Nov. 6 column -Minor Prophets and Anxious times

I was visiting our eldest daughter in Austin, TX this week. She was busy at work, so I had some time to work on my book on the Minor Prophets/ Book of the 12. With that, a column idea was slow to develop. Placed in steerage on the plane back, an idea started to form: merge them. When I arrived, my inbox was filled with suggestions on prayers for the election, but avoiding partisan endorsements.

I have found this to be an utterly dispiriting election. I visited the LBJ museum doing a thunderstorm in Austin and was reminded of a time when people could work across the aisle in courtesy. The book of the 12 intrigued me as a study due to its often diminished set of expectations. Without fail, they are immersed in troubles of various sorts. They look at political and religious leadership with grave disappointment (Micah 3, Hosea 4).

It seemed to the Minor Prophets that it was impossible to get ahead. Haggai 1:6 puts it well: we work and work and are not content or satisfied; it is as if our wages go into a “bag full of holes.”

While our crime rates have fallen dramatically in the last 40 years, violence plagues us. Too many people are not safe within their homes or on the streets. We get herded like cattle through detectors at airports due to terrorist outrages. For the Minor Prophets, violence was a sign of a disordered society. Salvation, in part, was safety and security from its ravages ( Ob v.10,  Jonah 3:8, Hab. 1:1-9).

One of the general areas that divide the political parties is the issue of justice.  The parties divide on this point. One emphasizes justice, and the other is oriented to the individual idea of charity. At this point, my ideal is to hold charity in my left hand and justice in my right hand. Too often, charity provides a temporary bit of help; the problems continue to fester. On the other hand, justice tends toward the abstract, and the individual gets excluded from its lofty pronouncements. Amos speaks for a powerful tradition of justice (5:5:24), and against luxury. . He speaks to the sheer complacency and self-satisfaction that luxury induces in us (ch.4,6). At the same time, helping the needy is crucial (5:12).

We can try to setting up fairness, without giving a person or group a particular edge or impediment. People in similar circumstances should be treated in similar ways. At the same time, if charity can help ease individual predicaments, those basic human needs are crucial. As a pastor I would like to see a social ethic based on Biblical teachings on public life. At the same time, we can scour the secular world for ideas and programs that fit that ethic.  I would then like to see if we could teach methods to put them into practice. As Martin Luther King demonstrated Christian social action does well to engage in a time of fact-finding and analysis and a period of spiritual preparation and discernment.

Most of the Minor Prophets  end on a note of hope. In a time of diminished expectations, these books for the downtrodden rarely end on a down note. They are beyond optimism, as if things move in a march of progress, but keep a vision of a better future. “In that day, the mountains shall drip sweet wine, and  the hills will flow with milk” ( Joel 3:18).Zechariah closes with a vision of continuous day and living waters (14:7-8).

If all goes well, I will do my part to help the electoral process by working in the polls as an election judge again this year. My prayer is for full, free, informed walks to cast ballots to lead us into an uncertain future.