Guest Author: Kim Lee
Someone once advised Mark Twain to keep away from the subjects of religion and politics while talking; to which he famously quipped, “Well, what else is there to talk about?” And yet, I fear we’ve come to a place where we are afraid to talk politics. Albeit, politics bear mightily on peoples every day, ordinary, walking around lives.
And as people of faith, we know this language well, maybe better than most.
It all started almost 3, 500 years ago when God heard the cry, saw the misery and came down to liberate the Hebrews slaves from their Egyptian taskmasters. Through a spectacular array of events – lice, flies, fleas, frogs, hail, darkness and finally death – God, working through Moses and Aaron, led the Hebrews out of Egypt through the Red Sea and into the desert. At the edge of the Sinai desert this group of newly liberated slaves, the Bible numbers around 600,000 men, so there must have been many more with women and children, stood with their livestock and looked out over a vast sea of sand and wondered: now what? This story is reminiscent of another liberation story.
The year was 1865; William Tecumseh Sherman was on his famous march to the sea when he issued special field order #15. It read in part, “By the acts of war and the proclamation of the President of the United States, BLACKS are free, and must be dealt with as such.” As the Union Army liberated town after town throughout Georgia, word got out that the soldiers in blue were particularly close to one plantation. Slaves began to run out into the streets shouting, cheering and chanting, “We’re free!” But one elderly slave struck at the heart of problem with freedom when he asked plaintively, “now where is we gonna go and what is we gonna do?” Well, where are they going the go; and, what are they going to do – one group of newly liberated slaves standing before a vast sea of sand, the other standing before an utterly destroyed southern state?
Well God saw this problem coming—this problem with freedom and painted a lovely description of what life would look like, sound like, and feel like in community. We call this picture the Ten Commandments.
Have no other gods before me.
Do not make for yourselves an idol of anything.
Do not misuse the name of the Lord your God.
Honor the Sabbath and keep it holy.
Honor your father and mother.
Do not kill.
Do not steal.
Do not commit adultery.
Do not bear false witness against your neighbor.
Do not covet that which belongs to your neighbor.—Exodus 20
Sounds so simple, so very, very simple. But then again, it really just brings us back to politics. For this, I rather like the book of Deuteronomy. I find there a certain charm in listening in on neighbors struggling with the politics of living life before God and with each other while at the same time making room for grace. You see, the Ten Commandments may tell us to keep the Sabbath holy, but what exactly does that look like, practically speaking, when your neighbor’s ox falls in a ditch? I can almost hear George asking Claire, “So, what do you think about me helping Catherine try to pull her ox out of a ditch this morning? I mean, I know I’m supposed to be keeping the Sabbath holy, but her ox was in a ditch!” Now what?
Politics to the rescue: “You shall not see your neighbor’s donkey or ox fallen on the road and ignore it; you shall help to lift it up.”—Deuteronomy 22:4.
After all is said and done, what is politics? but a series of conversations and policies that govern how we intend to live life together in community. And anyway, besides religion, what else is there to talk about?