Thank God for the Election - pt 1

I urge, then, first of all, that petitions, prayers, intercession and thanksgiving be made for all people – for kings and all those in authority

2 Timothy 2.1-2

How excited are you about the upcoming election?! I asked this of our Lunch Club people - the response was not enthusiastic. But their response to the question was positively rapturous compared to the response to the question, "And what do you think about our politicians?"

So I want to give two things to give thanks for at this election time and one thing to vote for (we'll just cover the first reason to give thanks today)

Give thanks for our politicians and political leaders

That's what Paul commands Timothy in this letter. His reason is clearer in Romans 13. Authorities have been placed there by God to promote justice. Now it is true that they might be more or less obedient in the discharge of this responsibility, but the fact that they do it at all is good news for us. It is good that every government says that theft and murder is wrong. There may be corruption that means that individuals get off or get wrongly accused, but the principle is maintained. The alternative is truly horrific - anarchy. If the idea of authorites was something to give thanks for in Timothy's town of Ephesus in the Roman Empire, how much more is it true of us and our political parties.

My old vicar, Gary, used to say that at election time, each of the political parties offers us a shopping basket of policies. The items (policies) in each basket have been chosen for us, we have to choose which basket we want. In each basket there are things we like and things we don't - our job is not to find a basket which only has things we like (very unlikely) but to find the one that overall we like best. 

Talking to someone about this illustration, they said, "So it's choosing the better of two evils". But thinking more about it, I realised that for us in the United Kingdom, it is more positive than that. It is really choosing, "the better of several limited options." In all of the political debates, we understandably focus on the differences between the baskets. But it turns out that in the baskets, which we will be offered over the next few weeks, there is a huge amount that is good and is common to all the main parties:

• the rule of law
• the NHS
• universal free education for children
• anti-corruption
• a police force
• freedom of speech
• the freedom of the press
• democracy
• a welfare system
• tolerance
• etc.

There are people in countries around the world, who would be thankful for any of our main political parties and leaders leading them. That is a reason to be even more thankful than Timothy would have cause to be.

more to follow...