Monday, January 9, 2012

The Politics of Jesus

As I was walking to my car from having lunch, I noticed a bumper sticker on a car close to mine. It was a little faded out, but I could clearly read the word JESUS. I'll admit to not being a big fan of bumper stickers (mainly because of the rude nature of most of the ones I see) but I always read the ones with JESUS or GOD because I'm interested in what other people may have been thinking when they put them on.
This particular bumper sticker, as I said, was faded out but I was able to read it:

JESUS
is a Liberal

Now this is the way it was written: big bold JESUS and small "is a Liberal" with a capital L. The car itself didn't tell me much. It was a plain Jane Camry with no other stickers to give me a sense of the driver.
Now don't misunderstand me...I have no problem with people speaking their minds, even if I disagree. I do, however, take issue with people trying to pigeonhole my Lord and Savior. This would have been no more acceptable if the sticker had said:

JESUS
is a Conservative

To put it another way, how do we make Him fit in a neat, processed category as this person tried to do. Jesus is the pattern, not something to be filed away where we personally find a place for Him.
I always find it distressing when something I love is co-opted, and this has happened more than it should on both sides of the political aisle. I think Jesus would be rather apolitical, even today. When you see the extremes of the Roman occupation of Palestine, he would have had a rich political vein to mine. Instead, he concentrated his efforts on his mission which has now fallen to us. He did not exploit politics to his benefit or to fit an agenda. Should we? Did he rail against the authorities in Rome? In fact, he said "Render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar's" knowing that, at the end, tax money would go the way of all flesh.
I am not saying that Christians should abandon the political system, only that we should let it take second place to preaching the word. I think Jesus would be considered both liberal (love for the people) and conservative (condemnation of sin and its practice), and I can give scripture for this. I do not, however, believe he would be either a Liberal or a Conservative and all the pitfalls and baggage that those two designations carry. I certainly don't believe he can be neatly summed up on a bumper sticker no matter how hard we might try.