Around this time of year, members of congregations start to wonder “who is my pastor voting for?” And I would lie if I said that never has crossed my mind. It’s interesting to know. But as a Pastor I do understand the desire to be hesitant to pick a side. In a battle that has been waging for quite sometime now in our country, it’s a very hostile environment to step foot in. Yet the more I see pastors raising the flag for a particular candidate the more I see the members in the churches also not just raise a flag for a particular candidate but start going to war for that candidate. The member follows the lead of their pastor and starts excommunicating other members of the church who do not vote the same way. In fact, you do not even have to be apart of their own actual church; if you are a christian but you vote differently suddenly you are treated like a heretic. Not because of the gospel, but because you chose the wrong side. So naturally, I grow to love stepping into the fray. I am not picking either side. You can say “But you have to otherwise it will be the end of democracy.” To which I would respond: “buts its not the end of the Kingdom…also, both sides say that.” Both sides use the same language and same talking points to attack the other. Both use language that demonizes people on the other side and both sides encourage a degree of hostilty to anyone who opposes them. As a christian I cannot participate. As a pastor I know in my own church, we have members who love Jesus but vote very differently and have good reasons too. I know according to history, that the one side who claims to be for Christians actually has a interesting history of just using Christians to get into office not because they actually care about the historical values christians have held throughout time and space. I know that as a human the issues we vote for are not as black and white as the media portrays them to be. These issues are complex. It is not a simple good vs. evil battle. But I do believe there is a battle for the soul taking place as I watch people turn from ignorant about the issues to increasingly more and more hostile. Pastors have a strong voice in who people vote for. You can say that’s an issue or not, either way that is not my point.
My point is as pastors, I believe we should have pointed out the fact that the war going on between parties is wrecking havoc on the souls of our congregants. We worried about that latest heretic prosperity preacher our congregants buy books of so we call it out in the pulpit; but have we called out the demon that has played with the anxieties of people? Who have turned the message of Jesus that says “love thy enemy” into “bash your enemy online because that candidate gave you permission too.” There is a war going on and I believe it not only captured many of our congregants but also some of us pastors as well. When our Facebook timelines look more like we work on a presidential campaign than a church I think we may have got lost a bit. The good news is that there is grace though. Where we lost our allegiance to Jesus and replaced it with a man who claims to be representing Jesus’ values(though that’s a whole other conversation); Jesus just extends a hand. He extends the cup to his enemy on his right and on his left.
Dear Pastors, your people become a lot like who you are. So who are you becoming like? Are you representing Jesus or are you representing some candidate that’s ways of fighting are more like the worlds than Jesus? Jesus said “if you live by the sword, you will die by the sword.” When the world expected the messiah to come tearing Rome down, Jesus came healing and restoring. I’ll choose this election to focus on the real battle. The battle that tears apart dinner tables, destroys relationships and casts people out of churches. I’ll choose to fight for people’s souls. I’ll choose to focus my action healing what is really broken.
I’ll choose not to side with the elephant or the donkey, but the lion whose way of fighting looks a lot like a lamb who lays his life down for the sake of others.
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