Jesus and The Polls

Well it is that time again.  We are into the home stretch of a long process that we do every 4 years in this nation called elections.  Many of us are already tired of them before they even begin, mostly because well in some ways they never really end.  But of course when it comes time to vote the intensity really ramps up. But by then many of us are just plain sick of it by now.  Many have already decided who they will vote for, so they don’t want to hear anymore.  But others I think grow weary for a different reason: The Spin.

All candidates are guilty of The Spin: taking the words of their opponent out of context and using those words against them, or coming back with their own words which they didn’t mean to say (at least out loud) and saying “Well what I meant was…” We are tired of being manipulated or people making lofty statements which really say nothing out of fear of offending some potential voting block.  We are also probably tired of politicians saying one thing and doing another but that’s beside the point.

Jesus on the other hand would probably never have been able to been elected anything, not even bishop.  He didn’t have time for spin, he insulted powerful people, pointed out their hypocrisy in some cases and was not afraid to tell the truth to anyone who approached him.  In Mark 10 a man with many possessions approached Jesus and asked what he must do to inherit eternal life.  Jesus responded to him that he knew what to do already, follow the commandments.  When he said he had done all that Jesus loved him and said then you know what to do next, go and sell everything you have, give it to the poor and then you will have treasure in heaven. The man was shocked and went away grieving.  And suddenly Jesus overnight poll numbers sank.  But that’s not what Jesus was about nor is his church today.

Jesus identified the needs of the day for the people as a whole and for individuals who approached him.  He was not afraid to talk about the current state of affairs, nor was he afraid to talk about what was necessary to fix them, for the sake of both God’s kingdom on earth, and the kingdom of heaven.  Jesus was a leader with a mission and a purpose, and the choice was the people’s then as it is for us now.  We can reject this as the man did, and walked away shocked, or we can accept his message and grace, and follow him.

No matter who we as a people choose as our leaders in the next month, I will follow a leader who assures us that whatever we have given up we will receive 100 fold of  the blessings of God’s eternal glory.  Because God so loved the world that God gave us the only son Jesus.  That is a message that I will never grow tired of hearing, or sharing.

All that being said don’t forget to vote.  It is important and quite frankly how can we forget to anyway.