Recently someone shared about a situation regarding a Federal program for helping disadvantaged students. Many of them were “undocumented” and as a result their future was up in the air due to political changes. This person was obviously passionate and concerned about these students.
The sharing brought up many issues in my mind. But in thinking about this I remembered the following passage:
Someone in the crowd said to him, “Teacher, tell my brother to divide the inheritance with me.”
But he said to him, “Man, who made me a judge or arbitrator over you?”
And he said to them, “Take care, and be on your guard against all covetousness, for one’s life does not consist in the abundance of his possessions.” (Luke 12:13-15)
This actually contains a reference to an incident in the Old Testament, from Exodus 2:13-14. Moses had killed an Egyptian who was beating an Israelite.
… When he went out the next day, behold, two Hebrews were struggling together. And he said to the man in the wrong, “Why do you strike your companion?”
He answered, “Who made you a prince and a judge over us? Do you mean to kill me as you killed the Egyptian?”
At this point Moses fled and left Egypt for forty years.
The point of these two incidents is similar. It does no good to offer advice or instruction to people who have not accepted your authority.
Since we Christians follow in the footsteps of Jesus, I would say something similar about us. The world has a tendency to bring catastrophe on itself. But we really have nothing to say about the specifics of dealing with those catastrophes, because the world has not made us “judge or arbitrator” over it. In fact, whenever Christians say something about what the world is doing, the world takes it as moralizing, judging or oppressing.
What ends up happening is that the world uses us for “push-back.” We become the ones trying to limit the freedom of the world. Eventually it becomes our fault (in the world’s eyes).
I was reminded of a kind of interaction I used to have with my mother. Sometimes she would try to get me to give her advice. I didn’t like to do so, because I knew what would happen…. Often, though, I would succumb and try to give her advice. Then she would argue against the advice I gave her. I knew that she was using me as a kind of target to “push-back” against, so she could justify to herself doing what she wanted to do.
This is what the world does. Thus it does no good for us to try to solve specific problems in the world. What is the Christian view of race? Education? Taxation? Marriage? Gun control? Spelling reform???
As Christians we only have one answer: Believe in Jesus and trust God.
Problems with marriage? Turn to God. Problems with education? Turn to God. Problems with race relations? Turn to God.
I know this sounds incredibly naive. People will accuse me of burying my head in the sand. They used to say about people who talked like I do, “He’s so heavenly minded that he’s no earthly good.” But to this I reply that I’m simply following the injunction in Colossians:
If then you have been raised with Christ, seek the things that are above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. Set your minds on things that are above, not on things that are on earth.
For you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God. When Christ who is your life appears, then you also will appear with him in glory. (Colossians 3:1-4)
Another thing one might notice about what I say is that it operates on an individual level. We can’t tell a society or a country to trust God. We can only tell individuals to do so. Remember that Jesus “… ransomed people for God from every tribe and language and people and nation” (Revelation 5:9). He did not ransom tribes, languages or nations, only people from out of them.
Again we recall that when Paul sent Philemon’s runaway slave back to him, he did not attack “the institution” of slavery. He did something far more radical. He told Philemon that his runaway slave was now his brother in Christ. With those words he sounded the death-knell of slavery in the Roman empire (and eventually the Christianized West) until it was brought back by Islam.
Christians do address the issues of the world. But we do so by living out our Christianity as Christians, by being faithful in following Jesus.
I believe as we live out our faith among one another, we really will be “blameless and innocent, without blemish in the midst of a crooked and twisted generation, among whom [we] shine as lights in the world” (Philippians 2:15).