Like Sheep without a Shepherd

The American Civil War claimed around 620,000 lives, 49% of the nation's combined death toll for all the wars in which the United States has ever been engaged. That's just a little fact to bear in mind the next time you hear someone lament, "Our nation has never been more divided."

Our country has always been divided. Partisan wrangling has always been brutal. I suppose that the proliferation of 24-hour media, social media, identity politics and the like has exacerbated the typical citizen's awareness of the various schisms, but make no mistake; discord has always been present. On occasion, some foreign enemy may cause us to pull together for a season, but whatever unity is produced is never perfect, and it has never been enduring.

I don't mean for that to sound fatalistic, but my Christian worldview informs me that divisiveness is rooted in sin and selfishness, so it is our default setting as fallen human beings. And, there is nothing that mankind can do about it as he has proven time and time again.

More than that, I am not convinced that many who occupy seats of power are really that bothered by the factions in America or anxious to seem them bridged. In the world of partisan politics, few people are ever persuaded of anything. Occasionally, an issue may capture the collective imagination so as to sway a vote one way or the other. More often, it is all about ginning up a base. President Trump does not tweet anything so as to persuade left-leaning hardliners to want to give him a hug. His critics who call him, "white supremacist" or "Fascist" know they are not increasing their camp. Neither major party corners the market on hyperbole, demagoguery or ad hominem attacks. Both camps will welcome converts wherever they can find them, but the game, primarily, is to sufficiently agitate the respective bases so as to have them show up at the polls.

Many of the calls to peace and unity that we hear are quite lame when we examine them. Poets, songwriters and others tell us to "teach love not hate" even though there seems to be no consensus in the world today as to what love is. John Lennon's alleged great anthem of the historical "Peace Movement" called us to join him and "Imagine." (Now, that was meaty advice.) On the other hand, the rhetoric of activism is typically quite strident. Far from bringing opposing parties together, the result more often seems to be to further galvanize the differences.

Occasionally, someone dares to speculate as to how Jesus might vote were He registered to do so in our day and age. I am persuaded that His involvement is still precisely what it was in His Own first-century world. He looks upon us and feels compassion for us, because we are so clueless, that is, "helpless and harassed, like sheep without a shepherd" (Matthew 9:36).

How should God's people, the citizens of His kingdom, respond to the current tumult? I am socially and politically conservative and would surrender all credibility were I to fail to admit that I have biases. Still, I learned long ago that when I immerse myself too deeply in the political fray, I descend into a state of chronic crankiness. Occasionally, if some rhetoric seems too over the top, I perk up and pop off. But for the most part, I observe more than I participate.

How do believers, as "the salt of the earth," live redemptively rather than merely as contributors to the noise? Our greatest ministry in the world is to compassionately see the helpless and harassed futility of lives lived without Jesus and to be attentive to any and every occasion to address that greatest of all needs. Pride compels us to want to be persuaders of the many, but realistically, any impact we have upon this world will probably be on one person at a time. The greatest common ground the human race has for unity is a shared recognition that we are broken and sinful people in need of a Savior. Many are called, but few will ever come around to seeing that need. Still, our calling is to advance the Gospel of Jesus Christ over every other agenda.

It would be the height of arrogance to claim that in and of ourselves we are above the fray. It is the path of obedience to attempt to keep our eyes above it.