Politics of peace [Lent 1]

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READINGS FROM HOLY SCRIPTURE:

• Genesis 3:1-21
• 2 Corinthians 6:1-10
• St. Matthew 4:1-11

Grace to you and peace. (1 Thess 1)
 
Jesus speaks to you on this day from His Gospel heard, saying:
“Then Jesus was led up by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil”
 
Much to my chagrin, the word politics is not defined as “poly- meaning many” and “tics- meaning blood sucking pests”. Not only is it funny, but apt. Because the first-blood sucker on my list is the satan that our Lord’s Gospel presents to us, today.
 
And that devil is a politician, popularly understood. I mean just listen to him. Not only is he making promises he can’t keep, but he is acting as if he owns everything he can see and can do whatever he wants with it. As if the sun and the moon come and go at his command, though today its stocks and gas prices.
 
The devil is on the campaign trail and there is no end and no depth to his propaganda. On his way, he steals information, such as words like “politics”, to use against us and make us afraid of them. And when given that fear, they become false idols to us, since God alone deserves our fear, love, and trust above all things.
 
So we must smash this idol. Our first step is defining it and then talking about it. Because we are forbidden to talk about politics, in an unwritten rule. And yet, that is the one place that is tearing all of us apart. Communities, families, marriages are all suffering under this topic of politics and you won’t talk about it?! That is the devil’s game.
 
In the greatness of our modern knowledge, we have come to view politics as taboo and in doing so throw out knowledge as a fool would do. We have been lied to. We have been tricked into thinking that politics only means which party or which news channel you fear, love, and trust. When in reality, politics literally means how you treat each other in the polis, or the city.
 
It is conduct in the community. Plain and simple. And that is something that falls under Church jurisdiction, because it directly affects the well-being of your neighbor. If you are using the church/state separation as an excuse to hate your neighbor, then you are following the devil’s footsteps.
 
It is a thin line, to be sure, but only because we are so sinful. The politics that the Church should not be involved in is the fake politics: voting, campaigning, propaganda. All of which aim to divide and conquer, where Christ’s aim is unity and redemption. You do not endorse candidates here, you do not push “fake-political” agendas here, and you do not vote here. 
 
And there is a very easy way to avoid the devil and his fake-politics: don’t hate. 
That’s it. Just because you disagree, doesn’t mean you have an enemy. You don’t even have to agree with others as long as you truly listen to them and respect them and that is God’s Law. However, not talking about it, neglecting your neighbor, holds the same weight of sin. Instead of silence should be discourse, a gaining of information. Civil discourse leads to civil society.
 
Repent. That is the Christian way to do things, but it is not your way. As Jesus says in St. John 8:44, “You are of your father the devil, and your will is to do your father's desires. He was a murderer from the beginning, and does not stand in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he lies, he speaks out of his own character, for he is a liar and the father of lies.”
 
Your sinful path is not civility, but conflict. Your sinful way is strife and discord, instead of peace and concordia. You would rather your “enemies”, those who simply disagree you, fall down and worship your correct understanding.
 
Christians must always first and foremost confess Christ, even if and when it spells political disaster for us. Because, in usual satanic form, the devil has so twisted politics to appear harmless to the Church and to faith, hence our want to separate the two, but in reality he corrupts it to seek and destroy all the Church stands for.
 
Here are some Church doctrines that clash with false politics, which satan loves:
Why do we advocate for natural marriage?  Because Christ, ordained it.  In St. Matthew 19:4-6, “He answered, ‘Have you not read that he who created them from the beginning made them male and female, and said, ‘Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh’? So they are no longer two but one flesh. What therefore God has joined together, let not man separate.’”
 
Why do we defend private property against authoritarian regimes that treat property as an arbitrary privilege granted by the state?  Because Christ ordained it in His 7th Commandment, “You shall not steal” (Ex 20:15). 
 
Why do we oppose abortion and instead advocate for life from conception to natural death?  Because Christ ordained it in His 5th Commandment, “You shall not murder” (Ex 20:13). And Christ ordained all of these things according to natural law, according to how people are to treat each other within their community.  Even non-Christians confess these truths by virtue of the reality that we are human beings and God’s Law is in us.
 
And since all of these “political” issues are matters of faith, matters of our Christian confession, we cannot simply be cowed into silence.
 
But there is a warning here.  We must avoid the temptation to being so blinded by the political that we lose sight of the sacramental.  For ultimately, political policies in force dart from one to the other, parties come and go, nations and empires rise and fall, the City of Man changes hands and swings from godly to demonic -  but the City of God, the Word, the risen Christ endures forever. 
 
So we find in today’s Gospel, the temptation of the devil to Jesus to withdraw from the world and He will not. To forsake His city where He promised to dwell for ever and His people to whom He made that promise, but He chooses not to. 
 
Along with that, His promises include that man will live on more than bread and circuses, that man does not need to test God, He will test Himself and prove Himself true in His crucifixion and resurrection, and that worship and service given to God only comes after God’s Divine Service to us, in Word and Sacrament.
 
Our belief is that God does not forsake this world but works out His salvation in time, in history, and in community. The Almighty Lord spends His infinite time and wisdom on becoming a man and maturing and living as a man. The God-man, Jesus Christ, moves and lives within communities, proclaiming the forgiveness of sins to any and everyone.
 
“Give to Ceasar what is Caesar’s and to God what is God’s” (Mt 22:21).
“Let he who is without sin cast the first stone” at the adultress (Jn 8:7), and
“It is not lawful for you to have your brother’s wife“ (Mk 6:18) are just some more examples of Jesus intruding on civil life.
 
But it is only an intrusion to the unbeliever, to the one who wants to have Jesus run for President and destroy the “other party”. To the one who believes that this life is all there is and if others don’t know they’re right, then that is failure and they go to hell. Jesus as Savior leaves behind those petty squabbles and gets to the business of His Kingdom, which is not of this world. 
 
Jesus intrudes in order to implement His own politics and do you know what Jesus’s politics are?
 
Suffering, death, and resurrection. The Christian Life.
 
God tempts no one. When we pray for God to not lead us into temptation, we are not praying for God to keep us away from our neighbor, but from the devil, the world, and our sinful nature. But these temptations do come. 
 
The Gospel is that neither fake nor real politics save us. Jesus overcomes both in the Gospel today. He overcomes fake-politics by taking on the very flesh and blood that we hate in others, in our sin, but yet is our flesh and blood as well. And He overcomes true politics by redeeming stone hearts, smashing them, and giving hearts of flesh.
 
Forgiveness is now heaven’s propaganda, but it is not a campaign promise nor is it something that God does not have control of. Forgiveness has no place in sinful politics, because it does nothing to advance an agenda.
 
Unless of course that agenda is that the sinner turn from his wicked ways and live. And there is where all our earthly squabbling hits a wall. The wall of Resurrection, of forgiveness. We can never forgive our fake-political enemies, but in Christ God demands it. 
 
And His demand is in such force, that even His only-begotten Son is subjected to it. Not through fault of His own, but through the fault that He take on Himself: ours. We have so failed in our ability to love our neighbor, despite disagreements, and to love God, despite the importance of civil matters, that He had to step in Himself.
 
Not talking about politics and religion has led us to hate our brother. And if we can’t love our brother, whom we can see, how can we love God Whom we can’t see? The Word of God is the freedom from hatred, because God has disagreed with us violently, and yet loves us and hears us. 
 
He has declared us sinful in all our thoughts, and all our ways, and all our politics. We disagreed. He suffered and died to prove His truth to us. His crucifixion cleanses hearts to agree with Him, repent, and receive the forgiveness that runs the politics of heaven.
 
The Christian lives in communities, no getting around that. In Christ, the Christian no longer has to be so afraid of losing those communities. For, family, community, and love are never on the ballot. There will never be a time when you cannot choose Faith, Hope, or Love over everything else in the world. 
 
No matter who thinks they are in charge of the world, the Age of the Church is upon us and we travel through Lent to see Jesus purchase and win that for us. The Age of Grace, where evil appears to have the upper hand, but really just burns itself out in self-judgment. Yet to those who believe, Word and Sacrament is salvation and the power of God, preached and administered in every community.