Election Week Comes to the Local Church
Once upon a time there was a church. Let’s call it “First Church.” The church had a big decision to make. You see, the old carpet was worn and tired. It was unraveled in places and had lots of stains from the prepackaged communion juice spilling out when people tried to open them. Even Stanley Steamer couldn’t get the stains out. So the church needed new carpet; on that, they agreed. But the agreement stopped there. Some in the church wanted to replace the carpet in kind with the deep, red plush carpet that once looked so beautiful and regal. “We’ve always had red carpet,” said one of the matriarchs of the church. “It’s our tradition!” But some of the younger people in the church wanted something fresher and more contemporary. “Red is so dated,” one of the young women commented to her friend. “Blue carpet would complement the wood features and get us out of the 1950’s.” Tension grew. Team Red began casting aspersions on Team Blue and vice versa. Then came the business meeting. “You don’t respect the rich tradition that red carpet represents!” accused members of Team Red. “When we were married here 50 years ago, I walked the aisle down RED CARPET to meet my husband!” said the matriarch. Another member of Team Red said, “I was on the building committee that chose RED CARPET because it represents the blood of Jesus. You must not love Jesus if you don’t want RED CARPET.” Members of Team Blue were offended. “You must not love young people if you don’t want BLUE CARPET,” said one young person. “You just want everything to stay exactly the same. You don’t even want us here.” They threatened to leave the church if blue wasn’t the choice.
Near the back of the room sat a stranger. No one had seen him before. He looked a little rough around the edges, like he didn’t belong in a church and certainly not in a church business meeting where only members could vote. “Excuse me,” he said politely. “I’m not a member here, but I have a thought,” he said, his voice humble, diminutive. “I hear you guys arguing about the color of the carpet,” he proceeded, “but I’m sitting here thinking how nice tile might look. And easier to clean when someone spills communion wine. That’s all.” The stranger sat down. The members of the church sat in stunned silence. Married couples exchanged approving glances. A couple of awkward moments passed. The matriarch stood to speak. “Yes, I can imagine that tile might look very nice.” Team Red nodded in agreement. Team Blue acknowledged their approval. “Yes, tile will look very nice,” said one of the younger members. Within months, the church installed a beautiful, neutral-colored tile.
The moral of this story is that sometimes we get so locked into binary thinking—where we only see two options—that it can be hard to see a third way. We attach ourselves to our opinions. We can get so entrenched into that way of thinking, that we begin to view those with different ideas in pejorative ways. Conflict grows as people dig in their heels. It can take an outsider to present a third way, a completely different floor covering never considered.
Jesus was a master of this “third way” thinking. In the Gospel of John, we find a tired Jesus resting by a well where he encounters a Samaritan woman. He breaks all social convention by speaking to her, first because she’s a woman and good Jewish men don’t speak to women out in public like that, and secondly because she’s a Samaritan, and good Jews don’t speak to Samaritans. As the conversation unfolds, this woman tries to draw Jesus into the binary conflict of the day over the proper place for worship. She lays out the conflict for him, asking him to pick sides, “Our ancestors worshiped on this mountain, but you say that the place where people must worship is in Jerusalem.” Which side will Jesus choose? Will he side with the Samaritans or with the Jews? If he sides with the Samaritans, he rejects his own people. If he sides with the Jews, he alienates this woman and her people. She offers him a lose-lose situation when she asks him to pick sides.
This isn’t the only time in scriptures where Jesus is presented a conflicting, binary, lose-lose situation. The Pharisees and Herodians attempt to trap Jesus by getting him to pick sides in a debate about taxes. “Jesus, should we pay taxes to Caesar or not?” they pressed. If he says “yes,” he upsets his Jewish companions. If he says “no,” he upsets Caesar’s loyalists. They present a binary—a lose-lose situation. Which side will he choose?
Like Jesus, there are forces trying to pigeon-hole Christ-followers to choose sides. The argument is no longer “Worship here or there?” nor is it “Pay taxes to Caesar or not?” In our American context, our primary fault line, our binary, is the two-party system. It’s a built-in binary. Every four years, tension rises, the two parties pick their representatives, and we must choose Team Red or Team Blue. (Yes, we occasionally have viable third-party candidates, but by and large, it’s a binary choice.) We choose our sides. We cast aspersions. “You must not love Jesus if,” we say. We threaten to leave if we don’t get our way. “I’m moving to Canada if my candidate doesn’t win.” We get sucked into the narrative. We have trouble seeing anything beyond the binary.
This is the system we’ve inherited from our forebears. Just like fish don’t know they’re in water, this binary is the air we breathe, and we don’t even recognize it. In this binary system, we live and move and have our being. And in a few days, I hope you’ll cast your vote. It’s our right and our privilege as citizens.
The challenge for many of our churches, in light of this binary system, is to keep partisanship outside the church. In our sacred spaces (whether literal or virtual), we must strive to find a third way, a higher way. Not to be apolitical, pretending we don’t have viewpoints and ideologies, but transpolitical. If we’re transpolitical, we rise above partisan binaries. We can look at the binaries with a God’s-eye-view. And if we can bring that vantage point into our sacred spaces, we can begin to agree, recognizing that neither party has a monopoly on morality and neither party is perfect. No candidate is perfect. If we can agree on that, then there is hope for a more perfect way. A third way. A higher way.
In these days leading up to the presidential election, people are ginned up, entrenched, and skilled at casting aspersions. Maybe your church, like mine, includes members of both Team Red and Team Blue. These are our “purple” churches, with a mix of red and blue voters. Purple may be a “third way,” beyond entrenched ideologies or partisan posturing.
In the same way that color (red, blue, purple) is an illusion—a sensation created in the brain—political ideologies are patterns of activity in our brains. When we’re engaged in higher way, third way, thinking, we can recognize that. Jesus was the master of third way thinking.
Back to the Pharisees and Herodians trying to trick Jesus. “Should we pay taxes to Caesar or not?” Jesus tricks them right back. “Render unto Caesar that which belongs to Caesar,” he says to the delight of Caesar’s loyalists, infuriating his Jewish counterparts. Jesus appears to have taken a side. But wait! “Render unto God that which belongs to God.” This both/and approach leaves them gob smacked—they are amazed and perplexed by his wisdom. How does Jesus do this? Third way thinking! That’s the “mind of Christ.”
And then there’s the Samaritan woman at the well: “Is the proper place to worship here on this mountain like my people say, or in Jerusalem like your people say?” Both! “A day is coming and is now here when those who worship God will worship in spirit and in truth.” Not either/or but both/and. Third way thinking! That’s the “mind of Christ.”
Keeping it real, I worry about our country. I’ve never seen us so divided. Some suggest we’ve never been this divided since the Civil War. But here’s what I know—we have everything we need to rise up out of this divide—and if we’re going to do it, it’s going to require us to find a third way. Not a middle way, not a “purple carpet” compromise, but a completely different floor covering. A third way.
Pastor and theologian Cynthia Bourgeault writes: “Solutions to impasses generally come by learning how to spot and mediate third force, which is present in every situation but generally hidden.”
Not to say this is easy. We are wired toward the binary, toward either/or thinking. That’s why we pray, why we meditate. That’s why we engage in the spiritual discipline of attending church, particularly a church that doesn’t get sucked into the binary but seeks both to live and point people higher. Not a perfect church (which doesn’t exist), but a church that spurs one another on to attain this goal—to attain, ever more frequently, the “mind of Christ.”
Church leaders, our world needs us to get this, and to lead in this moment fraught with division.