Ramble for Kirwan Uniting Church Keeping in Touch pew sheet 1 May 2022

Our postal ballot forms turned up yesterday, a further reminder, if one were needed, that there’s a Federal election coming up. So I’ve dusted off a Ramble from three years ago. Then, I was at Synod as the results came in. This time, Synod will have ended a few days before the Election.

 

So, how should a Christian vote?  God be praised, we don’t live in a theocratic Catholic or Eastern Orthodox country where clerics tell us for whom we should cast our ballot, nor in the American bible belt where voters are urged bizarrely to vote for the most unbliblicalne’er-do-wells imaginable. You’re an educated subset of the electorate, you can make up your own minds. But HWJV? How would Jesus vote? Romans 11 and 1 Corinthians 2 ask, “Who has known the mind of the Lord?”, so it’s presumptuous to say HWJV. But He and the OT writers have left some tips.  Matthew 10 “Heal the sick”. Is my favoured candidate from a party with a good track record in this regard?  Matthew 25: “For I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me.” Does this sound like my candidate’s party?  Leviticus 19: When a stranger sojourns with you in your land, you shall not do him wrong. You shall treat the stranger who sojourns with you as the native among you, and you shall love him as yourself, for you were strangers in the land of Egypt: I am the Lord your God.” Does my candidate’s party remember that we were all strangers in Australia as recently as a couple of hundred years ago?  Is my candidate’s party likely to search for the Peace on Earth which the angels declared at Christ’s birth?  Does my candidate’s party agree with the psalmist (Ps 24) that “The earth is the Lord's and the fullness thereof, the world and those who dwell therein, for he has founded it upon the seas and established it upon the rivers.”.  Are God’s earth, seas and rivers in safe hands? Is my candidate’s party free from the accusation in Psalm 52, “You love evil rather than good, falsehood rather than speaking the truth.”?

 

And whoever is our next PM, pray for him or her!

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