America the Beautiful

We sang “America the Beautiful” in church last Sunday. 

I know the danger of mixing patriotism and religion: "civil religion", it's been called. And yet, there are those who expect at least a nod toward the flag on Sundays related to patriotic holidays. Some of my clergy colleagues really bow their necks and rigidly oppose what, admittedly, can be a deadly cocktail. Oh, they may condescend to mention it in a prayer or something. And, quite frankly, I don’t disagree with their theological reasoning.

For me, I find it more constructive to go ahead and include some patriotic expressions in the worship service, and to use my pastoral role as teacher to set what I consider an acceptable context for such inclusion. For example, last Sunday, here was my invitation to the Table (as Disciples of Christ, we observe communion weekly).

“As a minister, I struggle with patriotic holidays: Independence Day, Memorial Day, Flag Day… Not that I struggle with patriotism. I’m a combat veteran; I served under fire—served under the flag that stands to my right when I’m in the pulpit.

“I participate, when the pledge of allegiance is recited. Sometimes I tear up when I hear the national anthem—or the Marine Corps Hymn. I vote. I’ve held public office. I write my Congressional representatives on a regular basis. On national holidays we fly the flag at our house.[1] 

“I’m just not at peace bringing all that into this room. Oh, I have absolutely no problem displaying the flag or singing patriotic hymns. I’m just concerned about misplaced priorities. I’ve seen church fights over whether the American flag is on the wrong side of the platform. Patriotism and religious faith never have been a beneficial mixture. 

“In this room, this table is central. And at this table I hope we remember the words of that late addition to the pledge of allegiance: “under God.” And there are two ways to read that: (1) “One nation under God.” And I’d have difficulty affirming today that we are, indeed, a nation under God. (2) “One nation; under God indivisible…” And few would deny that, today, we are a nation divided.

“And so, in this room, I bring my love of country to this table, where I celebrate the God under whom rests the only hope I know for this nation to be, truly, indivisible. You are invited to share the loaf and the cup, and to remember the one whose sacrifice can truly unite us.”

But, I digress. We sang “America the Beautiful” in church last Sunday, and I felt tears beginning to sting my eyes. It wasn’t just the hymn, although it can be a source of emotion. What brought me to the verge of tears was a new insight into Katharine Lee Bates’ words[2], especially in the refrain. Each refrain is a prayer:

America! America! 

God shed his grace on thee 

And crown thy good with brotherhood 

From sea to shining sea!

America! America!

God mend thine every flaw

Confirm thy soul in self-control

Thy liberty in law!

America! America!

May God thy gold refine

Till all success be nobleness

And every gain divine!

America! America! 

God shed his grace on thee 

And crown thy good with brotherhood 

From sea to shining sea!

As we sang on Sunday, I realized that each of these refrains was a prayer of humility, asking that God guide our nation through and away from the human temptations motivated by greed or lust for power. And, given the depraved condition of our nation’s public life, it occurred to me that, on the eve of our nation’s birthday celebration, nothing was more appropriate for worship.

Postscript: Originally, I wrote in the paragraph above, “…the depraved condition of our nation’s public life today…” But, upon only a brief reflection, while America has authored eras of great and noble altruism, scientific and technical achievement, and charitable embracing of the down-trodden (both domestically and globally), our nation, from the beginning, has endured, sometimes just below the surface and sometimes out in broad daylight, a disgraceful flaunting of jingoistic, chauvinistic greed and lust for power. Indeed, it is precisely those decadent qualities that our founders sought to avoid by the creation of the Declaration of Independence, the Revolutionary War, the Constitution, and the Bill of Rights, as well as in much that has been legislated since our founding.

And, while there is no political or economic system that is immune to the impact of such corruption, the work of our founders, with its self-correcting checks and balances, is thus far the single most effective human effort both to avoid and also to correct its damage.

America! America!

God mend thine every flaw!

That’s the way it looks through the Flawed Glass that is my world view.

Together in the Walk,

Jim

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[1] Except for this year. I recently reorganized our garage, and the flag somehow is still in hiding!)

[2] Actually, the words we sing are “third generation”—a second edit (1911)—of Bates’ original poem, which was written in 1893.

The Politics of Jesus

August 11, 2016

My 2016 Ongoing Journey: Exploring Matthew to discover what following Jesus and becoming more like him would look like.

Matthew 17:24-18:5 ~ This is a strange text: it’s got corrupt religious officials, religious taxes, a rabbinic riddle, a Hans Christian Anderson-like fairy tale solution; then it ends with a discussion about politics.

At some point the the tithe had become a legally binding “Temple Tax.” That’s just one of the ways religion is corrupted when it attains political power. Jesus compares the temple tax with tribute exacted by a conquering king.

The clear implication is that the temple tax is illegitimate and thus not binding. But, in order to avoid any occasion for valid criticism of his movement, Jesus performs the old “coin-in-the-fish’s-mouth” trick and sends Peter off to pay the tax.

In context, this event immediately follows the transfiguration, the disciples' failed healing, and the second prediction of the passion. It then leads to the disciples’ question about who will be greatest in the kingdom of heaven.

Do you grasp the irony? They’ve just encountered the corrupting results of political power, and their next response is to ask, essentially, “What positions of political power will we have in the kingdom?” It wouldn’t be the last time they made such an inquiry.

I sincerely believe the greatest human problems—individually, relationally, politically and globally—emerge out of issues of power and control. The relationship between government and any other social manifestation always has been (and, apparently, always will be) a bone of contention among people.

The question of centralized government (The Federalists, led by Alexander Hamilton, John Adams, George Washington, James Madison, et. al.) versus states’ rights (The Anti-Federalists, led by Patrick Henry, Samuel Adams, George Mason, James Monroe, et. al.) almost derailed the ratification of the US Constitution. Indeed, it was essentially that same debate that precipitated the secession of the Confederacy scarcely ¾ of a century later. It’s at the root of today’s political belligerence.

Political debate always has been about who will control who. At the infamous bottom line, while it may seem a simple lust for power, its root is fear and an absence of trust. (Whether the fear and absence of trust is justified is a valid issue for another discussion.)

Jesus’ response to the disciples’ lust for power? “Truly I tell you, unless you change and become like children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.  Whoever becomes humble like this child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven” (18:3-4). How’s that for a political platform?

If I am to follow Jesus, what does that say about my political stance? What would you do if you weren’t afraid?

That's the way it looks through the flawed glass that is my world view.

Together in the Walk,

Jim

The Mind of Christ

I've spent most of my life studying the Bible and related sources in an effort to discover who God is and what God wants to accomplish through me. The longer I live the more important it seems that I continue to do so. That activity is called theology, and everybody, even agnostics and atheists, has “a theology.”

The greatest difficulty with theology is keeping ourselves out of it. What passes for Bible study too often is really an exercise in finding justification for what we already are doing or have decided to do. As the old cliché goes: “You can prove anything with the Bible.” In seminary we called that “seducing the text.” Sometimes it’s more like “raping the text.”

Perhaps the most egregious—and at the same time the most denied—abuse of Scripture and theology is how it is twisted to support the use of violence or the threat of violence to inflict and enforce specific doctrines or practices; and it makes little difference whether the enforced doctrine or practice is religious, political, economic or simple greed—even the enslavement of other humans has been justified through the rape of Scripture.

In other words, the history of theology is filled with intrusions of human fallibility. Theology and faith have been shaped by human need, desire and ambition to a much greater degree than they have shaped those human foibles. While most theology emerges as a way of shaping human relationships and culture, in virtually every case, culture eventually shapes theology, rather than the other way around.

The bottom line is power and control. In a recent blog, Kyle Roberts develops the idea that throughout Christian history theology has served “to empower certain persons over others and to inscribe authority in one way of theologizing over another way, one way of thinking of Christ over another, one way of understanding salvation over another way.”[1]

Why drag out all the dirty laundry? Isn't it more uplifting and constructive to lift up Christ and his grace? Absolutely. But, if that’s what we've been doing, we've done a terrible job! We've been long on condemning the sins of others, and short on any kind of self-evaluation.

For a couple of generations people by the droves have been bailing out of virtually every manifestation of organized “religion.”

And the reason they’re leaving? They point primarily to a lack of integrity between what religion preaches and what it practices.

Of course they often generalize the entire religious world on the basis of some single manifestation of religion—quite likely one particular experience related to religion. But the tragedy is that those counterproductive experiences of religion seem to outnumber those of religious integrity.

In short, the church has lost its power, and none too soon! The problem with a power-based ideology is that power eventually runs out. The church has reacted to its loss of power simply by redoubling its investment in ineffective and counterproductive strategies of institutional maintenance.

Three quarters of a century ago those strategies spelled power, and “success.” But success increasingly was measured by the standards of the marketing industry, rather than by biblically-based theology. When “the customer is always right,” the church cedes its power to the market.

Power was never a part of Christ’s agenda in the first place! The truth is, we humans have gotten it wrong—over and over and over!

We’re not perfect; and one of the greatest manifestations of our imperfection is that we don’t always recognize or acknowledge it. It’s always the other guy who gets it wrong (you know, that cinder in the other guy’s eye…).

But the cry from the “spiritually yearning, institutionally disillusioned public”[2] is simple: “Show us how to follow Jesus.”

WHAT A CONCEPT!!!

How does one “follow Jesus?” Many of us have spent the greater part of a lifetime trying to do, and we still don’t get it right on a consistent basis. But how about starting simply by adopting one quality of Jesus at a time? For some of us even that will be a life-long struggle; and for most of us it will be an ongoing exercise in one step forward, two steps back.

I propose the quality of humility as a starting place. Fair or unfair, accurate or inaccurate, one of the most frequent stereotypes of Christians today is arrogance. It’s easy to see in some people (please don’t show me a mirror!)

In contrast, consider my favorite passage in the Bible:

 Let the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus,

6 who, though he was in the form of God,
    did not regard equality with God
    as something to be exploited,
7 but emptied himself,
    taking the form of a slave,
    being born in human likeness.
And being found in human form,
8     he humbled himself
    and became obedient to the point of death—

    even death on a cross.              ~ Philippians 2:5-8 (NRSV)

Humility, in this text, involves surrender of status, acceptance of a life of servanthood and remaining obedient to the life of service to which God called him.

How about that as a starting place for following Jesus?

That’s the way I see it through the flawed glass that is my world view.

Together in the Walk,

Jim

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[1] http://www.longlooking.com/2015/04/theology-is-about-power/

[2] A phrase coined by Thomas G. Bandy and used in several of his books.