My 24-year-old daughter came home for a visit last weekend. While driving back to our house, she was traveling along one of the myriad backroads that cover this part of the United States. As is true of many parts of our country, the county I live in has a small college town filled with the type of political mindsets that have become so a part of the current zeitgeist. I would like to say that all of the stereotypes of pointy-headed intellectuals were false, but as I sit here in my Ivory Tower with patches on my sleeves and my pointed-headed hat, I am finding that difficult. Surrounding my small town are vast farms and even smaller towns that, when looked at quickly, have vastly different views of how the world does and should work.
As my daughter was driving down one of these lonely roads, she turned a blind corner and found a car halfway into her lane. She adjusted quickly and ended up with three wheels of her SUV into a ditch. She immediately called me for help, and as I was only about 2 miles from her location, I was there in a matter of minutes. Once I had safely pulled behind her, put on my safety blinkers, and comforted my visibly upset daughter, I noticed that I was surrounded by political signs for people I would not be voting for in this, or any, election.
When I asked if she had called AAA, she mentioned that someone had stopped to ask if she needed help and had gone to get his tow rope. I noticed a pickup truck turning the corner just up the street. They went to an address out of my sight, so I cannot determine if he had political signage or not, but when he returned in a Ford F150 in worn jeans and work boots, plus the fact that he actually owned a tow rope, I must admit I made a number of assumptions. And, to be fair, driving my foreign car with a college parking badge, wearing a button-down shirt, and wearing my new green hiking boots, I can’t say that I blended in.
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Could I have judged the guy in the truck? Pretty easily. Could he have figured out my politics? Oh yeah. Did we? I have no idea. He asked my permission to yank my daughter’s car out of the mud, which I quickly gave, and then I helped him attach the end of the rope to her undercarriage. (a term this nice man taught me). The power of his American-made engine quickly dislodged my daughter’s Japanese car out of the mud and onto the road. We both laughed at how easy it had been.
I didn’t ask about his politics or his position on the southern border. He didn’t ask how I felt about who was using which bathroom. At that moment, we didn’t care one way or the other; it didn’t really matter. We didn’t see red or blue, this candidate or the other. There was someone who needed help and someone who could provide it.
This is how I imagine it is to see everyone (let me repeat…Everyone) as a child of God. You can’t possibly understand anyone’s life or views. All you can ever know for sure is that the person standing before you, regardless of the color of their skin, the color of their hair, or the color of their hat, was created by the same God who created you, and the person they are, at this moment, is exactly the person God intended them to be.
Let This Be Our Vision This Election
Let us move forward into this election with this as our vision; the winner of every election, from the President to the school board, is in that position because those particular children of God are fulfilling the will of the Creator. Paul writes in Romans 13 that ”there is no authority except from God, and those that exist have been instituted by God.” Between 2016 and 2024, I am pretty sure that every Christian who follows such things has been stunned by what God hath wrought, and I must admit, God can work up (the present tense of wrought, if you are curious) a lot of things far beyond my comprehension. The only thing that has kept me sane is the firm belief that this, whatever this is, is exactly what God wants at this time. So, if you have convinced yourself that God wishes you to take extreme action, condemn those who disagree with you, or argue that there is no way in God’s creation that the election could have turned out this way, then you are using Jesus to support your politics instead of the other way around.
Jesus never got angry at someone for being too loving or too full of grace. The most famous example of Jesus’ anger is when He cleansed the Temple of the vendors and money changers (Mark 11). Though he is condemning those who would profit from other’s faith, Jesus’ phrase “Is it not written ’My house will be called a house of prayer for all nations? But you have made it a den of robbers.’” (11:17) is even more damning. Jesus has taken two Old Testament quotations, one from Isaiah 56 and one from Jeremiah 7, both of which are calling out the ancient Jews for separating themselves from God. Jeremiah calls them a den of robbers because they are not treating others justly (particularly the foreigner and the poor), but instead, the people are “trusting in deceptive words that are worthless.” If you claim to believe that God is in control, then you must act as if God is actually in control. I am not asking you not to vote or state your opinion on issues, but I am asking for you to search for God’s hand in whatever happens.
I have no idea what is going to happen on November 5, but I pray that on November 6, we all spend our days looking for people whom we have the capacity to help, to be less of the mouth of Christ and more of the hands and feet of Jesus, to find someone to pull out of the ditch.
