7.3.22, "Patriotism and Hope: A History Lesson" Westminster Presbyterian Church, Pasadena, CA

 Isaiah 66.10-14; Luke 10.1-9

In May of 1984, I made my first journey overseas … with a clergy group, for a few weeks of study at the University of Leyden, The Netherlands …

Of Dutch ancestry, I was terribly pleased to be a part of this clergy study group … we landed at Schiphol airport … I was overwhelmed with a feeling of coming home - a remarkable moment, one I’ll never forget.

After my return to Oklahoma, I gave a sermon wherein I reflected on the notion of patriotism …  

I recall the sermon, and the question:

What does it mean to love one’s nation?

I noted the claims of some pundits, politicians and preachers - “we are the greatest nation on the face of the earth.”

“We are a very large nation,” I said, “with a powerful military, a gigantic economy, a cultural influence reaching around the world.”

But I’m uneasy about “the greatest.”

Of my trip to the Netherlands - a small nation of 17 million people … a nation with a proud history - a nation of ships and commodity dealers … considered in the 16th and 17th centuries to the richest nation on the face of the earth - comfortable, safe, nutritionally sound … money and tulips, ships around the world, wealth pouring in, trade and commerce, the first stock exchange, the first maritime insurance … power and glory - the Dutch Golden Age.

The Netherlands then, and still today, a nation of freedom, and welcome … a nation of liberty, religious tolerance … and it’s noted by those who study such things, Dutch children are some of the happiest children in the world.

I love what President Biden said at Walter Mondale’s memorial service, May 1 of this year:

We’re the only nation founded on an idea.  Every other nation in the world is based on geography, ethnicity, religion, race.  We’re founded on an idea.  “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men and women are created equal, endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, including the right to life, liberty, the pursuit of happiness.” 

Ideas that create us, ideals that compel us, hope that guides us, courage that leads us.

We are unique in this matter … and that’s worth saluting …

I love my country.

I love the flag.

I believe in America ... 

There is much good in our story, and the not-so-good, too ... 

The destruction of Indigenous Peoples, the enslavement of Africans, the war with Mexico, a Civil War over slavery, denying women the vote - the KKK and lynchings… the Chinese Exclusion Act, the internment of Japanese-Americans during WW2 … on-going racism, anti-Semitism ... too much John Wayne ... too much religious bigotry ...

It's good to know such things ... lest we get carried away by the good stories, of which there are plenty …

Our founding documents, the Bill of Rights; Lincoln and the Civil War ... the 13th, 14th, and 15th Amendments ... the bastion of Democracy to defeat fascism and militarism in WW2 ... Social Security, Medicare, the GI Bill, the Great Society - public education ... public and private universities ... freedom of religion, separation of church and state ... much good … and it's good to know these things, lest we become disheartened by what still needs to be fixed.

Right now, our nation is engaged in a serious conflict of competing ideas … ideas that drove us once to Civil War … ideas that continue to divide us.

As a Christian, I’m deeply concerned for my nation … 

Jesus cared about his nation … the prophets cared for their nation … so did Moses and Aaron, Miriam and Hannah … they worked day and night to achieve justice, when others sought dominion and power - they told the whole truth when others told half-truths … the put their lives on the line, because they loved their nation.

I love my nation … I care about the truth … the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, so help me God.

Love of nation is never blind … nationalism is blind … that’s why nationalism is deadly … patriotism has its eyes wide open; nationalism has its eyes shut tight. Patriotism talks wisely; nationalism shouts wantonly.

White Christian nationalism, rampaging through the land … a blind love, which isn’t love at all … it’s obsession, fixation, and it’s frightened …

I’m concerned - there are some in our nation who seek the end of human rights … we’ve seen a stacked Supreme Court end a freedom of choice for women, a freedom that has existed for 50 years … 

It is the first time in American history that a right has been taken away.

There have been times when rights were not granted, but once granted, they are established law.

But now, a right has been taken away.

And I’m concerned.

Some call for further rights to be stricken:

~ the 2015 decision affirming same-sex marriage … in some parts of the land, questions about interracial marriage are coming up again.

~ one senator called for a review of the 1954 decision outlawing racial segregation in our public schools.

I’m concerned … I’m a Christian … a follower of Jesus Christ.

I’m concerned that fascist undercurrents are running fast and furious in our nation … that which we defeated in Europe and in Asia in WW2 is now raging again within our own borders …

Fascism you say?

Yes, fascism:  “a political philosophy, movement, or regime … that exalts nation and often race above the individual and … stands for a centralized autocratic government headed by a dictatorial leader, severe economic and social regimentation, and forcible suppression of opposition.”

There are some in America who want this!

Jefferson Davis did.

Andrew Carnegie, with his “Gospel of Wealth,” thought it a good idea.

Fr. Charles Coughlin and aviator Charles Lindbergh thought it a good idea.

Many a capitalist in America thought Hitler had it right.

The president of Texaco Oil Company supplied Franco in Spain with all the oil he needed to defeat the Spanish Republic, while the Western Allies closed their eyes to the bombing of Guernica.

We shouldn’t be surprised when fascism rears its ugly head … it’s an easy answer, but it’s also a lie … and it always ends badly. 

Those who would take us down the fascist road take us down a well-traveled road, a road to suffering and collapse.

I love my nation.

I salute its goodness.

I speak of its failings.

With love, and with tears.

My country ’tis of thee.

Sweet land of liberty.

Long may our land be bright,

With freedom's holy light.

I will fight with all my might to preserve - our liberties, our freedoms, our rights … 

I will do all in my power to expand - our liberties, our freedoms, our rights …

I will not stand idly by while pundits, politicians, and preachers proclaim lies and promote fear … 

Christ did not tolerate distortions of the truth.

Nor did he tolerate those who preached hate and fear.

Christ proclaimed the year of the LORD.

The Jubilee …

Freedom and hope.

For all God’s creation.

We can do no less.

As those who follow Christ.

Today, we remember our patriots … real patriots, honest and true patriots … women and men of sound conscience who lift up the great ideals of equality and freedom … women and men who defend our nation, who put their lives on the line for our liberty … great leaders who bless our land with vision and faith, who abide by their oath of office, who know the difference between right and wrong … millions of faithful Americans, now, and then, whose graves dot the landscapes of Europe, Asia, and here at home - true patriots who give their lives that others might live.

In a time when some seek to destroy our nation, to take away our liberties, deny our rights, it is good, it is right, it is important, that we remember those who paid the price, the price to defend our freedoms.

That this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom -- and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.

Hallelujah and Amen!

[Taps] …

December 9, 2012 - "All Humanity Will See"

Malachi 3.1-6; Luke 3.1-14

Welcome to the Second Sunday of Advent … 

A little more waiting … as the Psalmist says:

Wait for the LORD; be strong, and let your heart take courage; wait for the LORD!

Those who wait for the LORD shall inherit the land.

We wait for the LORD … but not sitting around twiddling our thumbs … we’re getting ready, doing something, preparing ourselves, our world, for the Messiah.

Prepare the way of the LORD! … and we begin with John the Baptist.

All four gospels introduce us to Jesus through John the Baptist …

John is more than a warmup act for the main show … John is part of the main show … Jesus goes to him for baptism … Jesus affirms John’s work and message … Jesus stands in the River Jordan with John … 

John is NOT the Messiah … John rightly says to Jesus, You ought to baptize me!

But Jesus makes it clear: I’m here with you John … we’re in this together … I will take your message and build upon it … I will say what you say in the course of my ministry … I will point to a level world for all God’s children … a world where mountains are brought low and valleys filled in … 

A world of fairness and opportunity … 

Jesus is more than John … but Jesus is not less than John … Jesus affirms John’s message - Prepare the way of the LORD.

In the Season of Advent, we do well to hear John’s message.

Get ready for the Messiah! To receive him in our time and for our world!

John says to the crowds: Don’t yak about being children of Abraham … God doesn’t care about your pedigree … your ancestry … where ya’ come from or what your mom and dad did … the only thing that counts is here and now … produce fruit, says John, that shows the world what salvation looks like … show the world that you have changed your hearts and lives.

Prepare the way of the LORD!

I do a lot of cooking … I’ve learned some important things:

1. Know the recipe; how it works: what comes first, what comes second.
2. Do the prep work before hand - dicing, slicing, chopping and mincing - measure out the spices, if precision is needed … if you don’t use measuring spoons, be sure you’ve done it enough to know what a teaspoon of salt looks like or tablespoon of salt … do the prep work … have it all there … at hand and ready.

Prepare the way of the LORD.

This is a big deal ...

Because the Messiah is big.

Bigger than we imagine … and sometimes the church makes Jesus very small! 

I’m reading an American history book right now … all about 1919 … the year after World War One ended.

It was a time when women couldn’t vote, and the church pretty much said, That’s right; women ought not to have a voice in the affairs of men … women are inferior and unpredictable; women can’t be trusted to make important decisions … they can’t preach, nor can they be elders or deacons … preachers quoted chapter and verse to make their point, and felt mighty good about it … 

A time when divorced men couldn’t hold office in the church … couldn’t be an elder, a deacon or a minister … preachers quoted chapter and verse to make their point, and felt mighty good about it … 

A time when Americans were spying on Americans for all sorts of reasons - if you were German, your were suspected of disloyalty … if you were Russian, you were suspected of being a Communist … if you were Italian, you were suspected of being an anarchist … and the church said it was good and right to love this nation, and protect it from mongrel races, revolutionaries, agitators, Reds and Communists, and Jews and African-Americans who would undermine the Constitution … preachers quoted chapter and verse to make their point, and felt mighty good about it.

A time for lynching - an average of 200 lynchings a year, mostly in the south, but in the north, too … 200 lynchings, and many more beatings, shootings and burnings … Black soldiers had fought in the war, and many were highly decorated by the French, only to return home to Jim Crow laws and discrimination - black soldiers in uniform were beaten, shot and lynched … some were stripped of their uniforms and made to walk home in their underwear … and the church pretty much turned a blind eye to all of it … and in some parts of the country, the church said it was all right, because people of color shouldn’t be uppity, and they need to know their place … white preachers quoted chapter and verse to make their point, and felt mighty good about it.

A time when interracial marriage was prohibited by law, and if a white woman professed love for a black man, she was considered insane, and the black man a seducer … the church pretty much said, That’s right - it’s an abomination to mix the races … the white race is superior, and the black race inferior … white preachers quoted chapter and verse to make their point, and felt mighty good about it.

It was also a time when white men could rape a black woman without penalty … and have children with a servant girl, and everyone thought, That’s just the way it is … 

A congressman from George proposed a constitutional amendment banning interracial marriage: he said, “No more voracious parasite ever sucked at the heart of pure society, innocent girlhood, or Caucasian motherhood then the one which welcomes and recognizes the sacred ties of wedlock between Africa and America … the term ‘negro’ or ‘person of color,’ … shall be held to mean any and all persons of African descent or having any trace of African or negro blood” [Savage Peace, p.287].

The churches of America closed their eyes to most of this, raised their voices and sang, What a friend we have in Jesus.

Truth be told ...

Women still struggle in the American church and throughout the world …

As for racism, human beings have an infinite number of ways to hate one another.

Doors remain closed in much of the church to gays and lesbians - lots of preachers say it’s all right to hate gays and lesbians - and how they love to use the word abomination -and if gays and lesbians happen to get beat up and killed, that’s okay; some of your may recall the Briggs Initiative of 1978 here in California - to fire all public school teachers who were gay or lesbian … the initiative failed!

In some parts of the world, to be gay is criminal, with prison time and even execution … preachers quote chapter and verse, and feel mighty good about it.

Painful, isn’t it, all this history?

I’m sorry to share all of this with you … it’s painful for me to know such things, and I’m sure it’s painful for you to hear it … but if the gospel message is going to have any real meaning for us, we have to know these things … we cannot ignore the truth … it’s sin these stories highlight, and if Jesus comes to deal with sin, then sin is what we must understand … 

Sin is real, and sin is social … sin rips apart the human community, one from the other, pitting human beings against each other, filling the mind with suspicion and fear … the sins of the past are always the sins of today, wearing differing clothes, using cell phones rather than index cards.

We remember the sins of the church because truth requires it …it’s painful to remember, but memory is the key to honesty, humility, and hopefulness.

Things swept under the carpet will only trip us up again and again.

Those who forget the past are condemned to repeat it … 

Our work is far from done!

Wild and lone the prophet’s voice

Echoes through the desert still,

Calling us to make a choice,

Bidding us to do God’s will:

Turn from sin and be baptized;

Cleanse your heart and mind and soul.

Quitting all the sins your prized,

Yield your life to God’s control.

John’s message is vital to our times … keep Jesus big … big enough to open the big doors of compassion and mercy … big doors of intelligence and kindness … big doors that are big enough to welcome God and the world God created and loves.

Our work is far from done!

Prepare the way of the LORD! 

Amen and Amen!