6.30.24 "A Celebration of America" - Westminster Presbyterian Church, Pasadena, CA

 Psalm 130; 2 Corinthians 8:7-15

I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America, and to the Republic for which it stands, one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

The celebration of our nation … fire works, marching bands, hot dogs and ice cream … 

There is much to celebrate …

The Appalachian Mountains … the Great Lakes … the Grand Canyon … the high Sierras and the Redwoods … prairies, vast and deep, with endless fields of grain.

George Washington and Thomas Jefferson … Betsy Ross and Abigail Adams … Frederick Douglass and Harriet Tubman.

Boston, New York, and Philadelphia … Chicago and Saint Louis, San Francisco and Los Angeles … Alaska and Hawaii.

Not to mention:

Ovaltine, Oreo Cookies, and state fairs where everything is deep fried.

A land of invention and freedom … a land governed by the governed, leaders elected by the people … a government of the people, by the people, and for the people. 

The ideals and ideas of Democracy have forged some of the greatest human beings the world has ever known … our Constitutional Documents have inspired millions and lifted up the human soul - a model to follow, and dreams still to be realized.

A land of immigrants … people from everywhere, and all around the world.

On my mother’s side, the family leaves Silesia for America in the 1850s, settle on farms west of Sheboygan, Wisconsin … three sons drafted, to fight in the Civil War, for the Union.

My father’s father comes to America in 1905 from the Netherlands … he settles in Sheboygan, where he meets Nellie, his wife, my grandmother, also from the Netherlands  

From all around the world …

The dedication poem inscribed on the pedestal of the Statue of Liberty says it well:

"Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!”

There is no statement of purpose greater than this … no vision more grand, no dream so beautiful …

O beautiful for spacious skies,

For amber waves of grain,

For purple mountain majesties

Above the fruited plain!

I love my nation.

I’m stirred by Old Glory and the “Stars and Stripes Forever” … 

Watching the Olympics, I see people weep when their national anthem is played, when their flag is raised … national pride, love of nation, part and parcel of the human story.

We know we belong to the land

And the land we belong to is grand!

Love … if it be love, requires understanding, patience, and dedication … 

People in love cross a threshold at some point in their relationship - they learn how to help one another, when the other is burdened … when the other has a broken heart … the struggle with the ineptitude and foolishness we all possess … for better, for worse … for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health …  

The Apostle Paul says it well …

Love is patient; love is kind; … love is not irritable or resentful; … love rejoices in the truth. Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never ends.

To love a nation is to love the nation patiently and honestly.

Dishonesty is the root of nationalism - a perverted love that sees only a small part of the story … a form of egotism - me first, me best, me great … we call it narcism, in love with ourselves … truth falls away… what’s left is decay, dust, and death.

“God bless America!” is our prayer … but add to our prayer, God bless the Netherlands, God bless Taiwan … God bless the Koreas, North and South, God bless Hungary and Poland, God bless Nigeria and Ethiopia, God bless El Salvador and Brazil, God bless Vietnam and India, China and Russia … 

For God so loves - the world … 

The Apostle Paul says: Our citizenship is in heaven …  

A call to each of us to be mindful - to manage well our loyalties to land and nation … 

To be careful about our love … that our love be broad and full and kind … that we see the world through the eyes of God rather than our own eyes, often so small … to keep our love of nation, healthy and sober, living and sweet … our primary citizenship - in heaven, so that we can be good citizens of our land … or whatever land we happen to call home.

To love our nation is to speak the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth …

The Pilgrims came here to practice their faith without fear … but it wasn’t long before the Pilgrims turned upon the Indigenous population, and decided that Indigenous people were not qualified to own this land …  

It wasn’t long before the slave trade commenced …

From about 1518 to the mid-19th century, millions of Africans - men, women, children - make the long voyage aboard overcrowded ships manned by crews from Great Britain, the Netherlands, Denmark, Portugal, and France.

Upwards of 15 million people arrive here in chains. Upwards of 2 million die on the way.

We have yet to recover from this sadness … we fought a civil war … and of late, strident voices have found new opportunities to promote - White … Christian …Nationalism … a perverse mixture of bad politics and Christian gobbledygook … faith turned into a hammer rather than a helping hand.

As for me, I cannot abide with these ideas … they strike me as all wrong, contrary to the gospel I know, contrary to the love of Christ, contrary to everything I value, contrary to everything I love about America, from hot dogs to apple pie, and everything in between.

To love this nation, is to tell the truth:

We’ve been right; we’ve been wrong … we’ve been good, and not so good … we’ve fought good wars, and wars we shouldn’t have fought.

 We’ve opened wide our doors, and we’ve slammed ‘em shut … we’re still trying to figure out how to treat women … health care, abortion, equal pay … 

We’ve made progress with marriage rights for LGBTQ persons, and health care for trans-genders, but some in our midst want to turn back the clock … undo the progress we’ve made.

The progress we’ve made …  science and education, human rights and liberty … a land where all can practice their religion, their faith, without fear of torment or persecution … whatever one’s creed, race, or ethnicity … the American Dream.

The forever dream … reach high to the summits of human endeavor, make this nation safe for all peoples … honor the promise of the Statue of Liberty, the Declaration of Independence, and the Constitution of our nation.

America! America!
God mend thine every flaw,
Confirm thy soul in self-control,
Thy liberty in law!

May God thy gold refine
Till all success be nobleness
And every gain divine!

God shed his grace on thee
And crown thy good with brotherhood
From sea to shining sea!

Because my citizenship is in heaven, with gratitude, joy, and hope:

I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America, and to the Republic for which it stands, one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

Amen and Amen!

8.6.23 'God, Christianity, and Religions!" Westminster Presbyterian Church, Pasadena, CA

Psalm 17.1-7; Romans 9.1-5

In the beginning … God created the heavens and the earth.

Some would say, “there is no God” … 

and they have good reason for saying so … 

the cruelty of religion, its lies and superstitions … libraries are filled with the tragic tales of religion gone bad …  

All religions have their shameful story …  

But it’s up to us to deal with our story, our Christian story … 

The Crusades, the Inquisition, the burning of Servetus, colonialism and slavery; the Salem Witch Hunts, wild-eyed preachers damning everything they can find … the oppression of women, the abuse of children - the KKK and the lynchings … the rise of the Neo-Nazis in our day and White Christian Nationalism …

Yikes, and then some … 

This morning, with the Apostle Paul and his meanderings in Romans 9 - 11, I focus on one of the darkest chapters in the Christian story …  

Christianity’s failed relationship to the Jews …

A Jewish friend of mine moved to Grand Rapids, Michigan in the early 70s … she wrote, “half the people I knew called me ‘Christ killer.’”

Centuries worth of discrimination, Jews killed by Christian swords … thousands more exiled and sent away, often to perish from disease and hunger … or forced to live in ghettos …  

The culmination of all of this was reached in the Holocaust …  

Throughout the Western World, anti-Semitism is on the rise … synagogue shootings, homes defaced, slurs uttered in public meetings and right-wing protests … 

Much of this rooted in the ancient struggles of the early church … the first Christians were Jews … these were dangerous times, difficult times … what’s real? what counts? … and so began an in-house debate, a family argument … about Jesus … in time, the debate, the argument, grew into a monstrous divide … as Christianity spread across the Roman Empire, as Christianity became the religion of Rome, the Jews became the enemy … Bible passages were written in such a way that it was possible, with some twisting, to despise the Jews as a failed people, a people who turned their back to God, a people who killed Christ.

What was once a family feud become a fatal divide … 

In the middle of this family feud, the Apostle Paul … 

His name was Saul … he was utterly against the upstart folks who claimed Jesus was the Messiah … Saul was determined to put an end to the movement.

On way to Damascus, Paul was blinded by a bright light, and a voice said to him, Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me?

Saul was thrown to the ground … blind as a bat … he had to be led by hand to Damascus … he neither ate nor drank for three days … and then Ananias came to pray for him, and the scales of blindness fell from Saul’s eyes … 

And so began his mission to the world … with a new name, Paul.

I love Paul … his passion, and his honesty.

We see both of these in our reading this day … and the important chapters that follow.

We hear Paul’s lament - he wants desperately for his people, his kin, his family, to know Christ …

Paul laments because it wasn’t happening … yes, there were Jews, just like Paul, who believed in Jesus, and many more Jews who chose to remain faithful to the covenants of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob …

Paul is bewildered, upset, disappointed, slightly ticked off …  

Like any new convert, Paul wants the world to see things his way:

Paul reveals what we all feel when we've discovered something really good …

We see a movie, and we want everyone to see it.

We discover a restaurant, and we want everyone to eat there.

We read a book, and we want everyone to read it.

Paul wants everyone to know Christ as he knows Christ … Paul wants everyone to experience God’s love as he experienced it.

Chapters 9 - 11 are a twisted road … but Paul reaches some important conclusions.

With brilliant self-analysis, Paul finally bows before the wonder and mystery of God’s purpose … 

Paul makes clear to his readers that God remains the God of Israel, as well as the God and Father of Jesus … the Jews retain the glory of the covenants, the worship of God, and laws of God … and from the Jews comes the Messiah.

Paul warns his Gentile readers to not get too smart for their own britches … do not become proud, says Paul, but stand in awe.

A lesson the church forgot rather quickly … a truth the church abandoned … 

We’re in a time when anti-Semitism is on the rise … White Christian Nationalists shout Nazi slogans and attack Jews.

Other religions, too … Hindus, Buddhists, Sikhs and Muslims, all targeted by White Christian Nationalists … 

During a speech to a conservative Christian audience on the ReAwaken America tour in Texas, Michael Flynn said: "If we are going to have one nation under God, which we must, we have to have one religion. One nation under God and one religion under God, right? All of us, working together."

I'm a Christian, through-and-through, and my faith in Christ leads me to the love of God.

American doesn’t need one religion, a religion defined by Michael Flynn … or Marjorie Taylor Greene … America needs all the religions, because every religion has value … every religion adds to the wealth of human knowledge and understanding … in the end, all religions point to the same incredible mystery … the mystery that we all worship, and all misunderstand, all at the same time … the mystery that unites us finally, as human beings.

Rabbi Jonathan Sacks put this way: 

“Jews cannot fight antisemitism alone. The victim cannot cure the crime. The hated cannot cure the hate. It would be the greatest mistake for Jews to believe that they can fight it alone. The only people who can successfully combat antisemitism are those active in the cultures that harbour it.”

For me, as a Christian, democracy is the best environment for religion - my religion, your religion, all kinds of religion, faiths and philosophies … Democracy is a place where we can all have a home, a place to call our own - where freedom of speech is defended, the freedom to worship is honored … where racial, ethnic and gender diversity are celebrated, and defended.

In the end, for this life, we all want the same things:

A decent roof over our heads.

A table and some good food.

A safe place for our children.

Equal opportunity.

Welcome and respect.

And a fair shake for others.

As for faith, I’m pleased to share my faith with others, and I'm pleased when others share their faith with me … together, we’re stronger, better people … together, we can defeat the lies and lift up the light of hope.

Let freedom’s light burn bright.

Revealing the path of life.

To live in love.

With God above.

And the neighbor at our side.

Amen and Amen!