At a House Fellowship meeting, the leader raised a poser for members to address: On the same day that you received your letter of admission to the seminary to train as a pastor, the governor of your state also nominated you as his Commissioner for Works. As a believer, which of the two opportunities will you pursue?
Members struggled to wrap their heads around the rationale for the question. A commonly held view is that politics is a dirty game. Therefore, there’s hardly a good reason to choose it over preaching. But politics is also a noble vocation with real consequences for the lives of real people.
One obvious answer is that one will need to pray about the matter and let God make the choice. However, this approach does not adequately address the question: which of these opportunities will you choose? Rather it postpones the day of answering till after prayer. It is the path that many of us take when faced with a dilemma. For the faithful, it is inevitable, based on the assurance that God will make His choice known one way or the other in a timely fashion. It was the approach suggested by one of the members at the House Fellowship.
A second member analysed the question from another angle. As a professional with vast knowledge in public work management, he knew exactly that if he were to face this dilemma, he would take it as God’s calling upon him directly to take up the job of Commissioner for Works. Otherwise, why would this position be available and offered to him if not for God’s determination to use him to promote the good of his creatures here on earth? Without little or no skills in preaching compared with professional expertise in public work, it was clear what God would have him choose.
In response to the fellow member’s position, he was reminded that the question posed noted that the person applied for admission to the seminary. Therefore, even if he or she had very low skills or none in pastoring, choosing the seminary was bound to improve the skill level needed to succeed.
A third contribution queried the presupposition of a dichotomous relationship between politics and preaching and sought to break down the artificial boundary between the two. It was an ambitious attempt, especially in view of the well-conceived notion of the separation of church/mosque and state.
Yet as valid as this notion is, it was different from the concern of the participants at the House Fellowship meeting.
The third attempt was to make this point forcefully and to argue that both pastoring or preaching and serving as commissioner in a political system are activities in the vineyard of God. When both are conscientiously undertaken, they can promote the good of God’s creation. But, when either of the activities is motivated by the worst of ego, they can undermine the purpose of God.
To pursue this idea further, we may approach the subject from two angles: spiritual and secular. From the spiritual angle, every believer starts from the premise that God’s creative endeavour has a purpose, namely to promote as much good as possible for his creatures. Therefore, as we were taught from the cradle, God sets up the machinery for the promotion of the good by revealing himself to individuals specially chosen as interpreters of his message. These individuals convey to the rest of God’s creatures what is required of them to maximise the amount of good for his people. But in addition, God also prescribes that everyone be assigned responsibilities for the management of the affairs of the society.
The work of creation is itself a good lesson in teaching by example. If everyone must contribute something to the affairs of the society, coordination is inescapable and some must be in charge. At its idealistic best, this is what politics is about. Therefore, from this angle, politics has a divine origin, or at least a divine sanction. Whether, therefore, I choose pastoring or commissioning, I am doing the bidding of God by furthering his purpose. I only need to do whatever I choose conscientiously and with the fear of God.
Now, assume that you are not one to embrace spirituality at the expense of rationality; there is also a secular premise to the same conclusion. Forget about creation and embrace the Big Bang. The universe just came about randomly and we all found ourselves in one corner of it, with everyone engaged in various kinds of activities, some innocuous, some dangerous. With the passage of time and the consequences of uncoordinated egoistic activities playing out and jeopardising our individual and collective interests, we put on our thinking caps, summoning our rational faculties to action.
Shortly, we came up with a workable solution that adopted some control mechanisms to limit our freedoms with the prospect of promoting our interests. We resolved to create social institutions including, among others, religion and politics, which from different directions establish control systems that put us in check. The ultimate purpose of both was to promote the greatest amount of good. To achieve this, we further created functions and assigned responsibilities to individuals, some as clerics, including imams and bishops; others as clerks, artisans, educators, home makers; yet others as presidents, governors, law enforcers, security agents, and yes, commissioners.
From both secular and spiritual perspectives, the commissioner is as useful as the pastor and there is no good reason to discriminate against either.
The third contributor then moved the discussion from the realm of the abstract to the abode of the concrete. He suggested, using the case of Vice-President Yemi Osinbajo and the choice that he faced in 2014, that one can serve God’s purpose and fulfill one’s destiny from a variety of settings. A pastor of the Redeemed Christian Church of God, Professor Osinbajo was nominated as the running mate of General Buhari. Should he accept the nomination and give up his pastoral service? Or should the nomination be construed as God’s will to use him for the furtherance of his purpose for humans in this corner of the world? There was no doubt that Osinbajo prayed about his options. There was also no doubt that he sought the counsel of the General Overseer.
In view of the overall positive assessment of his performance as Vice-President, no one can reasonably deny that Professor Osinbajo is God’s chosen vessel for the job. More importantly, it leads to the conclusion that God does not discriminate between the various vocations and he can use any of them for his purpose. After all, God works in mysterious ways, his wonders to perform.
We could be less charitable as my friend was when I reported the discussions at the House Fellowship to him. Opalaba is not known to carry his spirituality as a banner and he often chides the Pharisee in many of us. He queried the “holier-than-thou” attitude of those who would practise their faith openly only to disguise their night-time reprehensible activities. Therefore, for him, should one make a choice of pastoring over politics in the case before the House Fellowship, it does not by itself tell us anything about the Godliness or goodness of that individual.
Finally, when we are admonished to seek first the kingdom of God, and all other things shall be added unto us, we must note that the kingdom of God is a metaphor for doing the most good and avoiding hypocrisy.
To do the will of God on earth is to tend his earthly garden of innocent human beings seeking to make the most of the life that God has endowed them with. In the end, the verdict will not be that you are welcome because you were the most articulate preacher on earth. Rather, it will be “you provided for the needy among my creatures; you fed them when they were hungry; you housed them, when they were homeless; and you clothed them when they were naked. Since you did it for them, you have done it for me.”
Follow me on Twitter:
@SegunGbadeg2002
@HarvestDayPubs
