“Freedom for What?”
1 Samuel 12:19-25
Esther 4:12-16
Galatians 5:1, 13-14
For a while now, I have been wondering how and whether to acknowledge or celebrate the 250th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence in worship today. My initial thought was to use the occasion to call us to lament the many ways in which our nation has failed to live up to the promises of that document, and to argue that, as the Rev. Benjamin Cremer says, grief over our current government’s efforts to return us to the worst of our history, is itself a form of patriotism.
But even that is a distraction from the more fundamental issue.
You see, God does not call us to be patriotic. Rather, God calls us to be faithful. Our faith does not rest on our allegiance to a certain ruler, our support of a particular form of government, or our adherence to specific laws or policies. Jesus himself violated both religious and civil laws in his ministry of love, justice, community-building and joy.
So let us not be drawn into arguments about what is or isn’t “patriotic.”
Instead, let us consider what it means to be faithful in these times when many in power are using God’s name to justify racism, greed, division, war, and a vision of our nation that its founders never intended.
As I thought about going in that direction, and as I read and listened to the plans of many of my clergy colleagues across the country, I thought perhaps today would be the day to do a full-on deconstruction of the truly dangerous and destructive worldview known as Christian nationalism.
This is the relatively recent justification for privilege and division that pretends to be our nation’s founding purpose, a fusing of God and country, church and state, a very narrow version of Christianity and a broad array of deeply un-Christian policy positions and political strategies. Christian nationalism insists that America’s very identity is Christian, and it seeks both to impose a warped Christianity on people of all faiths and no faiths and to marginalize non-Christian voices and perspectives.
But in fact—both historically and theologically—none of those things goes together. Christian nationalism is a perversion of both the gospel and the freedoms on which this nation was founded.
But even as I spent some time studying the insidiousness of Christian nationalism, I realized I did not want to spend most of our time here today focusing on it—because as important as it is to know what’s what so that we can speak truth to power in love, we also run the risk of becoming what we pay attention to. So I’m not going to say much more about Christian nationalism today except to make one important point:
Christian nationalism is, at its most extreme, racist and anti-immigrant, which is why we often refer to it as white Christian nationalism. It seeks to literally whitewash our nation’s history by denying the genocide of more than 50 million Native Americans, minimizing the brutal realities lived by some 10 million enslaved African Americans and the ongoing impacts of black slavery, and ignoring the reality that we are a nation of immigrants.
Civil religion took great strides in the 1950s, when the words “under God” were added to the Pledge of Allegiance and ”In God We Trust” became the official national motto. And it was the 1954 Supreme Court decision outlawing public school segregation that gave rise to the Christian right and taxpayer support for private schools.
(Of course, racism is non-sectarian; many of our government’s most extreme anti-immigration policymakers and many of our nation’s white supremacists are not Christian.)
But if all these policies and privileges are a distortion and abuse of our faith, what do our scriptures say about government authorities, following the law, and the purpose of individual freedoms?
Let’s start with the painful reality that humans tend to trust power more than sacrificial love and community, and what they can see more than what they can’t.
And so it was that when the Israelites starting begging their leaders for a king, so that they would be like other nations, God—speaking through judges and prophets—resisted. This went on for some time until, finally, God relented.
As was expected, things did not go well. Some kings were corrupt, using and abusing the people for their own gain. Other kings were incompetent, having neither the wisdom nor the compassion to take care of their people. And so the people of God suffered. And the more they suffered, the more likely they were to put their trust not in the mercy and providence of God, but in military might and human strategies. The more they suffered, the more likely they were to turn against each other instead of turning toward God’s ways.
We see it again and again and again in the Hebrew Bible. Israel’s pursuit of spiritual independence and military power results in military defeat, exile, despair, internal division, and weakness.
And still, God does not abandon them. In the same way, God does not abandon us or our nation.
Many Christians and others—including the man who left an obscene voicemail on the church office phone a couple weeks ago—believe our faith compels us to honor all civil authorities, even when they are corrupt, and to obey all laws, even when they are unjust. The man on the phone was quite worked up about the fact that we had quote-unquote “hidden” immigrants, and said this proved that we do not believe in—in his words—“God, the apostles, or Jesus.”
And yet the story of Esther and the life of Jesus demonstrate that the two greatest Judeo-Christian commandments—love of God and love of neighbor—are more important than human laws when those laws require us to go against the ways of love.
More than that, both Esther and Jesus risked their lives for love and justice, and they did so prayerfully. Esther committed to fasting and encouraged her people to fast as well. Only after that spiritual grounding would she break the law by going to the king.
And Jesus was a troublemaker precisely because he was forever going beyond the letter of the law, upsetting people by healing on the sabbath, hanging out with folks considered “unclean,” and empowering the poor, the sick, and other outcasts. </p
As noted by Father James Martin, “Jesus never said, ‘Feed the hungry only if they have papers.’ ‘Clothe the naked only if they’re from your country.’ ‘Welcome the stranger only if there’s zero risk. ‘Help the poor only if it’s convenient.’ ‘Love your neighbor only if they look like you.’ ”
Finally, on the 250th anniversary of American independence, let’s consider who and what our freedom is for. Apparently, there is something about our humanity that values uniformity, rule-following, and privilege. We see it in countless attempts to impose and reimpose white privilege and white evangelical Christian moral codes, and we see it throughout history. It was certainly there in the early church.
Jewish followers of The Way of Jesus were in the majority, and they had a long history of struggling to maintain their beliefs and traditions amid other cultures and belief systems. So when gentiles began joining their communities, many Jews believed they should have to follow the Jewish ways. There was intense disagreement, debate and, eventually discernment on questions of circumcision, diet, and other matters of Jewish law.
The apostle Paul had to go to some length to convince the Galatians that in Christ there were no longer any categories or separations—no Jew or Greek, slave or free, male or female. “You are all one in Christ Jesus,” he said, adding that Christ had made them free.
But this freedom was not something meant only for the benefit of each person or faction; the point was not for each person or group to do whatever they wanted. Freedom in Christ was meant for the good of all. Freedom in Christ was—and is—an opportunity to be sensitive to the needs of others and to serve them. Paul defined freedom not as an individual right but as a responsibility to others, a responsibility expressed in love and embodied in service.
And so it is with our nation 250 years on. There are those who care only about themselves—their power, their wealth, their freedom to do as they please, their right to determine who is worthy of welcome, and their capacity to require others to follow their rules. There are some who would use the government to impose a racist and distorted Christian worldview upon all Americans, legal immigrants, and refugees.
But this is not the way of Jesus. This reflects neither love of God nor love of neighbor.
Now, as our nation celebrates independence and freedom in an atmosphere of racist hatred, deadly cruelty, political corruption, cynical division, self-serving lies and historical distortions, and war for the sake of war, we must stand firm in the loving ways of Jesus.
For such a time as this, we have been called—as people of both faith and privilege—to use our freedom to serve all God’s people in love.
May it be so.
