“Two cities have been formed by two loves. The earthly by the love of self. The heavenly by the love of God.”
So writes Augustine, bishop of Hippo, during the waning years of the Roman Empire in the early 400's. Look about yourself, and see, he suggests, the produce of the love of self. An earthly city whose citizens seek nothing but gratification and gain while sowing the seeds of their own destruction. But look to heaven, indeed, look to the church, and see another city whose people seek not themselves but God, in whom they find peace and home.
God judges both the earthly city and the heavenly city, and none except for Christ can stand proud in themselves against that judgment. But the difference between the two is not that one is sinful and the other sinless. The difference is humility: “a broken and contrite heart, O God, you will not despise.”
There was plenty of history for Augustine to look at to see the brokenness of the world, of false hopes and ideologies just in his own country. The Roman Republic and subsequent Empire survived a thousand years of crises, division, and disorder. That makes our 250 year old republic seem young in comparison. Perhaps the brokenness of our age is similarly not a testament to the imminent dissolution of civilization, but it is an artifact of the love of self.
It's striking that in the ancient world, Christian preachers and writers often did not attribute external crises to God's judgment. Plagues that regularly roiled the cities of the known world, or the barbarian invasions that culminated in the sack of Rome itself in Augustine's day: these things did not happen as a punishment against people in general. But God's judgment was shown in how people behaved, good or ill, in reaction to such disasters.
Oscar Wilde's immortal line, “When the gods wish to punish us, they answer our prayers” is not a Christian sentiment, but it is close to the truth that attaining self-seeking desires is less a blessing than a curse.
The coronavirus pandemic is not God's judgment against us. But our collective response to it, as we have chosen to scream and rant at each other and failed to band together as communities – that is God's judgment. When we have made it our business and our work and our hope and our desire that the recurring waves of coronavirus cases helps a partisan electoral cause, or imagined that the virus itself is invented by a conspiracy of thousands of county health departments aimed at an electoral candidate, when we do that, then we have shown we're worshipping at the altar of the idol of politics. That is God's judgment.
This is a culture whose candidates for the highest office in the land not only fail to inspire when they're called to debate, but fail to exhibit common decency. I receive, time after time, mailings that make claims so misleading about candidates that it's difficult to call them anything but lies. There is so little positive vision cast in politics, there is only contempt and fear. These are not the fruits of a wholesome culture.
I have heard friends and family members express alternatingly their hopes that Tuesday's election will bring a renewed calm, and their fears that it will be followed by violent civil unrest. I won't pretend to know – I've given up making predictions since I opined, back in January, that the coronavirus in China wasn't something we'd have to deal with here – I do not know what will happen, but I do know that all these crises are symptoms of a deeply broken culture.
Don't think that this malaise will be cured by the right election result this week. And don't put your hopes and desires so much in the one basket of an election win that you would be crushed if it doesn't happen. If our hopes are all about partisan wins, then you have made politics into an idol that will inevitably let you down.
Governments are important, but our hope is not built on them. God was at work transforming lives even in the waning years of the decadent Roman Empire. Augustine wanted to renew Roman culture, but he was not crushed when pagan writers were more popular than him. When Jesus came before the governor, Pilate, he told him, “My kingdom is not of this world. If it were of this world, my followers would fight. But my kingdom is not of this world.” The earthly city is not your home: Jesus' kingdom is not of this world.
Brandishing guns in public to intimidate, looting or arson, even mad plots to kidnap the governor – these are the activities of people whose kingdom is of this world, whose love is for themselves, and they are unworthy of the Christian. Recent events in France have shown some Islamist murderers believe that their religion requires them to fight enemies to conquer a kingdom of this world. The Christian religion demands instead that we love, pray for, and seek to convert enemies into a kingdom that is not of this world.
We just don't have to win the kingdom of this world – terrible people can control it and we are still okay – we belong to a kingdom that cannot be touched by evil men. When you accept that, isn't it a weight off your shoulders? It's not that any politician is fine, it's that even the worst can't steal your joy.
Under the Nazi reign in Germany, Dietrich Bonhoeffer was famous for his involvement in a plot to assassinate Hitler, but while he resisted, starting and teaching at an illegal seminary, he did not lose heart because evil men were in power. No, with his students he played music, sang hymns, praised God. While he was part of a struggle in an earthly kingdom, that was not his home.
So when the assassination plot failed and he was arrested and put in prison, he was disappointed but he was not crushed. He wasn't happy or carefree, but he still became known as the most cheerful inmate. He didn't even hate the prison guards, even though they were complicit in evil work. No, he was compassionate to them instead, counseling prisoners and guards alike.
Philippians 2:14-16 says, “Do everything without grumbling or arguing, so that you may become blameless and pure, “children of God without fault in a warped and crooked generation.” Then you will shine among them like stars in the sky as you hold firmly to the word of life. And then I will be able to boast on the day of Christ that I did not run or labor in vain.”
It does not say not to grumble or argue because your society is so great or because you have so many good things. This applies in bad circumstances as well as good. “A warped and crooked generation” rings just as true today as it did when these words were written two thousand years ago. But in the midst of a warped and crooked generation, we can be, we should be, children of God who shine among them like stars in the sky. Bonhoeffer shone as a light to his seminary students and to guards and prisoners. And Christ shines as a light to our world.
Christ did not choose a way of victory by power. He did not choose to dominate or destroy. He did not just defeat his enemies, he sought to save them. Jesus' way was humility – mark that, humility.
He went from the power and might of the godhead to servanthood. He did not serve the love of self, but the love of God. And as the world fell apart around him, even in his death, he stood unbroken.
We are united with Christ. We have turned aside from selfish ambition or vain conceit. Instead, we live with humility, valuing others above ourselves, not looking to our own interests but to the interests of the others. The self-seeking love of this crooked generation may reign over our broken culture, but it does not have the last word for us. Another love has already conquered our hearts and holds us so close that we could never turn away to the violence and hatred of the world. Like Christ, we do not need to kill or injure or steal, because the kingdom we belong to is not of this world. We will be servants to all, to shine as lights in the midst of this generation, but our peace and our well-being do not depend on the state of our broken culture, they depend on our unbroken God.
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