Hope for Today
I need your help. Did any of you happen to catch the interview with Obama and McCain that aired last night on CSPAN? I caught a small sliver of it while I was flipping the channel. The moderator asked each candidate about their perspective on the faith question. I didn’t hear enough of Obama’s to make much of a comment, only that he talked quite a bit about “the least of these,” “clothing the naked,” “feeding the hungry,” etc. When he was finished, there was minimal response from the congregation.
What I’d really like your help with is understanding McCain’s response. McCain began by reminding us of his military service and the time he spent as a POW. He talked about how he was tortured and some of the methods used to torture them. Then he told the story of how one night the “gun guard” came in a loosened McCain’s ropes at the beginning of his shift, and retightened them at the end of his shift. Several weeks later, it was Christmas, McCain remembered. At Christmas, the POWs were permitted a few minutes outside alone. During McCain’s free time, that same guard came out, looked him in the eye, drew a cross in the dust with his boot, looked at McCain and then erased the cross and walked away. “At that moment,” McCain said, “we were just two Christians worshipping the same God.”
The crowd erupted.
I used to think a lot of my crazy ideas were just idealism. I used to think that I would outgrow my crazy notions once I got out of the ivory tower of academia. Instead, I find that I don’t feel so crazy. Instead, I find those beliefs more important to me than ever. Perhaps I am just clinging to a place and time that was special for me. So how exactly can two people go from maiming, torturing and killing one another one minute, to being just two Christians worshipping the same God the next minute, to trying to maim, torture and kill one another the next minute? That does sound crazy - doesn't it? Perhaps I am learning the gospel is crazy. Perhaps I am learning the gospel is idealistic. Gospel is supposed to be good news isn’t it? The angels came proclaiming peace didn’t they? In a world that seems to be sucked deeper and deeper every day into the bottomless pit of depression and despair, the church has a much greater opportunity to bear good news! And yet we continue to hear voices like McCain continually tell us it is not possible.
We are stuck with the reality of the evil. We are hopelessly captive to the evil in the world. I happen to think he is wrong. I happen to think grace changes more than just my heart. I happen to think Jesus really meant it when he told us to pray “thy kingdom come.” I happen to think it is not an eschatological hope, but a hope for today! Lord knows we need a little hope. Come, Lord Jesus. Come.
posted by EF + at 2:08 PM
5 Comments:
“The friend who can be silent with us in a moment of despair or confusion, who can stay with us in an hour of grief and bereavement, who can tolerate not knowing... not healing, not curing... that is a friend who cares.”
--Henri Nouwen
Thanks Eric -- I think you're absolutely right and if we are to call ourselves Christian we should take very seriously, even, dare I say, literally, what the mandate to turn the other cheek means. This was not an example of Christlikeness, it seems to me, because of the fundamental lack of transformation or hope that you speak of - it would indeed require beating their swords into plowshares for it to be actually Christian. I think it is remarkably revealing about McCain that this undoubtedly geniune moment should ultimately be his perspective on Christianity and then used as a political tool. This, perhaps is part of the insidiousness of war, that a moment of brotherhood could be mistaken for true Christian communion. jfr.
I think it has something to do with the fact that it is more exciting to talk about how Christians are persecuted than what Christians need to do to keep others from the same kinds of persecution. The least of these are always stereotyped to be the bottom. They are persecuted for nothing else than their class, or lack of it, in life. The impression that the guard in the story didn't really want to do the evil he did makes us feel sympathy as we don't really want to do the evil that we do. Instead of crying out, "Oh, God, have mercy on me, a sinner!", we say, "Hey, that guard is like one of us." Good write-up.
It sounds like a typical liberal response by Obama and a typical evangelical response by McCain. I think that their both probably missing it, when comes to living out the fullness of the Kingdom of God.
Peace,
Steven
Even though this is way late and after the fact, I'd just like to object to Pastor Steven's characterization of both Obama's and McCain's comments as "typical" of liberal and evangelical, respectively.
It seems to me that a more typical liberal response is to not talk about faith at all, to avoid it at all costs - and this is where Obama is an atypical liberal, as he not only talks openly about his faith, but in a way that is concerned with both the personal (i.e. evangelical) and the social (i.e. liberal).
It also seems to me that a more typical evangelical response would just talk about knowing Jesus as my personal Lord and Savior, and trying to live in accordance with His will, or something to that end - and this is where McCain far from typifies an evangelical experience, for one observes that his life of faith does not belie such a testimony.
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