Recovering Our Political Image

Election season is frustrating in a number of ways—mostly because everyone suddenly becomes a political science expert and posts their opinions on Facebook. It’s even more frustrating when we call ourselves politically responsible because we have an opinion or by simply showing up and casting a vote. But, I wonder if involvement in politics runs deeper than a vote. Are we only supposed to be cheerleaders for political parties?  Election season also has a curious and frustrating role within the church.  Sometimes it enhances the number of complaints about what the government must do to change the world and the church. Other times, the election never makes it through the front doors; ‘politics have nothing to do with God.’ There is a dichotomy—political institutions are either the end-all, be-all or have no significance at all. Surely politics must have a place in the church, but that conversation cannot be restricted to complaining about current administrations.

Wesleyan theology has never helped us much in our conversations about politics. We have never been recognized for having any distinctive theological language to deal with politics. Theodore Weber’s book, Politics in the Order of Salvation, starts to change that deficiency by recovering an important Wesleyan theological category—the political image of God. In short, our creation in the political image of God endows us with a rich theological language to talk about our calling to be political in all realms of our lives. Weber notes that God has endowed humanity with his own governing image and we have been given the responsibility to govern the world, just as God governs us. In this light, the political image is a vocation for humanity to live into—a necessary facet of the order of salvation—and constituent part of recovering our creation in the image of God. In order to fully understand the political image, it is important to expound upon our creation in the image of God because governance is part of God’s nature and our political image is a derivative of such.

For Wesley, there are three facets of being created in the image of God: the natural, the moral, and the political.  More specifically, Wesley draws from Genesis 1:26 “Let us make man in our image, in our likeness.” The natural image refers to the reason of humanity; that is, humanity’s essence and structure.  Wesley writes, “[the natural image is] a picture of his own immortality, a spiritual being endued with understanding, free will, and various affections.” The political image refers to the responsibility and stewardship in which humanity is God’s representative government on earth. Genesis says, “let them rule over the flesh of the sea and the birds of the air, over the livestock, over all the earth, and over all the creatures that move along the ground.” Wesley maintains that all of humanity is the governor of this lower world as the mediator and representative between God and the ‘inferior creatures.’  Finally, and most importantly, Wesley maintains that humanity was created in the moral image of God. The moral image simply refers to humanity’s ability to love and obey the Father. Wesley writes, “in this image of God was man made. ‘God is love’: accordingly man at his creation was full of love, which was the sole principle of all his tempers, thoughts, words, and actions.”

Chiefly, Wesley differentiated between the natural and moral image of God and left the political image by the way side. This means that humanity is capable of participating in God (natural image) and when humanity does, then humanity reaches its proper end (moral image).  Here, we highlight the political image of God—something that Wesley never thought through.  Weber argues that government is an essential characteristic of nature of the triune God. He writes, “Government as discloses in human nature as political image is what God does in ordering, preserving, and developing creation…It is the government at once of Creation, Sustainer, Redeemer.”   Weber never explicitly draws out how God’s role as governor might subvert our own understanding of what it means to govern.  We can imagine the consequences: power becomes cruciform; there is care instead of exploitation and justice instead of injustice.  For our purposes, it is important to highlight that government is not simply an order of preservation (to keep us all from killing ourselves), but we engage in government because it is in our calling to do so.

 In turn, our political image must mirror the governance of God, if we are created in God's image.  Weber continues, “Government is also what humankind does through its being as agent and steward of God in the ordering, preserving, and developing of the parts of creation to which human beings have access.” More simply, the political image endows humanity with responsibility.  It is a vocation that human beings must live into in order to become more fully like God.  If you want to be like God, then through God’s grace, you must become political.  Politics is not simply about preserving the created order, but it’s about the vocation of being sanctified.  Here,  politics become distinctively Wesleyan as it is drawn into the via salutis, or way of salvation.  Still, the question remains: how are we to go about being political beings? What does this look like in our lives and in the church?

If the political image is a vocation for humanity, then there are some obvious consequences to the way we live our lives. We must create institutions that enable us to grow into our vocation of looking more like Jesus Christ.  Political institutions should also be instruments of care that enable the development of humankind, just as God governs us by caring for us and enabling us to grow into sanctification. Weber writes, “Political institutions fashioned in the image of God must concern themselves—in good conscience and with adequate resources—with education, the needs of the poor, public and private health, the arts, and other matters that enable the members of the community to fulfill their political vocation of imaging God.” One obvious, lethargic reaction is to merely elect individuals into governmental positions to achieve these ends. But involvement in politics is not simply about having the right to elect the right person—if we are created in a political image then we cannot simply hand over all of the responsibility to national governmental institutions through a vote.  The political image is a constituent part of all institutions and individuals.  This means that politics are the responsibility of the family, community, church and any other group that can influence our political character.  

The pragmatic consequences are endless if politics are the responsibility of all the people.  It’s not just about electing someone with the right healthcare plan; it’s also about being an individual and communal representative of God’s concern for the health of God’s children, creatures, and creation. It’s not just about legitimating legislation to preserve the environment, but it’s also about preserving creation in our own lives, churches, and communities.  It’s not only about changing legislation that disallows prayer in schools, but it’s about making sure we are actually praying within our families, too. The point is that politics are the government’s task, but are also our task.  When the vocation of the political image of God is incorporated into the via salutis, salvation becomes much more than an individual enterprise. Here we begin to recover holistic salvation—salvation that is not just for the individual, but re-creation for the entire world. 

It is important to emphasize that I am not trying to downsize the importance of institutional governance. Instead, I argue that we are called to do so much more than vote and complain.  In Wesleyan fashion, we have been given a huge responsibility.  We are each called to govern the earth by virtue of being human, not because of a political office.  Weber writes, “human beings are inherently political by reason of their creation and authorization as agents of God in the governing of the world. They realize their full humanity in part through the exercise of that agency. They are denied it to the extent that they are excluded from political participation. They surrender it when they decline to accept political responsibility.” May we take our vocation seriously and seek to administer God’s care for the entire earth in all realms of our lives, at all times, and in all places. 

Theodicy Expectations

Our Church is venturing into questions of theodicy over the next few weeks in Sunday worship.  Theodicy is the question of how a loving God can allow suffering to take place in our world.  I am excited about exploring this topic alongside the congregation, but I must admit that there are limits to what we can actually accomplish in our discussion together.

From the outset, I am somewhat opposed to spending a lot of time with theodicy. I side with Stanley Hauerwas when he notes that theodicies are always historically located and presuppose particular, detached definitions of God that often exist outside of Scripture. That is, theodicy starts with a preconceived notion of what power and love is and then assumes that God must meet our expectations.  In starting with a predetermined definition of omnipotence or love, then we make these categories into a god that is higher than the God that we worship.  Plus, when the question is cast this way, we will most likely fail for God will either be ‘not powerful enough’ to overrule evil or ‘not loving enough’ to use his power to overcome evil. Contrarily, the starting point for any discussion must always be God—thus, making our definitions of power and love a reflection of God as revealed in Scripture.  

The second problem might be the abstraction of suffering from personal narratives.  Theodicy tries to create a univocal concept of suffering that can be answered by a univocal concept of God. Suffering is intensely personal and each of our responses to suffering is intensely personal as well.  Our redemption from suffering is going to look different a little different, as well.  This creates numerous problems for the attempt to create a universal theodicy. 

All of this is to say, that I am not going to have any solidified answer of why we suffer by the end of our series. Maybe that is ok, though. God does not give us an answer to our sufferings, but God chooses to share it. Nicholas Wolterstorff says, “God is not only the God of the sufferers but the God who suffers. The pain and falleness of humanity have entered into his heart. Through the prism of my tears I have seen a suffering God...And great mystery: to redeem our brokenness and lovelessness the God who suffers with us did not strike some mighty blow of power but sent his beloved son to suffer like us, through his suffering to redeem us from suffering and evil” (81).  At the end of the day, when you lay on your deathbed you are not going to care about why you are there.  You are going to want someone with you, to hold your hand, share the suffering, and become the face of Jesus Christ in the midst of pain.

In Naming the Silences, Hauerwas writes, "For the early Christians, suffering and evil...did not have to be 'explained'. Rather what was required was the means to go on even if the evil could not be 'explained.' Indeed it was crucial that such suffering or evil not be 'explained'--that is, it was important not to provide a theoretical account of why such evil needed to be in in order that certain good results occur, since such an explanation would undercut the necessity of the community capable of absorbing the suffering ” (49).  As Hauerwas notes, I am hoping that this sermon series will not merely try to be an answer to a problem, but result in a response to a challenge.

 This sermon series will not be successful if it explains suffering, because I can’t do that.  This sermon series will only be successful if it leads people into a deeper relationship with Christ—one in which we might realize that we will never be abandoned, by God or one another, even when we suffer. 

A Sword Turned Upside Down

This is part of the sermon I wrote on Ephesians 6 (The Armor of God). I am indebted to Bob Fox's work on the text "The Armor of God" in Center for Ethics at Baylor University that can be accessed here: http://www.baylor.edu/christianethics/PeaceandWararticleFox.pdf

Why should we put on the armor of God?

 Have you ever realized that we worship a God who was in a fight?  Jesus Christ spent most of his time taking blows. And then he was crucified on the cross. But you know, Jesus put on the armor of God.  For Jesus didn’t go straight to the Roman government and fill it with Pharisees. He didn’t build an army and attack the powers that were holding the world captive. Jesus' approach was subtle.  He formed a group of rag-tag disciples and began to teach them a more excellent way that required a belt of truth, a breastplate of righteousness, shoes of peace, a shield of faith, and a helmet of salvation.

 Remember the time when Peter drew his big metal sword to cut off the soldier’s ear in order to save Jesus’ life? And Jesus said, put down your sword and then he healed the man. There’s irony in the story, I think. Do you know what you get when you turn a sword upside down? Think about it. You get a cross. "Jesus Christ took Peter’s sword, turned it upside down, and hung there in suffering obedience" (Fox 63).

 Jesus nails the powers and principalities to the cross and dies. He rises from the grave and there is a whole new world where the powers and principalities no longer reign. Jesus exposes the sword for what it really is and subverts it with a cross. Principalities and powers are not defeated with a sword; they’re defeated with a cross. As Martin Luther King Jr. said, “Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.” The armor of God is the sword that is turned upside down to become a cross. And we put on the armor because Jesus Christ put on the armor.

It’s a tough world out there.  We might even need some armor if we want to stand our ground.  I hope that you’ll put on the armor.  I hope that you’ll grab your sword, even if must be turned upside down and made into a cross.

Beyond the Curtain

Rest is a virtue that must be learned; for many of us, it is not in our first nature to rest.  I found rest on my third day of vacation in Jamaica. The first day was spent worrying about airplane crashes and Jamaican taxis that disregard speed limits and have high appreciation for honking horns. The second day I thought about work until my worries slowly drifted away.  As the Jamaicans say, "No worries, mon."

All-inclusive resorts have no other function except to be a haven of rest.  There is every kind of bed imaginable—beds on the beach, beds on the cliffs, beds for one person or beds for two people, beds with attached umbrellas, beds in pools, and of course, beds in rooms.  The sole purpose of an all-inclusive resort is to provide a space that enables you to clear your mind of e-mails and phone calls and to help you forget about the strains of daily life. The waves crash, the sun shines, and everyone smiles. We were served meat covered in Jamaican Jerk sauce, fried plantains on a daily basis, and every kind of fruit imaginable.  The bar is always open to create and shake up your favorite drink. For better or worse, the resort encourages you to romanticize the country that you are actually in. 

The resort didn’t look like any place that I have ever been in America and it didn’t look like any other place we visited in Jamaica (an ours was a long shot from the nicest resorts in Jamaica). It was intentionally created to look different and to become a curtain that separates tourists from reality. Whenever you feel brave or want a glimpse of excitement, then you can step outside of the curtain and get a taste of Jamaica.  After you are sick of being asked to buy weed, you can return behind the curtain and forget about the country.  There's no need to think about the poverty anymore because it's time to rest.  At a resort, the people, land, and culture can easily become a commodity to be used and consumed for the enhancement of the tourist at the expense of the cheapening of the people and culture.

Some of our favorite moments were spent on the other side of the curtain. I am grateful for an adventurous wife who enjoys mingling with locals. Once a day, we walked down the narrow road with cars whizzing past us, honking their horns. We met Amelia, who was enjoying her last few days of summer working at an old woman’s craft tent.  The janitor at our resort knew more about politics than most Americans. He advised us to reelect President Obama for one reason—everyone deserves a second chance in life.   We went out to eat with our hotel lobbyist who hooked us up with free food at our restaurant.  We talked music with our cab driver, who told us that there were only three real artists—Bob Marley, Michael Jackson, and Elvis Presley and everyone else is just an imitation.

Outside the curtain, we tasted the food that the Jamaicans actually eat at “Aunt Jenny’s” diner—a red shack that I normally have never entered, but our hotel lobbyist recommended it. We had barracuda, goatfish, plantains, and dumplins—every morning we watched Jamaicans catch these fish with spears.  Our waitress sat down beside us, told us how she cooked it, and then showed us how to eat. How’s that for hospitality?  That’s what it means to break bread.

We found a people who were proud of their country and genuinely joyful to be a Jamaican when we decided to take a taste of their lives at our own convenience. Don’t get me wrong—I often thought to myself, “I’m glad I’m at a resort.” We often hid behind the curtain to hide, but we were welcomed with smiles and laughter when we ventured out beyond the curtain.

And I am struck with the conviction that we should live our entire lives outside of the curtain. 

Sharing Life

The vegetables had just come out of the soil and I placed them in a pan of oil and they immediately began to simmer and pop.  The scent of sautéed onions and garlic is a little glimpse of heaven; they smell better than anything could ever taste. I took the sautéed vegetables which included squash, zucchini, and onion and arranged them on the plate. I placed a steak that had been rubbed with copious amounts of paprika, cumin, and pepper and of course, seared on both sides right on top of the vegetables.  I topped off the meal with a watermelon that was so luscious that the juices leaked out and on to my shirt with every bite.

But it did not taste the same. Everything was cooked to perfection, but it was still dull.  I was eating alone. How can you enjoy a meal if you are alone?  A meal is not the same when no one mentions the miracle of vegetables that were covered in dirt just five minutes ago. Food is bland when no one is laughing or telling stories.  A glass of wine makes you feel like an alcoholic when you aren’t unwinding with a good friend.  My meal felt less like grace and more like a mound of energy that merely functioned to keep me satiated for the rest of the night.

I am grateful that my parents made the five members of the Snider clan sit down at the table every evening for dinner.  Nothing extraordinary ever happened—told a few stories and sometimes we fought.  Rarely someone would comment upon the food that my mom prepared. But, we were together and we were able to learn important habits.  We learned the habits of thanksgiving, respect, and we learned how to gracefully receive something we did not want. As the family endured my dad’s jokes and my big brother’s stories, we learned the skills of listening and patience.  Slowly, meal after meal, we are transformed into different people. And we receive grace all along the way, whether we realize it or not.  

A teacher of mine, Norman Wirzba, asks a series questions, “Is food just a commodity? Is it just fuel? Is it merely a necessity to keep us going? Or, is it more than that—is it grace?”  Table fellowship is a cornerstone to both Jewish and Christian worship.  In Acts, the early Christians “devoted themselves to the apostles teaching and fellowship, to the breaking of bread and prayers (2:42).”  As they broke bread, the early Christians took time to learn about one another and place their lives in the context of Jesus Christ. The table became Eucharistic as the gathered body of believers were transformed into different kinds of people—a people who were more attentive, caring, and hospitable.  Food is never only about energy.

I am struck by a conversation that a group of members at Plains had last Sunday after worship. We shared food at a local ‘greasy spoon.’  The food is reminiscent of the sort of thing your southern grandma might cook.  A parishioner remarked, “We complain about going out to eat because it’s cheaper to stay home. Years down the road, we will not remember this little bill.  But we will remember the memories we make.”  Another parishioner remarked, “That was a good sermon illustration.” And I nodded, “Yes. Yes, it was.”

It’s about sharing food. And it's also about sharing your life. 

LaGrange College Senior Thesis

I found my senior thesis from college on the web while researching for Bible Study.

Thought I would share it. The topic is on Wesley's understanding of works of mercy and sanctification.

http://www.lagrange.edu/resources/pdf/citations08/WorksofMercy.pdf

Parsonage Ramblings

Every once in a while I have those days when I wish I didn’t live in a parsonage. Mostly because I have to get approval before I do anything in the house.  There is a leak in the basement—call the Trustees. Wait.  The lawn mower hasn’t started in two consecutive weeks—call the Trustees, again. And wait.  The latest tragic misfortune to strike Holland Road: the toilet runs non-stop over night creating condensation that drips from the toilet disfiguring the bathroom tile.  What’s my next move? You guessed it, call the Trustees.  

Of course, this really isn’t that big of a deal. I take a lot for granted (like not having to pay rent). I am a spoiled United States citizen. I forget that a parsonage is hospitality when it’s at its best; they “welcome the stranger.” United Methodist Churches do not ‘call’ their pastors, but pastors are ‘sent’ from the conference creating a sort-of arranged marriage between Church and pastor. The pastor and the Church say to one another, “Will you learn to love me?”  Itinerancy has its flaws, but it can be a wonderful lesson in hospitality. For the Church is faced with the challenge to welcome the strange new pastor into their church, their community, and their house.  “Come live with us. Yes, even in our house,” says the Church who is up to the challenge.

Our Church was up to the challenge and they have done a great job of welcoming two young, spoiled, and naïve (but enthusiastic) strangers into their house and community.

About a month ago a parishioner, who is zealous about having a pristine parsonage tells me in the hospital, “I want all of my memorials to be donated to the parsonage fund.”

 I interjected, “But, you are going to be released from the hospital today…”  

“I know; it’s just been on my mind. I’ve been thinking about how important a parsonage is.  How will we ever take care of our community, if we can’t even take care of our pastor? A worn-out parsonage means that our Church is worn-out.”    

 “Done deal."

John Wesley would also agree. He believed that your outward appearance signifies what kind of character you have.  In other words, if you are a slob in some parts of your life, then you are likely to become a slob in other parts of your life. He noted, “cleanliness is next to godliness”: “Be cleanly. In this let the Methodists take pattern after the Quakers. Avoid all nastiness, dirt, slovenliness, in your person, clothes, house and all about you. Do not stink! Let none ever see a ragged Methodist.”  I would guess that the same might go for a Methodist’s parsonage. A ragged Methodist parsonage signifies that the character of that Methodist Church must also be ragged. 

I can’t help but to wonder what the Church imagined when I first moved in and failed to mow the lawn in a timely manner.  “Will a pastor who overlooks lawn care, overlook us too?”

I am blessed to be a pastor to a parishioner who takes pride in the parsonage.  I pray for the grace to develop this kind of character, too.  One day maybe we will both be able to develop the character to be able to look upon the entire world as our parish and treat the world with love and hospitality.