2020 Voter’s Guide
On the wall in my office is a banner that was made for me my senior year of seminary. Each student’s home congregation was asked to take the chosen Bible verse of the graduating class, and create a banner for their seminarian to hang in the dining hall at Wartburg Seminary (in Dubuque, Iowa)…a banner to go with and center each newly ordained (and green) pastor through the joys and challenges of congregational life…through the ups and downs faced in our wider world.
For our verse my class turned to Micah, that old 8 century BCE prophet, “and what does the LORD require…but to do justice, love kindness, and walk humbly with your God?” (Micah 6:8)
Pastor Eugene Peterson says this of Micah, “prophets, arriving on the scene and finding the world in ruins, finding a world of moral rubble and spiritual disorder, take up the work of words again to rebuild what human disobedience and mistrust demolished. These prophets learn their speech from God. Their words are God-grounded, God-energized, God-passionate…left to ourselves we turn God into an object, something we can deal with, some thing we can use to our benefit, whether that thing is a feeling or an idea or an image. Prophets scorn all such stuff. They train us to respond to God’s presence and voice.” (The Invitation, p134)
Voter guides have been around as long as there have been elections. At their best, they seek to layout out the differences in candidates on a range of topics to help us as voters make informed decisions based on our values.
Yet, this is the rub of reality that Micah speaks too. Micah and all the prophets see a world of competing values…competing in such a way that tend to leave brokenness, not wholeness, in their wake.
The Bible is more than a library of books. It is a living Word that speaks God’s values into our world. It is a living Word that reveals God’s presence and voice among us. It is a living Word that guides and shapes our values…and will speak in fresh and new ways for each generation. It is a living Word that never stops giving us hope for the future.
Yet, scripture will never tell us WHO to vote for. Scripture will simply point us to God at work in our life and at work bringing life to all…and daily invite us to join into this mission of God…through our words and deeds…as well as in out voting. The Bible as voting guide will only offer us deep questions to ponder and wrestle with in making decisions. Even Micah’s famous verse is a question, “What does the LORD require of you, but to do justice, love kindness, and walk humbly with your God?”
God be with you all as you live into Micah’s words this election season. See this season not as a time to be fed up with all the rhetoric and TV ads, but as a time to listen for God’s voice…to see God’s presence…and respond as one transformed and deeply loved by this God.
Peace,
Pastor Vanicek
