The Dangers of Christian Nationalism

(This sermon was delivered at Greensboro United Church of Christ on July 3rd, 2022. If you prefer listening and watching to reading, the video is here.)

In preparing to preach each week, I always begin with a text from scripture. The text provides the theme and title for the sermon. I did not do that this week. This week I started with a title, the dangers of Christian nationalism. For me, that title points first toward the Exodus passage that we just heard, then to two passages in Matthew’s gospel where we see Jesus speaking out of his understanding of our Exodus text.

The Exodus text brings me to an affirmation that there is only one God worthy of my worship, only one God in which my life rests. That God holds me like no other thing in my life. To be sure, I love other things. I love my family. I love my church. I love my country. I love University of Tennessee football. But those things are not God. When I start thinking and living like one of them is God, my life gets out of balance.

I am the Lord your God, have no other gods before me—-and don’t take my name in vain, don’t misuse my name.

That prohibition seems particularly germane when we think about Christian nationalism. I believe that many Americans want to believe that our nation trusts in God. We plaster God’s name all over our money. And we turn around and spend 766 billion of those dollars on weapons of war. I am hard pressed to understand how that is an action of the people who trust in God. It makes me think that we trust in the manufacturers of armaments at least as much as we trust in God.

To be able to say that we trust in God while we are arming ourselves in such an exorbitant fashion makes me think that if we are honest, we want to at least say “In God and armament manufacturers we trust,” if we are honest. If we are not honest, we distort our religion so that it makes it all normal for us to be pious and religious sounding while trusting in lots of other things beside God. Could there be a more insidious way for us to use God’s name in vain?

Two questions we need to answer as we explore these texts. First, what is Christian nationalism? Second, why is it dangerous?

According to Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, the term “nationalism” is generally used to describe two phenomena: the attitude that the members of a nation have when they care about their national identity, and the actions that the members of a nation take when seeking to achieve (or sustain) self-determination. The Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Politics defines nationalism as a set of beliefs about the nation: its origins, nature, and value. Of course, more has been said about nationalism, much more.

What happens to nationalism when a particular religious viewpoint is added to it? When we christianize nationalism we adopt “. . .a cultural framework that idealizes and advocates a fusion of Christianity with American civic life. Christian nationalism contends that America has been and should always be distinctively “Christian” from top to bottom – in its self-identity, interpretations of its own history, sacred symbols, cherished values, and public policies – and it aims to keep it that way. But the “Christian” in Christian nationalism is more about identity than religion. It carries with it assumptions about nativism, white supremacy, authoritarianism, patriarchy, and militarism”( WhatIsChristianNationalism.pdf (bjconline.org).

Joseph Williams, professor of religion at Rutgers University, sees “Christian nationalists insist(ing) that the United States was established as an explicitly Christian nation, and believ(ing) that this close relationship between Christianity and the state needs to be protected—and in many respects restored—in order for the U.S. to fulfill its God-given destiny.” Therefore, Christian nationalists go to great effort “to secure a privileged position for Christianity in the public square that often coincides with efforts to preserve the historical status quo on issues of race, gender, and sexuality.”

Therefore, for the purposes of this sermon, we could say that Christian Nationalism seeks to impose a particular understanding of Christianity and a particular version of American history on the policies, laws and practices of our nation so that the two are wedded together in way that gives privilege to the right sort of Americans while harming those not considered American enough or Christian enough by said policies, laws and practices.

Why is Christian nationalism dangerous?

Why were the Crusades dangerous?

Why was the inquisition dangerous?

Why were the Salem witch trials dangerous?

Why was the Holocaust dangerous?

Christian nationalism endangers our life together for all the same reasons.

One of the chief dangers of Christian Nationalism lies in the way it identifies those who are a threat to its idealized vision of America’s past and its insistence on a present that grants it the privileges to which it assumes entitlement. All that matters is what happens to true Americans. Christian nationalism ignores those who have been excluded, persecuted, enslaved, forced to migrate, denied the vote. In doing so, Christian Nationalism, has looked at and treated whole groups of people as something other than human beings created in the image of God and endowed with certain inalienable rights. No Christian Nationalist would justify treating a true Americans or true Christian in that way, but for those who are other than true American and true Christian, there are no such reservations.  Throughout the history of our country, there have always been those who were other, other than true American, true Christian.  The people who were on this land when Europeans arrived, Enslaved Africans and their descendants, the Irish in the 1840s-50s, Chinese in the 1880s, Italians in the early 1900s, Jews in the 1930s, and Muslims in the 2000s. To survive, our LGBTQ+ siblings have had remain invisible for most of the time our country has been in existence. The 2^nd class status of women is a core value of Christian Nationalism all the way from a constitution that gave them no right to vote right up to a week ago Friday.

To be clear, the othering of some Americans by the Christian Nationalist mindset is not a practice that is confined to our history, it is ongoing. This week in Ohio after the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling in the Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health case that overturned Roe v. Wade, an Ohio state law went into effect making abortion illegal for anyone who has been pregnant for 6 weeks or longer. A 10-year-old rape victim, 6 weeks and 3 days pregnant, could not access the care she needed and that her parents sought for her in her home state. She nor those responsible for her care were deemed American enough to decide what care she needed nor to access that care in her home state.

The Courts ruling in Kennedy v. Bremerton in favor of Coach Kennedy’s post game prayers leaves the high school athletes of other faiths, of no faith, or who understand Christianity differently than the Coach with little recourse. If they want to play, they are going to have to pray. They are not American enough to have the freedom to exercise their understanding of religion in their own way or to exercise no religion at all.  

Similarly in Maine, the court’s ruling in Carson v. Makin forces Maine taxpayers to pay for religious education without regard for how that religious education agrees or disagrees with their understanding of faith and spirituality. They are not American enough to have the freedom to expect public school dollars be used to pay for a public-school education.

The most frightening example of the danger of Christian Nationalism has been brought to light by the January 6^th hearings. On that day, the target of Christian Nationalist was not a law, a practice, or a policy, but the makers of laws and policy. The ones not American enough were elected members of Government.

These are just a few examples of how Christian Nationalism endangers our democracy. While these dangers are real and they are grave, I am even more concerned about the danger Christian Nationalism poses to our faith. For us, as followers of Christ, watching the misuse and abuse our sacred scriptures and practices erode the message at the heart of those scriptures and undermine the foundation of those practices is a painful thing through which to live.  

We shall have no other gods before me.

Or text this morning makes it plain that if we are going to order our religious life and our understanding of spiritual matters in accordance with the teaching of scripture, and there’s only room for one God. One recipient of our devotion. One entity in which our lives ultimately rest. I am the Lord your God; you sure have no other gods before me.

In Matthew’s gospel, chapter 6, we see Jesus expressing his understanding of what it means to have no other gods before God.  In verse 24 he says, no one can serve 2 masters, or slavery the hate the one and love the other or be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and wealth. Remember where and when Jesus is speaking, 1st century Palestine. He is not living in a free and independent country free to make its own decisions. No, it’s an occupied territory under Roman rule. What Jesus is saying in this context is that if you are serving wealth, you cannot be serving God. Presumably you would have to have made some kind of deal with the Romans, a less than ethical deal. A deal that meant you gave a part of yourself to the deal that should only have been given to God. For Jesus, worshipping God was not just something that happened in a religious space like the temple, but it was a matter that touched every aspect of life. Serving God meant in the temple, at home, at rest, at work, and everywhere in between.

The history of our country is full of examples of Christians who were trying to serve two masters. Most notably, the way the church in America used the Bible to defend chattel slavery. Not to mention the Trail of Tears, Jim Crow, new Jim Crow, and the prison industrial complex that disproportionately incarcerates black and brown bodies.

Jesus understood, and he wanted his followers to understand that serving God not only meant saying yes to God, but it also meant saying no to that which was not of God.

In the 22nd chapter of Matthew, Jesus is asked a question about paying taxes to the emperor of Rome by some Pharisees. They likely did not think it was lawful or right for them to be paying taxes to the government that had invaded their country, but if Jesus agreed with them and answered no they might report him to the Roman authorities and get him arrested for starting a rebellion. If he answers yes, then he loses his crowd. None of them think it’s right to be paying taxes to invaders and occupiers. Jesus answers neither yes nor no. Instead, yes record did he ask whose image is on the coin. When he hears their reply, Caesar, he tells them to give to Caesar that which bears Caesars image. Then he tells them to give to God that which bears God’s image. Namely themselves. Give your coins to Caesar, but you, you created in the image of God people, give yourselves to God. You who bear the image of God, give that to God. No one or nothing is worthy of that image other than God. Caesar can have your coins, but your heart and your hopes, your soul and your dreams, your spirit and your aspirations, those belong to God. Give yourself to God and see what happens.

It is in that freedom of choice that we are truly able to experience and discover the mystery and wonder of being connected to God. That is not a choice anyone else can make for us. And it’s certainly not a choice that anyone can push us into or guilt or shame or pressure us into. But if we freely choose to open ourselves to God, we enter the mystery of the Christian life. Henri Nouwen help us see that is not our work to do, but God’s gift to us to be received —  receiving a new life, a new identity, which depends not on what we can achieve, but on what we’re willing to receive.

Our participation in this thing that God is doing in Christ, our participation in Christianity must be voluntary. It cannot be produced by government edict nor social custom. If our participation in it is anything other than voluntary then what we are participating in is something other than the movement that God started in the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ.

God longs for an intimate, loving relationship with each of us, and all of us, but God does not force God’s self on us. God yearns and longs for us, God whispers and prods us, God invites and calls us, again and again. God waits for us…. to realize we’re free. For freedom Christ has set us free.

Free from any religious system, spiritual path, or destructive ideology that would have us to look at ourselves and others as anything other than human beings beloved by God.

Free from being coerced, shamed, guilted, belittled into religious conformity.

Free to love as we have been loved.

When the government acts to impose the practices of our faith on our fellow citizens in an involuntary way, as the US Supreme Court has done in at least three cases during this recent session, The government does harm to the cause of Christ and abuses the heart of our religion. Christianity that is not freely chosen is not Christianity.

Every emperor since Constantine has offered some privilege to the church. And with every acceptance of such privilege, the church became less the company of the faithful called by God and more of an appendage of the empire, a tool to serve the aims and aspirations of the state.

Our resistance to any movement or ideology that tries to make the Christian religion about something other than loving God and loving others is vital to our growth and development as followers of Christ both as individuals and as a congregation.

When people call themselves Christians and use the Jesus story to exclude, we have to say no.

When people call themselves Christians and use the Jesus story to deny the human dignity of some of us, we have to say no.

When people call themselves Christians and use the Jesus story to threaten the lives of those who do not meet their criteria for being American enough, we have to say no.

We have to say no to all of that because with Jesus there’s really only one thing, people to be loved. neighbors to be loved, enemies to be loved.

Stand Up, Raise Your Heads!

If you ever find yourself in a group of preachers, and you’re not sure want to talk about, you can always ask, “what are you preaching on this Sunday?” You see Sunday comes every week so a preacher either knows what she is preaching about or he is wondering why he hasn’t yet decided on a topic. I was in a meeting with the preachers this week. They answered the question by decidedly saying they were not preaching on Luke chapter 21 versus 25 and following. The basic reasoning for steering away from Luke’s gospel reading this morning went something like we’ve been living every day in an apocalypse for the last two or so years we don’t need more of that on Sunday morning. Especially on the first Sunday of advent.

I listened attentively to their reasoning, but I still felt that there were a couple of words in our text today and we needed to hear, words that would serve us well as we seek to navigate these troubling times. Preacher friends did make a good point. The times in which we live seem extraordinary on a historic level. Green dark text this morning is apocalyptic in nature. just a little apocalypse. Not a full blown book like Daniel or the Book of Revelation, but enough. enough to frighten us a little. Enough to make us wonder what will become of us.

I thought for a little while about putting current headlines on strips of paper, putting them all into a basket let you draw them out one at a time. In that way we could catalog the forces that would have us faint from fear and foreboding of what is coming up on the world and make clear to ourselves what it is that is shaking the powers of heaven. The disjointed, randomness of our justice system, the acres upon acres of rainforest it seemed to be disappearing at speed of light, workers who were considered radical and revolutionary simply because they desire a wage on which they can live, and now news of a new variant it may be worse and all the ones that have gone before. Signs of the time indeed.

no, these are the times in which we live. Whether we realize it or not they are text for this morning. Our lesson for the day. They provide the context through which and in which we hear God speaking.

Two phrases, both of them found in verse 28. Stand up and raise your head. Your redemption is drawing near

second phrase first, redemption is the question that does not get asked in our text this morning. Rather redemption is assumed to be the good thing that we are waiting for

. If so, what is it? What does it mean? It is big, large, cosmic. Bigger than most Christian thinkers have thought of it over the last 2000 years. For the most part Christian theologians have left the door open for a far too individualized, far too self centered faith. This is allowed for the Christ event to be understood as primarily a personal affair easily compartmentalized and kept separate from day to day duties at the office or easily augmented to allow for actions and attitudes that Christ himself would never sanction. At its best, this emphasis on Christian individualism as left too many with a faith that matters most when life on this earth has ended and the arrangements one has made for eternity finally become top priority. At its worst, this emphasis on Christian individualism leaves some with the notion that because they claim to be Christian that they can off down of acting on behalf of the common good by refusing to get vaccinated.

Yet, the redemption drawing near on for one of us, it is for all of us. But not just for us but for the whole of creation.

At the same time, this redemption is as small and as easily unnoticed it is large and cosmic. That visit to see a dying friend, Redemption drawing near. Making sure that things are in order at the church is the advent season begins, redemption drawing near. Checking to see if there’s food in the little food pantry out by the fellowship hall door, redemption join near. That act of kindness, that demonstration of mercy, that expression of love, redemption drawing near.

Stand up and raise your heads Is the other phrase that we need to hear in our text this morning. It is a good word for us for several reasons. Not the least of which is that it gives us something to do. How many times have you been with a friend who is experiencing some kind of challenge or trial. You wanted to help you wanted to do something, but there just didn’t seem to be much that you could do to help. You are already listening and praying, but that didn’t seem like enough. You wanted to do something more.

Jesus’ admonition to stand up and raise our heads gives us something to do. We’re not powerless. We’re not helpless. We have options. We have a choice.

The second truth that Jesus’ command to stand up and raise our heads communicates to us is that we are part of this thing that God is doing. This is not something that takes place in a sidebar. This is not something that’s going on on some other realm is away from us but we can’t touch or taste or experience. This is happening here and now and we are part of it.

This is so because God has made us God’s sons and daughters. We are children of God. We have a stake in the redemption of the whole of creation. We have a stake in our redemption. She’s not someone elses to do. This is ours, what’s the gift we receive and the legacy we leave.

Stand up and raise your heads, even though the world tells us to keep our heads down and ignore the injustice then others endure.

stand up and raise your heads, see a way where there is no way.

Stand up and raise your heads, offer mercy where the world offers only cruelty.

Stand up and raise your heads, give love when the world spews hate.

stand up and raise your heads, hold on the hope when all else seems to be drowning in despair.

Stand up and raise your heads, see redemption drawing near you children of God. Step toward it, reach for it embrace it, let it embrace you.

listen to the voices everyone else ignores. notice the lives of others, especially those whose lives are different from yours. Nurture, in your heart and in your head and your soul an openness to how and to when you will take your part in drawing this redemption nearer to God’s creation. It begins with standing up and raising your hands.

In each of our lives, there is plenty about which to be concerned. To be stressed, to be weighed down can mean all of our attention and energy is focused on the situation that is weighing us down. These kinds of things have a way of consuming us our creativity our imagination, our strength both physical and mental and spiritual. Our lives begin to orbit around the axis of whatever challenge it is we’re facing. We can see or think of little else. This phrase, stand up and raise your head, Gives us a chance to see the ways, big and small, then I’ll redemption is drawing near. It gives us a chance to see the ways, big and small, that we can join in.

Advent 1934, Dietrich Bonhoeffer preached these words:  “But we are only making excuses with that kind of talk. If we really wanted to, if it were not an evasion, we would finally begin to pray that this Advent would make a stop in our hearts. Let us make no mistake about it. Redemption is drawing near. Only the question is: Will we let it come to us as well or will we resist it? Will we let ourselves be pulled into this movement coming down from heaven to earth or will we refuse to have anything to do with it?”

At that first Christmas, God was with us, Immanuel, a baby lying in a manger. As vulnerable and as helpless as any human being could be. What an absurd way for God to come into the world much less to redeem the world. Yet, Jesus was born.

The redemption that is drawing near likely will not look like we think it ought to look. When we stand up and raise our heads, do not be surprised if there is no knight in shining armor riding to our rescue. Remember, God, in Christ, chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise; what is weak in the world to shame the strong; what is low and despised in the world, things that are not, to reduce to nothing things that are.

Stand up, raise your heads, your redemption is drawing near if you have eyes to see and ears to hear. 

God is Still Speaking

After a wonderful week of camp with some amazing middle schoolers and totally committed camp staffers. . .

After news of tragic violence in El Paso, Dayton and other places. . .

After sharing bread and cup with a faith family that seeks to love others as Christ has loved us. . .

After coming to the realization that while mass shootings still sadden me, they no longer shock or surprise me. . .

After waking up on another Monday wondering what in the world we have become. . .

I open my worship plan to see what biblical text I choose weeks ago to be the focus of our worship this coming Sunday —BAM! — there it is, God is still speaking!

For those who have ears to ear and eyes to see. . .

Isaiah 1:1, 10-20

The vision of Isaiah son of Amoz, which he saw concerning Judah and Jerusalem in the days of Uzziah, Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah, kings of Judah.

Hear the word of the Lord, you rulers of Sodom! Listen to the teaching of our God, you people of Gomorrah! What to me is the multitude of your sacrifices? says the Lord; I have had enough of burnt offerings of rams and the fat of fed beasts; I do not delight in the blood of bulls, or of lambs, or of goats. When you come to appear before me, who asked this from your hand? Trample my courts no more; bringing offerings is futile; incense is an abomination to me. New moon and sabbath and calling of convocation— I cannot endure solemn assemblies with iniquity. Your new moons and your appointed festivals my soul hates; they have become a burden to me, I am weary of bearing them. When you stretch out your hands, I will hide my eyes from you; even though you make many prayers, I will not listen; your hands are full of blood.

Wash yourselves; make yourselves clean; remove the evil of your doings from before my eyes; cease to do evil, learn to do good; seek justice, rescue the oppressed, defend the orphan, plead for the widow. Come now, let us argue it out, says the Lord: though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be like snow; though they are red like crimson, they shall become like wool. If you are willing and obedient, you shall eat the good of the land; but if you refuse and rebel, you shall be devoured by the sword; for the mouth of the Lord has spoken.

If you are in the neighborhood, join us Sunday as we listen for God.

 

Rush, Reminder & Revival

Monday was my first Martin Luther King Jr. day in Alabama. There was a march this morning. It ended in front of Franchise Missionary Baptist Church here in Phenix City. Before any marchers could be seen from the church, three police officers on motorcycles came into view. The officers were leading the march with their blue lights flashing. I imagine that the same thing was true for parades and marches all over the country today. There were police officers at the front leading the way. While it may be routine now for law enforcement to lead such parades and make sure that they come off in an orderly fashion, such has not always been the case. Their efforts to do so on this day gave me a rush, a reminder and a revival.

The rush was a feeling like the one I get when I see something good and pleasing. It was like the feeling I get when I see a friend or family member that I have not seen in a long time. It may have even approached that feeling I get when I watch a young daughter or son seeing a parent for the first time after a deployment overseas serving our country. The news we hear so often is not good news. Even when we hear good news, there seem to be detractors who try to convince us that it is not as good as we think it is or not good at all. It is possible for us to start thinking that good acts or good words are no longer possible in today’s world. However, good does still happen. I saw it happen as people marched to celebrate progress made and to advocate for even more. I heard it from choirs singing and from a sixth-grader reciting Dr. King’s “I Have a Dream” speech.

The reminder was embodied in the message of the man the day commemorates. Dr. King’s aim in life was not to have a day named after him. His aim was not solely to lead a movement that would achieve civil rights for African-Americans. His focus was larger than that and more profound. Dr. King was a preacher of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. His concern was for the human race. Like Jesus, he was particularly concerned for those who were poor. He worked on behalf of people, black and white, who suffered in a social and economic system that kept the American dream just out of their reach.

The revival starts when I am mindful of those folks who still live somewhere beyond both the fruits of the American dream and the embrace of Jesus’ just and merciful kingdom. Not just in our country, but in our world there are those who scrape by with inadequate food, water and health care. Jesus had something to say about them. When we see them and give them food, water and treatment, we see Jesus and give him food, water and treatment.

One time a lawyer ask Jesus a question, “Who is my neighbor?” The question still serves as an effective way to shape and form our lives in the image of Christ for the sake of others. Jesus told the lawyer a story about a man who fell among thieves. They beat him and left him to die. A priest, a Levite and a Samaritan passed by where he was laying wounded. One of them stopped to help. Jesus asked the lawyer, “Who was a neighbor to this man?”

“Who is my neighbor?” Jesus’ answer forces us to rethink our own answer. Jesus’ answer cuts across boundaries. Human labels and categories do not determine who our neighbor is, at least not as Jesus understands neighbor. Jesus’ approach is simpler. Is the person a person? Is the person created in the image of God? Then the person is a neighbor. Answering the “who is my neighbor?” question is easy for Jesus. The question that is more difficult to answer is implied in the conclusion of Jesus’ story. Will you be a neighbor? Will you be a neighbor to someone different from you?

Dr. King marched to make the neighborhood larger for us all and to show us that there is room for each of us in that neighborhood. I believe he learned about being a neighbor from reading the stories that Jesus told. The Kingdom of God comes near when we recognize the hungering, thirsting, needy Christ in the face of our neighbor. We step into the Kingdom, if for just a moment, when choose to be a neighbor to the person in front us who needs the love and mercy of God.

Free at Last

This week marks the forty-fifth anniversary of the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. He was shot and killed on April 4, 1968, while standing on the second-floor balcony of the Lorraine Motel in Memphis, Tennessee. The year was 1969 and I was five years old when I first heard Dr. King’s name. I was sitting in a car listening to a radio report about James Earl Ray, the man who shot Dr. King. With the exception of three days in June of 1977, when he and six other inmates made an escape, Ray would spend the remainder of his life at Brushy Mountain State Penitentiary in Petros, Tennessee, not far from where I grew up.

When the radio report was complete, an adult in the car said, “I would like to shake his hand.” I remember being uncertain about whose hand was in question, but the conversation that followed among the adults in the car made it clear that Ray’s hand was the one that deserved of a shake. This left me uncertain about what a man might have done that would cause someone to want to shake the hand of the man who had shot him. Up to that point in my life, all the indications I had received were that killing someone was not a good thing to do.

Slowly, but surely over the next several years, I would learn about slavery, race relations, civil rights and the strongly held opinions of people both inside and outside of my family. In college and seminary, I began to see the significance of the role that the church played in motivating Dr. King to do the things that he did. The civil rights movement for Dr. King was an expression of his understanding of the Bible and an outgrowth of his relationship with God. I do not recall many, if any, references to Dr. King’s faith during my growing up years. However, he was a product of the church.  What became the civil rights movement was for him merely doing what God had called him to do as a Baptist, as a preacher, and as a follower of Christ. He was sharing Christ’s love.  Not everyone understood the importance of Christian faith to participants in the civil rights struggle, but Dr. King made the point in a foundational way in his last speech given in Memphis, Tennessee the night before he was killed:

Bull Connor (Sheriff in Birmingham, Al) next would say, “Turn the fire hoses on.” And as I said to you the other night, Bull Connor didn’t know history. He knew a kind of physics that somehow didn’t relate to the transphysics that we knew about. And that was the fact that there was a certain kind of fire that no water could put out. And we went before the fire hoses; we had known water. If we were Baptist or some other denominations, we had been immersed. If we were Methodist, and some others, we had been sprinkled, but we knew water. That couldn’t stop us.

More to the point of the importance of Dr. King’s faith, as he challenged our nation to live up to the ideals upon which it was founded, was the peace and the strength that he found in it in the face of bitter resistance and threats to his life. He obviously spoke out a deep trust in and complete reliance on God that night before he was shot.

Well, I don’t know what will happen now. We’ve got some difficult days ahead. But it really doesn’t matter with me now, because I’ve been to the mountaintop.

And I don’t mind.

Like anybody, I would like to live a long life. Longevity has its place. But I’m not concerned about that now. I just want to do God’s will. And He’s allowed me to go up to the mountain. And I’ve looked over. And I’ve seen the Promised Land. I may not get there with you. But I want you to know tonight, that we, as a people, will get to the promised land!

And so I’m happy, tonight.

I’m not worried about anything.

I’m not fearing any man!

Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord!!

Let us always choose to love even when others, maybe many others, would choose to hate. Let us have eyes to see all the ways the Lord is coming to us and may the love we share with others be visible sign of the Lord’s coming to them.

Baptists, Catholics and Birth Control

Today the White House announced a broader exemption to the Health and Human Service’s rule requiring religious institutions to provide contraception coverage to their employees. Basically it says that religious institutions who object don’t have to buy it, but the insurance company will have to provide it free of charge.  The Baptist Joint Committee for Religious Liberty sees this as a positive move that protects the freedom of religious institutions and provides for the health care needs of their employees.

Hopefully, this compromise will quell the concerns of those who felt the previous rule provided to narrow of an exemption for religious institution.  I do wonder though if it will be sufficient. In part because I am not sure that religious liberty was their primary concern.  The two religious groups that were most vocal in their criticism of the previous rule were the Roman Catholic and the Southern Baptist Convention.  These are two groups who always have the subjugation of women on their unwritten agenda for engaging the world.  Catholics do not allow women to serve as priest nor do Southern Baptist approve of women serving as Senior Pastors.  One wonders if these two groups would have a different theology about birth control if more women were involved in their theological conversations.

Don’t get me wrong, the Catholic Church has provided the world with some brilliant and beautiful thinkers. I try to read something from Henri Nouwen and Richard Rohr everyday.  St. Francis, Mother Teresa and Dorothy Day still provide as good of an example of what it means to follow Jesus today as they did when they were alive.  Yet in recent years we have seen that there are problems in the church when it comes to human sexuality.   This is true among Catholics and Baptists as well.  Unfortunately, each group has its share of predators waiting to exploit. Each group has resisted acknowledging the problem and addressing the issue. They have chosen rather to hide behind their theological priorities and ecclesiastical language.  That has left us all a little less comfortable than we might have been when it comes to talking about sex.

A friend pointed out the other day how refreshing it would have been to see the kind of moral outrage from Catholic bishops over children being sexually abused as they demonstrated over the thought of having to provide birth control to their female employees.  In fact, the former Archbishop of New York went in the opposite direction last week by recanting a previous apology he had made on behalf of the church to the victims of sexual abuse and their families. Catholics and Baptists alike seem to prefer telling others what is and is not acceptable rather than having open and honest conversations about sex and why God made us the way God made us.  t.

In a world that is grossly overly-sexualized, the church must find a way to help families and individuals have a calm conversation about what it means that God has made sex apart of our human experience.  To that end, I wish that I could be at A [Baptist] Conference on Sexuality and Covenant this April 19-21.

Using God to Bully

Did you know that in the State of Tennessee there is a law against bullying in schools?  It allows local school districts to develop policies to ensure that students are protected from physical harm, threats of physical harm, and actions that would create a hostile educational environment.

Current attempts to change this law are concerned about the rights of students to express religious opinions.  In other words, some people want to change this law so that it will be permissible for students to express their religious opinions even if expressing those religious opinions creates a hostile educational environment for the student to whom they are being expressed.  For example, Muslim students, who pray five times daily, would be free to criticize Christian students about their lack of devotion to God because they do not pray with as much frequency.  Unitarian students could constantly pester Trinitarian students about their inability to adequately explain the Trinity.  Mormon students could demean Protestant students for their unwillingness to be baptized for their dead ancestors. In short, as long as what a student says to or about another student would be permitted as long as it was based on the speaker’s religious beliefs.

Of course, those seeking to amend the law are not primarily, if at all, concerned about the rights of Muslim, Unitarian or Mormon students.  What they are really concerned about is that no law would prohibit a good Christian student from telling and informing a student that is homosexual or perceived to be homosexual of his or her eternal destination or how God really feels about him or her.

The fact that the effort to change this law to allow students to use their religious beliefs to bully others is being led by a group, the Family Action Council of Tennessee that purports to hold up biblical values, makes the endeavor even more ironic.  If a group of Christians were going to get something from the Bible written into the laws of a state, why not something like, “…do unto others as you would have them do unto you…” or “…love one another as I have loved you?”  Why not something that reflects the core of Jesus’ teachings?

This effort to use religion to justify bullying is an example of a group trying to use their religion to maintain their perceived notion of society rather than allowing their religion to inform and shape how they impact their culture.  There is quite enough hatred and intolerance in our world.  Seeing adults trying to pass that hatred on to our children is a sad sight, no matter how sophisticated and sanitized their effort might be.

I am reminded of the Anne Lamont quote, “You can safely assume that you’ve created God in your own image when it turns out that God hates all the same people you do.”  The God of the New Testament is not one of hate, not one that desires to be used to bully students into feeling left out, isolated, and alone.  The God of the New Testament is one who took on flesh and came to dwell among us so that we would know that we are loved. That same God promised to never leave us alone, but to always be with us.  That God calls us into the world to love with the same radical love with which we ourselves have been loved.

When we find ourselves loving someone we never thought we could, then we may find ourselves approaching the love that Christ has for us.  When we discover ourselves loving someone we never had any reasons to notice, then we may be getting close to the love Christ has for us.  Christ’s love for us is unconditional, unwarranted, unearned, yet freely given.  We are called not just to receive it, but to share it.

Prince of Peace

There are times when events occur in such proximity to one another that making a connection between them happens whether such a connection is real or imagined.  As we celebrate the birth of Christ just a few days after the last truck carrying American troops left Iraq and entered Kuwait, thinking of one in light of the other comes easily.  Whether it was the planning of a clever politician or a thoughtful general, the providence of God, or pure coincidence, a soldier’s homecoming at this special time of year would seem just as sweet whatever the cause.

Except that not everyone is coming home.  Since 2,996 people died on September 11, 2001, nearly 4,500 American military personnel have been killed in Iraq, and almost another 1,900 in Afghanistan.  Almost 50,000 veterans are at home living with wounds suffered while serving in Iraq or Afghanistan.  While troops are scheduled to be out of Afghanistan sometime in 2014, they are not yet home.

The service that so many have rendered on our behalf is deserving of our gratitude and our respect.  Rightfully, such sacrifice and dedication is esteemed by those on whose behalf it has been made.  We have prayed and we will continue to pray for those who are still in harm’s way, and for those who are grieving the impact of these wars on their families and on themselves.  For those who wait for a child who will not be coming home, and for those who welcome home sons and daughters broken and scarred by war, we pray.  They need our prayers, and they deserve our appreciation.

In the midst of war and all the terrible pain it inflicts on those whom it touches, one wonders if the singing of angels can still be heard.  Perhaps we would not hear one angel.  But in this holy season, what about one angel joined by a multitude of the heavenly host?  Would we, could we hear them saying “Glory to God in the highest heaven, and on earth peace . . .”?

What would we do if there was a child among us who believed that loving one’s enemies, praying for one’s persecutors, and turning the other cheek was something that God expected of those whom God created?  What if there was a child among us who insisted on treating others as he or she wanted to be treated, rather than the way he or she had been treated?  Having read our scriptures, such a child might refuse to pick up the sword and join in the violence that so pervades our world.

Would we in the church pray for such a child?  If so, how would we pray?  Would we respect the courage of such conviction or would we consider it cowardly?  Would such a refusal seem to us to be heroic or traitorous?  Would we appreciate and respect such behavior, or would it leave us mildly uncomfortable, or maybe even visibly upset?

Yet, a child has been born, and he is in our midst.  We like to think that the words of the prophet Isaiah give description to him. “For a child has been born for us, a son given to us; authority rests upon his shoulders; and he is named Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.”

What does it mean for us that this child has been born?  Well, it means everything to us, it means eternity to us.  The birth of this child is our very salvation.  If it means that much, then we ought to be able to ponder the conclusions about the war in Iraq of Andrew Bacevich, a West Point graduate, Vietnam combat veteran, and retired Army colonel; and whose son was an Army officer killed in Iraq. “The final tragedy of a tragic enterprise is that the U.S. has learned next to nothing,” he says.  “The belief that war works remains strangely intact.”

If the birth of this child means as much as we say it means, then we ought to be able to hear the words Logan Trainum spoken at the funeral of one of his closest friends, David Emanuel Hickman.  Surely he is not the only grieving friend to have spoken them or at least thought them.  His friend, Hickman, was the last American soldier to be killed in Iraq.  “There aren’t enough facts available for me to have a defined opinion about things.  I’m just sad, and pray that my best friend didn’t lay down his life for nothing.”

If the birth of this child means any of what we say that it means, we ought to take to heart the words of the poet, Archibald MacLeish, who wrote for those who could no longer speak, yet still had something to say,

They say: We were young. We have died. Remember us.  …

They say: Our deaths are not ours: they are yours, they will mean what you make them.

They say: Whether our lives and our deaths were for peace and a new hope or for nothing we cannot say, it is you who must say this.

Less is More

As I am speaking to a small group gathered for midweek worship and a meal at an inner-city Baptist center, I can not help but notice the coughing of the woman sitting over to my left.  I immediately recognize her from the last time that I had gathered with this group.  She has pancreatic cancer.   Her coughing, like “groans that could not be expressed in words”, do not disturb the service, rather it is a part of the service.  It is a litany of sorts that speaks her deepest longing.

At the end of the service, she comes to me asking for prayer.  The weight of her burden is great.  Who knows what the cancer has done to her body?   She does not know, as she lacks the means for medical treatment and the feedback a doctor would give her.  Her only hope is prayer.  While she may not know exactly what the cancer is doing to her, she knows that it is surely taking life from her.   In a very real way, life now for her consists of that space between her and God.   If she lives, it will be because of God. If she does not, she will be with God.

After we pray, I cannot help but wonder what the days ahead will hold for her.  Will she suffer?  How much will she suffer?  Will a miracle happen?  How will it be between her and God?

Disease has a way of focusing our attention.  It causes us to see things that we had not seen, or had overlooked.  We think differently; our perspective changes when confronted by an invasion of our bodies that is likely to be our undoing.  Sometimes, it causes us to turn toward God and to move closer to God.  For some people, the effect is the opposite.  For them, there is anger and resentment toward God.  Still others respond with a mixture of emotions and thoughts in such trying times.

Yet, with or without disease, our lives share a common condition.  We all live in the time and the space that God gives to us.   A life threatening illness may cause us to be more aware of God and our dependence on and accountability to God.   However, good health does not mean that we are any less dependent on God for our lives, and we are certainly no less accountable for them.

Last week, we heard the prophet Isaiah plead for God to “…tear open the heavens and come down…” to us, to fill the time and the space of our living.  In essence, we asked God to be with us.  That is the heart of Christmas, Immanuel, “God with us.”   We know that God has been born, that God abides with us each day, and that God will come again.

Advent prepares us for all the ways that God has, does, and will come to us.  As we prepare, is there room in our lives for more of God?  Is there room for God to do with us what God wants to do with us?  When we put up the Christmas tree at our house, it almost always means something has to be moved to make room for the tree.  What do we need to rearrange in our lives in order to make more room for God, to make ourselves more available to God?  The radical commitment that God makes to us in taking on flesh and being born among us, calls us beyond rearranging.  God’s purpose for our lives is not that they be busier, heavier and more burdensome.  In being born, God makes a way for us to be liberated from all that would separate us from God.

What is it that keeps us from experiencing the presence and peace of God?  Whatever that is, that is what we need less of.  If we are too busy, then we need fewer commitments.  If we are too burdened by debt, then we need less spending.

This Advent season we are conspiring together because we believe that Christmas can still change the world.  The proposal is quite simple.  Start small by spending less.  Eliminate one gift– one fruitcake, one sweater, one gift that will probably not be missed, and use that money to do something that will make the birth of Christ a reality for someone who desperately needs to know Jesus.  It is a small step, but a good beginning as we seek to empty our lives of that which keeps us from experiencing the fullness and wonder of what God has done in Jesus Christ.

In the presence of Christ

He came into the office talking, and stopped only to take a quick breath, after which he continued sharing the details of his plight.  All was punctuated by pulling up the front of his shirt and revealing the most painful looking herniated intestine that I have ever seen.

Several attempts to direct the conversation and get some sense of what might help stabilize his financial situation only resulted in more details about his circumstances, and more views of the cantaloupe size knot on his stomach.  I wanted to get some idea of what could be done to help him until his disability check started.  He wanted whatever I was going to do to be done right then.

He may have wanted more, but what he got was $25.00 worth of gas.  Back in the day, we used to give folks like him a fill-up.  That policy changed the last time gas prices rose to over four dollars a gallon.  The new policy works well.  I spend almost no time worrying about whether or not someone requesting help deserves it or really needs it.  I would much rather give some who did not deserve it $25.00, than fail to help someone who really needed it because I perceived them to be unworthy of help.

He seemed happy with $25.00 worth of, not gas, but diesel.  I bought him diesel because that is the kind of fuel that one puts in a Mercedes.  Granted it was an old and beat up Mercedes, but a Mercedes nonetheless.  Truly, there is so much story to tell and just not enough time or paper for all the details.

After a quick trip up the street for fuel, I am back in the office reflecting on what just happened.  Without thinking, I find myself somewhere in the vicinity of Matthew 25.  You recall the passage, don’t you?  “Lord, when did we see you in need of fuel and purchase for you $25.00 worth of gas?”  The King replied, “When you bought fuel for the least of these my brothers and sisters, you bought it for me.”  I felt good because I had just done something for the least of these.  I would not have wanted the goat question stuck in my head.  “Lord, when did we see you in need of fuel and not purchase it for you?”  The King replied, “When you did not do it for the least of these my brothers and sisters, is when you did not do it for me.”

So I felt as good as you can feel when you buy $25.00 worth of fuel for someone who needs a lot more than $25.00 worth of fuel.  What I did not feel so good about and, if fact, what was a little disturbing to me, was how desperate this man had been.  The man who had reminded me that to help was to help Christ, had been almost frantic for help, and almost overjoyed with $25.00.  He was desperate and frail, and his desperation and frailty quickly reminded me of Christ in the garden praying for the cup to pass; and Christ on the cross praying for the forgiveness of those who nailed him to the cross.

We like for our heroes to be big, strong and larger than life. We expect them to be able to face down any challenge and overcome any obstacle. Yet our salvation comes not from Christ’s willingness to be a larger-than-life human being, but from his willingness to be a real life human being.  By his wounds, we are healed.  In his brokenness, we are made whole.  It is not his strength that saves us, but with his frail vulnerability that he invites us into the Kingdom of God.  Whether at the manger in Bethlehem, the cross at Calvary, or the fuel pump at Weigel’s, he invites us to embrace him, to touch him, and meet his needs as we experience the power and the presence of the risen Lord.