Billy Coffey

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November 4

November 3, 2020 by Billy Coffey Leave a Comment

A lot’s happened in my tiny lit­tle life over the past months, not the least of which is that  I’ve be­come in­ter­im pas­tor at the Bap­tist church here in town. Long sto­ry, and I do  plan to get to that here in this space, but I thought it best for now to share my ser­mon  from last Sun­day with a few mi­nor ed­its. Be­cause re­al­ly, we could all use a lit­tle perspec­tive today?  Yeah?  

Yeah.

Every­one ready for to­day?

Every­one dread­ing to­day?

Every­one just pray­ing to­day  will hur­ry up and be over with?

Yeah, me too.  

I like to keep up with what’s hap­pen­ing in our na­tion and in our world. I think that’s  part of be­ing a good cit­i­zen. But it’s so much, isn’t it? There’s just so much in­for­ma­tion  com­ing at us from so many di­rec­tions. And be­cause of that, two things can hap­pen.

One is that with so much in­for­ma­tion com­ing from so many sources, it can get  hard to know what’s re­al­ly true and what’s re­al­ly not.

The oth­er is that we can get sucked right into mid­dle of this riv­er of in­for­ma­tion  and start con­fus­ing what’s im­por­tant in the Chris­t­ian life with what isn’t.  If you lis­ten to the news, if you turn on your TV or your ra­dio or take that phone  out of your pock­et, what you’re go­ing to hear is that it all comes down to Tues­day.  Tues­day is the most im­por­tant day in our his­to­ry. Tues­day de­fines the fu­ture. Tues­day  de­cides every­thing.

There’s a great risk in­volved any­ time a preach­er starts talk­ing about pol­i­tics. The prob­lem with preach­ing about pol­i­tics from the same pul­pit that you preach God’s truth is that it gets aw­ful­ly easy to cheap­en the Bible by bring­ing it down to the same  lev­el as pol­i­tics, or it gets aw­ful­ly easy to make an idol of pol­i­tics by el­e­vat­ing it to the  same lev­el as the Bible. So it’s best to just not talk about pol­i­tics at all, and call it off  lim­its.

But. 

The prob­lem I found with keep­ing silent about what’s on every­one’s mind to­day is  just that — it’s on every­one’s mind today. And let me tell you, I tried find­ing some­thing  else to preach about. Some­thing nice like one of Je­sus’s mir­a­cles, or a Psalm. But it  just didn’t feel right. Not this time. Any preach­er worth his salt should ad­dress what’s  hap­pen­ing in the world. Hon­est­ly, what good is a preach­er who doesn’t ap­ply the Bible to what’s go­ing on in life?

I’ve vot­ed in every elec­tion since George Bush, Sr., and I’ll vote in every elec­tion  for the rest of my life. Vot­ing’s im­por­tant. Vot­ing is a priv­i­lege. But none of you will  ever know who I vote for. Ever. That’s none of your busi­ness.

And un­less you flat-out tell me who you vote for, I won’t ever know that. Be­cause  that’s none of my busi­ness, and be­cause it doesn’t mat­ter any­way. Who you vote for  would nev­er change how much I love you as per­son and as a broth­er or sis­ter in Christ. Pe­ri­od.

The Bible is God’s word to us and for us so that we can know Him and have a blue print for the way we live our lives. But many times, the Bible gives us prin­ci­ples in­stead of an­swers. The Bible is a guide, and all of its wis­dom from Gen­e­sis to Rev­e­la­tion should help form our de­ci­sions per­son­al­ly, so­cial­ly, and po­lit­i­cal­ly. But the Bible nev­er  says vote for this person or that per­son. It just doesn’t.

God says, “Here’s my book. This book is the truth. You read it. You take every­thing that’s there and ap­ply it to your life with the help of My Holy Spir­it. You let this book shape your view of the world, and you pray to Me when you step outside your door, into your work, or into the vot­ing booth, and you’ll al­ways know what to do.”

So I’m not go­ing to talk about to­day be­cause that doesn’t mat­ter.

I don’t care who  you vote for. I only care that you vote. No­vember 3 doesn’t con­cern me at all.

November 4 does.  

Be­cause some­one is go­ing to win this elec­tion, right?

We might not know who that per­son is tonight, but chances are we’ll have a pret­ty  good idea. And if that’s your per­son, you’re go­ing to feel great. You’re go­ing to feel  like a huge bur­den has just been lift­ed off your shoul­ders. You’re go­ing to think that now, fi­nal­ly, we can start putting this hor­ri­ble year be­hind us.

But what if that doesn’t hap­pen? What if the guy you thought was the right choice,  the one who had the wis­dom to guide our coun­try for­ward, the one you knew be­yond  any doubt that God want­ed to lead our na­tion, what if that guy los­es?

What if on No­vember 4 you wake up to the re­al­i­ty that you prayed and prayed wouldn’t hap­pen? 

I looked all through the Bible to find an an­swer to that ques­tion, and there it was  in Joshua. We talked about Joshua a while back, and how God wants us all to cross  our own Jor­dan Rivers. This time we’re go­ing to fo­cus on a mo­ment in his life af­ter that  cross­ing.

Let’s read now to­day’s scrip­ture, Joshua chap­ter 5, vers­es 13-15:

When Joshua was by Jeri­cho, he lift­ed up his eyes and looked, and be­hold, a man  was stand­ing be­fore him with his drawn sword in his hand. And Joshua went to him  and said to him, “Are you for us, or for our ad­ver­saries?”

And he said, “No; but I am the com­man­der of the army of the LORD. Now I have  come.” And Joshua fell on his face to the earth and wor­shiped and said to him, “What  does my lord say to his ser­vant?” And the com­man­der of the LORD’S army said to  Joshua, “Take off your san­dals from your feet, for the place where you are stand­ing is  holy.” And Joshua did so.

And this is God’s holy word.

So, where are we? Joshua has led the Is­raelites into their fu­ture home — a home  that would be de­liv­ered to them by the very hand of God. All the men of Is­rael have been cir­cum­cised. It’s the first time that Joshua’s gen­er­a­tion has been so ded­i­cat­ed  and so unit­ed to God’s pur­pos­es. They’ve cel­e­brat­ed Passover for the first time in the Promised Land. And now they’re ready to face their first chal­lenge — tak­ing the city of  Jeri­cho. There’s go­ing to be a fight here. It’ll be a fight un­like any the world has seen,  but it’s still go­ing to be a fight. A bat­tle.

But be­fore this bat­tle takes place, we get these few vers­es here where Joshua  learns the very same per­spec­tive that some of us are go­ing to need in the com­ing  week. Be­cause Joshua kind of makes a mis­take here, and it’s one we all make. But  then he’s re­mind­ed of the truth, and he re­acts to that truth in a way that both hon­ors God and ce­ments Joshua’s place as Is­rael’s leader.

Let this pas­sage be your guide if come No­vember 4 you think every­thing’s lost and this coun­try is dam­aged be­yond repair. Be­cause if your vote isn’t for the win­ner, we see in these three vers­es how we should re­act, what we should remem­ber, and  what we should do.

First, how we should re­act. 

The Is­raelites are on the plains of Jeri­cho, and they can see those thick, tall city  walls ris­ing into the sky. Those walls were built about 10,000 years ago. Jeri­cho was built on a mound and sur­round­ed by a huge dirt em­bank­ment. At the bot­tom of that  em­bank­ment was a re­tain­ing wall about 15 feet high. On top of that was an­oth­er wall of bricks and mud that were six feet thick and 26 feet high. And at the top of the embank­ment was an­oth­er brick wall with a base that was 46 feet above the ground.  It is the ear­li­est tech­nol­o­gy that sci­en­tists have found for some­thing built pure­ly for mil­i­tary pur­pos­es. Those walls were there for a rea­son — to keep in­vaders out. This was the city that Joshua had to take. And right now, he doesn’t know how he’s go­ing to do it. So he does what a lot of us do when we’re try­ing to fig­ure out the impos­si­ble — he goes for a walk to think about it. That’s what Joshua is do­ing. He’s walking and think­ing. And we know this be­cause at the be­gin­ning of verse 13, we learn  that Joshua lifts up his eyes and looks, and there’s a man stand­ing be­fore him. But not just any man. Verse 13 doesn’t come right out and say it, but it has to be  pret­ty ob­vi­ous to Joshua that the per­son stand­ing be­fore him was more than a man.  Be­cause for one, Joshua has grown up in the desert. He’s not a city boy. He’s a war­rior.  He’s a leader. It’s aw­ful­ly hard to sneak up on some­one like that, but that’s what this  man has done.

And more, this man has a weapon. He has a sword. No­tice the po­si­tion of his  sword. The blade’s not in the scab­bard. It’s drawn. And in those days, a drawn sword had only one pur­pose. The only time you drew your sword was when you were go­ing  to fight.

We get a glimpse into Joshua’s char­ac­ter here. What does he not do? He doesn’t run, doesn’t back down. He stands there like he’s say­ing, “Okay, if you want to fight, I’ll  fight.”

We don’t get a de­scrip­tion of the man stand­ing be­fore him. We’ve seen this person be­fore though, and we’ll get to that in a minute, but there has to be some­thing about him that throws Joshua off. He’s a man in ap­pear­ance, but some­thing more.  Some­thing pow­er­ful. Some­thing dan­ger­ous. So Joshua stands ready. Maybe he puts  his hand on his sword, ready to draw if he has to.

And he asks a ques­tion that’s as old as hu­man­i­ty it­self and as rel­e­vant to the year  2020 as any ques­tion in the Bible —

“Are you for us, or for our ad­ver­saries?”

Now on the face of it, this is a great ques­tion for Joshua to ask. Be­cause the question of whether or not he’s go­ing to fight is about to be solved by what­ev­er the man  an­swers. But it’s also the wrong ques­tion, be­cause even though the man hasn’t told  Joshua ex­act­ly who he is yet, Joshua has to know this is some­one dif­fer­ent, some­one  com­plete­ly un­like any­one he’s ever met. Some­one even not of this world. This is some­one to whom the nor­mal ways that hu­mans think don’t ap­ply.

Here’s ba­si­cal­ly what Joshua’s ask­ing — “Whose side are you on?” Wrong ques­tion. 

But isn’t that the same ques­tion that’s hid­ing un­der the sur­face of near­ly every  choice Amer­i­cans make these days?

Every­thing from the friend­ships we make to the peo­ple we choose to as­sociate with to the news chan­nels we watch and the web­sites we vis­it, it all comes down to that ques­tion, doesn’t it?

We no longer sep­a­rate peo­ple by whether they’re good and de­cent or whether  they’re just trou­ble wait­ing to hap­pen. It’s no longer about what kind of per­son they are, it’s about what kinds of opin­ions they have. And when we hear it like that, we think, “Well, okay, that sounds like a pret­ty un-Chris­t­ian thing to do.”

But we still do it, don’t we? We all do, to the ex­tent that we’re no longer one nation. We’re two sides liv­ing in one land. What’s hap­pened to make things like that? Pol­i­tics has al­ways been a big deal in our coun­try. If you think the past few elections have been bad, take a look at some of our ear­li­est elec­tions in the late 1700s  and ear­ly 1800s. They were terrible. But by and large, peo­ple still got along be­cause  even if they were di­vid­ed by pol­i­tics, they still had the com­mon foun­da­tion of re­li­gion.  Even then our coun­try con­tained many faiths, and even then there were many who  had no religious faith at all. But there re­mained a huge ma­jor­i­ty of the na­tion had at  least a ba­sic be­lief in God and un­der­stood the ba­sic doc­trines of Chris­t­ian faith.

Things be­gan to change af­ter WWII though, when it be­came clear ex­act­ly what  Hitler had done in the Holo­caust. Millions upon mil­lions of Jews slaugh­tered. The hate in­volved in that. The ut­ter dis­re­gard ab­sence of hu­man de­cen­cy. There was only one  word for it — evil.

Peo­ple start­ed won­der­ing how a good and lov­ing God could al­low some­thing like that to hap­pen. That led to a steep increase in athe­ism that took hold in Eu­rope and in Amer­i­can uni­ver­si­ties, and by the 1960s, it was pret­ty much everywhere.

Re­li­gion in this coun­try be­gan to de­crease. By the 1990s, few­er peo­ple were going to church. By the 2000s, few­er peo­ple iden­ti­fied them­selves as Chris­tians. And it’s to the point now where re­li­gion in gen­er­al and Chris­tian­i­ty in par­tic­u­lar no longer has  a cen­tral place in Amer­i­can life. We’ve lost our foun­da­tion, the glue that once held our so­ci­ety to­geth­er.

All of us once had at least that ba­sic faith in com­mon. We don’t any more. 

But here’s the thing — even though re­li­gion is be­ing pushed aside in our coun­try,  we’re all still re­li­gious. As hu­man beings, we’re all built to wor­ship. We can’t help it. It’s  in our DNA. So as or­ga­nized faith de­creased in our coun­try, something had to take its place. And prob­a­bly since the mid-90s, peo­ple have turned to pol­i­tics to fill that gap.  So much so that now, pol­i­tics is re­al­ly our na­tion­al re­li­gion.

We got rid of God, but be­cause we’re made to wor­ship some­thing we still need­ed  a god, and the only thing that came close to the law of God are the laws of man.  The news­cast­ers on CNN and Fox are our prophets. The lead­ers of our politi­cal  par­ties are our mes­si­ahs. Their word is iron.

We can’t dis­agree with any­thing they say, be­cause that would mean be­ing dis­loy­al.

And we can’t be that, be­cause we all have to pick a side.  

When pol­i­tics be­comes re­li­gion, it has to get in every­where. That’s why every­thing is po­lit­i­cal to­day. Every­thing from our tele­vi­sion shows to our mu­sic. Even sports are po­lit­i­cal now. We’ve gone so over­board in mak­ing pol­i­tics our na­tion­al god that we’ve made even a dead­ly virus po­lit­i­cal.

And it’s not just the sec­u­lar folks who live this way. Many Chris­tians and many Chris­t­ian pas­tors make a god of pol­i­tics, too. They stand in their pul­pits and say, “This  is how you have to vote if you’re a be­liev­er in Christ. This is the par­ty you have to belong to, and this is the way you should feel about so­cial is­sues.”

And by do­ing this, what are they re­al­ly say­ing? That our real prob­lem isn’t spir­i­tu­al, it’s po­lit­i­cal, and so the real an­swer doesn’t lay in God, but in pol­i­tics. They say that the only ones who can save us are the ones who think like us, and those are the peo­ple who have to be in pow­er. Be­cause they are the ones who will pro­tect our rights. They are the ones who will keep our na­tion on track.

And why do we think that? Be­cause we be­lieve the peo­ple who need to be in  pow­er, the ones who think like we think, are the ones who think like God. And once  we start giv­ing our­selves over to that kind of think­ing, that’s when Joshua’s ques­tion  be­comes our own — “Who are you for? Us, or them?”

Are you on our side, the side of truth? Or are you on the oth­er side, the side of lies  and de­ceit?  

This is a com­plete­ly new way of see­ing the role of pol­i­tics in the life of a Chris­t­ian.  The New Tes­ta­ment writ­ers didn’t see pol­i­tics this way at all. The New Tes­ta­ment writers knew that if you give any hu­man be­ing enough pow­er, they’ll mur­der the Son of  God. So this idea that Chris­tian­i­ty can be im­proved in any way by a po­lit­i­cal par­ty or a politi­cian goes complete­ly against the grain of the New Tes­ta­ment.

So what’s our first step here if on No­vember 4 you wake up to find your guy has  lost?

It’s to start try­ing to sep­a­rate your­self from the kind of think­ing that made Joshua ask his ques­tion. We can­not sur­vive as a na­tion if we keep see­ing our neigh­bors as en­e­mies. We can­not bridge the di­vide be­tween us if we keep see­ing peo­ple in terms of their worldly opin­ions in­stead of their eter­nal souls. And the first step in get­ting away from that is  to pray.

Pray for our lead­ers, no mat­ter what par­ty they be­long to.  

Paul writes in 2 Tim­o­thy, “I urge, then, first of all, that pe­ti­tions, prayers, in­ter­cession, and thanks­giv­ing be made for all peo­ple, for kings and all those in au­thor­i­ty …  This is good, and pleas­es our God and Sav­ior.”

Get that? All peo­ple. Kings and all those in au­thor­i­ty. Pe­ti­tions, prayers, in­terces­sion, thanks­giv­ing — Paul uses just about every kind of word there is for prayer in say­ing how we should pray for our lead­ers.

And re­mem­ber, Paul wrote these words un­der the reign of Nero, and I prom­ise you that as a man and a politi­cian, Nero was a lot worse than Joe Biden or Don­ald  Trump.

Joshua, though, made an even big­ger mis­take with this ques­tion, be­cause he  didn’t ask, “Are you for us, or against us?” to sim­ply a per­son. He asked it to God. In verse 14, the man stand­ing be­fore Joshua of­fers his name. He’s the com­man­der  of the army of the Lord. There’s an­oth­er name for that — the an­gel of the Lord.  We’ve seen this per­son be­fore, haven’t we? Re­mem­ber Ja­cob all alone in that valley, wrestling with God? Wrestling with the an­gel of the Lord? What did we say about  the an­gel of the Lord? He’s Christ, right? He’s Je­sus be­fore com­ing into this world as a  man.

Joshua is stand­ing be­fore Christ. More than that, Christ is stand­ing be­tween Joshua — who rep­re­sents God’s cho­sen people set apart for the Lord’s own pur­pos­es  — and Jeri­cho, a pa­gan city filled with un­be­liev­ers.

Joshua asks Christ, “Whose side are you on? The good guys, or the bad guys? The ones who know you, or the ones who don’t?” And look at how Christ an­swers him — “No.”

There’s a bet­ter trans­la­tion for that word from the He­brew — “Nei­ther.” Whose side are you on, God? Nei­ther.

Take a minute and let that sink in. Not even Is­rael, God’s cho­sen na­tion, could claim God was com­plete­ly on their side when they were ap­proach­ing Jeri­cho. Why?

Be­cause God doesn’t take sides. 

The most hor­ri­ble pe­ri­od of our na­tion’s his­to­ry was the Civ­il War. If you think  things are bad in this coun­try now, think of 750,000 Amer­i­cans dead just be­cause they went to war against each oth­er. And even though half of our na­tion would have strong­ly dis­agreed at the time, there is no doubt that the man who served as Pres­i­dent dur­ing that war was placed there by God him­self.

There’s a sto­ry that of­ten told in books about Abra­ham Lin­coln. A man approached him dur­ing the height of the war and said, “Mr. Pres­i­dent, we trust dur­ing  this time of tri­al in which the na­tion is en­gaged, God is on our side, and will give us  vic­to­ry.”

Lin­coln, wise as he was, an­swered,

“Sir, my con­cern is not whether God is on our  side. My great­est con­cern is to be on God’s side, for God is always right.”

Lin­coln re­fused to think of the North as en­tire­ly vir­tu­ous and the South en­tire­ly evil. In his sec­ond In­au­gur­al Ad­dress in 1865, he said, “Both North and South read the same Bible and pray to the same God … ” He knew the out­come of that war, what­ev­er  it would be, was in God’s hands. He knew God’s per­spec­tive is not al­ways out perspec­tive be­cause God sees every­thing, and we don’t.

But we don’t get that in this coun­try any­more. Our nat­ur­al ten­den­cy is al­ways to  ask, “Whose side is God on?” when the ques­tion we should be ask­ing is, “Who’s on God’s side?”

How many of us want to be on God’s side? Ra­tio­nal­ly, prob­a­bly all of us. But if  we’re hon­est emo­tion­al­ly, most of us want God to be on our side. We want God to back us up. We want God to think like we do. We want God’s will to line up with our own when we should be pray­ing for our will to line up with His.

So how should you re­act if on No­vember 4, your can­di­date los­es?

Start pray­ing for our pres­i­dent, who­ev­er that may be, and stop ask­ing Joshua’s ques­tion.

Stop ask­ing  that ques­tion about oth­ers, and nev­er, ever ask that ques­tion about God.

Now, what should you re­mem­ber? Look at the sec­ond half of verse 14:

“And  Joshua fell on his face to the earth and worshipped and said to him, ‘What does my  lord say to his ser­vant.’”

There’s our an­swer. What should you re­mem­ber if the wrong per­son wins on Tuesday? That God still sits upon his throne. That you only have one Lord, and our pres­ident — who­ev­er it is — is not him. Your al­le­giance is to heav­en and heav­en alone. That  means you should be in this world but not of it.

Re­mem­ber what Je­sus says here — I’m  not on your side and I’m not on their side, I’m al­ways on my side.

What’s that also mean? Don’t dirty me with your pol­i­tics.  

God’s not a De­mo­c­rat. God’s not a Re­pub­li­can ei­ther. God’s not a lib­er­tar­i­an  or a so­cial­ist or a cap­i­tal­ist be­cause God doesn’t side with us. He ex­pects us to side  with him. 

No one is always right. No po­lit­i­cal par­ty, no ide­ol­o­gy. We’re all part­ly right and part­ly wrong, be­cause God will not fit into any box we try to put him in, and so nei­ther should His peo­ple.

The New Tes­ta­ment doesn’t lay out a de­tailed blue­print for a Chris­t­ian so­ci­ety,  whether a con­ser­v­a­tive one or a lib­er­al one. We only think it does be­cause we only  use those parts of the Bible that we agree with in­stead of us­ing it as a whole.  It does say all life is pre­cious, and we should pro­tect the in­no­cent. Does that mean abor­tion is mur­der and a ter­ri­ble sin? Ab­so­lu­te­ly.

So God says we should all be Repub­li­cans.  

But now hold on, it also says we are to care for the poor and seek jus­tice for the  op­pressed. And there are many places in Acts where the ear­ly church adopt­ed some thing very close to a vol­un­tary form of so­cial­ism.

So God says should all be De­mocrats?  

Conservative Christians say, “Love God”.

Secular liberals say, “Love people.”

God says to both, “You’re right.”

Nei­ther par­ty rep­re­sents the en­tire world­view by which we as Chris­tians should  live. No po­lit­i­cal par­ty only votes God’s way.

Do you see? Je­sus was too big to fit in ei­ther of those lit­tle box­es. He was al­ways moral, he was al­ways lov­ing, he al­ways revered hu­man life, and so he was al­ways in  trou­ble with both the left and the right.

Who were the con­ser­v­a­tive Re­pub­li­cans of Je­sus’s time? The Phar­isees.

Who were  the lib­er­al De­moc­rats? The Sad­ducees.

Those two groups could nev­er agree on any thing. Ex­cept hat­ing Christ.

Maybe that’s how politi­cians on both sides of this coun­try should see us, too. Ours is not a Chris­t­ian na­tion, though we should work to­ward be­ing a na­tion whose Chris­tians are ad­mired as good and true and kind cit­i­zens.  Amer­i­ca is not a shin­ing city on a hill, but we should let our free­dom be an ex­ample for the en­tire world.

The Unit­ed States is not the great­est bless­ing God gave mankind, but it is a na­tion  wor­thy of our sup­port and faith­ful­ness.

What should we re­mem­ber on No­vember 4? That we are cit­i­zens of the City of  God first and the City of Man sec­ond, and we should nev­er con­fuse that or­der.

Fi­nal­ly, what should we do on No­vember 4? It’s right there in the last verse. We  should take off our san­dals.

Look at verse 15.

“And the com­man­der of the Lord’s army said to Joshua, ‘Take off  your san­dals from your feet, for the place where you are stand­ing is holy.’ And Joshua  did so.”

As soon as Joshua re­al­izes who this per­son be­fore him is and that he wasn’t for either side, what’s he do?

He bows. Joshua takes a knee. That’s a sym­bol for sub­mis­sion. And what does Christ re­ply? Take off your san­dals. That’s an­oth­er sym­bol. Joshua stood on holy ground be­cause that was the ground where Christ stood.

This was Joshua’s burn­ing bush mo­ment, and to take off his san­dals was an outward way of show­ing what was go­ing on in­side his heart — Joshua was re­mov­ing all of  his world­ly thoughts, and every bit of pol­lu­tion in his soul.

Joshua bowed down be­fore Christ, be­cause Christ is the only per­son he should  bow down to.  

And Je­sus is the only per­son we should con­form our­selves to, not some po­lit­i­cal plat­form that says some things that, as Chris­tians, we should agree with, and oth­er  things that — ac­cord­ing to the Bible — we shouldn’t agree with but do anyway.

Be­cause that’s how it is, isn’t it? You have to be­lieve it all to be a Re­pub­li­can. You  have to be­lieve it all to be a De­mo­c­rat.

Je­sus says, “You sure about that? Be­cause I gave you two rules — love the Lord with all your heart, and love your neigh­bor as your­self.

That means you have to be  com­mit­ted to racial jus­tice and the poor. That means truth is some­thing that stands above what is true for just you. But one of those is a lib­er­al stance, and the oth­er is  con­ser­v­a­tive.”

Lis­ten to me. No mat­ter who wins on No­vember 3, our job as Chris­tians won’t change be­cause our hope doesn’t change.  

Our hope doesn’t lie in which par­ty has con­trol of our coun­try on Wednes­day, because no mat­ter what par­ty that is, we’re still go­ing to have bad gov­ern­ment, un­wise  gov­ern­ment, and in­ept gov­ern­ment.

That’s why God cares about who you vote for, but God cares a lot more about how you treat those who vote dif­fer­ent­ly than you do.  

COVID-19. Debt. Abortion. Ra­ci­sm. Gay rights. Cli­mate change. Fo­re­ign po­li­cy.  Gov­ern­ment cor­rup­tion. These are the is­sues that de­fine this year’s elec­tion. But these are is­sues that will still be with us on No­vember 4. They’re is­sues that nev­er go away,  be­cause they have their roots in the hu­man heart. The main is­sue we have in Amer­i­ca right now is the main is­sue that’s plagued hu­man­i­ty since the be­gin­ning of time. It’s  sin.

There’s only one per­son who has an an­swer for that, and that per­son will not be our pres­i­dent on Wednes­day.

The world doesn’t need po­lit­i­cal so­lu­tions, it needs Gospel so­lu­tions. We don’t  need the right can­di­date, we need the right Christ. And that’s where we come in.  That’s what we need to be do­ing as Chris­tians.

In the days of Ezra and Ne­hemi­ah, the peo­ple had the huge task of re­build­ing  Jerusalem’s walls. They’d been in ru­ins for over 70 years. And at first the peo­ple be came dis­cour­aged be­cause the job was just so big. It seemed im­pos­si­ble, but God showed them what to do.

He told each per­son to re­build the area just in front of their  house. Just con­cen­trate on what they were sup­posed to be do­ing.  

That’s what we should start do­ing now, no mat­ter who wins. Start do­ing what we  should have been do­ing all along. Start with what’s right in front of you. Quit putting  your faith in a per­son and put it in God. Start pray­ing that who­ev­er wins this elec­tion will fig­ure out how to do things right. Stop be­ing so wor­ried about what every­one else is do­ing, and start con­cen­trat­ing on what God wants you to do.

Be­cause no mat­ter what you hear on the news, no mat­ter what your Face­book feed says, no mat­ter what plays over your ra­dio, who­ev­er wins on Tues­day will not be  the sav­ior of this na­tion. And he won’t be the death of it ei­ther.

And be­cause when you stand be­fore God, his ques­tion to you won’t be who you vot­ed for or what par­ty you be­longed to, but what you did for Him and for those He made.

Filed Under: Politics

Longing for Just Us

June 6, 2020 by Billy Coffey Leave a Comment

image courtesy of photo bucket.com

We’ve just about had it all this year, haven’t we?

A pandemic; a recession; fires; earthquakes; murder hornets; murders of innocent men caught on camera; riots. Jobs have been lost. Families have been broken. Dreams have been put on hold at best, crushed at worst. We all hate each other. Everything is a lie unless it confirms what we knew all along, at which point it’s true, but it’s only true if the people saying it are people we agree with, people who look and talk and act like us. Conservatives are evil. Liberals are evil. The virus is fake. The virus is real. If you wear a mask when you go to the store, you’re doing your part to keep your family and your community safe. If you wear a mask when you go to the store, you’re bowing down to authoritarianism and yielding up your rights.

I’m sure I’ve missed something else, but I’ll stop there.

Adding to that list won’t do anything but add to our collective aggravation. You know what’s going on out there as well as I do. Much like the coronavirus itself, few of us are immune. There are days when it feels like we’re all being pushed right to the edge of something terrible, and we’re clawing at whatever we can to just hang on but we know we can’t hang on much longer. I’ll say that when this nationwide quarantine started, I compared it to 9/11 — a horrible thing we would endure but which would also bring us all together. I believed that. As painful as 9/11 was for those who experienced it, 9/12 was one of the best days in our country’s history. We mourned together. Set aside our differences. Saw one another as neighbors. For a few precious days we were not believers and atheists, right and left, pro-life or pro-choice.

We were just Us.

That hasn’t happened this time, has it? Far from bringing a broken nation together, these past months have only widened the gap between us. We can’t seem to agree on anything anymore.

I make it a point to keep this space somewhat light. Find out the big things hidden in the little things. Usually that means telling you about people I know or people I’ve met, ordinary folks who see life in extraordinary ways. Every writer faces a choice each time he or she sits down to a keyboard or a piece of paper: write something good about how we’re all different, or something great about how we’re all the same. Time and again, I steer myself toward the latter. Because I don’t care who you are or where you live or how you vote or how your skin is colored, you and I are the same in more ways than we’re not. That idea has always been foundational to the way I see the world. Sadly, it seems a lot of people don’t agree.

Somewhere along the line we quit seeing each other as human beings and started seeing them as their opinions.

We’ve forgot that people are precious, valuable not for what they believe but simply because they exist. 

I wish I had a story this week. Nothing would make me happier than to tell you of some good ol’ boy I ran into at the store, or share a story from my childhood, or relay what some of the kids are doing around the neighborhood. I don’t have any of that. All that’s left to me this week is mourn what we’ve become, and maybe that’s a good start.

Maybe mourning is the only way we’ll ever change.

Filed Under: conflict, COVID19, fear, grief, judgement, justice, life, perspective, Politics, Uncategorized

Honor and Integrity

May 15, 2020 by Billy Coffey Leave a Comment

image courtesy of photobucket.com

I still talk to people.

Or maybe it’s more accurate to say people still talk to me, since I’m most often doing a greater amount of listening than speaking, which is where the ideas of most of these stories begin. It’s harder now, of course. Hard to have a conversation when you’re six feet away from the person you’re trying to communicate with. And I won’t even get into the difficulties involved in talking through a mask.

Still, it’s rare that I seek anybody out in order to write something. I’ve always just tried to keep my eyes and ears open and trust that a story will come to me. But that’s not the case this time. This time, I went out looking for somebody. I needed some answers.

Take a drive in my little town and you’ll likely get a very small picture of what’s going on most everywhere else. People are like that, I think — they grow up and live in one place or another, and I have no doubt that place shapes them like few things can, but at the bottom we’re all the same no matter where we call home.

And here in my little town, people are getting tired.

Tired of staying home. Tired of worrying every time they go to the store. Tired of not working, tired of having their lives on hold. Stop anywhere for even just a few minutes, and you’ll find that far from this virus bringing us together, it’s dividing us even more than we were a few months ago.

There are the folks who stay home because that’s what they call right, and the folks who go out because that’s what they call right. Ones who wear a mask every time they leave the house, and ones who say wearing a mask is about the worst thing you can do for a whole host of reasons. This whole mess is just one more flaw in a flawed world, or it’s a sign of something sinister in the flawed hearts of politicians.

If I scroll through my social media feeds (something I put strict limits on, by and way, especially now) the divide is even more apparent. We’re all gonna die if we’re not careful, or we’re all gonna die if we keep giving up our rights.

It’s true, it’s fake. I believe, I don’t believe. I’m right, you’re evil.

I read an article the other day that suggested a lot of this comes down to moral exhaustion. We’re all tired of not only thinking we’re going to get sick, but we’re going to somehow get the people we love sick, too. And if I’m honest, I’ll say I’m starting to worry about a whole lot more than a virus that can kill you. I’m starting to worry if we’ll ever be able to agree on anything again.

Which is why I drove out to the edge of town the other day to look for Eli. I’ve known Eli and his family for most of my life, sharing a common if distant ancestry. My mother was Amish growing up, and then Mennonite, which is kind of the same thing but not really. Eli has remained Amish, along with his wife, their six children, and enough grandchildren and great-grandchildren to fill up a church.

There are times when I’ll turn to my more earthly kin for a little perspective on things. Then there are times when only the Amish will do. Times like this one, when I needed someone who generally lived apart from society to tell me what in the world was going on with society. We sat on his back porch (six feet apart and masked) along with the birds and the sunshine. I asked Eli if he knew what was going on out there in the world. He did. He nodded and stroked his beard when I said it was getting a little hard to know what to do. Then he let out a quiet

“Mmmm” and held up one gnarled hand.

“Honor,” he said. He kept that one raised and lifted the other. “Integrity.”

I think Eli meant for that to be it. Lesson over. But I’ve never been a very good student.

“I don’t get it,” I said.

“Mmmm. Honor,” he said again, shaking his right hand. “Integrity,” again, shaking the other.

“You’re gonna have to help me out a little more here, Eli.”

“That’s your choice.”

“Always thought they were pretty much the same.”

He looked at me in a way that said if he was allowed to take the Lord’s name in vain, he would.

“We live by honor,” he told me. “Was a time when most others did as well. Not your father’s time. Your grandfather’s, maybe.

Now it is integrity. Everything is integrity.”

“Doesn’t sound so bad.”

“Mmmm. Who am I?”

I sat there trying to figure if that was a trick question. “Eli.”

“What am I?”

“A man.”

“Mmmm.”

“That sound you keep making a sign of disgust, Eli?”

“What else am I?” He asked.

“A father. Grandfather. Great-grandfather.”

“What else?”

“I don’t know. Farmer. Deacon. Amish.”

He waved his fingers at me like that was enough. “I am Eli,” he said. “I am a father, grandfather, and great-grandfather. I am a farmer and a deacon. I am Amish. I am all of those things, but honor says I am all of those things before I am Eli. Honor says I tend to these needs before I tend to my own wants. Why? Because I am a part of something greater than me. A family, a community, a faith. See?”

Starting to.

“You,” he said, and then he pointed — at me, I guess, but also everyone like me, “you say I am a father and grandfather and great-grandfather. You say I am a farmer and a deacon and Amish, but you say I am Eli first. I am a person with rights that will not be taken and freedoms that will not be curtailed no matter the reason.

Because I am an individual, and only that matters — me, Eli. See?”

Yes.

“I wear this mask not to keep me safe, but my Sarah. We stay home not to keep ourselves safe, but our children and grandchildren and great-grandchildren. We share food and what money we can to those who have less. We pray for them before we pray for ourselves, because that is what we do. Because I will die. Soon, I think.

And then I will stand before a Lord who will not say to me, ‘What did you do for Eli?’ but ‘What did you do for others?’”

That was two days ago. Normally when I come across a story, I’ll jot some notes down in my notebook, write it all up, and then throw those notes away. But those notes are still sitting here on my desk, and I think that’s where they’ll stay.

Honor or integrity. I think that’s the choice all of this comes down to.

And I don’t know about you, but I’m fearful of the choice we’re all about to make.

Filed Under: COVID19, faith, freedom, honor, integrity, judgement, perspective, Politics, quarantine, Uncategorized

Washing away the mess we make

July 1, 2016 by Billy Coffey 2 Comments

OuterBanks16 1

I stand upon a sliver of land off the North Carolina coast that I call home for one week a year, looking at what has been written in the spot of sand at my feet.

For seven years now, this spot has been my special place. All the information I need to navigate my day can be found right here without use of a screen or wifi, without any device at all.

Here, the tanagers and mockingbirds are my alarm clock. Deer move silent along narrow trails cut among the sea oats, calling the weather by the way their noses tilt to the air. Dolphins dance for their breakfast, twirling and slapping their tails in the calmness beyond the breakers, telling me when it is time to cast a line among the waves.

Yet while solitude here is plentiful, I am reminded that I have not wholly left all things behind.

There are others here as well, a family far down along the beach, a man patrolling the dunes, who have come to this place in search of the very comfort I crave.

I tend to study these others with the same sort of fascination I give to the constellations that shine over these deep waters at night, or the cockles and welks I pick up from sandbars that rise up and then fade in the changing tides. A trip through our tiny parking lot reveals that many who have answered the ocean’s siren call have traveled quite far—Ohio, Michigan, even Idaho. We are all travelers here. As such, friendliness presents itself as a thing ably given, but only with the unspoken expectation that all parties will be allowed to return to their own families, their own lives, in short order.

Umbrellas pop up along the beach in the early morning as though the sand has broken out in a multi-hued pox, each widely spaced so as to neither intrude nor interfere: islands on an island. This partition extends even into the ocean, where one is expected not to stray from the invisible line stretched outward from one corner of your square of beach to the next. If one does, should the waves you jump over or ride atop carry you in front of where your neighbors sit reading Dean Koontz and sipping glasses of wine bought at the island’s only Food Lion, your fun must be paused until you stand and fight your way back across the current to where you belong.

I’m unsure whether this need for boundaries is expressed unconsciously or with intent—if it speaks toward a desire to allow others their own attempt at peace and renewal, or if it rather tells of a deep-seated wariness toward short-term neighbors.

Hillary4prisonBut a little bit ago I took a long walk along the shore, and now I think I have that answer. Here among the piles of scallop shells and oysters and augurs, HILLARY FOR PRISON 2016 has been written into the sand. Not far down comes BERNING FOR NC. Then, TRUMP’S FIRED ’16. Each carved by a different finger or big toe, each thus far saved from the encroaching tide but not by the vandalisms of others.

I thought of two things as I stood by each of those pronouncements, and how those pronouncements had been scrawled at with such rage. One is that we can leave our problems and cares at home for a short while but not our divisions. The other is that increasingly, our divisions are becoming worse and angrier.

This in itself is nothing new; our country has always been an angry one. But our collective mood has changed these last years in such a way that it now feels more a souring that hangs between us all. Our rage and distrust has gone from a thing—the government, the economy—to a person—the hated Other who dares not believe as we believe.

It is a depressing thing, really. And to be honest, it is also the very thing I wanted to get away from for a few days. But here I am yet again, a neutral witness to a raging culture war, and it saddens me as much as I’m sure it does you. It saddens me a lot.

I’m only glad I’m out here alone with only the pipers and gulls. Should the Hillary supporter, Bernie person, and Trumpster meet, there may be violence. That’s where things have arrived at now, or at least where things are headed. And I’m willing to say that’s why even here this year, everyone mostly keeps to themselves. Because we’re all tired of it, all the fighting. Because we all just want a break from the notion that we’ve come to associate the opinions and stances of others with their entirety as people, and from the ugly truth that we have somehow gone from mere disagreement with those who think other than us, to wariness, to distrust, to blame, and now, finally, to hate.

I am a writer. That term is a broad one, though I’ve found its job description narrow enough to fit inside a single sentence: Every time you sit to work, try to tell the story of us all.

Thankfully, that story has been fairly easy to come by for most of my life. Lately, though, it’s gotten a bit harder. Diversity is the magic word now, just as the celebration of all that makes us different has in certain circles become our national religion. And while that might be right and good, I’ve found that celebrating of differences often casts aside all those things that makes us the same.

Like you, I don’t know where we’re going as a country. Like you, I’m worried about it. If the recent tragedy in Orlando speaks of a single thing, it isn’t that there are those who would focus upon the weapon a terrorist used rather than the ideology behind why he used it, or that it is far too easy for a sick man to purchase an instrument of war. To me, Orlando says that we have reached a point now where we can no longer even come together to mourn.

But I’ll leave you with this. That family I saw far down the beach made their way past me a little bit ago. Dad, mom, and two little kids. They did not avoid me as they passed, did not take the easier path toward the dunes to walk around me. The father did not look at me as though I were some potential threat, nor did his children glare at me with Stranger Danger eyes. Instead, the mother smiled and offered me a sand dollar they’d found just up the beach. The kids wanted to see my tattoo. And the dad, grinning, merely said, “How ya doin’, buddy?”

And you know what? I’m doing fine. I am.

OuterBanks16 2Because I nodded and said as much to that beautiful family and then left all that scribble in the sand for the tide to wash away. I walked on as they walked on, all of us looking out toward the ocean with the breeze in our faces and the smell of salt filling our lungs, thinking much the same: in spite of the mess we are prone to make of things, ours is still a beautiful world.

Filed Under: conflict, emotions, encouragement, messes, perspective, Politics, vacation, writing

Refusing to toe the line

March 1, 2016 by Billy Coffey Leave a Comment

It’s Super Tuesday here in Virginia, otherwise known as A Day Off to my kids and Parent/Teacher Conference Day to my wife. Me, I’m already in line down at the church at the end of our street, waiting to cast my vote. And no, I ain’t saying who that vote’s for.

I will, though, tell you what’s on my mind:

Image courtesy of Wikimedia.com

The picture to your right was taken in October 1938 in the city of Eger, in what is now the Czech Republic. Germany had just invaded. Stormtroopers were marching in. I want you to particularly notice the third woman from the left.

Hitler, of course, didn’t do all of this alone. Germany was still in shambles a decade after the first World War. The Treaty of Versailles had forced the country to admit sole responsibility for causing the entire conflict. Traditional German territory was lost. A War Guilt clause was enacted, forcing Germany to repay millions of dollars in damages. Military restrictions were enabled. I would imagine it was a hard time to call oneself German. Hard to look at yourself in the mirror and call yourself a man or a woman.

So when a failed painter came along promising a strong government, full employment, civic order, and a reclamation of national pride, people flocked. When the Nazi propaganda poured forth, they cheered. And when Hitler eliminated all opposition and declared himself dictator, they pledged their allegiance.

Even now, almost seventy years after the fall of Nazi Germany, better minds than mine struggle to understand how an entire country could be brainwashed by such evil. I won’t try to add my opinion to that discussion other than to say that I suppose the fear of Hitler held just as much sway in the minds of the German people as his fiery words. Many bought into the notion of an Aryan paradise, to be sure. But many others didn’t and simply thought the prudent thing was to keep their heads down and do as they were told.

Which brings us to this picture:

image courtesy of wikimedia.com

It was taken in 1936 during a celebration of a ship launching in Hamburg, Germany. Hitler had been Chancellor of Germany for three years and already abolished democracy. German factories were rearming the country after a disastrous World War I. In three years, that country would invade Poland and plunge the world into the deadliest war in human history. Over fifty million people would perish.

The man circled was named August Landmesser. I don’t know much about him other than the fact that he’d already been sentenced to two years of hard labor. His crime? Marrying a Jew. You would think getting into that much trouble would change your attitude and convince you to toe the line.

Not so. Because there was August, standing in a sea of Germans on that day in 1936, folding his arms in front of him while everyone else Hiel Hitlered.

I don’t know what became of August Landmesser. I like to think he outlived the evil that befell his land and lived to a happy old age with his wife. Maybe that’s exactly what happened. Maybe not. But regardless, August was my kind of guy.

He refused to bow down to fear. He held strong against public pressure.

I would imagine some of the men around him in that picture bought into the evil Hitler was peddling. I would imagine some didn’t but saluted anyway. Not August.

August stood strong. Not by fighting and not by protesting, but for simply folding his arms. And for that, he has my undying admiration.

Anger, it seems, is everywhere now. So far as I can tell, it is the single force driving the coming election on both sides and the reason a great many of my townspeople got up so early this morning. We are fed up. Sick of how things are. Tired of the politicians and the ruling class and that great swath of Washington, D.C. that insulates itself and has no idea what’s going on Out There. Kick the bums out. Blow it all up. Take back the country. I’m willing to bet there are a whole lot of people out there who will do as a buddy of mine said a few minutes ago—“I get in there and pull that lever, I’m gonna do it with my middle finger.”

I’ve seen some mighty things done because someone somewhere got mad enough to change something. Just as I know some of the darkest times in history were the result of a people channeling all of their fear and anger into a savior who turned out to be a devil.

Our leaders can’t save us, folks. That’s up to me, up to you.

Don’t believe me, ask August.

Filed Under: choice, conflict, control, courage, patriotism, Politics

A nation at war

June 29, 2015 by Billy Coffey 3 Comments

image courtesy of photo bucket.com
image courtesy of photo bucket.com
Now comes the growing notion that we are at war, a phrase I’ve heard from more than a few these last days. A war fought not with guns and planes but words and ideas, the territory our hearts rather than battlefields. And though both sides cannot agree on much, there is an accord that this war contains both a “good” and a “bad” and that one is either on one side or the other—in this fight, there can be no spectators.

Nor can there be hesitation. If you disagree with a man’s right to marry a man or a woman’s right to marry a woman, if you do not believe that a Confederate battle flag is something akin to a Klansman’s hood, then your side is already chosen. Silent introspection is tantamount to cowardice, and for these things the punishment is to be thrown in league with the -ics and -ists. We are branded with the very thing that is now looked upon with contempt—a label.

I haven’t figured out why it’s gotten this way, or if “this way” is really just the way it’s always been. I’m still thinking things through. That’s what we should all be doing now. Not picking fights, not turning to the nearest social media platform to scream and blather. Think.

For instance:

I do not think anyone has a right to be happy. Live even a tiny amount inside this world and you will discover just how impossible and fleeting such a belief to be. This life was not built for happiness, but for the pursuit of it—for each of us to strike out into our days and search for meaning and beauty and purpose. The pursuit of happiness, yes, that is our right. And does that mean same-sex marriage should be legal? I don’t know. Perhaps. Is same-sex marriage and a homosexual lifestyle a sin? Maybe. But if homosexuality is a sin, that makes them like you and me in every way. Like everyone. It doesn’t matter to which sex you find an attraction, we’re all broken. We’re all the same.

The issue with the Confederate flag is an easier one for me. You see them here, flying from rusting poles in the front yards of the mountain folk or billowing from the beds of muddy 4x4s driven by teenage boys. To be honest, the sight of it has always made me uncomfortable. I know its history, and how in the years following the Civil War it was adopted by those who wished to keep down those who should have always been raised up. But I know this as well—I am a proud Southerner. The region of the country does indeed hold many of our nation’s sins, but it holds much more of its graces. I know good men died on both sides of that great national wound, men of courage, godly men. I will tell you that racism exists here, but no more and no less than in any northern city.

I suppose in all of this, what I would like to know is where the line is now that we cannot cross. It seems to me that’s an important thing to consider, for me and for everyone. Because there has always been a line, hasn’t there? A mark upon the boundary of our society’s forward progress that we gauge as that place where, if trampled upon, we risk losing some special part of ourselves. I’d like someone to tell me where that line now rests. I get nervous when it isn’t there, when no idea of constraint is apparent. Jut this morning I read an article from a respected news source calling for the acceptance of polygamy, a notion that has in the last years begun to take hold. Another article extolled the plight of pedophiliacs who now feel left out of this cultural shift, their reasoning being that they can no less alter the object of their sexual attractions than can homosexuals. I wonder how many who support gay marriage would support the legalization of these as well, and if not, what reasons they would offer. Is polygamy the line now, or will that too be crossed? Is it incest? But how many do you suppose would be in favor of that, assuming both parties to be consenting adults? Is not love the most vaunted of emotions now? Does not love trump all?

And of course things have not stopped with the removal of the Confederate flag from state grounds. Chain stores and online retailers have taken up that very mantle, refusing to offer them for sale to private citizens. My own Commonwealth has halted the issue of license plates bearing the seal of Sons and Daughters of the Confederacy. Now there is talk of expanding things further, changing the names of schools and public buildings that bear the names of Lee and Jackson and Stuart and Davis. I’ve even read that some are considering a petition to dismantle the Jefferson monument. Chuckle though you might, what of that other flag bearing stars and bars that has presided over so much bloodshed? What of our country’s own banner to which we stand at parades and ballgames and pledge our allegiance?

Tell me, please: where is the line? Or are we so intent to race forward that we no longer care if there is a line at all? Are the limits of society now -ics and -isms themselves?

I’d like to know. We’re supposed to be at war, you see. And I’m more than a little worried. Because no matter the cause or the combatants and no matter whether the spoils are blood or ideas, the first casualty of any war is always truth.

Filed Under: ancestry, anger, attention, choice, conflict, judgement, messes, perspective, Politics

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