The Mugwump Way
When I
was young, my grandfather told me a corny joke about the mugwump. I now know
that mugwumps were the politically independent folks who bolted the Republican
Party in 1884, but back then Grandpa actually had me convinced that a mugwump
was a bird – the kind that sat on a fence with its "mug" on one side
and its "wump" on the other. I liked the joke so much that Grandpa
calls me Mugwump to this day.
We both chuckle every time he uses that nickname, and I proudly wear it in
this life as a childhood term of endearment from a fun-loving grandparent.
The moniker is not one I want following me to the hereafter, though, because
the last thing I want is for my Father in heaven to judge me a man who sat
on the fence between good and evil, looking toward the light but never quite
willing to fly away from the darkness of the world.
The Bible narrative is replete with stories of spiritual mugwumps, and those
stories serve as a warning of harsh judgment to come for all who travel that
noncommittal course.
Lot's
wife was perhaps pre-eminent among the fence sitters. "God remembered
Abraham," Lot's uncle, by sending two angels to save Lot and his family
from the fire and brimstone about to rain on Sodom and Gomorrah. The angels'
warning was unequivocal – "Escape for your life! Do not look behind
you" – but Lot's wife just could not take flight from the sin cities
without one last glance. She paid the ultimate price, instantly becoming a pillar
of salt (Gen. 19:12-29).
Judas,
too, perched himself atop the treacherous mugwump divide. Jesus chose him as an
apostle because he was qualified for that office (Luke 6:12-13), but Judas is
remembered as "the son of perdition" (John 16:12) and the "devil"
who betrayed Christ (John 6:70). Judas felt remorse when his actions condemned
Christ. Yet even then he ultimately chose the wrong flight path, selfishly
killing himself rather than being moved to repentance by a "godly
sorrow" (Matt. 27:3-9).
And then
there was Demas. The apostle Paul once ranked him as a
"fellow-worker" with the likes of Luke, Mark and Aristarchus (Col.
4:14; Philemon vs. 24) but later complained that Demas had deserted him,
"having loved this present world" (II Tim. 4:10). Demas clearly did
not understand that "if any one loves the world, the love of the Father is
not in him" (I John 2:15-17).
Like
other birds, mugwumps tend to flock to the fence. The Israelites, God's chosen
people, never could quite decide whether they wanted to serve God or mammon.
The eye of that nation was so bad that its whole body filled with a great
darkness and God eventually turned to the Gentiles (Matt. 6:22-24). The church
at Laodicea faced a similar fate for its apathy toward all things religious, earning
this rebuke from Jesus: "So because you are lukewarm, and neither hot nor
cold, I will spit you out of My mouth" (Rev. 3:16).
The grandchild within me
will always smile at the image of the silly mugwump sitting on a fence. But I
pray that the soul within me will always strive to be more like those
"birds of the air" described by Matthew – those that neither sow nor
reap nor gather in barns (Matt. 6:25-26), but rather trust in their Father and
feast on His "true bread out of heaven" (John 6:32).