Independence

Fireside Vespers, Week One

Reading:

The Pharisees took counsel together regarding how they might ensnare him in words. And they send their disciples to him, along with the Herodians, saying, “Teacher, we know that you are truthful and that you teach the way of God in truth, and you harbor no anxiety toward anyone, for you are not a respecter of men’s persons. Tell us, then, how does it seem to you? Is it lawful to render the poll-tax to Caesar or not?”

But knowing their wickedness, Jesus said, “Why do you try me, you charlatans? Show me the coin for the poll-tax.” And they brought a denarius to him. And he says to them, “Whose image is this and whose inscription?” They say, “Caesar’s.” Then he says to them, “Then render the things that are Caesar’s to Caesar and the things that are God’s to God.” And hearing this they were amazed and, leaving him be, they departed.

Homily:

Good evening all, and happy Independence Day.

One must be nimble when navigating national holidays within the Church. In every generation, Christianity’s relationship to the given governing authority has been somewhat fraught, to say the least.

In ancient Rome we were outlaws, subversives who could not be trusted to render unto Caesar. Tyrants and emperors have always disdained any religion that could purport an authority higher than their own. We would not worship the cults of city and of Caesar, and thus were arrested and executed via increasingly creative horrors. Christian worship was driven underground, quite literally in some cases. We celebrated the Eucharist in catacombs beneath large urban centers, with the tombs of the saints as our tables and altars.

After a few hundred years of that, we experienced one of the great turnarounds in Western history: the Emperor Constantine, at the instigation of a mystical vision, legalized and even patronized Christianity. Suddenly we were worshipping in basilicas, and our bishops, priests, and deacons were awarded tax-free legal status as ordained clerics within the empire.

And one would certainly think that here indeed is an improvement in position. We were down on the bottom, and came out on top. But with patronization came power, and with power persecution. Theological debates now became law, and those who disagreed with state-sponsored councils thus became outlaws. Christian murdered Christian over the love of Jesus Christ, while pagans often found themselves receiving retribution for past sins.

The marriage of Church and State is never a happy one for the Church. The State, however, is pleased as punch to have a nice domesticated religious institution first to absolve and then to solemnize the abuses of the State. Wars become holy wars. One of the reasons for Christendom’s collapse in Europe was that each new nation-state claimed for its own the mantle of the one true Church. And when those nations failed—when they roiled the world with mechanized genocide—Christianity fell along with faith in one’s own bigoted, violent country. Gott mit uns! the Germans cried. And how did Germany do?

It’s hard to thread that needle betwixt power and persecution. We don’t want to be exterminated by the state, but we don’t want to be the state either. Whatever our earthly city, Christians retain our true citizenship in Heaven. Ours is the Kingdom of God, and as such we are called to be in this world but not of this world. We have duties to our country, which are good and right and true, but our greater duty must always be to God. Lutherans call this living in the Two Kingdoms.

St Paul, himself a Roman citizen, argued that such seemingly divided loyalties actually make us into better citizens. Christianity, after all, loves and serves the neighbor. When we fear, love, and trust a divine power beyond all human laws and institutions, beyond even the state-sanctioned violence of the military and police, we are then better enabled to work selflessly for the good of our neighbor and our society. We are empowered not only to obey the state when it brings good order, but to criticize it when it steps beyond its proper bounds to violate morality and human dignity.

We want what is best for our city and our nation. We want secular laws to reflect the love and justice and mercy of God poured forth for all nations and all peoples. We want peace and prosperity, safety and opportunity, for everyone, regardless of color, class, or creed. For this reason, Christianity has been instrumental in establishing human rights, the rule of law, representative democracy, just war theory, and the scientific method. And thank God for that. May we ever cleave to such lights.

America represents a unique challenge for the Church. On the one hand, here is a nation which understands, at least in theory, that all men are created equal, and endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness—regardless of who your ancestors were. We have freedom of religion, freedom to pray and to worship and to believe as we see fit.

But on the other hand, as a seminary professor of ours liked to say: “If you want to confuse an American, ask them what freedom is for.” We’re not really sure, are we? Judging by the news, we seem to think that it has something to do with Big Macs and credit card debt and bombing the Middle East for the last 30 years. Our freedom, so we think, stems from the Holy River Amazon, and it darn well better come with free shipping.

Advertising and media work hard to convince us that freedom is the freedom to consume, to own ever-increasing piles of disposable, useless junk, filling up our houses, regardless of the environmental, governmental, financial and spiritual cost.

And American Christianity has in large part embraced all this, swallowing it down like poison. The Gospel of the United States is the Good News of consumerism, militarism, classism, and racism, which we happily export to the world. In other words, the religion we see on TV, with the Cross draped in a big ol’ American flag, is the privilege of the powerful to do as they wish, and the lot of the powerless to suffer what they must. And people think that this is Jesus! And then we wonder why no one under 40 wants to come to Church.

Now look, I love my country. My roots in this land run deep. Dad’s family got here in the 1600s, hired to fight Indians for the Dutch. Mom’s family came over as the Hessian troops of George III, tasked with putting down the Rebellion. We are of patriotic fighting stock, and I grew up celebrating the Fourth of July as the biggest holiday behind Christmas and Halloween. God bless America.

But the government of this country is not and cannot be my religion. I cannot fear, love, and trust the Constitution, or the flag, or the armed forces, or capitalism, or any given political party, before I fear, love, and trust God. And I sure as heck cannot bless any injustice, violence, mass incarceration, or wage slavery perpetrated by my country in my name as though it comes from the hands of Christ. That way lays damnation.

As Christians we are commanded to love our country, but forbidden to worship it. So much of what passes for patriotism these days is not a true and honest love for our fatherland, but a nationalistic disdain for anything or anyone supposedly un-American. That we must resist. We must ever be patriots, but never nationalists.

Thus I pray that we celebrate our country; that we love our neighbors, fellow-citizens, and the alien among us, as the Bible commands; that we learn from our mistakes, repent of our sins, and strive together toward a better tomorrow. Because our true citizenship is not American, Canadian, Mexican, or any other worldly domain. We are strangers and pilgrims on this earth, citizens only to Heaven. We cannot forget that. We must not forget that.

May we obey all civil law unless it command us to sin. And may we pray for the uprightness, justice, mercy, and prosperity of our nation, whichever it may be, trusting that one day God’s salvation shall remake all the world.

In Jesus. Amen.