Luke 14. 31: What king, going out to wage war . . will not sit down first and consider whether he is able . . to oppose the one who comes against him?
Well, of course, Jesus, if, indeed, he said anything like this, was utterly wrong. Rulers going to war do not calculate their chances but simply decide to display their muscles with such tactics as the fashionable ?Shock and Awe?. But Jesus was a country boy with no experience of decision-making in high places. We need not suppose that he knew all the answers when it came to politics; he had no opportunity to watch ?Yes, Prime Minister?. I am reminded of that crass question of Middle America to-day: What car would Jesus drive? Indeed, people seem to be asking what Jesus would do in all sorts of inappropriate situations. It is disheartening to learn that people can vote for politicians in the name of Christianity simply because they oppose practices acceptable to other Christians. With the early prospect of a Parliamentary election likely to be dominated by misleading arguments, I want to consider what our religion has to say about politics.
The authentic Jesus made it clear that religion is basically concerned with two things: love of God, and loving one?s neighbour as oneself. Christianity is about relationships. It is not about technology, such as the choice of a car, or manpower, such as the size of an army. The ruler would have been asking a question of religious significance if he had considered the misery he was to inflict on his soldiers and the population they were to ravage. But that was not relevant to the point Jesus was trying to make. And, unfortunately, there has never been any evidence that our rulers bother to take such questions into consideration.
Of course, our lives are lived in society, that is, in a complex of human relationships to which, for the Christian, the rule of love must apply. That is why we are inclined to assert that the principles of our religion should apply in every situation. But not all the problems we face are problems of relationships. Some, like environmental questions, are scientific, though they have human repercussions; our refusal to save ourselves from climate change is a difficulty about human nature. Economic considerations usually do involve the well-being of others, whether coffee producers in Latin America or immigrant sweat-shop workers in the East End of London. Fundamental research in science often seems detached from human life, but then we find that with DNA testing, for instance, the human genome is exploited in unexpected ways. People are dying of AIDS in millions because no-one will. or is it can?, pay for the pills. We have to be very well-informed if we are to be certain whether religious considerations apply in a particular situation. But the fact is, they are often ignored in any case.
I think that this is particularly so in the world I know best, the world of Ministers and international affairs to which my text is refers. Our leaders would not themselves contemplate murdering an individual, yet they are indifferent to the death of thousands of ?Iraqis. Our legislators, some of whom have decent instincts, yet fragile in the face of an unscrupulous popular press, regularly devise new grounds for locking up or expelling foreigners and confused young people and ruining their lives. In the name of financial principle, the countries of the Third World are driven deeper into indebtedness. In the name of corporate initiative, our air is polluted, our seas turned sterile, and our land filled with radioactive waste. Though pills are available, millions are dying of untreated AIDS. The rule of international law has been repudiated by the United States, and cruelty to any suspected of opposition seems to be encouraged as long as there are no photographs.
Such matters are not foreign to our religion. Of course, Jesus urged us to love God, and we are tempted to interpret this as merely implying regular intercession, with habitual attendance at public worship, and nothing more. He also told us to love our neighbours as ourselves, and this cannot be done while living in a vacuum. However reluctantly, Christians need to be engaged with the world, and concerned at the spectacle of rulers seeking advantage from war and misery, and we need to try to use what resources we have to frustrate them, whether foreign or home-grown. We should be alarmed by every evidence of the exploitation of the weak for the sake of the strong. We should be concerned for the welfare of our neighbours, whether it be the poor health of those sitting next to us in church, or the drug-addicts of Camden, or the victims of political oppression among our immigrant population, or injustice in Europe, or deprivation in the world. The first-century image of the king planning war is still far too real to be passed by. It seems that in two thousand years the Christian religion has utterly failed to prevent the unscrupulous from wielding power. So, long after the composition of Plato?s Republic, we still do not know how to persuade the best people to take responsibility for government, or how to stop the worst seizing it for themselves. The nations of the world still submit to dictatorship, in some cases by the misguided and misleading, in some by the exploited and exploiting, and in some by the undeniably criminal, but in all cases indifferent to the principles of our religion. I fear the election will not bring a better government.
All we have to cling to is faith, hope, and love, that is the love of God, which can console us as individuals, even in the face of perverse government, and the love of our neighbour, which also brings consolation and which we have to pursue, however restricted the circle in which we are able to exercise it. Our hope should leave us no room for indifference or despair; we ought not to accept that faith can be limited by cowardice or frailty. We should look to the Holy Spirit to provide us with the means and the opportunity to do whatever we may to bring about the reign of God in our day, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ. Amen
Alan Goodison