Sermon July 1 2012 Deuteronomy 10:12-21



Officiant As we remember the birth of our nation, and the gifts of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, let us offer our thanks and prayers to God, the giver of all good gifts. Whenever I lift up my hand, I would like you to respond, with “We Pray to You, Lord”. Let us pray.

Oh God, We are thankful for the women and men who braved the long journey by sea to come to this new world, and so

We pray to you Lord.

We are thankful for the tribes and nations who inhabited this land for generation upon generation, and so

We pray to you Lord.

We are thankful For patriots who dreamed of, and fought for, a free nation, and so

We pray to you Lord.

We are thankful For the men and women who laid the foundation of our democracy, and who pledged liberty and justice for all, and so

We pray to you Lord.

We are thankful for those who built this country brick by brick, road by road, and town by town, and so

We pray to you Lord.

We are thankful for the brave soldiers who have fought for our country, for all who paid for our freedom by their service, and those who paid by their sacrifice, and so

We pray to you Lord.

We are thankful for the innovators and artists, poets and teachers, farmers and factory workers; for all who labor and provide for the common good, and so

We pray to you Lord.

We are thankful for this land, with its peaks and valleys, coasts and deserts, fields and meadows, and so

We pray to you Lord.

We thank you, God, for our own community, for those who came before us in this place, and for our neighbors near and far, and so

We pray to you Lord.

Lord, we pray for The United States, that we might always be a nation which defends and promotes liberty, truth, and justice.

We pray to you Lord.

That we might always be a nation where all are free to worship and pray, in whatever way you reveal yourself to them.

We pray to you Lord.

That we might be a beacon of freedom to all those who live under the shadow of terror and hopelessness,

We pray to you Lord.

That you would guide those whom we elect to govern and lead, and that they would be ever aware of the trust that has been given them,

We pray to you Lord.

That you would take pity upon your suffering children in this land and all others. That you would look into the lives of our brothers and sisters, and see where they need your touch. That you would heal those who are sick, comfort those who are in despair, and lift up those who grieve. That you would end the violence and injustice that destroys your children and kills our hope

We pray to you Lord.

Gracious God, Creator of all nations, bless and defend us and our land; prosper the work of our hands, and increase in us your grace and compassion, and our offerings of thanks to you, our rock and our salvation; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

Sermon July 1 2012 Deuteronomy 10:12-21

Throughout my adolescence and my teenage years, I remember a lot of fighting and divisiveness at my home church, in Ashland, Kentucky. There were lots of fights to be had, but one that I remember very vividly, one that was very visible every Sunday, was the Flag Fight. I was a sophomore in high school on September 11, 2001, and the events that followed that tragedy made a strong impression on my young mind. On the Sunday after the 9/11 attacks, there was flag on the chancel – the stage, like where I’m standing now – way back behind the communion table, but still extremely visible – an American flag. Not unlike the one that stands right back there [gesture to the flag in the back] right now. To this day, I’m not sure who put that flag out there, back in Ashland. My mom, the church secretary, told me that it was one of the elders, although I never learned who. But what I do know is that the next Sunday, it was gone. Not a word spoken about it, except rumors in hushed tones after service. The very next day – not even the next Sunday, but the very next day, the flag was back. That thing probably moved from closet to chancel and back fifty times before it was put to rest. I think, in the end, they ended up going without the flag, but the result isn’t the point of that story, The point of the story is how clearly divided Christians are about this tie between our Christian faith and our American citizenship.

Now, before you get antsy, I’m not about to say that we have to take the flag out of our sanctuary. Nor am I saying that it’s a crucial part of our worship experience. Some days, a national emblem would distract me from worshiping the universal God, while other days, that same flag would remind me how to apply what I’ve learned in my worship to my life out in this world, this country. There are arguments to be made on both sides. But we have to ask ourselves – how do these two things (this faith-in-God thing and this patriot-of-America thing) come together? How are we both at the same time?

Religion has always held a tenuous place in American politics. For every tenet of American society that is backed by a Judeo-Christian teaching, there is a matching quote from some Founding Father about they are not building a Christian nation. The two sides could lob quotes and laws and other attacks at each other all day, and not get anywhere decisive. But it’s clear that the question is coming to a head in our society. How are religious people meant to interact with their government? Are we supposed to push for government that applies our religious beliefs to everybody, simply because we are that confident that we’re right? Are we supposed to promote pluralism in our society, risking losing our identity in a sea of divergent beliefs?

I don’t know. I don’t know, and the Bible can’t tell us. You see, America is a unique bird among world history. It’s rare, if not unheard-of, for a country to be established based on ideology rather than heritage. A country based on a set of ideals, rather than a common religion, or language, or race. Even more, it’s rare in this world to see a country established on the idea that people can choose just about everything bout the way that they live – from what faith they can practice, to who runs their cities and states and nation, to what work they can do. The Bible, on the other hand, was not written in or addressed to that kind of society.

The Bible is a collection of books written by a collection of authors from a collection of times and places, compiled and edited by a collection of people, and we believe on faith that the words we receive, the words that made it through that whole process, reflect the word of God. But no part of the Bible was ever written to people who live in a democracy with freedom of religion. It was just unheard of to the authors of Scripture. In the ancient world, your country was your religion was your race was your language. They were all the same. I’m a Hebrew, in religion and language and territory, or I’m a Philistine, in religion and language and territory, or whatever. So for the Bible – for the author of the passage from Deuteronomy that we read for today – there is no distinction made between national identity and faith.

So what are religious people to do? Should we try to declare this a genuinely Christian nation? Abolish the freedom to be a non-Christian, create a state church, and become a proper theocracy? I’m skeptical about that for a number of reasons, including the fact that once the government starts being Christian, the government starts running worship, teaching Christian tenets, and basically deciding what it means to be a Christian, and I don’t much like that idea. There are countries around who dictate the faith of their citizens, who have established national faiths and enforce them – but this isn’t one of those countries, and most Americans wouldn’t want to live in those countries. But I don’t much like the other big alternative either – that our faith should never play any role in our politics.

Although the fight still rages, I think that many American Christians have come to a sort of balancing act – we won’t try and make our religion the law of the land, but we do believe that some things are right and some things are wrong, and we’ll act on that. If our beliefs rise out of religious conviction, that’s fine, but if they rise out of natural law or some other system, that’s fine too.

So what kind of stuff should we be promoting as Christians who live and work and vote in the public world? We can probably let stuff like fasting for Lent go – acts of personal devotion that you can choose to do or not to do – while we should probably hold onto stuff like “murder is bad,” which everybody of any religion or no religion at all can agree on. There’s a balance here. Shew… it would be nice if Scripture gave us any clue about how society is supposed to look – at least then we could use it as a guide. Of course Scripture wants society to live under the rule of the god Yahweh – but that’s because it’s written to the Hebrews, and that God was the center of their identity. But what good ideas can we take out of Scripture for how to run a country that we’ve founded to be open to all religions, to all creeds and races and belief systems? Doesn’t God command anything that’s just plain a good idea, to anybody who hears it? If this book is the book of truth we all claim it to be, surely it has some just-plain-good-ideas in there?

Hear again the words of Deuteronomy – if the author of Deuteronomy believes that God is in charge of everything, then what does it mean to say that “God, mighty and awesome, is not partial and takes no bribe.” Okay, so in the society that God would have us build, there is no partiality – justice works the same for everybody, rich or poor. Okay. I don’t know if we’re there yet in our society, but it’s a goal. Let’s go on.

“God executes justice for the orphan and the widow.” This is not to say that we build more orphanages and widow-houses. In the ancient world, orphans and widows were considered the weakest people in society – they had nobody to provide them with food or shelter or protection. If left alone, they would starve or freeze in the night. This is who God would have us execute justice for – protecting the weakest and poorest people in our society. Ensuring that the people who have it the worst, who have nobody sticking up for them, that those people are fed and housed and cared for and allowed to live happy, full lives, with the same blessings given to the rest of society.

“God loves the stranger, providing them food and clothing. You shall also love the stranger, for you were strangers in the land of Egypt.” This sounds lovely – to love a stranger – but does anybody here know what this book is talking about when it says “stranger”? Immigrants! The word used in this text always refers to foreigners living in your land. Notice – it doesn’t say “Love the stranger as soon as they register and become citizens and speak your language.” No, it’s just “Love the stranger, for you were once strangers in Egypt.”

And right there, there’s the key. Love this group of people, because once upon a time, you knew what it was like to be them. Love foreigners, because you were once foreigners. For European-Americans like most of us, who migrated to this country to find better lives, that’s a point that should strike home with us. Make the world just and fair for orphans and widows – love the people who don’t have any power or money or family or protection – because we can hopefully understand what it would be like to be them, and try to relieve the injustice they face.

In my study bible, this section of Deuteronomy is called “The Essence of the Law”. Moses has just been given a second copy of the Ten Commandments, because he broke the first copy, and he’s giving the basic of it to his people. What he boils it down to is this: Love the Lord God with all you have, and hold the Lord above all others. How do you do that? What would our society look like if you truly worshiped Yahweh, and truly did what Yahweh thought was best? Our society would treat the weakest and poorest people with love and fairness. It would show kindness and love to the strangers, the foreigners within its borders. It would provide for those who cannot provide for themselves, and rescue the people who have been hurt by injustice, the weak who have been hurt by the strong.

That’s the essence of the Law. Rabbi Hillel, a Jewish scholar who lived around the time of Jesus, was once asked by a Gentile, “If you can explain your entire religion to me while standing on one foot, I will convert and become a Jew.” So Hillel got up on one foot and said, “Nothing that is hateful to you, do to another person. That is the Law – everything else is interpretation.” Jesus, right around the same time in history, said, “Do to other people what you would want them to do to you.” Caring about other people – taking their needs seriously, and acting to help them – this is what our faith is about. This is the society that we’re wanting to build. A place of justice and love – this is the country that we would create if we were being servants of God. So today I celebrate America and the freedom we have here; I celebrate a wonderful nation built on wonderful principles that allows its people – all of its people – to build a shared future together. And if our faith is to help us define what it means for us to be Americans – if our faith is to help us define what we believe is right, how we believe this country should be run – then this must be our platform: Love.

So let’s keep the flag in the sanctuary. Let’s celebrate our nationality while we celebrate our faith. But we can ONLY do these things if we remember – We are here to create a world governed by love, by treating other people as ourselves, especially people that seem to be less than us. We are here to create a world in which we see each other as God sees us – as valued members of creation that need to be loved, that need to be cared for. If we as Christians support any government, any party, and policy, let us support love. Amen.

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