The Light
I read on Twitter this morning that a political commentator has an aunt who he loves who no longer wants anything to do with him because he writes for Fox. I know someone in my own life who cut off his daughter because she hates Trump. And I know plenty of people who no longer interact with friends and family who are Trump supporters.
People have divided themselves over politics and politicians. It is a sign of unhealthiness in our lives and society. Life is too short to remove from our lives those with whom we have political disagreements. Politics, which should be one small part of our lives, has become all-consuming. It has been a choice people have made — sometimes one others made for them. Often, it is a person's choice, and then they blame others, claiming they were forced.
What a world.
Into this world, those of us of faith should show the light of Christ. We remember his birth in a few days. Ironically, it should be Christ who divides. He said “I came to cast fire on the earth, and would that it were already kindled! I have a baptism to be baptized with, and how great is my distress until it is accomplished! Do you think that I have come to give peace on earth? No, I tell you, but rather division. For from now on in one house there will be five divided, three against two and two against three. They will be divided, father against son and son against father, mother against daughter and daughter against mother, mother-in-law against her daughter-in-law and daughter-in-law against mother-in-law.” The Holy Bible: English Standard Version (Lk 12:49–53). (2016). Crossway Bibles.
We have allowed politics to do to our society what belief in Christ will do to our society, which is another strong sign too many of us have allowed politics and politicians to become our gods. We are a nation of idol worshippers worshipping politicians.
In the Old Testament, in Leviticus, God commands certain behaviors of the Israelites that are to distinguish them from the tribes around them. They are not to have tattoos. They are not to wear mixed fabric clothing. They are not to eat certain foods. They are to keep their beards trimmed in certain ways, etc.
These are outward signs that they are God’s people, not people of the world. It suggests, in the lists, that the tribes around them behaved in various ways that visibly identified them — tattoos, for example, were and remain common in a lot of tribal rituals globally, including the hipster evangelical tribes many current youth pastors belong to.
In the New Testament, Paul tells Christians to not be boastful or litigious. We know from Roman society that the Romans and their imperial subjects were highly litigious and boastful. They used litigation as a form of entertainment.
The passages around the Old Testament and New Testament that push God’s people to live visibly different lives all use the idea of loving our neighbor as a foundation. In the Old Testament, the traits were visible traits that showed visibly a person worshiped God. In the New Testament, the traits are behavioral traits that show, through one’s actions and behaviors, that they worship God. Both present God’s children as looking and operating differently in the world.1
The hospitality of God’s people is something that divides them from those around them. The mere act of not being a jackass to others is something that signifies there is something different.
And that does not just apply to us individually but to our churches corporately. The closed-off church, unwelcoming to strangers, reflects the world, not God. The inaccessibility of a church in its functions, practices, behaviors, and people is something not Godly. God is so accessible that He came to earth in a food trough — the bread of life born in a food trough. There’s a visual.
The world will divide based on people’s love of Christ, but Christians should not give a reason for the division other than Christ. The things of the world hate the things of God, but Christians are supposed to love their neighbors.
At this time of year, as we reflect on the light coming into the world, we should spend a little more time, each of us, reflecting on how we can be the light in a world that grows ever darker and more divisive. We are set apart and should behave accordingly. After all, we win in the end because Christ does, so there is no need to be a sore winner.
Often, I get asked by someone ignorant of Christianity how I can be a Christian and eat shrimp or wear mixed-fabric clothing. I refer to these as the “shibboleths of the damned.” The people who bring them up are ignorant of the New Testament and hell-bound unless they repent. We can now do many of those things the Israelites could not because these were cleanliness laws setting apart the Israelites that Christ made clear no longer apply to the Church since His fulfillment of the law.
This whole world is a mess because of politics being first in so many lives. I have a number of things with one of my best friends that we disagree with in politics and even one about when the rapture will happen. But we just have to know that we are close as brothers in the Lord and will always be that way until He comes. I love the people for who they are, not what their politics are. I learned this from my Parents as my mother was different that all the others in he family. But she loved them and we drove 300 miles each way to see them. My Father was also different from a lot of his family, but we went to see them all the time. We never talked politics and neither do I for the most part. We need to talk about the Lord and have Him in our lives, no politics.
People have become so divided because our political leaders have bombarded us with gloom and doom if their agenda’s are not carried forward and accepted. Our democracy will not survive, we are told. Trump will become a dictator. The earth will die. On and on it goes. Everything is couched as extremes. Extreme weather. Extreme right, extreme left. Slowly but surely people are being frightened into taking a fearful side. The process may be self fulfilling.