Words We No Longer Avoid: Politics ~ Acts 17:1-9

 

Over the past several weeks we've taken up words that many churches have quietly set aside. We've talked about sin, wrath, judgment, and even depression—words that can make us uncomfortable, but words that Scripture refuses to avoid and that perhaps we have misunderstood. Today we come to another one, perhaps the one that terrifies us most of all: politics. [cue thunder and lightning sounds]. AHHHHH!

Now, the moment I say that word, many of us think of elections, parties, campaigns, maybe cable news. We wonder whether church is about to become another arena for partisan debate. But before we decide whether politics belongs in the church, we ought to ask a more basic question: What do we actually mean by politics?

At its most fundamental level, politics is simply the ordering of our common life. It concerns authority, power, resources, and influence. It asks, “Who gets what?” “Who exercises power?” “Who flourishes because of it, and who is potentially forgotten by it?” Understood that way, politics is not first about Republicans or Democrats, liberals or conservatives. It is about the way human beings live together under systems of authority.

Once we understand that, something surprising happens. We discover that the New Testament has been speaking politically from the very beginning—not because it endorses one party over another or settles every political controversy (it doesn't), but because it announces that ultimate authority belongs to someone else.

The earliest Christians signaled this by adopting the Greek word euangelion—good news, or “gospel.” Today that sounds like an entirely religious word, but in the Roman Empire it was pre-Jesus and profoundly political. It was a particularly “emperor-word.” A euangelion announced the accession of a new emperor or a decisive military victory. It proclaimed that Caesar had secured peace and prosperity. So when the first followers of Jesus proclaimed the message of a crucified Galilean from an obscure corner of the empire as the “gospel,” they were making an astonishing claim. The true “gospel” was not that Caesar ruled the world. The true good news was that Jesus did.

Likewise, the church confessed that Jesus is Lord—Kyrios. That title certainly  echoed Israel's confession that Yahweh alone is Lord. But Caesar also claimed that title. So every time Christians confessed that Jesus is Lord, they declared that everyone and everything - ruler, empire, nation, and ideology, stood beneath the lordship of Jesus. The Apostle Paul says it quite powerfully, ¹⁶ For in him all things were created: things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities; all things have been created through him and for him. ¹⁷ He is before all things, and in him all things hold together.” (Col. 1:16-17)

The gospel confession that Jesus is Lord imagines a Christian politics that resists three things:

• It resists Christian nationalism. A gospel that recognizes Jesus on the throne cannot be conscripted beneath any particular flag, because every nation is one of the powers Christ relativizes. To baptize any nation's dominance is simply to hand the throne back to Caesar under a Christian name. You’ve most likely noticed that our church building sports no flag. That’s because the sanctuary should either display the flags of every nation or none at all, because the gospel blesses every tribe, tongue, and people—not one nation above another. Christianity is an international peace treaty not a national identity.

• It resists partisan captivity. If Jesus is Lord, then no political party can claim our ultimate allegiance. A simple question reveals where our loyalty lies: Can Jesus criticize the party I voted for? Can I? If the answer is no, then perhaps party and piety have quietly become one.

• It resists a privatized faith. The gospel is not merely about what happens inside my heart. It also concerns how power is exercised, how neighbors are treated, and how communities are ordered.

To make that case, consider three “guiding stars” – three Biblical examples from the New Testament. I’m using “guiding stars” as a metaphor to acknowledge that there is helpful guidance from the Bible that it is critical but not fixed. It guides us but also requires recalibration over time because while the stars and earth are important in our navigation. They (and we) are also always in motion.  

First Star: A Magnificat Vision (Luke 1:46-55). In the Magnificat, Mary sings that God has “brought down the powerful from their thrones and lifted up the lowly, . . . filling the hungry with good things while sending the rich away empty.” Luke places this song at the very beginning of his Gospel because it tells us what God's kingdom looks like. When God sets the world right, God takes seriously the realities of power, provisions, and concern for the plight of the poor, which is why fascist governments have often banned this song from being sung publicly. Mary reminds us that the politics of the gospel always asks, “Who needs to be lifted up because they’re kept down?” “Who needs to be fed because they’re hungry?” “Who needs to be welcomed and remembered because they are excluded and forgotten?” Our policy answers may vary, sure, but the questions shouldn’t.

Second Star: A Crucified King (John 19; Acts 17). Rome did not crucify people because they prayed too much. Crucifixion was a political punishment reserved for enemies of the state and rebellious slaves. The charge nailed above Jesus' head read, "King of the Jews." His crime was understood as a rival claim to authority.

So in Acts 17 when Paul arrives in Thessalonica, the accusation against the Christians is remarkably precise: “They are all defying Caesar's decrees, saying that there is another king, one called Jesus." The empire heard exactly what the church was proclaiming: another King overruled Caesar. The one Caesar condemned, God vindicated.

Third Star: A Fallen Commercial Babylon (Revelation 18). Too often Revelation is read as a coded timetable of the end of the world rather than a contemporary, poetic critique of a failed empire. It’s more Bob Dylan than kooky prophet. Through Lord-of-the-Ring’s-like imagery, John is “unveiling” (which is what Apocalypse means) something much more immediate. Worship, he insists, is always political because worship answers the question of ultimate allegiance and orients our care. Babylon (aka Rome), according to John, is not merely a corrupt religion. It is also a corrupt economy built upon luxury, exploitation, and human lives treated as commodities. It’s a place where merchants weep over lost profits rather than harmed people. John exposes an economic system that prizes commerce over compassion and wealth over worship. Even economics, he insists, eventually answers the question: Who is Lord?

At this point I should offer a clarification, especially as someone shaped by the Pietist tradition, which always maintained the need for conversion. “A heart strangely warmed,” as our forebearers said.  Whenever Christians begin speaking about the public implications of the gospel, some assume we've abandoned personal conversion or inward transformation. It is nothing of the kind.

The gospel never asks us to choose between a changed heart and a changed world. Scripture refuses to separate what God has joined together. The God who forgives sinners also feed people. The God who transforms hearts also transforms us to love our neighbors – whoever those neighbors are, whatever those neighbors believe.

John Wesley understood this well. Although remembered for emphasizing personal holiness, he famously insisted that “there is no holiness but social holiness.” The grace that changes a heart inevitably changes how that person lives among others. The gospel and Christian discipleship led Wesley to oppose slavery, care for the poor, and advocate for prison reform. He understood that holiness is wholeness. The gospel renovates the whole person—and through renewed people, God is renewing the whole world. That means that the same compassion that saves us is the same compassion that seeks to ensure that kids have enough to eat, the same peace that reconciles us is the same peace that seeks to curtail militarized violence, the same love that welcomes the prodigal home is the same love that welcomes and protects all who are vulnerable, regardless of their gender or sexual orientation.

In fact, confining Christianity to the inner life is not the absence of politics. It is its own kind of politics. It quietly declares that Jesus may concern himself with my soul but not with my systems, my economics, my institutions, or my public life. That arrangement is remarkably convenient for the powers that be. A gospel that never leaves the sanctuary will never trouble a throne.

So when I say that the gospel is political, I am not trying to politicize something that was once purely spiritual. I am simply refusing a false choice. Christ reigns not only in our hearts but over the whole world. Mary sang that. Jesus lived that. John of Patmos wrote that. The gospel was their answer to the question: Who is Lord? Not Caesar. Not nation. Not party. Not market. Jesus is Lord.

And that confession remains the most political claim the church can make—not because it serves the ambitions of earthly power, but because it places every earthly power beneath the authority of the crucified and risen King. Amen.