A few years back, Rev. Martin Thielen found himself sick and unable to preach on July 4th weekend, so he stayed home. He decided that since it was Sunday he would watch a worship service on TV. Flipping through the channels, he found the live telecast of the service at a megachurch in the greater Nashville area. He settled in to watch, but as the service went on he became more and more disturbed by what he saw. The altar had been removed from the chancel and replaced by an army truck. As the service began, four servicemen, one from each military branch, rappelled from the high, coliseum-like ceiling of the church onto the chancel. Instead of a procession by the pastor and an acolyte or crucifer, a full military color guard marched in bearing an oversized American flag. When it came time for the sermon, the pastor preached about God’s favor toward America, making the U.S. sound like God’s chosen people. As the sermon continued, the pastor seemed to suggest that being a good, patriotic American and being a good Christian were the same thing. Every song in the service was about America. Jesus was absent from the whole affair. [The Answer to Bad Religion is Not No Religion: A Guide to Good Religion 28]
I have to tell you, based on Thielen’s description, I believe I would have been equally disturbed. A church service that should have been about worshipping God, proclaiming the good news of Jesus Christ, repenting of sin and committing to love of God and neighbor, was instead a patriotic rally. Jesus and the Gospel got lost in the revelry and God was co-opted as sort of stamp of approval for the United States. Christianity was replaced by patriotism, if not nationalism.
It’s not that patriotism, love of one’s country is a bad thing. It’s a very natural thing.[1] But it can be perverted. As William Sloane Coffin observed many times, "There are three kinds of patriots, two bad, one good. The Bad ones are uncritical lovers and the loveless critics. Good patriots carry on a lover's quarrel with their country, a reflection of God's lover's quarrel with all the world." Good patriots want their country to be the best it can be, to live up to its highest ideals—ideals like “liberty and justice for all” and “all people are created equal and endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights.”
But patriotism can go astray when it confuses God and country. God is not a tribal God. God is the God of all peoples and every nation stands beneath God’s judgement. We often forget this truth in America. We forget that Isaiah declared, “Surely the nations [all of them!] are like a drop in a bucket; they are regarded as dust on the scales.” [40.15] We forget the Psalmist’s warning not to put our trust in princes who are after all mortals, but to trust instead in God. [146.3]
This is the problem we see illustrated in our reading from 1 Samuel. The people want a king. Instead of trusting themselves to God, who has led and cared for Israel through a long series of judges like Samuel, they are putting their faith in a human political structure: kingship. All the surrounding nations have kings, strong rulers who can protect them. The elders of Israel, the leaders of the people, have decided their land needs the same: a king to govern over them, to lead them and to fight their battles. [1 Sam 8.19]
On the surface, this seems like a rejection of the institution of the judges, who were leaders raised up by God to deal with specific conflicts confronting the loose tribal confederacy. More specifically, it appears to be a rejection of Samuel’s two sons, who, as they have assumed the position and responsibilities held by Samuel—particularly the settling of disputes and administration of justice—but they prove to be corrupt. They “turned aside after gain; they took bribes and perverted justice.” This, and the ongoing threat of military conflict with the neighboring Philistines has deeply shaken the leaders of the tribes. Now they want new leadership, stronger leadership, someone with the power to defend them.
According to our text, this desire is in reality a rejection of God and God’s leadership over the people. They have rejected God as “king over them.” [1 Sam 8.7] It is God who has raised up the various judges in times of need. It is God, who delivered their ancestors from slavery in Egypt, who has repeatedly delivered Israel from foreign threats. As David Jensen observes, “in [their] desire to become like the nations, [the people] ignore the particularity of [their] call, the way [Israel] is called to be a signal to another way of being and doing….The desire to be like the nations [by having a king] is the desire to escape from God’s claims on Israel.” [Jensen, 1 & 2 Samuel, Belief: A Theological Commentary on the Bible, pp. 59-60]
Despite this rejection, God capitulates to their desire, because God is faithful even when we humans are not. God does not meet rejecting with rejection but instead shifts course and finds a new way to work with the people. God adjusts, while never abandoning God’s central commitment to promote human thriving. Jensen points out that God, wanting the people to flourish, does not dictate or dominate, but comes alongside because “the power of God is power with” not over. [Jensen, 62] And so God will give them a king.
But this new political arrangement comes with a warning. Samuel issues a scathing indictment of the way of kings. The key word here is “take.” [Jensen, 60] Kings will take from the people: they will take the best, most fertile land, the pick of the livestock, sons for wars of conquest, daughters for serving girls, cooks and bakers. And, in the process, they will take a measure of the people’s freedom. The way of kings is in direct contrast to the way of God. Kings exercise power over others; God exercises power with and for others. Kings exercise power for dominance of others; God displays power in sacrificial, self-giving love. Kings and, to bring this into the modern world, political strongmen seek their own gain—power, wealth, personal glory; but, as Irenaeus of Lyon wrote, the glory of God is human beings fully alive—God seeks human thriving.
This is why Jesus declares that his kingdom is not of this world.
The Kingdom of God stands in sharp opposition to the kingdoms of this world—be they literal kingdoms, dictatorships, authoritarian states, oligarchies, republics, parliamentary democracies or any other form of government. Jesus’ followers are called to a different allegiance and different ways of living. Christians are called first and foremost to love God and also to love all our neighbors, even our enemies. Thus, we are to seek more just ways of living, to show mercy and compassion for the needy, the vulnerable and the outcast, and to live with humble, open hearts, minds, hands and arms. [Micah 6.8] The Church is called to be a city on a hill, making the love, forgiveness and compassion of God visible to all the world, demonstrating a different way of living, by building a community of generosity and mutual care which pre-figures and anticipates God’s coming kingdom.
Of course, it’s hard to be a city on a hill, a light shining for God in the darkness of the world if we have given our primary allegiance to a nation or equated God’s work in the world with a political party. And yet, we too often claim, or at least act as if, our party’s candidate is God’s chosen one. Or, we criticize or question the faith of those who hold different political opinions from our own.
Adam Hamilton tells of receiving a letter from a young woman who was confused about faith and politics. She had joined the church for the first time at the age of 25. She saw a connection between her social concerns about poverty, education, health care and the environment and the concerns of Jesus in the Gospels. As she read the New Testament and learned about Jesus, she thought he too would have had similar concerns. But then some folks at church found out how she voted and they were highly critical. She wondered if she could vote the way she did and still be a Christian.
Hamilton wondered what kind of church would make a person feel so unwelcome. In his reply, he asked where she was going to church. To his chagrin, she told him she was attending his congregation!
Of course, God is neither a Republican nor a Democrat [Jim Wallis]. Reflecting on this young woman’s experience, Hamilton observed that neither party has the market cornered on the truth so “it is a dangerous thing when the church becomes ‘married’ to either political party.” [Hamilton, When Christians Get It Wrong, 34] When we equate one party or one political philosophy with God’s will and work, we set our mind on human things and substitute a finite, fallible human vision for God’s vision. William H. Lamar, pastor of Metropolitan AME Church in Washington, points out the difference between God’s vision of a just, peaceful world and goals and actions of American politics. He observes, “both parties are woefully politically inadequate when measured against the politics of Jesus. They make decisions in the service of retaining power. When they do justice, it is done incrementally, and they are always wont to undo the little good that they have done. We [as Christians] must be bold to advocate the politics of God’s realm in the church and outside of the church….I organize to put pressure on Democrats and Republicans because theirs is the politics of expediency, [as Christians] ours is the politics of a new heaven and a new earth.” [“Do Politics Belong in Church?” Christian Century, Oct. 10, 2018]
A part of God’s new earth is a new humanity. Paul tells us that, in Christ, there is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female. Christ brings a unity that transcends the things that divide us. This means that in Christ there is both American and Chinese, Democrat and Republican, liberal and conservative, black and white, Hispanic and Asian, male and female, gay, straight and trans, liberal and conservative, native and immigrant, for all are made one, unified with all our differences by the Christ who came for the salvation of us all. We share in the same baptism. We worship the same God. We trust in the same savior. And we are brought together at the same table to share together in same bread and cup. Given these essential truths, I cannot see how it is consistent to for Christians to support narrow nationalisms that claim the country for one type of people and exclude others or reduce them to second class or subservient status. I find it almost impossible to reconcile such nationalistic ideas as “Hungry for the Hungarians,” “India for the Hindus,” “Germany for the Aryans,” or “America for the white Christian folks” with the vision of God’s Kingdom enacted by Jesus and articulated by John of Patmos, who saw a great multitude drawn from every tongue and tribe and nation assembled around God’s throne.
Theilien reminds us that “If our ultimate allegiance is to God [as it should be], our identity as Christians trumps other identities we hold—our political party, our nationality, our race, our school, or our sports team affinity. When we allow these affiliations to [take precedence over] our Christianity, we divide the body of Christ, damaging our churches and our witness to the world of what it means to have Christ as our Lord. Christianity is a community religion. You and I can’t be Christians in isolation. We can be Christians only in relationships with other Christians. [“Week 5: Sermon Ideas;” The Answer to Bad Religion is Not No Religion: A Guide to Good Religion Worship Kit]
Christianity is about community, a new community united by the love of God that kindles our love of one another. Christianity is a “we” religion, not a “me” religion. Take a close look at the Lord’s Prayer. Plural pronouns—our, us and we—appear eight times in just six sentences. “Me” and “my” appear zero times. [Thielen, 96]
Earlier this week I came across an interesting quote from the 18th century Massachusetts Baptist pastor Issac Backus. I think it points us to how we as Christians should think about both our spiritual liberty and our political liberty and how we should enact that liberty in as both members of the church and citizens of the nation. Backus writes:
“The true liberty of man is, to know, obey and enjoy his Creator, and to do all the good unto, and enjoy all the happiness with and in his fellow creatures that he is capable of; in order to which the law of love was written in his heart, which carries in it’s nature union and benevolence to Being in general, and to each being in particular, according…to it’s relation and connexion with the supreme Being, and ourselves. Each rational soul, as he is part of the whole system of rational beings, so it was and is, both his duty and his liberty, to regard the good of the whole in all his actions.” [quoted in Robert Bellah, The Broken Covenant: American Civil Religion in Time of Trial, Seabury Press, 1975, p. 20; exact source of quote not given: Bellah is quoting from Alan Heimert, Religion and the American Mind, p. 459; Note: I have retained Backus’ 18th century punctuation and spelling.]
Well, that was an 18th century mouthful. What Backus is saying is that true liberty, true freedom consists in knowing God and being in right relationship with other people, specifically in doing all the good we can do for them and seeing our happiness as connected to theirs—as Paul says, we rejoice when they rejoice and weep when they weep. [Romans 12.15] This is the law of love which God writes upon human hearts, the law which recognizes our essential connection with God and all people and seeks to do what is right, just and compassionate for others, always considering the common good instead of only our own interests.
In our religious, familial, social and political relations, we are called to put our trust in God and to seek to embody God’s love in all we think, say and do as we live in community with others.
This sermon is a call to unity over division, to love over self-interest. It is a call to live as a community of mutual care—and to show that care in all our relationships. It is not a call to abandon our political principles, but to perhaps to hold them a little less tightly, a little less surely, so that they can be informed and transformed by the God of love, who created heaven and earth and who cares for the widows, the orphans, the poor and strangers who live among us. It is a call to put our trust in God instead of kings and political parties, to reorder our allegiances so that we heed Jesus’ words and “seek first the Kingdom of God.” It is a call to commit ourselves to loving our neighbors and enemies as we do justice and show kindness to everyone. It is a call to value community more than being right or getting our way; to forgive rather than tear down. It is a call to walk in humility as we long for, work for, pray for the coming of God’s kingdom, that time when, through Christ, we shall be formed into “one, new humanity,” into God’s beloved community. May that day come and when it comes may we be found to have been faithful to this vision. Amen.
[1] When preaching, I added at this point remarks about patriotism as a lover’s quarrel with one’s country.