Changing Times

Political change is happening, whether we vote for it or not. It has something to do with race and ethnicity, it has something to do with gender and experience, it has much to do with the economy and the environoment, and it is uniquely tied to our place in the global community . . . and, it has nothing to do with the upcoming elections. Political change is the inevitable ongoing result of the human endeavor to exercise power and dominion. Whether such an exercise is charitable and compassionate or greed-filled and cold, it is still an ongoing endeavor and what is transpiring at this moment in history is just another chapter in our nation's peculiar history of political change. What is different is who is involved and what brand of change they are seeking.

I have just listened to a few folks tell me how much their particular political party and candidates are going to do to change our nation's current condition for the better. They have promised me the moon and are taking aim on offering Mars, if only I will pull the lever or mark the ballot for their vision of heaven on earth. I wanted to hurl, mainly because the ones who were speaking were addressing me like I was an uninformed alien who had never exercised the franchise to vote, but additionally, because the rhetoric they were using was not language of their design: it was the Party Line and they knew for every one or two like me they would offend, a dozen others would buy it hook, line, and sinker. It made me wonder what we are becoming.

I regularly tell my congregation to "Vote! How you vote and for whom you offer your support is between you and God, but don't ever come to me and begin a political discussion without the clear expectation of me asking you, 'Did you vote in the last elections?' Because, if you didn't vote in the last elections, you have no right to complain - and, if you did not vote, I will not listen to your rant, however qualified you think yourself to be." It has become something of a mantra within our faith community, but it has also become the basis for folks from all walks of life to begin asking the hard questions of our nation's leadership, the very leadership those who voted (and, in some ways, those who didn't vote) placed in the position to exercise power and dominion over them, regardless of their political affiliation. Truth be told, if we don't like what it have in our nation's capitol, maybe it is because those who pulled the lever or marked the ballot in the last elections didn't do their homework in vetting the individuals they supported. To blame the politicians for their misbehavior and odd judgement is way too easy, for it takes the voting public off the hook for the choices they make. Truth be told, too, most people don't want change. They want their personal and economic world to be stable and their imagined societal entitlement immutably protected against anyone and anything that might shake the precarious boat that their dreams, however large or small, ride upon . . . and, in most cases, they will vote for the candidate that most audaciously claims they can do just that, often despite a blatant history of non-performance.

The change I am looking for in our current political environment is not one that any particular political party can begin to yield or, for that matter, would even pursue, for the changes that I am seeking in the economy, in our cultural values, in issues of ethnicity and race, in the environment, in the vast arena of global injustices, and even in the systems themselves, is a change in 'ownership'. I passionately believe that in the moment in which the American people own the outcome of the political process, at whatever point it is, with whatever leadership of whatever political party is in power, such an ownership by the voting public will require of the voting public themselves that they, individually and corporately, accept responsibility for the outcomes of all decisions made and carried out in their name. In such an environment, candidates to political office would be to blame for the exercise of poor judgement only insofar as they truly represented the poor judgement of the people themselves. Thus, all people, common citizens and leadership alike, would be pushed towards avenues of sound decision-making with an understanding of accountability and consequence, rather than settle for the back-roads of the old boy, 'same-old, same-old', process which consumes so many well-meaning folk who rely uniquely upon finger-pointing to save their hide.

Maybe it is a Utopian hope, sort of like hoping that parents, all parents, would accept responsibility for the behaviors, words and actions of their children, whether on the streets, in their homes, or in their schools. Yet, if we don't dare to hope for such changes, even begin working for such changes, then are we not condemning ourselves to the history that others write for us in the annals of our time on this earth? Isn't this, in fact, what God does in sending Jesus? God is so convinced that the human condition is salvageable and redeemable that God sends God's own Son, God's own investment in the hope of change, to lead others to own their faith choices on the journey. Resurrection is God's announcement of a change in outcome: Live in the integrity of the faith God has in you and even death cannot stop the change towards new life.

I am not content to have others write the changes which are to happen in the current political environment and I pray you are not, either. Change is inevitable, but what changes are in the best interest of the human community? Of your community? Of my community? Pray on it. Work for it. Own it. Dedicate the journey and the outcome to God.

It is the kind of transformational change which just might move us beyond the tiredness of political debate and one-upsmanship. It is a living of our faith in God while moving through this world. It is claiming our identity that we might not forfeit our soul to those who do not know our names as does Christ. Thanks be to God for the hope of change.

Your servant in Christ,

Pastor Don