Ask Jonathots … July 16th, 2015

 Jonathots Daily Blog

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I love my church and my pastor, but every four years my preacher tells us who to vote for. I really don’t like this. Should I speak to him about this? Write an anonymous note? What is the best way to handle this? I don’t want to leave the church because of this one issue.

Well it really comes down to this point: does a minister of the Gospel have a responsibility to steer his congregation concerning a political decision?

It is not a question of whether he has the right. If a preacher insists he has a calling from God, then he can’t use the Constitution of the United States as proof of his legal authority to voice his opinion in the pulpit in political matters. If you’re going to claim a higher purpose, then you must live by the dictates of that higher calling, not merely the civil rights afforded to you by your government.

So it comes down to the question of how did the Good Shepherd handle the issue of political favoritism? And of course, when I say Good Shepherd, I am speaking of Jesus.

• Jesus had a congregation.
• Jesus had a flock.
• Jesus had a following.

Unquestionably, they were swayed by his opinions.

Judea in the 1st Century A.D. was politically charged. It was Jews against Samaritans, Samaritans against Gentiles, Gentiles divided over their allegiance to Rome, and Rome basically swallowing up most of the air with its imperialism and desire to conquer.

There was tremendous pressure on Jesus to pick a side. For instance:

He was invited to the palace of Herod to discuss his work. He declined.

The woman at the well suggested that he should show a bit more favoritism to the Samaritans to balance things out. He didn’t.

And of course, the Jewish hierarchy wanted him to speak out against Rome. And his classic phrasing of “render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar’s and unto God the things that are God’s” still remains as a guideline for those who preach the Gospel.

They even wanted Jesus to express sympathy for Jewish folk who had been killed by Pontius Pilate while merely worshipping in the synagogue. Although it would have been easy for him to do so, he remained neutral.

Since he taught that “the Kingdom of God is within us,” how we are governed doesn’t make nearly as much difference as the decision we make on how to live our personal lives. Your pastor has absolutely no right to color the vote of his sheep. But confronting him on such an issue is not only disrespectful, but would certainly be unproductive.

If your church does not use Jesus as the primary example, then your pastor will probably fall back on Old Testament nationalism to condone his choices.

At that point, you have to make a decision.

Do you want to be part of New Testament church that follows Jesus, or a church which haphazardly mingles Jesus and Moses together with equal authority and power?

I see nothing wrong with posing the question to your pastor, “Do you think Jesus would campaign for a candidate, and if you do think so, what story from his life do you use to confirm that?”

Even the Apostle Paul told us to pray for those who are in authority over us–not campaign against them.

The church will become a much more powerful unit for spiritual and social change when it pushes for separation from the state.

 

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New Hope… October 18, 2013

Jonathots Daily Blog

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I paused.

When Janet handed me the file on our sponsor for this weekend in Freedom, Pennsylvania, I noted that the venue was New Hope Lutheran Church.

The reason for my brief consideration was that I was trying to figure out if “new hope” was redundant–repetitious, as it were. After all, isn’t all hope new? Or we wouldn’t wish for it in the first place. And aren’t most things that are new still in the hopeful phase on the drawing board?

But then I realized that there are old hopes which need to be rejuvenated rather than buried as dead and meaningless.

For instance, while people argue about the Constitution of the United States, I look at it as a hope that was expressed over two hundred and twenty years ago, by a bunch of fellows in powdered wigs, who didn’t even know about trains, let alone rockets to the moon, and who certainly were anticipating that as things progressed, other folks would come along and “juice up” the original hope.

Likewise, when I read the Good Book, I am fully aware that the hope expressed by Moses thousands of years ago about God was given a reprieve by countless prophets, teachers and wise men and women over the years, culminating with Jesus, who fulfilled the vision and pushed the hope forward to us.

Hope needs newness. Matter off fact, if hope doesn’t receive an infusion of new ideas, it becomes tradition, which generally speaking, stalls the human race with trying to address the problems of our present world with tools from the past. Not very handy, man.

So I’m excited about going to New Hope. Matter of fact, I’ve already come up with a message to share with the beautiful people. It may be the definition of new hope:

Don’t give up on an idea just because things aren’t ideal.

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When They Got the Mike … November 27, 2012

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He came running into the church, grabbed my arm, pulled me outside, took me around the side of the building, opened his Bible and began to read. He was Mike. He was my friend who was one of those bizarre mixtures of annoying and amusing.

Now, Mike reading the Bible had absolutely no theological motivation at all–I knew that Mike must have found something questionable. And I was right.

Mike had discovered that the Bible contained the word “pisseth.” Even funnier to him was the fact that the Bible suggested that it was really dumb to “piss against the wall.” Splash-back, I assume. He was laughing uncontrollably as he shared the passage.

That was Mike. If any sentence spoken aloud offered a double entendre, Mike would find it. Mike loved to giggle at words. Mike loved to take normally somber situations and turn them into a comedy club because someone said something that could be interpreted another way. You can imagine what he was like during sex education class in high school. He giggled so loudly that he had to be escorted out of the room by two teachers.

I thought Mike was just going to be an immature guy I met during the process of growing up, and that when I finally became an adult, all the “Mikes” of the world would turn into–well, Michael.  You know. Maturity.

But it’s not so.

I am going to make a bold statement: Every book ever written, including the Bible, the Qur’an (the Koran), the Book of Mormon and any number of presumably spiritual volumes, is full of statements that can be taken many ways–and are even occasionally embarrassing.

For instance, I tighten up with discomfort when the Epistle of Timothy is read and Paul suggests that women are supposed to be subject to men because they were the ones who fell to Satan in Eden and are responsible for the decline of humankind. Yet you and I both know there are “Mikes” walking around who pronounce this erroneous idea to be as just as holy doctrine as “love your neighbor as yourself.”

There are millions of Muslims who believe the better parts of the Qur’an and ignore the portions that are out-dated and without practical use. But there are those “Mikes” even in the Arab world who find words to justify hate, bigotry and murder.

And God knows, there are folks who read the Constitution of the United States and discover all the phrases that support their particular form of backwardness, extolling them as noble gestures instead of passed-over practices. The Constitution does tell us we have the right to bear arms, but at no time does it tell us we have the need. The Constitution informs us that we have the opportunity to pursue our own happiness, but it also warns that we have a greater requirement–to chase down the common good.

I guess you and I will have to deal with all those people and organizations who “got the Mike.”  For as long as people laugh about “pisseth” being in the Bible, there will have to be someone who comes along who finds the truly important meanings and brings them to the forefront, while warning us all that anything that’s been touched by human hands–even if we think it’s divinely inspired–smells of “people.”

My choice? I choose to believe in what is still human-friendly, scientifically confirmed and God blessed.

So women–relax. Just like both sexes worked together to fall from grace in Eden, if we work together now, we just might be able to plant a new garden.

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