Current Series
KINGS AND PRESIDENTS
We have a large cross mounted to the front of our church, that cross has been around for over 20 years. It has survived many moves, three pastoral changes, and a fire.It has come to shape the kind of preaching I do and the kind of pastoral ministry I try to offer. The more it worked on me, the more I realized that I wasn’t called to do anything other than to guide the people of Connected to be more like the One who went to the cross. His way is strange because it includes things like a cross, which isn’t exactly a symbol of victory. But the sacrificial, self-giving nature of what was en- acted on the cross was a living embodiment of divine love that would be willing to die. It was real life and death. It touches all aspects of life and isn’t afraid to call us to death. Everything about our lives gets measured according to that cross if we are following Jesus because everything about his life was consistent with giving himself away on that brutal device. The cross is a tool that goes to work on us, and if we let it, it ends up making us more faithful to the strange way that Jesus did things.
I’m not sure how else to preach politics other than under the cross. It has its way with politics. It offers its own politics. It calls the folks who gather together in its shadow to let it set the political agenda, to crucify any agendas the church may have on its own. And it’s incredibly different from all the other political options out there.
This short sermon series is offered in the shadow of the cross. When it came time to tackle the tricky and difficult topic of political life, I realized that most
of it was fairly simple: The way of Jesus offers us a way of salvation that is a way unto itself. The trick is that it doesn’t sync well with other systems, and that’s what’s so challenging and beautiful about it. That often means that when our political life is claimed by a system that isn’t seeking to follow Jesus, it results in a lot of confusion for the people that align themselves with Jesus. Often, when people give themselves over to ways of imagining political life other than the way of Jesus, their understanding of Jesus begins to become distorted. They try to make Jesus conform to their desired party platform or agenda. But the cross of Christ resists, corrects, and crucifies that approach.
This kind of political vision has deep roots in Jewish tradition. The book of 2 Kings may not seem like the first place you’d want to turn for series about political life, but it’s a thoroughly political book that is shaping up to be a lot of fun to preach. Its stories are strange—bizarre, even. But the strangeness reminds us of how strange we are as God’s people.
Second Kings was written to a people living in exile. When this collection of stories from Israel’s history—usually passed down orally—were finally organized into this book, it sent a strong signal to a people losing their way politically. That message is: Don’t forget who you are! Resist the temptation to be co-opted by a system that isn’t interested in God’s salvation. Don’t be seduced by political systems that lead you to believe they will give you power. Trust in God’s way of doing things. Trust in God’s kingdom.