“Do your jobs.” That’s what I would imagine Jesus saying if he were here today and asked about the government shutdown. I am addressing the U.S. Federal Government shutdown that started at midnight on September 30. Politicians look for political gain and try to blame each other. The majority party says the minority is to blame. The minority (and, according to current polls, most Americans) blame the majority.
In either case, hubris and a desire to get one’s way instead of doing good seem to be at the heart of this division. Working together, compromise, and empathy seem to be anathema in twenty-first-century U.S. politics. Politicians meeting and discussing differences sounds like a foreign concept. The throughline is, “I’m right. You’re wrong.” This false binary forces the machinery of government to seize up and stop moving. It doesn’t accomplish anything, and as a Christ-follower, this dogmatism causes more problems than anything it achieves.
In Mark 12.13-17, Jesus responded to a question about paying taxes. He said, “Give to the emperor the things that are the emperor’s and to God the things that are God’s.” Likewise, today, we can recognize that the United States is an arbitrary and humanmade creation in God’s world. God does not care about or recognize national boundaries because God loves the whole world. Within my country, I can pray for leaders and ask God to transform their hearts. Instead of trying to wedge some political action into a theological justification, I propose that all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God (Romans 3.23). This includes the politicians (and you and me).
For today, I turn to Ephesians 4.31-32, “Put away from you all bitterness and wrath and anger and wrangling and slander, together with all malice, and be kind to one another, tender-hearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ has forgiven you.”