Oct 16, 2009 
“With a filibuster proof majority we (Democrats) ought to be able to get the health care reform we want” . . . “If we defeat this health care bill, we (Republicans) may be able to un-do this president.” I am a diehard Democrat . . . or Republican, liberal . . . or conservative, independent . . . or libertarian. Ideology. Party line and party loyalty. Clear, set and dug in. Right versus wrong. My way or the highway. Pretense to philosophical purity. I was never much for the WWJD approach – What Would Jesus Do – but I am about to make an exception. Wait a minute, you argue – be you Christian or otherwise – Jesus didn’t encounter political parties . . . did he? I would argue that he did! If so, what approach did he take? May I offer just enough detail to profile the political context in which Jesus worked, and, to glimpse his basic approach.
Israel was a captive nation during Jesus’ lifetime, under the dominating power and politics of a Roman occupation. But Rome’s policy was to allow significant self-government in controlled territories. Israel’s paradigm was theocratic – an integration of political and religious agendas, under governing mechanisms and public leadership that blended religious and political roles – differing from our own commitment to separation of church and state. But I’d argue the following remains relevant.
This theocracy had manifested as four distinct “parties” as Jesus began his pubic ministry. Each had evolved a worldview and ideology, a set of practices and a lifestyle, and each had formed expectations about the awaited messiah. Each had crafted an integration of the political, economic, social and religious realms. And each was certain they were right! The Pharisee Party sought to live a diligently law-abiding life, resisting the lure of secularity, guided by tradition, rooted in founding principles. The Sadducee Party integrated more fully with the culture, adapting and collaborating, their faithfulness more eclectic, more realistic they argued. The Essene Party divorced itself from the culture which they viewed as corrupt and contaminating, living a rough and rustic separatist life. Finally the Zealot Party was ideological home to revolutionaries, amassing caches of arms, awaiting a right moment for a military uprising.
Jesus seemed Essene-like when we prayed alone or sought retreat with a handful of others, or Pharisee-like when he declared that the law must be uncompromised. He seemed Zealot-like as he brandished a whip of cords and overturned the moneychanger’s tables, or Sadducee-like when he healed a Roman centurion’s son or healed the daughter of a foreign woman. He said to each party, “You’re right . . . in part.” But he stated just as boldly that each party’s position and faith-practice, offered as absolute and superior, was relative and flawed. “And you’re wrong . . . in part.”
Democrats and Republicans, liberals and conservatives, independents and libertarians . . . you’re right . . . in part! You have insights worthy of consideration, policies that make contribution, values and principles to honor and appreciate – each and all. But your truth is incomplete. And your arrogance, pretence to absolute rightness, exclusion of the viewpoints of others is destructive. It is time for ideological both/and, collaborating not competing. As Van Jones loves to put it, “It is time for velcro, for lego” for mixing and matching, for connecting and combining.
What did happen to civility, to bi-partisanship, to legislative collaboration? “St. Anthony, St. Anthony, please come ‘round; something’s been lost that must be found!”
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