A House Divided
When we moved to Fayetteville two years ago, our family quickly discovered that, despite all of the similarities to Alabama, our new home offered a few cultural differences that we needed to learn to navigate. One of them was the college football landscape. In Alabama, there are two powerhouse teams, and every resident—even those who have no interest in college athletics—is forced to declare an allegiance. In Arkansas, there are a few people who proudly cheer for Arkansas State or Central Arkansas and a few more who ruffle feathers by cheering for LSU or Texas, but, for the most part, we all cheer for the Hogs. As in Alabama, there are no significant professional sports franchises in the state, so most of our attention goes to our beloved university teams, but, because there is no major in-state rival, our collective hopes and disappointments rise and fall as one.
Because of that, license plates and bumper stickers that declare “A House Divided” are not as common here. Personally, I have never lived in “a house divided,” but I know several families back in Alabama that are torn apart once a year when fierce rivals square off against each other. Couples who normally enjoy spending Saturday afternoon together temporarily separate in order to prevent the inevitable conflict between the one who gloats and the one who fumes. Some of these couples express the complexity of their all-but-one-day-a-year love by labelling their home as “A House Divided.” The point, I suppose, is to remind the rest of us that it is possible to stay committed to one another even when we disagree about something that matters to us.
A few weeks ago, I caught a glimpse of one of those relatively rare license plates here in town, and I wondered whether the same might be true for political or theological disagreements. I know of several households at St. Paul’s where one person typically votes for one party while the other person supports the opposite. I know of a few families that are divided over similarly intractable theological positions. Given how much the political rhetoric around us has escalated lately, I wondered whether “A House Divided” could be a metaphor for how good, faithful, and loving people in the same community, congregation, or family could find ways to hang together even when the presenting issues seem so divisive. That image may suffice when the issue is a football affiliation or political party or religious denomination, but underneath those differences are certain deep issues and convictions that do not leave room for disagreement.
For example, the Bible speaks univocally and unequivocally about the poor. From the earliest writings in the Old Testament through the latest books of the New Testament, our sacred text proclaims our responsibility to care physically, financially, and materially for the needs of those who do not have enough. Over and over again, prophets from Amos to Isaiah to Jeremiah, from Jesus to Paul to James, call out those whose business practices and real estate deals and religious devotions fail to put first the needs of the poor.
Similarly, the Bible holds up our responsibility to welcome and care for the stranger. Although there are some texts in the Bible that identify foreign tribes as the enemies of God’s people, whenever the children of Israel dwell in a place of security, they are commanded to welcome those who seek refuge and accept them as full members of their community. There are no provisions in our religious tradition for expelling foreigners who live and work peacefully among us. In fact, the Bible repeatedly describes the fullness of God’s reign on the earth—the fulfillment of all of God’s promises—as a time when people from all nations will be drawn together into the land where God’s people dwell, never to be pushed out.
Again, the Bible shows us without question that God’s will is for the most vulnerable among us to be not only protected but celebrated. In the ancient world, that meant lifting up the widow, the stranger, and the orphan. It meant visiting and tending to the needs of the prisoner. It meant making sure that those whom the economic and political systems had ignored or pressed to the margins of life—the limits of physical and social existence—were rescued and brought back to the center of the community.
Our religious tradition does not allow us to disagree about those principles. For people of faith, they are not negotiable. We may disagree about which policies or politicians are the right ones to address the concerns of the poor, the stranger, and the powerless, but we cannot in good conscience place our own personal needs—our security, our prosperity, and our happiness—above the needs of those whose cause God is commanding us to champion. As children of God and followers of Jesus, our faith—what we believe about God and God’s sacred word—must shape all of the choices we make, including those we make on a ballot.
Can we be a community of faith and still be divided over particular issues? Of course we can. For centuries, good and faithful people have disagreed about political matters and found ways to worship God together. I suspect, however, that, when we pay attention to the deepest issues that we face, we will discover that there are many things on which we cannot compromise. Will our engagement with those issues be something that pulls us back together or flings us further apart? Whatever the outcome, one thing is clear: we cannot be people of faith and pretend that these issues do not matter.
Yours Faithfully,
Evan