This noble experiment known as America, thrives on personal autonomy. The idea goes: you determine your own life, free from the forced choices of authoritarianism or tyranny. Pursue the career of your choice; invest where you want; exercise religion as you see fit; and cast your own vote. While we could argue whether that experiment is being fulfilled or not, that is the idea. And it permeates our culture. So much that I often wonder if we’re drowning in our choices. Like the Hebrews wandering in the desert, the heavy hand of pharaoh has been replaced by the burden of freedom stretching in every direction. This side of heaven, American freedom is an extreme luxury—a luxury that came at an extreme cost. And while that is true, it is also true that American freedom is just that, American—earthly. Like the Hebrew slaves freed from Egypt, we are in need of not mere freedom (or even more freedom), but an ordered freedom. And there lies the rub. Order implies parameters; parameters imply barriers; barriers imply authority; and authority implies tyranny. And that isn’t America. In America we wave our flags, or burn them. We protest and we protest others’ protests. We even protest the absence of protest. We take pride in our fanatical hobbies and we hide our fantasies. And we vote. We vote for people and we vote against others. Religion aside, politics has brought out of us not only polarizing stances, but also a zealous proselytizing for our respective leader. This is my president vs. this is not my president. Or in today’s rhetoric, this is the candidate that will restore our ideals vs. this is the candidate that will destroy them. Civic awareness and involvement is important, especially in a democracy. But you don’t have a president.
Jesus, both Son and Prince, has offered us each a regeneration (start running) and a renewing (keep running). Jesus, both High Priest and Shepherd, has offered us each a deed of ownership into heaven. You don’t have a president. You have so much more: you have an ordered freedom. Put on His yoke and take up your cross. These are not ideals or slogans. These are the actions of followers who have forfeited their own liberty to find a greater one. These are the actions of followers who have forfeited their own work to find a greater one. Of course we have an American (earthly) interest, but we have a Lord whose name covers the entirety of the cosmos, forever and ever. A name that summons inevitable confession, not out of coercion but out of an overwhelming awareness, is a name that requires no vote. It requires no work, no proselytizing, no fundraising, no endorsements. Again, you don’t have a president in Jesus. Nor do you have freedom for the sake of freedom. You have not come to the collective mount of American (earthly) interest, but you have come to the city of the living God.
And so we live and pray: God, our Father in heaven; may your rule and domain be present here and everywhere, amen.
