This weekend we celebrate something very special to us: Our Country. Our way of life is wrapped up into what we think and feel about our country. One word best describes for us the importance of our country: liberty. However, I believe that we may have some fuzzy theology when it comes to the relationship between God and America, as well as the nature of the gift of liberty. Blind patriotism is deceptive.

The title of this teaching is: “‘My country, right or wrong’ is not the hill of the Lord: a call for Christian citizens of America to hone a prophetic mind and heart, as a gift to the country they love so much.” This teaching, which is a slight break from our series on the Apostles’ Creed, will explore this further. Let us begin by turning to Psalm 24:

The earth is the LORD’s and the
          fullness thereof,
     the world and those who dwell therein,
for he has founded it upon the seas
     and established it upon the rivers.

Who shall ascend the hill of the LORD?
     And who shall stand in his holy place?
He who has clean hands and a pure
          heart,
     who does not lift up his soul to what
          is false
     and does not swear deceitfully.
He shall receive blessing from the LORD
     and righteousness from the God of
          his salvation.
Such is the generation of those who
          seek him,
     who seek the face of the God of
          Jacob.

Lift up your head, O gates!
     And be lifted up, O ancient doors,
     that the King of glory may come in.
Who is this King of glory?
     The LORD, strong and mighty,
     the LORD, might in battle!
Lift up your head, O gates!
     And lift them up, O ancient doors,
     that the King of glory may come in.
Who is this King of glory?
     The LORD of hosts,
     he is the King of glory! (ESV).

This psalm might not make much sense besides being a dramatic and poetic reading. However, given the context in which it was written, it has powerful import for us patriotic Americans today. The psalm begins by establishing the Lord owns the whole of the earth. (Is it possible that if God owns the whole of the earth, that he also owns all the people therein? Even peoples that are not citizens of America?) David asks the powerful question: Who may ascend the hill of the Lord? Then the third part describes something a bit poetical.

However, given the context it makes sense. In the ancient world it was common practice for people to build temples to their gods that were hugely huge monstrosities. They would easily dwarf the worshiper, causing him to feel small and humbled. The intent was that the god was so big, he required a huge house. You wouldn’t want to be there when he came home.

In this vein David writes, “Lift up your heads, O gates! And be lifted up, O ancient doors, that the King of glory may come in.” David is referring to the tops of the doorways to any supposed house of the gods. Those gods might be large, but the God of David is so large that no human building could contain him. In fact the whole earth could not contain the presence of the King of glory: “The earth is the LORD’s and the fullness thereof.”

It is this King of glory to whom we may ascend … but only with clean hands and a pure heart. Here some questions for us “patriotic” Americans: when we come to worship, waving our flags and “God bless America” banners, do we come with pure motives? Or do we come with purely selfish motives seeking to secure God’s protection of our ability to live however we choose to live? Do we proudly wave the flag that drips with the blood of 4,000 innocent unborn babies daily and expect God to bless us in how we as a people have chosen to use our political liberties? Do we proudly wave the flag that drapes over the alter of legalized homosexual unions, termed “marriage,” and expect God to bless us? And finally have we ever really thought  … period? Or do we simply wave the American flag and sing God bless America, without thinking about what we’re asking God to bless.

Liberty.

Our ability to do whatever we want to, however we want to, whenever we want to, wherever we want to: is this culture’s definition of liberty. Whether I want to go to McDonald’s or Burger King, whether I want to eat in or order take out: is this culture’s definition of liberty. And when I am no longer able to do whatever we want to, however we want to, whenever we want to, wherever we want to: we will petition the government to bail us out.

Is it possible the Founding Fathers envisioned a different idea of liberty?

0971Before any shred of hope arises that we puny-minded conservative Christians might be able to ascertain such a question, we, who have long ago decided to discard our brains, like yesterday’s spent fireworks, don’t have a clue that political liberty is categorically different than the freedom Jesus brings. We like to provide cutesy sayings against the backdrop of fireworks, American flags, and other Revolutionary War-era paraphernalia such as “Christ has set us free.”  Yet, due to the discarding of our brains, we are not able to discern that perhaps Jesus has not given us the liberty that is so celebrated by today’s secular humanist culture. What of our brothers and sisters in the Lord leading lives of authentic worship under cruel and oppressive regimes? Does God simply like us better than these poor political slaves? Is it possible that though we have some measure of political freedom in our beloved country, we conservative American Christians are the most enslaved of all peoples on the planet: due to our absolute need to be free to pursue absolute personal comfort?

I am very patriotic, but my ultimate allegiance lies with the heart of God and his ways. I, like you, are very patriotic, but unfortunately for us, God is no patron of any state: even Israel. Nor is he the patron of the philosophy of “being free to do whatever we want to, however we want to, whenever we want to, wherever we want to.” Nor is he the patron of a Christianity that blindly embraces: “My country, right or wrong.” Let us enter the world of Jeremiah, who was sent by the God of nation-state Israel, to warn the people of the God of the nation-state Israel, living in the state of Judah, of appending doom.

Jeremiah 26:1-15:

In the beginning of the reign of Jehoiakim the son of Josiah, king of Judah, this word came from the LORD: “Thus says the LORD: Stand in the court of the LORD’s house, and speak to all the cities of Judah that come to worship in the house of the LORD all the words that I command you to speak to them; do not hold back a word. It may be they will listen, and every one turn from his evil way, that I may relent of the disaster that I intend to do to them because of their evil deeds. You shall say to them, ‘Thus says the LORD: If you will not listen to me, to walk in my law that I have set before you, and to listen to the words of my servants the prophets whom I send to you urgently, though you have not listened, then I will make this house like Shiloh, and I will make this city a curse for all the nations of the earth.’”

The priests and the prophets and all the people heard Jeremiah speaking these words in the house of the LORD. And when Jeremiah had finished speaking all that the LORD had commanded him to speak to all the people, then the priests and the prophets and all the people laid hold of him, saying, “You shall die! Why have you prophesied in the name of the LORD, saying ‘This house shall be like Shiloh, and this city shall be desolate, without inhabitant’?” And all the people gathered around Jeremiah in the house of the LORD.

When the officials of Judah heard these things, they came up from the king’s house to the house of the LORD and took their seat in the entry of the New Gate of the house of the LORD. Then the priests and the prophets said to the officials and to all the people, “This man deserves the sentence of death, because he has prophesied against this city, as you have heard with your own ears.”

Then Jeremiah spoke to all the officials and all the people, saying, “The LORD sent me to prophesy against this house and this city all the words you have heard. Now therefore mend your ways and your deeds, and obey the voice of the LORD your God, and the LORD will relent of the disaster that he has pronounced against you. But as for me, behold, I am in your hand. Do with me as seems good and right to you. Only know for certain that if you put me to death, you will bring innocent blood upon this city and its inhabitants, for in truth the LORD sent me to you to speak all these words in your ears” (ESV).

The whole of Jeremiah oscillates between the reigns of Jehoiakim and Zedekiah. These two kings were the last to reign over the nation-state (country) of Israeli people, in this case Judeans. Jeremiah is told to go warn the people of impending doom. He speaks against the patriotic symbols of Judah: the land and the Temple. Do the people embrace him? Do the people celebrate the fact that they love God more than their “place and their nation?” Far from it: “You shall die!”

I am afraid that we patriotic Christians are not that much different from Jeremiah’s detractors years ago. We have embraced “my country, right or wrong,” and are asking God to bless our concept of liberty that in effect destroys both the Founders’ vision of political liberty and the freedom Jesus offers. Our idea of liberty enslaved us to our needs for absolute personal comfort. Both the Founding Fathers and Jesus think of a different liberty … and each offers a liberty different from the other. Yet, again, both the Founders’ understanding of liberty and Jesus’s offer of freedom are both sabotaged by our understanding of liberty.

Very few of us are greater American patriots than our first and greatest President, George Washington. In his First Inaugural Address as President, he addresses directly the concept of American political liberty. The following quote is from that address. Leading up to the quote, Washington is filled with humbleness and awe at being chosen as our first President. He says that it now falls to him to instill respect in the hearts and minds of the American people and the nations of the world for this Republican governmental experiment. In that vein he continues:

I dwell on this prospect with every satisfaction which an ardent love for my Country can inspire: since there is no truth more thoroughly established, than that there exists in the economy and course of nature, an indissoluble union between virtue and happiness, between duty and advantage, between the genuine maxims of an honest and magnanimous policy, and the solid rewards of public prosperity and felicity: Since we ought to be no less persuaded that the propitious smiles of Heaven, can never be expected on a nation that disregards the eternal rules of order and right, which Heaven itself has ordained: And since the preservation of the sacred fire of liberty, and the destiny of the Republican model of Government, are justly considered as deeply, perhaps as finally staked, on the experiment entrusted to the hands of the American people. (George Washington; “First Inaugural Address”; 1789; New York City).

In one philosophical nutshell he said that liberty is firmly enslaved to personal virtue as defined by God. Liberty that enables me to “do whatever we want to, however we want to, whenever we want to, wherever we want to” and embraces “my country, right or wrong” as its national motto was anathema to the Founders. Liberty for them was having the most freedom to do the most good for the populous with the least hindrance from the government. Liberty that subsidizes my needs for absolute comfort will in the end drive me to sacrifice my political and economic freedoms on the altar of the latest slick politician who promises to secure for me absolute comfort.

And with integrity can we expect God to bless the things we do with the liberty that secures my rights to “do whatever we want to, however we want to, whenever we want to, wherever we want to?” In short can we expect to be taken seriously by God in asking him to bless our “free” endeavors that are cut loose from the socially-healthful anchor of Biblically-grounded personal virtue? Consider the follow quote from Thomas Jefferson:

And can the liberties of a nation be thought secure when we have removed their only firm basis, a conviction in the minds of the people that these liberties are of the gift of God? That they are not to be violated but with his wrath? Indeed I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just: that his justice cannot sleep for ever: that considering numbers, nature and natural means only, a revolution of the wheel of fortune, an exchange of situation, is among possible events: that it may become probable by supernatural interference! The Almighty has no attribute which can take side with us in such a contest (Thomas Jefferson; Notes on the State of Virginia; Query XVIII, Manners; 1781).

In another philosophical nutshell Jefferson says, yes, political liberty is the gift of God, but not for the purpose of doing “whatever we want to, however we want to, whenever we want to, wherever we want to.” “Indeed I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just: that his justice cannot sleep forever ….” The context of this quote is the juxtaposition of fighting for political liberty, while at the same time vying for the right to enslave fellow human beings.

Blind patriotism that brazenly waves “my country, right or wrong” is not isolated to Jeremiah’s day nor our day. 2000 years ago the high priest Caiaphas and his fellow Sadducees feared the “Romans will come and take away both our place and our nation” (John 11:48; ESV). They loved their “place and nation” more than their God and his messiah who they sent to die since for them “it is better for … one man (to) die for the people, not that the whole nation should perish” (John 11:50; ESV). Brazenly-blind patriotism that waves the banner of “my country, right or wrong” paved the way for the crucifixion of the Sovereign Ruler of all countries and nations.

The very disciples who lived with Jesus and witnessed his torture, death, and Resurrection asked Jesus as he was about to ascend into heaven if right then he was going to restore the nation-state of Israel (Acts 1:6-8). Jesus replies in essence: don’t worry about that, but you go to all nations and states as “my” witnesses.

No, “my country, right or wrong” is not the hill of the Lord. Rather the hill on which the Lord has called us to ascend is Calvary: “Whoever loves his life loses it, and whoever hates his life in this world will keep it for eternal life. If anyone serves me, he must follow me; and where I am, there will my servant be also” (John 12:25 & 26; ESV). Where was Jesus going but to give up his personal comfort for all nations?

In that vein here are two questions for us:

  • Are we as American Christians more concerned about losing our political and economic freedom than we are about the couple down the street who is losing their marriage, than we are about our neighbors who are dying without knowing Jesus, than we are about our public schools graduating seniors with 2nd Grade reading levels?
  • What if in two years, five years, or ten years we in our country have similar revolutions like Cuba under Castro or Russia under Lenin? Would we be free enough from our fears, tyrannical needs for personal comfort, and Sin to still effectively do the business of the Kingdom of the Son of God?

(Picture is from Cathedral Press: http://www.cathedralpress.com/every_09.htm and is the bulletin used in one of my churches this past Sunday.)