terms, at least immediately. We treat this event that comes every four years as though the fat of humanity hangs in the balance; if our guy gets in office we act as though a golden age of prosperity, peace, utopia, and even salvation is guaranteed by the candidate we support; if the it goes the other way World War 3, armageddon, dystopia, hell on earth is upon us. This is not how we as a people of God redeemed by the blood of Christ shed for us on the cross should see it. Regardless of who gets into office we are to pray for and honor them as we are exhorted to do, even if it means persecution to death.

 As the Psalmist writes, "put not your trust in princes, in a son of man, in whom there is no salvation (Psalm 146:3.) There is no ultimate hope to be fulfilled in secular politics. The cycle will shift through generation to generation with no resolve, especially if God is out of the equation. No matter national allegiance or party affiliation we are in covenant with the Living and True God of the universe through the water and the word, the Church is the nation of God, the True Israel, where our allegiance lies. We haven't only entered the threshold of God's kingdom but we have already entered it in the now and not yet as theologians have put it, as the Church Militant. The commandment in the Deuteronomy passage carries on for us to observe even under the New Covenant. Jesus recited the Shema to the scribe in Mark's Gospel which falls in line well with our readings; to show one's love for God is to love your neighbor without prejudices to stand between one another.

 If you feel like your brother or sister in Christ is our enemy all because of politics, stop and remember to whom you belong and the nation where your allegiance truly lies. You are redeemed as they are and need to be loved with the love we were given that we do not deserve in our sinfulness but have been given as one created in God's image and redeemed by his Son. Satan has no power over God's kingdom as he is able to infiltrate our earthly governments (and institutions) which is and has proven to be so effective, easy to get angry and hate each other for and even fear them. Perfect love casts out fear as St. John writes, and St. Peter states in his first epistle to keep loving one another earnestly, since love covers a multitude of sins. Agape; the selfless, self-giving, sacrificial love that I mentioned earlier; if there is any definition of God's love it is that. Build your foundation on the Solid Rock  which is Christ, be salt and light to the world, and have love proceed from us as God freely gives. Ask him for that every day. Live under the Law of love as the spiritual nation we are, as the people of God Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Amen.

(The image provided is not my own work.)