On Monday, the Iowa caucuses will be held, kicking off voting in the 2016 race for U.S. President. I am fascinated by presidential history; yet, this presidential election has me feeling something between annoyance and depression. When I look across the assembled field of candidates, I find impossible to imagine any of them as the next Teddy Roosevelt or JFK. Heck, I'm not trying to find Abraham Lincoln in this crowd. I'd settle for a James Garfield. Is this the best we can do?
A friend of mine named Dave had an interesting take on this situation. He recently wrote: "Some say we lack great leaders and they may be right. But I am more saddened by what a small minded and hard-hearted people we have become. It may be that we no longer produce good leaders because we fail to be a good people." Dave's words on Facebook caused me to dig into Bill's Barrel to see if any of my dad's old sermons spoke to this leadership void and its possible causes. There I found a sermon called "On Being a Christian in the Voting Booth," in which my father suggests, as Dave suspected, that our leadership problem begins with us:
"Isn't the voting booth one of those places where we customarily leave Jesus outside while we go in with other things on our minds? Somehow, when the curtain closes behind us in that booth, the fact that we are Christians seems secondary to the fact that we are Republicans or Democrats, or veterans, or taxpayers, or hot on one particular issue that affects our self-interest. The way political campaigns are conducted, and the way past elections have gone, this selfish attitude toward the vote is quite clear. The voting booth is one place where the person is actually encouraged to let his prejudices and his selfish interests take over and be expressed in his vote.
As Christians, we cannot accept this. We are called to love and sacrifice for our neighbor, as much in the voting booth as outside it. How can we talk about 'going the second mile,' 'turning the other cheek,' 'feeding the hungry,' or 'proclaiming release to the captives' if we are not willing to vote for candidates whose policies are most in keeping with our Christian ideals? To be a Christian in the voting booth means to lay aside self-interest, prejudices and party labels. It could mean voting for a Democrat if you're a Republican, or for a Republican if you're a Democrat. It could mean voting to raise your own taxes if that revenue is needed to improve society. It might mean voting for someone whose policies could negatively affect your job, if those policies are good for the nation's people. There is no end to the 'strange votes' you may have to cast if you take Christ with you into the voting booth, if you dare to say to Him in there behind the curtain, 'Thy will, not mine be done.'
We can be as selfish with our vote as we can be with our money, our time, or our abilities. It is this selfish voting that has gotten our country into the trouble that it's in today. We are polarized into so many opposing groups, each jealously guarding and looking out for its own interests, each voting accordingly, and not giving a care about other people and their needs and feelings. It is time that Christians make a loud, clear witness with their vote. We care about what happens to all people -- black and white, rich and poor, rural and urban. We will vote to care even if it causes us to sacrifice. After all, sacrifice should be nothing new or unusual to us as Christians; it should be our way of life.
And so being a Christian in the voting booth means judging each candidate on his [or her] merits by our Christian standards. These are questions we must ask ourselves if our vote is to become an act of Christian witness:
- Even though the candidate may not be a professing Christian, how closely is that candidate allied with our Christian principles?
- How does a candidate fare when measured by the fruits of the Spirit: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control?
- Does the candidate not only have the qualities of great leadership, but will he [or she] lead us in a way that is consistent with the coming Kingdom of our Lord?
- Do the candidate's policies promote the God-given dignity and equality of all, or does the candidate favor certain interest groups and thus tend to divide people from each other rather than draw them together?
- Does the candidate recognize that 'law and order' and 'justice' are equally important?
- Does the candidate believe that we should be a real neighbor to the world's people -- not the sort of neighbor who goes in and takes over, imposing his own will and inviting hostility and resentment?
These kinds of questions are not easy to answer. It is not very easy to judge the real person who stands before us as a candidate, what with all the image-building and news managing that goes on. Educated guesses are needed in making the final choice, and sometimes neither candidate measures up very well to Christian standards. Even then, there is a responsibility to choose between the lesser of two evils. This too is the form Christian witness may take in the real world.
We cannot expect that after due prayer and study all professing Christians will vote for the same candidates. But each Sunday we all pray, 'Thy Kingdom come, Thy will be done.' So it is up to you to decide who best expresses, not your own selfish will, but the will of your Lord Jesus Christ."
From "On Being a Christian in the Voting Booth"
Scripture: Romans 13:1-7; Acts 5:27-42
Preached at Grace United Methodist Church
Millersville, Pennsylvania
November 5, 1972
