If the lion and the lamb can lie down together in God’s preferred vision, what about the Donkey and the Elephant? Jesus has this amazing ability to bring us together – if we’ll let him.
I was sitting around a table with some new friends at my new church. It was my first time at the men’s breakfast. As we casually shared names and a bit of personal information over eggs and bacon, one of the men made a comment that betrayed his political leanings in the upcoming presidential election. And then he glanced around the circle as if to say, “We’re all in good company, right?”
I didn’t necessarily mind him revealing his leanings, but I found myself going hypervigilant, especially with that glance. Don’t get pulled into a political conversation. Be careful what you say about yourself, lest you reveal your leanings. Is this a safe space to be in? Even to not have a leaning in this political climate is suspect. You are not all in? If you are not with me, you are against me.
Yes, Sons of Thunder!
We were out for a family dinner one evening, a special occasion. A woman saw my son’s outfit; he is a Catholic priest and was wearing the traditional black with the telltale collar. Like being drawn to a magnet, she came over and said something about where we stood – or should stand – on the issue of abortion, wanting us to applaud what she was saying. She was adamant which presidential candidate we should vote for. My son politely and softly replied something about his principle of not engaging in partisan politics as a priest.
It’s hard to go anywhere in public these days without having to think carefully about what you will say, how you will respond. It’s hard even talking in private. And church is no safer than anywhere else.
My previous pastor lay down the law that in church there were to be no partisan conversations inside the building – or anywhere on church property, for that matter. I knew I could feel safe about inviting people with divergent views into that sacred space. My current pastors have also made statements along this line as well, much to my relief.
But how do we wrestle with moral concerns short of partisan politics – the life of the preborn, the right of a woman to have a say over her own body, the plight of the Palestinians, the plight of the Jews, the dignity of the migrant, the need to protect our borders, the list goes on and on. And the concerns are not dispensable.
When I was young, my faith community, Pentecostals and evangelicals, wouldn’t have anything to do with politics. In those days, I often preached that we should be salt and light even in the darkest of places. Now – though not the fault of my preaching – you can’t get them out of politics, even for their own good.
Much of my work in recent years has been about speaking out on issues of moral consequence in the halls of human power. I’ve engaged with leaders of varying political leanings in attempts to affect legislation for what I believe is good.
Until recently I was part of a faith-based organization that was officially nonpartisan and that worked across the aisles of the state legislature – and had to be to retain its tax status. But I also insisted that we be a community where thoughtful discussions on important issues of the day could be had among people with strongly differing opinions. What is the use in preaching to the choir, I’d prod them. It was hard work, but much needed in our time.
Opposing radicals in the circle
I’m impressed with Jesus. More than for the usual, more obvious reasons. How he managed to bring together polar opposites into his inner circle is incredible! Not everyone in his core of Twelve had political leanings – at least not that we know of. James and John, nicknamed the Sons of Thunder, could be bombastic, but not necessarily so about politics. At the least of what we know is that Simon the Zealot and Matthew the tax collector were on opposite ends of the political spectrum.
You couldn’t get much more politically diverse than that.
Simon, not the one also named Peter, likely had the label “the Zealot” for being connected with a political movement by the same name. The Zealots were adamantly opposed to the government, which happened to be Roman, an oppressive regime to say the least.
Their fanaticism was driven by their devotion to Judaism. Like Phinehas in the Old Testament, they would do whatever it took to protect the faith. Their faith was more intense than the Pharisees, to the point of being tax avoiders on principle. Jesus’ statement about rendering unto Caesar pacified the Pharisees but would have agitated the Zealots. A generation later, the Zealots would lead a Jewish revolt against Rome, triggering the fall of Jerusalem and the destruction of the Temple by the oppressors. Talk about bringing the house down on your own heads.
And there across the Jesus circle from Simon sat Matthew, a hated tax collector. The taxmen weren’t just hated by the Zealots; they were reviled by everyone. Tax collectors were not only known to be corrupt; they also worked for the dreaded Roman government. While Jesus called Matthew away from his trade of tax collection to follow him, nothing is recorded about Jesus working to change Matthew’s views about his former employers.
I do not know which one of those two – Simon or Matthew – joined Jesus’ followers first. Likely, they were part of a larger band traveling with Jesus out of which he called this special group of Twelve. I wish I could have been a bystander when Jesus called the second of the two. What expression was on the face of the first one? Talk about hypervigilance taking over the mind of the first!
But there they were, in that inner circle, and learning to work together – and love each other at Jesus’ insistence. Jesus wasn’t anti-tax (“render unto Caesar”); he wasn’t even anti-Roman (“go the second mile”). Nor was he pro-Roman – “my kingdom is not of this world,” he told Pilate. I’m not fighting the fight you think I am fighting, he was saying. Even his closest followers didn’t understand where Jesus was headed until well after his resurrection.
I wonder if those two were ever pared up when Jesus sent them all out two by two. Nothing is recorded. But over time they would have worked together – and Jesus would have hammered his teachings into their heads and hearts over and over.
And they were together in the Upper Room when the Holy Spirit came upon them, where it is recorded, they were all in one accord – meaning in unity. Talk about miraculous! Whatever differences they had had been molded into a unity of purpose around the priorities of the Kingdom of God.
Spiritual unity doesn’t mean getting rid of political affiliation or differences of opinion, whatever they may be. My old friend, Billy Mack Patteson, who was such a help to me in my twenties in Waco, Texas, often quoted the saying, “Unity without sameness.” For the two of us, that meant that this Pentecostal and that Tillichian Methodist Minister could find lots of ways to work together and build friendship without letting go of our differences and our uniquenesses.
The miracle of learning how to get along
Back to my headline, how can the Donkey and the Elephant ever get along? Short of a miracle, I’m not sure. But then Jesus is the ultimate miracle worker.
As I think about it, I am more and more convinced that Jesus would insist on it – the donkey and the elephant getting along together, that is. He could have left Simon the Zealot and Matthew the Tax Collector out of the Twelve. It would have made his job all that easier. Or picked one and not the other. I think he chose both, not just for what he saw beyond their labels, but also to demonstrate how he intended his followers to operate. They didn’t stay as they had been – one willing to die for earthly power, the other willing to be sold out for personal gain, or whatever motivated Matthew to work for the dreaded Romans.
Jesus calls us to leave our first loves for him. But he doesn’t destroy the goodness in our passions as much as he purifies those passions.
I grew up in the days of the Jesus Movement. I’d never been a hippy, far from it. But there was something about the zealousness of that generation – whether it was for good causes like racial reconciliation or bad causes like the sexual revolution. Out of that disparate lot came some amazing leaders and movements.
I see some of that in today’s generation. Three years ago, our state was being torn apart by Antifa, the Proud Boys, and other movements on the left and the right. Black Lives Matter, January 6th, the Pro-Palestinian movements, the list goes on and on of causes for which people have become very passionate.
I keep watching to see who Jesus is calling in these causes and what kinds of leaders and movements he will make of them. They may still be antiracist or libertarian, they may still champion the plight of the Palestinians or the Zionists. But in Christ they will learn how to embrace their perceived enemies.
Keith Green was the psalmist of my twenties. The title of one of his songs was “I want to be more like Jesus” (1980). I still remember the words of the bridge by heart:
Remember, there's no greater love Than to lay down your life, no There's no greater love than to lay down your life For a friend, for a friend
In one of the verses, this prophet of radical commitment wrote:
The end of all my prayers is to care like my Lord cares
My one and only goal, His image in my soul
Laying down our lives for others. Caring like Jesus cares.
But, you say, some of the people who disagree with me aren’t even in Jesus’ camp. They haven’t responded to Jesus’ call yet, at least not the way I have. Which, in your thinking, is why they are on the other side from you and Jesus. That’s probably the way Matthew and Simon saw each other when they first met. No doubt it took a lot of time to build up trust and even some metaphorical knocking of heads together, as Jesus demonstrated with those Sons of Thunder.
So, I guess if the lion and the lamb can lay down together in God’s preferred world, so can the elephant and the donkey. Teach us how, Lord!
I care deeply about politics. I care even more deeply about the unity we have in Christ. We who live in the U.S. are in a very intense political season. I’ll be writing about politics and faith and about what faith looks like in the public square on a regular basis over the coming months.
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