Vote For Jesus--Huh?

Vote For Jesus. I saw this sign often in front of this house on a country road in South Carolina last week. Wonder what it means?  Probably implies that if we finally vote Barack Hussein Obama (emphasis on the Hussein) out of office we can get this country back the way it ought to be. Like Garrison Keillor says: “Where the women are strong and the men are good looking and the kids are above average.” Or better put” Where men are real mean and not girlie boys—women stay at home and raise babies and have supper ready when he men folk get home. Where the kids don’t get into drugs or cuss like sailors and dip into the wrong things on the Internet. Vote for Jesus and we’ll go back to a country where immigrants were immigrants and citizens were American loving countrymen. Vote for Jesus and magically the economy will turn around and the private sector—not the government will take care of all of us. 

But that’s only one side of the coin. Vote for Jesus could mean making sure the Republicans are left in the dust. That we put people like Santorum and Romney and Limbaugh and a whole lot of others in their place. And that place would be, of course the back of the line. Vote for Jesus would mean that we would bring all our troops home and we would study war no more. And—we'd all have health care and the poor would have a safety net and maybe we could secure Social Security and Medicare and just calm down. The temperature is way too high. Voting for Jesus will make sure the winds and waves really do calm down. Peace Be Still. 

Jim Wallis recently wrote that our problem is that we see politics as our salvation. That politics really is our primary idolatry. He says that our politics these days shapes our faith and the worship of God ought to shape our politics. To vote for Jesus, then is to make sure our side wins—and if that happens surely the kingdom of God will be a whole lot closer than it was before November 2012. 

Read Jim Wallis article for yourself. He says the Kingdom of God and the United States of America are not synonymous. Surely he must be a Socialist and soft on Terrorism. He implies that liberty and justice for all really does mean what it says. And that the dream of the Founding Fathers was really was for the common good—even though they missed it by a country mile. But the dream remains. 

We can tear ourselves apart. What family does not have people on the other side of the issue that are just itching to fight over this political thing? Churches are split—and some are pulling out of their denominations over this very issue. Why do we have to choose sides? We are right and you wrong. Somehow—we are going to have to get along with each other.  

Yep we can vote for Jesus but it won’t mean anybody’s side wins. It will mean we pull off the blinders and know that politics cannot bring in the Kingdom. I keep remembering that terrible verse in the Psalms: “He gave them up to their request, but sent leanness to their souls.” Voting Jesus may bring in some lean times but it would also mean that we would not kill each other off in the name of God. We have some work to do.