A Change of Heart
It’s not that I have anything personal about the color green, it just that this shade of green doesn’t look very appetizing to me. Green is in fact one of my favorite colors, but I just wouldn’t pick this shade for a food. Now broccoli, green beans, lettuce and even Brussel sprouts are a green eating shade I can live with. I just did not like this shade on a food.
Then my wife gave me one of those cute looks and said, “Won’t you just try it for me?” What can I say; I have a weakness for that sort of thing. Let’s just say I’m now a really big fan of guacamole, despite its color. I guess I had a change of heart about that crushed avocado.
Business goes in cycles. Sometimes the bosses have the upper hand and sometimes the employees have the upper hand. When the economy is good and there are plenty of jobs, labor can demand better pay and working conditions because the employers need good employees and they are in a sort of competition with other businesses for those employees. When the economy is bad, employees are disposable. If you don’t do exactly what the employer wants, for the pay he wants to give, there are many others lined up to do your job for you. When the economy is down we want the government to step in and be our hero and save us from our mistreatment. When the economy is good we want government to stand out of the way and let us enjoy being in demand.
What happens if the government is that big bad employer? What happens if you depend on the government to be your boss and they start dictating what you can and cannot do or who you can or cannot vote for? That would never happen here. After all, we are not some tiny little nation with a general holding a gun to our head. Right?
The late 19th century in our nation found the Republican Party in turmoil. Using names that might be used today in a science fiction movie, it was the battle of the Stalwarts and the Half-Breeds. According to Webster’s dictionary, some of the definitions of stalwart are: “resolute, firm, unyielding” or “a person supporting a cause.” The Half-Breeds got their name because many, especially the Stalwarts, believed they were only half Republican. So what was this “cause” that seem to be splitting the Republican Party? It was patronage. The Stalwarts, like the name suggests, didn’t want to budge on it. The Half-Breeds wanted to dismantle it and replace it with something else.
I guess this leads us to the question: what is patronage? Basically, in the political sense, it’s the ability of the elected government to hand out jobs to those who supported them. Political bosses, especially in New York, took it to the extreme. With all their might, these bosses would use all their resources to get people elected. Once these people were elected, these bosses wanted favors in return. If you won an election you would have an entire slate of jobs you could fill. Just imagine the jobs you would have to fill if you were, let’s say, President of the United States. You could hand out everything from Ministers to foreign countries to the local mailman. The Stalwarts like this system because they had the machinery to take advantage of the system. If you were in great need of a job you had to at least appear to support these bosses. In return for your job, these bosses want your contributions and your support. If you failed on either, you lost your job. The Half-Breeds favored a system that worked on merit. Let the best person for the job have the job and we will have a much smoother running government was their theory. So basically this became a battle of civil service reform.
He gets a small glance in the Bible in 2 Kings 14:25. If you read through it real quickly, you may not even notice him there. His first mention in the Bible is in a story that last only 2-3 verses. He was a prophet and he predicted Israel would regain some land and that is what that story is all about. But if you ask any little kid about all the Bible stories they have heard, I bet most of them would mention him.
Being a prophet is hard work. After all, most of the time you are telling people what they are doing wrong and how God is going to punish them because of their disobedience. Rarely do you come across a passage in the Bible where a prophet is telling someone or a group of people what a great job they are doing. Then you have those prophets who really seem to draw the short straw. God gives them those jobs where their very lives could be in danger. He was one of those prophets who got one of those short straws.
He was a diehard Stalwart and a strong patronage supporter. He came from a very poor family and had risen from those ranks because of the New Custom House job he received through the patronage system. With this job he was able to increase his standard of living dramatically. If patronage could count on one person it would be him.
The 1880 Republican convention was a heated affair. The party was quite split and ballot after ballot was cast without a winner. It was the battle of the Stalwarts and the Half-Breeds. Finally James A. Garfield was selected as the Presidential candidate. In an effort to reach out to the other side Garfield selected him, a Stalwart, as his running mate. So you had the one wanting reform in civil service running with one who didn’t want that reform to happen.
Sometimes God has to go to the extremes to get us to do what He wants us to do. He was a prophet who needed such a lesson. God wanted him to go to the hated enemy and tell them they needed to seek God and ask for forgiveness or else God was going to destroy them. For whatever the reason, he didn’t want to do that and he decided to run in the opposite direction. He quickly learned that you can’t run from God. If God wants to find you, God is going to find you. Out of the deep blue sea a big fish swallowed the prophet Jonah and he was given a three day time out in the belly of that fish to think about his decision. As Jonah sat there he started to have a change of heart. With Jonah’s change of heart he followed God’s direction and warned the people of Nineveh.
When James Garfield was waiting at a train station in DC, Charles Guiteau pulled out a gun and shot him twice. Guiteau then shouted, “I am a Stalwart of the Stalwarts. … (Chester) Arthur is president now!” Guiteau thought he was a hero for his cause. Chester Arthur turned out to be quite the surprise for Charles Guiteau.
Chester Arthur was crushed when James Garfield died a few weeks later. To everyone’s surprise he took up Garfield’s banner of civil service reform. Arthur, as it turns out wanted to be the President he thought Garfield would have been had Garfield survived his wounds. I guess you could say Chester Arthur had a change of heart.
Whether it’s an avocado, being in the belly of a fish, or really being stuck on an opinion, we are all capable of having a change of heart when we are guided in the right direction.
Prayer: Father, Sometimes I can be really stubborn and only want to do things my way. Please let my heart always be open to the changes that You encourage. Amen.
