Our Stories
Hope and Change
By Mark Lanum | posted 11/20/2008
"I planted the seed, Apollos watered it, but God made it grow. So neither he who plants nor he who waters is anything, but only God, who makes things grow." (1 Corinthians 3:6-7)
During the recent election we heard a lot about a couple of big ideas: hope and change. Where I work – the University of Washington – these two went hand in hand. People were hoping for a change and specifically, that Democrats would replace Republicans. But politics aside, the thing I found most interesting about this was how incredibly invested people were in individual candidates and in particular, Barak Obama. By the way they talked, one was led to believe that if Obama became president, the economy would immediately turn around, global warming would instantly be reversed, and world peace would be achieved. Heck, they'd lead you to conclude that perhaps he would even cure cancer, bring the Sonics back to Seattle and help us all lose 15 pounds! I found it endlessly interesting, and yet also troubling that people would put so much hope in another human being.
But lest you think this is only a left-leaning phenomenon, I recall the first time I witnessed such over-investment in a leader. Back on election night in 1996, I was at an all church dinner. Folks began to arrive as the polls were closing across the country and it was becoming readily apparent that Bill Clinton was going to be re-elected. The talk around the tables that night would've led you to believe that Satan himself had just been elected. I remember people saying things like, "Our country is going to hell in a hand basket!" and, "God will punish us for this." The general consensus seemed to be that because the Republican candidate had lost, that all hope was lost too. I found it all rather disturbing then, and I have found it disturbing every election since.
Having been raised in the church, I have even seen over-investment in leaders extended to pastors as well. Perhaps you, too, have known people who were more loyal to the pastor, than they were to the congregation, or to even Christ himself. This is in the back of my mind as I serve on the Pastor Search Team. It's tempting to fall into the trap of believing that once a new pastor is installed, all of our woes will go away. It's easy to think that the arrival of he or she will make everything fine and that they will lead Creekside on into a glorious future. But such over-investment would most certainly be misplaced at best, and prove a detriment to a new pastor and our congregation at worst.
So why do we do this to ourselves? Why do we place so much hope in another human being to lead us out of the troubles we find our country, our church or ourselves in? Isn't that at the very core of our problems to begin with? At the beginning of Steven Curtis Chapman's song, Heaven in the Real World, there is a quote from Chuck Colson:
"Where is the hope? I meet millions who tell me that they feel demoralized by the decay around us. Where is the hope? The hope, that each of us have, is not in who governs us, or what laws are passed, or what great things that we do as a nation. Our hope is in the power of God working through the hearts of people. And that's where our hope is in this country; that's where our hope is in life."
As Christians, our hope is not to be in whether or not our preferred political candidate is elected. We do not need to rejoice or despair over the results. As members of Creekside, our hope should not come from whether or not a new pastor is a good speaker, a visionary, a strong manager or anything else. We are to draw strength from the promise that God will make us better by making us like Christ. We invest ourselves and our hope, not in political leaders or pastors, but in the only who can truly save us. Our hope is in the fact that the greatest leader who ever was will one day raise us from the dead and lead us on into an eternal future with Him.
So as we move toward the inauguration of a new president, and as we move through this season of searching for and identifying a new pastor, let us bear in mind that these are not our savior - Jesus Christ is. Let us put our hope and trust in Him and him alone.
To respond to this message, email Mark at marklanum@gmail.com.
