insanity is politics as usual

Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results cautioned Albert Einstein.

I'd like to propose to you this morning, in my very short window, that politics as usual is insanity.

During this election season, we'll hear promises from the right and from the left and from everyone in between. We'll hear that government is bad and that government is good. We'll hear that taxes are too high and that taxes are too low. We'll hear that he's right and he's moderate and he's wrong. That his proposal or program or policy or philosophy is spot on or far off. We'll hear that a vote for him will change the course of America, and the world, forever.

This morning I propose that all of these political commentaries are only a glimpse of a grander narrative.

Throughout human history we've seen nations rise and fall; some by foreign force, some by civil war. Kings and queens have ascended and descended the throne. Dictators have captured power and squandered it away. Some nations conquered by war, as when Alexander the Great ruled Greece and established one the largest empires the world has known. Some men were defeated from within, as when Brutus and Roman senators betrayed and assassinated Julius Caesar, one of Rome's most famous and powerful emperors. The royal thrones of England and France and Spain no longer lead missions to colonize the world. Some regimes were expelled by a revolution of its populous, seen in Egypt just last year.

The best and the worst of them have come and gone.

The Republic of Rome, Nazi Germany, the British Monarchy. Napoleon, Abraham Lincoln, Ronald Reagan, Saddam Hussein.

What was the common denominator of these political regimes, these world powers, these leading figures? They were fleeting human institutions. The Psalmist wrote of this stark reality, "Don't put your confidence in powerful people; there is no help for you there. When they breathe their last, they return to the earth, and all their plans die with them."

You see, the grandest plans, the most ambitious policies, the most powerful men, they are small solutions to a grander problem. All the kings men and all the kings horses can't put Humpty Dumpty together again. There is something terribly wrong with humanity.

A quick recap of human history shows that despite man's best political plans, poverty and corruption and greed and murder and pain still exist. Dictators and presidents and Caesars and mayors have lived and governed and died yet wars are still waged even after the war to end all wars. Malaria still kills hundreds of thousands of people per year. I don't have time to list our own national, state and local concerns. In the final analysis, man can not broker world peace or heal the world's diseases or end local crime sprees.

So what then, am I suggesting we throw up our hands and throw in the towel? Do we live in apathy, lower our expectations and abandon all hope?

I respond with a resounding NO. I don't suggest we become disconnected and walk away from our duties as citizens of a great democracy.  Afterall, the famous quote is true, "The only thing necessary for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing". As people of the greatest country ever established, we each have a role and a responsibility to do good.

However, what I wish to remind myself and others of is that today's political discourse must be taken with a grain of salt. The expectation that politics alone is the key to economic recovery or social justice or world peace must be reconsidered in light of its historical reputation. Political remedies are fleeting, here today and gone tomorrow.  Politics must be appreciated in its proper context within the grander narrative of human history.

Fortunately, in contrast, there were ancient writers who foretold of a promised kingdom to come, one that would never end nor be destroyed. One that we could hope on.

Indeed, that kingdom began its invasion nearly two thousand years ago at the most significant event in human history. We mark our calendar by it. Today is September 24, 2012 anno domini, Latin for "in the year of our Lord." Yes, I believe the contrast to man's noble, yet feeble, political efforts to bring justice and peace to the world lies in the story of the one called Christ.

As a young Jewish rabbi, Jesus was asked what he thought of all this political rhetoric. He replied, "Give unto Caesar what is Caesar's" and later He said to the Roman governor who was to sentence Him to death, "You would have no power at all unless it were given to you from above." You see, Jesus understood the contrast between man's institutions and the one He was inaugurating; His was a kingdom that was from above. We all know his prayer, "Our Father, may your Kingdom come, on earth, as it is in Heaven."

In summary, the carol rings true, His kingdom is the good news that will bring peace on earth and goodwill to men.

I conclude that the contrast between that heavenly kingdom and man's politics highlights the difference between eternity and insanity.