God's Reign in the Age of Empires

Politics are Everywhere

Good evening folks, I’m glad to be here with you tonight. I have always enjoyed these Lenten Services that we cooperate to put on with our local council of churches. It gives us a chance to see folks we might not normally see on a Sunday morning at worship and it also gives us an opportunity to hear from diverse voices in the pulpit as well.

This year, at our usual planning meeting, I happened to be sick and couldn’t make the meeting. And so, my gracious pastoral compatriots, gave me the topic of “Politics” as the theme of my message for tonight. Gee, thanks guys!

Now, I’m only joking of course. But the reason that little joke was funny is because to even bring up the word “politics” in the day and age and place in which we live is often fraught with difficulty. Politics, at least as practiced in the West, are something that more often than not divides people along partisan lines. Politics are one of the three things it is impolite to discuss at the Thanksgiving Dinner table (the other being religion and finances). And politics have gotten increasingly mired down in personal attacks and opinion rather than the high ideals of governance and the common good that many people give lip service to in their rhetoric.

And so, especially at this time in our country’s history, it is fair to say that politics are everywhere. And because they are everywhere, it is almost a topic that is unavoidable for people to think about, be exposed to, and contemplate in their private thought life and in their discourse with others.

But how should we think about politics as Christians. To what extent—if at all—should our faith inform our politics or, vice versa, should our politics inform our faith?

Politics are Divine

I’m going to begin my reflection on these questions by making a statement that I hope is just a little provocative, and that is “Politics are Divine.” Politics are baked in to the fabric of divine revelation in Scripture from Genesis 1 to Revelation 22. So, let’’s explore that for a moment.

In the beginning, God creates the heavens and the earth as a grand Temple for the dwelling of God’s glory. The sky and the land are formed and filled with the variety of creatures needed to beautify the land and give glory to God. But still, no adequate representative was found for God. And so, in a moment of divine deliberation, the Heavenly Court decides at God’s command to create the human beings, both male and female as the image of God.

Placing an image of God in creation is an inherently political act. By placing an image in the newly created earth, God was declaring God’s sovereign rule over the earth that had been created. This notion is reinforced by the fact that immediately following the creation of the divine image as male and female God gave the humans the command to be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and to exercise dominion over the earth.

In other words, male and female together are charged with ruling and reigning over the earth as God’s vice-regents, God’s stewards over the creation. I can’t think of a much more political activity than ruling and reigning over creation.

So, yes we can say that governance is divine. Governance is a human task that has God’s stamp of approval upon it as a direct order from God.

Politics are fallen

But what we must also say is that this original political order—and one that was mandated by God has, like our own human condition, fallen along with the rest of creation under the dominion of sin. And not only sin, but as St. Paul reminds us, politics has fallen under the dominion of the anti-God principalities and powers that now govern this fallen world.

And so, we cannot make a simple equation between our modern political order of nation-states and commonwealths and political parties and make theological equations based on our original mandate to rule and reign over the earth. No, human beings are fallen. We have been exiled from Eden and in our natural states no longer shine the glory of God as uncorrupted bearers of the divine image. We no longer function as theologian NT Wright describes our image bearing activity as angled mirrors shining God’s glory into the creation drawing all creation unto God.

No, instead, as scholar Scot McKnight tells us we are cracked images. And as I like to say, we are shattered images. We are no longer capable of reflecting God’s glory in anything but a distorted way in our natural selves.

Politics are Messy

And thus we must say that like all human activity, politics are messy. Politics are just as affected by sinful human beings as any other human activity. And it is here that we must come to a careful definition of politics. What are they? How are they to be conducted? What is the goal of the political order? And then, how does all that fit in with the revelation of divine love an grace found in Jesus Christ. In short, how should a believer relate to the political order?

Politics Defined

First, we must define what we mean when we talk about politics. In this effort a little bit of language study proves helpful. At the root of the word “politics” is the Greek word “polis.” And the Greek word “polis” simply means “city.” For a quick refresher in ancient history, when the Great Philosophers like Plato and Aristotle were busy writing their treatments on governance, for Plato his Republic and for Aristotle his work simply entitled Politics, the primary unit of governance was the city-state. Few of what we might call “nations” had yet to arise. All government was local and the largest unit of note was the city with its surrounding countryside. And our Greek political ancestors were obsessed with how to rightly order that city state in such a way that the ancient virtues of honor and dignity and liberty could be expressed.

The Age of Empires

But very quickly a sea change happened in world political events. Some city-states grew to immense power. Soon individuals vied for power to rule over these larger territories until the great individual rulers like Alexander the Great and the Roman Emperors came to dominate the ancient political landscape. Gone was the the age of the city-state in history that dominated world politics from the dawn of civilization in the Ancient Near East to the classical age in Europe. What replaced it was the Age of Empire.

Empire, in contrast to the polis was a collection of cities. A collection of “polises” if you will that were ruled under the authority of one powerful individual or a powerful group of individuals. I would argue that our modern national forms of government are nothing but an evolutionary adaptation of the Age of Empire to keep in step with resultant changes in philosophy and technology.

And so, with the rise of Empire, politics moved from being local to national to international in scope. And it was into such an age that our Lord Jesus Christ was born. You can see it all over the Gospel Accounts. Think of our classic Scripture reading at Christmas from Luke 2, where it says something like this: “In those days Caesar Augustus ordered a decree that a census should be taken...” Right there baked in to the Scriptures of the New Testament is the politics of empire, right? And from that superficial reading it might be tempting to think that the New Testament merely assumes this as the way it is in the world and that we should simply get on with our faith as part of an empire.

The Age of the Kingdom

But to make that leap would be to seriously misunderstand the political implication of the New Testament itself. And also to ignore the testimony of the Hebrew Scriptures, the Old Testament. Remember I made the assertion that politics are divine, part of our mandate to rule the earth.

And in Israel this played out in the Theocracy of God as King of Israel that played out under the Patriarchs and Judges. Even under the monarchy that God reluctantly allowed Israel to have the king of Israel was only an underking. Even the Greats like David and Solomon were only Stewards of the Great King Yahweh the Lord of Hosts.

Even in the days of Exile and Diaspora when there was again no king in Israel the Great King shepherded the people until a child was born to a woman chosen from among the people at the time God appointed and in the place God predicted. From the Galilee would come one born to be King of the Jews, of David’s Royal Line, to rule as king over the people—and not just Israel—but a New Israel of God made up of Gentiles and Jews.

And this can be seen throughout the ministry of Jesus as he preached about the impending Kingdom of God or Kingdom of Heaven that has drawn near. This Kingdom is at once of this world and not of this world. It is made up of people who live in the world but its origin and its destination—its telos—is decidedly not of this world—but of the age to come, the New Age of the New Heavens and the New Earth.

Kingdom Vs. Empire

And now we must look at our key Scripture for tonight. This is the classic clash of human values we often call “The Cleansing of the Temple.”

But what I want to show you tonight is that this was not simply a contest between two people from within the same stream of religion. This incident is not to be compared to the Protestant Reformation which was an intramural debate among people who shared some common presuppositions.

No, instead what we see at the Cleansing of the Temple is nothing short of a clash between the Age of Empire and the Kingdom of God.

The context is the Temple. Now, originally the Temple was to be the place that the glory of God dwelt. Indeed, in Solomon’s day that glory filled the Temple so mightily that the priests were chased away by the Shekinah cloud. God dwelt with his people and the Temple was the place that heaven met earth.

But that temple and all the priesthood that went with it were destroyed in 586 when Nebuchadnezzar and his Babylonian Empire ransacked the city and burnt it all to the ground. The New Temple built under Ezra and Nehemiah was never filled with God’s glory. And the temple that Jesus now faced was built up by a puppet king of the Roman Emperor Herod the Great.

And what was worse was that the chief priests of the day, men like Caiphas who represented the Sadducee party had decided that the best way to hold power was to collude with the powers that be, that is the Romans. They held power as puppets of Rome and made decisions so as to appease their overlords ostensibly to protect their own religious freedom. Politics indeed makes strange bedfellows—strong Jewish monotheists in bed with pagan Roman overlords.

And what made Jesus the angriest about this political state of affairs is what it prevented. By colluding with power to protect their own freedom of worship, the Sadducees had, in effect, restricted the religious freedom of others.

And in order to understand this we need to understand the layout of the Temple in Jesus’ day (I promise this diversion into sacred architecture is relevant!)

You see, the main Temple was restricted to the priestly establishment. Only priests could enter the most sacred space. Surrounding this was the Court of Israel in which only ceremonially clean Jewish males were able to enter. Then beyond that was the court of the women where only ceremonially clean Jewish women were able to enter. Then beyond that was the Court of the Gentiles. This was the place where anyone who wished to inquire of the God of Israel could go to worship.

And it was precisely here that the Temple Establishment had staked their spot to house the moneychangers and the sellers of ritual animals. In the place in which the Temple could truly be held to be a house of prayer for all nations the Compromised Priesthood had blocked the worship by the majority of the world who were not Jews.

And to fully appreciate this we need to understand and connect some theological dots. In the beginning humanity was chosen to represent God on earth, as I said a political notion. Then this mission devolved to one nation on the earth, Israel whose own kings should have modeled what that looked like. Then in the exile God promised through the Prophets that one would come that would unite all the people again. The Messiah would be the Great King that restored the vocation of humanity to be God’s image bearers.

Except. Except that right here in the Temple the place where that vision should be played out it was blocked. It was blocked by collusion with Empire.

And Jesus would not have it and he cleansed the Temple. Yet, for this action Empire began colluding against him. Fallen Empire in league with the principalities and powers of darkness would collude to kill the Lord of Glory. Jesus’ death was nothing short of a political assignation. And it sparked a revolution spurred on by Jesus’ own vindication on the day of Resurrection.

Except we haven’t always gotten the message, have we? We still hope that some political order on earth will solve our problems. We believe we can govern our way to Utopia and we sometimes forget that we have been charged by Apostles and Prophets to live as strangers and exiles on pilgrimate.

The Christian life is not one of political expediency. It is not one of colluding with the powers and principalities but rather resisting them, in all their forms at precisely the points that they work against the interests of the Kingdom of God.

So, my friends, this Lent when politics get you down on the way to the cross, remember that your identity is not found in your political persuasion either liberal or conservative or independent. Rather your political identity is found in your humanity as image bearer of God and as a person who has surrendered their primary allegiance to any earthly allegiance and has instead pledged their allegiance to the King of Kings and Lord of Lords.

Friends, seek ye first the Kingdom of God and its righteousness. Avoid the temptation to ground your identity in anything other than your status as citizens of a kingdom not of this world but of the world to come. Amen.