Elections and politics have taken a slight Christmas break. The next big wave of commercials, fliers in the mail, and door hangers won’t be until the next primary and then November 2024. However, really, politics does not take a break. Not even during Christmas and not even during the very first Christmas.
Luke sets his Christmas story in a political situation. Caesar Augustus, Luke writes, was emperor, Herod was King of Judea, and an otherwise unknown Quirinius, was governor of Syria. Never mind all three did not serve co-terminously. The political environment nonetheless was established even if Luke’s memory was a big foggy on the particulars.
Matthew, writing to a Jewish community in Syria, mentions only King Herod and wise men from the East. Matthew does not say they were kings; that was a tradition that had developed a few centuries later. Yet once more it seemed important for the author of a Gospel to include at least a nod toward politics.
Don’t get ahead of me, now! You think I’m going to address the topic of faith and politics or church and politics. Not this time. That is for another writing. Nope, I simply want to say God is not a politician.
Beyond that I want to say God is also not an economist, a sociologist or a psychologist. God is not a capitalist nor a socialist. God is not for democracy neither is God against it. Israel had this a bit wrong in their looking forward to a Messiah. They thought God was an Israelite, God would bring a Messiah just for them; Israelite exceptionalism, if you will. God, however, would not be restricted to a particular ideology, nation, or people; not even those for whom he had showed a special interest. God was much larger and broader.
Too often it seems God came to earth in Jesus to embrace a particular ideology and way of life. God nor God’s son, Jesus, is any of the earthly ideologies. To sum up God in a word, God is just. Being and living justly is complicated. Some toes may get stepped on, others may find their toes undeservedly manicured. A God whose will is justice grants people what they need, not what they deserve. We should all be glad about that.
It bothers me so when any group tries to make God their Omnipotent Affirmer. Once I even hear a candidate say he didn’t have to repent from anything as he never did anything wrong. Jesus does not come to affirm our politics. Jesus comes as much to challenge and overthrow them as affirm some such political beliefs. Jesus comes to save us and to show us how God would have us live justly for each other as well as for ourselves. And Jesus comes into a world of kings, emperors, governors, prime ministers and presidents. Jesus lives and operates in this world now as Jesus did during his lifetime.
Herod. Caesar Augustus. Quirinius. Real people in a real time in a real place. Not the stuff of “Long ago and faraway” but here….now….among us. In something as messy as politics, that can give us all a lot of hope. Can it give us sufficient hope to in turn act and live justly?