It’s not nasty politics. It’s bad theology.

I don’t spend a lot of time on Facebook, but I do check it regularly.  Partly it’s a way to keep in touch with family and friends whom I have “friended.”  But it’s also a way to kind of put a finger on the pulse and a hand on the forehead of the culture to see what’s going on.  Sometimes what I read there is fall down funny.  Sometimes it’s heartwarming.  Sometimes it drives me to distraction.  But it’s usually illustrative of what’s on people’s minds in the culture.

This political season (when is it not?) makes it all the more interesting.  I ran across a meme the other day that purported to be quoting the CEO of Costco:  “At Costco we pay a starting hourly wage of $11.50 ... Instead of minimizing wages, we know it’s a lot more profitable in the long term to minimize employee turnover and maximizes employee productivity by commitment and loyalty.”  Below the meme the group that posted it wrote, “This is how businesses use to be run before conservatives turned greed into a way of life.” 

It is beyond question that there are people on the conservative part of the spectrum who are greedy.  They are primarily motivated by how the bottom line affects self, without much regard to the needs of others.  And it is also beyond question that there are people on the liberal/progressive part of the spectrum who are envious and jealous.  They see that some people have more than others, have decided that they shouldn’t, and are determined to take some away from them to give to those who have less without much regard for how that would affect those who labored for it.  To paint one philosophical position as greedy and paint the other as envious seems to be order of the day.  The election season just heating up will put that on full display, if some of the ads we’ve seen and speeches we’ve heard so far are any indication.

That isn’t political.  It isn’t economics.  It’s theology.  Very sloppy theology.  Here’s what I mean.   The sins of greed and envy were not hatched in the smoke-filled backroom of one political party or the other.  They were hatched in Eden long before there was even a notion of political parties or political points of view.  When our first parents, Adam and Eve, sinned, they lost the image of God.  For the first time self became big and important and other was diminished and expendable.  How else do you explain their effort to save face before God by blaming their sin on someone else?  For the first time, human beings decided that what I want is more important than acknowledging God’s right to put some things off limits.  How else do you explain their action of eating the one thing God said was not theirs to have?  Ever since that day, all human beings have had a nature like Adam’s and Eve’s.  Jesus himself said it, “For out of the heart come evil thoughts—murder, adultery, sexual immorality, theft, false testimony, slander.”  (Matthew 15:19)  The apostle Paul was clear about where things like greed and envy come from, too:  “The acts of the sinful nature are obvious:  sexual immorality, impurity and debauchery; idolatry and witchcraft; hatred, discord, jealousy, fits of rage, selfish ambition, dissensions, factions, and envy; drunkenness, orgies, and the like.”  Conservatives, liberals, Republicans, Democrats, Libertarians, Socialists, and even other “-ist” or “-ive” you can name has one of those sinful natures.  We all do.  To say that one of those “-ives” or “-ists” has cornered the market on sin is both morally myopic and theologically untenable.  Let’s face it, the Word is right when it says, “All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God...”

So what’s the solution to the problem of sin?  It is not in electing the right people to public office.  The solution is Jesus – only Jesus.  He is the one who on our behalf, in our place, and for our benefit never once sinned.  With his whole life he wove a flawless and spotless robe of righteousness that God now wraps around you and me.  That doesn’t change the fact that we are sinners before God’s law, but it most certainly has changed our status before God himself.  Then Jesus went to the cross bearing in his own body the guilt and punishment of every envious and greedy thought, word and deed of every person who will ever have walked this planet.  And for Jesus’ sake alone, God has forgiven and forgotten.  I know that to be true because that’s what God has said:  “God made [Jesus Christ] to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.”  (2 Corinthians 5:21)

Sin isn’t something that’s just attached to political parties; it’s much more personal than that.  Sinful is what we are by nature and sin is what we all do.  The only place where sinfulness is covered by righteousness and where sins are atoned for is in the person and work of Jesus Christ.  That’s not politics, because politics is about opinions.  That’s law and gospel, and that’s the unchanging Word of our unchanging God.