God Has Two Hands

Last winter the Youth Group went to Pats Peak to go skiing for the day.

I was on the lift with one of our youth.

I asked what he wanted to talk about as we had some time on our way to the top of the mountain.

“I would like to know what our faith has to do with politics?”

I was surprised.

Of all the questions that we could have talked about this was the one on his mind.

It occurred to me that it is probably not just a question on this young man’s mind, but on all of our minds.

In a day when religion gets drawn into the political debate so quickly.

When our politicians use religiosity to prove their points, when pastors, priests, and ministers use pulpits to raise all sorts of political agendas abortion, anti-LGBYQ, immigration, tax policy, what is the correct relationship between these two things?

Martin Luther lived in a very different time than we do.

Luther lived over 200 years before the American Revolution.

He lived at a time when church officials where politicians, and politicians where religious figures.

The pope was selected not because of his religious fervor, or theological acumen.

He was chosen because he was a good politician, a good administrator.

In Luther’s time over half the land was owned by the church.

This made it very powerful, and very political.

Luther’s solution was to say that God has two hands.

On the left hand God rules with laws that govern people’s lives.

Rules that keep the peace, avoid chaos, and protect the good from the evil.

The government’s main job is to bring peace and stability to the subjects of the land.

With the right hand God rules with grace, mercy, and love.

God forgives sinners.

God makes people righteous through the death and resurrection of God’s son.

Another way to talk about this is that there are two kingdoms.

The kingdom of the world is ruled by government and law, and the kingdom of heaven ruled by God’s grace and mercy.

(I want to caution us as seeing this as equal to a separation of Church and State. Luther had no concept of that idea.)

Luther was only a man.

Because he is only a man, we have to always ask if his ideas are correct.

So was Luther right?

I see great wisdom in what Luther said.

There is a great danger in mixing up the two kingdoms of God.

The Church has a very specific role to play in the world.

It is to bring people to see Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior.

It is to bring peace to our troubled hearts.

To show people’s God’s love and grace as a gift given by God.

Governments’ job is to pass laws that are fair and just.

It is to make sure that all of the citizens that live within it’s borders are taken care of.

That everyone has the equal footing to pursue their vocations, and provide for their families.

Government’s job is to protect its citizens from death and destruction.

And when we too closely align these things trouble is often in the works.

I really dislike when politicians pretend to be theologians.

I don’t like it when the quote the Bible, or use pious words to explain their points.

I also don’t like it when pastors pretend to be politicians.

When they say that God would want less taxes, or more taxes, or when they use God to make their point.

Jesus this morning seems to side with Luther.

“Give to Emperor’s the things that are Emperor’s, and to God the things that are God’s”

I want to leave alone for a second the things that are Emperor’s.

What are the things that belong to God?

Everything!

Everything belongs to God.

All that we are, or ever hope to be is God’s.

I owe God everything that I am.

Don’t you?

The emperor gets none of me.

So maybe Luther was wrong.

As a Christian shouldn’t we give all to God, and forget about the emperor?

Should we not care what emperor says or does?

Here in lies the problem that I face.

It is the question that our youth really wanted to know on that ski lift.

What if Cesar does something that is anathema to our belief as a Christian?

What if Cesar does something that hurts my neighbor?

Shouldn’t we love our neighbors?

Shouldn’t we care for the least, forgotten, and lost?

And doesn’t that have to do with Cesar and the laws that are passed.

The line between the kingdom of the left and right are not as black and white as we think.

It is not as easy to say, “Well today I am going to go and do this God thing, and tomorrow I will do a secular thing.”

Because for me it is all God things, I am always in with God.

So when I stand up at a city council meeting and advocate for more money for our homeless in Concord I do it because Jesus said, “Blessed are the poor.”

When I stand out in front of the ICE building in Manchester I do it because Jesus says, “when I was a stranger you welcomed me.”

When I advocate that our prison should hire a full time chaplain I do it because Jesus said, “when I was in prison you visited me.”

You see the problem.

It is not always as cut and dry as we want to make it.

As much as I admire what Luther said about the two kingdoms, as much as I think it is a good doctrine to keep in mind because a pastor should remember what he/she is called to do, I don’t think it is always that easy.

I want to end with one final thought.

Luther said that what a Christian owes the government is their best minds and ideas.

Luther said that Christians should participate in temporal government because in doing so we love our neighbor.

 “Since a true Christian lives and labors on earth not for himself alone but for his neighbor, he does by the very nature of his spirit even what he himself has no need of, but is needful and useful for his neighbor.”

I love this quote.

Because so much of our political discourse is about what is best for me.

Why low taxes helps me.

Why having no refugees helps me.

Why I want this or that policy…

What we really owe Cesar, the temporal government, is to advocate policies that don’t help us at all, but really only help our neighbor.

That is a Jesus idea.

We as Christians have everything we need, because we have what the world (even Cesar) can never take away God.

In God we have a peace that surpasses understanding.

In God we have love, faith, and hope.

So we can give everything else to serving and loving our neighbors.

We can stop being selfish and greedy.

Instead we can advocate policies that don’t help us at all.

And in doing so we live out one of Jesus great teachings that this life is not about us at all, it is about what we do for others.

Give to God the things that are God’s.

All the best things are God’s, and God has given them all to us.

Now we can give everything else for our neighbor.

We can use what is best about our faith, and use it in the political world to advocate for the people that Jesus loves and asks us to love.

And that is what I said to the youth on the ski lift.

(OK what I actually said was a lot shorter, but basically that.)

I hope it helps you to navigate that very tricky problem of how our faith and politics come together.

It is not always easy, but it is worth thinking about because using our faith in the political realm must always be done carefully and most importantly with love.

Amen